It is incorrect to say that I regained consciousness.
The word consciousness implies a rapid and one-way transition. There was nothing either rapid or one-way as I progressed through the twilight zone.
I knew I was lying on something hard and wet. The next, the awareness was gone. How long between each bout of consciousness, I couldn't tell. The transformation was gradual.
I opened my eyes until I found a source of dim light. A grilled window high on one wall, just below the roof. I was in a cellar.
I'd made no mistake by the hardness of the floor. Or the wetness. Rough, unfinished concrete with shallow pools of water on it. Malkova dumped me in the centre of the largest puddle.
I lay on the floor on my back. I looked inside the cellar. It was empty and featureless. The window and a closed door. That was it.
It could have been worse. No one poured in water to drown me. Flooded the confined space with a lethal gas. Sent in snakes. There are no black widow spiders. Just the cellar and me.
Take it easy, I said to myself.
Think your way out of this.
So, I thought, as best I could.
It didn't appear to do much good without my head hurting.
And I was freezing. I was still in the hospital gown.
In my bare feet, I risked a couple of hops and peered up through the top window in case my gaoler was playing it cute.
Nothing.
Another couple of hops. I was testing the door handle.
Locked.
I turned my shoulder to the door. With the second barge, the door gave way beneath my weight. It says much for my state of mind that I'd never checked the hinges position to see whether the door opened inwards or outwards. I fell through the doorway on to the concrete passageway outdoors. Anyone waiting out there with the hopeful intention of killing me, he'd never have a better chance.
No one killed me because there was no one waiting there to kill me.
Dazed and sick, I pushed myself to my feet, located a light switch, and clicked it with my shoulder. The naked bulb, hanging at the end of a short flex above my head, remained dead. It could be a dud lamp or blown fuse. But my guess was that it meant no power.
The air possessed a musty lifelessness.
This bespoke long abandonment.
A flight of worn stone steps stretched up into the gloom. With my leg still in excruciating pain, I hopped up the first two steps. Teetered on the point of imbalance. Twisted round and sat before I fell.
The prudent thing to do is keep my centre of gravity low. I reached the top of the stairs. Jack-knifing upwards on the seat of my underpants and the soles of my shoes.
I found the cellar door locked. The lock gave with one hefty shove.
It built them to carry out environmental tests on the atomic bomb.
They designed these tests to mimic the rigours to which they subjected a weapon before detonation, and included vibration, extremes of temperature, shocks, and G forces.
They installed heavy reinforced concrete roofs designed to absorb a blast.
Any objects thrown out by an accidental explosion?
I knew they said no nuclear material was involved, the high explosive initiator was present, and a test failure could have resulted in a catastrophic explosion.
Nuclear weapons contain large amounts of high explosives, designed to compress the fissile material, and start a runaway nuclear reaction.
For this reason, they did even these cleaner tests within special buildings that contain any explosions.
From where I now stood, I could see the vents which sat beneath the concrete roof. A thick layer of dust covered the floor. Streaked by confused tracks of footprints leading from the exit to where I was standing.
I knew now that I was alone. For how long? It appeared a poor idea to waste even a second.
I opened the nearest exit door and hopped out into the heavy, falling rain. Looked around me. I knew where I was.
The small wooden building looked at the lower part of a Dutch windmill. Painted black.
The DEFRA complex illuminated. Search-lights swinging in a wide curve, back and forth across the shingle.
I needed to get off the spit.
But how?
Morning was approaching.
The rain fell.
Before the winter, the raindrops were so ambient. The blessings from the clouds alight on my skin with the coldness of the season ahead. The autumn feels more wintry at this point. They spent the summery half. I tilt my head to the graphite sky and let the water cover my skin. Pushing back winter is pointless.
I headed towards the pier. I was so numb. My feet and hands were numb.
I hobbled across the landscape.
There was no boat moored.
I swam.
Freezing water is the most efficient thief of heat I know. It takes what it does not need. I gasped as my body touched the water, and my blood froze in my veins. As I submerged, my skin turned rough with goosebumps. As I swam, the water made small eddies around my skin. Temperature of the water was chilly enough to overwhelm me, the current strong enough to drag me far out to sea. Concerned by the low temperature, might make my muscles seize. Crossing in such icy water is a compromise. Fast enough not to become hypothermic, and steady enough not to fail.
My heat ran to my core to shelter and hoard the warmth that remained.