by Peter Tonkin
They cleared a level area in the middle of the floor which was about the right size and shape to be a double bed. The two of them knelt on either side of it, looking speculatively across at each other, consumed by an almost uncontrollable urge to sleep. ‘We can’t just lie down fully clothed,’ said Henri. ‘We’d freeze, either tonight or in the morning when we get out again. We have to get our clothes off and make a bed.’
‘But how?’
‘Do what I do.’
He reached across and pulled one backpack across to his knees, pulled off his mittens with his teeth to reveal a pair of woollen gloves beneath and tore it open. Out of it he pulled a silver thermal sheet about six feet by six, the sort of thing designed to be wrapped round the shoulders of anyone likely to lose too much heat after running a marathon or getting lost on an iceberg. He spread it out on the ground while she was still tugging an identical piece free of her backpack.
‘Leave that a moment,’ he ordered, and began to take off his parka. She obeyed and began to follow suit without a second thought. After all they had been through together, it couldn’t possibly be some kind of seduction. Although now she thought of it, if Henri still had the energy after the terrors and exertions of the day, then maybe he deserved a little kindness.
The two parkas were laid out on the floor on top of the silver blanket, side by side, lining upwards. Then Henri was sitting clumsily, trying to get his boots unlaced without taking his woollen gloves off. Unexpectedly, he stopped and sat for an instant. ‘I’ll tell you what,’ he said. ‘Before we go any further, we’d better think ahead a little. I need to use the john. How about you?’
The light was, perhaps fortunately, not quite bright enough to reveal her vivid, schoolgirl blush. ‘Yes, I do too,’ she admitted. It had been worrying her increasingly.
‘Okay. I’ll go first. Up at the back of the cave. Then I’ll do some more work on this bed while you follow suit.’ He heaved himself up and walked off. A moment or two after he had vanished there was a thump and a grunt of pain. When she called his name there was no reply, but a sound like a distant waterfall assured her he was still all right.
The wait was brief. ‘The back of the cave shelves down pretty sharply,’ he warned. ‘Mind your head.’
‘And my feet, by the sound of things,’ she quipped tightly.
‘No. It’ll be frozen solid by now,’ he countered. ‘You know the old joke about Eskimos pissing ice cubes.’
The back of the cave was as low as he had described. She knelt to loosen her clothing, then turned onto all fours before rocking back carefully into a squat. The combination of Henri’s proximity and the incredible cold made things very difficult for her, but the thought of waiting until the cheeks of her bottom got frostbitten finally spurred her into action. She returned to the makeshift bed to find him still wrestling with his laces.
As soon as the boots were off, he tore off his thermal trousers. He shook them and dusted them dry, then folded them over to extend the parkas into a soft, waterproof mattress measuring more than six feet by four. The two Puffas went at the head end as pillows, stuffed with their heavy jeans. They tore off outer pullovers and placed them down at the foot end as extra protection against frostbite. They worked fast and the movement kept the chill at bay in spite of the fact that they were very lightly dressed now. He wore skin-tight white thermal long johns and vest under a brushed cotton lumberjack’s shirt with woollen socks and gloves. Her outfit was identical except that she wore a skin-tight roll-necked pullover instead of a shirt. Her emergency beacon hung round her neck and swung as she moved, broadcasting its message unceasingly to a deaf, uncaring world.
‘Get your thermal blanket out and put it on top,’ he ordered. She was quick to obey and equally quick to throw it over the increasingly inviting-looking bed.
‘Get under,’ he directed and she rolled under the silver blanket. He rose above her and moved with the deft swing of a fisherman with a net. The canvas of the small tent he had been carrying spread over her to form a second, waterproof, upper layer. She folded the whole lot back and he slid under beside her.
‘What about the emergency beacon?’ she asked.
‘Turn it off. No one’s likely to come looking for us tonight. We may need it tomorrow. Keep wearing it, though. The warmth of our bodies will help preserve the batteries.’ She obeyed and they lay side by side for an instant. The ice beneath was incredibly hard. She could feel the chill of it burning through the thin layer of clothing beneath them. I’m never going to be able to sleep like this, she thought.
Then his firm, assured hands rolled her over and gathered her to him. One solid thigh slid between hers and his arms wrapped round her, pressing her to him.
She stiffened with suspicion and he chuckled. ‘Nothing personal,’ he said, ‘but I think you’re flattering both of us, honey. This is for body warmth. Nothing more.’
That was the last thing either of them said and as the warmth between them did indeed begin to build, Ann began to drift off into an exhausted doze, sleep kept at bay only by the gnawing hunger in her belly.
Outside, the wind rumbled and thundered. Beneath and all around, the ice grumbled and groaned as though the massive berg were made up of small parts all straining against each other, clashing and rumbling in a bid to break free. Deep in subterranean chambers, air moved with bass rumblings as the water which inhabited the greatest part of the berg forced it in and out of caverns and galleries. Once again the image of prehistoric animals too lightly caged occurred to her and adrenaline joined hunger to keep her wakeful. Her imagination gave a throat to each mysterious, threatening sound, and a body to each throat, the like of which had not been seen on earth since before humankind first learned to walk erect.
