Black Ice

by Matt Dickinson

  The weather was still unstable, one small blizzard after another sweeping across the glacier and plunging them into whiteout conditions for hours on end. It made route-finding a nightmare, costing them time and precious energy as they were forced to detour and skirt the countless crevasses and faults.

  Some of the crevasses were so big that they would be forced to halt while Lauren and Sean split up to see which way provided the shortest route towards the north. Then they reached the biggest gulf yet, a crevasse which looked—from the fresh blue colour of the interior—as if it had only recently opened up.

  ‘This one could be miles wide,’ Sean said gloomily. ‘I can’t even see the other side.’

  They sat on the sledge for a rest, everyone locked in their own thoughts as the wind and snow played around them. Finally, Lauren spoke.

  ‘You take the east,’ she told Sean. ‘I’ll recce this way.’

  Lauren checked her compass and slowly walked west for some ten or fifteen minutes, keeping the crevasse edge on her right side. The driving snow was thickening with every passing moment, and visibility was alternating from a couple of metres to ten at most. Looking back over her shoulder, she could see no sign of her team. She walked steadily, scanning the crevasse continually for a snow bridge they could use to cross, her eyes stinging from the hard pinpricks of frozen flakes as they spun through the air.

  The crevasse was beginning to narrow, and for a while she was optimistic that this would be the breakthrough to the north. Then the blizzard lifted for a few moments, and she could see yet another large crevasse dissecting it at an angle.

  Lauren cursed and stood shivering for a while as she considered what to do. There was little doubt the weather was worsening yet again, and by rights she should return to the team and order them to pitch camp. She decided to go on another ten minutes; in her mind was the fear that, if they pitched camp in this trap, they would never again have the physical strength to get out. She prayed that Sean was having more luck in the other direction.

  She carried on into the whiteout, veering slightly to the south again as the new crevasse decided—infuriatingly—to force her to the south alongside what seemed to be a ten-metre-high ice cliff.

  Then she paused. Through the wind rush she could hear the sound of someone coughing. It was regular, coming every few seconds. She rubbed the ice from her eyes and took a few steps forward, straining to see something—anything—through the snow. She checked her compass, thoroughly confused. Could she have turned a full circle? Was that noise the sound of someone where she’d left the team? Or was it Sean?

  She advanced a few more steps. The coughing continued. Except now she realised it wasn’t coughing at all.

  It was more mechanical. More metallic.

  Now she could see a dark shape through the swirling snow. It seemed to be red, but what could be red out here? There was someone next to it, stooping with his back to her.

  Then she got it. Holy shit, it was Fitzgerald. Lauren froze to the spot, her heart thumping like a jackhammer in her chest as she stared in terror at the explorer’s back.

  What if he heard her? What if he turned and saw her? She was too far from the others for them to hear a scream.

  But what was Fitzgerald doing here? Lauren’s exhausted brain took a few frozen seconds, watching him pull the starter cord, before she realised his snowmobile had broken down. The coughing noise was the starter cord as he pulled it back. She could see that the fully laden sledge was still attached to the snowmobile. There was all the food … all the medical supplies …

  Lauren ducked back behind an ice tower and tried to control her breathing.

  This was their chance.

  Would she have time to go back and get Murdo and Sean? Or would Fitzgerald get the snowmobile started and leave the location completely?

  Pull. Pull. The engine almost fired.

  Then she saw the axe. It was lying against the sledge, placed between her and the explorer.

  Now the adrenaline was pumping harder than Lauren had ever known before.

  A moment in which to act … or to flee? Then an image of the empty second barrel flashed into her mind … and the expression on Frank’s face as he watched his fingers being sawn off with a blunt penknife, and she knew there was only one way to resolve this now.

  Lauren moved carefully forward, placing her boots as silently as she could on the ice as the explorer continued his efforts to get the engine going. She was close enough to hear his curses, the swearing constant and enraged. She picked up the axe, felt the smooth wooden handle, surprisingly warm, in her hand. The head was forged from the finest steel, the haft painted red.

