Black Ice

by Matt Dickinson

  Finally, one possibility emerged: a long, slightly curving swathe of ice between two parallel crevasses. It was wide enough, he was sure, but was it long enough?

  Carl looked at the stretch of ice, trying to gauge its length. Was that four hundred metres? Or was it less? It was certainly going to be a tight spot to land an aircraft, but that was what these pilots were good at, wasn’t it?

  He rested for a while then began to pace it out, concentrating hard so as not to lose count as he ticked off the steps in his head. He had reached six hundred and ten steps by the time he came to the end of the available ice. It was an uncompromising fall into one of the biggest crevasses he had ever seen.

  Carl kept well away from the edge, he had already tripped and fallen a couple of times during this search, and he didn’t trust himself to get too close to that gaping mouth.

  Making his way back to the front end of the strip, Carl found another problem: there were two large sastrugi directly in the line the pilot would have to take as he landed, each more than a metre high. Carl kicked at one with his boot, but the impact didn’t leave a mark. There was nothing he could do to remove them.

  Could the pilots hop over these mounds of ice and still bring the plane to a halt before that monster crevasse? Carl felt hopeless; he simply didn’t know.

  Perhaps there was a better place. Groaning with the pain the effort brought to his atrophied muscles, Carl managed to climb up onto one of the sastrugi to give himself a better vantage point over the surrounding terrain.

  The answer was what he expected: no matter where he looked, he could see no run of ice which offered more than this one.

  Carl knew the strip he had found was far from perfect, but what else could he do? They certainly couldn’t move out of the crevasse field—neither he nor Fitzgerald had the strength for the two or three days of effort that that would involve.

  He didn’t feel good about it, but Carl made the decision, putting in the first of the flares, twisting the sharpened base into the ice. Then he stumbled for one hundred and fifty paces and placed the second. Thirty minutes later he had completed the task, the four flares in as straight a line as he could achieve.

  He put in a ski pole to mark the spot and tied a scarf to it so it could be seen from a distance. When they heard the aircraft approach, one of them would have to find the strip and light the flares.

  It would have to be Fitzgerald. Carl knew he would himself barely be able to exit the tent again once he lay down. He had given everything to complete this task.

  He took one last look at the landing place, a mixture of hope and dread filling his heart. Then he began to pick his way back through the maze.

  By the time he got back to the tent he was crawling on his hands and knees.

  8

  To relieve the boredom of the flight, Richard flipped open his laptop and watched the flickering rows of data as it booted into life.

  Next to him the co-pilot was still sleeping.

  Richard selected Word and brought up his Fitzgerald file. What was he going to call this piece? He thought for a while, then typed:

  Mercy flight plucks explorers to safety.

  Too tame. He erased it and replaced it with:

  Rescue at the ends of the earth.

  Then he erased that too and made it:

  Escape from a frozen hell.

  That would do nicely, he thought: perfect for the front page. He consulted his notes, constructing the first paragraph with care:

  One hundred and eighteen days after they set out on their historic attempt to make an unsupported crossing of the Antarctic continent at its widest point, explorers Julian Fitzgerald and Carl Norland have finally been plucked from the ice in a dramatic rescue bid.

  On consideration he replaced ‘plucked’ with ‘airlifted’.

  I was the only reporter allowed to board the mercy flight … just a tiny twin-prop plane with two pilots at the controls. We knew the explorers would be in a weak condition, but nothing had prepared us for the two skeletal figures which greeted us as we landed by their camp. Their faces told the story of this journey through hell … in their eyes the pain of frostbite, of starvation, the uncertainty of rescue in a land where storms and blizzards are almost daily occurrences. In their handshakes the feeble grip of men who have tested themselves to the limit and beyond.

  Richard was pleased with the mood of the piece; it was starting to come together quite well.

