Survival Read online

  ‘Stanley has lost its direct link with the UK. Probably because of problems with satellites. But for whatever reason, it is now effectively blind. And as our friends in Stanley were only too keen to point out, a blind man doesn’t make a very good guide. And that’s why they think we should return to Ushuaia. To carry on to Antarctica – without any idea of what was happening in the rest of the world – would hardly be the most prudent course of action. And I tend to agree. Whereas, if we get ourselves back to Ushuaia, we will almost certainly learn what’s going on around the planet, and we’ll be able to formulate a course of action…’

  ‘What about the military base on the Falklands? They’d still have communications.’

  It was the same Welshman, and this time he received a very comprehensive answer to his brief but pointed question.

  ‘Sir, let me first remind you that the human world is rapidly succumbing to whatever it is that originated in China. Indeed, so rapidly that it appears very likely that its devastating impact will now have reached Europe – and Britain…’

  Here, there was a collective gasp from the audience.

  ‘Now, the people in Stanley tell me that they don’t actually know how bad things might be back in Europe – and in Britain in particular – and they admit that it might be not as bad as they fear. However, what they do know is that the military base outside Stanley has gone into lockdown. And not only that, but the intelligence they were getting from the base has now been terminated. For whatever reason, there is now no more information coming from the military. And I think that means that our chances of getting anything out of the base there are effectively zero. Whereas, when we get back to Ushuaia, we should be able to plug ourselves into any news of what’s going on elsewhere.

  ‘So, I hope you can now understand that, as your captain, I have no other choice than to take you back to Argentina, so we can…’

  ‘What if Ushuaia doesn’t let us in?’ interrupted the persistent Welshman.

  ‘Stanley has assured me that Ushuaia is still letting ships in. And it’s definitely already accepted a number that have chosen to return there prematurely…’

  ‘And how long are they going to carry on doing that?’ demanded the same questioner.

  ‘As far as we can gather, indefinitely. And Ushuaia, you might recall, is on an island within the Tierra del Fuego archipelago, and it is currently ‘disease free’, as is, apparently, almost the whole of South America east of the Andes. Sir, I cannot emphasise enough that, given that we cannot realistically continue with this cruise, Ushuaia is our obvious and possibly our only realistic destination. It is somewhere where we can take refuge, and monitor what is going on in the rest of the world. Insofar as that is still possible. And one other thing. I am quite certain that returning there represents your best possible chance of at some point getting back to England…’

  ‘You mean Wales.’

  The captain was now finding it difficult to hide what was clearly a growing sense of irritation, and he could only respond with an icy ‘…and Wales’.

  The end of this exchange marked the end of the captain’s current interaction with his charges. He clearly had no postscripts to add to his opening address, and his briefest of question-and-answer sessions had drawn to a close. So, with a nod of thanks to his now-silent audience, he made his departure from the lounge – in the direction of the bridge – and it was left to Jane to manage any fall-out from the gathering. There was surprisingly little of it, other than the repetition of the same question in various forms, which, for obvious reasons, could not be answered. This was ‘How will we go about getting back to England – or Wales or Scotland – when we get back to Ushuaia?’ Jane did her best to be reassuring, but all she could really do was ask the passengers to be patient and to put their trust in the ship’s captain and his crew, and in her and her team. Together, they would all ensure the best outcome they could.

  Alex thought that all sounded worryingly vague, but nobody in the room pushed Jane any further. No one demanded better information, or even a revised plan. But there again, he thought, how could they? The Sea Sprite could not stay at sea indefinitely. At some point it would run out of fuel and provisions and it would have to return to port. That port could not be Stanley. It would not be allowed to dock there. And even if it somehow forced its way in, its crew and passengers would simply have swapped being stranded on a ship for being stranded on an island. And that made very little sense at all. Nor did the idea of seeking a port in faraway South Africa, or somewhere in Australia or New Zealand. It was probably feasible for the Sea Sprite to reach one of these distant destinations, but it was highly unlikely that the flu wouldn’t have made it there first. It was already odds on that South Africa was now infected, and whilst the Antipodes might still be free of the disease, it made no sense to go that far when this wasn’t certain. And if the flu was there, the Sea Sprite would then be out of options, and all those aboard it would be very nearly out of time. No, it had to be Ushuaia, in the recognition that it was the closest open port, and it gave access to a large land mass, most of which, as far as was known, was still free of ‘the scourge’. Indeed, as Alex heard one of the passengers remark as the meeting finally broke up, it was the ultimate Hobson’s choice. As well as being a matter of life and death…

