“I don’t see you doing anything apart from bossing everyone else around.”
“Someone’s got to get this motley crew organised. And besides, the activity will keep you warm.”
“Before we do anything else, we need to move David,” Jake said. “We can’t leave him in here with us to rot.”
“No, we’ll need him when we start running out of food,” Nathan said.
“Stop being so disrespectful,” Neeta said.
“We can put him outside,” Jake said. “Nathan, Pete, you guys give me a hand. Between the three of us we should be able to haul him up the ladder and outside.”
“We should wrap him in something,” Neeta said.
“I don’t think we should sacrifice any blankets to a guy who won’t feel the benefit, do you?” Jake said. “Best to save them to keep the living warm.”
“What about a tarpaulin or something?”
“We can find better uses for our tarpaulins. If you’re worried about covering the body up, be assured the snow will do that soon enough,” said Jake. “Now let’s get on with this.”
Jake, Nathan and Pete struggled to haul David’s body to the surface. Allison worked on re-stocking the fire with coal and re-lighting it, and Ellen started unpacking and cataloguing all the equipment, roping in Neeta to help.
By the time the men returned, red-faced from the exertion, the kitchen was warming up nicely. Reluctant to go back out into the cold, Ellen nevertheless packed water bottles, torches and the compass into her pack, and shrugged back into her parka. She looked at Jake. “OK, let’s do this. I’m ready.”
“OK. With luck, this won’t take long. Let’s go.” Jake turned and strode down the corridor towards the ladder, Ellen hurrying along behind.
CHAPTER 18
Ellen and Jake tramped across the snowy terrain towards the small concrete structure that beckoned like a beacon in the distance. Jake lit a cigarette and took the lead, not speaking.
The underground base was carved into a hillside that sloped gently upwards. Jake and Ellen forged a path diagonally through thick untouched snow. They passed the curl of smoke that wafted from the flue. More than fifty feet beyond it was the second structure they had spotted from the ridge.
It was a long, low, single-storey building, its flat roof ridged so that the snow would slide off and not gather. There were no visible windows or apparent means of entry. Ellen followed close in Jake’s wake, the building now only a few feet away.
He stopped so abruptly that she nearly crashed into him. “Something wrong?” she said.
Jake was staring down at the ground where they had been tromping through knee-high snow. Ellen followed his gaze. For hours they had been dealing with virgin snow, untainted by human footprints. But the snow immediately around the structure was churned up, disturbed by many footprints. “There are tracks in the snow,” Ellen said.
“Don’t you think that’s interesting, considering we’ve seen nobody?” Jake reached for his utility belt and pulled a revolver free from its holster – a revolver Ellen had not before noticed he was carrying.
“Could it have been an animal, trying to get in for shelter?” Ellen suggested. “We’ve heard wolves howling.”
“These tracks look too big to be made by animals.” Jake approached the building cautiously, scanning the prints in the snow. “There are no other tracks. Where did they come from?”
“Perhaps they were looking for a way in.”
“Stay behind me. And keep quiet.” Jake prowled the perimeter, his footprints creating a parallel line to the churned-up snow. Ellen followed cautiously, her eyes scanning the side of the building. There was no apparent break in the concrete; no windows or doors; and no gaps between the concrete slabs.
The building was oblong, with the two sides longer than the ends. Jake reached the corner of the building and paused, peering around the other side with his gun pointed forward. Ellen followed him as he moved forward and repeated the same exercise at the other corner.
Along the other long side of the building, out of sight of their approach from the tunnel, two steel panels and a handle made a crude doorway. The churned-up snow extended farther out in front of the door, as if there had been some kind of scuffle. Beyond the door, along the rest of the building the snow was unspoiled and unbroken.
Jake stood still. Ellen realised that he wasn’t staring at the door, as she was, but out in the opposite direction. “What is it?” she whispered, feeling the need to keep her voice down.
Jake pointed. “Look out over there. We’ve found the end of the island.”
Ellen followed his gaze. The snowy terrain ended about a hundred feet from them, the land dropping away. Although what lay beyond was not visible from their vantage point, Ellen could hear, faint but unmistakable, the sound of the sea.
“Water.” A thought occurred to her. “The map seemed to indicate there might be boats and planes at the base. This must be the way the Nazis got in and out.”
“It would be logical to assume so.”
“There are two other structures over there,” Ellen said, squinting through the snow to see. “They were hidden by this structure when we were on the other side. Too small to be buildings. We should check them out while we’re out here.”
“The one on the right looks like the generator,” Jake said. “Not sure about the other one.” He frowned. “Possibly an elevator shaft?”
“If we can get the lift working and it goes down to the hangar, we can all get out of here right now,” Ellen said.
“We need to check out this structure first.” Jake moved abruptly, approaching the door, firearm at the ready. “We don’t know what surprises might be lying in wait.” He pushed down the handle and leaned on the door. It juddered, but it did not open.
“Is it locked?”