  He typed for an hour, padding out the article with whatever his imagination could provide—he knew that when it came to filing the story he would have to get it to London fast, and the more he had written in advance, the better. He would slot in some suitable quotes from the two explorers once they had picked them up.

  After some time, the co-pilot came out of his sleep and went forward to take the controls. Villanova joined Richard in the passenger cabin.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ he asked the reporter.

  Villanova fetched some things from the back of the plane.

  ‘Cheese sandwich and cake,’ he told Richard. ‘Not exactly British Airways business class, but we do our best.’

  Richard smiled and ate the contents of the cardboard box. Later Villanova produced a flask and poured them both a cup of strong black coffee.

  ‘You see that?’ The pilot pointed out of the window.

  Richard looked hard but could see nothing but the grey ocean.

  ‘We are crossing the Antarctic convergence,’ Villanova told him. ‘Can you see how the sea ahead is a different colour?’

  Then Richard could see it, the ocean was changing colour as he watched. Beneath them all was grey, a silty-looking sea like most he had seen. It could have been the English Channel. But in front was a different colour altogether—darker, more dense somehow, the type of black-blue water that speaks of serious depth. It looked like ink, he decided, and it looked deathly cold.

  ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘This is the point where the Southern Ocean meets the Atlantic. They don’t mix; the Southern Ocean is much colder.’

  ‘How long would we survive if we had to ditch?’ Richard asked.

  Villanova considered the question. ‘A few minutes at most.’

  ‘Not very good odds then?’

  ‘Let’s put it this way. I know of at least fifteen airplanes which have ditched in the Southern Ocean. I have never heard of a survivor.’

  From then on, Richard’s heart tripped a beat every time the engine pitch varied.

  Villanova went back to the cockpit, and Richard slept for a while. When he awoke, the scene had changed once more. Now the sea was filled with chunks of ice, each one perhaps the size of a small car, he guessed. Every now and then a bigger iceberg would loom into view, tabular bergs with squared-off edges. Some seemed to be hundreds of metres high, he could see the spray where their walls were pounded constantly by the waves.

  They passed an island, no more than a shattered spine of rock completely encrusted with ice. Richard could see where avalanches had peeled great fields of the stuff away from the walls, he could see fathomless depths to the crevasses. He imagined—and he was right—that no human being had ever stood on the high point of that island, that no ship could ever risk tying up beneath those teetering cliffs.

  The sea solidified; he could almost swear he was watching it turn to ice before his eyes. There were cracks and faults which looked like they had been forced open by passing ships. He looked for them in vain. Then the sea ice ended abruptly, great mountains began and they were flying over the Antarctic continent itself.

  Richard had seen glaciers before, once or twice in the Alps, but nothing like the ones they were now flying over. These were not like rivers, they were hundreds of miles across, so wide it seemed they had no end.

  He experienced a stab of loneliness—a sense of his own insignificance perhaps in the context of this place. He felt the longing for a beer, a Heineken would do, but he was pretty sure there would be none on board.

>   Still the little aircraft plodded on.

  ‘We just switched to the second fuel tank,’ Villanova told him some time later. ‘We should reach our destination in about four hours.’

  Richard was beginning to appreciate that he was a very long way from home.

  9

  The drone of the approaching aircraft seemed to Carl to be the most beautiful sound he had ever heard. Contained within that reassuring buzz was the promise of salvation … of a continued life … of an end to this self-imposed purgatory he had so willingly entered.

  There had been false alarms in the hours before, whistles of wind which had tricked them cruelly. It is astonishing how the human ear can hear what it wants to hear even if the truth is merely a guy rope vibrating in a light breeze.

  But this time the engine noise was too persistent. This time it was real. Carl crawled out of the tent in time to see the aircraft enter its first great arc. Where were they going? Couldn’t they see the tent?

  Fitzgerald got the flares running.

  Carl watched, his heart soaring, as the pilot flew directly over them. They’d been seen!

  He was shocked. The Twin Otter seemed so small and vulnerable, like a child’s toy against the sheer walls of ice and black rock which hemmed in this glacial mass.

