Arctic Floor

by Mark Aitken

  McCann mumbled something and Gallen slapped him again.

  ‘We okay, boss?’ came Winter’s voice from topside.

  Gallen yelled, tears in his eyes, almost unable to articulate a single word. ‘Wait a minute—Donny, wake up,’ he said, giving him a third slap.

  McCann’s eyes opened and he spoke. ‘It’s over, boss.’

  ‘No,’ said Gallen. ‘It’s over when I say it’s over, Corporal.’

  ‘Momma gets my payout, okay?’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Gallen, pulling three times on the rope.

  The rope tightened and Donny McCann started his ascent, the rope tearing through the roof so that Donny kept falling back to the ice floor before the rope hit the hard stuff and the lift got purchase.

  ‘Tell her I forgive her.’ McCann’s eyes rolled back in his head as he rose to the top.

  ‘Shut up,’ said Gallen.

  ‘Terry weren’t her fault,’ said McCann. ‘Tell her that.’

  ‘Tell her yourself,’ said Gallen, warm tears falling down his face as he watched the broken body ascend.

  Hands tore at McCann as he reached the surface, the still body too much for Gallen to stomach.

  ‘Okay, your turn, boss,’ Winter called, and the rope came down again. Wiping his tears on the back of hands he could no longer feel, Gallen used the last remaining dexterity in his hands to tie on to the lift and pull the rope three times. He felt the rope go taut and let himself be pulled upwards, clambering at the precipice as he reached the surface and then was dragged over the dome and onto the downward slope, sliding until he came to rest.

  Hands reached for him, untying the rope.

  ‘Can’t breathe,’ he gasped, trying to stand as his ribs spasmed. ‘Fucking cold.’

  Winter led him by the arm to a makeshift sled. It was the upright section of a leather seat on the Challenger, now with ropes attached to the front. McCann was already laid along its length and Mike Ford was waiting for Gallen to lie on it too.

  ‘Cuddle up to Donny,’ said Winter, ‘and hold on tight. Might warm you up—might be the only way you make it through the next twelve hours.’

  Lying alongside McCann, Gallen put his arms around him and immediately felt sleep claiming him. He fought it, trying to stay awake as Ford and Winter grunted and strained through the chest-high snow, pulling the makeshift gurney like a couple of mules. Drifting in and out of what Gallen knew were hallucinations, he remembered the fireman lifts at Pendleton: two men buddying up for a two-hundred-yard race. One carried for the hundred yards going out and the carrier became the carried on the inbound hundred. Not even the toughest Marine liked that weekly test of character, but by the time the Force Recon candidates were assigned to a unit, they understood what the fireman lift was all about: I bust a gut for you, so you can bust a gut for me. Gallen remembered how the load changed when you knew it was going to be subsequently taken by your buddy. It was a load shared, after all, and once he’d realised that, it was lighter all round.

  The noises and shapes whirled around him, it was hot and then cold and smells blended together in an indistinguishable blur. Gallen slept deeply, occasionally conscious of someone trying to wake him and open his eyelids. He went deep into a world of brothers and sisters, of summers baling hay and winters testing the pond to see if it was ready to take skaters; of a mother beeswaxing the furniture and hockey games where all he could hear was the sound of his father telling him to get off the damn ice: ‘Don’t you dare stay down.’

  Gradually, slowly, Gallen came out of the dream world, until he opened his eyes, finding himself in a room that was dark save for a small fire burning a few feet from him. Beside him was another body and they were bundled together, thick layers of clothes and blankets across them.

  As soon as he took a breath he started coughing, the soot from the fire too much for his lungs.

  ‘Kenny!’ It was a woman’s voice. ‘He’s awake.’

  Gallen tried to sit up but couldn’t because of the layers. The air around his face was very cold and as his eyes became accustomed to the gloom, he could make out Florita sitting on the other side of the fire.

  She moved around to him. ‘Welcome back.’

  ‘Where have I been?’ he asked.

  Winter appeared from under a hanging tarp. ‘You’ve been in a coma, boss,’ said the Canadian. ‘Hypothermia. Real bad.’

  Turning his head, Gallen came face to face with McCann and realised they were both naked under the layers. ‘Hey, I love Donny like a brother, but it stops at a hug.’

  Florita laughed softly, her face kind in the firelight. ‘I think you’re much better.’

  ‘How’s Donny?’ Gallen looked for signs of consciousness.

  Winter shook his head. He helped Gallen out of the layers, then handed him his dried kit. The last thing Gallen put on was his Goodhue boots, fire-dried and warm.

  Hissing out the pain in his ribs and needing Winter to help him into the parka, Gallen took a cup of warmish tea from Florita. For the first time he made out the form of a man lying still in the shadows on the other side of the fire, only his face showing.

  ‘Harry,’ said Florita, following his gaze. ‘He’s vomiting blood.’

  Durville groaned like a drunk man dreaming, and rolled slightly to his back, exposing what looked like a briefcase with a strap wrapped around his neck and shoulders.

  Taking a seat so he could almost touch the fire, Gallen swapped a brief look with Florita. He’d ask her later; he wouldn’t make the query public.

