Whiteout!

The thought sent a little shudder down my back.

'Funny thing, though,' Herschel went no. 'First one, when you're snowblind, it happens to anyone, whether he's been here days or months. Even the Swing drivers, and they spend six months going backwards and forwards between Belvoir and Hundred; even these guys do the left-hand shuffle. But the other, the mirage, that one wears off when you have been driving a while. Milt Garrison, the Swing commander, reckons one full trip and the danger's over. What he does, he's got a new driver, he keeps him in the middle, between two other tractors with experienced guys.'

'And nobody knows why?'

'Nope.' He puffed contentedly on his pipe.

I glanced over the driver's shoulder at the speed. The Polecat was sliding easily over the snow at close to thirty miles an hour. It occurred to me that if I suddenly discovered I was snowblind or suffering mirages, my speed in the TK4 could easily be double that. I tapped Scott on the shoulder. 'Do me a favour?'

'If I can, sir.'

'Ride with me in the TK4. Keep me on the straight and narrow. And don't see any French girls.'

He laughed. 'Sure thing, sir!'

We must have done about twenty miles when Herschel opened his bag and brought out a big flask.

'Who wants coffee?'

Everybody wanted coffee. The highly-efficient heater in the speeding Polecat dried the mouth. Herschel half-filled cups, one at a time. He also had a bottle of scotch, and slopped a little into three of the cups.

'No scotch for you, son.'

Scott said, 'Considering my name, I reckon that's injustice.'

Herschel grinned. 'It's a hard world. That true, Mr Bowes?'

'Harry,' I said.

'Okay, Harry.'

'It's true.'

We found out how true just after the fiftieth of the mile markers - steel drums painted ice-orange and placed on raised snowbanks beside the trail - had gone by. Suddenly, and without warning, the engine began to run raggedly and then stopped, and the Polecat, still in gear, ground to a halt.

Chapter 7

Scott, the driver, had tried the starter a dozen times. Each time the engine spun over, but it never fired, never gave a single cough, and already the wind outside was sucking away the interior warmth; in just a minute or two the temperature had dropped noticeably. Suddenly Herschel said angrily: 'Fuel. Damn tank's empty!'

Sure enough the fuel tank gauge needle was pointing right over to the left.

'You check that, Scott?' Herschel was no longer the jolly officer, nor Scott the privileged private. Rank had surfaced.

'When we got aboard, sir. Tank showed full then, sir.'

'You sure?'

'Sir, that needle was right on full.'

'Who filled her up? You?'

'No, sir. She was all done. Sergeant Reilly's boys gassed her up.'

'Sergeant Reilly's boys are gonna shovel snow till their asses drop off,' Herschel said grimly. 'Where are we ? Mile Fifty ?'

'Close to Fifty, sir.'

'Let's move.' Herschel turned. 'There's a wanigan at Forty-Eight, another at Fifty-One. Which way's the wind?'

Scott switched on the dashboard display. 'South of East, sir. Thirty-eight mph.'

'We'll go forward to Forty-Eight. It's a longer walk, but the wind's at our backs.' Herschel turned. 'You guys wearing the whole outfit?'

Foster said, 'Yes, sir.'

'And you?'

'Yes,' I said.

'We'll check that out before we leave the 'cat. Answer me, item by item.1He ran through the list : snow boots, socks, long Johns, woollen trousers, windproof trousers, vests, shirts, woollen jackets, parkas, hats, hoods, silk-lined gloves, over-mittens. As he spoke each word, he checked his own clothing, too.

'Okay, let's get the hell out. This damn Polecat's turning into a deep freeze. When we get out, we stay close to the marker poles and we walk two together. I'll walk ahead with Scott, you and Foster side by side behind us, right?'

We nodded and he said : 'One more thing. Pull the drawstrings of the parka hood tight.' I pulled. 'No, tighter than that. So tight it comes nearly to a point. You only need a one-inch aperture there, so you can see through it. Main thing is it keeps the warmth of your respiration right in there with your face.'

