The radio shack was repaired, though it remained chillingly draughty. Bruce and Roger spent days rebuilding the main transmitter with cannibalised parts. The antennae, however, were a major problem, and only a clumsy jury-rig could be set up during the impossible weather of mid-February. The radio operators tried to transmit to the outside, despite Gerry’s warning that it would be easier to bounce a brick off custard than a signal off what was left of the ionosphere.
The technicians went from one job to another in a flurry of swearing and grunting for a couple of weeks, while the scientists gathered data and happily quarrelled about their findings. On the night of February 20 Gordon ate supper with Reg, Simon and Tom Vernon. They grumbled, as they ate, about the futility of their work.
“Well,” said Gordon at last, “we can piss and moan all we want to. Why the fuck don’t we do something?”
“Any suggestions?” Simon asked.
“Yeah. Tell you what — pass the word there’s a meeting tonight in the machine shop. Just the techs. The scientists’ll be busy impressing each other in the lounge — won’t even notice. But we gotta get our asses in gear if we want to get outa this dump.”
An hour later most of the techs were in the machine shop, a large hut tucked in a corner of the hangar. Powder-fine snow glittered under the hangar lights, somehow driven into the station by the winds of the latest blizzard.
“We got a problem,” Gordon began. “The fucking scientists think this mess is the luckiest thing that ever happened. They’re already counting on a couple dozen Nobel Prizes or something. They all talk about how much they want to be rescued, but they’re working their asses off—”
“Working our asses off, you mean,” Simon interrupted.
“Really,” Gordon nodded. “Really. Steve Kennard and a couple others are already saying we’re sure to winter over, but they aren’t losing no sleep over it.”
“Losing sleep other ways,” Simon said. No one laughed. Like most men in the Antarctic, the techs had little sex drive, but it was still frustrating to see other men living with women.
“Well, hell,” Gordon went on. “What are we supposed to do? Just work all day and hope to God this fucking overgrown iceberg don’t break up under us?”
Tom Vernon rubbed his red beard until it stood out from his face like a misplaced halo. “How are we supposed to get out of here, Gord? On skis?”
“Shit. I’m just a goddamned stupid driller. But I know we got a good plane here—” He gestured out the window towards the Otter. “ — And the best fucking pilot on the ice, and plenty of gas. Why can’t Al fly out towards New Byrd, set up a fuel dump and then hopscotch out to the Peninsula? Jeez, it ain’t that far. From there he could fly to South America if he had to.”
Tom sucked his teeth. “I don’t know — sounds pretty dicey. He’d have to make a couple of trips to set up a dump — come back — fly out again — find the dump — refuel — go on without knowing what he was in for. Papa Al — he’s not crazy, Gord.”
“Shit. Some guy flew all over the ice in a little Cessna or something, must be twenty years ago now. If he could do it, so can Al.”
“Then, uh, why doesn’t Al suggest it?” asked George Hills.
“He’s fucking shell-socked, that’s why. He don’t volunteer for a goddamn thing anymore. But he’ll go if he’s asked.”
“It’s worth trying,” said Simon. “Beats sitting here with our thumbs in our bums and our brains in neutral.”
“Let’s wait — a few days, anyway,” Tom suggested. “God — what if he went off — got pranged somewhere — and then they got down here from Chee-Chee to fly us out anyways. I’d feel pretty — pretty awful about something like that.”
“Think how you’ll feel if we all starve together,” Gordon shot back.
George ponderously shook his head. “It’s too early for that kinda talk, Gord. Let’s wait, like Tom says. If it really looks like the scientists want to stay no matter what, then we can go talk to Hugh.”
“I’ll give ’em a week, and that’s all,” Gordon said. He looked grimly around the room; each of them nodded.
It was longer than a week. In a delayed reaction to the icequake, there was a rash of practical jokes. “Regular bloody silly season,” Suzy growled to Penny, who only nodded. When male inanity was so patent, it hardly bore discussing. Someone planted a large frozen trout in the snow mine; the outside monitor in the lounge was wired into the videotape player, making it seem as if the station had been transported to the American West. But most of the gags were less imaginative: sugar in the salt shakers, ice in sleeping bags. Ben Whitcumb’s clothes vanished one morning while he was house-mouse; they turned up next day in a corner of the hangar, frozen into a solid lump.
The day after that particular gag, Hugh was up early having a cup of coffee in the mess hall with Penny. No one else was up yet.
“Haven’t seen much of Ben lately,” he remarked.
“He hardly ever comes out of his room these days unless he has to,” Penny said. “Sometimes Max has to take him a sandwich because he won’t even come in for a meal. It’s that schmuck Gordon.”
“Mm. Riding him pretty hard, isn’t he?”
“You ought to do something about it, Hugh. Gordon bothers Jeanne too.”
“Ah, that I didn’t know. How?”
“He’s always making eyes at her, touching her, that kind of thing. Not when Will’s around, though.”
“Well… he’s always chaffing you, too.”
“That’s just it!” Her own intensity startled her. “He clowns around with me, and it’s a pain in the ass, but it isn’t serious. With Jeanne it’s — groping. Scary.”
“Does Will realise it?”
“I don’t think so, no.” She cut him off before he could speak. “And don’t just groan about the folly of letting women on the ice, Hugh. Gordon’s the problem, not Jeanne or me. He’d be a problem anywhere.”
Hugh said nothing for a moment. “Well, we’ll sort it out.”
That same morning Carter Benson sat down in Don Treadwell’s closet-sized office and carefully went over the food inventory Don had prepared for him.
“This doesn’t look good,” Carter said quietly.
“I know,” Don agreed. “There just isn’t enough food for a whole winter and maybe part of the spring. Not unless we go on rationin’.”
“Then we will, of course. But it’ll depress everybody. Might even be dangerous. Damn it, you need four thousand calories a day just to cope with the cold, let alone anything in it.”
“In winter? We won’t be doin’ much outside work.”
“Fair enough. Unless there’s an emergency.”
Don’s smile was wry. “An emergency? Here? You’re jokin’.”
Carter’s round face went pink. “Yes — silly thought, isn’t it? What could happen? Anyway, thanks for the inventory. I’ll talk to Hugh about it. You coming to breakfast?”
“Sure.”
Each of them sat down to scrambled eggs, a small steak, fried potatoes, baked apples and four slices of whole-wheat toast with butter and orange marmalade. Halfway through his meal, Carter lost his appetite. He went on eating until his tray was empty; it seemed to take a long time. Don, usually a hearty eater, was equally slow. When they took their trays back to the kitchen, they stopped and watched Penny and Suzy scraping mounds of food off other trays and into the garbage hole.
“What’s the matter with you two?” Suzy smiled. “Something you ate?”
Steve went quietly into Hugh’s room. It was a little larger than the bunkhouse cubicles, but seemed cramped and cluttered by filing cabinets, crowded bookshelves and a desk strewn with old print-outs. Hugh was sitting up in bed, a notebook propped against his knees.