“There’s Erebus,” Al said after a while. “The smoke up ahead.”
The flat horizon was beginning to blur, lost in greyness. Off to the left the peaks of the Royal Society Range glittered sharply. Al tried to raise McMurdo, without luck.
“It’s snowing,” Max said. “No, it’s ash.” A fine, greyish-white powder was swirling off the windscreen. He clicked off the remaining shots and rapidly reloaded the camera.
They passed a few kilometres Grid West of Minna Bluff, a narrow promontory jutting into the Shelf from the mainland. Scott, Wilson and Bowers had died not far from here; they would scarcely recognise the Shelf now, it was so contorted and shattered. Just beyond Minna Bluff were Black and White Islands, clearly visible despite the growing haze. The Shelf had ridden up on the islands’ Grid North shores, and in some places had already moved over the lower slopes to the far side, like a wave breaking over rocks. In the lee of the islands the ice had parted, creating long leads of dully gleaming water.
Now Erebus was dead ahead, its slopes obscured by ash and smoke. From its crest a black-and-white pillar of smoke rose boiling into the sky, only gradually yielding to the wind and smearing Grid West over Ross Island and the distant edge of the Shelf. Orange flares of light spurted through the smoke, and in three or four places lava streams picked their way delicately downhill. A deep, unending roar filled the air; the stink of sulphur was strong. A few kilometres Grid West of Hut Point Peninsula, beyond the site of Scott Base, a steep black cone rose from the shoreline. It was well over a hundred metres high, and like Erebus it was pouring smoke and ash into the sky.
“A satellite cone,” Max shouted, pointing to it. “God — it must be growing faster than Paricutin did.”
The new volcano was wrapped in mist; as the Shelf moved up its black slopes, ice melted, vaporised and then froze again as ice fog. But when the wind was right, they could see a red flare at the cone’s summit, pulsing like arterial blood and bright enough to throw shadows down the smoking slopes. In this world of white and blue, black and grey, the flare looked oddly artificiaclass="underline" crimson and orange here were the colours of man-made things.
“Did you see Outer Willy?” Al yelled.
“No.” Max was taking photos with tense deliberation.
“We must be too far Grid West. — There’s Inner Willy.”
Something bounced off the windscreen, and a moment later a hailstorm seemed to have struck them. The ice below was shattered into countless crevasses and was a dirty grey Al had never seen before. Willy Field swung below them, recognisable only by the geometric patterns of its buildings. The ice-way and ski-way were gone, buried under ash and crumpled by the moving ice. Al saw the blackened remnants of a big Hercules, its nose tilted into a crevasse, its spine broken.
Visibility was down to perhaps three kilometres in the direction of Ross Island, but Al could make out enough of the shoreline to see that Willy Field had moved well down McMurdo Sound, past Hut Point. He circled twice, trying to raise someone on the radio. At first static was the only reply; then a blurred voice sounded in his earphones.
“Otter Five-Three, Otter Five-Three, this is McMurdo. Do you read me? Over.”
“McMurdo, this is Otter Five-Three. I read you. Over.”
“Is that you, Al? Harry Rasmussen here. Are we glad to hear from you! What is your position? Over.”
“Harry! Hi, old friend. We’re over Hut Point, coming over McMurdo Station for a look around. Are you guys okay? Over.”
“Al, there ain’t no station. There’s about fifty of us up here in the old reactor buildings on Observatory Hill. The ice is only a few hundred metres downslope from here. Over.”
It grew very dark, like late twilight. Far away to Grid North, Al saw sunlight gleaming on the Shelf, but it seemed like a vision of another world. This world was thunder and night and the stench of sulphur.
The rattle of ash and stones on the fuselage intensified, and Al began to fear for his engines. Even a pebble, striking a prop or being sucked into the engine, could knock them out of the air. He stared into the grey mist below as they swept low around Hut Point.
Harry had been right. Where the station had stood, there was now only a jumble of seracs and pressure ice that ran far up the shore and piled thickly around Observatory Hill. At the edges of the ice, Al and Max could see brightly coloured debris: a smashed orange tractor, a pastel-green wall torn from some hut, a twisted panel of aluminium, all of it jammed between the ice and the rock. Gusts of wind, rising off the Shelf, stirred up clouds of ash and snow.
The Otter curved around Observatory Hill less than two hundred metres from its summit. Through the gloom they could just make out the main reactor building, its flat roof drifted over with ash. Three or four men stood in the lee of the building, their orange parkas unreally vivid; they were waving frantically.
“Harry, do you need any food or medical supplies? Over.”
“Christ, yes! Repeat, yes. We’ve got more than twenty people hurt, some pretty bad. And not much food. Over.”
“Well, we’ll try a drop. I’ll circle twice and drop three bundles. I’m sorry, but they’ll have to come down at once. I can’t risk more runs. Over.”
“Great, Al. Just great.” He coughed for several seconds. “Air’s pretty bad down here. Hey, how’s Shacktown? Over.”
“Okay, so far. Harry, where’s everybody else? Over.”
“Most of ’em flew out right after the eruption started. After our planes reached New Zealand, the Kiwis sent down every big plane they had. They had to land at Outer Willy — we ferried people out there by helicopter. Boy, Al, you’ve missed some of the best fucking flying anybody ever saw. Over.”
“I believe it. So what about you characters? Over.”
“I don’t know, Al. There hasn’t been a helicopter from Outer Willy since yesterday afternoon. Tell you the truth, we’re scared shitless. Some of our guys may not make it if they ain’t taken outa here pretty damn quick. Over.”
Al pressed the button on his mike and then released it. He didn’t know what to say. Then he turned to Max.
“They need our medical stuff. On the next pass I need you to drop all three bundles. Snap ’em to the static line. Then slide the door open and make sure it’s secured. I’ll yell when the bundles should go.”
“Good.” Max unstrapped himself, carefully stowed the camera and went into the passenger compartment.
Visibility was getting worse. Something the size of a grapefruit arced across the Otter’s path; Al grunted as he watched it vanish below the nose of the plane. Even a graze by something that big could kill them.
The Otter made its final approach. Judging from the clouds swirling around the reactor buildings, winds at the surface must be coming from Grid North-East at about thirty k.p.h. Al adjusted course and speed.
Wind howled into the flight compartment, sulphurous and filled with a gritty, bitter-tasting dust. “Now!” Al screamed. He glanced back over his shoulder into the passenger compartment and saw the last of the bundles slide down the static line and out the door. Max made his way to the door and slid it shut; when he got back into his seat, his cheeks were streaked with frozen tears.
Al banked the plane and watched the bundles drop. One had lost its chute and streamed in, a tiny orange speck that vanished into the ash-encrusted ice. The other two drifted down to land within half a kilometre of the reactor buildings, upslope from the ice.