Killer

Quick knew this, and it was part of his desperation: a natural leader, he had felt keenly the pressures of taking orders, even from his closest friend, and now that things had gone so badly wrong, he had to make a move away from Colin to try to save his two men. Yet he was well aware that in doing so he was giving in to a selfish feeling which bordered on cowardice: he was not man enough, he thought, to trust the ultimate responsibility to his friend, even though he knew that Colin was a better cold-weather man than he could ever hope to be. That was what lay at the root of it, he knew; and this was his last chance to prove himself. He had to grasp it, live or die.

But Jeremiah was speaking again. “Even Scott could not make it, Captain. Even Scott, and he had Wilson and Bowers. Great men all, and fighters to the end.” He shook his head. His eyes moved to the huge Scot, McCann, and the wiry Cockney, Smith.

“Smith!” he rapped out.

After a moment, Smith replied in a dull, dead voice, “Sir?”

“Why are you here, Smith?” Jeremiah asked.

“Orders, sir.”

“Where would you like to be?”

“Home, sir, wiv the old lady. By the fire. Home.” His eyes moved round the cramped tent, not really seeing anything. “God, I wish I was at home and out of this. Well out.”

“Will you get home?”

“Nah. No way. It’s all up, innit?”

Jeremiah looked at Robin Quick. There was no need for him to say more. Quick hated him then, hated all his calm acceptance which was so different from the hopeless collapse of his own men. For all he sat there half asleep, unmoved by it all, the Eskimo would fight to the last fibre of his being, and would fight beside Colin in a way Quick could never do. The captain made a brief guttural sound which was lost in the relentless cacophony of the wind, and turned away.

After a while, Ross switched off the pressure lamp. They went into a bottomless pit of black exhaustion. Outside, the storm screamed like a wounded giant, rolling madly on the ice, tearing at the heavy sky with wild fingers, drumming its thunderous heels on the frail, frozen tent, and crying tears of ice, gnashing its iron teeth, bleeding in fountains, and whirlwinds, and deadly drifts of snow.

When Ross woke up, they were gone. They had taken, as had been agreed, almost all the supplies out of the tent, leaving only the lamp and the stove, with enough food to last a few more days if Ross and Jeremiah chose to wait. Quick had also left a letter, written in a scrawl horribly different from his usual neat copperplate script:

Colin,

I have to take this chance: it is the only chance we have to save something from all this. If you do not make it, we might: and vice-versa. It is a hellish way to part after so many years, I know, and I can only explain it in that terrible old cliché we have laughed at so often in Western films: I have to do what I have to do. That’s all there is to it. I think I see a chance where you see none, and I have to grasp it because I see no hope in waiting for Job. God help whichever one of us is wrong.

If we are both lucky, I will see you at Evans or Edward VII, and we will laugh about this.

If you do not make it, I will look after your affairs as though you were my brother.

If I do not make it, look after Charlie and young Simon. See to Mrs. Smith, and McCann’s mother in Greenock.

God help us all,

Robin.

With it was a short note:

To Whom It May Concern,

I hereby relieve Colin Ross of all responsibility for anything that might happen to myself, Sergeant Albert Smith and Corporal Hamish McCann, in that by leaving this place at this time we have contravened the orders of Mr. Ross, the leader of this expedition, and have disregarded his advice.

It was signed by Robin, Smith and McCann. Beside the note, they had left some keepsakes, unimportant trinkets to go to their families if the worst should happen.

There were tears in Ross’s eyes as he looked at Jeremiah.

“He did it. I never really thought he would.”

“When you looked at him you saw only your friend. You did not see the desperate man.”

“Desperate? What about, for heaven’s sake?”

Jeremiah’s gesture took in the tent, the storm, the glaciers, the plateau, the Pole itself.

“What shall I tell them?”

“You are so sure you will tell anyone anything?”

Ross’s head came up. His eyes were as cold as the ice. “I have never doubted,” he said.

“You should have looked at Quick like that more often.”

“But perhaps he also saw only a friend.”

Jeremiah nodded: it was undoubtedly true. He saw another man to the man Quick had seen. That much was obvious, otherwise Quick would still be here.

Jeremiah never doubted that Colin at least would come out alive. And he had another advantage over Quick: even if their radio messages had not been received, they were so long overdue that he knew for certain that Job would come. Jeremiah had an immense respect for his younger brother; and he knew that not even the worst the white south could do would stop him.

“Do we sit and wait for Job?” he asked.