Survival

Fletcher David

Description

Alex and Debbie's first voyage to the Antarctic looked to be plain sailing in every sense. The sea and the weather were both perfect for their passage to the Falklands and then South Georgia, and the forecast for their onward journey looked equally benign.Then the news began to trickle through that something was amiss in China. Soon the news was much worse. On the other side of the world a calamity was overtaking the human race and whatever had started in China was now rapidly racing across the whole of Asia, scything down millions in its path.There seemed to be nothing to stop it. It seemed impossible that the virus would not eventually arrive on the MS Sea Sprite. Was there anything they could do to avoid their dismal fate? Was there anywhere they could hide from the inevitable onslaught? Could they survive? Or would they simply be amongst the very last to succumb?'

Sujets

• Thriller

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 07 juillet 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781800465763
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Copyright © 2021 David Fletcher

The moral right of the author has been asserted.


Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.


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ISBN 978 1800465 763

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.


Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

For Iris


Contents
one
two
three
four
five
six
seven
eight
nine
ten
eleven
twelve
thirteen
fourteen
fifteen
sixteen
seventeen
eighteen
nineteen
twenty
twenty-one
twenty-two
twenty-three
twenty-four
twenty-five
twenty-six
twenty-seven
twenty-eight
twenty-nine
thirty
thirty-one
thirty-two
thity-three
thirty-four
thirty-five
thirty-six
thirty-seven
thirty-eight

