Bagley, Desmond - The Snow Tiger

by The Snow Tiger

  McGill took his seat, and said immediately, 'I think I can clear up a point that was worrying Professor Rolandson. The mist.'

  Rolandson looked up. 'Yes, I'd like to know about that.'

  'It worried me, too,' said McGill. 'Although I tried not to show it. I couldn't see how there could be so much mist in a rapidly falling temperature. It was quite thick -- almost to be classified as a fog -- and was very troublesome to us. It was only after the avalanche that I got it figured out.'

  He knew he would be giving evidence all afternoon so he made himself comfortable in his seat. 'You may remember that the first avalanche blocked the river as well as the road. The river had been frozen, but of course the water flowed freely under the ice. When the river was blocked the water rose and broke the ice. That water was relatively warm and on contact with the cold air produced the mist. It was actually freezing out into frost all the time, but as the water spread over low ground there was a great deal of surface area presented to the air, and mist was being generated faster than it was frozen out.'

  'An ingenious theory,' said Rolandson. 'And no doubt correct.'

  'As I say, it gave us a great deal of trouble that day. It hampered our operations considerably.'

  'What was the prime consideration in your mind?' asked Harrison.

  'The safety of the people,' said McGill promptly. 'And I had a great deal of co-operation once the gravity of the situation was made clear. I would like to say now that those who had already realized that gravity gave of their utmost. I would like especially at this time to commend John Peterson.'

  Harrison nodded and made a note. 'What steps were taken?'

  'It was important to communicate with outside. Two teams were sent to climb out of the valley as soon as light permitted. One team was to climb the avalanche debris blocking the Gap, while the other took a more circuitous route. Once that was set going, I had all the children rounded up and sent to Turi Buck's house which was on record as being safe. At this time I became worried about the vulnerability of the central, and I --'

  'The central?' queried Harrison.

  'I'm sorry,' said McGill. 'A transatlantic -- or transpacific -- confusion. You'd call it the exchange -- the telephone exchange. It was right in the open and sure to be hit -- and yet we had to have communications. A failure of the telephone system during the organizing period would have made things more difficult. I discussed this with Mr Ballard and Mr Peterson, and one of the mine electricians volunteered to man the board. However, Mrs Maureen Scanlon, the operator, would not give up the board. She said she would be derelict in duty and refused to leave. She also said that it was her board and that no one else was going to touch it.'

  McGill lowered his voice. 'The telephone system worked perfectly all during the organizing period and right up to the time of the avalanche, when the exchange was destroyed and Mrs Scanlon was killed. Mr John Peterson was also killed at that time in an effort to save Mrs Scanlon.'

  The silence in the hall was total, and then there came a long, shuddering sigh.

  Harrison said quietly, 'You seem to have had your hands very full.'

  'Well, Mr Ballard and John Peterson were very able joint chiefs of staff, as you may say. Mr Ballard provided all the resources of the mine and did the organizing from that end, while Mr John Peterson did the same for the town, aided by the other members of the council. The main problem at first was to convince the town people that we were serious, and this is why the telephone system was so important. The council members spoke personally by telephone to every head of household in the valley. For myself, I merely provided overall direction in order to prevent mistakes being made and, after a while, I was able to think of what to do after the avalanche hit.'

  Professor Rolandson said, 'How certain were you, at this time, that there would be another avalanche?'

  'I was not dealing in certainties but in probabilities. As a scientist I am accustomed to doing this, but it does tend to preclude exactness. Avalanches are notoriously unpredictable. I know of a case in Switzerland where a five-hundred-year-old building was swept away, thus proving that no avalanche had followed that path for five hundred years. No one could have predicted that. But based upon my investigation of the slope and upon what little theory we have and my own past experience I put the chance of an avalanche at about seventy per cent -- and rising as the temperature fell.'

  'Would you say rising to eighty per cent?'

  'Yes, I'd say that, or even higher.'