  Alex took Debbie back to their cabin, and there they both tried to come to terms with what was going on. This was not easy. Up to now, no matter how catastrophic the news had been, it had been news of something going on somewhere else, somewhere far beyond countless horizons, and they had both been able to cope with this well. They had even been able to regard it rather philosophically, and as an ‘interesting’ phenomenon, or even as food for their shared wry sense of humour. But now – as in three days’ time – they were going to be obliged to engage with some sort of deadly pandemic, which, whilst not necessarily within touching distance, would almost inevitably impose itself on everything they did for the rest of their lives. However long these lives might prove to be.

  Within twenty minutes, they had made each other deeply glum, and so glum that they decided that they could not face any company or indeed any food. They would therefore give lunch a miss and instead get themselves a drink from the bar – a double gin and tonic each – bring these back to their room, and take them out onto the balcony. Here they would sit in their cold-weather gear and take in the north coast of South Georgia for a second time as the Sea Sprite retraced its route back to raw reality. After all, there was no way that there would be a third time…

  It was still a fascinating sight, and with the help of their binoculars they were able to make virtual repeat visits to both Gold Harbour and St Andrews Bay before, in the early afternoon, the Sea Sprite arrived off King Edward Point. Here the captain arrested its progress in order to pick up a handful of the base’s resident scientists and administrators; an exercise that was conducted remarkably quickly with the help of one of the ship’s zodiacs. In no time at all, the Sea Sprite had six new passengers who had decided that they preferred the idea of being in South America rather than on South Georgia. Unlike their eight colleagues who had decided to stay put and sit out the world’s convulsions in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. These stay-put eight had gathered on the quayside at King Edward Point to wave goodbye to their colleagues – and to the Sea Sprite – and they were still there when the Sea Sprite began to move away and out of their lives, probably forever. It was a poignant moment, and for Alex it really rammed home what was going on. People were making desperate decisions, decisions that might prove fateful – or fatal. In fact, in three days’ time, he and Debbie might be faced with similarly dramatic decisions, although whether they would involve something quite as clear-cut as what he had just witnessed, he was not so sure. Deciding what to do, having been landed in a port in Tierra del Fuego, was bound to be more complicated; a view that would be reinforced over dinner…

  The Sea Sprite was n
ow in open ocean again. South Georgia and its complement of amazing wildlife had been left behind. And in the ship’s lower-deck restaurant, Alex and Debbie, sitting at a table with Derek, Elaine and Roy, were seeking the views of their companions as to what might happen when their voyage reached its end.

  ‘Do you think we might be “on our own”?’ asked Debbie. ‘I mean, I can’t recall the small print, but I suspect when we’re back in Ushuaia…’

  ‘We’ll be in charge,’ interrupted Roy. ‘There are ninety-two of us and only one captain and one Jane. And I suspect they’ll want us on board… metaphorically speaking. And that means they’ll have to be a little more responsive to democracy than they are at the moment. And they’ll certainly have to recognise that you can’t have a mutiny when a ship is within stepping distance of a quay…’

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ offered Elaine. ‘We’ll be a boat full of Brits, parked no more than five hundred yards from a memorial to all those Argentinians who died in the Falklands and on the Belgrano. And I imagine, if he really wanted to, the captain could… you know, ask for the help of the locals, and they’d be only too pleased to oblige…’

  ‘To do what?’ questioned Debbie.

