by Craig Thomas
Vladimirov looked at the first Secretary, saw the momentary hesitation in the eyes.
‘Shall I order Tretsov to alter course. First Secretary?’ he asked tiredly.
The big man shook his head, still smiling. ‘Not for the moment - let Tretsov make his rendezvous with the tanker first. When we have a sighting, we will point him like an arrow at the American - eh, like an arrow, Vladimirov?’
The First Secretary laughed. Vladimirov derived no comfort from the sound, from the overconfidence it betrayed.
Twenty minutes after he had landed, Gant was back on the surface of the floe, checking the progress of the refuelling. Despite the bitter, freezing cold, the raw wind that swirled the thick mist around him, whipped the smoking breath away from his numbed Ups, Gant stood on the ice near the Firefox, as if unwilling to surrender the aircraft entirely to the attentions of Seerbacker’s crew. The frost had already begun to rime the fur of his borrowed parka, which did not seem to warm him, and he stood, a hunched figure, his hands thrust into his pockets, staring into the grey, formless world of the floe, seeing shadowy, labouring figures on the ice. The two hoses, each four inches in diameter, snaked across the floe towards the plane. The crew worked like men at the scene of some desperate, frozen fire. A trolley-pump had been wheeled out across the ice, having been lowered from the forward hatch by a winch, and then a smaller hatch in the forward deck had been opened. Gant’s nostrils had been assailed by the sudden, bitter-sweet smell of the paraffin. A heavy-duty hose disappeared into the hatch above the forward crew’s quarters.
It would take, Gant knew, perhaps another twenty minutes to refuel. Unlike the huge pressure-pumps available at an airbase in the front line, which could transfer as much as three thousand gallons of paraffin a minute to the thirsty tanks of a warplane, this trolley-pump was an aged, short-breathed thing.
There had been a delay, while Gant devoured a plate of chill in Seerbacker’s quarters, before the pump had begun to operate. The bonding wire running from the sub, which was required to earth the Firefox to prevent the danger of a spark from the static electricity in the fuselage igniting any spillage, had been too short. The sub’s crew had spliced in another length of wire, and the huge crocodile clip had been fastened to the nose-wheel strut. Only then had the refuelling begun.
When the two civilians carried by the Pequod - an engineer and an electronics expert - had begun working on the plane, Gant agreed to return to Seerbacker’s cabin.
Once there, he sat in silence except when, after looking at his watch, he murmured, ‘Ten minutes.’ A minute or two later, there was a knock at the door.
‘Yeah?’
The Exec, Fleischer, stuck his head into the room. ‘Weather report, sir,’ he said.
Gant suddenly seemed to come awake. His eyes fixed on Fleischer’s face, the intensity of the gaze making the young man falter.
‘What is it?’ Gant said.
‘The wind’s getting up, sir - gusting to fifteen knots at times.’ Fleischer spoke to Seerbacker, quite deliberately. ‘The fog seems to be lifting.’
Seerbacker nodded. Gant had relaxed. Fifteen-knot gusts were no real threat to take-off.
‘What about the shore-party?’
‘Almost through, sir - another seven or eight minutes, by Peck’s reckoning.’ Seerbacker nodded. Peck, the Pequod’s chief engineer, would not be much out in his reckoning. He would have bullied the men into utmost effort, whatever his private considerations concerning Gant and the safety of the ship.
Fleischer withdrew his head, and Gant made to rise from his chair. The next thing he knew was the huge jolt of the deck moving beneath him, and he was flung head-first across the table. He had a brief glimpse of Seerbacker catapulting off his bunk, and then his left shoulder struck the bulkhead with a jarring blow. The ship’s lights winked out, and then returned, glowing brightly again. He felt the numbness of his shoulder and side, and the weight of Seerbacker’s body lying winded across his chest. He heard a clatter from the companionway, presumably Fleischer’s body being thrown to the ground. He shifted his body, and saw Seerbacker’s stunned, frightened face staring up at him.
‘What in hell’s name…?’ he said, his voice small, choking.
‘What was it?’ Gant said.
