Whiteout!

'He'll pull through.'

'Where is he?'

'Hut fourteen. Right where he collapsed. Why?'

'I wondered.'

'Give you some advice, Mr Bowes. Stay away. You aren't too popular, right?'

I nodded wearily. As I left he was picking up the telephone.

Moving into Main Street, I thought about Barney Smales and hut fourteen. 'He'll pull through,' Vernon had said. But meanwhile he'd delegated his command to Coveney, and done it voluntarily, which must mean that Barney was not only feeling foul, but expecting to feel foul for quite a while. On the other hand, since it had been Barney's decision, he must have been conscious to make it. I could imagine that Allen's thoughts would have run along the same lines; that Allen, having first got the keys, had then decided to approach Barney himself. He'd been fairly sure, earlier, that Barney would listen to him. A small hope now flickered in my mind. If Allen had gone to see Barney, it explained why I hadn't met him, and why he hadn't returned to the medical block.

Hut fourteen wasn't difficult to find, since there were notices at the entrance to each trench. But having found it, I hesitated. It hadn't needed Vernon's warning to tell me what Barney thought of me. If Barney was conscious and I went into the hut, he'd simply order me back to the medical block. How, then, could I discover whether Allen was in there? The huts had no windows and their wooden walls were so well insulated as to make them pretty well soundproof. I was contemplating the doubtful possibility of opening the door and simply calling Allen's name in a phoney American accent, when I was saved both the trouble and the likely humiliation. The door opened and a soldier came out. I said, 'Is Master Sergeant Allen in there?'

'No, sir.'

'Thanks. I thought he'd be with Major Smales.'

'No, sir. Lieutenant Coveney's the only one with the major, sir.'

'He's there now?'

'Yes, sir.' The soldier's face was red and resentful, I noticed. Coveney must have been exercising his charm.

'Well, thanks anyway.' I left the soldier to his misery and set off for the reactor trench and Kelleher. As I passed the entrance to the trench housing the diesels, two soldiers were coming out. One said sharply, 'Hey, you.'

I stopped and turned.

'You seen Captain Carson?'

'No,' I said, 'I haven't.'

'Beg pardon, sir. I didn't recognize you.'

'You're still searching?'

He shrugged. 'Captain Carson, he's gone. Whole camp's been searched twice. He just ain't here.'

I said, 'What's the theory?'

He shrugged again. 'Who knows? He's gone topside, something like that. No place down here we haven't looked. It's kinda spooky, you know, sir. Guy just vanishes.'

Since they'd been searching the camp, I asked 'Have you seen Master Sergeant Allen?'

'He disappeared too, sir?' It was a weary joke.

I dodged the question. 'Just looking for him.'

'No, sir. Haven't seen him.'

As I walked away, a thought struck me, and then another, and I didn't like either. The first was that only I knew Allen was missing. Kelleher was concerned, but didn't know as I now knew. And I was doing exactly what I'd done about Carson: failing to report the fact. No, not quite true; Vernon knew too and Vernon had promised a search. Damn it, I couldn't even think straight! I tried harder with the other idea that had stamped into my head and was more deeply worrying. I thought about it until I was sure my mental processes hadn't got this one scrambled, too. The fact was that everybody who'd had anything to do with the medical records was now gone or out of action. Doc Kirton was dead; the orderly was severely disabled by food poisoning, and Allen, who'd gone to get the keys, had vanished! Quick conclusion: there was something important in those damned records. But it was quicker and more facile than I liked. The medical orderly had been caught in the wide swathe of mass food poisoning; Allen wasn't known, except by Kelleher and by me, to be remotely interested in the medical files. Unless . . , u nless somebody had seen him collecting the keys in the command hut!

But it was getting me nowhere; it was all maybes and possibilities, all ifs and buts and nothing hard anywhere - nothing to point to a man or a group of men ; nothing to indicate purpose. The truth was that somebody, somewhere, had a motive. Whoever he was was sociopathic, too: a man able to appear normal while carrying on a mad murderous campaign against the whole installation and everybody in it. The door to the reactor complex was locked. I hesitated, then banged on it, and after a moment a key turned and the door swung open and one of the engineer sergeants looked out at me enquiringly.

'Mr Kelleher here?'

'Nope. He's in the hospital, sir.' The sergeant held a hefty stick. I pointed to it. 'What's that for?'

He gave a tight smile. 'From here on in, we repel all boarders.'

I thanked him and turned away, sick now with concern, not to mention a growing fear for the safety of my own hide. Now Kelleher was missing! Well, this time I was going to do the right thing, immediately and without debate. The first job was to report it. With two men disappearing inside an hour, and three in a day, the sheer weight of statistics must now overwhelm both Smales's belief in runs of simple bad luck and Coveney's obsession with military order. I'd march down to the command hut, see Vernon and get the place turned upside down. I also thought mirthlessly that Coveney's hunt for Kelleher wouldn't lack determination.

