North Cape

While he waited, Folsom scanned the area ahead with the binoculars, knowing that the roughest part of the journey still lay ahead. Seen through the field glasses, the tundra in front of them appeared little different from what lay behind unless one noted the low ridges and hummocks that marked the edge of the coastal cliffs. How high, and how rugged they would be to negotiate, he had no idea. He only hoped that they would not prove impassable. The edge of the cliffs were, he judged, now less than a mile ahead. He swept the glasses to the north, but the terrain was bare of any movement or sign of life. As the others drifted up he hunkered down on his heels and waited. The continuous walking through the savage, subzero cold was fast reducing them to walking ghosts. The euphoria that had infused them on leaving the tent had long since evaporated during the gruelling hike. Folsom knew that the stick figures in their flapping Arctic gear clustering around him were close to the very last extreme of physical effort. If any of them felt the way he did… and Teleman for one was in even worse condition… Briefly he described the route ahead. All knew that the only information about the cliffs came from the topographical map he carried in his pocket. How reliable it was, they did not know. Guriously enough, their lives might depend in the next few hours on some remote German cartographer of the defunct Third Reich Vermacht The map had originally been drawn for the Nazi Occupation forces in Norway. Teleman groaned and got to his feet, swinging his arms. "Hell man, I don't care how hard it's going to be, let's just get it over with. If I spend much more time in the great outdoors, all you'll have left to carry back will be a solid block of ice." Folsom nodded and stood up. "Okay with me too. But don't say I didn't warn you." The small party struck out toward the fringing hummocks. After a few hundred yards the hummocks began to turn into slab-sided hills as they emerged in the deceptive light. Shortly the party had reached the base of the first line of hills and began the steep climb to the top. Before they had gained half the distance Folsom ordered a halt while they tied themselves in line with a length of nylon rope. In their weakened condition a misstep resulting in a fall would take the individual all the way back down. And they did not have strength to waste reclimbing hills. It took the four men twenty minutes of climbing to reach the gently rolling crest, less than four hundred feet above the level of the plain. Folsom untied the rope from his waist and walked forward to where the downward slope began and-pulled the field glasses from beneath his parka.

Standing on the crest of the hill, he could make out the sheen of the fjord waters below. Between the hill on which he stood and the final line of cliffs leading down to the fjord were a series of rugged and broken hillocks and cols of bare rock, resembling the snaggle-toothed mouth of some mythical Scandinavian giant wrenched up from the fringing rock.

Disappointment crashed down on Folsom. They would have at least another hour of rugged climbing before they could reach the fjord. And then there still remained the hike to the Norwegian naval base, out of sight around a headland a mile or so north. So damn close… so damn close…

Folsom turned away from the depressing scene and trudged back to where the others waited and sank down beside them.

"There's a stiff climb ahead," he said bitterly. "Another hour of climbing before we hit the cliffs." He picked up his, carbine and fiddled with the stock. After a moment of silence, McPherson stood up and took the glasses to search the horizon to the east and north. The four-hundred-foot height of the. hill gave him a wide scope of vision. hi the uncertain light he almost thought he had spotted their tent far to the north and east, but when he tried to find it again, he failed. Finally he swung around restlessly and went back to the far side of the hill. The spectral figures of Folsom, Teleman, and Gadsen joined °him as he went past.