Whiteout!

I said, 'Having the sleep of a lifetime. Whatever else he feels when he wakes up, it won't be tired. What about the diesels?'

He grinned and turned into a German engineer. 'Ve now haff ze Number Two chenerator vorking, mein herr. Und viz luck and maybe a toch or two of chenious, ve skveeze somezing out from ze Number Vun before too many hours, nicht wahr?"

'Good for you.'

'Sure is,' he agreed cheerfully. 'And that's not all. They'll run the Swing in here tomorrow and we’ve radio contact right now. 1 talked to Cohen at Belvoir, and they got two new generators ready and crated at Thule to be flown up by Caribou at the first weather break. Can't be more than a few days now.'

I felt myself relax. 'Better and better,' I said, and thought that perhaps the odds were now readjusting themselves in Barney's favour.

He, meanwhile, was prodding the sleeping medic awake with a persistent finger. The medic, eyes closed, first said, 'Hey, knock it off!' in sleepy protest, and then, at the next prod, opened his eyes and shot off the bunk to rigid and embarrassed attention.

'Beg pardon, sir.'

'Blood pressure, pulse rate and whatever else you need,' Barney said, 'then move your goddam ass to the radio room and talk to the shrinks down at Thule. We got the channel open.'

'Yes, sir.'

He turned back to me. I'll have you relieved, Englander, and you can come and have some breakfast. For once, I'm good and hungry.'

I was far from hungry, my appetite dulled by too many cigarettes, irregular hours, broken sleep and a generally morbid outlook, but I nodded and promised to join him. Barney, cheerful, was better company than my own and I was more than ready for an hour or so of gregariousness and good humour. But the pleasant future didn't materialize. I don't know whether Barney had got as far as dipping a spoon into his cornflakes before the bad news came. As for me, I'd put on my out-of-doors clothing and was waiting, and when Sergeant Vernon came briskly in, I assumed he was there to relieve me, but one glance at his face told me there was more bad news in the offing. He said urgently, 'Sir, when did you last see Captain Carson ?'

I was covered in Arctic clothing, and beginning to sweat, but the warmth was wiped instantly away.

'Why?'

'When did you see him, sir? What time?'

I thought for a moment. 'About midnight. When he came to relieve me.' I asked again: 'Why?'

'He just - well, sir, he doesn't seem to be around. Major Smales asked me - '

'You mean,' I said harshly, 'that Carson has vanished?'

Vernon said, 'Major Smales's compliments, sir, and will you remain right here.'

'Has he?'

He gave a little puzzled shake of the head. 'Captain Carson, sir, he isn't in his quarters, or the officers'

club, or the mess hall, or the reactor trench. But it's too soon to say - '

I said, 'Tell Major Smales, please, that when I came back here, around half past five, Captain Carson wasn't here.'

'He should have been here, sir?'

'Yes,' I said bitterly. Why the hell had I ignored it at the time? 'He should have been here.'

Vernon nodded. 'I'll tell the major, sir. Did you report Captain Carson's absence to the duty officer?'

I said, 'No,' guiltily, adding feebly, 'I thought he'd just gone off to bed.'

'Yes, sir.' Vernon was looking at me bleakly. 'I'll tell the major, sir.' He walked out, rigid with disapproval. After the door closed behind him, I swore, angrily and aloud. A minute later I went to the door and turned the key. When Barney came, I'd open it and face the music, but for the moment I felt safer behind a locked door.

I paced up and down. Somehow I didn't doubt for a second that Carson had disappeared. But how, and why ? What the hell was going on in the reactor trench ? Yesterday it was Kelleher, solid as a rock, who'd gone stark raving mad. Now, less than twenty-four hours later, it was Carson, also a nuclear engineer and also a solid citizen, who'd ...

For a few moments I wondered whether there'd possibly been some radiation leak; whether some unknown effect of exposure induced madness ? But Carson hadn't gone mad, not, at any rate, so far as I knew. Vernon had said only that there was no sign ofhim. Once was happenstance, twice coincidence, the third time . . . My eyes went to Kelleher. First Kirton, then Kelleher, now Carson; doctor and two engineers. Without them, Hundred had no medical resources and no reactor. In one of the coldest and most dangerous places on the face of the earth, those three men were vital both to physical and mental comfort. So if Kirton had been killed, and Carson had . . . But no. Kelleher didn't fit. Kelleher hadn't been attacked. Kelleher had simply cracked under the strain of day and night work. His mind had gone, bent or broken by pressure.

I was hanging up my outdoor clothes when the phone rang.

It was Barney. Or rather, it was Major Barnet M. Smales, US Army, formally correct, his tone icy. 'A few questions, Mr Bowes. One, you arranged with Captain Carson that you would relieve him at five?'

'Yes?'

'And this you failed to do?'

'I was late.'

'Captain Carson was not there when you arrived?'

'No.'

'No message?'

'No.'

'And you did nothing about it?'

I said, 'It was five-thirty a.m. I made the reasonable assumption that he'd gone to bed. What about Carson's corporal? Didn't Carson say anything to him?'

He didn't answer. Instead, 'You will remain where you are, in the hospital, until further notice. Under no circumstances will you leave it except under my direct instructions, until you will leave Camp Hundred by the first available means.'

'That's ridic - '

He cut me off. 'Do you understand ?'

'Yes.'

He hung up. So, after a moment, did I. I was in the wrong, certainly, but not that much in the wrong. I should have reported Carson's absence, no doubt about that. No doubt now, at any rate; no doubt even in retrospect. But at the time . . .? And now I'd wrecked my whole purpose in being there. The TK4 wouldn't get its demonstration, the US Army wouldn’t buy, the order was lost. I wandered morosely back to the ward, cursing Barney, Camp Hundred, and myself, and as I went in through the door, Kelleher said, 'Get a guy a cup of coffee ?'

I went over to the bed and looked down at him with something approaching suspicion. My cheek, where Kelleher's teeth had ripped at it the day before, still ached dully. The frantic strength he'd displayed as we struggled to pin him down was vivid in my memory, and I'd no way of knowing his state of mind. He'd been quiet enough; he'd slept peacefully; he'd spoken almost rationally. Almost. Also he was about three stones heavier and a great deal stronger than I.

'C'mon,' he croaked, 'I got a mouth like they been shovelling ashes around inside.'

I said, 'All right,' and went to get it. When I came back, I said, 'Raise your head.'

He blinked at me. 'I'm in a straitjacket, right, Harry?'

'You are. Raise your head.'

I held the coffee while he sipped, straining upwards to get his lips to the cup. He swilled the hot liquid round his mouth, swallowed, and lay back. 'Why?'

'Yesterday,' I said, 'you acted somewhat strangely."

'I did, huh?'

'You did. More coffee?'

He nodded and drank again. He seemed strangely resigned. Looking down at him, I tried to imagine what it must be like to awaken in a straitjacket: the surprise, the sudden fear that would probably turn to panic. Kelleher showed none of that. 'No sugar in the coffee,' he said.