Seerbacker struggled to his feet, ungainly, bruised. Blood seeped from the corner of his mouth. He had bitten his tongue. He wiped the blood from his face, and stared at his reddened fingers for a moment. Then he seemed galvanised into action by the sound of running feet outside. He heaved open the door.
‘What the hell’s going on, sailor?’ he bawled.
Gant picked himself off the floor, rubbing his shoulder. Feeling was returning to it, and he reckoned that nothing was dislocated or broken.
‘Sir - we don’t know.’
‘What? Then what the hell are you doing here, sailor? Find out!’
‘Sir!’ The man’s footsteps retreated down the companionway.
‘The Firefox!’ Gant said.
‘The hell with that!’ Seerbacker exploded. ‘What about my boat?’
Gant followed him out of the cabin. Fleischer was leaning against the bulkhead, blood oozing from a deep, livid gash on his forehead. Seerbacker ignored him, dazed as he was, and pressed past him towards the control room. Gant stopped briefly to examine the wound, then he patted the young man on the shoulder and followed in the captain’s wake.
The control room gave a confused impression of men picking themselves up, of furniture overturned. Gant headed towards the hatch-ladder up to the bridge.
‘Get me a damage report - and, quick!’ barked the captain.
The freezing air bit through Gant’s parka, and the wind plucked his first raw breath away from him. From the top of the sail, he could see the Firefox in the improved visibility, apparently undamaged. The men who had been working on the ice were scattered, one or two still prone, obviously injured, other men bending over them, others spreading out over the ice.
Gant yelled down to a sailor near the submarine: ‘What happened?’
The man looked up, saw the captain standing alongside Gant.
‘Don’t know, sir. We - heard this cracking sound, like a scream, and then I was trying to push my face into the floe. I thought it was a fish homing on the boat, sir!’
‘It was no torpedo. Where’s Mr. Peck?’
‘He headed off that way, sir,’ the sailor replied, pointing due north across the floe.
Gant strained his eyes, but the mist still clung to the floe in patches, and visibility was no more than a hundred yards at best. He stared in the direction of Peck’s disappearance, and there was an unstable yet formless apprehension watery in his stomach. As the minutes passed, the wind, stronger now it seemed, gusted occasionally into his face, making his eyes water. And he began to be afraid.
Then he saw Peck’s figure emerging from the mist. As if prompted by something in his mind, or as if Peck’s appearance heralded an answer, he began to run towards the Chief Engineer.
‘What is it?’ he asked breathlessly, reaching the big man. ‘What’s wrong?’
Peck looked down at him, and said simply: ‘Pressure ridge.’
‘What?’ Gant’s face was open with shock. ‘How big?’
‘Three, maybe four feet - right across the floe, if my guess is right.’
‘Where, man - where? Show me!’ He dragged at Peck’s sleeve, and the big man turned round, following him. Gant’s white, desperate face disturbed him, especially the way he kept moving ahead in obvious impatience and then looking round, like a dog hurrying its master. Seerbacker, puzzled, followed in their wake.
The pressure ridge was almost four feet high and it had emerged from the ice like a low wall stretching right across the floe. as far as Gant could see in either direction.
‘You said it - goes all the way?’
‘All the way - I walked a fair piece of it, in both directions. I guess it goes right across.’
Gant looked as though he dis
believed Peck for a moment but he knew that the engineer would have understood the significance of the ridge, and would have checked its extent for the right reason.
‘How - did it happen?’ he said stupidly.
‘Only one way,’ the big man said grimly. ‘Ousting wind drove one of the smaller floes behind us right up our ass - like an automobile smash. Result, one pressureridge.’
Gant turned on Peck, grabbing the sleeves of his parka in both hands. ‘You realise what this means?’ he said. ‘I can’t damn well get out of here. I can’t take off!’
The result of his deliberations, of his self-recriminations and the growing certainty that he was right and the First Secretary was disastrously wrong was, Vladimirov reflected bitterly, nothing more than a hesitation, a glance in the direction of the most powerful man in the Soviet Union. When the bulky figure merely nodded, emphasising his last order, Vladimirov turned back to the console in front of him and spoke.
