The Colony (40 page)

McIntyre was singing. He was singing a fucking sea shanty. Was there no mercy? Fortescue could half-hear the bellowed verses in odd lines not snatched away by the gale. He recognised the tune. It was The Wild Goose. It was a song Kate Rusby sang on the album, Sleepless.

He did not honestly have any great optimism that he would survive this crossing, never mind this whole experience. He was acting only out of a rash promise made over the phone to a sobbing adolescent girl. If he did by some fluke make it, he resolved there and then that he would never listen to music of that sort again. It was too maudlin, altogether too mournful and sad. From now on, for Phil Fortescue, it was going to be Metallica. Iron Maiden, if he was in a particularly wistful mood.

There was a radio aboard the trawler, a powerful old analogue transmitter with a range that enabled it to pick up almost anything. The aerial reached above the wheelhouse but the set itself was in the galley below, where the charts and distress flares and other bits and pieces of important nautical kit were kept.

Soaked through, shivering and sick to the bone, he went down to try to divert himself from the physical fact of the storm by trying to make contact with the expedition base. It was his third attempt to do so. Dregs of cocoa lay staining an enamel mug on the table bearing the transmitter. He had parted company with the mug’s contents over the gunwale about an hour earlier. He retched sourly at the memory and sat with a grimace in front of the set.

There was traffic, but it was all from the mainland. Unsurprisingly, theirs seemed to be the only boat out in the area. He turned the tuning dial and got onto the wavelength he wanted and listened intently to the silence. There was a low scratch of static. And then the static clarified into what resembled, more than anything, a childlike wail. It was a disconsolate moan of infant grief.

Then as he listened, it changed in character. It turned slyly into a whisper. He shivered. It was a spooky sound. If you were fanciful, it sounded like words, the phrase no hope repeated like a mantra over and over again. It was not something he could endure down there in the gloom of the galley on his own.

A colossal wave broached then and the boat shuddered along its length with the impact and lurched so that he had to grab the table to keep from being flung to the cabin floor. The enamel mug clattered away into a corner and he heard the rivets of the old hull groan and ping in the roar of the wind. Sea water from the swamped deck above deluged down the steps of the companionway and he feared with sudden and overwhelming dread they were simply going to wallow engulfed and sink.

Under him, he sensed the craft slowly righting herself. He felt her level off and rise as the weight of water on the deck diminished, sloughing away. Moments earlier he had been pondering on fate. Fate might think it funny to store a keeper of marine artefacts forever aboard a rusting vessel on the ocean floor. It might seem fitting, somehow. It was a comfortless thought, one that brought fresh terror clutching at his cold, wet skin.

Horan’s journal was down there, in a shallow draw designed for charts built into the table at which he sat, snugly housed now in a waterproof case designed to carry a laptop in. With an incredulous shake of his head, he remembered his daydream of helping Jane Chambers clarify its arcane 18th century phraseology. He had indulged in that particular fantasy before he had read very much of it. He had not known when he’d done so of the unholy danger its pages would tell him she faced.

Not for the first time, he wondered would they even get there in time. Assuming the old trawler didn’t succumb to the storm and sink, assuming they could safely berth her in the raging surf around the bleak rock they were destined for, would there be anyone left alive when they got there to save? He remembered how bereft young Edie Chambers had sounded over the phone to him. He thought the death of her mother now a blow from which it would be impossible for the girl ever to fully recover.

He switched off the transmitter. This wouldn’t do. He needed to find some fortitude from somewhere within himself. He would steel himself and swallow back the bile and make his lunatic shipmate something hot and fortifying to drink.

When he did so, he discovered McIntyre’s mood had grown more sombre. There was no song bellowing forth from him now. He was watchful and tense, his hands caressing the wheel as he coaxed their elderly craft through the cavorting seas. Every plate and stanchion of her seemed to groan, as she shuddered through the turmoil of the waves. Despite this, the wheelhouse seemed to Fortescue almost a cosy refuge from the havoc of the elements outside. Within it, they could watch the storm welter and rage, dry behind the decades of scratches dulling its toughened Perspex windows.

‘I like young men,’ McGuire said, sipping the cocoa his companion had made him.

