Whiteout! Read online

  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.'

  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. T
hirty-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.1 He 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.

  We came to the wanigan quite suddenly. I doubt if I'd have seen it, but Scott and Herschel must have been able to judge the distance, or else the marker barrels gave them information, because they suddenly turned to the right, and as I followed, the flat orange rectangle of the safety wanigan loomed out of the dark. Drifted snow lay against it to a height of about eight feet, so that only the top couple of feet was visible. Herschel went quickly over to it and dug with his hands in the snow until he unearthed a shovel. Rank counted. He handed the shovel and the hard work to Scott, who obediently began to shift snow. It took only a couple of minutes, but enough for a chill feeling to begin, before most of the wanigan door showed, and we went in, slamming it behind us, and shutting out the noise. Inside, it was startlingly still and quiet. And Herschel said, 'My goddam feet must have been sweating in the Polecat ! Soon as we get some light around here, we'll have a nice, stinking, feet-rubbing fiesta.'

  And we did. The air was full of the smell of feet as we sat on the floor in pairs, with the stove going warmly, rubbing. The same thing had happened to all four of us : there were eight pale heels, each of which began to tingle, then to burn as circulation crept back. There was no damage, nothing permanent, but like Smales's pork chop, it was another demonstration of power and vulnerability. It was also, I thought grimly, further proof of what Smales had said about minds working at only fifty per cent efficiency. Every man in the Polecat, all four of us, had known all about boot hazards, but the heater had been turned high and we'd revelled in it!

  But now it was back to comfort. The safety wanigan was, to all intents and purposes, a large and well-fitted caravan and contained everything necessary to sustain the lives of four people for four weeks, including a wall-rack full of big bottles of liquefied gas. With the stove burning, I got a quick guided tour. As it happened, the wanigan we were in was a new type, recently oft the experimental list, and of a novel construction. Its walls were made of expanded polystyrene foam, sandwiched between layers of glass fibre. Foster was engaged on this very project, seeking better designs, but the principles of the thing were breathtaking. The glass fibre/polystyrene walls had tremendous thermal insulation properties, and a single kilowatt of heat was enough to maintain a temperature in the seventies, even if the hut were empty. With four men inside, heat was scarcely needed at all.

  Foster said, 'See the implications?'

  I shook my head. 'I see the value up here, yes.'

  'Bigger than that,' he said. 'This thing's constructed of uniform panels. Floor, walls, roof, all uniform. They just bolt together. More panels, you make bigger huts, okay. But there's something you maybe haven't thought about. Polystrene beads are small. Not when they're expanded, but for transit. Glass fibre's light and can be compressed. And a little resin goes a hell of a long way. Now: you fill a big plane with barrels of beads and resin an
d bales of fibre. You put in the moulds and the styrene blower -that's the machine that expands the beads - and you can make* these panels anywhere. What'll shake you is how many.'

  'Go on.'

  'We can get enough materials in one Galaxy freighter right now,' Foster said, 'to build a camp for three thousand men.'

  'Three thousand?

  'Right on. What's that? Big village or a small town. Tell you who's interested, the United Nations, that's who. Think of the potential of this in a disaster area, floods, typhoons, earthquakes. One plane comes in and they start fabricating panels and in a few days you got three thousand people housed!'

  I nodded, fascinated.

  'And well housed.' Foster, talking about this project, was a changed man, full of enthusiasm. 'You go outside and kick the wall, the sound can't hardly be heard inside. Twenty people in a thirty-two-foot hut, sleeping ten each side, and you need no heating at all, even up here.'

  Herschel interrupted good-humouredly, 'You gonna place your order now, sucker, or hold out till this hustler's taken you to a nightclub?'

  'I think I'd buy,' I said.

  He nodded. 'Me, too. I'm gonna try to build a house of this stuff home in Maryland if the regulations'll let me. Be cheaper than bricks and lumber. But before we build the house - ' He went to a radio set in the corner, switched on and called Camp Hundred. There was a lot of crackling static, but they answered. 'Wanigan Fifteen to Hundred. Polecat inoperative, repeat Polecat inoperative. We are sheltering Wanigan Fifteen. Inform Commander.'

  'Roger Wanigan Fifteen. Stand by.'

  Smales came on a couple of minutes later. There was no jargon from him. He said, 'Herschel, it's Barney. What in hell went wrong?'

  'We ran out of gas.'

  'Out of-Jesus Christ!'

  Herschel said, 'We'll wait for the Swing, Barney. Ride on up with Milt Garrison.'