*
She sprang awake some time later. The moonlight had gone but the gently lucent wall at the end of the cave revealed great balls of powerful brightness which it took her a moment to recognise as stars. The night was electrically still, as though frozen in an instant before some terrible cataclysm. The cold was enormous, it had substance and weight. Only the puny warmth kindled by the intertwining of her body with Henri’s kept frigid death at bay. But it was not the cold which had awoken her. It was Henri, talking in his sleep.
Several things struck her at once. First, it came as some surprise to discover that he thought, and dreamed, in French. He had a French name, but so did many Canadians. He spoke in a North American English drawl, placeless but unmistakable, and it had never occurred to her that he thought in any other language. She should have been warned, she supposed, when he lapsed into French at the edge of exhaustion earlier.
She was next struck by a sense of mild frustration. Her own French was non-existent. She spoke Italian, but that was all. She found his throaty mumbling, however, almost erotic. Unconsciously, still close to sleep, she stirred against him. Her movement somehow made his dream more vivid and his voice became louder still, echoing strangely in that tiny cave of ice. He was mumbling something about someone called John. Ann half-listened, her mind still on the edge of a fleshly fantasy. She had dreamed of this moment herself, after all. The intertwining of their bodies was like something out of one of those dreams. The fact that they had reached such intimacy innocent of any actual wrongdoing allowed her mind extra freedom, somehow, though lurking powerfully at the back of it was the solid realisation of the danger of their position and the stupidity of indulging something so childish so close to the very real threat of death. She pressed herself against the solid, sculpted contours of his body, the thermal underwear sliding over her skin like warm oil. She wriggled until the uncomfortable lump of the emergency beacon had slid round under her arm. Trapped against their torsos, the points of her breasts were like two tingling pebbles.
Then it occurred to her that if he was dreaming about someone called John, things between them might get very complicated indeed. She thought back to his declaration just before Captain Black had interrupted their tête-à-tête. She had a
ssumed he was talking about another woman then, but maybe not. And, now she came to think about it, maybe he hadn’t even said John at all. His accent was thick and he had been mumbling. He could have been saying Don. Or Sean. Or even Stone.
She just could not think of a woman’s name which sounded like the name he had said.
‘Are you awake?’ His voice came as such a surprise that it made her flinch with shock. No use dissembling after that.
‘Yes. Just this minute come to. Any idea of the time?’
He lifted his hand. A spike of breathtaking cold drove down her back under the blanket. ‘Six. Time to go. Sounds as though the wind’s dropped at any rate.’
‘I never thought we’d make it through the night.’
He grunted. ‘I wondered myself.’ His voice was distant and Ann suspected his mind was still preoccupied with John.
‘You need to use the john?’ he asked.
She flinched with surprise at his immediate echo of the name he had spoken in his dream, then tried to cover up with levity. ‘Are you kidding? I haven’t had anything to eat or drink for eighteen hours, why on earth should I need to use the john?’
‘That’s good,’ he observed dryly. ‘We seem to have stepped out without any toilet paper in any case. Taking a dump would have been something of a challenge.’
‘Don’t. I don’t even want to think about it.’
‘Okay. Let’s get dressed and go. It’s going to be hard and dangerous even if the weather stays on our side.’
They dressed like children on a chilly morning, pulling their clothing in under the blankets and wrestling their numb, cramped limbs into recalcitrant cloth. It was surprisingly exhausting, and Ann realised with stunning poignancy that she, at least, was growing physically weaker quite quickly. Thank God Henri had had the foresight to pack all their spare clothing into makeshift pillows and feet warmers: at least it was fairly warm and relatively easy to handle. The effort of getting into a pair of frozen jeans, and the shock of the icy cloth, would have killed her on the spot. She had been joking about their lack of nourishment, but she was realising very quickly with each new effort just how hungry and thirsty she actually was. How much the mechanism of her body really did need some solid fuel for both heat and energy. She even thought wistfully about massive, blood-rare T-bone steaks. His voice broke into her thoughts reminding her to switch on the emergency beacon round her neck before she covered it with clothing.
At last they had donned their parkas and stood looking down at the jumble of canvas and silver on the floor. ‘Should we pack all this away in our backpacks in case we need it again tonight?’ she asked.
When he looked across at her, his face was masked by impenetrable shadow but the tone in his voice told her enough of what the expression would have been. It was every bit as cold as everything else in this Godforsaken place. ‘No. We’ll never need these again, no matter what happens. If we haven’t got back to the others by tonight, then we’re never going back. We’ll sure as hell be in no position to pitch camp and snuggle down.’
‘We’d better get started, then.’
The atmosphere outside crackled with electric tension. The air was preternaturally clear and calm. The stars were huge, hanging low above them like crystal grapes. The sky seemed so close that the interstellar spaces seemed to glow with the reflection of galaxies too distant to be seen and the silent immensity of it was overwhelming. The only sound was the snap of their boots clicking into their ski bindings, a sound as loud as the cocking of a pair of guns, then the whisper of the waxed wood shushing over the solid ice.
