Ice Station Zebra Page 13

  We scanned the horizon to the west until our eyes ached. Nothing. Nothing at all. Just that endless desolation. From due north to due south, through 180°, we searched the surface of that great river; and still we saw nothing. Three minutes passed. Still nothing. I began to feel the ice running in my blood.

  On the remote off-chance that we might already have bypassed the Dolphin to the north or south, I turned and peered towards the east. It wasn’t easy, for that far subzero gale of wind brought tears to the eyes in an instant of time; but at least it wasn’t impossible, we no longer had to contend with the needle-pointed lances of the ice-spicules. I made another slow 180° sweep of the eastern horizon, and again, and again. Then I caught Hansen’s arm.

  ‘Look there,’ I said. ‘To the north-east. Maybe quarter of a mile away, maybe half a mile. Can you see anything?’

  For several seconds Hansen squinted along the direction of my outstretched hand, then shook his head. ‘I see nothing. What do you think you see?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m not sure. I can imagine I see a very faint touch of luminescence on the surface of the ice-storm there, maybe just a fraction of a shade whiter than the rest.’

  For a full half-minute Hansen stared out through cupped hands. Finally he said: ‘It’s no good. I don’t see it. But then my eyes have been acting up on me for the past half-hour. But I can’t even imagine I see anything.’

  I turned away to give my streaming eyes a rest from that icy wind and then looked again. ‘Damn it,’ I said, ‘I can’t be sure that there is anything there; but I can’t be sure that there isn’t, either.’

  ‘What do you fancy it would be?’ Hansen’s voice was dispirited, with overtones of hopelessness. ‘A light?’

  ‘A searchlight shining vertically upwards. A searchlight that’s not able to penetrate that ice-storm.’

  ‘You’re kidding yourself, Doc,’ Hansen said wearily. ‘The wish father to the thought. Besides, that would mean that we had already passed the Dolphin. It’s not possible.’

  ‘It’s not impossible. Ever since we started climbing those damned ice-hummocks I’ve lost track of time and space. It could be.’

  ‘Do you still see it?’ The voice was empty, uninterested, he didn’t believe me and he was just making words.

  ‘Maybe my eyes are acting up, too,’ I admitted. ‘But, damn it, I’m still not sure that I’m not right.’

  ‘Come on, Doc, let’s go.’

  ‘Go where?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ His teeth chattered so uncontrollably in that intense cold that I could scarcely follow his words. ‘I guess it doesn’t matter very much where —’

  With breath-taking abruptness, almost in the centre of my imagined patch of luminescence and not more than four hundred yards away, a swiftly climbing rocket burst through the rushing river of ice-spicules and climbed high into the clear sky trailing behind it a fiery tail of glowing red sparks. Five hundred feet it climbed, perhaps six hundred, then burst into a brilliantly incandescent shower of crimson stars, stars that fell lazily back to earth again, streaming away to the west on the wings of the gale and dying as they went, till the sky was colder and emptier than ever before.

  ‘You still say it doesn’t matter very much where we go?’ I asked Hansen. ‘Or maybe you didn’t see that little lot?’

  ‘What I just saw,’ he said reverently, ‘was the prettiest ol’ sight that Ma Hansen’s little boy ever did see — or ever will see.’ He thumped me on the back, so hard that I had to grab him to keep my balance. ‘We got it made, Doc!’ he shouted. ‘We got it made. Suddenly I have the strength of ten. Home sweet home, here we come.’

  Ten minutes later we were home.

  ‘God this is wonderful,’ Hansen sighed. He stared in happy bemusement from the captain to me to the glass in his hand to the water dripping from the melting ice on his furs on to the corticene decking of the captain’s tiny cabin. ‘The warmth, the light, the comfort and home sweet home. I never thought I’d see any of it again. When that rocket went up, Skipper, I was just looking around to pick a place to lay me down and die. And don’t think I’m joking, for I’m not.’

  ‘And Dr Carpenter?’ Swanson smiled.

  ‘Defective mental equipment somewhere,’ Hansen said. ‘He doesn’t seem to know how to set about giving up. I think he’s just mule-headed. You get them like that.’