‘Is this really the moment for a confession of that sort?’

‘I don’t mean sexually, you bloody idiot. I like the energy of young men, when they have something about them that reminds me of myself when I was young.’

‘Why are you telling me this?’

‘Recently, my judgement has been impaired, in that particular area. I’m telling you, professor, because should we survive this experience, I would very much like for you to regard me as your friend. I am a good friend, loyal and generous, as I hope you will live to discover.’

‘I’m not much like you, Mr McIntyre.’

‘Perhaps you’re not. But you possess great courage and that’s a quality I admire in a man.’

‘Do I?’

‘You do.’

‘I don’t feel particularly brave.’

‘Really courageous men never do, I don’t think. Only the stupid are truly fearless. The rest of us struggle to overcome our instinct to shirk or to flee.’

‘I’m familiar with that struggle.’

‘Yet you’re here.’

Fortescue shrugged. The queasiness had left him. He thought that he might have found his sea legs, suddenly. He felt grateful for the reprieve. ‘I’ve surprised myself, really,’ he said. ‘I’m not greatly suited to this sort of task.’

‘No one is,’ McIntyre said, looking at him.

Fortescue could only nod in agreement.

‘Should we become friends, I would vastly prefer you call me by my Christian name.’

‘Alexander?’

‘Alex to you,’ McIntyre said.

‘In that case,’ Fortescue said, ‘you’d better call me Phil.’

There was a silence between them. Outside, the wind withered. Spume scattered on the Perspex shield sheltering them from the elements.

‘Do you think they’re dead?’

‘If they are,’ McIntyre said, ‘I’ve killed them. You reach a level of power and influence and people become pawns you can shift about in whatever capricious game you decide to play. They become pieces you manipulate at will, nothing more. It’s taken this experience to open my eyes to that reality. So I hope with all my heart they’re not dead. I’ll get us through this voyage, I promise you that. Beyond that, I can only pray and beseech and beg we are in time.’

‘Actually pray, you mean? Do you believe in God?’

‘At this precise moment, Phil, it seems expedient to do so.’

There was no sign at all of the four man sentry patrol Napier had detailed before they closed down the compound for the night. When he went outside they had gone. It was as though they had never been there.

He went to rouse Davis. He wanted to know had there been any talk of slipping away, taking their own chances, among his men. It seemed unlikely to him. Given the ferocity of the gale that still battered the island, it seemed an outlandish prospect. They couldn’t have got off New Hope and they were surely no more secure anywhere on it than here, where there were solid structures and at least the illusion of safety in numbers.

Davis looked sheepish. ‘There has been a bit of speculative planning,’ he said. ‘By that I mean last resort talk. A couple of the boys have suggested fitting out the rigid inflatable we found and scarpering in that.’

‘We put sand in the outboard’s petrol tank,’ Napier said.

‘No. We didn’t. You instructed one of the lads to do it but we took an independent line on that one, Paul. We’re none of us any longer obliged to obey your orders. This isn’t the army and in the circumstances, sabotaging our only viable means of escape seemed a bit foolhardy.’

‘Not foolhardy,’ Napier said, ‘completely bloody stupid. It was a bad decision and you were wise to ignore it. The boat wasn’t holed?’

‘It was left intact.’

‘Do you think they’ve taken it?’

Davis looked around. The wind was buffeting them both even in the substantial shelter of the unpacked crates of gear. The rain was a deluge needling into them at 45 degrees, the rubberised fabric of the ponchos both men wore snapping and rippling wetly. ‘No, I don’t,’ he said. ‘I suspect they’ve gone the way of Carrick and Kale. I hope I’m wrong, but that’s what I honestly think. We need a fucking miracle, Paul.’

Napier said, ‘We’ve got a priest. Let’s hope he can provide us with one.’

Davis said, ‘He doesn’t look up to it. Not to me, he doesn’t.’

‘We’ll know soon enough.’

‘I don’t believe for a second he can make any difference to what’s happening here,’ Davis said. ‘I don’t think he does either.’

‘The French had faith in him in Africa.’

Davis shrugged.