They struck back along the route they had come. Time played tricks on them. Yesterday it had seemed far enough coming up here through the storm, but now it seemed further going back through that unnatural stillness. Ann calculated grimly that this was just more evidence of their rapidly deteriorating state. Yesterday conditions had been bad but they had been strong; now conditions were nearly perfect but they were much weaker. Yesterday it had been possible to switch off and retreat far inside herself, following Henri like an automaton. Today she was too hungry and thirsty to do that. And anyway, if they approached the cliffs in the same way as they had approached the mountains, they would probably walk straight over the edge. Wakefulness was all-important, but it made time drag agonisingly.
Long before they reached the cliff edge, Ann found herself watching a shadow gathering in front of her and she soon realised that it was her own shadow. It took a little longer for her to work out that a shadow in front of her must mean that there was light gathering behind her. The realisation that the sky behind her was growing rapidly lighter stopped her dead in her tracks. The only cause of light she could think of was the dawn. And if dawn was breaking behind her then they were in very bad trouble for they must be walking west instead of south.
‘Henri,’ she said. Her voice was hoarse for her throat was dry, and she spoke in little more than a whisper, but the word in the silence was as loud as a shout. He stopped and together they turned to look behind themselves.
The peaks of the mountains they had just left were outlined in green and yellow fire. In bands of brightness like the strange flames above, blazing acetate, green, yellow, indigo and cherry-red light rose like a strange halo above the jagged crown of the world. The bands were not regular like the even arches of a rainbow, they were struck through with spears of energy which seemed to lance upwards and downwards, making the colours run into each other. As each shaft of energy moved, so waves of crackling sound washed down from the sky over them. Only at the highest edge of the display was there any paling of the powerful iridescence. The sky above and behind was utterly black and here at least the stars were shrunken to a size more familiar to Ann’s city-dweller’s eyes. She stood and looked at the slow writhing of the stunning colours. The display was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen in her life but all she could think was, Thank God it’s not the dawn; thank God we’re not lost after all. It was as though her death began then; as though it was not dreams that die first but the sense of wonder. Still they stood, side by side, looking north, until the wind began to stir again and Henri grated, ‘En avant!’
The Northern Lights served to guide them south by throwing slowly fading shadows before them at their feet until the dawn itself began to stir. But by that time the wind was much busier and the growing light was increasingly cloaked by flying ice crystals. It was as though the nocturnal respite which had further drained their reserves of energy had refreshed the wind. It doubled and redoubled its ferocity, streaming in from the west, and when they at last found the cliff edge and turned towards the ruined ice bridge, they found themselves walking into the very teeth of it, their remaining energy draining away as quickly as sand in the onslaught of a Saharan khamsin.
They passed the first emergency beacon without Ann noticing they had done so — though by this time she was concentrating on Henri’s back so fiercely she would hardly have noticed a giraffe standing there. She realised they must have passed it when Henri turned aside abruptly and back-tracked along a crevasse which crossed their way, and which she had not seen before. It came plunging in from the cliff edge like the black blade of some incredible stiletto. It was not wide, nor was it particularly long, but it was enough to bring disaster. Henri’s bulk was difficult enough to see in the fierceness of the driving ice even when she knew he was immediately in front of her ski tips, following a predetermined straight line. Once he turned, her concentration became split between his increasingly vague, ice-camouflaged shoulders and the black edge of the crevasse at her feet. Wisely, he went well past its point before turning left again. Who knew how wide the crevasse really was, beneath deceitful overhangs of ice? Ann followed him grimly, calculating what must be going through his mind and keeping an eye on the ground for any reappearance of telltale black lines on the white.
And then he was gone.
It was as simple and as sudden as that. One minute she knew where he was and the next she d
id not. One moment he was a ghostly loom in the dervish-dancing white murk in front of her. She looked down at the treacherous ground — it was the briefest of glances and no more. Then, when she looked up again, there was nothing but the white-out in front of her. She did the most natural thing. She speeded up, reasoning that he must simply have drawn ahead. There was no sign of him.
Chilled to the bone with horror, she stopped. ‘Henri!’ she called, knowing all too well that her voice would be muffled by the cloth over her lower face, that her cry would be whirled away on the banshee wind, that his ears would be deafened in any case by the drumming of his hood against them. But it was all she could think of to do.
‘HENRI!’ Her throat tore and she began to cough. Her chest hurt and for a moment it was as though she was drowning. Only her skis and sticks kept her from falling over. Time passed. She had no idea how much time. Her coughing eased. Her breathing returned to normal. Nothing else happened. The wind did not falter. The white-out did not ease. Henri did not return.
The full horror of her situation hit her then. She was lost and alone. Utterly so. He would not be able to find her, no one would unless they could track her distress beacon. The only people able to do that were on the ship. But no one from the ship was likely to be near; Henri was near but blind in the storm. She was on her own in every way. Don’t panic! she thought. She actually said the words aloud, strictly, like an adult lecturing a frightened child.
But what was she to do? If she moved, there would be absolutely no chance of Henri finding her when he finally realised they had become separated and he began to retrace his steps. But even that simple manoeuvre would be impossible in these conditions. She had to act on the assumption that Henri was not coming to rescue her.