The Penal Colony (44 page)

“Quick!” Thaine shouted. “Kill the lights!
Kill the lights!”

Routledge did not understand.

“Appleton,” Thaine said, “do you hear
it?”

“Yes.”

Routledge listened and heard it too, the
drone of aero engines coming up from the south-east. From the
direction of the mainland.

Carr said, “It’s the helicopter.”

“They’ve spotted us,” Gunter said.

“Can you see anything, Appleton?”

“No.”

The noise grew louder. Straining to hear,
Routledge persuaded himself there was another, underlying throb not
possessed by the helicopter’s engines. Then he changed his mind.
Carr was right: this really was the helicopter. Twenty minutes ago,
out in space, or on one of the lightships, somewhere in the silicon
microcircuitry of the computers, a square metre of wet plywood
surrounded by hooded human heads, dwarfed by the vastness of the
sea, of the planet surface, had been enough to divert a flow of
electrons and throw a digital switch. The ketch, a tiny glowing
blip on a phosphor screen, had shown up at last.

Away to the south he saw the flashing green,
red and white navigation lights, approaching at a slow but
relentless rate.

“Godwin got it wrong,” Carr said. “Five
kilometres, he reckoned. Fifty, more like. The launch’ll be here
next.”

“Shut up!” Thaine said. “Shut up and
listen!”

“It’s a plane,” Redfern said, after a
moment.

“That’s right! It’s a plane! And it’s going
past! Look!”

Without knowing the range, it was impossible
to know the size or altitude of the aircraft, but now it seemed its
course was taking it farther to the west. It was not going to come
any closer than this. And, as it drew level and continued on its
way, as it faded into the distance, the engine note sounded so
different that Routledge wondered how, even for a second, he or
anyone else could have confused it with the familiar whine and
clatter of the helicopter.

“Turboprops,” Thaine said.

The cabin lights came on again. Appleton
resumed his work with the rigging. Peagrim helped Franks to fit the
rudder. Thaine and Carr went aboard. Then it was Routledge’s turn.
Hands and arms reached down. The encouraging voices receded. He
felt his wrists being grasped, felt the strain on his shoulders and
ribcage, and it was all too much for a mind already wandering on
the shores of release, craving the dead weight of the numb
anaesthetic that now fell in on him from above. With a soft, glad,
yielding roar it pushed him downwards and back, towards Ojukwo,
down into the fading depths, down and down and down.

When he awoke only a minute or two had
passed. His suit had been removed and he was lying in the cramped
space of the cabin, occupying the whole length of the starboard
bench, looking up at the dimly lit plywood roof. Beside him Thaine
was busy with the lockers, handing out sweaters and trousers.

“What happened?” Routledge said.

“You conked out. You all right now?”

Routledge sat up, leaning on an elbow. He
felt deeply ashamed of his weakness. Handing out the clothing had
been one of his tasks. “Yes,” he said. “I’m all right. I’m sorry.
What can I do?”

“Not much. Everyone’s on board.” Thaine
squeezed himself against the bulkhead and allowed Carr and Thursby
to go past, moving forward.

Routledge saw that he was in the way. He got
himself to a sitting position, accepted a pair of trousers and
wriggled into them. “Where’s the best place for me?”

“Aft.”

There was no room to spare except in the
companionway next to the cockpit, where Franks had switched on the
binnacle light and was holding the tiller.

On deck, Peagrim and Redfern were helping
Appleton with the shackles and halyards of the mainsail. The small
mizzen sail had already been hoisted a metre or so, and below his
feet Routledge felt the hull and keels beginning to respond. The
ketch knew what was coming next. He saw Franks’s face, lit from
below, the electric glow glinting in the lenses of his spectacles.
“Well, Routledge,” he said. “Are you ready?”

Routledge did not reply. He couldn’t.

Peagrim came aft and with a squeaking of
blocks hoisted the slithering expanse of the mizzen sail.

It went up into the night, and as it went up
it filled with air and began exerting the first of its pressure on
the mast and, through the mast, on the hull. The ketch, until now
slack and lifeless, randomly tossed by the waves, had been
transformed into a sailing boat.

“Swig it tighter,” Appleton said. “Tighter
yet.”

Franks had one hand on the tiller, the other
ready with the sheets.

“That’s it.”

With a glance at Routledge, Franks pushed the
tiller hard over, bringing the boat’s head into the wind. Then, to
Appleton, he said, “Raise the mainsail.”