  'Let me put that in lay terms,' said Rolandson. 'What Dr McGill is saying is that the chance of not having an avalanche was the same as throwing a dice and showing a six on the first throw. The chances of an avalanche occurring, in his opinion, was about four or fi ve to one.'

  'Odds that only an inveterate gambler would accept,' commented Harrison. 'I take it that the people were advised to go to safe places. Who determined those places?'

  'I did, sir.' McGill hesitated. 'Safety is relative. To tell the truth, I wasn't even too sure of the safety of Turi Buck's house with all the trees gone from the slope. But it was the best we had and that's why we put most of the children there. As for the rest, I looked at the map and as much of the actual ground as I could -- the mist made that difficult -- and tried to take advantage of topographical features; anything to put something between the people and the snow.' He paused. 'In one case I have to say I made a bad error of judgement.'

  'No one can blame you for that,' said Harrison.

  'Thank you, sir. The main difficulty was to get the people to move. No one wanted to leave a warm house to stay in the open in the mow, and the thick mist didn't make the prospect more inviting. Constable Pye, a very forceful man, did a lot there.'

  'You say there came a time when you were able to think of what to do after the avalanche. What did you mean by that?'

  'Speed in rescue after an avalanche is the first essential, but the rescuers must know what they're doing. To find a person buried in snow is exceptionally difficult. Swiss experience shows that it takes a trained team of twenty men twenty hours to thoroughly probe an area of one hectare.'

  'A hectare being two-and-a-half acres,' interjected Rolandson.

  'Well, we had no trained men and we had no equipment. We couldn't be sure of outside help so we had to improvise with what we had. We stripped TV antennae from the houses; these provided aluminium tubing to make probes for the rescue teams. Mr Cameron, at the mine workshop, made them up into lengths of ten feet. I organized three teams, a total of sixty men, and tried to give a crash course in avalanche rescue.'

  'At what time was this?'

  McGill shook his head. 'I couldn't say, sir. I was too busy to keep my eye on the time.'

  The mist was clammy against the skin. It wreathed in coils as the slight breeze shifted and the range of vision changed sharply. A large group of men, bulky in cold weather clothing, milled about somewhat aimlessly, some stamping their feet to keep warm, others blowing on their fingers and beating their arms across their chests.

  'All right, you guys,' yelled McGill. 'Those who have probes step forward and line up.' He inspected them with a critical eye. 'Line up as though you're in the army and on parade -- shoulder to shoulder and standing at ease. Feet about ten inches apart.'

  The men shuffled about. There was embarrassed laughter as they realized the spectacle they must make. 'There's nothing funny about this,' snapped McGill. 'You other guys gather around and watch.'

  He walked forward, holding a ball of string and gave the end to the man on the extreme left of the line. 'Hold that.' He walked along the line, unreeling string, until he was at the extreme right, then he cut the string and gave it to the man on the end. 'Now, you two guys are the markers. Bend down and stretch that string tight on the snow. Everyone else put the toes of their boots against the string.'

  He watched them get into position. 'Right. Now, in front of you is an area in which you think someone is buried, but you don't know exactly where. You put the probe just i
n front of the toe of your left boot, and push down. You'll hit bottom hereabouts at less than three feet. If there's an avalanche there'll be a hell of a lot more snow than that.'

  All the men probed. 'Okay, now you do the same at the toe of your right boot.'

  Someone called out. 'How do we know when we've found a body?'

  'You'll know,' said McGill. 'It's unmistakable. If you hit a body go easy on the pressure -- don't use that probe as a spear. Call your team leader who will mark the spot for the digging team. Right, now you markers take a step forward -- not more than a foot -- and stretch that string again. All you others put your toes against it and probe again the same way as before.'

  He turned to the crowd of watchers. 'You see what they're doing? They're probing every square foot; we call this a fine search, and there's a ninety-five per cent chance of finding a body if there's one there. For a really fine search you probe in front of each boot and then again in the middle. That gives a hundred per cent chance, providing the body isn't deeper than your probe.'

  Someone said, 'It's bloody slow, though.'

