Outpost

‘Let’s see if that does any good.’

They returned to the observation bubble and threw their coats over a chair.

‘This is refinery platform Kasker Rampart, can you hear me, over?’

‘ Hello? Hello? ’

‘This is Rampart. Go ahead.’

‘Thank God. Thank Christ. This is drilling station Kasker Raven. Hope you’re in better shape than us, Rampart. We could use your help. ’

Kalashnikov. Four rotting cabins facing the sea. A wooden Orthodox church with an onion dome. Wooden grave markers.

Jane tethered the boat to the jetty. She climbed ashore. Punch passed her backpacks.

The cabins had been built by whalers. They had partially collapsed. Rooms choked with roof beams and snow. The little church was intact. Some of the fittings were a hundred years old. Rotted pews. A rotted altar.

The back room. A blubber stove with a cobwebbed flue. A shelf loaded with antique supplies. Fry’s cocoa. Heinz Indian relish. Tins of boiled cabbage.

The floor was littered with modern camping detritus. Empty stove canisters. Food wrappers. A ripped sleeping bag.

Jane found a box. Calorie bars and a couple of cans.

‘Eight years old,’ said Jane, checking the expiration date. ‘Probably still edible.’

‘Bit of a wasted trip. The place is good for firewood, I suppose.’

‘What’s worth more right now, do you think? By weight. Bullion or a packet of peanuts?’

They stood in the doorway and watched sunset. Mid-afternoon. Eighteen hours of night.

‘By mid-winter the ocean will be frozen,’ said Punch. ‘You could walk to the Canadian mainland. A fifteen-hundred-kilometre hike. Pitch dark and minus fifty, but if you, me and Sian took the snowmobiles and a sledge loaded with fuel we could get a hell of a long way before we had to ski.’

‘Global warming. The sea freezes less and less each year. No guarantee we would reach Canada.’

‘Worth a shot.’

‘And leave everyone else behind?’

‘Too many of us. An entire football team. I doubt it’s possible to get us all home, by land or sea.’

‘I read a lot of travel books before I came here. Fantasised what it would be like. I read Scott’s journal. Those last entries as they froze to death in that tent. "Had we lived, I should have made a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman." I got totally caught up in the romance.’

‘Scott was a self-aggrandising dick.’

‘That’s my point. Shackleton got his men home. Shipwrecked on an ice floe. Couple of lifeboats. Bit of food. He got them home. Every single one.’

They closed the door and used the ripped sleeping bag to plug holes in the frame.

Punch unfolded a map.

‘One or two research stations on this side of the island. Marine biologists. Geologists. Most of them like Apex: little more than a couple of tents. Pretty much all of them will have been evacuated for winter.’

‘This one?’

‘McClure. Seismologists, I think.’

‘Walking distance?’

‘Yeah, what the fuck.’

Jane unpacked the radio.

‘Shore team to Rampart, do you copy, over?’

She waited for a reply, but instead heard a strange tocking sound like the crackle of a Geiger counter.

‘Atmospherics?’ suggested Punch.

Jane re-tuned.

‘Shore team to Rampart.’

‘Rampart here.’ Sian’s voice.

‘We made it to Kalashnikov, over.’

‘ Tell Punch we miss him. Rawlins is brewing some atrocity in the kitchen. Regurgitated egg, I think.’

‘That ticking noise. Can you hear it at your end?’

‘It comes and goes. It’s not our equipment.’

‘We’ll move on at first light.’

‘Did you find anything?’

Jane picked up one of the calorie bars and turned it in her hand.

‘No. There’s nothing here.’

‘You could tow us. Rope your boat to a raft and tow us. ’

The guy from Raven sounded tired and desperate.

‘A zodiac could make it. It would take a couple of days, but it could make the trip.’

Rawlins thought it over. Nikki sat at the back of the observation bubble and watched him deliberate.

‘No. Sorry, but no. If you were in my position you’d say the same thing. It would take more than a couple of days. The motor would burn out. And that little boat is the only sea-going vessel we have.’

Raven was a drilling platform seven hundred miles north on the other side of the Kasker oil field. Seven men running out of fuel. They were crowded in a single room, wearing survival suits for warmth.

‘We can keep the lights on another couple of weeks. Basic power. After that, we’ll freeze for real.’

‘I can’t do it, Ray. I’m responsible for the men on this rig. I can’t risk them, and I can’t risk the boat.’

‘So you’re going to let us die? Is that what you’re going to do? Wash your hands?’

‘You’re not going to die, Ray. Just chill the fuck out. Give me twenty-four hours, okay? I’ll talk to some of the lads. We’ll put our heads together. We’ll thrash out a workable plan, all right? Let us think it through.’

Rawlins signed off. He sat back and rubbed his eyes.

‘Must be tough,’ said Sian. ‘Being boss in a situation like this.’