In The Wreckage: A Tale of Two Brothers (25 page)

Conall ignored the man, stuck to his business as the days passed and the nights got longer and colder. Weeks went by, and Conall settled into a routine: he worked when he was told, saw Heather and Rufus when he could, and slept the rest of the time, trying to stay strong by eating everything even when the food was foul and stale.
 

“They’ll come, one day. We have to be ready.” It was his mantra as he toured the slave huts or walked in line or worked in the quarry. He told Heather and Bagatt and the wildmen. Anyone else who would listen. He saw little of Faro, except in the distance, strutting around the compound, wearing Conall’s old binoculars around his neck, taken from
The Arkady
. He’d have searched the captain’s quarters for the map before leaving, and claimed the glasses for his own. Conall made another mental notch. One more grievance to settle with his brother.
 

As Autumn arrived, early this far north, Conall got used to the work, and the cold, the conditions, even the food. But not to the stares of the old man. Conall would look up, see him staring.
 

“Have it out with him,” Bagatt said. “Tell him you’re no spy. He must know it by now. See what he wants. Best way.”
 

One grey, blustery day Conall took Bagatt’s advice. They were in the quarry, faces plastered with coal dust, lungs thick with it, eating their lunch, throwing the food down fast before the guards ordered them back to work. Conall looked up, met the man’s eyes as he was looking over at him. He got up. Bagatt glanced at him. “Good a time as any.” There’d be no trouble, not with the guards here. The old man could call on plenty of friends. Slaves trusted the old-timer because he knew the ropes, and for a lot of them, he was the one who’d shown them how to survive, how to look like you were working hard while conserving energy, how to stay warm, get enough food, keep clear of the guards.

“Old one,” people called him, as if he had no name. “Go ask the old one,” they’d say, if you were sick or in trouble with the guards, or if men were stealing your food. “The old one’ll sort it out, always does.” Though he wasn’t that old. Younger than Jonah. Or Captain Hudson.

Men were afraid of him, but he was skin and bone. The weakest man here, by the look of him, but there must be some strength inside. A terrier, that’s what he looked like, he hung on to life the way Rufus could grip a rope and never let go.
 

Conall walked up to the man, stood over him, there at the table. The man looked up, a grimace of a smile under his pointed nose, eyes fixed in a penetrating stare. “You got something to say?”
 

“I’m no spy.”
 

“No one said you were. Guilty conscience?”
 

“You keep looking at me. Why?”
 

“It’s a free world.”
 

“No, it ain’t. In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re slaves.”
 

“So we are. Both of us. Makes us free as each other though. So I can look if I want.”
 

“I’m no spy.”
 

“I never called you a spy.”
 

“Well I’m not.”
 

“Is it true what they say? You’re the brother to that Faro?”
 

Conall scowled at the man. “That don’t mean anything. I could have sided with him but didn’t.”
 

“Brave move, defying your own brother. Family’s important.”
 

“Yeah, well I did, so leave me alone. All right?”
 

“I ain’t done nothing to you.”
 

“Well, all right.” Conall turned to go.
 

“We need to talk, though,” the man said. “Not here, not now. Later, Conall Hawkins, I’ll come see you. After meal time, back at camp. By the washing up women. I seen you go there. Got a sweetheart, I guess.”
 

“You know my name. Must know I’m his brother if you know my name. How’d you know it? Been asking around after me?”
 

The old one shrugged. “You want to know my name, son?”
 

“They call you ‘old one.’ ”
 

“That’s because most of ‘em don’t know my name. You do though.”
 

“No, I don’t.”
 

“Yes, you do. You haven’t forgotten so much.”
 

“I don’t know it.”
 

The man held out a hand, ready to shake. Around them, the other men were on their feet, the guards ordering them back to work. They had to go. No more time for talking. Conall took the man’s hand.
 

“Pleased to meet you,” the man said. “Name’s Adam.” He paused, gripping Conall’s hand tight. “Adam Hawkins.”
 

Conall had no chance to speak to the old-timer the rest of that day. Work and the watchful eyes of the guards kept him away. Could it be true, was this man really his father? He hacked at the coal seam, his arms aching, lungs screeching for clean air. Or was the man an impostor, a pretender? Was it a trick, played on him by Faro? As he toiled, he weighed every angle, considered each possible deception. But his heart knew the truth. It was him.
 

He kept glancing at the man, through the afternoon of work, and on the walk back to the compound. But now the old-timer never looked Conall’s way. Not when they reached camp or through the evening meal. Conall wolfed down his food and helped the women clear away the plates, hanging around by the washing up basins, Rufus in his arms.
 

Finally Adam Hawkins wandered over. He gestured to Conall to step away from the women, so they could talk without being heard. “The dog likes you,” he said.
 

“Had him since a pup. Found him at Lerwick, abandoned.”
 

“Soul mates, eh?”
 

“Something like that.”

Adam Hawkins breathed out heavily, as if preparing himself, collecting his thoughts. His lips and jaw rolled and writhed, his agitation clear to see on his face. “We never meant to leave you,” he said at last. “It all went wrong. We felt so bad.”
 

Conall held Rufus tight against his chest. “So I heard. Left us on shore, went back to your cabin. Bit reckless.”
 

“And where would you hear that, Conall Hawkins?”
 

“From my mother.” Conall looked into his father’s eyes, held his stare.
 

Adam drew himself up tall, breathing deep once more. “You’ve seen her?”

Conall nodded.
 

“She’s safe? Where?”
 

“With the Oduma. Safe enough, I guess. She’s been with them, all these years.”
 

“It’s for the best. I worried for her, how she’d cope alone.”
 

“She thinks you’re dead.”
 

“Guess I should be.”
 

“She thinks the wildmen killed you.”