  'Right,' said McGill. 'It's slow. When the next lot of probes comes I'm going to teach you guys coarse probing. There's a thirty per cent chance of missing a body, but it's faster and sometimes speed is more efficient than thoroughness.'

  'Here comes Cameron with more probes now,' someone called.

  McGill swung around to see the truck coming towards them. As it drew to a halt he said, 'Okay, get them out of there.'

  He pulled out a packet of cigarettes. Cameron got out of the cab and crunched across the snow to take a cigarette from the outheld packet. 'Thanks, Mike. How are you doing?'

  McGill looked about to make sure he was out of earshot of the men. 'Not good. You know how long it takes to train the men of the Parsenndienst in Switzerland? And they have the equipment.'

  'What's that ... what you said? Some sort of snow rescue service?'

  McGill nodded. 'These guys are enthusiastic enough, but when It comes to the crunch they'll not be much use. Some of them be under the snow, instead of on top where I want them. The rest will be good for nothing.'

  'How do you mean?'

  'A million tons of snow -- or anything else, for that matter -- dropping close by takes the pith out of a man.' McGill blew a long plume of smoke. 'It's known as disaster shock. We'll need outside help and we'll need it fast, and I hope to hell they have dogs. A trained dog can find a body in a tenth of the time it takes a twenty-man team. Half the victims of avalanches in Switzerland are found by dogs.'

  Cameron turned and watched the line of men probing into the snow. 'Then what are you doing all this for?'

  'Just to keep up morale. It helps if they have something to do. How many probes did you bring?'

  'Twenty. There'll be another twenty in under an hour.' He looked buck at the truck. 'They've unloaded. I'll be on my way.'

  'Okay, Joe.' As Cameron drove away McGill stepped forward. 'You guys with the new probes come over here. I'll show you coarse probing.' He paused as a Land-Rover swept up and stopped close by. Two men got out, one of them Ballard. McGill had not seen the other man before.

  Ballard hurried over. 'Mike, this is Jack MacAllister. He came over the Gap.'

  'We met a couple of your people on top,' said MacAllister. 'They've gone on to get to a telephone. They told us what was happening so I came on down to see for myself.'

  'Thank God!' said McGill. It was a cry from the heart. He sized up MacAllister. 'What are the chances of evacuating the valley -- all the people?'

  MacAllister shook his head. 'Not a chance. It took me all my time getting over. That snow has set solid -- it's more like ice now. In places it's a vertical climb. But the telephone boys are trying to get a line over now.'

  'That'll be a help.' McGill dropped his cigarette and put his foot on it. 'At least we've got through to outside. Better late than never.'

  'They knew last night,' said MacAllister unexpectedly. 'I telephoned the police. There's a whole gang of them on the other side of the Gap right now. They pitched up just as I started to climb.'

  'Better and better.' McGill turned to Ballard. 'You know what's been worrying me?'

  'What?'

  McGill pointed upwards. 'Not being able to see that goddamn slope because of the mist. It's been giving me a real prickly feeling.'

  'Hush!' said MacAllister. 'What's that?'

  'What's what?'

  'Listen!'

  There was a faint drone from overhead, growing louder. 'An airplane,' said McGill, straining his eyes against the mist,

  'He can't land in this,' said Ballard.

  They listened while the aircraft circled overhead but they did not see it. It droned for about ten minutes and then went away, only to return five minutes later.

  'And that's it, said McGill. He put his hands flat on the arms of the witness chair and looked at Harrison. 'That's when the avalanche hit us.'

  TWENTY-TWO

  Harrison drew in a long breath. 'And so we come to the avalanche itself. It has been suggested in the press that the sound of that aeroplane, which had been sent to investigate by Civil Defence, was the trigger which set the avalanche in motion. What are your views on that, Dr McGill?'

  'That's utter nonsense, sir,' said McGill baldly. 'The idea that sound can trigger an avalanche is a myth, an old wives' tale. In the United States supersonic aircraft studies have been made. Even the high overpressure of two pounds a square foot caused by a military aircraft like the Hustler has had no detectable effect.' He paused. 'But that's in normal use. In Montana experiments were made by F-106 aircraft making aimed dives and pulling out at supersonic speeds. Those did cause avalanche release. But the plane I heard flying over Hukahoronui could not in any way have triggered that avalanche.'

