Blighted Land: Book two of the Northumbrian Western Series (Northumbrian Westerns 2) (39 page)

Then I came loose.
 

It happened so fast I didn’t realise what was going on. One second I was feeling around on the hull, the next I was off towards the rear of the sub, hands flailing and head underwater. I swirled around and tried to grab at anything, sliding towards the propeller.
 

Until I hit something hard. It slammed into my waist and held me with the force of the water. There was a sound like rocks rolling down a hillside. The current pulled and dragged at me. As my lungs burned for air. I was pinioned by the flow.

I was going to drown. I was underwater and couldn’t reach the surface. I reached out and grabbed part of the sub that I was stuck against. It was thick and flat like a great metal table. Some kind of fin or rudder or something. Holding on I hauled myself to the left, towards the main hull. Bit by bit I moved along it, as the loch churned around me.

At last I came to the bulkhead. I touched it with my left hand and felt around. Smooth as the rest of it. But I needed air. I was desperate to take a breath. So I stretched up and tilted my head. With one leg raised on the fin I pushed up as far as I dared. My face came out of the water and I drew in a lungful of air, blew it out, then another. My body flapped around in the flow but it was worth it to have a breath. From where I was I could see the back end of the sub. The hull was lower here and I’d be able to get on it if I could just push myself up.

But I needed to get closer and that meant going under again. Taking in one more gasp I ducked down and dragged myself as tight against the main section as I could get. Then I held on with my hands and brought my feet up onto the fin. I counted to three, let go and pushed hard with my legs and leapt.

I landed in shallow water on the tail section just in front of another fin, this one upright. I clawed my hand around it and clung there, then pulled my feet up to wrap around it with my head forced up above the water. My body was still submerged but I could breathe at last. For a minute I hung there with my eyes closed and took great gulps of air.
 

The waves crashed around the back of the submarine and the deck beneath me throbbed with the powerful engine that drove it. I pulled myself further round and sat on a drier section of the hull with the fin behind me. Ahead was the deck and conning tower. The water around me was black. There was a hint of light in the sky. Enough to see that there was no land; no sign of the boat or Becky. We were we at sea, out of the loch and into open water.
 

Maybe she’d swum off and made it to dry land. Or hung onto the boat. Or been dragged through the submarine’s propeller. Chopped to bits.
 

I pushed myself forward and made for the conning tower. When I stood up the bag dragged at my back with all the water in it. And the grenades.

That was the reason I was here. To blow the sub. Crazy as Becky’s plan was, it was all I had left. I stretched up and staggered forward and waded through the water, slid on the metal as it sloped up from the tail section to the main body. It was steep so I went onto all fours and clawed my way up the wet metal. Despite being soaked it was warm to the touch. Like the Eblis, this was nuclear powered. The phrase nuclear submarine had once been common on the news. And here I was on one. About to blow it up. Or at least try.

My feet squeaked and slid on the way up the sloping hull but I made it onto the main section. The surface was different here, ridged and easier to grip and I stood straight at last. For a moment I let the water run out of the bag then I continued forward towards the hatch.
 

Even though the submarine was moving there was no sign of it on the deck. No rocking or pitching just a slight rumble. The hatch was in front of me and I staggered over to it. It was a massive steel construction with a circular handle. Maybe I could open it and drop in the grenades. Kill the men inside.

That didn’t seem right. What I needed to do was damage it. Make sure the sub couldn’t be used as a weapon. I took the bag off and set it at my side. My hands were wrinkled with the water, lit now by the faint light of dawn. At some point the crew would spot me. Send someone up to stick a bullet into my head. I drew out the grenades and shifted them in my hands: cold and wet.
 

Then I wedged them against the hatch’s handle and made sure their levers were free to release. For a minute I shifted them this way and that. Stalled doing anything. Once I pulled them, that was it. At present I still had the option to climb up the tower. Pretend to be a lost fisherman. Ask to be let on board and share their food and put on dry clothes. Sleep in a warm bed.
 

Not that they’d believe that for a second.

I had to blow the hatch then go. Once I pulled the pins I had to be off. Pull, jump then swim.
 

I took hold of the pins, exhaled then yanked them out.
 

I threw them away and stepped across the hull. With a deep breath I jumped into the freezing water.

