Job laughed. “Colin, Colin. Here we are in a plane that is full of holes in the middle of the ice pack within spitting distance of the North Pole at what must be nearly midnight. That gentle breeze will have a temperature a good deal less than nought degrees Centigrade. And we are in Washington clothes.”
Ross was assailed by a sudden doubt. “Should we leave the door closed and just wait for help?”
“No. I’m an Eskimo. I would much rather freeze than burn. And if we stay in here, we will burn; perhaps soon.”
“Right. I’ll go out and have a look around.” He moved forward gingerly to the doorway itself, and looked out. What he saw stopped him dead.
The pack.
The sight of it hurled him back through five years and over the length of the world.
There was a tongue of ice, perhaps five hundred yards long. One side was the chain of sharp ice-hillocks, the other a flat plain stretching roughly two hundred yards to the restless sea. The tongue of ice curved slightly so that the track of the plane crash, originally a straight line coming up from the distant tip, inevitably came up against the cliffs. The cliffs were transparent green, and eroded above him until they formed an overhang at the top, and from this overhang great fangs of ice bit down at the crystal air. One of them had bitten down at the front of the aircraft, and this not only held the pilot, but also kept the plane so steady on its tail. Where the cliffs curved away and down towards the sea, breaking into a series of low, sharp peaks, the steady wind lifted flags and banners of ice crystals from each crest, and the sun made them burn green and indigo, red and yellow, against the orange ice, the golden sea, and the far, copper sky.
Ross looked down. “No trouble,” he called, “the crash brought snow down from the cliff. Easy enough slide down from the wing.”
He eased himself carefully out of the door. When his feet felt the front edge of the wing he put his weight on them, let go of the door frame, wavered precariously on the ice-coated metal, managed to turn his back to the cliffs, sat down, and slid safely to the surface of the ice. Shivering violently now, his shoes instantly soaking, sinking almost to the ankles in the loose snow thrown up by the crash, he looked round.
The first thing he saw was a crate, with markings on the side. For a moment he wondered what it was, and then he heard Quick’s bored voice in his memory, as though reading from a list. Tents, canoes, sleeping bags, blankets, cold-weather clothing . . .
Of course. The cargo!
Slipping and sliding on the treacherous surface, he ran round the hump of the port engine to the high silver fin of the tail. Under the wing, as though the jet was trying to hatch them out, were more crates. As he went closer, Ross could see what had happened. Sometime during the wild ride up the tongue of ice, an edge, sharper than the rest, had torn open the belly of the plane and ripped off the loading door. The cargo had come loose and been hurled out. Five crates lay here in an untidy jumble. The rest would be inside: but they were obtainable! And in those crates lay everything they needed to survive. All they had to do was get them out, unpack them, set up camp, and wait to be rescued. It was that easy! Certainly Doctor Warren and Kate should know their way round considering their scientific specialities; and as for Simon and Job, you couldn’t wish for better companions under these circumstances! Only the co-pilot, presumably, was not used to being on ice . . .
Exultantly he pounded on the side of the jet. “Job! Job! Come out!”
The pounding echoed in the burst hold, making the wires vibrate, and the fuel lines tremble. One wire, severed by the crash and swinging in the slight movement of the sound, sent a blue spark arcing through the petrol-laden air. The boxes, precariously balanced, shifted a little. The plane settled slightly. The wire stopped swinging.
The ice opened at Ross’s feet, and he was precipitated across black water. Stretching from the tail, through twenty yards to the sea, was a crack in the ice, its narrow width shining with fuel. Ross caught at the boxes on the far side of the crack and held on with his right hand, his left slipping uselessly until the black glove was in the water. His feet desperately sought for purchase on the treacherous ice. “Job,” he called.
Treacherous. The word ran through his head. In five years away, he had forgotten the one fundamental fact engraved on the mind of every ice-man: the pack is as treacherous as a rabid dog. And as deadly. You usually only got one mistake, and he had just made it. The ice opened wider beneath him, the grin turning to a yawn. If Job didn’t hurry, the yawn would widen, the throat swallow, the ice-lips close. In the water in these clothes, he would be lucky to last two minutes. His shoulder cramped viciously, as he knew it would. His belly ached with the strain of holding on. He couldn’t last much longer.
“Colin? Where are you?”
“Here, Job. Hurry.” He was shaking as though in a high fever. There was a bright light in front of his eyes, out of focus, drawing nearer. Abruptly he saw Charlie in the middle of it.
“Charlie,” he whispered. “Help me, Charlie.” But she just stood and watched. Not helping. As she had always refused to help. Loving a dead brother more than a live husband. All his old futile bitterness flowed back. Just standing away, far away. Not answering his letters. Not coming to see him during those months in hospital, not caring to face him, to have it out with him. Just distantly blaming him for something that Robin had brought on himself. Not giving him a chance. No chance . . .
Inside the plane Kate was trying to open her eyes. She raised her eyebrows, straining. Something seemed to move on her forehead, cold and crusted, but still her eyes would not open. Her hands flew to her face by reflex, and felt the sticky mess on her skin. What was wrong? She absolutely refused to panic, rubbed her fingers over her eyes, then her knuckles like a crying child, then the backs and the heels of her hands. And at last the eyelids separated. She blinked.
All she could see was a multicoloured jumble, stretching away half-focussed to grey curves of wall; a movement of her head revealed seats on their backs. Her disorientation was complete. She tried to move and discovered that she was still trembling – not with the effort of remaining calm, but with bitter cold. And she was stiff with bruises.
“It was all over so fast, he didn’t even have time to call out.” She recognised the co-pilot’s voice.
“A terrible way to go. You wouldn’t think the ice . . .” Now her father’s voice.
“Daddy?”
“Katherine? Ah, so you’re awake, are you?” His voice came from above her head, and she looked up. She had been lying on her back anyway. Now she was looking straight along the body of the aircraft. On her right was the single row of seats, on her left the double row. Her father’s head peered from the front seat of the single row. She could have been standing looking down the plane at him – the illusion was complete. But she knew she was on her back: her father, the co-pilot one seat above him, the whole plane – they were all on their backs.
“We crashed,” said her father.
Her face itched. She remembered about her eyes and looked at her hands. Her stomach heaved. Abruptly the co-pilot was out of his seat, climbing down towards her using the sides and backs of the seats like a ladder.
“Take it easy,” he said. “The blood’s not yours. You’re OK. Honest.”
She moved, half sat, shuffled across the mess of clothing and wrecked cases until her back was supported by the roof of the cabin. The co-pilot was beside her, pale but calm.
“You’re OK,” he said again. She looked down at herself. She was totally saturated with blood: skin, hair, clothes – everything. She was very careful not to ask whose blood it was – time enough for that, she thought, when she had herself more in hand. She frowned.
“Yes,” said the co-pilot, “they’re a mess. You’d better change out of them. Have you anything else?”