The English Patient

He wiped the area of fuze head dry and began moulding a clay cup around it. Then he unstopped the jar and poured the liquid oxygen into the cup. He taped the cup securely onto the metal. Now he had to wait again.

There was so little space between him and the bomb he could feel the change in temperature already. If he were on dry land he could walk away and be back in ten minutes. Now he had to stand there beside the bomb. They were two suspicious creatures in an enclosed space. Captain Carlyle had been working in a shaft with frozen oxygen and the whole pit had suddenly burst into flames. They hauled him out fast, already unconscious in his harness.

Where was he? Lisson Grove? Old Kent Road?

Kip dipped cotton wool into the muddy water and touched it to the casing about twelve inches away from the fuze. It fell away, so it meant he had to wait longer. When the cotton wool stuck, it meant enough of the area around the fuze was frozen and he could go on. He poured more oxygen into the cup.

The growing circle of frost was a foot in radius now. A few more minutes. He looked at the clipping someone had taped onto the bomb. They had read it with much laughter that morning in the update kit sent to all bomb disposal units.

When is explosion reasonably permissible?

If a man’s life could be capitalized as X, the risk at Y, and the estimated damage from explosion at V, then a logician might contend that if V is less than X over Y, the bomb should be blown up; but if V over Y is greater than X, an attempt should be made to avoid explosion in situ.

Who wrote such things?

He had by now been in the shaft with the bomb for more than an hour. He continued feeding in the liquid oxygen. At shoulder height, just to his right, was a hose pumping down normal air to prevent him from becoming giddy with oxygen. (He had seen soldiers with hangovers use the oxygen to cure headaches.) He tried the cotton wool again and this time it froze on. He had about twenty minutes. After that the battery temperature within the bomb would rise again. But for now the fuze was iced up and he could begin to remove it.

He ran his palms up and down the bomb case to detect any rips in the metal. The submerged section would be safe, but oxygen could ignite if it came into contact with exposed explosive. Carlyle’s flaw. X over Y. If there were rips they would have to use liquid nitrogen.

“It’s a two-thousand-pound bomb, sir. Esau.” Hardy’s voice from the top of the mud pit.

“Type-marked fifty, in a circle, B. Two fuze pockets, most likely. But we think the second one is probably not armed. Okay?”

They had discussed all this with each other before, but things were being confirmed, remembered for the final time.

“Put me on a microphone now and get back.”

“Okay, sir.”

Kip smiled. He was ten years younger than Hardy, and no Englishman, but Hardy was happiest in the cocoon of regimental discipline. There was always hesitation by the soldiers to call him “sir,” but Hardy barked it out loud and enthusiastically.

He was working fast now to prise out the fuze, all the batteries inert.

“Can you hear me? Whistle.… Okay, I heard it. A last topping up with oxygen. Will let it bubble for thirty seconds. Then start. Freshen the frost. Okay, I’m going to remove the dam.… Okay, dam gone.”

Hardy was listening to everything and recording it in case something went wrong. One spark and Kip would be in a shaft of flames. Or there could be a joker in the bomb. The next person would have to consider the alternatives.

“I’m using the quilter key.” He had pulled it out of his breast pocket. It was cold and he had to rub it warm. He began to remove the locking ring. It moved easily and he told Hardy.

“They’re changing guard at Buckingham Palace,” Kip whistled. He pulled off the locking ring and the locating ring and let them sink into the water. He could feel them roll slowly at his feet. It would all take another four minutes.

“Alice is marrying one of the guard. ‘A soldier’s life is terrible hard,’ says Alice!”

He was singing it out loud, trying to get more warmth into his body, his chest painfully cold. He kept trying to lean back far enough away from the frozen metal in front of him. And he had to keep moving his hands up to the back of his neck, where the sun still was, then rub them to free them of the muck and grease and frost. It was difficult to get the collet to grip the head. Then to his horror the fuze head broke away, came off completely.

“Wrong, Hardy. Whole fuze head snapped off. Talk back to me, okay? The main body of the fuze is jammed down there, I can’t get to it. There’s nothing exposed I can grip.”