The Snow Tiger / Night of Error
Page 62
Slowly I walked aft and hauled in the painter. The end of it had been cut across, newly-severed and just beginning to fray.
There was fuel in the launch and iron rations, for it had always had the function of a lifeboat. There were fishing lines, blankets, flares, a first aid kit. There was everything needed for survival.
I stood at the railing, alone as I’d asked to be, and bade my brother a final, ironic farewell. And yes, I wished him luck.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book is a work of fiction with its roots deeply embedded in fact. Many of the organizations mentioned exist, but it is not my intention to denigrate them in any way, and if I am thought to do so, I apologize.
The book would have been impossible to write without the help of many men and their expertise. My thanks go to Ken Parnell, one-time mountain guide in the Mount Cook National Park; Bob Waterhouse and Philip Brewer, both of the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory of the US Army Terrestrial Sciences Centre; Dr Barrie Murphy, MD; Lt-Comdr F. A. Prehn and Lt-Comdr Thomas Orr, both of Antarctic Development Squadron Six (VXE-6), Operation Deep Freeze.
My thanks also go to the staff of William Collins (New Zealand) Ltd, and the Librarian and staff of New Zealand House, London, for incredible patience in the face of a barrage of questions. I asked many stupid questions but never once got a stupid answer.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
THE SNOW TIGER
NIGHT OF ERROR
Desmond Bagley was born in 1923 in Kendal, Westmorland, and brought up in Blackpool. He began his working life, aged 14, in the printing industry and then did a variety of jobs until going into an aircraft factory at the start of the Second World War.
When the war ended, he decided to travel to southern Africa, going overland through Europe and the Sahara. He worked en route, reaching South Africa in 1951.
Bagley became a freelance journalist in Johannesburg and wrote his first published novel, The Golden Keel, in 1962. In 1964 he returned to England and lived in Totnes, Devon, for twelve years. He and his wife Joan then moved to Guernsey in the Channel Islands. Here he found the ideal place for combining his writing and his other interests, which included computers, mathematics, military history, and entertaining friends from all over the world.
Desmond Bagley died in April 1983, having become one of the world’s top-selling authors, with his 16 books – two of them published after his death – translated into more than 30 languages.
PRAISE
‘I’ve read all Bagley’s books and he’s marvellous, the best.’
ALISTAIR MACLEAN
ALSO BY THE AUTHOR
Flyaway AND Windfall
The Golden Keel AND The Vivero Letter
High Citadel AND Landslide
Running Blind AND The Freedom Trap
The Spoilers AND Juggernaut
The Tightrope Men AND The Enemy
Wyatt’s Hurricane AND Bahama Crisis
COPYRIGHT
HARPER
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The Snow Tiger first published in Great Britain by Collins 1975
Night of Error first published in Great Britain by Collins 1984
Desmond Bagley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of these works
Copyright © Brockhurst Publications 1975, 1984
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