Snow! The Series [Books 1-4]

by Clifford, Ryan

  The blizzard had moderated slightly, but it was still rough going. The sledge assembly seemed to work well but it was tiring work. He wondered how far he could ski before requiring a rest. An hour might just about be his limit. Perhaps less for Jane and Chris – but at least they would have no load to pull.

  He skied his way back to North Parade and came to a stop outside his house. It was 4.25pm. He looked up and then realised that he had not considered how to get his gear back inside. He couldn’t lift the sledge and its contents up to the first floor, as it was far too heavy in these conditions. What to do? As he was considering he heard the window above opening and the ladder being thrust through. He caught it and set it up securely against the wall. Setting his poles aside and dispensing with the skis, he climbed the ladder and handed Jane the rucksack which she struggled to pull in through the upper window.

  ‘The rest will have to go in through the ground floor front window. Can you get Chris to go down to the cellar and fetch up a shovel? Then go down and open the lower front sash window. I’ll dig my way through and pass in my skis, the sledge and supplies.’

  Jane passed on the message and within two minutes she was handing out a shovel to Brady. He climbed down the steps and started shovelling snow away from the ground floor window, whilst Jane opened it. When he’d cleared a decent gap, he slid the sledge through followed by his skis and poles, rapidly followed by himself.

  It was warm inside and Brady was relieved to be back safe and sound – especially after his close call at the supermarket. After shutting the sash window, Jane and Chris helped him get his snowy kit off and as he stood there in his inner layer she gave him a huge hug.

  ‘God, I’m glad you're back. We were terribly frightened for you. I’ve got a hot drink and a bacon sarnie waiting upstairs.’

  Brady smiled.

  ‘There was nothing to worry about. In fact, it was a breeze. I’ll tell you all about it – and show you all the lovely goodies I’ve got.’

  Brady was chuffed by his welcome home and even more pleased that he had successfully completed one more phase of his audacious escape plan.

  Day 3 – Selby, Yorkshire – 5:00pm

  Julie and Josh Drover had parked their rather large American motorhome in the driveway since returning from Spain in November. It took up about one twentieth of the space available in their rather capacious drive, which adjoined a rather large six bedroom Victorian mansion, set on the outskirts of Selby in private grounds of some six acres.

  Josh was what one might call a boffin, and had recently retired from his very successful chemical supply and processing company. He'd sold out to management and was now reconciling himself to earlier than expected retirement.

  The motorhome was a first attempt at scratching a travelling and exploring itch, but one season on the road had taught them that this was not the complete answer. Although the ‘van was upmarket and fairly luxurious, Josh and Julie were genuine naturist sun-seekers and desired a more sedentary beach side existence. Constant travel around southern Europe was not the solution.

  Consequently, the ‘van sat in the drive forlornly awaiting its next outing, not knowing that it was up for sale. It couldn’t have driven anywhere anyway, as the snow over the past forty-eight hours had completely blocked the driveway, and had probably frozen the ‘van water systems solid.

  Julie and Josh had booked a flight from Manchester to Barbados for Tuesday the seventeenth of December, and had been looking forward to joining a cruise for three weeks of sailing around the Caribbean for Xmas and the New Year. When they attempted to set off to the airport hotel on Monday morning, they got no further than the junction with the A1(M), where they realised that even their BMW Z5 would not get them anywhere near the airport. They turned around just before the road clogged up, and made it back home in the nick of time. As it was, Josh had to do some combat driving to get through to their private lane and up the slope to their driveway. They had unpacked the car and garaged it, before making a string of phone calls to the airport and Fred Olsen Cruises. It soon became clear that the cruise had been cancelled, as no flights would be leaving Manchester for Barbados, or anywhere else for that matter, today or anytime this week.

  It was disappointing, but not devastating. After all, they were retired and had all the time in the world to take a different cruise. However, they had rather burned their bridges as far as Christmas was concerned. Naturally, they had told their family about the trip and so no arrangements had been made to visit over the holiday period. In fact, they had ‘done the rounds’, distributing pressies during the previous two weeks. No festive socialising had been organised – so all they could look forward to was a pretty solitary Christmastide. The weather made travel almost impossible and after phone calls to children and grandchildren, they decided on a quiet time at home.

  However, this presented difficulties in itself. They had made no arrangements for Christmas per se. No extra booze, food or decorations. No Christmas tree or turkey. All they had was what lay in the freezer, and Julie had run that down a bit as they were going abroad. The nearest shop was some two miles away in the village, and that was just a glorified newsagent selling crisps, sweets and lottery tickets. The nearest real shop was in Selby, and that was five miles away. They looked out of the window and decided that the risk was too great to chance another adventure, and possible disaster, by driving into town.

  So they decided to stick it out. They weren’t exactly without supplies. The freezer had food in it – but not the copious amounts Julie normally stocked. There was plenty of other tinned and packet food in the house and Josh was sure that the weather would break sooner rather than later, and that he would soon be able to make a sortie into Selby to stock up.