  Only one thought was running through her mind: to disable, or to kill?

  Not much competition there. Kill. Now.

  Lauren raised the axe and aimed for the back of the explorer’s head.

  Her movement caught Fitzgerald’s eye, a reflection in the snowmobile mirror perhaps as she prepared for the blow.

  ‘Wha—?’ He began to rise, turning abruptly as he did so, his cry of surprise cut off midword.

  The axe struck a vicious but glancing blow into the shoulder, right through his goretex clothing, deep enough that Lauren could feel it hit bone.

  Fitzgerald turned, the shock of the impact sending his face into contortions as it seemed his eyes would pop out of his head.

  ‘But…’ He took a step towards her, both hands held out as if to reach for her neck. ‘But…’

  Lauren retreated a few more steps, the axe raised for a second blow, watching in appalled fascination as Fitzgerald reached up and felt the wound. He stared at his fingers, examining the blood as if he couldn’t quite believe it was his.

  Lauren cursed herself inwardly; that injury wouldn’t kill him. The wound would give him plenty of problems, would likely become infected, but she had missed the vital organs.

  Fitzgerald made a lunge for her, a roar of pain and anger coming from his mouth as he snatched at the air. Lauren turned, ducking to avoid his grasp, then she was running, into the whiteout, dodging between ice pillars and scattered blocks, until she was sure she had lost him.

  96

  Fitzgerald gave up the chase and returned quickly to the snowmobile, his body surging with adrenaline and the after-shock of the completely unexpected attack. He could sense that the wound in his shoulder was serious, but there would be time for that later.

  For now he had to move fast, away from this place on foot.

  But what could he take? And what would he have to leave? The wind howled around one of the nearby pillars of ice. He spun round. Was that them? Perhaps they were closer than he’d thought. Maybe within minutes they’d be back, Sean and Murdo, to finish off what that bitch Lauren had started.

  Leave them nothing. Take as much as you can tow, but leave them nothing else.

  Fitzgerald started with the two remaining jerrycans of fuel, unsnapping the elastic bungee cords which held them in place and carrying them to the edge of the huge crevasse. He peered over the edge, checking that it really was deep enough, then he lobbed the two jerrycans into the abyss.

  He ran back to the sledge, ripping into the provisions and medical supplies which were stashed on the back of the sledge. How much could he tow?

  Frantically, he began to dismantle the contents of the sledge, tossing packets, tins and containers of rice and pasta into the crevasse until the load was roughly half what it had been. With the drugs he was more selective, tossing out several of the individual emergency first aid kits the barrel had contained but keeping the morphine, antibiotics and syringes.

  He gave the sledge a tug. It was heavy, but he knew he had the strength to move it.

  And the snowmobile? That fucking machine. If it hadn’t given up on him, he’d never have got into this mess. No way was he going to leave them that little toy. He couldn’t get it going, but that was no guarantee that Sean couldn’t.

  Fitzgerald got to work, unhitching the sledge from the snowmo
bile and turning the towing platform aside. He placed his hands on the handgrips and tried a push. But the dead machine was heavy, much heavier than he had anticipated. It wouldn’t budge an inch.

  The explorer swore. He was running out of time. He had to be gone by the time they came back, gone out into the blizzard which up until now he had been cursing. Now it would be his shield, would cover him from sight until he could get enough distance under his feet.

  He bent a little lower, dipping his good shoulder down and levering with all the power in his legs to try and get the machine to move. It slipped a few inches. He heaved again, panting with a mix of exertion and fear as he looked once more out into the void.

  Was there someone hiding behind that pillar? How long would they be?

  Fitzgerald had it moving, a few inches at a time, the iced-up skis graunching reluctantly along the ice, the ribs of the rubber drive belt snagging on small protrusions. Within a couple of minutes he had it at the edge of the crevasse, where a mighty shove tipped it over the lip.

