Job had the Remington now. Ross went over to him. The quiet after the animal carillon carried their voices quite clearly.
“Job, what’s wrong? Why the rifle?”
“In case he wanted to stay.”
“What?”
“They ride on floes; rest on them, in piles. It’s the way they move.”
“What are you talking about, Job?”
“Don’t you see? There must be nearly two hundred of them. If even half of them came up here they’d tear the floe to pieces, smash it up, coming up through, piling up. They’d destroy us! And this is the only big floe for miles.”
There was a little silence, then Simon said, “Well, it’s just as well they’ve gone!”
They automatically looked at the vanishing herd. And as they did so, two of the walruses suddenly hurled completely out of the water, rushing maybe ten feet into the air, bursting like paper bags.
Kate screamed. Simon went towards her. Job and Ross knew what had happened and stood silently side by side, their eyes narrowing, searching the churning water.
Beyond the herd they saw them, an arrow-head formation of black sail fins.
And then the walruses turned and, floundered wildly through the water, tearing each other, screaming with panic, started coming back with all the slow, terrible destructive force of a tidal wave.
iii
The leader had been travelling at more than thirty knots when he hit the first walrus, and, although in the water his vast body had no weight, the force of his charge was enough to hurl his target, itself weighing more than a ton, nearly ten feet into the air. In the time-honoured mode of complete surprise, he hurled suddenly up out of the dark depths, from the quarter where attack was least expected. As a vehicle travelling at a similar speed will destroy much of anybody it hits, so the whale destroyed the walrus: it was dead even before its body started falling; and even before the massive corpse hit the water again, three more of its companions were similarly destroyed.
Walrus did not normally form a large part of the whales’ diet, for they could be fearsome enemies when roused; but the mothers with their calves were too great a temptation to resist. The whales struck at the vulnerable centre of the herd, but the old bulls in the lead and the cows at the rear were on to the attack almost instantly, swimming with surprising speed against their black and white enemies, heads back and tusks held out like three-foot spears before them. Without fear or hesitation, twenty in all swam into the carnage to do battle, twenty more covered the retreat of the panicking families.
Most at risk among the whales were the young males whose excitement dulled their caution. Several of them were feeding voraciously upon the slowly sinking body of a particularly heavy female which the leader had chosen as his first target. Among those was a male less than five years old, and this was his first major attack against a walrus herd. He knew that caution was needed, for he had seen during his youth what walrus were capable of doing, but in the excitement for a few fatal seconds he forgot. Oblivious to all else he tore great mouthfuls of blubber and meat from the shoulder of the dead victim, and wolfed them down, holding himself steady, with flippers spread and the great flukes of his tail moving sluggishly, as he guided his body down after his falling feast.
He was attacked by two old male walruses at once, and destroyed almost before he had had a chance to react. The first walrus plunged its tusks into the bulging muscles of his neck just behind his sleek head. With all the force in its massive chest the walrus drove its tusks more than two feet into the whale’s flesh, then it wrenched them sideways, tearing them free, and breaking its enemy’s neck. The other swam up under the sleek belly and used its great blunt ivory daggers to equal effect, disembowelling the whale with one massive jerk of its neck.
Others of the whales were in no better case. Although the slaughter of the walruses continued, there were casualties among the attackers also. Here, one tusk – the other was a broken stump barely protruding from the mouth – was driven down with such force that it split a sleek black head; there, two bodies slowly sank, the tusks of the dead walrus impaling the throat of a dead whale. For all the great maroon bodies torn and bleeding, there was a considerable toll of ragged slashes on harlequin faces, flanks, backs. Even the leader was held at bay by three old cows whose curving tusks cost him more scars on his head, before he broke the resolve of one, and the two who still could do so, then joined the slow, bloody retreat.
He tasted the diluted blood on the broad blade of his tongue and screamed with delight. Gaining speed, he was quickly back in the midst of the mêlée, whirling, diving, jumping, snapping, tearing and rending with the rest. The old bull with his slightly broken left tusk turned to meet him as he came. It had already crippled two whales and killed a third, using knowledge hammered past the thick bones of its head by a long full life in the Arctic; and as it saw the great bulk of its new adversary loom among the blood-thick foam it turned from the body of its last victim, pulling its long tusk from eyesocket and brain with a convulsive heave of its whole body.
For a moment they paused, circling around each other, then the leader attacked. The old bull jerked its head back in its time-honoured gesture of attack and defence. The leader swirled clear just in time to avoid the downward slash, but the charge that followed it caught him unawares, and the full force of the walrus’s huge body concentrated behind the heavy bones of its skull crashed with sickening force into his ribs. The air exploded from his lungs. He fought his way to the surface, dazed and sickened by the terrible force of the blow. For those moments he was totally defenceless. The old bull flipped over on to its back and swam up beneath its enemy, already jerking its tusks from side to side in anticipation of the disembowelling movement it would perform as it sank them into the leader’s unprotected belly. But the leader was not wholly unprotected. His consort, not far away, saw the danger clearly enough, and, with a great scream, she threw herself through the water between the walrus and her mate, totally unconcerned by the danger to herself.
But even before she came anywhere near the walrus, she was hurled aside by a young male who also dashed to the rescue. And to his death. Concerned only with protecting the leader he gave no thought to protecting himself, and it was into his belly the tusks were thrust. A great cloud of bubbles and blood exploded out of him as the ivory spears wrenched to one side, and he turned slowly on to his back, rigid and dying as his intestines were torn out.
The old bull turned to meet the big female as she followed up her attack, still fighting to give her mate time to recover; but before the battle was truly joined the leader had returned. The mate held back on his cry of command, and the leaders of the two battling herds closed again. Once again the old bull pulled its head back and charged at the leader, tusks out-thrust; again the leader swirled aside at the last moment before the longer tusk cut into his flesh, but this time he twisted his body through an extra few degrees so the walrus’s head rushed under his belly, and only its shoulder hit the white flesh. The leader whirled round, mouth agape, but the walrus had turned also, half on its back, tusks still thrust out. The leader went for the old bull’s rear flippers, but they were jerked beyond his reach, and the blunt broken tusk scraped the length of his back without doing any damage.
Once again they faced each other, a little more than five yards apart. Oblivious of the battle still raging around them they held themselves motionless in the water, each waiting for the other to make the first move; then they began to close. The walrus reared its head back again, staring over the great bridge of its nose. The killer put his sleek head down and thrust his body forward at increasing speed, stretching forward, his mouth opening, seemingly going for the throat. At the last moment the walrus, its nerve broken, brought its chin down to protect its chest and neck from the killer’s teeth. The killer, shifting his attack, opened his mouth delicately, and caught hold of the walrus’s upper lip, pulled up by the movement of its head down through the water. It was the walrus’s only weak spot, and the leader had caught it perfectly. With a great wrench of his long, sleek body, he dragged the old bull’s head down further and, keeping clear of the wildly slashing tusks, he dragged the walrus into the depths. The old bull’s breath, already short, ran out in the next few moments, and long before the leader felt the need to breathe, the walrus had ceased to struggle and the last silver bubbles of its breath were struggling towards the surface.