“Not locked. Stuck. Stand back.” Jake took two steps back, and Ellen hurriedly backed up to give him room. Jake lunged forward and gave the door a solid kick with his fur-lined cold-weather boot. The top of the door leaned in, but the bottom remained stuck fast. Jake gave it another kick. The door flew open with a clang, leaning away from the frame as the bottom-most hinge came loose.
Jake sprang through the doorway, pointing his gun into each corner of the room. Then he called out to Ellen, “It’s clear.”
Ellen stepped over the threshold, struggling to see in the gloom. The only natural light came in through the open doorway. She dug out her torch and switched it on, investigating the north side corners of the room while Jake checked out the south side. Her torch beam fell on a pile of canisters occupying one corner of the room. She looked closer. “We’ve got a good store of kerosene and gas canisters here,” she said. “That’s good news.” In the other corner stood two large metal drums. Ellen shone the torch on them, trying to read the labels. “I think these might be aviation fuel.”
“That’s a good indication there might be a plane here,” Jake said. “And there’s a big pile of coal in this corner. That’s good news for us – means we can keep the fire going for a while.” He walked across the room but stopped when something clanged under his feet. “Hold on a minute. Shine that flashlight beam this way, will you?”
Ellen trained the beam onto the floor beneath Jake’s feet. She saw a metal panel set loosely into the concrete with a handle cut into it.
“OK, just keep that light there a minute.” Jake tucked his gun back into his belt, leaned down and grasped the handle in both hands, tugging as hard as he could. The panel swung back with a bone-jarring squeak.
Stale air floated out of the opening. Ellen approached the edge and peered over, shining her torch into the depths. “There’s a ladder here,” she said, moving the beam around to try and catch sight of the bottom of the ladder. “Staples in the wall, like the other one. Looks like it goes down about twenty feet. Then it opens up into a passageway, like the other tunnel entrance I fell down.”
Jake leaned in close to Ellen to peer down the passageway. She cau
ght a whiff of old cigarettes from him, underlined by a hint of sweat. “This must be another entrance into the base.”
“Then let’s check it out. We might be able to access the blocked part of the base from here.” Ellen perched on the edge of the opening, securing her torch in her jacket as she prepared to swing her legs down onto the metal staples.
“What about those footprints outside?” Jake said. “There might be something else here.”
“Hey, you’re the one with the gun,” Ellen said. “Cover me. I’m going in.” She grinned at Jake. “I always wanted to say that,” she said, and began her descent into the tunnel.
CHAPTER 19
They came out into another dark corridor. Northwards, the corridor ended in two shafts. The one on the left was blocked by riveted metal panels, which housed the lift shaft. The other side, by default, had to be the generator, accessed only from the outside.
They turned around and began heading south down the corridor, their way lit only by the meagre beam of the torch.
A few feet down, a junction had another corridor branching off to the right. Jake stood in front of it, shining the torch on the concrete barrier that blocked the corridor. “This has to be the corridor that leads to the officers’ quarters.”
“We’ve got to find a way to break through this,” Ellen said. “We don’t want to have to come up outside every time to access this bit of the base.”
“Maybe we should first establish why it was sealed in the first place.” Jake carried on past the sealed corridor and stopped at a door in the right hand wall. He rattled the handle, then shone the torch carefully around the edges of the doorway. “This door’s also been sealed shut. Huh.”
“Somebody went to a lot of trouble to keep people out of certain parts of this base,” Ellen said.
“Or to keep something in.” Jake moved farther down the corridor, where there were doors on either side. He stopped at the next door on the right. The door opened easily and he stepped through, Ellen following closely behind.
Ellen saw helmets, military mess kits, webbing used to strap items across soldiers’ bodies, canteens and other small items stored in crates on the shelves. Everything was neatly stacked and orderly. She shone her torch across all the crates, pausing the beam on what looked like a crate full of ammunition. She pulled out a small cardboard box and held it out to Jake. “Can we use this?”
He opened the box and studied the contents. “This ammo dates back to the second world war. It might be useful if we find seventy-year-old weapons to use it in. Too bad there are no guns in this room.” He handed the box back to Ellen.
“There must be some elsewhere in the base. It still could be useful.” She put the box of ammunition in her backpack.
As Jake moved across the room, his foot kicked something. He shone the beam of the torch down for a closer look. “Hey, what’s this?”
It was a flat piece of wood with four wheels on the base and a thick length of rope fashioned as a handle. Jake pulled on the rope and the object, a trolley of sorts, rolled out from underneath the shelving unit. “This must be what they used to move things around the base. We might be able to use it.”
“Let’s take it with us then,” Ellen said.
Jake shook his head. “This is a reconnaissance mission. We know where it is. We can come back if we need it.” He headed out of the room to the door directly opposite, the first of three in the left-hand wall of the corridor.
It opened onto a small office with one scratched desk and piles of paperwork on it. All in German, of course. The second door was for a storage room containing laboratory equipment: glass beakers, test tubes, and so on. The third door opened onto another bunk room containing only two bunks. Once more the bunks were neatly made with military precision.
Ellen opened the lockers. “I think this room belonged to the scientists. Look.” She shone her torch on the white lab coat hanging there.