I pulled the strings, gradually drawing the hood closer. The other three, more practised, had already finished and sat encased, with a khaki-green cone pointing forward where their faces should have been. Herschel's voice, when he spoke again, was muffled. 'No halts except for injury. I'll pull the stretcher. Out you go.'

The door opened, the wind howled in, and we clambered down into the freezing darkness and stood for a moment while Herschel and Scott pulled the steel sled-stretcher from the clips on the Polecat's side. When that was done, Scott switched off the lights and slammed the door. Now the other three were no more than dark shapes against the snow.

We set off, the dry snow loose underfoot, and walking was awkward. There was some compression, but the snow didn't bind and it was more like walking on sand. Through the inch aperture, I kept my eyes on the sled as Herschel dragged it along behind him, at once a sensible precaution and a grim warning. Every ten paces or so, Foster tapped me on the shoulder. The first time it happened, I turned towards him enquiringly, but he was continuing to walk, facing forward, his head not turned my way. I understood then. This was a way of maintaining contact with visibility sharply reduced, yet another of the endless list of careful precautions observed by the men who lived and worked high on the Greenland icecap. So it was ten paces, tap, ten paces, tap. And two miles to go, thirty inches to the pace, how many paces? How many taps? I did the mental arithmetic for the sake of something to do. Something over four thousand paces; something over four hundred taps. One, two, three, four . . , eight, nine, tap. One, two, three . . .

In front of us Herschel and Scott marched determinedly on. Nearly thirty years difference in age separated them, but Herschel was the stronger, moving easily, even with the stretcher trailing behind. Occasionally Scott had to hurry to regain his place beside him. Around us the wind snapped, whipping at sleeves and trousers, but also pushing us along. Two miles with the wind was going to be far easier than one against.

We'd gone some distance, more than three-quarters of a mile, I guessed, when I began to feel the cold. The exertion helped, no doubt, our bodies generating warmth that the high insulation properties of several layers of the special Arctic clothing kept in. It was my feet that felt it first. Ten minutes ago, perhaps a little longer, I'd been sitting warm in the speeding Polecat, thinking how snug I was. I now realized the word should have been smug. My feet had been warm. Good and warm. Very warm. Sweating] Which could mean damp in the boots! I began to feel slightly panicky. A night or two ago, I'd seen the ravages of frostbite gruesomely recreated in Scott of the Antarctic. I remembered, too, reading about Maurice Herzog, the French climber who dropped his gloves near the summit of Annapurna and watched them fall away down the mountain and knew in that moment, with total certainty, that he would lose all his fingers. Which he did .., seven, eight, nine, tap; what about the others? Their feet must have been sweating in the Polecat, too. Were they also feeling the cold? My heels no longer seemed to feel much as they came down, and I began to try to stamp harder, but it wasn't like walking on a hard surface; the snow absorbed the impact and still I felt nothing; it was merely increasing the strain on my thigh muscles, so I stopped.

Ahead of me, Scott stumbled and fell, but scrambled up quickly and ran a few steps to catch up with Herschel again. I told myself fiercely not to be stupid. Twenty-five to thirty minutes of hard walking in proper clothing, with the blood circulating briskly, was hardly likely to end in frostbite. I was being neurotic. All the same, the feeling seemed to be going out of my heels. And what was worse, I seemed to be having difficulty keeping up. Herschel and Scott were a bit further ahead, weren't they ? Tap, ten paces, tap. Was it just my heels, where the wind was striking? Or were my toes losing sensation, too? I tried to wiggle my toes. They seemed all right. But my legs were beginning to ache from the effort of walking on the sand-like surface. I wished it were sand, and that I was walking along a beach in warm sunshine! Herschel and Scott were drawing ahead! Tap, tap, on my shoulder. I turned my head to look at Foster and he waved his arm, signalling me to go faster.