‘Tretsov - Vladimirov.’ Though he had ignored code, he would not identify the aircraft with which he was communicating, other than by the pilot’s name. In that lay a degree of anonymity.
At that moment, Tretsov, the second test-pilot on the Mig-31 project was at fifty thousand feet, his noseprobe buried in the udder of a refuelling plane, with which the Mig had made rendezvous minutes before. Static crackled through the console speaker. ‘Tretsov - over,’ came the faint voice.
‘Vladimirov to Tretsov. Proceed to the North Cape area as soon as refuelling is completed.’
‘North Cape - repeat your message please.’
Vladimirov’s voice betrayed his anger. Of course the pilot wondered at the change of plan!
‘I said North Cape - make radio contact with the following units - missile-cruiser Riga, “Wolfpack” ground patrol Murmansk - do you copy?’
After a silence: ‘Tretsov - I copy. Proceed to North Cape, contact Riga and ground control Murmansk over.’
‘Good. Await further instructions - over and out.’
Vladimirov flicked the switch, and turned away from the transmitter. It did not matter, he thought, that the Americans would undoubtedly pick up the signal, transmitted in clear voice as it had been. It was merely another unit being directed towards the decoy area. He looked once more at the First Secretary but the Soviet leader was in whispered conversation with Andropov. He turned his gaze towards Kutuzov. The old man’s rheumy eyes met his, and he shook his head slightly. Vladimirov’s eyes thanked him for the gesture of sympathy, of understanding.
Then the thoughts began to nag at him again. If only he could be sure in some way … He knew how it had been done, what the search-units ought to be looking for. But he was afraind, afraid to risk the shreds of his credibility, the remains of his career, on such a wild idea. He swallowed. He knew the answer and he knew the First Secretary would not listen.
He despised himself. He was throwing away the Mig-31, handing it to the Americans on a platter! Yet he could do nothing - they would not believe him.
They had checked the floe. As Peck has surmised, the ridge ran the whole east-west axis. It was a little more than halfway down the length of the floe, down the runway for the aircraft. Gant could not possibly, by any mechanical or physical means, take off along the length of snow-covered ice available to him while the ridge remained.
‘It will work, sir,’ Peck was saying, leaning forward, standing taller than the thin figure of Seerbacker. Fleischer, his training and experience inadequate for these particular circumstances, remained silent. Peck’s second engineer, Haynes, contributed his assessments of time and effort in support of his chief. With Gant, there were now five of them, standing stiffly in the raw air, wrapped in the mist that still clung to the floe. The wind was still gusting, but less strongly now as if, having achieved its purpose, it had become satisfied, quiescent.
‘Hell, Jack - have we enough axes and shovels on board to do the job?’ Seerbacker said. His eyes slid for a moment towards Gant,, who seemed to be studying the floe intently, taking no notice of the discussion. Seerbacker was irritated by the man’s apparent detachment, then dismissed it from his mind.
‘Sir, we’ve got enough - crowbars, heavy screwdrivers, axes - anything!’ Peck seemed to take Seerbacker’s caution as a personal affront. ‘And we could place a couple of small charges, maybe?’ he added. ‘Damn that. Jack!’
‘No, sir. You place ‘em properly, small ones - you won’t damage the ice!’
Seerbacker was silent for a moment, then he said, addressing Gant:
‘How wide is the wheel-track on that bird, Gant?’
‘Twenty-two feet,’ Gant replied mechanically.
‘You certain?’
Gant merely nodded, without shifting his gaze from the ridge. He kicked at it aimlessly with a boot. Some loose snow flicked away, spattered on the toe - he had not marked the surface of the ridge.
‘How much d’you need - how much of this wall you want to come down?’ Peck said.
Gant turned his head, recognising the challenge in the big man’s voice. He smiled humourlessly, thought for a moment, and then said: ‘Thirty feet.’
There was a leaden silence for a moment, then Seerbacker said:
‘Don’t bullshit, Gant. You’re not going to waste my time and wreck that bird just to prove something to my chief engineer!’ His eyes flickered between the two men, sensing the challenge and response, its origins in Gant’s earlier momentary panic in front of Peck.
