“Earplugs,” he said, loud enough for everyone to hear. “Plugs in now.”
They all complied. For several minutes, the chanting seemed to recede and fade, but it was still getting louder, and eventually, the plugs weren’t enough to mute the sound, and Banks felt the pull of the dance, the twitch in his muscles as they remembered the dark and the void.
“Dhumna Ort!” he muttered, hoping for the same protection as previously, but the chanting kept getting louder. The pounding came at the door again, keeping time with the beat, a rhythm that tuned into his breathing, his heartbeat, even the crackle of flame on the damp wood in the stove, everything dancing in time. He felt the tug and call of the infinite, knew that the stars and dark spaces were waiting a heartbeat away, and all he had to do was let it take him and all would be well. But it wasn’t the stars he was seeing in his mind now — it was Patel, dark eyes pleading just before the German broke his neck.
“Dhumna Ort!” he shouted, and this time he got something, a certain distance from the relentless beat, a dimming of the chanting. He shouted the phrase again, and the distance between him and the darkness increased farther. Hynd had also got the message and he and Banks started into a chant of their own in an attempt to beat back that of the distant choir, the two words repeated over and over.
“Dhumna Ort!”
The ice that had been stopped six inches from their feet retreated, only by the width of a finger, but definitely noticeable.
“Come on, you buggers,” Hynd shouted to the other three men, “join in. Or would you rather wait until your bollocks freeze off?”
It took several seconds before they all got it, but once the five of them chanted the words in unison, the ice retreated even faster. Their shouting, discordant as it was, muffled the monkish chanting, their stamping and clapping nullified the pounding at the door and sent the frost melting away from them across the floor leaving only damp floor behind it.
Banks almost yelled in triumph but could afford to break the rhythm of their chant. Besides, the closer the frost got to the doorway, the slower it retreated, until finally the retreat stopped where the foot of the door met the floor. Although the crawl of tendrils of frost on the walls had also disappeared, the ice on the surface of the door itself remained as thick as ever. They had reached an impasse, but had bought themselves time, and a larger area clear of the biting cold. But Banks knew that if they stopped chanting and stamping, or if the stove were allowed to burn any less fiercely then the ice — and the call of the stars — would be back in full measure. He kept shouting, kept clapping, and kept stamping.
“Dhumna Ort! Dhumna Ort!”
The night wore on. Banks’ palms ached from the clapping, his ankles throbbed from the stamping, and his throat threatened to dry and close from the strain of the repetition of the Gaelic. He saw the same effort show on the faces of the others. But they all knew they could not afford to stop. That point was proved all too noticeably when McCally had to take a break in order to stoke the stove, which was in danger of not burning hard enough to keep the frost at bay. In the few seconds that the corporal’s voice and clapping was not raised with the others, the frost crept in from the door, six inches closer across the hut floor, and Banks felt the bite of cold at his nose and cheeks.
He couldn’t afford to stop his own shouting, but he saw the look that McCally gave him after throwing three more short-cut logs in the stove. The area under the stove itself was now almost empty.
We’re running out of fuel.
There was no point in worrying about it. All they were able to do was keep up the shouting, clapping, and stamping and hope it was enough to keep the encroaching cold at bay. And if it wasn’t, well, there was always Wiggins’ option of opening the door and going at it all guns blazing. That was going to be Banks’ last resort, but he was coming to think it might also be his last available option.
It wasn’t long before McCally reached under the stove for more fuel and came up empty-handed. Banks didn’t stop stamping or shouting, but stopped clapping long enough to motion at the table and chairs. Thankfully, the corporal got the message, and quickly kicked and stomped the chairs and table into timber small enough to be fed into the stove. But the new fuel wasn’t as dense as the old logs, and burned faster. It was only ten minutes later that yet more fuel was needed. The frost grew another six inches across the floor as McCally and Parker tore planks and facing from the twin bunk beds and fed it into the flames.
Beds, bedclothes, shoring planks and all went to feed the ravenous stove, and all were too little to hold back the frost from creeping ever closer to their toes. The five men took turns, circling while stamping so that one of them was always closer to the stove and got a modicum of heat, for a time. But the spells between their turn at the warmth got colder, bitterly so, and despite their best efforts, they were all tiring now, their clapping and stomping and shouting not loud enough to drown the chanting.
As if sensing their weakened state, the thumping at the door started up again, and the frost crept faster across the floor, and also upward and outward, spreading along the walls in a spider-web crawl across the interior timbers.
Finally, McCally fed the last of their available fuel into the stove. Short of burning their own clothing and gear, there was no more they could do — all they had was the shouting, clapping, stamping, and what diminishing heat they could draw from the stove.
They kept circling.
Banks felt the cold with each breath when he wasn’t the man nearest the stove, felt ice crackle at his lips. His feet were like lumps of cold stone and he couldn’t feel his fingers when he clapped his hands. The monkish chanting was louder still and the tug of the darkness and the stars called hard now. Their shouting and clapping fell into the rhythm of a parade ground drill, and Banks put everything he had into it, one last effort. The others heard, and replied with a renewed burst of energy from all of them, but all they managed was to stop the ice coming any closer for a matter of minutes, and all too soon it had started to creep again.
All Banks knew was the stamping and circling, the clapping and the shouting. “Dhumna Ort!” he uttered, barely able to manage much above a coarse rasp.
It wasn’t enough. Slowly, remorselessly the cold crept in, reaching their toes, their heels and their ankles. They kept circling for a time, or at least it felt like they did, but gray crept into Banks’ sight with the cold, gray that became black, a deep well that was filled with stars. He tried to remember what it was he should be doing, words he should be saying, but another rhythm had him now, a cold throbbing in the dark. He tasted salt water at his lips, saw the void spread out like a blanket in front of him.
He fell into it, lost in the dance.
- 13 -
Banks came out of it slowly, not where he might have expected to inside the saucer, but standing, still out in the open, in front of the locked door of the disguised hut, the metal door that led into the base. Thin watery light washed the sky, and as purple gave way to azure, so too the distant chanting faded, and so too did the compulsion to dance in the darkness.
The coming of day had saved them. Part of Banks, a large part if he was truthful to himself, was saddened to feel the dance leave him.
The five men were all groggy and looked at each other in bemusement. Banks felt the cold bite hard at his feet and ankles. It might be morning, but it was a bitter one. A snell wind cut through his clothing and blew ice and snow around the doorway. Wiggins and Parker had gloved hands on the wheel of the lock mechanism, as if they’d been in the process of opening the door just before waking. They had to prise their hands from the metal where the material of their gloves had frozen to the wheel.