  ‘Kenny,’ he said, ‘wanna brief me?’

  ‘Both pilots dead on impact,’ said Winter, whose mouth and eyes operated from the gap in his black balaclava which was tucked back behind the wolverine-fur hood of his parka.

  ‘Where are we?’ Gallen looked at the ceiling and saw the oxygen masks still dangling.

  ‘Fuselage, the middle section,’ said Winter. ‘The rear exploded from the bomb—we salvaged a bunch of clothes and other stuff from the luggage area, but we lost most of it. It’s lucky we got into the arctic gear before the bomb went off.’

  ‘We got a flare gun?’

  Winter shook his head. ‘Looked for it all yesterday. It was either in the cockpit or the luggage area, both destroyed.’

  ‘What about the front section?’ said Gallen, wondering about comms and navigation.

  ‘Mike’s been going up there as long as his fingers are working, trying to get the radio operating again. He’s got a battery that works good, but too much of the circuitry was burned out.’

  ‘So, there’s six of us?’

  ‘Soon to be five, maybe four.’ Winter nodded at McCann. ‘I don’t know what we can do for him.’

  ‘What’s our situation?’ said Gallen, wanting food.

  ‘The av gas was stored behind the baggage area. One of the tanks survived and that’s what we’re burning, using soaked rags.’

  ‘Food?’

  ‘The galley was stocked with cold cuts, muffins, milk, tea, coffee, bread,’ said Winter. ‘Florita and I went over the supplies a couple times.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘We can feed six people for four days,’ said Florita. ‘Five people a bit longer.’

  ‘There are firearms on board, so hunting is an option,’ said Winter. ‘But I’m advising against it. This is really tough country and the last thing we need is a fresh case of hypothermia.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Gallen.

  The tarp flipped up and Mike Ford dropped to his knees as soon as he entered, hands out to the fire. ‘Hey, boss. You’re back?’

  ‘Sure am,’ said Gallen. ‘How we looking in that cockpit?’

  ‘Got a battery with charge and a few circuits connecting,’ the Aussie said, rubbing his hands together. ‘But the radio is fire-damaged. I can’t get it to work. Its receive function works sometimes, but that’s useless to us.’

  Gallen sipped the tea then asked, ‘Any idea where we are?’

  ‘Nah, mate,’ said Ford. ‘Lost the
avionics, so there’s no coordinates.’

  ‘We were flying south-west for, what, an hour?’ said Gallen. ‘Any idea where our nearest town or settlement might be?’

  Reaching behind him, Winter produced a fold-out map of North America.

  ‘That’s the best we have?’ said Gallen.

  ‘Planes don’t really carry maps anymore,’ said Ford. ‘The navigation system is in the computer. These maps are just Oasis notations for where the fuel depots are.’

  ‘So where are we?’

  Ford put a finger on a place on the map and made a vague circle. ‘West of Baker Lake.’

  The Aussie’s finger was in the middle of a wilderness so vast and so devoid of human settlement that it made northern Wyoming look like midtown Manhattan.

  ‘What’s the scale on this?’ Gallen could barely comprehend their predicament. Putting three fingers together and measuring the distances, he looked up at Ford and then Winter. ‘There’s no settlement within five hundred miles of us,’ he said.

  ‘Five hundred would be Baker Lake, and that’s the closest,’ said Ford.

  ‘Okay,’ said Gallen, realising there wasn’t much more than morale to keep them going, ‘let’s keep the injured alive, and then in the morning we’ll work on a way to attract those search planes.’

  ‘Roger that,’ said Winter.

  Feeling something in the breast pocket of his parka, Gallen fossicked it out and smiled at his find. ‘Look what I got.’

  Smiles ripping their faces, hands went out for Gallen’s full and unopened pack of Marlboros. Lighting up from the fire, Winter sucked on the smoke and leaned back. ‘That’s what I call leadership.’

  Gallen nodded at the men, pleased he could make a small difference. But it was Florita’s eyes that told the real story. They were realistic female eyes; they had seen the end of the road and were resigned to it.

  ~ * ~

  CHAPTER 21

  The peak of the cliff that the Challenger had crashed into formed a convenient lookout platform and Gallen sent the men up in shifts to search for aircraft. If any were spotted, the lookout would signal to the others below, who would throw the foam cushioning from the leather cabin seats onto the fire and create a mass of black smoke.

  It was a treacherous climb to the top, so Gallen excused Florita from that duty. Florita was charged with keeping blankets and clothes dry. If the sun was strong enough, she could suspend the clothing and blankets on salvaged rope and air them as much as possible. She was also the sole arbiter of food rationing and kept a distillery going all day that created fresh water from the snow.

  Winter took the first watch on the lookout, taking with him the radio headset that they’d managed to recharge from the spare battery in the fuselage. Gallen worked with Ford to shore up a warmer environment for the nights, when the temperature would get to minus forty if the winds rose.

  Checking on McCann every hour or so, Gallen couldn’t shake him from the coma. Among the debris, Ford had found a large medical kit and they searched it for something that might wake McCann up.

