He laughed. He went on to hug Sara too. Nothing went unnoticed on the base and he was careful to treat both women the same.
Ernesto raised his voice to get everyone’s attention. “Special ‘sundown’ meal coming up! There’s lamb, I’m roasting the last of the potatoes, and I’ll be cracking open some bottles of Chianti.”
As they climbed back up to the base, Katie heard Sara telling Graeme that she wanted to make a satellite call later that day.
* * *
He was sticking close to Sara these days. Following her up the gangway to the station he heard her requesting a satellite call. Earlier he had managed to overhear some of Katie and Sara’s conversation. Better if that call didn’t happen.
He had thought to wait a few days until the sunset glow had faded from the sky and it was completely dark, but maybe after all, this was the time? The weather forecast was predicting a blizzard later today. Visibility would be virtually nil and a blizzard would fit in with his plans in other ways.
And also today was a holiday, a break from routine. There would be a heavy meal and more to drink than usual. Everyone would be sleepy and sluggish, less inclined to keep track of the others. Yes, if he chose the right moment, it could work.
Katie was saying something to him. He smiled at her and gave her his full attention. It was more important than ever to seem his usual self and give no grounds for suspicion.
CHAPTER 18
Graeme was dreaming that he was in the Botanical Gardens in Christchurch. It was summer and the light was dazzling. He could feel the sun on his skin, smell the flowers.
Someone was shaking his shoulder.
“Graeme, Graeme, wake up! She’s gone!”
For a moment or two he didn’t know where he was, or what was happening, even if it was night or day. He squinted at the window. It was dark outside, so that – ah, no, it was dark outside all the time now. The bedside clock said 18.47.
The lamb, cooked with rosemary, garlic, and anchovies, had been delicious. He had eaten far too many roast potatoes and had had two helpings of tiramisu as well as a couple of glasses of wine. The rules about alcohol at lunchtime were relaxed for special days like this. He’d lain down on his bunk to read and must have fallen asleep. He shouldn’t have done that: sleeping during the day – or what passed for day – could send your body clock seriously out of whack now that there was no sunshine to help reset it.
Adam was standing by his bed. “Big Doc has gone!” he said.
Graeme pushed himself up the pillows. His mouth was dry and he felt groggy. What Adam had said didn’t make sense. She couldn’t be gone. There was nowhere to go to.
Adam said, “We were meeting for a game of ping-pong at six thirty. When she didn’t turn up, I went looking for her. Graeme, she’s not here! I’ve looked everywhere – the loos – everywhere!”
“OK. Have you said anything to the others?”
Adam shook his head. “Only that I was looking for her. No one had seen her.”
“That’s good. Before we do that, we’ll have another look together.”
“Yes… perhaps… I suppose… I must have missed her somehow.”
He saw the relief in Adam’s face. Graeme had taken charge. Graeme would put things right. That was part of his job as Station Leader, to shoulder the responsibility.
“Of course you’ve checked her pit-room?”
Adam nodded.
For the sake of thoroughness, Graeme knocked on her door. When there was no answer he pushed the door open. The bed was made and the room was tidy – nothing out of place. There was a faint scent in the air – face cream? Shampoo?
They walked past the other pit-rooms to the end of the module that was closest, where the combined library and quiet room was located. Baby Doc, aka Katie, was there, lounging in one armchair with her feet in fluffy slippers resting on another, deep in what Graeme guessed was Dante’s Inferno. She looked up briefly as they glanced through the glass door, and raised a languid hand in greeting. Justin, seated with his back to the door, was so engrossed in what he was reading that he didn’t even notice them.
They went back up the corridor past the pit-rooms. Next were the male and female toilets and shower rooms, ranged on either side of the corridor. They pushed open the doors. There was no one in any of them.
Next, the communications room, which was empty. In the small gym opposite Rhys was on the rowing machine and Alex on the treadmill.
No one in the TV room or the music room, which also doubled as a games room. On the table tennis table the ping-pong ball and the bats lay ready.
Graeme began counting heads. Katie, Justin, Adam, Rhys, Alex, and Graeme himself so far, that made six. In the dining room Craig and Nick were playing Scrabble. That was eight. In the kitchen Ernesto was kneading dough. Nine. Everyone was accounted for. Except Sara.
The warmth and the good smells made the kitchen a favourite spot to hang out. They declined Ernesto’s offer of an espresso “that’ll take the top of your head off”.
“Seen Big Doc?” Graeme asked, keeping his tone casual.
“Not since lunch, I don’t think,” Ernesto said.
They went on through the fire door to the last section of the module. Graeme knocked on the surgery door. No answer. He pushed open the door and surveyed the silent, gleaming room.
The remaining rooms were storage rooms, kit rooms, and the room that housed the generator. Graeme and Adam searched them all in silence. The last room was the boot room for outdoor clothing and footwear.
She wasn’t there.
They went up the spiral staircase to the next floor which contained offices and labs.
Overhead they could hear the thrumming of the halyard on the flagpole and the wind howling through the rigging of the antennae on the roof. From time to time the whole building quivered and strained like a ship at sea.
They walked through, flicking on lights as they went, until they reached the meteorological room at the end.