  Hansen’s slightly off-beat, slightly irrational talk had nothing to do with the overwhelming relief and relaxation that comes after moments of great stress and tension. Hansen was too tough for that. I knew that and I knew that Swanson knew it also. We’d been back for almost twenty minutes now, we’d told our story, the pressure was off, a happy ending for all seemed in sight and normalcy was again almost the order of the day. But when the strain is off and conditions are back to normal a man has time to start thinking about things again. I knew only too well what was in Hansen’s mind’s eye, that charred and huddled shapelessness that had once been my brother. He didn’t want me to talk about him, and for that I didn’t blame him; he didn’t want me even to think about him, although he must have known that that was impossible. The kindest men nearly always are like that, hard and tough and cynical on the outside, men who have been too kind and showed it.

  ‘However it was,’ Swanson smiled, ‘you can consider yourselves two of the luckiest men alive. That rocket you saw was the third last we had, it’s been a regular fourth of July for the past hour or so. And you reckon Rawlings, Zabrinski and the survivors on Zebra are safe for the present?’

  ‘Nothing to worry about for the next couple of days,’ Hansen nodded. ‘They’ll be O.K. Cold, mind you, and a good half of them desperately in need of hospital treatment, but they’ll survive.’

  ‘Fine. Well, this is how it is. This lead here stopped closing in about half an hour ago, but it doesn’t matter now, we can drop down any time and still hold our position. What does matter is that we have located the fault in the ice-machine. It’s a damnably tricky and complicated job and I expect it will take several hours yet to fix. But I think we’ll wait until it is fixed before we try anything. I’m not too keen on this idea of making a dead reckoning approach to this lead near Zebra then loosing off a shot in the dark. Since there’s no desperate hurry, I’d rather wait till we got the ice fathometer operating again, make an accurate survey of this lead then fire a torpedo up through the middle. If the ice is only four or five feet thick there, we shouldn’t have much trouble blowing a hole through.’

  ‘That would be best,’ Hansen agreed. He finished off his medicinal alcohol — an excellent bourbon — rose stiffly to his feet and stretched. ‘Well, back to the old treadmill again. How many torpedoes in working order?’

  ‘Four, at the last count.’

  ‘I may as well go help young Mills load them up now. If that’s O.K. by you, Skipper.’

  ‘It is not O.K. by me,’ Swanson said mildly, ‘and if you’ll take a quick gander at that mirror there you’ll understand why. You’re not fit to load a slug into an airgun far less a torpedo into its tube. You haven’t just been on a Sunday afternoon stroll, you know. A few hours’ sleep, John, then we’ll see.’

  Hansen didn’t argue. I couldn’t imagine anyone arguing with Commander Swanson. He made for the door. ‘Coming, Doc?’

  ‘In a moment. Sleep well.’

  ‘Yeah. Thanks.’ He touched me lightly on the shoulder and smiled through bloodshot and exhausted eyes. ‘Thanks for everything. Goodnight, all.’

  When he was gone Swanson said: ‘It was pretty wicked out there to-night?’

  ‘I wouldn’t recommend it for an old ladies’ home Sunday afternoon outing.’

  ‘Lieutenant Hansen seems to imagine he’s under some kind of debt to you,’ he went on inconsequentially.

  ‘Imagination, as you say. They don’t come any better than Hansen. You’re damned lucky to have him as an exec.’

  ‘I know that.’ He hesitated, then said quietly: ‘I promise you, I won’t mention
this again — but, well, I’m most damnably sorry, Doctor.’

  I looked at him and nodded slowly. I knew he meant it, I knew he had to say it, but there’s not much you can say in turn to anything like that. I said: ‘Six others died with him, Commander.’

  He hesitated again. ‘Do we — do we take the dead back to Britain with us?’

  ‘Could I have another drop of that excellent bourbon, Commander? Been a very heavy run on your medicinal alcohol in the past few hours, I’m afraid.’ I waited till he had filled my glass then went on: ‘We don’t take them back with us. They’re not dead men, they’re just unrecognisable and unidentifiable lumps of charred matter. Let them stay here.’

  His relief was unmistakable and he was aware of it for he went on hurriedly, for something to say: ‘All this equipment for locating and tracking the Russian missiles. Destroyed?’

