North Cape

"Hell, how were you to know that he would take off? You weren't watching him. You were watching for the Russians. If there is any fault here at all, it's mine. We should probably have rigged up something to wake us…" Folsom shook his head. The "whatif" line of excuse-making was a waste of energy. He stood up and took a last look at the Russians through the glasses, then swept the east once more. The two scouts had almost reached the tent. He knew it could not take them much longer to find out that their quarry had flown the coop. Whether they would automatically assume that the Americans had left ahead of them or would discover their tracks was a toss-up. In either case he wanted to get as far away as possible. Nothing had shown on the eastern horizon yet, but somewhere out there another Russian party was approaching. He wished to God he could get in touch with Larkin. Suddenly he felt completely inadequate to cope with the situation.

"Come on, let's go," he said quietly, starting south again along the parallel set of tracks that Teleman had left.

Teleman's tracks were becoming more and more irregular as they trudged on. Shortly they came upon the spot where their quarry had first fallen. The depression in the snow, almost invisible in the uncertain light, showed that he had fallen cleanly and gotten up again without hesitation. Not daring to pause, the three sailors pushed on. Now the pace that Folsom had set was beginning to wear heavily. Their breath was coming in gasps of exhaustion, their half run, half trot beginning to flag. When they reached the second indentation in the fresh snow surface Folsom waved them to a halt. Gasping for breath and leaning heavily on their carbines, they knelt in the snow. Finally, after a few minutes, McPherson dragged himself forward a few yards and came back with Teleman's insulated canteen. The three looked at one another and with the same thought were up and running at once. Within the next few hundred yards they found his carbine, the lightweight pack, and finally the spot where he had fallen the third time.

Folsom looked around wildly but the horizon ahead was bare. In the past few minutes the aurora borealis had grown in intensity, but its wild gyrations made visibility even poorer. All three were gasping hoarsely for breath, barely this side of collapse themselves. But not once did they stop to consider their own bodies. The thought uppermost in their minds was: If they were this bad off, how much worse was Teleman?

With a hoarse command from Folsom, they started forward again. By now they had come three miles from the tent. The tent and the Russians were lost in the gloom on the northern horizon. For the first time since he had landed on the. North Cape, Folsom began to hope for a resurgence in the high winds that had buffeted them all through the day, or better yet, another blizzard. Given either to wipe out the last traces of their trail and they might win yet. But the cloudless sky offered the hope of neither. They were running again, running with the desperation of exhausted men who must run to save their lives and that of a comrade. Under the eerily lighted sky they raced on across the snow-covered expanse of the tundra plain in pursuit of the staggering track of the delirious pilot.

Once they stopped for a brief rest and Folsom searched the horizon with the binoculars. There was no sign of pursuit in any direction. But he knew that condition would not last. Then they were off again, to stop almost immediately. Gadsen had seen it first, a lump of rags huddled into the snow.

Complete and utter silence had descended over the vast reaches of the North Cape. Along the shore the storm-raised combers continued to pound against the rock with monotonous regularity. But inland nothing moved on the plain of snow. It was as if the cold had frozen even the air into immobility. Folsom knelt down by Teleman's body and turned him over slowly. He pushed back the neck flap, pulled off one of his own gloves and felt for a heartbeat.

"I'll be damned. He's still alive," he said wonderingly. "You're kidding," Gadsen said, dropping down beside him. "How the hell could he be?". Folsom shook his head and rebuttoned Teleman's neck flap. "You've got me. Now, how do we get him out of here?"

McPherson shrugged out of his pack and reslung his rifle. "I'll carry him."

CHAPTER 19

The strident sounds of the battle alarm echoed through the ship. No practice situation now; each crew member understood fully that this was the real thing. Lieutenant Commander Bridges, strapped into the seat of the executive officer's console, watched the battle lights flick from amber to green as each station reported in. A hard knot of both fear and excitement was building in his stomach as the track of the submarine, relayed to his console from the large bridge display, began to move steadily towards the battle cruiser.