They looked at each other without speaking for a few moments. Graeme could tell Adam was scared.
“We’ve looked everywhere now,” Adam said.
“Not quite,” Graeme said. “We’d better go back and check the other pit-rooms.”
But they were all empty, too. For the sake of thoroughness, Graeme opened all the wardrobe doors, disturbing a tottering pile of soft porn magazines in Rhys’s: it was a well-known collection dating back to the 1980s that had been donated from the Halley station. Rhys just happened to be storing it.
Now there could be no doubt. Everyone on the platform was accounted for – except Big Doc.
“Could she have gone out to the telescope or the summer quarters?” Adam asked.
“On her own?” Graeme said. It was strictly forbidden to leave the base alone in conditions like this. “Is her outdoor gear here?”
They looked along the pegs, which were labelled with their owners’ names, like the ones at nursery schools.
“Her parka’s gone,” Adam said.
Graeme studied the signing-out sheet. Nick and Craig had been out to the telescope earlier that day before the sundown ceremony and had signed back in. No one had been out since.
“And there’s a radio missing too,” Adam said. “But why? Why would she have gone out on her own? Without telling anyone and without signing out?”
Why indeed? Graeme thought, when there was – quite simply – nowhere to go. When it was seventy degrees below zero and there were no other human beings closer than the Russians over at the Vostok station hundreds of miles away. This was a place more isolated, more remote than the International Space Station.
He looked out of the window at a scene that was illuminated only by the lights of the station. It wasn’t actually snowing – it rarely snowed in the Antarctic – but the gale-force wind was blowing the ice crystals up from the ground into furious, swirling clouds. The scene reminded him of that famous picture of Captain Oates staggering away from the tent to die.
&nb
sp; There had been some strange undercurrents recently and he’d been half expecting something to happen. But this! Sara had seemed the sanest of them all. He would have put money on her surviving the winter in good shape.
“We’ve got to get out there and look for her!” Adam said. There was a note of panic in his voice.
Graeme put up a restraining hand. He would not be rushed into making a hasty and perhaps ill-advised decision. “First we’ll find out when she was last seen and if she said anything to anyone.”
* * *
It was an anxious group that assembled in the dining room. Graeme quickly established that Big Doc had said nothing to anyone about going outside.
“Who was the last to see her?” he asked.
It turned out to be Rhys, who had gone to see her in her capacity of base doctor earlier that afternoon.
Looking round at their faces, Graeme saw surprise, even bewilderment, but also a calmness and a readiness to deal with whatever came – for which he was thankful. They looked like a pretty tough crew – and they were. These guys had been picked for their personal qualities as well as their expertise. The loss of one of their companions would be profoundly upsetting, but they probably wouldn’t show it and they wouldn’t panic. The only one he was worried about was Adam, young and inexperienced as he was, compared to the others.
Katie was the backup medic and the assistant on Big Doc’s research programme. A lot would fall on her shoulders if – well, if they couldn’t find Sara. Katie was frowning and biting her lip, but Graeme saw that she had herself well under control.
None of them said anything, but glances were exchanged and Graeme knew what they were thinking. There was a whole mythology surrounding wintering over and the toll it takes on the mental health of the winterers: stories of stations where no one talked to anyone else for months on end; of people who went berserk and had to be restrained and locked up for their own sake. And then there were people who were overcome by such claustrophobia that they simply walked out into the snow and had to be chased and dragged back.
“We’ll have to look outside,” Graeme said. Immediately hands were raised. “Thanks, guys, but it has to be Alex. A no-brainer.” No one protested. Alex was officially in charge of expeditions off base and was experienced in Mountain Rescue. It had to be him.
A thought occurred to Katie. “Have her skis gone? Has she taken a radio?”
“There’s a radio missing. We’ll check the skis. Katie, come with me and Alex. And, everyone, no point in contacting Rothera – or anyone else – until we’ve got a clearer idea of what’s happened.”
He didn’t add that there was absolutely nothing Rothera could do about it anyway. Everyone knew that whatever had happened, they were on their own.
“I will make coffee,” said Ernesto.
“Good idea.” Even in the grim circumstances, Graeme had to suppress a smile. It was a station joke that Ernesto regarded coffee as the cure for all evils.
Katie and Alex went with Graeme back to the kit room. Graeme let Alex go in ahead, and put up an arm to hold Katie back.
In a low voice he said, “You know Sara better than anyone. Has she been – I mean, has she been OK lately?”
“She’d been a bit worried by some news from home – someone she knows has gone missing – but nothing that’d explain this.”
Inside the kit room, Alex was examining the ski rack. “Sara’s skis are still here,” he said. “So she can’t have gone far.”
“We’ll have to check the vehicle bay,” Graeme said, “and we’ll go over to the summer research module. She’d have no reason to go over there, but who knows?”
Katie watched them as they began to dress to go out.
“Take me, too,” she said. “You might need medical assistance.”
Graeme hesitated. She had a point. Even if they found Sara alive out there, the fact that she had gone out alone without signing out and in this weather might indicate some kind of mental disturbance, a breakdown even.
“OK, get your things on.”