  However, that opinion changed dramatically at 2pm when they watched the Prime Ministers’ fateful broadcast live on television. Like many other Britons, they were shocked and horrified. They realised that the snow was bad but they had had no idea just how bad it was. In some ways they thought that the PM had ‘lost it’ and was exaggerating just a tad. However, by 5pm, when the blizzard was still in full flow and the drifts were creeping up the walls, they fully appreciated the danger that faced the whole country.

  It was at this point that the boffin in Josh took over. He was a methodical and meticulous planner and manager. He saw the snow as a challenge to be met and eventually overcome. Julie was no slouch either. She had been a top salaried executive in her own right and her ideas and planning would be invaluable to their eventual survival – if indeed they did survive.

  The couple did not underestimate the struggle ahead. If they were to be cut off for weeks without food, power or water – their lives would be in grave peril. Therefore, a plan of action was required, and it was this that they sat up all night preparing.

  Day 3 – Grantham, Lincolnshire – 5:00pm

  Brady gulped down the hot, meaty, beefy OXO drink and then settled into another of Jane’s warming stews – this time a Coq au Vin using a full half-bottle of red wine. Lashings of mashed potatoes and carrots made for a sumptuous regenerating feast. They even risked the rest of the bottle of red in celebration of Brady’s successful venture – and more importantly - his safe return.

  Chris enjoyed a coke and Brady and Jane were quite merry by the time the Rioja was finished. They reckoned that they deserved it after the pressure they had been under, although they resisted a second bottle in deference to Chris. He didn’t need two drunken adults sprawling across the room. Anyway, they still had work to do.

  Brady unwrapped his tarpaulin full of goodies and emptied the haversack full of the Camping Gaz onto the floor. Chris stacked everything neatly in the corner with all of their other valuable supplies and kit. Brady estimated that they had enough to support their trek to Boston over a six-day period. They could ‘appropriate’ further supplies en-route, but the important factor was that they now had a means to prepare hot food, which would be essential to their well-being and survival. Brady wou
ld drag the sled with extras on board, Chris would be in the middle, and Jane would bring up the rear – watching out for Chris. The next day, Wednesday would be devoted to packing all the gear, going through the dressing-for-winter drills and practising the ski-binding methods. Brady would spend this evening finalizing the route and in order that the others could familiarise themselves with it – and they would also be helping to prepare the maps.

  Brady spread out the maps on the floor and found himself a pack of highlighters, Prit glue, plastic sleeves and other route planning kit from his old navigator’s bag in the loft. Jane and Chris watched as Brady glued together two sets of 1:50000 scale maps, which stretched from Grantham to Boston Harbour, via Sleaford. They were quite big but he reduced them by using an A4 template along the track and cutting the map into an eight-inch wide snake. He further cut these into daily portions of about five miles or eight kilometres. He needed four sets of maps in the end, as each one overlapped the next days’ route – so some cutting and pasting was required. This meant that he could hang the map around his neck and tuck it underneath his ski jacket without it being too bulky. Jane would have an exact replica to keep as a spare in case of emergencies. Chris was amazed and excited by this work, but Brady explained that it was a simple, methodical process employed by fast-jet aircrew when planning target runs in their Harriers or Tornados. Of course, this revelation, that Brady had flown Tornados during the Gulf War really got Chris into the right frame of mind.

  By the time that they had finished, it was nearly 10pm and they had prepared two excellent sets of maps for the trek - with track lines, headings, distance markers and stopping points all clearly marked and highlighted. Brady was quite proud of his effort. He slid the sections of map into sturdy plastic folders ‘taken’ from ASDA, ensuring that each was clearly marked with each day at the top, and then very securely sealed. He then slid the maps into a specially designed plastic sleeve he had used for orienteering many years before, and this had a strong cord for going round the neck. He had a spare for Jane, so she ended up with an exact duplicate of the route.

  He also gave her a compass and spent a few minutes teaching her how to use it. She knew anyway, but Brady just wanted to make sure, so there was no confusion on the road. He also gave her the spare Sat Nav. He had programmed it with every waypoint on the route. Although they would mainly be on roads or very near them, she would have to be flexible when considering directional advice from the internal speaker. Brady advised that she turn off the volume until required. All she had to do was select the next set of co-ordinates and she would get a steer and a distance to go. This was a great back up to Brady’s GPS. He had used it before in Norway and it had proved a boon. Again, he had carefully programmed each waypoint and sincerely hoped that the satellite signals could penetrate the clouds. They did so in Norway where the weather conditions were often equally as bad.

  They shouldn’t really need any other navigational kit – and anyway Brady wanted to keep things as simple as possible – the weather was pretty bad and even the simplest map reading in these conditions would be a challenge.

  Chris asked if he needed to carry any ‘nav kit’ – he was using Brady-isms now.

