Harvest

'I don't care.'

'I'm going up to take a look. Come with me.'

'I'm sleeping.'

'You've been sleeping a whole day and night. Don't you want to see land? We must be near land. Why would the ship stop in the middle of the ocean?' Yakov bent closer to Aleksei, his whispers softly enticing. 'Maybe we can see the lights. America.You'll miss it unless you come with me.'

Aleksei sighed, stirred a bit, not quite certain what he wanted to do.

Yakov threw out the ultimate lure. 'I saved a potato from supper,' he said. 'I'll give it to you. But only if you come up with me.'

Aleksei had missed supper, and lunch as well. A potato would be heaven. 'All right, all right.' Aleksei sat up and began buckling on his shoes. 'Where's the potato?'

'First we go up.'

'You're an asshole, Yakov.'

They tiptoed past the double bunks of sleeping boys and climbed the stairway, to the deck.

Outside, a soft wind was blowing. They looked over the railing, straining for a view of city lights, but the stars met only a black and formless horizon.

'I don't see anything,' said Aleksei. 'Give me my potato.'

Yakov produced the treasure from his pocket. Aleksei squatted down and devoured it right there, cold, like a wild animal.

Yakov turned and looked up towards the bridge. He could see the greenish glow of the radar screen through the window, and the silhouette of a man standing watch. The Navigator. What did he see from that lonely perch of his?

Aleksei had finished his potato. Now he stood up and said: 'I'm going to bed.'

'We can look for more food in the galley.'

'I don't want to see another mouse.' Aleksei began to feel his way across the deck. 'Besides, I'm cold.'

'I'm not cold.'

'Then you stay out here.'

They had just reached the stairway when they heard a series of sharp thuds. Suddenly the deck was ablaze with light. Both boys froze, blinking at the unexpected glare.

Yakov grabbed Aleksei's hand and tugged him under the bridge stairway, where they crouched, peering out between the steps. They heard voices and saw two men walk into the circle of floodlights. Both men were wearing white overalls. Together they bent down and gave something a tug. There was a scrape of metal as some kind of cover was forced aside. It revealed a new light, this one blue. It shone at the centre of the floodlit circle, like the forbidding iris of an eye.

'Bloody mechanics,' one of the men said. 'They'll never get this repaired.'

Both men straightened and looked up at the sky. Towards the distant growl of thunder.

Yakov, too, looked up. The thunder was moving closer. No longer just a growl, it deepened to a rhythmic whup-whup. The two men retreated from the floodlights. The sound drew right overhead, churning the night like a tornado.

Aleksei clapped his hands over his ears and shrank deeper into the shadows. Yakov did not. He watched, unflinching, as the helicopter descended into the wash of light and touched down on the deck.

One of the men in overalls reappeared, running bent at the waist. He swung open the helicopter door. Yakov could not see what was inside; the stairway post was blocking his direct view. He eased out from the shadows, moving out onto the deck just far enough to see around the post. He caught a glimpse of the pilot and one passenger — a man.

'Hey!' came a shout from overhead. 'You! Boy!'

Yakov glanced straight up and saw the navigator peering down at him from the bridge deck.

'What are you doing down there? You come up here right now, before you get hurt! Come on!'

The man in overalls had spotted the boys too, and was crossing towards them. He did not look pleased.

Yakov scurried up the stairway. Aleksei, in a panic, was right on his heels.

'Don't you know enough to stay off the main deck when a chopper's landing?' yelled the navigator. He gave Aleksei a whack on the rump and pulled them inside, into the wheelhouse. He pointed to two chairs. 'Sit. Both of you.'

'We were just watching,' saidYakov. 'You two are supposed to be in bed.'

'I was in bed,' whimpered Aleksei. 'He made me come out.'

'Do you know what a chopper rotor can do to a boy's head? Do you?' The navigator slashed a hand across Aleksei's skinny neck. 'Just like that. Your head goes flying straight off. And blood shoots everywhere. Quite spectacular. You think I'm joking, don't you? Believe me,! don't go down there when the chopper comes.! stay the hell away. But if you want your stupid heads sliced off, be my guests. Go on.'

Aleksei sobbed, 'I wanted to stay in bed!'

The roar of the helicopter made them all turn to look. They watched as it lifted into the sky, the rotor wash whipping the overalls of the two men standing on deck. It made a slow ninety-degree turn, then veered off, to be swallowed up by the night. Only a soft rumble lingered, fading away like retreating thunder.

'Where does it go?' askedYakov.

'You think they tell me?' said the navigator. 'They just call me when it's coming in for a pickup and I turn the bow into the wind. That's all.' He reached for one of the panel switches and flicked it.

The floodlights were instantly extinguished. The main deck vanished into darkness.

Yakov pressed close to the bridge window. The chopper rumble was gone now. In every direction stretched the blackness of the sea.

Aleksei was still crying.

'Stop it now,' said the navigator. He gave Aleksei a scolding slap on the shoulder. 'A boy your age, acting like a woman.'

'But what does it come for? The helicopter?' askedYakov. 'I told you. A pickup.'

'What does it pick up?'

'I don't ask. I just do what they tell me.'

'Who?'

'The passengers in the aft cabin.' He tugged Yakov away from the window and gave him a push towards the door. 'Go back to

HARVEST

your bunks. Can't you see I have work to do?'

Yakov was following Aleksei to the door when his gaze lit on the radar screen. So many times before, he'd stared at that screen, transfixed by the hypnotic sweep of the line tracing its three hundred and sixty-degree arc. Now he stood before it again, watching the line circle around and around. He saw it at once, a small white sliver at the edge of the screen.

'Is it another ship?' Yakov asked. 'There, on the radar.' He pointed

to the sliver which suddenly pulsed whiter as the line swept over it. 'What else would it be? Get out of here.'

The boys went outside and clattered down the bridge stairway to the main deck. Yakov glanced up and saw, against the green glow of the bridge window, the navigator's silhouette. Watching. Always watching.

And he said: 'Now I know where the helicopter goes.'

Pyotr andValentin were not at breakfast. By then the news of their departure during the night had already spread toYakov's cabin, so when he sat down at the table that morning and faced the row of boys sitting across from him, he knew the reason for their silence. They did not understand, any of them, why Pyotr and Valentin should be the first to leave the ship, the first to be chosen. Pyotr, they'd all thought from the start, would be among the leftovers, or would be consigned to some unlikely family who favoured idiot children. Valentin, who'd joined the group in Riga, had been clever enough, handsome enough, but he had a secret perversion known to the younger boys. After the lights went out at night, he would crawl into their bunks without his underwear, would