  The pilot came in for a pass at the strip. Carl felt his elation give way to a piercing anxiety. Would the place he had chosen be big enough to put it down safely? Please let him land. Please God let him land, Carl prayed.

  The engine note cut stronger as the pilot climbed over the tent and circled around once more. This time his approach was slower, and for a second or two Carl held his breath as the skis kissed lightly against the polished surface of the glacier.

  A test, Carl realised. Testing the ground. The pilot was right to be cautious. Carl hoped he had liked what he had discovered.

  Again the Twin Otter entered the circuit, and it seemed to Carl that, for a while, the tiny aircraft was flying in a straight line away from them. He noticed that the wind was picking up, that the line of clouds on the horizon seemed to be getting closer with every passing minute.

  ‘Don’t go,’ he whispered. ‘If you go now, we’re lost.’

  The adrenaline pumping through him brought Carl, shakily, to his feet. He staggered forward towards the strip, wanting to feel the warmth of human flesh pressed into his hands, wanting the embrace of those men who meant rescue and life and a return to his wife and child.

  They would leave the tent and all their gear. Carl never wanted to see any of it again.

  Slowly, so slowly it seemed it should fall out of the sky, the pilot brought his craft round and straightened up on the strip. He was low this time, really low. Carl was sure this time it was going to happen.

  10

  Villanova put the Twin Otter into a wide, sweeping turn as they reached the target area. He knew from experience it could take time for the flares to be lit. He didn’t even bother looking for the tent, in that huge tortured mass of ice, the chances of seeing such a minuscule speck were as good as nil.

  He throttled back the engines, keeping a keen eye on the controls, adjusting the trim as a turbulent spiral of air caught the port wing.

  Ariza was the first to spot the orange flares.

  ‘Over there.’ He pointed to the north. Villanova followed the line of his hand, spotting two feeble trickles of smoke in amongst the crevasses.

  As they straightened out and headed over, a third, then a fourth, flare was lit. They buzzed over the landing area at three hundred feet, clearly seeing a dark figure waving at them from the ice.

  ‘There’s the tent,’ Ariza said, spotting the circular splash of dacron. Another figure could be seen lying near it.

  Villanova went into a tighter turn, this time coming down the line as if on a final approach. He brought the Twin Otter down to fifty feet, slowing it as far as he dared to give them the best possible view of the proposed landing strip. It was turbulent this close to the ice; the pilots were fighting with the controls to keep the craft level.

  ‘These two are jokers,’ Ariza said. ‘Look at the state of this place.’

  Villanova felt his chest constrict as he saw how exposed the strip was. It was straight enough, and probably just about long enough, but, by God, it was surrounded on all sides by monstrous crevasses.

  ‘This is the worst one we’ve ever had,’ Ariza said. ‘Why didn’t they find somewhere else?’

  ‘I don’t think they had much choice,’ Villanova replied. ‘Can you see anything better?’

  It was true; for miles—perhaps tens of miles—in every direction, the glacier was equally broken up.

  ‘Let’s take another look.’

  Villanova went round again, flying down the line once more, lower still. This time he let his skis touch down for a few metres, the technique all polar pilots use to judge surface texture.

  The impact was hard.

  ‘No powder,’ he said, as they powered back into the climb.

  Ariza knew what that meant: there was no soft surface snow to help them to brake.

  ‘I don’t like it,’ Ariza said. ‘I say we abort.’

  ‘What about that?’ Villanova gestured to the west and the line of evil-looking clouds which heralded the incoming depression. ‘That storm front is coming in fast. I think we get them out now or not at all.’

  Ariza eased forward in his seat, suddenly aware that his shirt was sticking to his back with sweat. Every time he glanced down at that strip, it looked smaller and smaller.

  ‘Why don’t we drop them a note?’ he said, trying to keep his voice calm. ‘Tell them to find a better place, and we’ll come back in a few days.’

