Killer

“Apart from about ten acres in the centre of the floe, in this plain, it’s all highly dangerous. Even the apparently safe and stable ten acres of the plain here might prove treacherous.” He spoke forcefully, they stared dully. “I have said that it should be about seven feet thick. But please remember that even with a thickness of seven feet, the water is still close: the water level is, in fact, little more than a foot beneath you. Please try and remember that no matter how flat and stable and safe the ice may look, there is always the possibility that it may not take your weight. This is not a pavement, a floor. It is a thin layer like glass between you and water so cold it could shock you to death instantly if you fall in. Is that all clear?”

They continued to stare dully at him, saying nothing.

“Now,” he continued, a little desperately, “the question of rescue.”

That stirred them a little, but not enough to elicit any reply.

“Hiram broadcast the position of the crash on the radio. How much further did we travel before we actually touched down?”

The co-pilot shrugged. “Thousand yards. Two.”

“So they will be looking for us within a mile of our present site . . .”

“I thought you said the pack drifted.” Simon Quick, belligerent. “And anyway won’t the floe move faster than the rest of the pack now it’s loose?”

Ross was really too tired for these games. He answered almost spitefully. “Much faster. About ten miles a day. Maybe fifteen.”

That shook even Quick. He went white. “You mean that if they don’t get here almost immediately, we’ll have drifted miles away?”

“Yes.”

Their interest was almost tangible now. Their concern.

“But they’ll send something immediately, won’t they? A plane?” Kate asked it. Her gaze shifted from Ross to Preston.

He shrugged again. “Depends what they’ve got. There’re planes enough at Barrow I suppose, helicopters.” He looked around them, heavy with news. “But when I sent the Mayday, Barrow said the weather was closing in. A storm. I mean they mightn’t be able to get anything up immediately . . .”

“A ship,” said Kate. “They’ll warn shipping.”

“That’s true, but it will largely be a matter of luck whether or not a ship would see us. They think we’re on the pack, you see . . .”

They sat for some while without saying anything more, dipping cloths into the hot water, cleaning themselves, their movements made vague by fatigue, latent shock, stiffness and cold. There was little else to say, after all.

As they sat, the wind, pushing gently from the east, catching the hills like sails, and the current thrusting restlessly from the Beaufort Sea effortlessly moved the twenty acres of ice away from the location of Preston’s last message. And from Barrow, wrapped at the moment in the worst summer storm in living memory.

The sun was quite high when they collapsed at last into their tents. Ross and Job shared one, Preston and Quick another; Warren and Kate had one each, together, nearest to the sea. The split side of the storage tent billowed lazily in the breeze, the latrine tent flapped and cracked quietly like the sail on a ship.

Ross and Job quickly stripped to their quilted underwear, and, packing their clothes around their sleeping bags to keep them warm and supple, fell swiftly asleep. Ross’s dreams immediately carried him back through five years and over half the world. He began to stir and mutter.

Preston and Quick removed only their boots and fell asleep immediately. Warren, his boots still firmly in place, didn’t even undress or make it into his bag, but wrapped himself in blankets and dozed off hoping they would be rescued before he ran out of tobacco.

Only Kate, in her underwear, wisely surrounded, like Job and Ross, with her clothing, could not sleep. She blamed herself for their predicament. All along the way, when things had gone wrong, she had been there, at the cause. It had been her idea to look at the pack. Her wish to follow the whale. It was her fault they had crashed here. And later, it had been she who had climbed up a wire she knew was live, causing the short, nearly killing herself and blowing up the plane. They would never be found now, with the plane gone. And it was her fault. She was so tired that her normally practical mind accepted the pointless self-accusations, and began to sink deeply into a pit of self-pity.

Abruptly it was all too much for her. She was fourteen again, standing by her mother’s grave; and there was only one person to run to. She dressed quickly and went to his tent. He was sound asleep. She shook him, tears running down her face. “Daddy; Daddy.”

He stirred; turned over. His eyes opened; looked at her vaguely. Remained on her face as he frowned. “Who is it?”

It was too painful. With a sob she turned to run from his tent, but his voice came after her. “Katherine; Kate!”

She paused, turned back.

“I couldn’t see. I didn’t have my glasses on, darling. What was it you wanted, Kate?”