J. Ballard - Concrete island

He lifted his injured leg and placed it in the grass in front of himself. He thought of the wine in the Jaguar's trunk, but he knew that the Burgundy would go straight to his head. Forget the wine, he told himself. Collapse into this long grass and no one will ever find you. You'll lie there and die.

Swinging his arms out, he managed to jump forward around the injured leg. He grasped at the long grass to steady himself.

'Maitland, this is going to take all day…'

He made a second step. Gasping for breath, he watched an airline coach move westwards along the motorway. None of the passengers looked down at the island. Gathering himself, Maitland made three more steps, almost reaching the blue hull of a saloon car lying on its side. As he stretched out a hand to the rusty chassis his injured leg tripped against a discarded tyre. His left knee buckled, dropping him into the long grass.

Maitland lay without moving in this damp bower. As he caught his breath he wiped the moisture from the grass on to his bruised mouth. He was still twenty feet from the embankment – even if he were to reach it he would never be able to climb the steep and unpacked slope.

He sat up, lifting himself on his hands through the grass. The rusty axle of the saloon car rose into the air above his head. The tyres and engine had been removed, and the exhaust pipe hung loosely from the expansion box. Maitland reached up and began to shake the pipe with his hands. He wrenched it from the bracket and pulled the six-foot section of rusty tubing from behind the rear axle. His strong arms bent one end into a crude handle.

'Right…! Now we'll get somewhere… ' Already Maitland felt his confidence returning. He hoisted himself on to this makeshift crutch and swung himself along, his injured leg clearing the ground.

He reached the foot of the embankment, and waved with one arm, shouting at the few cars moving along the westbound carriageway. None of the drivers could see him, let alone hear his dry-throated croak, and Maitland stopped, conserving his strength. lie tried to climb the embankment, but within a few steps collapsed in a heap on the muddy slope.

Deliberately, he turned his back to the motorway and for the first time began to inspect the island.

'Maitland, poor man, you're marooned here like Crusoe – If you don't look out you'll be beached here for ever…'

He had spoken no more than the truth. This patch of abandoned ground left over at the junction of three motorway routes was literally a deserted island. Angry with himself, Maitland lifted the crutch to strike this meaningless soil.

He hobbled back towards his car. Twenty yards to the west of the breaker's yard he mounted a slight rise. Here he paused to examine the perimeter of the island, searching for a service staircase or access tunnel. Below the overpass the wire-mesh fence ran in an unbroken screen from one concrete embankment to the other. The slope up to the feeder road was more than thirty feet high and even steeper than the embankment of the motorway. Where the two roads met, at the western apex, the earth slopes gave way to vertical concrete walls.

Maitland swung himself back to his car, stopping every few paces to beat down the long grass that thrust itself at him. When he reached the car he unlocked the trunk and methodically counted the five bottles of Burgundy, lifting each one from the carton in turn as if this potent liquor represented the one point of reality left to him.

He reached for the heavy spanner. Well, Maitland, he told himself, it's a little early for a drink, but the bar's open. Wait a minute, though. Think, you need water.

As the morning sunlight steepened, warming his cold body, he reminded himself again that even a few mouthfuls of the wine on an unfed stomach would throw him into a drunken stupor. Somewhere among these cars there would be water.

_The radiator__. Slamming down the lid of the trunk, Maitland picked up his crutch and swung himself to the front of the car. He edged himself under the fender, with his bruised hands searched among the brake lines and suspension units for the lower edge of the radiator. He found the stop-cock and forced the tap, cupping the liquid that jetted out.

Glycol! He spat away the bitter fluid and stared at the green stain on his palm. The sharp tang of rusty water made his throat ache.

Already he sensed his reflexes quickening. He leaned across the driving seat and released the hood catch. He pulled himself upright, lifted the heavy hood and searched the engine compartment. His hands seized the water reservoir of the windshield washers. With one end of the crutch he twisted off the metal armature and ripped away the leads from the plastic canister.

It was almost full, holding nearly a pint of clear water. As he tasted the cool stream Maitland rested against the car, waving the crutch at the vehicles moving along the motorway. Small achievement though it was, the discovery of the water had recharged his confidence and determination. During his first hours on the island he had been too quick to assume that help would automatically arrive, that even a feeble gesture such as waving to a passing car would bring instant rescue.

He drank half the water, carefully bathing his injured mouth. He felt pleasantly light-headed, the water exciting his nerves and arteries like an electric stimulant. Hobbling around the car, he tapped the roof with almost child-like humour. He eased himself on to the trunk and sat there, looking across the uneven surface of the island at the wire-mesh fence. There were more than enough tools in the Jaguar's kit to wrench a hole through the mesh.

Laughing quietly to himself, Maitland lay against the rear window of the Jaguar. For some reason he felt a sudden and overwhelming sense of relief. He raised the canister into the air, and shook the clear liquid. He was certain now that he would escape. Despite his injuries and the damage to the car, his fears that he might be stranded for ever on the island seemed almost paranoid.

He was still laughing several minutes later when a passing driver in an open-topped car slowed down along the westbound carriageway. The driver, a uniformed American serviceman, looked down goodhumouredly at Maitland, whom he clearly assumed to be a tramp or drifter enjoying his first drink of the day. He gestured with his thumb at Maitland, offering him a lift. Before Maitland could control himself and realize that this was the only motorist since his crash prepared to stop for him, the driver had waved courteously and accelerated away.

Taking himself in hand like a weary drill-sergeant, Maitland clambered down from the trunk of the Jaguar. He ignored the pain in his thigh and propped himself roughly against the car, waving the crutch and trying to call back the vanished driver. Sober now, he looked with disgust at his injured leg and ragged clothes, angry with himself for having given way to a moment of juvenile hysteria. As well as breaking up his car, the crash seemed to have jolted his brain loose from its moorings.

Maitland leaned his right armpit on to the metal crutch. He realized that he was unequipped to carry out any but the simplest physical activities. The grimy and crippled figure whose distorted reflection glimmered in the trunk lid exactly summed up his position on the island, marooned among these concrete causeways with almost no practical skills or resources.

Few psychological ones, for that matter, Maitland reflected. These days one needed a full-scale emergency kit built into one's brain, plus a crash course in disaster survival, real and imagined.

'Wrench, box spanner, wheel brace… ' Maitland searched methodically through the tool-kit. He spoke aloud to himself as if bullying along an incompetent recruit, exploiting his irritation with himself.