  Villanova overruled him.

  ‘Winter’s too close,’ he said. ‘We’re going in. Prepare for finals.’

  11

  Carl could see from the approach that the pilots were cutting it incredibly fine. Judging from the angle, they were planning to glide in with the landing skids just inches above the sastrugi. They were obviously hoping to maximise the strip available to them, Carl realised, and, with that monster crevasse at the far end, it wasn’t hard to understand why.

  He heard the engine note change as the turbo-props throttled back, the flaps on each wing lowering as the pilots held their course for the strip. They were fighting to keep the aircraft stable. Carl could see how each wingtip was see-sawing as eddies and gusts caught the plane.

  Just as it seemed they would skim above the ice mounds with a hair’s-breadth to spare, the Twin Otter appeared to be gripped by a new force as a sudden rip of wind raced across the strip. As it did so, the port wing seemed to dip and the aircraft lost height. Carl saw the tip of one of the skids smash into the ice mound.

  There was only a few centimetres in it, but this time luck was not on the pilots’ side. The leading edge of the port-side skid crumpled as it impacted into the iron-hard ridge of ice, the starboard wing swinging immediately round as the aircraft slewed out of true.

  Carl heard the engines rev louder as the pilots applied more power, the Twin Otter shaking with the violence of the blow as they tried to correct.

  Now they were fighting to gain height, he realised, trying desperately to get the aircraft back up into the air. For a moment it looked like they’d succeeded, as the nose began to rise, but a further vicious cross-wind caught them, this time sending the port-side wingtip crashing down.

  The Twin Otter belly-flopped onto the glacier with a sickening crunch, the engines screaming as the pilots applied reverse thrust. But they were already running out of control, virtually at ninety degrees to the correct approach angle. The 4,800-kilo aircraft was still travelling at more than one hundred miles an hour.

  The pilots tried once more to correct—Carl could see the nose veer as they attempted to steer out of the spin. But the remaining right skid caught on another low ridge and that was when both pilots lost it completely. Now the plane was slewing crazily, skating across the polished ice; a
sideways glissade which took it—fast—towards a series of other hard ridges of ice. One hit the starboard propeller, ripping into it with a splintering shower of metal shrapnel and sparks.

  The aircraft spun in a fast pirouette, the port-side wing sending a shower of ice crystals into the air as it ploughed a furrow into the glacier. Eighty miles an hour—the entire engine was ripped off and flung to one side with a rending shriek of metal.

  Still the aircraft did not stop. It had too much momentum for that.

  Carl saw the face of a man—one of the pilots—pressed against the glass in a silent scream.

  Then the Twin Otter fell headlong into the crevasse.

  There was a muffled impact from the depths.

  Carl walked to the lip, numb with shock, waiting for the fireball, for the explosion which would surely follow. Fitzgerald, ashen-faced, was soon beside him.

  They could hear an electronic buzzing from the crevasse, like a swarm of bees heard far away. A light cloud of acrid blue smoke was lingering in the fissure.

  Then the buzzing stopped. The two men stood there, looking down into a void in which they could see nothing but black depth.

  They barely noticed the rising wind which had come with the approaching depression, the clouds which had followed the pilots rapidly across the wastes.

  But it was with them soon enough, and so was the storm it contained.

  PART 2

  Capricorn Base

  12

  Capricorn Base. 00.43.06 degrees west, 87 degrees south. A collection of huts anchored to the ice on a desolate high plateau of Antarctica. To an outsider this place could look like hell, a site of frozen exile, a punishment posting in which one dark winter would be enough to turn even the most stable mind insane.

  A visitor—if such a thing were possible—would wonder what purpose such a base could serve, for in every direction, for literally thousands of square miles, there was not a living plant or creature to be seen. Nor was there any prominence or drama to the terrain … just rolling undulations of glacial ice stretching off to the horizon and beyond.