Killer

His mind raced. There was only one cause for a fogbank as high, as solid and as well-defined as this one: a warm current, its surface evaporating into the icy air. A warm current.

Even as he stood there, gazing at the silent white wall, they were swept into it.

Job’s head appeared through the tent-flap. The Eskimo paused, looked around, and crawled out.

“Bad,” he said.

“Oh, I don’t know . . .”

The fog swirled, thickened, thinned in its own mysterious dance, blanketed them completely. The others came out and stared, bewildered. In moments the size of their world had shrunk from thousands of square miles of sea and ice to a few square yards. Instinctively they drew together into a huddle as though they now had less space to occupy. In moments they were all beaded with droplets of water.

“There’s nothing we can do,” said Job, his voice strangely hushed.

Simon looked around wildly. “But the fucking ice is going to melt!”

Job shrugged, and repeated, “There’s nothing we can do.”

“If we wait long enough, we can swim,” said Kate, with a wry smile.

“Oh, we’ll have drifted to the Shetland Islands long before that!” sneered Quick.

So, tired out in any case, they went to bed, Kate and her father sharing one tent, Simon moving in with Ross and Job in the other.

As he composed himself for sleep, Job heard the song of a killer calling to the pack, and, distantly, a reply.

There was a scratch at the tent-flap.

“Yes?” called Quick, waking instantly, and Kate stuck her head in.

“Breakfast?” she asked.

“Great,” said Quick. “Bacon, eggs, fried bread, sausages, toast, coffee. Porridge. Please.”

“Coffee I can manage. Anything else you’d better find for yourself. It’s all in the supply tent. Somewhere.”

“I’ll go and look,” he said, cheerfully amenable. “I’ve got a good idea where most things are.”

“Good,” she said, pleased and mildly surprised by the new face of the little man.

Quick himself would have been hard-put to explain his light mood. He began to dress.

“Mind where you’re putting your goddamned elbows,” snarled Ross, still half asleep.

Job, awake now also, shook his head. Quick was still smiling when he stumbled out into the fog.

One of the things which was affecting Colin’s mood was his left arm. It had now been several days since he had removed the false limb for any length of time, and it was chafing painfully against the bruised areas where the arm itself and the straps had cut into him when the polar bear had lifted him off his feet. He waited, therefore, until Job had also left the tent, then he stripped off his vest and unstrapped the length of plastic and steel. He briefly examined the slightly crusted welts across the pale expanse of his chest, shrugged his lop-sided shrug and got dressed without it.

When he came a little self-consciously out of the tent some time later, Job and Kate were sitting beside the fire tray. Of Simon and Doc Warren there was no sign. Kate’s eyes swept briefly over him, pausing on his left arm with its empty sleeve neatly folded and tucked into his pocket; her eyebrows rose a little, and she smiled. It was a warm smile which seduced a fleeting grin out of him. The air was heavy with the smell of cooking and the tang of coffee. Ross’s mood lightened a little.

“Morning,” he said.

“Morning,” she said in the same tone.

“Where are Simon and your father?”

“Gone off somewhere.” She gestured into the fog.

He frowned fleetingly and glanced at Job who shrugged and said, “They’ll be careful.”

“They’d better be. God knows what it’s like out there.”

“They’ve taken the axe,” Kate said.

“Oh great,” said Ross. “That’ll help. We’ll just have to hope Nootaikok is in a good mood.”

“Who is Nootaikok?” asked Kate.

“Ask Job later. He’ll tell you about them all.”

“Anyway,” said Kate, concentrating on the business in hand, “do you want some breakfast or not?”

He realised how hungry he was, and sat down beside her. “Love some. What have we got?” With a gleeful flourish she produced a plate covered by another, and handed them to him. They were hot. He balanced them on his knees and slipped the top plate off.

Bacon, sausages, reconstituted eggs, baked beans.

“Simon wanted porridge,” she said, “but we couldn’t find it. That tent’s a shambles.”

“Yes. It’s about time we tidied it up, sorted it out. We should have done it ages ago, but . . .”

The little silence contained much that words might have rendered imprecise – the fact that the final sorting of the supplies would be an acceptance of the fact that they no longer hoped for early rescue. And rescue had been on all their minds. Hope was necessary to their continued existence, and it was necessary to keep it alive: they were all adults, they all knew it, they all worked at keeping it alive.

“Well,” said Colin, as he finished his breakfast and his third cup of coffee, “I’ll see about sorting out the tent then. Heavens knows how long this’ll last for.” He looked at Job in half-enquiry.

“Not for long,” said Job. “There will be a breeze soon.”