‘Thirty feet,’ Gant said. ‘That’s all I’ll need.’
‘Then it’s thirty fuckin’ feet you’ll get, mister!’ Seerbacker spat back. ‘Now you pick out the spot, man and Mr. Peck and his team will get to work for you!’ Gant strolled away from them, and the four men tagged wearily behind him, as if unwilling. Seerbacker regretted the way he had handled Gant, bridling him, making him say something which he would obviously regret. Yet there was no sign of doubt on Gant’s face, no fear that a margin for error of four feet on either side of the main undercart in the visibility now available to him was almost like cutting his throat with a blunt knife.
Damn him to hell! Seerbacker thought. He gets right under my skin!
Gant stopped, waited for them, and said: ‘Here.’ He kicked a boot hard into the ice at the crest of the ridge at stomach height, and chipped the crest slightly. Peck reached into the pocket of his parka, pulled out an aerosal can, and sprayed it on the ice. Part of the chipped portion of crest sagged under the impact of the alcohol-based de-icing fluid. Gant paced out thirty feet, and waited for Peck to mark the ice. Then he nodded. Seerbacker sensed they were almost in the centre of the ridge, near the centre of the floe. Gant had picked the longest north-south axis for his take-off.
‘How long to clear thirty feet, Mr. Peck?’ Seerbacker asked.
‘An hour, sir - if you include the spraying-down.”
Gant wanted to tell them it was too long - but there was no point in futile protest.
‘An hour?’
Peck nodded. Seerbacker was silent for a moment, then tugged his handset from his pocket. He pressed the button, and said: ‘Waterson - hook me up to the ship’s address system, huh?’ He waited until his request was accomplished, and then he said: ‘This is the captain - hear this. It will take one hour for the pressureridge to be cleared, and that means we have to stay on the surface for that length of time. I want utmost vigilance at all time; air, surface, and subsurface searches to be thorough. If any of you guys misses something, you kill all of us - understand that. You won’t just be shitting on yourself or your service record! And you stay rigged for silent running - we’re going to be making enough noise up here for all of you, so keep it quiet. You guys on the plane - just keep it de-iced and ready to roll the minute you get the word. Mr. Peck is in charge of the shore-party to work on the ridge, and I’ll let him tell you who’s volunteered, and what equipment he wants out here. Just a minute - Doc?’ There was a pause, then:
“Yes, skipper?’
‘What ab
out our casualties?’
‘Harper’s concussed - hit that hard head of his on the deckplates. Smith lost a couple of teeth fighting the ice, and I’m putting four stitches in the back of Riley’s skull. Anything else is less dramatic than that.’
‘Thanks Doc. Tell Riley it should improve his brain - and Smith’s looks will definitely have improved! O.K., here’s Mr. Peck, you guys. Hear him good.’
He switched off and pocketed his own handset, and left Peck calling out his list of names, the catalogue of brawn that the Pequod was able to muster.
Seerbacker joined Gant. He stared at him for a moment, then said: ‘You are sure?’
Gant nodded.
‘Don’t worry - Peck doesn’t get to me. I can get out through thirty feet of clear ice.’
‘In visibility like this?’
‘In worse.’
‘Hell, man - O.K., but it’s your funeral.’
There was a silence, then Gant said: ‘Thanks, Seerbacker - for the hour.’
Seerbacker felt awkward. Gant, he sensed, was making a real effort, meant what he was saying. ‘Yeah - sure. I wouldn’t do it for just anybody, though,’ he said, and grinned.
‘I - I’ll go take a look at the plane.’
‘Sure, you do that.’
Gant nodded, and walked away. Near the Pequod, he could see figures hurrying through the grey curtain of the mist, wrapped in the white breath of their effort. Peck, he thought without rancour, was a taskmaster, and when he said jump, they jumped. It wasn’t his business. Peck knew what he was doing.
It had been his suggestion, from the beginning. The crude hacking out of a section of the ridge, then the smoothing process to follow, the former accomplished by brute force and axes, the latter by spraying the broken section of the ridge with the superheated steam that drove the turbines of the submarine, directed onto the ice by pressure hoses.