Approaching the entrance to the medical block trench, though, I hesitated. It was just possible Kelleher was still there; that his 'little ole trick' had taken longer than he expected. Better check. Turning into the tunnel, I felt suddenly colder, and halted. Cold air blew through Camp Hundred the whole time, but here the current was stronger, prickling icily at the hair in my nostrils. I stepped to the wall and looked along the trench, past the sides of the huts, then moved forward again. There was nothing to be seen. The snow walls and the arched roof looked as they always looked: the packed snow was greyish in the dim light that came in from Main Street. But as I moved forward, still close to the ice wall, I knew I wasn't mistaken. There was a sharp current of icy air blowing along the trench. I came level with the first hut and entered the narrow passage between the hut's side and the trench wall, and the air current strengthened, flowing round me like very cold river water. I broke into a clumsy run, felt my boots skidding on the crystalline ice and stumbled towards the far end of the trench, already knowing what I'd find.

Even before I got there, I could hear it despite the parka hood. As I came closer, the jet of air battering down at me carried with it the roar of the brutal weather above us. I stopped then and looked upwards, watching the flying white of snow across the open hatch cover twenty feet above my head. I raced up the spiral steel stairs. Loose snowflakes were falling fast around me and already the treads were treacherous, each with its inch or so of fresh white snow, indented with a footprint. Somebody was out there !

At the top I shoved my head and shoulders out through the hatch, and promptly ducked down again as the sheer force of the wind threatened to knock me from the steps. Huddling down, I drew the parka hood tighter until there was no more than a two-inch aperture. Kicking the loose snow from the stair treads, I took a firm grip on the steel handrail before I raised my head again, like a cautious tortoise. Peering through the narrow opening of my hood at the hell outside, I saw nothing. Visibility was no more than two or three feet and the hard snow was flung against me by a shrieking, banging gale of frightening malevolence. To try to see footprints outside was absurd. Whoever had gone out into that must already be beyond hope and help. Nor was there a lifeline tied, as per regulations, to the hatch cover. Thankful to hide myself from the storm's anger, I withdrew my head, pulled the hatch cover down and began to fasten it. Then I stopped. Better leave the catch undone. If somebody had gone out, was struggling to get back and by some miracle succeeded, a locked hatch cover was a death sentence. Slowly, almost despairingly, I climbed down the steel stairs, my head still ringing with the violence of the Arctic wind. With the hatch closed, all was still and silent and even the cold walls, seen by the dim light visible from Main Street, seemed somehow almost indecently safe and secure. I was trying hard to think what reason any man could have to venture out through the hatch into the deadly and implacable world of the empty, intolerant icecap. Only a madman would . . . But the madman was below and secure. Backing down the stair was awkward. I turned to face the way I was going and my foot slipped on snow-coated steel and I stumbled, tried frantically to recover my balance, failed, and fell eight or ten feet to the tunnel floor below. It was a painful, bruising fall, but the heavy padding of my Arctic clothing must have absorbed some of the worst of it. I lay grunting and cursing for a few moments, then began to haul myself to my feet. As I did so, my hand touched something beneath a pile of loose, dry snow that had drifted through the open hatch. I brushed the snow rapidly aside. Allen lay beneath it. Pulling off my mittens, I touched his face and it was icy cold. I bent painfully, took hold of his arm, hoisted him in a rough fireman's lift and staggered back along the trench to the hospital block. I knew there wasn't an empty bed, so I took him straight into the little operating theatre and dumped him on the table and stood beside him for a moment, looking helplessly at the lifeless grey colour that had invaded his fine dark features. I was sure he was dead. His arm hung limply down, his mouth gaped, and as I bent to put my ear to his mouth, 1 could neither hear nor feel any trace of respiration. Ripping his clothes open, baring his chest, I bent again to listen. Nothing. I calculated the time since he'd left the block and then went to rummage in Doc Kirton's desk for the stethoscope. Finding it, I fumbled the earpieces into place and tried to listen for Allen's heartbeat. My total inexperience didn't help. I seemed to hear only the movement of the instrument in my own ears. But then, very briefly, I heard something - a faint flickering sound like a few drops of water gurgling out of some faraway wash basin. Seconds passed. There it was again! Whipping off the stethoscope, I bent, placing my mouth against his icy lips, and forced my own warm breath into him. Another breath: pressure on his rib cage to force it out, then another breath; a minute passed, then two. And suddenly, joyfully, I watched his ribs lift a fraction and then lower. It happened again, and then, after an agonizingly long pause, a third time. I stood back drenched in sweat and relief, watching him breathe, very slowly and shallowly at first, then more steadily, and there were odd, low but audible sighs to confirm to my ears what my eyes could see. It was once considered unwise to warm too quickly a body which might have been attacked by frostbite. The practice then was to rub the victim with snow in the hope of minimizing the murderous pain as circulation returned to frozen flesh. Nowadays a different view is taken. Warmth should be applied as soon as possible. In the next few minutes I had stripped off Allen's boots and trousers and draped towels soaked in warm water over feet and legs. A few moments fiddling with the anaesthetic apparatus and I'd got oxygen flowing into the face mask and with that clamped to his face, Allen's breathing strengthened and steadied. About ten minutes after I'd carried him inside, I was wringing out a new towel when I heard his voice, muffled, through the mask.