The search party marches out into the darkness. Instantly the wind assaults them, the screaming rush of it. The flames of the paraffin torches billow and hiss and threaten to extinguish. Their eyes water, their ears ring. They find themselves having to push against the wind as though it were a solid mass, their heads bent low.
The adrenaline is coursing through them, it’s them versus the elements. A feeling remembered from boyhood – deep, unnameable, feral – stirring memories of nights not altogether unlike this. Them against the dark.
They move forward, slowly. The longish tract of land between the Folly and the marquee, hemmed in by the peat bog on either side: this is where they will begin their search. They call out: ‘Is anyone out there?’ and ‘Is anyone hurt?’ and ‘Can you hear us?’
There is no reply. The wind seems to swallow their voices.
‘Maybe we should spread out!’ Femi shouts. ‘Speed up the search.’ ‘Are you mad?’ Angus replies. ‘When there’s a bog in either
direction? None of us knows where it starts. And especially not in the dark. I’m not – I’m not frightened. But I don’t fancy finding, you know
… shit on my own.’
So they remain close together, within touching distance.
‘She must have screamed pretty loud,’ Duncan shouts. ‘That waitress.
To be heard over this.’
‘She must have been terrified,’ Angus shouts. ‘You scared, Angus?’
‘No. Fuck off, Duncan. But it’s – it’s really hard to see—’
His words are lost to a particularly vicious gust. In a shower of sparks, two of the big paraffin torches are snuffed out like birthday candles.
Their bearers keep the metal supports anyway, holding them out in front like swords.
‘Actually,’ Angus shouts. ‘Maybe I am a bit. Is that so shameful?
Maybe I’m not enjoying being out here in a bloody gale, or … or looking forward to what we might find—’
His words are cut off by a panicked cry. They turn, holding their torches aloft to see Pete grasping at the air, the lower half of one leg submerged.
‘Stupid fucker,’ Duncan shouts, ‘must have wandered away from the drier part.’ He’s relieved though, they all are. For a moment they thought Pete had found something.
They haul him out.
‘Jesus,’ Duncan shouts, as Pete, freed, sprawls on hands and knees at their feet, ‘you’re the second person we’ve had to rescue today. Femi and I found Charlie’s wife squealing like a stuck pig earlier in this bloody bog.’
‘The bodies …’ Pete moans, ‘in the bog …’
‘Oh pack it in, Pete,’ Duncan shouts angrily. ‘Don’t be an idiot.’ He swings his torch nearer to Pete’s face, turns to the others. ‘Look at his eyes – he’s tripping out of his mind. I knew it. Why did we bring him? He’s a bloody liability.’
They are all relieved when Pete falls silent. No one mentions the bodies again. It is a piece of folklore, they know this. They can dismiss it – albeit less easily than they might in the light of day, when everything felt more familiar. But they can’t dismiss the purpose of their own mission, the possibility of what they may find. There are real dangers out here, the landscape unfamiliar and treacherous in the dark. They are only now beginning to realise it fully. To understand just how unprepared they are.