  ‘To help the captain do exactly what you suggested: to help him abandon us…’

  ‘No, I wasn’t really suggesting that,’ observed Debbie. ‘I mean, old José’s been a model captain so far, and I can’t believe…’

  ‘We just have to wait,’ interrupted Derek. ‘To borrow from a maritime expression, we’re all in uncharted waters. And that goes for our captain as well. And for Jane, and for everybody else on this ship. For all we know, when we arrive in Ushuaia, there won’t be anyone alive, and our potential abandonment won’t even be an issue. We’ll all be far more concerned about how to avoid a similar fate ourselves. If we’ve got any time to be concerned about anything at all…’

  To say that this contribution from Derek had a chilling effect on the conversation would be an understatement. The conversation was now essentially frozen solid. It was therefore fortuitous that Roy was seated at the table with a ready-made means of inducing an immediate thaw. Inevitably, it involved flags.

  ‘Did you know that the official flag of the Tierra del Fuego province consists of a white stylised albatross in flight, with its outstretched wings dividing the flag from the top left corner to the bottom right corner, with a white-starred blue sky above and an expanse of sandy-coloured… sand below? I have to confess that I don’t know when it was introduced, and I don’t know quite what those white stars are meant to denote. But I do know that it is very rare to find albatrosses appearing on any flags anywhere. In fact, the only other flag I can bring to mind that features albatrosses is the flag of Tristan da Cunha, which together with the blue ensign, has a representation of the coat of arms of Tristan da Cunha. Which, as you may or may not know, consists of a Tristan da Cunha longboat above a Naval Crown, with a central shield decorated with four yellow-nosed albatrosses – and flanked by two Tristan rock lobsters…’

  Derek immediately burst into laughter, and he was soon joined by all those around the table, other than a slightly satisfied-looking Roy. It wasn’t the first time that his eclectic mind had come to the rescue of an awkward situation, and it probably wouldn’t be the last. And on this occasion, it didn’t just provide a rescue, but it also provided a reboot. The conversation around the table simply sprang into life. And none of it involved the daunting prospect of what might happen in three days’ time, or even any reference to the worldwide pestilence that was assailing mankind. Instead, it kicked off with a debate about lobsters – as food – and how they compared with langoustines and crayfish. It then took a course through inedible foods such as tête de veau, after which it made a number of stops at topics such as French underwear habits, the merits of cotton over satin, and the place of fetishism in ‘traditional sex’, before finally arriving at the unlikely terminus of transgender tendencies in non-human animals.

  When, soon after this highly enjoyable – and highly restorative – discussion, Alex and Debbie were back in their room, they gave thanks that they had linked up with three individuals who had not only become good table companions, but who might also prove to be very valuable allies in their fight to maintain their sanity. And their lives. Whatever awaited them in Ushuaia would be that much easier to deal with – and overcome – with, at their sides, a grumpy old bugger and his formidable wife, and a large-framed walking reference book who could confound any enemy on Earth with his super-extensive knowledge of the world’s flags. Together, they would no doubt make an invincible team.

  nineteen

  When Stuart was at university, he had spent one summer vacation working for a builder, and one of the jobs he’d worked on had been the construction of a house extension with a basement. The builder had gone to great lengths to make the basement waterproof, and as well as providing it with a waterproof membrane, he had sought to ease the pressure on this membrane by surrounding the whole construction with land drains connected to a very deep sump. At the bottom of the sump was installed an automatic pump, and this was designed to remove water from the sump as it arrived from the land drains. That way, the ground around the basement was prevented from becoming saturated and the water pressure on the membrane was kept to a minimum.

  Stuart had almost forgotten this brief episode in his life, but it had now come back to him. And this was because he was presently crawling through the very same sort of pipe that the builder had used to create the vertical shaft of that sump. It was made from black plastic, it was corrugated, and it was just eighteen inches in diameter. It was, however, not just ten feet long (the depth of the pump shaft). It was, according to Gill, seven or eight times this length and, as promised by Gill, it was far from dry. There were at least six inches of very cold water lying at its base all along its length, and this made progress over its endless corrugations not just painful but also really unpleasant. Pulling a fifty-pound bergen behind him didn’t help matters either. It kept getting stuck, and it was just an enormous weight to have to pull along a corrugated channel.