And Napier sounded to his own ears like he was down to clutching at straws. They had no idea really of what it was they were up against. All they knew was that they were disappearing. Something was taking them one by one. They were confronted by something monstrous and cunning and it was devouring them.

Davis had been with him that day when he’d discovered the malicious scrawl of graffiti on the hearth of the cottage that had once been home to the crofter, Shanks. They had both sensed the evil, palpable, almost paralysing in the dread it inflicted on a man. It had been nothing earthly. The approach to the cottage door had been a wade through a morass of clutching fear.

Davis said, ‘Last night, when the ladies described Shanks speaking through that shapely psychic of ours, they said he called the magic Ju Ju, like in Africa. But this is different from what I saw there, back then. The tribesmen in that village were just dabbling.’

‘You told me they sacrificed a child.’

‘They did. It was malicious enough, but I don’t think they properly knew what they were doing. They knew some of the customs, but they were posturing. It was mischief. They could no more conjure real magic than I could. But there’s real magic here and I believe what came out of the psychic’s mouth when she sat in that rocking chair. It really was Shanks warning us through her and I get the feeling he was a bloke who’d been around the block.’

‘He was far more chap than bloke, to be fair to him. But you’re right. He had been around the block. And then some.’

‘It was him. And he knew what he was talking about and he was speaking the truth. It’s real and ancient and evil and it’s here.’

Napier shuddered. ‘We should get out of the cold and rain,’ he said. He smiled, mirthlessly. ‘We’ll catch our deaths.’

‘It’s funny, in a way.’ Davis said.

‘What is?’

‘The timing,’ Davis said, wincing up at the sky, through the rain. ‘I read about the way you went to pieces, after that third Helmand tour. The tabloids made a meal of you. The detail was pretty lurid; the degradation. Was it all true?’

‘Pretty much true, yes, I suppose. I don’t think they could have exaggerated it, really. Not from what I remember of it, anyway. Why do you bring it up now? Why do you think it funny?’

‘It’s just the timing, like I say, Paul. It’s more ironic, actually, than funny. You’ve put yourself back together. When you walked into the cottage the other day, I knew that there was no one I would rather serve alongside. You’ve recovered completely. You’ve got back your courage and nerve. It must have been hard to do and now it’s all for nothing.’

Napier nodded. He would accept the compliment, which he knew was sincerely meant. In other circumstances, he would have reprimanded Davis for defeatist talk. But to do so would be to patronise the man.And it would be hypocritical. They were in full agreement, weren’t they? Neither of them believed they had a hope in hell.

All but one of them went in the end, a bedraggled wet procession of enfeebled faith and helplessness, Degrelle’s sacramental trinkets dulled under the grey sky, without the sparkle Napier thought they should have worn to look as though they were going to work their ceremonial magic.

They marched in silence over the sodden ground; the three women hand in hand and pale, each to their separate thoughts despite this physical show of solidarity shared between them. The wind and driving rain obliged anyone wishing to speak to bellow out their words. But nobody said anything. It wasn’t worth the effort. There was nothing further for any of them of any consequence left to say.

Walker stayed behind. He had volunteered to keep on trying with the radio. Napier considered him remaining back at the compound the lesser of two evils. He was close to cracking up. Exposure to an experience of the settlement was the last thing his frayed nerves needed. It was the last thing any of them needed, but accompanying Degrelle seemed more tolerable an option for the rest than waiting back at the compound only to discover later that he’d failed.

The thing consuming them was becoming greedier. The more it fed, the more its appetite grew. There had been a longish interval between Blake and Carrick. But between Carrick and Kale there had been only a day. Napier did not expect to find anything of Karl Cooper when they got to the settlement. Unless he found what Cooper had derided as a bit of tooth enamel.

Four men had gone in the night. That amounted to six in less than 24 hours. If Degrelle’s exorcism failed, and it would, how long did the rest of them have left? How long before the last of them perished? If they patched the boat, they could not survive a crossing in this weather. It would capsize in the heaving seas.

Even if the weather improved, they wouldn’t be safe aboard the craft. He had heard what had happened to its original passengers and crew. None had survived whatever had attacked them. All had died, screaming. Not a single body had washed up, not a single item of personal kit even, not as much as a life-jacket or hairbrush, wallet or water bottle.