  ‘That Harry Durville’s rooted,’ said Ford, as they sorted through the medical supplies. ‘Once you’re bleeding inside, it’s over, but Donny can recover if we can keep him conscious. Want to try adrenaline?’ He held up a large syringe.

  Gallen wasn’t convinced, slightly suspicious of the Australian use of adrenaline. But as the afternoon wore on he approached Ford. ‘Let’s try it. Once only, okay?’

  Peeling back the layers of blankets and clothing, which Florita whisked away to dry, Ford plunged the needle into McCann’s neck muscle and depressed the syringe until half of the adrenaline was expelled into McCann’s bloodstream.

  The result was instantaneous, McCann’s eyes opening wide and his face taking on a surprised look, like a baby waking from sleep.

  Florita had food and tea ready, and fed him while Ford created a better bed for the former Marine. The talk was forced and empty, the survivors saving their energy for the task ahead.

  They laid McCann in the remade bed, with dry blankets and a fresh set of thermals. Gallen lowered his ear to McCann’s lips when he realised the man wanted to talk.

  ‘It’s important, what I said,’ said his former corporal in a deathly rasp.

  ‘Your mother gets the payout,’ said Gallen.

  ‘I forgive her for Terry.’

  ‘I’ll tell her that.’

  ‘I woulda found a way to juvie anyhow, didn’t have to beat him to do it.’

  ‘Who’s Terry?’ said Gallen.

  ‘Stepfather.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘He hit my sister, so I beat his ass—put him in the hospital.’

  Gallen pretended not to notice the wetness in McCann’s eyes. He was a tough, proud Marine with a combat history and a kick-ass reputation. He didn’t need to go out like this in front of his old CO.

  ‘I was fifteen, boss, and, you know, the things that happen in—’

  ‘You don’t need to tell me,’ said Gallen.

  McCann sniffed, tears running down his face. ‘I was fucked up, man. Hurt, scared and fucked up, and I blamed Momma.’

  ‘Look—’ started Gallen.

  ‘I said some things, terrible things, to that woman. But it weren’t her fault for all that. So you get her the money and you say I’s sorry. Donald loves her and forgives her.’

  Gallen couldn’t meet his eyes.

  ‘Boss?’ said McCann, a new tone in his voice.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘I ain’t no homo—I mean, it happened and all but I don’t go for dudes.’

  Gallen laughed. ‘You can bivvy down with me any day, brother.’

  ‘Brother?!’ said McCann, a return to his usual cockiness. ‘What we got here? Vanilla Ice made cap’n?’

  ~ * ~

  The winds rose in the night, screaming around the fuselage at what Winter estimated was a sixty-mph northerly. They slept and dozed upright, taking turns with feet to the fire, backs to one another, sharing blankets and body heat. Gallen was glad they’d collected as much insulation as possible and tried to seal their tubular shelter. It wasn’t perfect, but with a system of dropping tarps, snow banked up against the gaps and insulation packed around holes it kept most of the wind out.

  When Gallen opened his eyes in the morning half-light, the wind had died and he was aware of weeping behind him. Climbing out of the shared blankets he found Florita leaning over McCann, sobbing.

  ‘What?’ he said, before meeting Florita’s eyes.

  ‘I can’t do this, Gerry,’ she said, gasping back the tears. ‘I can’t.’

  Kneeling, Gallen put an arm around her heaving shoulders. ‘Guess what, Florita?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re already doing it.’

  ‘I can’t—’

  ‘And you’re doing a damn fine job.’

  They buried McCann against the cliff face, rolling what rocks and stones they could find to make a basic cairn, puny and out of place in the eternal wilderness. Mike Ford made a cross from pieces of a suitcase and they gathered around the Marine, silence descending on the group as they stood in snow to their hips.

  Gallen became aware of the eyes on him. He wasn’t religious, even though he’d gone to church as a youngster and been confirmed, at his mother’s insistence. Winter nodded at him and for the first time in a long time, Gerry Gallen couldn’t think what to say.

  ‘Um,’ he said slowly, self-consciously, in the vast silence of the morning, hoping some words would come. ‘The first time I shipped out for combat, an old staff sergeant in the Corps gave us a pep talk. He told us that being a combat Marine was different to anything else we’d ever do in our lives. I remember he said there’s only one thing more powerful than putting your life in another man’s hands, and that’s knowing he’s good for it.’

  ‘Fucking eh,’ said Winter.

  ‘Got that right,’ added Ford.

  ‘That reliance on other men is not something we talk ab
out much in the military,’ said Gallen, hoping he was giving the folks what they wanted. ‘We’re either totally hyped up or we’re too embarrassed about how scared we are, or we’re just too busy drinking and forgetting. But that old staff sergeant was right: there’s this bond that happens when there’s only us, and that’s all there is.’

  ‘Fuck yeah,’ said Winter.

  ‘Donny McCann was a tough guy from Compton and he was one of the best Marines I ever worked with. He was a ladies’ man and he liked to party but I never saw him disrespect a woman, although I saw him get into fights to stop others doin’ it.’