Afterword


one
Alex stared at the iceberg. It was huge and it was painfully beautiful; an exquisite blue-white jewel set in the blue-white world all around. It was about two hundred metres from the ship, and it was the nearest of a whole swarm of icebergs, all laid out on the blue, mirror-smooth water of the channel and all sparkling under the bright Antarctic sun. Beyond it were the snow-covered peaks that formed the west side of the channel, their form sculpted by time and their surfaces now coated in every shade of blue and white. They were exquisite themselves – framed by a clear azure sky above and that silver-blue sea at their feet. And their scale was enormous.
Before he had come to Antarctica, Alex had never experienced such scenery. There had been that brief excursion to the north of Norway where he’d been immersed in a similar palette of just white and blue, but that had been different. There it had been just chilling and a little soulless, just a great expanse of featureless white under a glaring blue sky. But here, here in this southern polar setting, what was outside the cabin window was not just truly exquisite but almost alive. Out there were shapes, contrasts, textures and reflections, and out there was that huge, scintillating iceberg, a great blue-and-white fragment afloat in the channel but looking as though it was anchored to the Earth. It was as still and as fixed as the peaks all around it.
The whole wonderful spectacle deserved to be gazed at forever, but Alex had other things to do, and he began to turn his attention away from the view through the window. However, just as he did so he observed a little movement in that outside scene, and his attention was captured again. How could it not be? That movement heralded the arrival of whales…
There were four of them, four humpback whales in a tight group, spoiling the glassy-smooth surface of the channel with their rising, blowing, diving and splashing. Although whether they were feeding, bonding, playing or just relishing their existence, Alex couldn’t tell. But it didn’t matter. To observe any whale in its natural environment was a joy and a privilege. To observe a quartet of them at close quarters – as these were now – was literally captivating. Alex couldn’t take his eyes off them, as first a shiny black back surfaced from the water and then a huge, handsome fluke rose to join it, soon partially obscured as another of the quartet sent forth a tall, misty spout. In fact, it was only when he observed this spout that it occurred to Alex that he should call Debbie to join him. Wherever she’d got to with her preparations, she’d no doubt want to see these wonderful sea-going creatures.
‘Debbie, there’s some whales out here. Four humpbacks. You should come and see them. They’re really close.’
Immediately, Debbie appeared. She’d been in the bathroom and she was now walking towards Alex, her hands to her left ear, clearly still trying to secure a reluctant second earring into its lobe.
‘Four of them?’ she inquired.
‘Yeah. Just to the left. Over there.’
She had now joined her husband, and, having convinced that second earring that it should just acquiesce and take its rightful place in her earlobe, she was peering through the window to locate the promised cetaceans.
‘Ah, yes,’ she exclaimed. ‘Fantastic. And look, did you see that fluke? It was pale underneath…’
‘Well, if it wasn’t, you’d be a bit concerned. They are humpbacks, and their flukes are supposed to be pale underneath. Just like we’re supposed to have a crease in our bum.’
‘Don’t be vulgar,’ responded Debbie. But her words were delivered with a smile, and then she made another observation.
‘Just look at them,’ she said. ‘Aren’t they sublime?’
‘Sublime and… happy. At least, they look pretty happy. And I must say, it’s difficult to imagine that they’re not. After all, they’ve got this wonderful place to live in and they’ve got each other as well.’
Debbie turned from the view of the whales to face her husband.
‘Just as we’ve got each other,’ she said. ‘As I’m sure you’ve not forgotten…’
‘Sorry,’ responded Alex, ‘it’s just…’
‘…time we got ourselves ready,’ interrupted Debbie. ‘And I’m nearly there.’
‘So am I,’ declared Alex. ‘I just want to put my boots in the wardrobe and sort out the safe…’
And here he stopped. He had at last taken in his wife’s appearance. His boots and the safe would have to wait just a while.
‘Debbie,’ he pronounced slowly, ‘you look beautiful.’
And she did. No longer young, she still retained the looks that had attracted him to her almost fifty years ago. Furthermore, she had spent a useful few minutes on her face, doing whatever it is that women do in front of a bathroom mirror, and in her brand-new wine-coloured dress and her favourite wine-coloured shoes, she looked like the proverbial million dollars. And half of that generous total must have been invested in her eyes. They were as sparkly as the iceberg outside.
‘Thank you,’ she responded. ‘I thought I should make an effort.’
Alex hesitated, and then he went into the walk-in wardrobe, and was soon back out again, holding in his right hand his bright-blue linen jacket.
‘Might not be up to your dress, but I’ve brought it this far, and it hasn’t got that many creases in it. As long as you don’t look at the sleeves…’
Debbie grinned.
‘It’ll do just fine. I mean, just absolutely fine. In fact, I think that together we will be the best-dressed couple aboard. No matter how many creases…’
‘Bloody right,’ confirmed her husband. ‘Absolutely bloody right.’ And then he approached her, threw his jacket on the bed, and embraced her tightly – and held her in this embrace for quite some time. When he finally released her, he then spoke.
‘I love you,’ he said slowly. ‘I always have and I always will. In fact, I may love you more now than I’ve ever loved you before. And if that sounds stupid…’
‘It doesn’t,’ interrupted Debbie. ‘Because I feel just the same. I mean, I really do. So… it can’t be stupid, can it?’
Here she gave her husband a generous smile, and then she reverted to the inescapable practical.
‘But I now think that while I go and check on my face, you should sort out whatever you’re doing with your boots and the safe. Then we might just be ready. And we should get a move on. You said so yourself.’
Alex got the message. He again embraced his wife, less tightly this time. And then, when he’d disengaged, he took his boots into the wardrobe, and after that he knelt before the cabin’s dresser that housed the safe. Here he began to fiddle with the safe’s contents before locking it closed. When he’d done this, he put on his bright-blue jacket.
Outside, the whales were still cavorting and the iceberg was still sparkling. Inside their cabin, the good-looking Debbie and the now relatively well-dressed Alex were finally about to embark on their plans for the evening.


seven weeks earlier


two
Nobody was fat. Alex just couldn’t help noticing. Nor could he help himself thinking that, of the ninety-two people seated in the ship’s lounge, few if any would balk at applying the term ‘fat’ to other people. After all, whilst there were maybe half a dozen of the assembled throng who were arithmetically middle-aged, the vast majority of the ship’s passengers listening to the safety briefing were more euphemistically middle-aged, and they must have all grown up in a time when fat people could be called fat without it risking censure from others. The average age of the MS Sea Sprite’s human cargo, Alex thought, must have hovered somewhere around seventy. And their body shapes fell somewhere in the range of slim to well-fed, with here and there just some overwide hips and the odd minor paunch.
It was not that unusual for Alex to find himself in the company of people like himself: not-fat, old – and white. And this was because he had spent the past quarter