  Of course, there had been no option other than to use this route out of the base, just as there had been no real option other than to take the dramatic step of actually leaving the base. For Stuart, it would mean the end of his career, insomuch as a career in an organisation that might or might not still exist had any meaning. And for Gill, who was ten feet ahead of him in the pipe, it would mean actual desertion, in that she’d be abandoning her post without any intention of ever returning. Understandably, it was not a step that either of them had taken lightly. In fact, they had spent much of the day agonising over what they should do, and already Stuart, for one, was aware of the burden not just of that heavy bergen but also of genuine guilt. Should they have agonised some more, and come to a different decision?

  It was so difficult. They were in a military environment, and whatever was happening in the wider world, that environment would ensure that rules were followed and that those who broke these rules would be punished. So, making it known to any of the senior officers that a super-encrypted, ultra-secret military dispatch had been interfered with and then decrypted – by two lowly grunts – would not have been seen as just a minor misdemeanour. Both Stuart and Gill would have been marched off to some sort of close confinement before they’d even had a chance to explain their motives. In the unlikely event that they were then allowed to communicate with those in authority, these guys almost certainly would not or could not have changed the standing order for the base. Which was essentially to sit tight behind that supposedly impregnable perimeter and wait. They would very definitely not have contemplated its evacuation. And even if they had, with so many personnel, they would not have been able to do this in the way that it needed to be done. That is to say, by leaving the Falklands and heading south.

  So, reluctantly, both Stuart and Gill had come to the conclusion that the
y couldn’t safely share their findings – and the probable consequences of those findings – with anybody, and that they would therefore have to take the ignoble route of abandoning their roles along with all their mates. It hadn’t been at all easy. Neither had it been easy to pack two bergens with a whole pile of rations so quickly and so discreetly, and then make it out of their accommodation block at one in the morning without being observed. But these practical challenges they had managed, and Gill had then been able to find her way to that less-than-impregnable section of the base perimeter, where she’d remembered that there was an overlooked, overgrown drainage pipe that would allow them to escape. She’d discovered it by mistake a few months ago when she’d been examining an aerial near the perimeter fence and had gone off for a pee. She’d then later explored it to gauge its potential for a brief spell of unauthorised absence, or even as a possible channel for some unauthorised contraband. She’d obviously never imagined that it might allow her to bring her military service to an end – in an attempt to avoid her life coming to an end. But that was before the world had changed forever…

  Well, Stuart had finally reached the end of the pipe, and standing above him in the dim light of a half-moon was his ‘comrade-in-arms’, Gill. She looked more exhausted – and more ‘moist’ – than Stuart did himself. And she also looked rather frightened. Maybe, thought Stuart, the enormity of what she’d done was now hitting home. Stuart was merely a civilian who had left his job without the required period of notice; Gill was a soldier in the British Army who had committed the ultimate military crime: desertion. And in the face of impending danger. No wonder she didn’t look too elated to be outside the base.

  Anyway, both absconders knew that there was no time for regrets and no time even to recover from their passage through the pipe. They had a long walk ahead of them – with fifty-pound burdens on their backs – and they really needed to get their walk under way before the short Falklands night came to an end. Their absence from the base was unlikely to be noticed very soon, but even Gill didn’t know what surveillance kit was employed beyond the confines of the base, and they certainly didn’t want to be spotted embarking on their six-mile trudge to Choiseul Sound. This was where Joe’s boat was moored, just where the sound ran north of Lively Island. And, of course, that was another source of guilt. Joe was away in Britain at the moment, and whether he was dead or alive, taking his boat without his knowledge or permission was hardly the best way to repay the generosity he’d displayed in the past. This was the man who had helped Stuart maintain his sanity by allowing him to join him in sailing the Bluebird. And now the Bluebird was going to be snatched away, probably for all time, by two miserable deserters. If, that is, they could manage those six miles with heavy backpacks and without being detected by a pair of keen eyes back on the base.