A third time the blue sounded, and there was no force at all in it now. The great down-sweep of the tail, however, was enough to sunder the tendons in its belly, and Group One’s work was done. Without the counter-pull, the hawsers in its back spasmed into knots, pulling the great tail up, breaking the back, tearing open the huge bag of its lower abdomen, letting coil after coil of fat yellow intestine tumble free. Group One remained where they were, feasting greedily.
At the head, Group Four went to work, fastening themselves to the thin lip of its upper jaw, trying, with Group Three to force its mouth wide. As soon as it felt them there, the blue began to fight towards the surface again, as well as it could. It lay there, a derelict hulk, unable to move, the great sail of the flukes at first erect, like the tail of a scorpion, but slowly toppling as the whale rolled ponderously on to its side.
Group Five went into action even before the great tail settled into the sea. First the leader, then the others in rapid succession threw themselves clear of the water to land hammer blows of up to seven tons, on the back then the side of the blue’s broad head, roll off, swim away, and start again. Time after time. After half an hour, they had all had enough. The killers in Group Five were all battered and exhausted, and, through the haze of his semi-consciousness, each blow seemed to the blue to be splitting its head open. It was almost time to give up. Almost, but not quite.
The blue allowed its mouth to sag open. At once one of the young bulls in Group Three let go of the lower lip and hurled himself in. Immediately, the trap snapped shut. The young bull’s tail just protruded from the working, toothless mouth where he was being slowly crushed to death by the relentless pressure of the great tongue. Minute after minute the others wrestled with the pendent tatters of the lips until eventually, unwillingly, the mouth opened. The young bull floated out, and slowly began to sink. His mate, another member of Group Three, immediately left her post and tried to support his lifeless body. Two others joined her in her endeavours, but even after they had managed to get him to the surface he still did not revive.
The leader, meanwhile, leaped into action, and, with his mate by his side, sped into that enormous living cave. They brushed past fronds of fine white baleen which danced at their passing, and dived hard for the back of the blue’s throat. They bit into the root of its tongue on either side, gulping down the aperitif of blood. They tore. They strained. They hauled the great pale blade foot by foot out of the constricted throat. Two more joined them, pulling at the top. Two more came up from the tail, taking hold where they could and heaving back with great lurches of their lithe bodies, squealing with delight. And at last it came free, nearly five tons of it, ripped out in a cloud of bright arterial blood which roared out of the blue’s throat as if from a fire-hose, pulsing nearly twenty feet under the water to the beat of its dying heart.
They left it then, alone and dying, forgotten at the scarlet edge of the pack.
They danced away through the red water, playing like children, tearing the rubbery flesh of the tongue as they went, giving a piece to all. And so they feasted, late into the night. After they had eaten, they rested.
The leader withdrew from the rest of the pack, followed by his faithful consort. As the others ate and slept, he kept a lonely vigil, his mind full of memories associated with the heady taste of the whale-tongue meat; memories of the fierce joy bred into him at the anchorage in Oregon, when this same meat had been fed to him as reward for the killing of men. And as the night passed, the longing grew in him, confused with the memory of the last terrible agony in his face, to see again the reaching arms, the kicking legs. To feel again the joy of attack, of destruction, of the killing of men.
As the sun was just about to move up in the heavens signalling the beginning of the new day, his meditations and their rest were disturbed by a great explosion which gave birth to a distant column of fire. And they went to investigate.
THREE
At first, when he had woken, Ross was only aware of anger: it was always like this – you lowered your guard, even to the extent of indulging a frightened girl, and people died. If you became involved with people, you bought grief.
He opened his eyes. He was still sitting on the left-hand side at the back of the plane, but his seat had been tipped until his back was horizontal and his legs were in the air. The body of the plane rose above him and it was as though he was lying at the bottom of a slim tower, looking up. It took him a moment to realise that the jet was somehow resting on its tail. There was a smell of high octane fuel which was not in itself unpleasant, but the realisation of what it meant, together with one or two less pleasant smells, served to send a shiver down his spine. Thus he discovered he could still move.
Least pleasant of the smells was the sweet, slightly iron smell of blood. Ross turned his head towards the companionway and Job who was opposite. Job lay absolutely still. Ross, his heart thumping with something more than the exertion of lifting his battered torso, looked across, but the blood he could smell so strongly was not Job’s. He slumped back with a grunt, and, as he did, he saw it on the top of the seat in front of him, over to the right side of the white headrest: a long glistening red stain; and as he watched, the stain sluggishly attained depth, gathered itself into a drip, and fell towards his eye. He instinctively jerked his head away, and the drip fell clear, landing with a splash beside his right ear. Then he saw a red stain on the back of the seat two in front of his own, and beyond that, on the backs of all the other outside-left seats up the length of the aircraft – up to where the girl had been sitting. His stomach heaved. He breathed deeply. Another drip fell by his ear.
Outside the body of the plane, the wind hissed. There was a lapping of water. There was a restless clicking and cracking of ice. Inside, suddenly, a groan. Ross’s head swung right, pressing his cheek into the cold sticky dampness. Job was moving. “Job!”
“Aaaah.”
“Job?”
“I hurt.”
“Me too.” He realised as he said it that it was true. His stomach was bruised by the belt, his back was stiff with strain, and his neck felt as if it had been mildly whiplashed. He had bitten his tongue and two teeth were loose. He moved his head, easing his neck and shoulders, and repeated, “Me too.”
Job laughed. “It is good hurt: only the quick hurt.”
Ross looked up along the broken waterfall of blood. Someone up there didn’t hurt. Not in the slightest.
“Ssssssa,” Job hissed, “I smell blood.”
“You don’t say ‘Ssssa’,” Ross told him, beginning to undo his seat belt, “you say ‘Fe Fi Foe Fum’.”
“What matter?” asked the Eskimo, beginning to undo his also. “It is still blood.” He looked away up the length of the plane.
“Is it the girl?” asked Ross.
Job shook his head. “I cannot see.”
They slowly untangled themselves from their seat belts. They might have been two very old men.
“Can you move?” asked Ross after a while.
“Yes, I can move, but where to?”
“We’d better try to get up the length of the plane and see if anyone needs help.”
“We can try.”
Ross reached up and took hold of the back of the seat above him at its outer edge. He began to pull himself free of his own seat. Job was already half out of his, moving more quickly than the big Englishman. Ross wedged his feet against the back and arm of his seat and pushed up. There was nobody in the next pair of seats on his side. He tensed to push up, and his shoulders collided with Job’s back. He looked up and back. Job was leaning over Quick.