  Hurrying back, he took a length of rope and tied it off around his waist. Then he looped the free end in a bowline around the front of the sledge frame. It wasn’t an ideal towing harness, but for the next few hours it would suffice.

  Fitzgerald snapped his boots into his skis and moved away into the safety of the blizzard, navigating by his compass and changing direction with a zig-zag every time he found polished ice. Leave no tracks, he told himself, or they’ll be able to follow you.

  As he got into his stride, he tried to pull his mind together. It was roughly forty miles to the crashed aircraft; he could do it in three days, maybe even forty-eight hours at a push.

  And he would have to push. The others would be right behind him, encouraged by the knowledge that he was no longer on the snowcat. Fitzgerald upped his pace a little, consulting his GPS navigator for direction through the blizzard.

  He could afford little rest now; he’d have to keep going virtually nonstop. This was going to be a race, he realised, a race right to the end.

  Fitzgerald winced as a sudden surge of pain cut across his chest. He stopped, doubled up with agony as the shoulder wound throbbed, then stood upright and continued, the half-laden sledge running smoothly behind him.

  97

  Lauren led the way quickly into the blizzard, Sean and Murdo following fast on her heels. She knew it was unlikely that Fitzgerald would still be at the same place, but they had at least to try.

  She concentrated on the compass, desperately trying to remember the bearings which had taken her to the spot where the explorer had been working on his machine. Ten minutes passed, quick progress alongside the crevasse, then veering south, their lungs working hard as they pushed their speed.

  Suddenly, they saw red blotches of frozen blood spotted on the ice, a few items such as tin cups, tent poles and straps scattered around. Lauren picked up a butane gas canister and shook it—it was full.

  ‘This is the place,’ she told them. ‘He must have got the snowmobile started.’

  ‘Shit.’ Murdo cursed as he looked out into the blustering storm. ‘How much of a head start has he got?’

  ‘Twenty minutes at least. Maybe thirty.’

  ‘Then we’ve lost him.’

  Sean was crouching, examining twin grooves in the ice. He followed the tracks across to the crevasse and leaned carefully over the edge.

  ‘Hey!’ he called. ‘Come and take a look at this.’

  Lauren moved to join him, staring down into the darkened ice cavity. Immediately, she realised that Fitzgerald had not got the snowmobile running at all, that he’d dumped it into the nearest crevasse in an attempt to destroy it.

  But the configuration of the crevasse had conspired against him. It was not sheer-sided; it was more like a series of steps going down, each huge jutting shelf created perhaps from the remains of snow bridges which had collapsed in the past.

  The snowmobile had plunged, nose-first, into a ledge of soft snow and was sitting not thirty feet beneath them. And around it were numerous small dark objects.

  ‘Are those what I think they are?’ Lauren asked, squinting as her eyes adjusted to the low light levels of the cavity.

  ‘I can see cans!’ Sean exclaimed. ‘And that’s one of the personal medical kits! Fitzgerald was in such a hurry to get away, he didn’t do a very good job of disposal.’

  Lauren straightened up, thinking rapidly.

  ‘Can we get that snowcat out of there?’

  ‘We’ve only got the one rope,’ Sean said, doubt filling his voice, ‘and that machine weighs four to five hundred pounds.’

  ‘But we can try, right?’

  ‘Sure. But maybe it’s really bust. I might not be able to get it going.’

  Lauren was already heading back into the blizzard, the compass in her hand.

  ‘Come with me,’ she told Sean and Murdo. ‘We’ve got to make this our base while we retrieve what we can from that crevasse. Every second’s going to count now. Let’s go and get the others.’

  98

  Fitzgerald checked the illuminated dial of his wristwatch. It was almost midnight and time for a two-hour break. He had been moving nonstop for almost ten hours, pausing only to eat a few snacks from the mound of provisions on the sledge.

