Whiteout!

'Come tomorrow and we'll show you the whole deal.' Next we went to the huge tractor shed, cut deep into the snow, where half-a-dozen giant tractors and bulldozers stood, as well as assorted Weasels and Polecats and, incongruous among them, two tiny orange Ski-doos, fast little snow-scooters. There were laboratories, mainly full of electrical and electronic equipment, the sleeping quarters, all like my own, stuffy and sweaty and windowless. There was a separate club for the sergeants, another for the enlisted men, and each had its rows of bottles, its tables for ping-pong and pool. The kitchens were probably as good as any of Mr Hilton's. Vernon explained it all cheerfully, still as impressed by it all as I was. It was even more impressive, as he pointed out, when you realized that every item, from the reactor itself to the knives and forks, had been hauled on sleds across a hundred miles of the icecap. When we'd finished, he invited me into the sergeants' club for a drink and I went with him, knowing what to expect. Nor was I wrong. Sergeants, in any army, are the people who have their affairs properly organized. An officers' mess has a social pyramid and its members range from youth to late middle age, so the social mix isn't naturally comfortable and some strain always shows. Sergeants, on the other hand, give or take a little seniority, are of similar age range, all mature men, and there are no problems about who calls who what. More important, they're the men who make an army work. So, while the officers'

club was comfortable and faintly scruffy, the sergeants' club gleamed. While the officers poured their own drinks, the sergeants had a white-jacketed barman, who'd clearly been drilled and drilled again and who, when he left the army, would undoubtedly get a job in some first-class hotel, because he was skilful and had style, and was kept steady to the mark by knowledgeable eyes. I was welcomed formally by the black master sergeant, who wore a collar and tie and well-pressed khaki, and who said it was his privilege to give me my first drink, sir, and what was its name. I smiled to myself and asked how the sergeants had solved the problem of stuffy bedrooms, and Master Sergeant Allen said it wasn't entirely solved but would I care to see ? He showed me his own room. The pi èce de résistancewas a mock window complete with curtains, and behind the glass was a huge blown-up photograph of treetops and blue sky. They had, he said, nearly a hundred such photographs, and the view was changed regularly. 'Why,' I asked, 'don't the officers have pictures, too ?'

He smiled politely. 'Maybe they didn't think about it.'

He also explained that they had discovered how much colour helped and had arranged to have kapok sleeping bags covered in bright material, to look like quilts. Then there was the matter of starched sheets, and a faint smell of pines and the humidifiers hanging on the central heating radiator. It was all, he said, mainly psychological.

We went back to the bar then, and the steward made Martinis, with everything coming from a big freezer behind the bar : glasses, bottles, ice, shaker. The sergeants were impressive people. I asked Vernon how long he'd been at Hundred. He said it was his third tour of duty.

'Third?' I said. 'I thought people couldn't wait to get away.'

'No, sir, it's not like that. I enjoy my duty here. I wanted to come back.'

'And will you again ?'

He frowned. 'I better explain, sir. A little over two weeks back, we lost a man. Only a kid really, but I reckon it was my fault. No, sir, I won't be coming back this time. I'm quitting the army.'

The master sergeant said, 'Nobody blames him, excepting him. Major Smales told him that, I told him, everybody told him.'

'These things happen,' I said uncomfortably. I liked Vernon. He seemed a solid citizen, dependable and strong. 'What will you do when you leave the army?'

'Home to Wichita,' he said. 'Look around. Find some job. I'll be okay. But let's talk about something else, huh ? Tell us about that air-cushion vehicle of yours.'

I did, and with some relief. The two of them were deeply aware of the need for faster transport over the icecap, knew the problems and gave me as much information as I gave them. After I left the sergeants' club I went over to the radio room to see if there was any news of the Swing's progress. There wasn't; the last contact had been atmidnightand the radio operator suspected the snow train had run into a white-out, which would make contact unlikely and almost certainly stop the train.

'I thought nothing stopped it.'

'Just white-outs, sir. Bad one, you get just no visibility at all. Air's full of minute ice particles and it looks like milk. No sky, no horizon, no ground. You just have to wait till it goes away.'

'How long does that take?'

'Minutes, hours, days, who knows ? Then you get a wind and pfft, it's over.'

I went in to lunch. Neither Kelleher nor Barney Smales was present, but the silent young officer I'd sat beside the previous day was there.

'May I join you?'

'Surely. Guess I owe you some kind of apology.'

'No,' I said.

He made an effort to be friendly, but his heart wasn't in it. He apologized again and said he couldn't seem to throw off the gloom.

'Can't the doctor help?'

'Happy pills ? Gets a whole lot worse when they wear off, so I stopped them. Sounds crazy, I know, but what I really want is a good long walk.'

'Difficult.'

'Impossible. But I guess it's kind of an id ée fixe.Something in my head says if I can take the walk, it will be okay. But I can't, so round I go in circles.' He smiled faintly, embarrassed at the revelation. I said, 'It's claustrophobia, really.'

'Yeah, I know.'

'Everybody's got it, more or less.'

'I know that, too. It's just. . , you know what happened?'

I shook my head.

'They were out at the seismology hut, that's around three hundred yards out on the cap. There was a sudden bad phase and they were trapped three days in there. When it cleared a little they started back and hit a white-out. Three hundred goddam yards and they hit a white-out ! Daylight, clear air, but it just fell on them. Didn't last but a few hours, either, but somehow Charlie got loose from the guide-line. Sergeant Vernon, he's a real good man, he stayed there an hour, damn near froze to death; he shouted and he damn well waited, but Charlie was gone! Just vanished right into the cap.'

I said, 'Vernon feels badly. You know he's leaving the army?'

'Yeah, I know.'

When we'd finished eating, I said, 'Since you can't go for a walk, how about exercise of a different kind? Ping-pong.'

He started to say no thanks, changed his mind and said, 'Why not ?' and we played for more than an hour, working up a sweat in the heated recreation hut. At first he seemed to have difficulty in keeping his mind on the game, but after a while the old American hatred of being beaten at any game began to assert itself, and he played a good deal better, the lines disappearing from his brow as healthy perspiration gathered on it. Ping-pong seems a pretty feeble palliative, but at least when we'd finished he wasn't any worse and may have been a fraction better.

Afterwards I had a shower, then lay for a while on my bed, reading. I was bored, frustrated by inactivity and conscious of not belonging. Once my TK4 arrived, I'd have a purpose and things to do; meanwhile I was something of a nuisance, a spare body hanging around asking tourist-type questions and wasting time. And if inactivity could bore me so quickly, what must it be like for some of the others, Doc Kirton, for instance, who had to endure it for a whole six-month tour? I decided I'd go and alleviate his boredom and my own, and perhaps find out what kind of bacteria polar bears carried around, so I put on all the layers of clothing and walked round to the hospital. Kirton's outer office was empty, but there was a red light glowing on the door of the operating theatre. He must have heard me come in, though, because he called, 'Who is it ?'