To avoid further conversation, Routledge put
his head close to the perspex and looked out, past the reflections,
beyond the drying concrete of the runway to the close turf where a
radar dish was lazily revolving. After a dull day, the evening was
sunny and warm. He watched an Amoco fuel tender driving past,
manned by two Irishmen with houses and families no doubt in Ennis
or Limerick, men who probably knew little and cared even less about
anything but their own concerns; it struck him then that for people
such as these Sert did not exist. And again it really felt as if
his links with the island were on the point of being severed. He
felt a sudden surge of nostalgia, of loneliness; he would never see
Franks again or be able to thank him for this moment.

He turned to the right, looking across the
aircraft and out through the opposite window at the terminal, still
expecting a police car, a last-minute dash across the tarmac, an
order for extradition.

“Are you going on after New York?” said his
companion, a woman travelling alone, American, not yet middle aged.
She was dark, quite pretty. Wore perfume, a wedding ring. Had brown
eyes.

Yes: he was going to Rio de Janeiro. To
Brazil. “Only on an internal flight,” he said.

“Where to?”

Where should he say? “Baltimore.”

“On business?”

“No. Visiting friends.”

Routledge looked out at the runway once more.
He wondered what Franks was doing now. He wondered what all of them
were doing. He thought of his days at Courtmacsherry, of Franks’s
wife, of the nameless man who had driven him to Limerick. Last
night he had stayed in a hotel in the city centre. This afternoon
he had taken the bus out along the Ennis road to the airport. The
terminal lounge had seemed full of priests, all going to New York
or Boston. It had been hot and damp in there, smelling of wet
raincoats. Routledge had sat by himself with a magazine,
occasionally visiting the buffet for coffee. As in Limerick itself,
he had felt intimidated by all the people, the noise and bustle. On
the street outside his hotel he had nearly got himself run down by
a taxi. Between arriving yesterday and presenting his boarding
pass, he had spoken only to receptionists, to waiters and
salesgirls, and to the clerk at the check-in desk. And now to this
woman. She had initiated the conversation. Routledge turned back
and smiled nervously.

In her expression he saw that she found him
interesting, even mysterious. He was not like the other men on the
plane.

The engines were started.

“Your belt,” she said.

“What?” he said, thinking she meant the one
he was wearing.

“Your seat-belt.” She nodded at the
illuminated sign.

“O yes. Thanks.”

The pitch of the engines increased and the
aircraft began slowly to move. Routledge could not prevent himself
from looking again at the terminal: still no gardaí, no flashing
beacons or wailing sirens. The stewardesses retreated along the
aisles, checking seat-belts and hand luggage, and retired to their
own seats at the rear of the cabin.

Turning at first through a sharp angle, the
big Boeing taxied across the concrete, the tyres thumping on the
cracks between the slabs. The terminal was left far behind.
Routledge saw a hare running across the turf beside the runway. The
aircraft halted while the pilot opened the throttles. This was the
moment. The last-ever moment on Irish soil. The last-ever moment on
the soil of the British Isles. He thought again of Louise, living
in some house he would never see; and he thought again of
Christopher, his son, who in ten years’ time might also be leaving
on a westward flight like this.

The engines grew louder, louder, building to
a scream, and still the aircraft remained where it was. The wing
below and behind Routledge’s seat stayed aligned exactly with the
cracks in the runway, not moving a centimetre. He clutched his
armrest. Why weren’t they moving?

And then they were. Gathering speed, the
white and yellow markings on the concrete gradually coalesced,
losing their individuality, faster and faster until, as the
acceleration grew, Routledge felt a push in the small of his back
and knew that he was airborne.

- - - - - - -

Thank you for reading
The Penal
Colony
. If you have enjoyed it, please tell your friends; I am
an independent author and rely on recommendation to spread the
word.

–
Richard Herley

- - - - - - -

About me

I was born in England in 1950 and educated at
Watford Boys’ Grammar School and Sussex University, where my
interest in natural history led me to read biology; but from my
earliest years English had been my “best” subject, and shortly
before my final exams I decided to try to become a professional
writer. The job of the artist – in whichever medium he or she works
– is an important one, since, conscientiously practised, it helps
us to make sense of ourselves and the world.

Authorship is not an easy path to follow. I
continue to work at the craft and marvel at its subtlety. I prefer
a conventional storytelling framework. This offers the greatest
potential for the writer: a reader who wants to know “what happens
next” is the most receptive and stands to gain the most of all.

Discover
more of my work at Smashwords