Travels Through An Imaginary Landscape

Onwards, Part One

          “We’ll have to go up and take a look.”

          I gazed up the narrow shaft at the hatch which hovered about fifteen feet above our heads. “I’m not going up there. It’s dangerous.”

          “Not necessarily.”

          “Very possibly.”

          “We’ll just take a quick peek then.”

          “It only takes a second to get your head shot off.”

         “Well, how else do we work out which way to go?” demanded Michael.

          I glanced along the grey, dank tunnel in which we were standing and sighed. That was not an easy question to answer. About ten feet from where we stood the tunnel forked, heading off in two different directions. There were no signposts, no markers, no notices. Just two bare passageways heading off into darkness.

          This was what came of trying to play it safe. Following Sid’s instructions the journey from Havana had run pretty smoothly for two days. Until we had come to The War Zone.

          To be strictly accurate it was actually a Zone of Several Wars, with a number of disparate battles and scraps being carried out in close proximity. The landscape of the imagination being home to a good number of conflicts, it was apparently quite common for them to cluster together in such fashion. It meant that by and large the fighters could get on with their squabbles without getting in the way of more peaceable landscape dwellers. Unfortunately, as our journey took us slap bang through the heart of the zone, it posed a not inconsiderable hazard.

          However, a helpful battle surgeon thoughtfully took time out from patching up the casualties of a Napoleonic skirmish to point us in the direction of a series of tunnels that ran beneath the whole zone. This seemed to be the ideal solution for getting from one side to the other in one piece.

          But then we had hit this fork in the road. Having trudged through dark, mouldy passages for the last few hours we had pretty much completely lost our bearings. And consulting Sid’s directions had offered no assistance as his notes related only to what was going on above ground. So now we were stuck. The only way to figure out which way to go would be to stick our heads above the parapet.

          “After you then Redgrave,” I eventually said, nodding towards the ladder which ran up the side of the shaft to the hatch above.

          “Why do I always have to go first?” complained Michael.

          “Because I imagine it will be slightly less of a trauma for you to get your head blown off, given the fact that you are already dead.”

          “You know you can really overplay that ‘I’m still alive’ card,” grumbled Michael. Nonetheless, he reluctantly grasped the lower rungs and slowly began to climb. I cautiously mounted the ladder behind him.

          It took a hefty shove from Michael to get the hatch to open but eventually it gave way with a low groan. Immediately the dank smell of the tunnel gave way to a welcome breath of fresh air. Michael hesitated for a moment then warily poked his head up through the opening and looked around.

          “It’s all clear,” he called down with just a hint of disappointment in his voice. He wriggled his shoulders up through the slender gap and then hauled himself through onto the ground beyond. I followed suit.

          We found ourselves standing in the centre of a lush green valley, the ground sloping gently up to a blind ridge on either side. All that could be seen was a vista of cloudless sky and damp grass. No landmarks, no features and, indeed, no combatants anywhere in sight.