  ‘I didn’t check.’ He’d find out for himself soon enough that there had been no such equipment. How he’d react to that discovery in light of the cock-and-bull story I’d spun to himself and Admiral Garvie in the Holy Loch I couldn’t even begin to guess. At the moment I didn’t even care. It didn’t seem important, nothing seemed important, not any more. All at once I felt tired, not sleepy, just deathly tired, so I pushed myself stiffly to my feet, said good-night and left.

  Hansen was in his bunk when I got back to his cabin, his furs lying where he had dropped them. I checked that he was no longer awake, slipped off my own furs, hung them up and replaced the Mannlicher-Schoenauer in my case. I lay down in my cot to sleep, but sleep wouldn’t come. Exhausted though I was, I had never felt less like sleep in my life.

  I was too restless and unsettled for sleep, too many problems coming all at once were causing a first-class log-jam in my mind. I got up, pulled on shirt and denim pants, and made my way to the control room. I spent the better part of what remained of the night there, pacing up and down, watching two technicians repairing the vastly complicated innards of the ice-machine, reading the messages of congratulation which were still coming in, talking desultorily to the officer on deck and drinking endless cups of coffee. It passed the night for me and although I hadn’t closed an eye I felt fresh and almost relaxed by the time morning came.

  At the wardroom breakfast table that morning everyone seemed quietly cheerful. They knew they had done a good job, the whole world was telling them they had done a magnificent job, and you could see that they all regarded that job as being as good as over. No one appeared to doubt Swanson’s ability to blow a hole through the ice. If it hadn’t been for the presence of the ghost at the feast, myself, they would have been positively jovial.

  ‘We’ll pass up the extra cups of coffee this morning, gentlemen,’ Swanson said. ‘Drift Station Zebra is still waiting for us and even although I’m assured everyone there will survive, they must be feeling damned cold and miserable for all that. The ice-machine has been in operation for almost an hour now, at least we hope it has. We’ll drop down right away and test it and after we’ve loaded the torpedoes — two should do it, I fancy — we’ll blow our way up into this lead at Zebra.’

  Twenty minutes later the Dolphin was back where she belonged, 150 feet below the surface of the sea — or the ice-cap. After ten minutes’ manoeuvring, with a close check being kept on the plotting table to maintain our position relative to Drift Station Zebra, it was clear that the ice-machine was behaving perfectly normally again, tracing out the inverted ridges and valleys in the ice with its usual magical accuracy. Commander Swanson nodded his satisfaction.

  ‘That’s it, then.’ He nodded to Hansen and Mills, the torpedo officer. ‘You can go ahead now. Maybe you’d like to accompany them, Dr Carpenter. Or is loading torpedoes old hat to you?’

  ‘Never seen it,’ I said truthfully. ‘Thanks, I’d like to go along.’ Swanson was as considerate towards men as he was towards his beloved Dolphin which was why every man in the ship swore by him. He knew, or suspected that, apart from the shock I felt at my brother’s death, I was worried stiff about other things: he would have heard, although he hadn’t mentioned it to me and hadn’t even asked me how I had slept, that I’d spent the night prowling aimlessly and restlessly about the control room: he knew I would be grateful for any distraction, for anything that would relieve my mind, however temporarily, of whatever it was that was troubling it. I wondered just how much that extraordinarily keen brain knew or guessed. But that was an unprofitable line of thought so I put it out of my mind and went along with Hansen and Mills. Mills was another like Raeburn, the navigation officer, he looked to me more like a college undergraduate than the highly competent officer he was, but I supposed it was just another sign that I was growing old.

  Hansen crossed to a panel by the diving console and studied a group of lights. The night’s sleep had done Hansen a great deal of good and, apart from the abraded skin on his forehead and round the cheekbones where the ice-spicules of last night had done their work, he was again his normal cheerfully-cynical relaxed self, fresh and rested and fit. He waved his hand at the panel.

  ‘The torpedo safety light, Dr Carpenter. Each green light represents a closed torpedo tube door. Six doors that open to the sea — bow caps, we call them — six rear doors for loading the torpedoes. Only twelve lights but we study them very, very carefully — just to make sure that all the lights are green. For if any of them were red — any of the top six, that is, which represent the sea doors — well, that wouldn’t be so good, would it?’ He looked at Mills. ‘All green?’