“But she lives with them? That says something.” Adam Hawkins had a wry, dry grin on his face.
 

“She seems confused about a lot of things.”
 

“Life’s been hard for her,” Adam said. “Losing you, it struck her down. She was half mad, frantic with worry, and the guilt.” He looked over his shoulder, to check who was around, who might be listening to them. The women washing up gossiped with each other. The nearest guards were thirty yards away. “Did she tell you why the wildmen might have wanted to kill me?”

“For disturbing something sacred.”

“We needed money, for a boat back to Shetland. To come for you.”
 

“Seems to cause a lot of trouble, that treasure.”
 

“More than you can imagine.” His voice was a low growl, as if he’d been gargling on coal dust these last ten years.
 

“Did you find it?”
 

“Didn’t get chance to look,” Adam said. “Slavers saw to that. And I’ve been here ever since. Worrying about you, and your mother. I’d love to see her again, can’t tell you how much, to let her know I’m alive, that would be something.” He paused, staring into the night sky. “Our family’s a mess.”

Getting worse by the day, but there was still hope for the Hawkins clan. They were alive, and all on Spitsbergen. So close to being back together. Conall glanced at the guard to check they weren’t approaching. “Why haven’t you gone to Faro and told him who you are?”
 

“You think he doesn’t know?”
 

“He can’t.”
 

“I’ve seen him look at me. My name’s in the files. They’re good at keeping records these people. Only thing they care about, that and profit. Oh, and power.”
 

“He’d get you out if he knew. We came all this way, looking for you.”
 

“But why were you looking, Conall?”
 

“To find you. Rescue you.”
 

“Maybe you were. What about him?”
 

“What do you mean?” Conall stared at his father’s face, etched and stark in the yellow light from a sodium bulb.
 

“He’s been hurt. You both have. But he’s angry, I see it in him. Recognise it. It’s me, thirty years younger.” His father’s voice was hard and bitter, spitting out the words. “He came looking for revenge. Now he’s getting it.”

Conall thought back over the years of talking with his brother, discussing their parents, remembering how Faro’s ideas had hardened as they got older. They spent so many days on that hilltop, staring out to sea. But no ships came. And Faro’s words grew bitter, savage and angry. Conall put it down to desperation. But revenge? Had his brother’s heart grown so cold?
 

“Don’t know what he’s got against you though,” Adam said. “Seems harsh to sell his brother as a slave.”
 

“He wanted me to join him, be a part of the company that runs this place. Be a slaver like him,” Conall rubbed the side of his face, his jaw tense, remembering the disdain in his brother’s eyes. “I refused.”
 

“He always did have more sense than you.” Adam put his arm around Conall’s shoulder. “You were an idealist, at five years old. Could see it in you. You get it from your mother. If it was me, I think I’d have taken his offer.”
 

“It’s not too late. Go to him.”
 

Adam shook his head, sucking in breath through his teeth, as if the idea was insane. “Did you tell Faro about your mother?”
 

“No.”
 

“Why not?”
 

“Not sure I trust him.”
 

“Now you’re talking sense.”
 

“We have to help him, make him see what he’s doing is wrong.”
 

“You’ll have a tough job changing his mind. Besides, surviving is all we can hope for. We can’t help him. Escape would be enough.”
 

Conall glanced over his shoulder towards the guards. He dropped his voice to a whisper. “The Oduma will try again. I know their leader. The shaman, Tugon. We escaped together from a slave camp in Russia.”

“Russia? How did you get there? Sounds like you have tales to tell. Another time for all that I guess.”
 

“When the wildmen come, we have to be ready. We have to take out the generators, the lights and the fences.”
 

“What about the guns?”
 

“Guns are no use in the dark, that’s what Tugon says. Knives are better. They’re handy with a knife, these wildmen. When the attack comes, we have to get the generators. If all the slaves act as one, we can do it.”
 

“Not easy,” Adam said. “Wildmen in here keep to themselves, have factions of their own. Then there’s the settlers versus the traders, the Americans not trusting the Russians, the Europeans squabbling among themselves. Got ourselves our own little world in here, none of it getting along.”
 

“We can change that, the two of us. I can talk to the wildmen. And the settlers, the traders, they look up to you. They trust you. They’ll listen to you.”
 

“They won’t, not if they know I’m Faro’s father. You told anyone?”
 

“Only Heather. She won’t talk, I’ll tell her to keep it quiet.”
 

“Thought you had a sweetheart, over here every night.”
 

“Look out.” Two guards were approaching. One of them shouted, suspicious, demanding to know what Conall and Adam were doing.
 

Adam span around, headed for the guards, talking to them, the way only he could, among all the slaves, and within moments had them laughing at a joke, moving away. It gave Conall the time to bundle Rufus into Heather’s arms. He whispered to her, to say nothing about who Adam really was, and ghosted away into the dark.
 

≈≈≈≈

Conall and his father circled each other over the days and weeks, rarely talking, not wanting to be seen together. But each went about the business of getting the slaves ready.
 

The crew of
The Arkady
kept watch on the buildings that housed the generators, worked out where the cables ran, where there were fuse boxes and switches. They searched for control points, where the lights were turned on at night, or where the electrified fences could be made safe for maintenance.
 

The ship’s engineer became the heart of the plan, information flowing to him about how the camp was constructed, the power set up, where the fuel was stored, how many men guarded the buildings at night. The women who worked in the offices stole paper. It found its way to Conall and Bagatt. They drew maps, made plans and created schemes.
 

Conall and his father exchanged information when they passed each other in the compound or during breaks from work. They’d meet by the washing tubs, never for more than a few minutes. “It’s the same everywhere,” Adam told Conall one night. “There are men here brought from Greenland, Alaska and Siberia and they all talk of this same company, taking over. They’ve got operations across the north. They’ll be hard to stop.”