"And God saw the light," Alexandr declaimed, flinging his arms wide, "and it was good, and he divided the light from the darkness! I told you that I had never yet seen the diesel engine that I could not make work! Not even after so many years of sitting idle!"
Sam hauled himself up onto one elbow and squinted at the Russian. "You got the lights working?"
Alexandr grinned and hoisted his flask in a salute. "Nastrovje," he smirked. "Miss Nina here could not wait to go exploring, so I had to provide her with light to see by. She was kind enough to translate a few things as we went along."
"It wasn't quite like that," Nina confessed, speaking low enough that only Sam could hear. "I'm excited, yes, but the darkness and the confined space were really getting to me. Alexandr was awake and overheard me trying to talk myself down from a claustrophobic freak-out, so he suggested that we go and see if we could make the lights work."
"Feels like you got the heat working as well," Sam observed. Nina shook her head.
"No. We can't take credit for that, I'm afraid. I don't think it's actually any warmer than it was last night, but we were all too tired and shivery to notice. There are radiators at intervals along the corridors, and all the pipes are warm. There's even a bathroom complete with hot water along the corridor. Just hot, though — no cold. There must be hot springs feeding the water supply, keeping the place warm naturally."
"Hot springs? In Antarctica?"
"You would be surprised," said Alexandr "There are several. Many are below the glaciers, but some are accessible — on Deception Island there are beaches where the springs run so close to the surface that you can dig your own hot tub. It's not allowed any more, no one can legally disturb the ground… but it's still possible." Sam watched the devilish smile spread across Alexandr's face as he spoke. He got the impression that a little thing like the law would never stop Alexandr from doing precisely what he wanted.
"Come on!" Nina dragged Sam's blankets off, snatched up his pile of clothes from the end of the bunk and threw them at him. "Get up! We've got exploring to do and you need to bring your camera. There's something I really need you to get pictures of. It's kind of gruesome, though."
"What is it?"
"There's a furnace up in the engine room," Nina grimaced, "and it looks like someone had an accident up there. Alexandr was taking a look at it and he found a few buttons — someone had obviously burned some clothes, but the fire wasn't hot enough to melt the buttons."
"Wow. Buttons. Scary." Sam rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand and pulled on his sweater.
"Shut it," said Nina. "I haven't got to the creepy bit yet. We found bones in the furnace. Well, bone fragments. It's got a pretty big door. Some poor sod must have tripped and fallen into it."
"Or he got pushed," Sam suggested. "Maybe that's what happened to the Nazis here. Some big Agatha Christie — style murder mystery, but no one solved it so they all got killed. Maybe we'll find the rest of them while we're here, one by one, in all sorts of weird places."
"Grim way to go, however it happened. Now, are you ready? We've got lots to see."
"What about breakfast?" Still too sleepy for anything other than obedience, Sam began hauling his trousers over his thermal underwear.
"There's a sign on the stairwell that says the refectory's downstairs. Alexandr's going to head down and see if there's anything there that works, but we've got time for a quick look around while he gets things going. We won't go too far. Just up and down the stairs. We'll get a rough idea of what's on each level, then we'll head back right in time for a cup of tea and some delicious rehydrated mush. Come on!"
They clanked their way down the metal stairs, stopping on each landing to look down the long corridors. Next to the refectory were more dormitories, and on the level below were individual bedrooms. "Officers' quarters," said Nina, putting her head around a door. "There are plenty to go around. We should move down here and have rooms to ourselves."
Another flight of stairs took them to a corridor that appeared to be almost empty, apart from a single, unmarked door halfway along. Sam forced the stiff handle to turn, and they stepped into a vast, echoing room lit with eerie green light. Unlike the rooms above, its walls were not corrugated metal or wooden planks, but simply smooth rock. It looked as if the walls had been smoothed by prolonged exposure to water, but at some point that water had been drained or dammed leaving only this cave-like room… a perfect dry dock, designed to hold three U-boats. Two of the pens were flooded with icy water that lapped gently against the sides of the enclosures, but in the third, at the far end of the room, sat a majestic and menacing German submarine.
"Wow," Nina sighed, then strode along the narrow walkway that led from one pen to another. She reached the U-boat and laid both hands on the metal. "They actually did it, Sam. An Antarctic base. It's insane."
Sam searched his brain for a witty or insightful response, but in truth he was overwhelmed. It was one thing to agree to come to the Antarctic in search of this place, expecting it either to be a fairytale or to be nothing but ruins. It was quite another to find himself standing in a subterranean U-boat dock with incontrovertible evidence of the place's existence. He let Nina continue to chatter excitedly about the make and model of the submarine and speculate on what the implications of this ice station were for the rest of Nazi history, while Sam made himself useful and began taking as many photographs as he could.
Chapter 17
"You're kidding?" Jefferson Daniels' eyes were wide and incredulous. "An actual U-boat? No way. That's impossible."
A peal of laughter rang out, echoing around the metal-lined room. It came from Purdue, who was leaning against the wall in an attitude of careful casualness. "Forgive me, Mr. Daniels," he said as all eyes turned toward him. "But surely you see the absurdity? No? You — all of you — have just spent the night in an ice station that you thought to be mythical. We are here in a place that you didn't believe existed, and now you can't believe that it could possibly have a U-boat in the dock?" He chuckled again and sipped delicately at his coffee. Jefferson scowled and shoveled another forkful of scrambled egg into his mouth. "Oh, don't sulk," Purdue chided. "I'm only teasing. Besides, you'll want to look your best when we head down to look at this fabled U-boat — or weren't you planning to be photographed with it?"
Sure enough, after breakfast the group made its way down to the subterranean dock and Jefferson was first in line to have his picture taken with the metal leviathan. Sam unfolded his tripod and resigned himself to a morning spent playing photographer. One by one his companions posed beside the U-boat while Sam snapped away. Nina's pictures were endearingly enthusiastic. She could not tear her gaze away from the submarine long enough to glance at the camera, and her excitement was contagious.
At the opposite end of the spectrum was Admiral Whitsun, now recovering from the previous day's exertions and back on his feet. He simply laid a hand on the U-boat and stood in silent contemplation. Sam snapped away as unobtrusively as he could, eager not to disturb the admiral's reverie. At last, the old man straightened up and nodded, then stepped smartly away from the submarine. "Thank you, Mr. Cleave," he said softly.
"No problem," said Sam. "Do you mind if I ask, though… what were you thinking about? You don't have to tell me, it's just — it made for some really powerful images."
"No, no," Admiral Whitsun replied. His eyes were slightly distant and a small smile played around his lips. "It's all right. I'll tell you. I was thinking of my father. I was wondering whether this might be the very vehicle that brought him here. Assuming, of course, that this is where he ended up — and that he never left. I don't think I've felt so closely connected to him since I was a boy."