Red Ice

Even if the gradient had permitted, it was unwise to travel too long in a straight line. Since you couldn’t cover your tracks you had to hope they’d drift over, but often they didn’t. Each night before bivouacking, we left tracks in an ever-diminishing coil—resembling a watch spring—with the campsite at the center. In this way, we could hear pursuing trackers as they traipsed around us. At this point in our journey it was too demanding a drain on our manpower to post sentries. Half the group would be dead on their feet the next morning. Instead, we relied on our mobility and camouflage to protect us. As a further safeguard, Gurung strung alarm trip wires around the camp—high enough so animals wouldn’t trip them, low enough so humans would.

I realized we would soon have to change from night to day travel. The terrain was growing more rugged and we were hitting stretches of black taiga—thick expanses of fir and spruce, which made hauling the ahkio a nightmare. Secondly, cloud cover was creeping in from the west and would soon obscure the stars. Soon I would be forced to navigate by terrain features and my sun compass alone. Clouds did not hamper its value, but it required daylight.

Fatigue began to show in the men’s faces. No matter how well you prepared your tent and sleeping gear, you were never quite warm. Every time you shifted position in your sleeping bag, it took five minutes to get warm enough to sleep again. No one slept soundly and a heightened sense of survival stirred you awake at the snap of a frozen twig. Cooking was a miserable cycle of fumblings. First taking your mittens off to adjust something, then hurriedly jamming the same mittens on to numbed fingers in the futile hope of getting them warm again. Yet though cooking was torture, not cooking—and thereby forfeiting the fuel that kept you warm and moving—meant disaster.

The psychological strain was telling, too. Bundled in innumerable layers of hooded clothing, you found it easy to withdraw into yourself. It was called going “into the cocoon.” Though the hood brought warmth, it restricted your hearing and field of vision. Your thinking became sluggish and you were soon oblivious to all. When an entire group entered their individual cocoons, lethargy gained the upper hand and carelessness set in.

I decided to stop though we had only covered fifteen miles. Over the past hours, as each pair had taken the ahkio, their irritations erupted into hushed arguments, and those arguments generated wasted heat. It was time for a rest. I noted the temperature was thirty degrees below zero and the barometer steady.

I awoke at midday, bundled up, and left the tent to relieve myself. This routine function was always one of the most traumatic chores of cold-weather travel. When my urine sizzled as it hit the snow I knew something was wrong. I checked my thermometer again. It read fifty degrees below zero.

“Pass the word to the others,” I called to Wickersham and Gurung’s tent. “We’re not traveling until the temperature goes up. It’s fifty below. Not safe to move.” Chamonix rolled over in his sleeping bag and muttered some elegant French profanity. The sun played lightly on the side of the tent—very lightly.

Chamonix boiled water for the rations over the small stove. In the next tent Puckins was doing sleight-of-hand tricks for Gurung. Gurung gave amused yelps.

The ascetic old legionnaire whistled tunelessly. For the first time since I had known him, the muscles at the ends of his mouth had unconsciously bunched upward. My curiosity was aroused.

“Why all the radiant good cheer? Fifty below doesn’t usually hit people that way.”

Torn from his thoughts, he looked up at me puzzled. “I don’t know. Perhaps it’s we’re out here—free of them. Free of noncombatants who retain us, and more often than not, betray us. No one’s really free of them, I guess, but at least out here I can cultivate the illusion. Yes, for the moment I’m free of their fickle hypocrisy, and among warriors whose codes are simple, often constant.”

Chamonix poured the hot water into the ration wrapper and stirred it into the freeze-dried contents. The aroma of pork and rice filled the tent. He remained quiet for a time but I sensed he wasn’t through.

“It’s more than that. Funny, no? How some things can set you thinking. This useless little burner reminds me of my wife and Algeria.”

“Wife? I didn’t know you had a wife.” I knew very little about his private life. He’d revealed only the barest minimum of personal background to apply for the assignment.

“A wife and child, both dead.”

He became silent again. I knew not to prod him.