  The GPS gave him the good news. He was already twelve miles into his march. This was where his superior strength and fitness would win out … there was no way the others could match his pace.

  Physically, he was feeling more together, although the wound in his shoulder was throbbing vigorously every time he breathed, but emotionally he was still in turmoil.

  His mind kept replaying the moment when Lauren had attacked. If he hadn’t seen that telltale movement … if he hadn’t slipped just those few inches to the side …

  He would be lying dead, or paralysed on the ice, at the mercy of the others.

  A volley of questions was flying round his head, each looking for an answer where none was to be found. Had they planned it all along? Had they planted the idea inside her in case she got close enough? A pressure headache was building inside the explorer’s skull, a nagging, pulsing nodule of pain.

  He managed to get the tent up, taking twice as long as usual to complete the task. He crawled inside and took off his jacket and shirt. He wished he had a mirror to see the damage.

  How deep was the cut? And what had the blow destroyed? Fitzgerald couldn’t see the wound, but he could feel the way the muscles near the shoulder blade had been sliced. His left arm was not so effective now, just to clench his fist caused him a flood of searing pain.

  And if it got infected? Fitzgerald shuddered to think what the complications might be. There were still days, even weeks to go before he would be out of Antarctica.

  Fitzgerald lit his gas stove and watched the blue flames for a while. The light was comforting, cosy almost, as it played around the tent interior. He took the knife with the eight-inch blade and began to twist it in the burner, watching as the stainless steel began to glow dull red and the plastic handle became almost too hot to hold.

  Then he took the knife and, reaching over his shoulder with his right hand, placed the blade as firmly as he could, sizzling and spitting, right into the wound. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. He moved the blade, it would be a mistake to miss some of the damaged flesh. Six. Seven. Eight. The tent was filling with the nauseating stench of burned skin and fat. Nine. Ten.

  He removed the knife and let his teeth ease off where they had bitten into his tongue.

  Fitzgerald was not in the mood to eat or drink. He lay with his eyes wide open, staring at the tiny ring of blue flame until the gas cylinder emptied and the flame petered out.

  Then he packed up the tent, hitched himself to the sledge and continued his trek into the night.

  99

  Sean wrapped the rope around his waist and abseiled backwards into the crevasse. The drop to the shelf was a short one, and a few seconds later he was kicking gently into the deep sn
ow next to the snowmobile.

  ‘Is it damaged?’ Lauren called down.

  Sean gave the machine a quick inspection by the light of his headtorch. The steering column looked a little bent by the impact of the drop, but the soft snow seemed to have cushioned the fall and there was no other visible damage.

  ‘Seems all right.’

  Sean rocked the vehicle a little, hearing the reassuring slop of fuel in the tank. There was no point in busting their guts to get the machine out of that hole if they had no fuel to run it.

  ‘Stop screwing around with that buggy,’ Murdo shouted. ‘Send up the food.’

  Sean began to scout around the shelf, picking up the odd items of food that Fitzgerald had failed to throw far enough to confine to the depths. There was a fruit cake in a tin, a whole carton of dehydrated mashed potato, bags of sugar, tinned spam, and—Sean was tempted to rip into this one and consume the contents right there and then—a whole kilo of the same muesli that had been so critical for energy back at the first depot.

  Fitzgerald’s logic had been to get rid of the heaviest stuff, Sean reasoned; that was why there were so many tins down here. He carried on building up the stash, placing the booty in a sleeping bag and tying it to the rope for Lauren to haul up.

  There were shouts of delight from above when the team spilled the food out onto the ice.

  ‘Hey! Been nice knowing you, Sean,’ Murdo called down. ‘One less mouth to feed.’

  Sean smiled. It was amazing how quickly the presence of a little food had lifted the spirits of the team. That was good, he reasoned, getting that snowmobile out of the crevasse was going to take every ounce of strength they could muster.

  The rope snaked down.

  ‘We’ll haul you up,’ Lauren shouted. ‘We should all get some food inside us before we start work.’