Killer

Ross kicked out for Simon’s head, but his boot skidded off the heavy parka shoulder. Simon rolled away, pushing with his clenched legs, his clenched fists. Ross came after him, over the crack, one step, two . . . Then Simon hurled himself back, crashing into Colin’s legs and sending him sprawling. Ross landed awkwardly, throwing out his left arm as though it could support him, and it twisted against the stump with enough force to send his senses reeling.

The pair of them fought their way to their feet, and Kate, her temper gone, screaming at them in a rage to match their own, came running across the ice and tried to grab Simon’s shoulder. He shrugged her off and dived forward so that Ross and he rolled, linked together, knees crashing against thighs, heads driven into faces.

Simon tore off mitten and glove between Ross’s back and the ice, and made talons of his fingers to gouge his enemy’s eyes. Ross jerked his face away, three deep grooves raked down his cheek. He let go and rolled away. He forced himself on to his knees. Quick did the same.

“For God’s sake,” said Kate.

Ross wiped his face, and stood up. Simon stood up, paused a moment, and came shambling forward again. They met like ocean and shore, Ross’s fist knocked aside and going over Simon’s shoulder, their faces colliding, shoulders, chests, bellies.

Kate looked for some way to part these two men who had suddenly, unaccountably, turned into wild animals.

Simon’s left fist was delivering short, deadly jabs below Ross’s belt. He swung his right in a haymaker into Ross’s ribs. Ross’s right did the same, again and again. His knee came up once more. His head tore back and crashed forward into Simon’s face. Simon staggered back. As he came forward again, Ross took a step to one side and tripped him as he blundered past.

“Had enough?” Colin gasped.

“Yes,” screamed Kate. “For God’s sake, stop it, the pair of you. The killer’s vanished. Christ alone knows what it’s up to.”

But Simon was up again, and he charged forward, swinging wildly. “I’m going to kill you, Colin!” he said thickly, through swollen lips. “Kill you!”

Kate went for him, her hands in claws. He caught her with one hand, and hurled her behind him on to the smaller section of the floe. She landed awkwardly, slipped and fell, striking her head. She tried to rise, but passed out.

Colin fell back, rolling free of the net, his boot slopping water. He began to get up again.

Simon swung his heavy boot back to kick him in the face. The bitterness which had festered in him for so many years had complete control now, and his bruised and swollen face twisted out of all recognition. He had won. If the first kick did not kill Ross, the second would. He swung his foot forward with all of his wiry strength . . .

And the whale came up, exactly as Colin had foretold that it would, through the crack in the floe and into the net.

The net reared under the men, hurling both of them back one on top of the other, on to the larger section of the floe. The whale froze for a second as the net closed around its head, then it lashed from side to side in a frenzy of movement. The floe heaved and bucked as it tried to free itself.

Simon, trying to reach the harpoons, was thrown to the ground. He struggled to get up, but he couldn’t make it. Colin rolled over and got on to all fours, but he couldn’t make it either.

“For God’s sake,” he screamed.

The whale lunged up into the air. The net tore completely free of the ice and closed entirely round it. The two pieces of the floe began to drift apart. The net was held only by the two long ropes, one to each section of ice. The whale, seeing freedom as the crack opened, lunged forward. Simon was on his hands and knees now, the two silver spears just in front of him. Their fight was forgotten. He grabbed one and, rolling on his back, handed it to Colin.

Colin struggled on to his knees, and, using the harpoon as a support, he dragged himself on to his feet and staggered forward. Still half dazed by the fight, he staggered forward until the ice ended under his feet, then he looked up and saw how terribly wrong everything had gone.

From just beside his unsteady feet one of the two ropes stretched to the edge of the net forty feet away. Five yards to the right the other half of the floe was being pulled by forty feet of orange rope. The two pieces of rope joined on the net wrapped around the whale’s head. All of it, the ice, the rope, the net, the whale, were moving through the water at an increasing speed. Waves beat against the thin ice, which began to break up.

“Sweet Christ!” he cried. He turned back to Simon, and opened his mouth to yell, when the peg beside his knees tore loose. The rope whipped away howling madly in the air.

The movement of the floe slowed, its angle settled back to the horizontal. Colin watched as what was left of the smaller part of the floe drew away at a speed of perhaps a knot, drawn forward by the wildly swimming whale.