Killer

They had been fighting the walruses for more than an hour and, in that they were still alive, they had won. But they had lost so much of the floe that the piece they were on could only just contain their camp. And they had lost most of their stores also. Only those items they had moved into the dry were still undamaged, with the pieces of the boat, and the dynamite. They had lost all the guns. They had lost the will to fight any more; they had almost lost the will to live.

v

As the leader came under the humans’ floe, he almost casually took a final bull walrus floating vertically, its head above the water. They had had a good killing. They had taken more than fifty prime walruses, not counting the babies, for the cost of seven whales in all. The leader was deeply content, for, on top of all this, there were still the humans . . .

He had joined in the fighting with the rest of the pack, and had done more than his fair share of the killing, but at the same time, he had been intensely aware of their presence above the thin layer of ice. At first there had been the shots, then the occasional distinctive tones of their voices easily distinguished from the other sounds of the battle. The old uncontrolled excitement burned in him. As the slaughter slowly stopped, he sent out excited cries to the others of the pack, but only his mate and one young male answered. Confused, he circled both floes until, away to the west, he heard the cries of the rest of them.

He went once more round the floe, took the last walrus, and followed.

Five miles to the west, a quarter of an hour later, he caught up with them. An older male was in the lead, moving sluggishly along. The leader joined him, swimming slower and slower until they all stopped. For the next few hours they remained there, playing gently sleepy games, dozing, recovering.

Then, as the sun began to climb invisibly behind the dull curtain of the clouds, the leader gave a brief signal, and began to swim east again, back to the floe.

He had swum for several minutes before he had realised only his mate and the one young bull were following.

Confused, he turned back, and the rest of the pack were waiting where he had left them. He made the sound of command again, and this time they began to follow him slowly. It took them nearly an hour to come anywhere near the floe, and when they did, the pack faltered again and stopped.

The leader swam among them, ordering, nudging, threatening, but to no avail. They would move no further. He swam on ahead of them again; and, again, only the young male and his mate would follow.

He swam round and round the sullen collection of silent whales. There were still ten of them, with the calf, more than enough to destroy the humans now the floe was so small, the ice so thin. If they would attack with him now, it would be over in a matter of moments. With increasing desperation he swam round them, but they would go no further. They were sated. And they did not share his conditioned joy in killing humans.

For a moment he was tempted to stay with them, but he had lived alone at the anchorage for so long that the ties of his kind were not strong in him. Certainly they were nowhere near as strong as the need to feel the heady excitement of the kill. So he swam round them one last time, and then headed purposefully east. His consort and the young bull followed.

The rest of the pack waited until the three had faded from sight in the rich water, and then began to move slowly south, following their new leader, one or two of them sending out locational calls in case the true leader should want to return to them later, when he had done what he had to do.

OceanofPDF.com

ELEVEN

Simon lifted his hands until they rested against the cold flesh of the dead walrus and pushed himself upright. The spear came out from under his right arm, and vibrated slightly in the monster’s throat. Simon looked around. It was all much the same as it had been before the walruses came, heavy grey sky pressing on the leaden sea, only the floes having brightness or colour. And the other floe, bearing the surviving walruses, was already some five hundred yards away to the right, caught in a chance current, and dwindling as he watched.

His tired eyes swept over the wreck of their own refuge. There were twenty corpses still lying around the camp, twenty-one counting the one he was standing beside. Only the latrine-cum-storage tent and the tent originally occupied by Ross and Job were still standing.

Where his own original tent had been there was a round black hole, with a spider’s web of crack radiating from it. And there was another hole behind him, beyond this walrus. What was left of the floe was now a rough oblong – seventy yards by fifty – and already punched with two holes. Quick shivered.