John Lanchester - The Wall

‘Yeah, it’s all great,’ said Hughes.

‘So great,’ said Hifa. Her face was drawn. I could see that the attempt at banter between them was reflexive, a flashback to when we had been Defenders, when we had been on the Wall, and this was how we had talked to each other.

‘I wonder how far they tow us?’ said Hughes, who got his answer straight away, because the engines slowed to an idle. When people are put to sea, they are taken out of sight of land, so that they won’t immediately try to turn and go back where they came from and also so that they won’t run straight into Guard ships who would immediately sink them. We had been on the ship for about half an hour, so we couldn’t be far from land. Say, fifteen K at most.

The door opened from the outside. Three Guards were standing there, with two behind them: the latter two were carrying guns. Again, they didn’t look grim so much as sad. We came out and followed the unarmed ones down the corridor with the armed guards behind. They led us clanking up the ship’s metal stairs out onto the main deck. It was relatively calm and still and the night was clear. They walked us over to the lifeboat, which was a couple of feet below the level of the deck, and we stepped across and down to get in. The whole crew came to the side of the ship and, on their captain’s command, saluted as the lifeboat began to be lowered into the water. I swear that was almost the worst moment, the solemnity and finality of that salute.

The lifeboat swung a few feet further out as it was lowered and then, when we were just above sea level, was abruptly dropped into the water. We went crashing to the floor of the boat. When we’d got up and straightened ourselves out, the ship was moving away from us on a curving trajectory back towards land, alight like a floating cathedral in the pitch black of the ocean. It was immediately clear how different the sea felt when you were centimetres above its surface on a pitching small plastic boat, as opposed to a metal ship’s deck ten metres high.

Having stood up, Hifa sat back down again. ‘I’m not sure about this,’ she said. It was my turn to be reassuring so I told her to sit where she was while Hughes and I sorted ourselves out. There were many boxes and crates in the front of the boat, and we started to open them and look into them. The Guard had been generous, very generous, with supplies and assistance. We looked to have enough food for weeks. They had put in waterproof and warm clothing, torches and batteries and metal tools. There were several casks of water too. I couldn’t do the maths on that straight away, and I knew that people always needed more water than they thought they did; but it looked as if we would be able to survive for a while. As long as we weren’t drowned or shot.

That, though, wasn’t all the Guards had left us. We didn’t go into the back part of the boat, under the awning, because the front was so full of food and equipment it needed to be reorganised before we could fight our way through. That made it confusing and weird when noises started coming from the back of the boat. Looking at each other wildly, Hifa and Hughes and I all simultaneously realised that we were not alone. Then a figure wrapped in a blanket came out of the back and straightened up. He was swathed in multiple layers of cold-weather clothing and had a hood over his head and I thought I was hallucinating, or having an aneurysm, or something, because although I could recognise who it was I also couldn’t get my brain to admit that I recognised him. The hair under the hood was blond. I know you but I don’t know you, my brain was telling itself. Then he spoke and I saw that although I couldn’t believe it, I had no choice.

‘Hello,’ said James the baby politician. ‘I imagine you weren’t expecting to see me.’

Hifa and Hughes and I just stared at him. Their mouths were open and no doubt mine was too. James nodded and looked as pleased with himself as it is possible to look if you are huddled in a blanket on a lifeboat on the open sea. It wasn’t comforting to see him, not at all, but I did feel momentarily less alone – as if it was a relief to find it wasn’t just us Defenders who were put to sea.

‘Yes, and there are other surprises in store. Come and look.’

Hifa got up and we moved towards the back of the boat, staggering and balancing on the boxes and gear as we went. The awning was folded down over both sides of the opening so we couldn’t see in. James pulled it back and bent down and pointed. We crouched down to look. A person was lying on a foam mattress on the floor of the boat, wrapped in several layers of clothing and blankets. He was either unconscious or asleep. Despite the wrapping, we all recognised him at first glance. It was the Captain. James gave us a moment to take that in.

‘So,’ he said. ‘Shall we kill him?’

I learnt that I had nearly killed him once already. The night of the attack, the Captain came close to bleeding out from the bayonet wound I’d given him. I’d hit an artery. If it had been up to us, his company, we would probably have let him die. But the medics got to him in time and he was stabilised and now, six weeks later, he was recovering, too weak to row but otherwise getting stronger. He did indeed look like a man who had nearly died; the skin on his face was stretched and the scars on his cheeks were now in parallel with newly drawn lines of illness and strain. His eyes were open and he stared at us and we stared back, but nobody spoke. It wasn’t until the next morning that we talked to him.

That was a strange night, all crammed together in the back of the lifeboat. Three banished Defenders and their two companions. Companion number one was the member of the elite who had failed in his chance to stop what had happened. Companion number two was the man who had betrayed us. Sixteen Others had got over the Wall and escaped, and so sixteen people were put to sea. That was the seven members of the company who had survived and nine others in the chain of command, including several people in the next watchtowers along, who were judged to have reacted too slowly when the action kicked off that night. James said that the judgement had been passed on him because, according to the court, he should have realised that the Captain was part of the network of Others and their supporters. He thought that was outrageous. He was bitter and did not pretend otherwise.

‘My question is, how? How was I supposed to know?’

My answer to that was that I didn’t know and didn’t care. I was glad that he felt the injustice of what had been done to him as much as we felt the injustice of what had been done to us.

‘A network of hidden support and I was meant to find one end of it and unravel the network with what, the power of telepathy? I’m supposed to look into his soul and work out this plan they’d been hatching for years?’

‘How about you shut up?’ Hughes said. James took the hint.

Hifa spent that first night retching, at first over the side, then into a bucket, then dry-retching where she lay. We lay there and I didn’t feel as if I’d slept but I must have because I opened my eyes and the sun was some way above the horizon. Hughes and Hifa were standing at the front of the boat. The Captain was awake but silent under the awning. I woke James and went to the others and that’s when we decided to have it all out and get the story. Hughes went under the awning and said something to the Captain and he got up and came to the bow.

The Captain sat with his back against the front of the lifeboat. We stood in front of him.

‘It was ten years. Seven of us set out to get over the Wall. Then there were further expeditions with messages backwards and forwards. We had a set of signals with lights. I was the only one who made it. We all knew we would have to wait and in the end it was five years before I was able to get a message back. Then we moved to the next phase. I waited for three more years. Then I was a Captain and we could start to execute a specific plan. By now we had got in touch with a wider network. Some of your countrymen don’t agree with the Wall. They think you need the Wall to keep out the water but not to keep out human beings. Some of them don’t agree with turning people into Help. They think it’s slavery. It’s a big network, much bigger than you realise. I don’t know much about who is in it and I don’t know who they’re helping but I do know that my people are not the only ones who are coming.’