Whiteout!

'Would you like to tell me?'

'You some kind of a head doctor?'

'No.' I smiled. 'Don't if you don't want to. But Newsweek's doing you no good. If you'd prefer a game of ping-pong or a drink at the club?'

'First one, then the other.'

'Right.'

We played for half an hour or so, neither of us particularly well, then put on our wrappings and went to the club. As we went inside, Barney Smales was taking the top off his Martini jug. Herschel was there too.

Smales poured four glasses, added olives to three and a silver onion to his own, and handed them round. He said, 'Well, at least these are pure. We'll drink to purity, gentlemen.' He was clearly angry but holding it back, overlaying it with an excessive bonhomie.

I said, 'The water?'

His eyes swivelled at me. 'The water,' he said, 'is contaminated in the reactor, contaminated in the pipes and clean in the well.'

'So it's somewhere in the pump,' I said, 'or the pipe between the bottom of the well and the top.'

'That's how I figure it, too.' His tone had an edge of sarcasm.

'And now you replace it?'

'That's right. Four hundred feet of neoprene pipe. Only we haven't got four hundred feet of neoprene pipe.'

Herschel said, 'Or any other kind.'

'Haul it up and wash it,' I said.

'With contaminated water?'

'Clean water,' I said. 'Melt some snow.'

Smales said, 'I thought of it. We could only trickle it through. Couldn't get a big enough pressure head. What it needs is steam-cleaning, but you can't shoot high-pressure steam through neoprene.' The heel of his hand was drumming on the bar top in frustration. 'I'd just like to know what the hell we got in that tube. This kind of thing, most places, it's a dead rat, or something like that. But we got no rats here. In any case, it's not blocked, water's getting through.'

They were still discussing it when I left them. The obvious answer, it seemed to me, was to start a new well and quickly, but there seemed to be an almost superstitious attachment to the old one. I'd actually heard Smales and Herschel agree on the need for a new well, but they seemed to avoid even mentioning it now, continuing to prowl round the problem of cleaning the pipes. Nor could I understand why Camp Hundred, lavishly equipped, should be short of a few hundred feet of piping, especially when several hundred men depended for their work, their comfort, and ultimately even for life itself, on a steady and large supply of fresh water. They were double and treble-banked on everything from generators to food. So why on earth was there only one water pipe? I decided to see if I could find some sort of answer, but knew it wouldn't be easy. One and all were getting a bit tired of my questions, however much they might say they weren't. But as it happened, I didn't get the chance to start asking until a good deal later, because not long afterwards a soldier knocked on my door, presented Major Smales's compliments, and the major would be glad if I could come to the command office right away. No, sir, he didn't know why. But Smales wasted no time in telling me. He'd decided to send a Polecat on a hundred-mile dash to Camp Belvoir to pick up replacement neoprene and thought it might be a good idea if I went along. I said,’ Why me?'

'Because you're out of your head with boredom, one; but the other reason, the good reason, is that you'll get some sense of terrain and operating conditions.'

'All right,' I agreed. 'Leaving when?'

He said, 'Twenty minutes. Herschel, you and a driver.'

I must have shown my surprise. He grinned. 'Yes, at night, Mr Bowes. Wintertime we operate at night, because it's night all the damn day. You get a good run, you'll be there in four hours.'

I nodded. 'Just one Polecat?'

'That's right,' he said cheerfully. He was rather enjoying himself, I thought, as he went on, 'Swing's somewhere between Mile Thirty and Mile Forty, and coming this way. Anything goes wrong there's a safety wanigan every three miles along the Trail and you can wait out till the Swing gets there. It's safe enough. You'll be okay. Anyway, be a change for you. You get there, sleep, and come right back. Pyjamas if you use them, toothbrush, razor. That's all you need. Okay?'

I said, 'It's that urgent?'

'I want that reactor back on line,' Smales said. 'And I want it fast.'

At the door I paused and asked the question: why no spare pipe? Smales laughed. 'I knew you were going to ask. And I'm not answering. Have a good trip.'

I went and slung a few items into an airline shoulder bag and went along to the tractor shed. The Polecat was there, warmed and waiting, and the driver sat inside. Herschel hadn't arrived yet, but Foster had. I said, 'You going too?' Smales had said only Herschel, the driver and me.

'Boss man thought the trip was a good idea,' he said. 'He's a good guy, the old Bear.'

Then Herschel arrived, and we all climbed aboard. Reilly swung over the lever that slid back the hangar-like doors of the tractor shed and the Polecat growled willingly as it was put into gear, and we went out into the snowblow.

Herschel and the driver sat on the front bench, with Foster and me on the seat behind. Herschel turned after a moment. 'It's a low phase two out there,' he explained for my benefit. 'Means winds around thirty-five to forty. Temperature's two below zero.

That combination gives a windchill factor of thirty-eight below, which ain't too bad if you think what's outside the window of any aircraft you ever flew in.'

'It sounds bad enough,' I said.

'Oh sure. A killer. Cold plus wind, it multiplies up.' He turned to face forward again and stared out through the windscreen, where orange flags on high bamboo poles whipped in the wind, one every five yards, the bright colour almost glowing in the Polecat's powerful headlamps. Then, to the driver, he said,

'What we'll do, we'll blast this thing along until we reach the Swing, two hours down the trail. We'll stop there and they can give us chow. After that, we go like smoke for Belvoir.'

A thought struck me. 'What happens if there's a white-out?'

Herschel turned. 'Well, let's see. First we pray we don't hit one. If we do, we hope it's right near a safety wanigan and we can see enough to find it. If its real bad, we sit tight and wait till it goes away. Though that can take a little time.'

'Long enough to die, by any chance?'

'Could be,' Herschel said. 'But it's heavy odds against. White-out's a still air phenomenon and we've strong winds.' He was filling his pipe, stuffing tobacco into the bowl with his thumb, and he glanced across at the driver cheerfully. 'What worries me is this guy, who holds all our lives in his sweaty hands, eh, Scotty?'

'Yes, sir," Scott said with relish.

'You seen any of those icecap mirages lately, Scott?'

'Tuesday, sir, I saw these two French broads. Monday I saw Verrazano Narrows bridge.'

Herschel said, 'Tell you what. Any broads you find on this trail, you can keep. That's a promise. Did you ever get confused ?'

'Not yet, sir.'

'By God, but I did,' Herschel said. 'First tour up here, I got snowblinded by the damn moonlight. Wearing dark glasses, too. I got half a mile off the Trail. God knows which crevasse I'd have been in if another guy hadn't seen it and come after me.' He turned and looked at me. 'You'll be interested. When you're driving that air cushion vehicle of yours, you're gonna have to find out if you're susceptible. There's two separate phenomena.

If you get snowblinded, sun or moon, doesn't matter which of the two does it, but if you get snowblinded, you swing off on a left-hand curve. Nobody can work out why.'

'Always to the left?'

'Always,' he said firmly. 'The other thing is icecap mirages. What happens is you start to see poles that ain't there. Lines of them, with flags on top. They always, and I mean always, lead off the other way. To the right. Driver heads straight off the Trail.'