“Scientists’ quarters and storage for lab equipment,” Jake said. “There must be a laboratory nearby.” He looked out into the corridor. “I’m willing to bet it’s that room opposite.”
On the shelf of the locker was a small notebook. Ellen picked it up and opened it. It looked like another personal journal. She stuffed the notebook into her backpack and followed Jake out of the room.
Beyond the room on the right-hand side that Jake was standing in front of, the corridor branched off again, with another corridor adjoining it at a right angle.
“This is the corridor leading back to the kitchen and the refectory.” Jake shone his torch on the concrete wall blocking access to that corridor.
“We already know that one’s blocked,” Ellen said.
“Yeah. We still don’t know why.” Jake turned and peered down the corridor that continued south. “So this corridor must go all the way down to join the one that’s got the snow block.”
“Hopefully we can get to the other side of the snow block and find out how thick it is.”
“First of all, we should check out what’s behind this door.” Jake turned his attention back to the door in front of him. He rattled the handle. The door didn’t budge. “I don’t think it’s sealed. Just stuck. Stand back.”
Ellen obligingly moved a few feet farther down the corridor, while Jake stepped back and gave the door a few hefty kicks. He tried the handle again and it moved. He flashed Ellen a triumphant grin as he pushed the door open.
They stepped through the doorway but both stopped. They stared at the contents of the room.
It looked like it had been a laboratory, but tables and chairs were turned over. A metal shelving unit was lying on the floor. Books and broken glass were scattered around it. On the right-hand wall were two large units that looked like old analogue computers. On the opposite wall, a desk and chair remained in place, papers and folders spread over the desk. Next to it was a machine. It was rectangular, six feet high and three feet wide, its façade covered in a variety of dials and switches. It emitted a faint, but distinct, humming noise.
“What the hell is this?” Jake stared at the machine.
“Whatever it is, it sounds like it’s still running.” Ellen cautiously stepped forward, sidling up to the desk. She was unwilling to get too close to the machine. As Jake inspected the machine from a distance of six feet, she shuffled through the papers on the desk. She picked up a binder full of notes on yellowed paper, in scratchy handwriting, and blueprints that appeared to correlate to the strange machine. On the front of the binder was a typewritten label that read: AuBenposten H311. She stuffed the binder into her backpack, glancing back at the humming machine.
“I don’t think we should spend too long in here without knowing what that thing does,” Ellen said. “Let’s go.”
She left the lab and hurried into the corridor, Jake close behind her. Beyond the junction, two more doors on the right revealed store rooms. One contained tools and generic military equipment, the other contained cold weather clothing and equipment. So at least they wouldn’t freeze to death, no matter what happened.
Across the corridor was another small bunk room. The uniforms in the lockers in this room indicated that it had been occupied by medical personnel.
The south corridor ended abruptly and turned right, leading to the corridor that was blocked by the ice wall. Ellen stood behind Jake as he studied the ice wall. She shivered in the blast of cold air that came in from the collapsed ceiling. “This must have been an avalanche but it’s frozen solid,” Jake said. “It’s got to be at least ten feet thick. We can’t dig through this. We might be able to blast it. We’re going to have to go all the way back to the bunker to the north to get back to the others. Frustrating when we know they are on the other side of this ice block.”
“We should check out this room first,” Ellen said, shining her torch on the door in the north wall of the corridor. There was a large red cross marked on it.
“This must be the infirmary.” Jake grasped the door handle. “It’s sealed.”
“That’s a shame. We could really use the medical supplies.” Ellen hurried after Jake as he stalked back down the corridor, retracing their steps. “We need to find out how to access these sealed areas. And let’s get back to the others. We still haven’t worked out what happened to David, and I don’t think we should spend too long being separated.”
“First we go back to that generator and see if we can get it started,” Jake said. “And see if that elevator’s still functional. If we can get down to that hangar, all our problems will be over.”
CHAPTER 20
Allison directed the operation of unpacking all the gear, and for a while the base was a hive of activity, with not much conversation beyond people discussing with each other where to put certain items. They moved all the clothing and the sleeping bags into one of the barracks. They had a battery-powered heater, and with everyone sleeping in the same room there would be adequate warmth, at least until the power ran out. Allison set up a guard rota for when they all settled down to sleep. At least until they had determined what was out there that might be dangerous. They still had no idea what killed David or why certain corridors in the base had been sealed off.
She was stacking the cooking utensils they had brought with them in the base’s stark but practical kitchen when Neeta and Pete approached her. They had been taking stock of the food supplies in the pantry. Neeta had an opened tin in her hands. Pete’s camera was slung over his shoulder.
Allison straightened as they approached. “Well? What’s the news on the food supply?”
“It’s very good,” Neeta said. “Most of the food, that is. It’s still edible.”
“What, after seventy years?” Allison frowned. “That can’t be right.”
“We were surprised too, but amazingly, most of what’s in the pantry is edible.” Neeta thrust forward the tin she was clutching. “We opened a few cans to be sure. Check this out.”
Outpost H311 Page 9