I
SANK
DOWN
AS
it swirled around me. I closed my eyes and mouth and held them tightly shut until I reached the surface. I came up and took a breath as I swam on my back, arms and legs flat out. Away from the submarine as fast as I could.

There was a dull thud, a shower of sparks, then another but nothing else. The submarine carried on into the darkness. I swam more, kicked and thrashed and put further distance between me and it. God knows what could happen with the hatch blown.

But nothing happened.

It sailed off and I floated in the water now bobbed by the wake as it made its way out to sea. Maybe I’d done some damage to it. Maybe not.
 

I swam on as the waves flicked me up and down. My head went under then my feet.

It had gone and I was here in the water. I needed to get as far away as possible.
 

It was hard to work out which way was back to the shore so I kept going the same direction. I swam backwards into the sea.

I carried on until my arms and legs ached. Waves flicked me up and down. I’d sink into a trough of dark then rise onto a crest. Up and down in the featureless sea. There was no sign of the submarine. Or land. The sun lit the desert of water a weak grey. At least I wasn’t cold. The wetsuit was doing its job.

As I floated I thought of how I’d come here. Of the journey with Becky and Casper. Daniel who was now alone in the town. Abandoned, again. Faeston with Round Up and Sophie. All the stuff I’d done before.

Then I spotted something way off to my right. A black dot that rocked around on the surface. I flapped around and aimed towards it.

For ages I swam on, legs and arms pushed to move even though I was tired. Water sprayed into my face and I was chucked up and down by the waves. My head dipped under and I took in water that I spat out as I gasped for air.

The object seemed to stay as distant as when I’d first seen it. I swam on and lay back in the water. Closed my eyes and hoped it was the boat or Becky. Becky in the boat.

Stroke by stroke I closed in on it.

The object was misshapen. Dark. I thought it was some kind of animal. A great carnivore that swam around and lured in prey: a shark or octopus that would feast on my legs and eat me as I flailed to get away. This made me curl up into a ball. Think about the great dark depths below me and what might lie there.
 

At the next crest I stared at the thing. It was irregular with limbs that splayed out. It rocked from side to side but there was no other movement.
 

I swam on towards it.

The sun shone down on it. Lit branches and a solid trunk, cockeyed and polished. It was clear that it was a tree. An uprooted tree washed out to sea. Its boughs pointed off into the water and to the sky. Leafless and striped of bark they thrust off in different directions. They rocked amongst waves of green and blue. Topped with white.

I swam alongside and held onto it, the wood smooth and solid. Then I clambered up and slumped onto the driest section where the water lapped at the edges.

I lay upon the trunk as it floated in the water. I clung to the dead tree as it swayed and dipped and rose up.

As I drifted off to sea.

Alone in the water.

Alone.

NORTHUMBRIAN WESTERNS

These were formed out of a few crazy ideas in a pub in Northern England. Over five years they evolved through numerous drafts and short stories into a series of novels.
 

Blending empirically based scenarios with Spaghetti Westerns, the books link dystopia, noir-fiction and border history into a unique set of stories.

Burnt Horizon
is book one. Book two is
Blighted Land
and the third is
Blasphemous Isle.
 

There are more details on books
here
.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ian Chapman was born and raised in Northumberland, only leaving when he was lured to the Midlands to study Economics at the University of Wolverhampton. He was so impressed with the place he went on to gain a PGCE and MA in International Studies, staying in the Midlands to teach economics and strategy at a number of colleges and universities. When not teaching he wrote stories or rode one of his three motorbikes with the odd Glastonbury Festival thrown in.

Moving north to Lancaster he took an MA in Creative Writing at St Martin’s College before completing a PhD at Lancaster University. Around this time he had a play performed and won a (small) poetry competition. He also had several short stories published.

He now lives on the edge of the Lake District, still teaching and writing but the motorbikes have been replaced by three children.

Details are available at Ian’s website
here
and Lakeland Writers’ site
here
.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Writing can be a lonely hobby so it’s good to have some people behind you.

I would like to thank George Green and Lee Horsley at Lancaster University for all the brilliant suggestions. Also Brian Baker, Andrew Pepper and Jo Baker for further guidance.

Thanks to Toby Travis and Phil Hilborne for reading through the penultimate draft.

To Tom and Janet Storrie for believing in me when no one else did.

Of course I couldn’t have done it without Tara, Ethan and Lucy being so patient when I was too busy to play.

And especially to Debs Austin for all her moral and emotional support.