  ‘All green,’ Mills echoed.

  We moved for’ard along the wardroom passage, and dropped down the wide companionway into the crew’s mess. From there we moved into the for’ard torpedo storage room. Last time I’d been there, on the morning after our departure from the Clyde, nine or ten men had been sleeping in their bunks; now all the bunks were empty. Five men were waiting for us: four ratings and a Petty Officer Bowen whom Hansen, no stickler for protocol, addressed as Charlie.

  ‘You will see now,’ Hansen observed to me, ‘why officers are more highly paid than enlisted men, and deservedly so. While Charlie and his gallant men skulk here behind two sets of collision bulkheads, we must go and test the safety of the tubes. Regulations. Still, a cool head, and an iron nerve: we do it gladly for our men.’

  Bowen grinned and unclipped the first collision bulkhead door. We stepped over the eighteen-inch sill, leaving the five men behind, and waited until the door had been clipped up again before opening the for’ard collision bulkhead door and stepping over the second sill into the cramped torpedo room. This time the door was swung wide open and hooked back on a heavy standing catch.

  ‘All laid down in the book of rules,’ Hansen said. ‘The only time the two doors can be opened at the same time is when we’re actually loading the torpedoes.’ He checked the position of metal handles at the rear of the tubes, reached up, swung down a steel-spring microphone and flicked a switch. ‘Ready to test tubes. All manual levers shut. All lights showing green?’

  ‘All lights still green.’ The answering voice from the overhead squawk box was hollow, metallic, queerly impersonal.

  ‘You already checked,’ I said mildly.

  ‘So we check again. Same old book of rules.’ He grinned. ‘Besides, my grandpa died at ninety-seven and I aim to beat his record. Take no chances and you run no risk. What are they to be, George?’

  ‘Three and four.’ I could see the brass plaques on the circular rear doors of the tubes, 2, 4 and 6 on the port side, 1, 3 and 5 on the starboard. Lieutenant Mills was proposing to use the central tubes on each side.

  Mills unhooked a rubber torch from the bulkhead and approached number 3 first. Hansen said: ‘Still no chances. First of all George opens the test cock in the rear door which will show if there is any water at all in the tubes. Shouldn’t be, but sometimes a little gets past the bow caps. If the test cock shows nothing, then he opens the door and shines his torch up to examine the bow cap and see that there is no obstr
uction in the tube. How’s it, George?’

  ‘O.K., number three.’ Three times Mills lifted the test cock handle and no trace of water appeared. ‘Opening the door now.’

  He hauled on the big lever at the rear, pulled it clear and swung back the heavy circular door. He shone his torch up the gleaming inside length of the tube, then straightened. ‘Clean as a whistle and dry as a bone.’

  ‘That’s not the way he was taught to report it,’ Hansen said sorrowfully. ‘I don’t know what the young officers are coming to these days. Right, George, number four.’

  Mills grinned, secured the rear door on number 3 and crossed to number 4. He lifted the test cock handle and said: ‘Oh-oh.’

  ‘What is it?’ Hansen asked.

  ‘Water,’ Mills said tersely.

  ‘Is there much? Let’s see?’

  ‘Just a trickle.’

  ‘Is that bad?’ I asked.

  ‘It happens,’ Hansen said briefly. He joggled the handle up and down and another spoonful of water appeared. ‘You can get a slightly imperfect bow-cap and if you go deep enough to build up sufficient outside pressure you can get a trickle of water coming in. Probably what has happened in this case. If the bow-cap was open, friend, at this depth the water would come out of that spout like a bullet. But no chances, no chances.’ He reached for the microphone again. ‘Number four bow-cap still green? We have a little water here.’

  ‘Still green.’

  Hansen looked down at Mills. ‘How’s it coming?’

  ‘Not so much now.’

  ‘Control centre,’ Hansen said into the microphone. ‘Check the trim chit, just to make sure.’

  There was a pause, then the box crackled again.

  ‘Captain here. All tubes showing “Empty”. Signed by Lieutenant Hansen and the foreman engineer.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ Hansen switched off and grinned. ‘Lieutenant Hansen’s word is good enough for me any day. How’s it now?’