  ‘No Chris, I need you to monitor the sledge from behind. I can't see it as I navigate so I need someone sharp to keep an eye on our supplies. We can't afford them to fall off or slide away. Can I rely on you?’

  Brady realised that Chris needed to feel part of the team and had devised this simple task to give him some encouragement and something to concentrate on other than the cold. His ploy worked.

  ‘Yes, of course I can do it. I’m a good enough skier so I’ll be able to watch your back.’

  ‘Good man’, countered Brady. ‘I knew I could count on you’.

  Jane smiled as she witnessed this exchange and liked Brady just a little bit more as a result.

  It was now getting late. Luckily, the gas was still running so they were warm enough. They completed their ablutions as quickly as possible and within twenty minutes, they were tucked up in their makeshift beds in front of the gas fire.

  ‘Do you think we can make it, Andrew,’ asked Jane, after about ten minutes of silence.

  Brady didn’t answer. He was asleep.

  Day 3 – Selby, Yorkshire – Midnight

  Julie and Josh had been hard at work for nearly six hours and they now had a plan. Not a very reassuring plan, but a plan none the less. If they were to be snowed in, then they would do their best to survive at least until it stopped snowing – and according to the forecasts, that could be two, three or even four weeks and then there was the thaw to consider. They would need to dig in and endure for at least that period of time. Josh estimated that at one inch per hour – two feet per day – that the house could be covered in a fortnight. However, he refused to believe that this could happen. He didn’t believe that it would keep snowing this hard for that long.

  Nevertheless, it was snowing very hard at present and one wondered when – or if - it would ever break. Even if it did stop blizzarding, people would remain trapped in their houses by the sheer depth of snow and the inability to get out. If everywhere is snowbound – then where does one start? Where do the snow ploughs get a grip? How do you remove the cars buried in the drifts – many of them still occupied by their frozen occupants? How do you begin to get the country back to normal – and what about the thaw? The damage that could be caused by that alone didn’t bear thinking about. The thaw could be worse than the snow – and then probably followed by a flood……..and then what?

  However, Josh didn’t waste time thinking about what he couldn’t affect or change! He and Julie were concentrating on their own direct problems. Immediate survival – two or three weeks with no help from external sources. Probably with no electricity and eventually their LPG would run out or cease working. Fortunately, it was Propane, so it should cope in freezing conditions. The tank was only filled last week and was well protected and insulated in a specially designed bunker. However, they couldn’t rely on that source of energy one hundred percent - as he was sure that there was an electrical input at some stage to operate pumps and control flow.

  Therefore, he proposed to use fossil fuels to keep warm and to cook food when the gas ran dry. He had a huge stack of wooden logs under a plastic sheet in the barn – which was a fifteen metre walk across the rear courtyard. He needed to find a way of getting the logs to the connecting garage reasonably quickly. ( This old house had a relatively modern integral garage attached directly to one side of the main building. There was a connecting door at the end of the central corridor on the ground floor. From the garage, they could access the yard). There was also a bunker full of coal. It was left over from when they had a coal burning boiler several years ago, and they just hadn’t got round to disposing of it. Julie didn’t like burning coal in the fireplaces as it caused smoke, soot and staining to the area above the grate. But thankfully, the coal was still there and could be used if necessary. Accessing it might present a problem as it was in a concrete bunker in the yard currently covered in snow, but they would cross that particular bridge when necessary.

  Julie had carried out a stock check of all food and other essential items, including candles, extra warm clothing and water. She had filled the three baths in the house with cold water and had placed water purifying tablets taken from the motorhome in each. She wasn’t quite sure why, but she thought perhaps that impurities lying in the baths and dust might contaminate the mains water. She also filled every container she could find with fresh water. Plastic buckets, pans, sinks – anything that could store the precious liquid. Josh had explained that even if they ran out of food, they could survive for some weeks, but lack of drinking water would kill them inside a week. Of course, they could melt snow, but that used up energy. They may well run out of that.

  Early the next morning, Josh rigged up a basic cooking platform over the open fire in the room which they had decided to use as their living space. This was
the dining room – smaller than the lounge and with only one window. It also had the downstairs WC across the hall. This was under the stairs and had no external walls, so water freezing in the closet was a reduced risk. The dining room also had a large fireplace with a recently swept chimney and a wide grate, which allowed Josh to convert an antique cooking set-up into an efficient fireplace grill. He had explored the adjoining garage and fetched twenty or so old house bricks. He built-up two mini sidewalls onto which he placed the metal grill from his large external gas barbeque, which was also safely stored in the large garage. (He could also use the gas from the barbeque for cooking as well if necessary). He now had an excellent way to heat anything over a wood or coal fire. He selected the most durable cooking pots and skillets he could find and stowed them for later use at the side of the hearth alongside cooking implements, skewers and the barbeque set from the garage.