  Harrison smiled. 'The pilot of that aircraft will be very glad to hear that. I believe it has been on his conscience.'

  'It needn't be,' said McGill. 'That snow was ready to come down, and it came down without his assistance.'

  'Thank you, Dr McGill. It appears that the pilot and observer of that aircraft were the only people to see the avalanche as it began to fall. From the depositions I have read it appears that the observer has more to offer in evidence. You are excused, Dr McGill. Please call Flying Officer Hatry.'

  Hatry took his seat. He was a fresh-faced young man of about twenty, wearing the uniform of the R NZAF. Reed asked, 'Your name?'

  'Charles Howard Hatry.'

  'Your occupation?'

  'Flying Officer, Royal New Zealand Air Force.'

  Harrison said, 'How was it that you came to be flying over Hukahoronui at that time?'

  'Orders, sir.'

  'And what were your exact orders?'

  'To fly to Hukahoronui, and to land if possible. To find out the situation and radio back. I believe the orders originated with Civil Defence. That's what I was told, anyway.'

  'Just so. Carry on.'

  'Flight-Lieutenant Storey was the pilot and I was the observer. We flew to Hukahoronui from Harewood Airport, here in Christchurch. When we got there we found that landing was out of the question. There was a thick layer of cloud or mist on the valley floor. It would have been pretty dangerous going into that. We radioed this information back to Christchurch and were told to fly around for a while in case the mist lifted.'

  'What were the weather conditions like -- other than the low mist?'

  'Very good, sir. The sky was clear and the sun very strong. The clarity of the air was exceptional. Very good for photography. I remember saying to Lieutenant Storey that I thought it would be cold outside. It was that sort of day -- crisp and cold.'

  'You mention photography. Were you instructed to take photographs?'

  'Yes, sir. I took two complete spools of the area around the valley -- seventy-two exposures in all. These included photographs of the misted area just in case it meant anything. I couldn't understand the mist, sir, because everything else was so clear.'


  Harrison shook out some glossy black-and-whites from an envelope. 'And these are the photographs you took?' He began to hold them up one at a time.

  Hatry leaned forward. 'Yes, sir, those are the official photographs.'

  'I see you took a picture of the snow which blocked the Gap.'

  'Yes -- we flew low to take that one.'

  'You say these are the official photographs. Are we to understand that there are some unofficial photographs?'

  Hatry shifted in his seat. 'I'm keen on cine-photography and I just happened to have my camera along. It isn't up to much -- just eight millimetre. Conditions were so good and the mountains looked so beautiful that I decided to shoot off a reel.'

  'And while you were shooting this film the avalanche began and you managed to film it?'

  'Some of it, sir.' Hatry paused. 'It's not a very good film, I'm afraid.'

  'But when you had it developed you realized its importance and you offered it to this Commission as evidence. Is that it?'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'Well, then, I think the film will be the best evidence available. Please have the screen set up, Mr Reed.'

  The hall buzzed with voices as the ushers set up the screen and projector. Curtains were drawn over the windows. In the semi-darkness Harrison said, 'You may begin at any time.'

  There was a click and a whirr, and the screen lit up with a series of rapidly flashing letters against a blurred white background. Suddenly a recognizable scene appeared -- white mountains and blue sky. It disappeared to be replaced by a shot of the ground. 'That's the valley,' said Hatry. 'You can see the mist.' He stopped as though conscious of committing lese-majeste. 'I'm sorry, sir.'

  'That's all right, Mr Hatry. Make whatever comments you please.'

  'There's not much during the first half,' said Hatry. 'Just mountains. Some good views towards Mount Cook.'

  The film ran on. It could have been any amateur travelogue -- hand held and unsteady. But the tension in the hall grew as the seconds went by and scene followed scene.