Craig put his head around the door. “There’s no response from Sara’s radio. I’ve got yours here.”
The three of them signed themselves out and checked that their radios were working.
Chunky as astronauts in their gear, they made their way to the door to the outside world.
It was like dropping into a cold, fast-moving river. Graeme gasped and heard the others gasp in unison. Ice granules scraped his face. His head was filled with the rushing noise of the wind. Conversation was impossible. He signed to the others to follow him down the stairs.
At the bottom he seized a hand-line decorated by triangular red flags that whipped in the wind. This would take them to the vehicle depot and from there to the summer station. He turned, awkward in his thick clothes, to check that the others were also grasping the line. He noted that Alex had automatically taken the rear so as to protect Katie a little from the wind. It wasn’t just chivalry. She was the least experienced.
They both nodded to him and he set off.
He hoped to God that Big Doc had taken shelter in the depot or the summer station. She could not have survived long out here. He didn’t hold out much hope of the search being successful. It had to be done though. They had to know that they had done everything possible. After a few minutes of struggling against the wind, his beard and eyebrows and eyelashes were already frozen. He looked back.
The others were still with him.
The station itself had completely disappeared into the murky gloom of the Antarctic night.
CHAPTER 19
It wasn’t possible to worry about Sara, or even to think. Though Katie was sheltered to some extent by Graeme in front and Alex behind, the sheer effort of moving and bracing herself against the wind required total concentration. It drove the whirling snow before it and Katie’s head was full of its constant howl.
They toiled up the steps to the summer station. Snow was backed up against the door and Alex dug it out with the shovel that was kept on the outside of the door for just that purpose. At last Graeme pushed it open. They staggered in and Alex slammed the door behind them. The relief was instant. Now they could actually hear themselves speak.
Graeme shone his torch around and found the light switch.
“Sara! Sara!” His voice echoed down the corridor.
They had already checked the depot. Nothing was missing and there was no evidence that Sara had been there, though the blizzard would have covered up any footprints almost instantly.
In the summer station the heating was kept on low to prevent the whole place from freezing solid. In comparison with the temperature outside, it seemed balmy. Already Katie was sweating under her layer of clothes.
“We’ll search the place together,” Graeme said.
They opened door after door on empty labs and pit-rooms. The dryness of the air meant that it didn’t smell musty. There was something eerie about the place. It was as if some catastrophe had descended and its inhabitants had been forced to abandon it. There were reminders of its absent occupants – a pair of windproof trousers hanging on a peg, a sci-fi novel, a toothbrush left in a bathroom, a discarded dog-eared copy of National Geographic.
Outside the wind was still howling. Graeme was methodical, opening cupboard doors, looking under bunks. It seemed clear that no one had been there since the place had been shut up for the winter. But it had to be done. They had to know that they had checked everywhere. A horrible thought struck Katie: if Sara really had – gone, there would be an enquiry and they would have to be able to say that they had done everything they could to find her.
At last they were back at the entrance.
“That’s it, then,” Graeme said. “We’ve searched everywhere on base.”
Katie said, “But we can’t just leave it at that. We must –”
She was interrupted by Alex. “No, we haven’t! We haven’t searched everywhere. I can’t believe we didn’t think of this before. We have
n’t searched the caboose!”
Katie felt a rush of hope. Perhaps Sara had simply wanted to be alone. But even so, it was about a kilometre from the base and there wasn’t a flag-line…
“Surely no one would go out to it in weather like this,” Graeme said, taking the words out of her mouth.
Alex said, “Perhaps she went out there and the weather turned and she decided it was too dangerous to make her way back.”
“What about her radio?” Graeme said.
“Lost? Damaged? I don’t know –”
Looking at Graeme’s face, Katie saw that he thought it was a possibility. It was at least a reprieve. As long as there was somewhere that Sara might be, they didn’t have to believe the worst.
“Katie, I want you to stay here,” Graeme said. “We can collect you on our way back to the base. If we need you before then, I’ll send Alex back for you.”
Katie opened her mouth to protest, then closed it again. Graeme was the boss, and anyway it made sense. They were both far more experienced than she was. It would be tough enough without them having to worry about her. She would only hold them back.
“There’ll be tea and powdered milk in the kitchen,” Graeme said. “Make yourself a brew.”
He pulled his visor back down and adjusted his head torch. Alex did the same. Thus attired, they looked like a pair of monstrous insects.
Graeme pulled the door open. The wind slammed it back against the wall, a river of freezing air rushed in. It took Graeme and Alex heaving from the outside and Katie pulling from the inside to close it. Eventually it latched shut. Katie moved to the window and was just in time to see Graeme and Alex vanish into the blizzard.
* * *
Behind her stretched the empty corridors and deserted labs. She imagined it as it was in the summer, bustling with life. She had never felt so lonely in her life. She radioed to the base to tell the others what was happening, and it was a comfort to hear even Craig’s voice.
Better to be active. She went into the kitchen. There was hot chocolate, even a packet of biscuits, tins of soup. She remembered that there was a whole cache of tinned and dried food, plus a freezer containing frozen food. Similar supplies were stashed around the rest of the base, in case of emergencies.
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