Killer

She stumbled over to Preston and shook him till he stirred. Then suddenly Colin was beside her, a pencil of blood running down from his hairline. His hand slid under her arm. “Leave him.”

She rose obediently. Job lifted him to his feet, and the four of them went stumbling across the ice.

There was a gap now of a little more than four feet, but even as they arrived at the edge, a quirk in the current began to part the two pieces of ice more rapidly.

“Jump,” said Ross to Kate.

She went back and took a run, but the treacherous ice slid beneath her feet, and she began to lose control, her arms waving wildly, her mouth opening to scream. She threw herself forward, into Simon Quick’s arms. In the air, over the black, threatening water, her mind was filled with one thought: she had broken the straps on her bra.

And as he caught her, through all the clothes they were wearing, in spite of the tension of the moment, Quick felt the firm fluidity of her breasts.

Preston came across next, still half-unconscious, precipitated by Ross and Job together. Then Job. Then Ross.

Then they all stood and watched as an acre of ice drifted away and began to break up. Ross said, “We can afford to do that maybe fifteen more times, then we run out of ice. And there are still maybe twenty whales.”

He turned away from them and walked towards the camp.

“Jesus Christ,” said Preston. “I didn’t mean; I didn’t think . . .”

Kate and Job turned at the same time and followed Colin. Quick’s eyes followed Kate, and then he also went towards the camp.

They were standing in the middle of the small square, beside the fire tray. They were silently looking at Warren as he finished setting up the harpoon gun, with Preston helping.

“We’ll have to move camp now, Simon,” said Ross.

“Right,” said Quick, still lost in the sensation of Kate’s breasts.

“Right,” said Ross. “We’ll begin to move the camp down to the middle of the plain down there, where the ice is widest. Job will show you.”

“What about the killer whales?” asked Warren.

There was a little silence, then Ross said, “The dynamite seems to have scared them off for the time being, but you’re right, we ought to keep a watch. Would you stay by the harpoon gun? If you see anything, just call out. Don’t fire unless you have to. OK?”

“Fine.”

So Doctor Warren stood by the harpoon gun as the others began to move their camp one hundred yards further down the floe. At first, he stood almost at attention behind the gun, his hands on the double grips, his eyes quartering the burning gold sea; but then, as nothing was happening, his mind began to wander.

At the camp, they first set out the net. It was a red-orange nylon net with medium-spaced strands, four hundred square feet of it: a square with twenty-foot sides. At the corners, and halfway along each side there were guy ropes which were forty feet long. Using steel pegs where they could, and pieces of board from the crates, they pinned it firmly to the ground, making sure the strands did not become lost beneath the snow and ice crystals. “There,” said Ross when they had finished, “that should stop all this slipping and sliding about. We’ll bring down the tents next, and unpack the spares.”

Warren took out his pipe, and put a few shreds of his remaining tobacco in it. He was still lost in thought.

They set up the tents between the guy ropes at the edge of the net, all facing inwards, except the latrine tent which faced the other way. The side of the net facing the nearest shore, the shore opposite the ice hills, was left empty. On the opposite side to this, under the shadow of the hills, were the two tents shared by Ross and Job, Preston and Quick. On the other two sides, one still looking north towards the pack, the other south towards Alaska, went the three other tents: the latrine on its own, to the south; the supply tent and the Warrens’ tent to the north, facing south. In the corner, between the Warrens’ tent and that shared between Preston and Quick, stood the fire tray. They trooped back up to the ice to start on the crates.