‘Can you walk?’
‘Let me see.’
Claudine helped her sister slowly to her feet. She wobbled at first, but her fitness and youth allowed her to stand straight up. Once she got her balance, she put one foot ahead of the other with Simon and Claudine supporting her on either side.
‘I’ll fly MD above you so you will have close to daylight visibility,’ said Damian who had been watching the scene in silence on his laptop from the safety of the carpark.
‘That’s great. The last thing we need now are a few twisted ankles,’ said Simon.
‘It’s a short walk to the Reventon car park,’ lied Simon. Maria knew it was at least a kilometre. She knew he was trying to protect her.
‘Thanks, Simon,’ she whispered into his ear.
‘Love you.’
‘You too.’
She squeezed his hand.
By midnight, Maria and Claudine were tucked into their beds at the ORM. Sedated, sleepy but safe.
MD was also packed away. She had passed her first assignment with flying colours. Damian saw the potential of the MD assisting the Guardia Civil in mountain search and rescue work. He was eager to share his idea and Maria’s recovery with Margarida over their evening Aperol.
At the same time what remained of the Malmesbury orienteering group were packing their bags. They would be on the first flight to Gatwick in the morning.
Twin Otter
Armed with a generous breakfast, the teams designated to cover sites ZX1 and ZX2 left the Summit Station in the two Bombardier Humvees. Seated beside the driver, two metres above ground level, Phil Teahon imagined he was a tank commander ready to go into battle. The route to site ZX1 was familiar as it was used frequently every summer. The Humvee, with its four narrow gauge tracks, could do ten kilometres an hour in perfect conditions. But in an environment of slush and uneven packed snow, it became necessary at times for two of the team to walk in front to find a path through what became very unstable ice conditions.
The radio phone crackled in the communication’s room where Lars and Sean were having a coffee and a chat. Sean drank a filter coffee – a pale relation of the Turkish mud that kept Lars functional.
‘Lars, this is Phil. I am with the driver of the ZX1 Humvee. We’re making slower progress than planned. We’ve encountered conditions that are slushier than we experienced when we were here last month. This will delay our forecast site arrival time by a few hours. Visibility is good, though.’
‘Roger, Phil. I’m not surprised given what we know. You take it easy and travel carefully. We’re using the Humvee’s satellite navigation beacon to keep an eye on your progress. As we’ll not be starting ops until tomorrow you are under no time pressure.’
‘OK, we’ll proceed slowly. Roger and out.’ Phil was glad common sense prevailed.
The following morning, the Twin Otter ski-plane was loaded with a drone and supporting equipment. As agreed, the estimated time of deployment at site ZX3, three hundred kilometres away, was around midday.
Alice, fully dressed in her survival gear, including an inflatable life jacket, packed her PC into her adventure rucksack and double checked her allocation of two hundred golf balls in the box at the base of her seat. She gave pride of place to the four camera golf balls that she placed in the pocket of her anorak. She zipped it closed.
Flying conditions were almost perfect with a light breeze from the west and some flecks of light snow. Within minutes they were airborne and soon reached cruising altitude at five thousand metres above sea level, or two thousand metres over the ice sheet.
The Summit Station teams went through their preparations for the local deployments. The equipment had been carefully loaded into containers on the ski-cat.
The huskies were made ready. They were harnessed to the sledge in a broad array fanned out in front of it. In this way the dogs had more freedom to move amongst themselves, to pull hard, to lay back and rest, or to sidle up to a friend. Once they were under way, the soft trotting of the dogs was therapeutic.
All was going according to plan.
There was much chit-chat over the radio communications as the deadline for the simultaneous launch of the golf balls approached.
‘Lars, we’re on site and should have ourselves set up within the hour.’
‘Thanks, Phil. I will call you when Alice’s team lands. The other Humvee team is also on target for a simultaneous midday deployment.’
Alice was seated behind the Twin Otter ski-plane’s co-pilot enjoying a panoramic view of the designated landing area close to site ZX3. There was a strong reflection off the ice under the noon sun. Her designer polaroid sunglasses minimised the glare. The surface was like that of the moon. There were no discernible dominant features, just a landscape of small ridges of dirty ice as far as the eye could see with loose snow being driven by a light wind. At the end of the runway, identified by parallel lines of tall red poles, the Portakabin – the summer home for so many summer students over many years – seemed out of place.
The Canadian pilot spoke on the VHF radio.
‘We might do a three-sixty over the landing area. It has been some time since we used this runway.’
‘Roger that,’ acknowledged Lars.
The plane banked slowly at one thousand metres and made a wide circle over the landing strip. The red flags that delimited the short landing strip fluttered lightly. The surface was flat. No significant snow had fallen in weeks.
‘I can see the primary dropping zone to the far left of the Portakabin,’ said Alice into the microphone on her headset.
In the distance, the darkened blue edges of a crevasse contrasted with the pure white of its surrounds.
‘It is much wider and – goodness – so much deeper than I had expected. It must be melting fast up here,’ remarked Alice.
‘The landing zone looks OK to me,’ said the pilot.
‘Go for it,’ said Lars.
The pilot told the support team members at the back of the plane to prepare for descent. He manoeuvred the ski-plane in a direct line to the landing strip.
They all had earphones on so they could hear Lars say, ‘Good luck and talk soon.’
The Summit Station’s communication’s room was monitoring the cockpit conversations.
‘Nine hundred metres and descending at 150 knots, clear skies, no obstructions visible, gentle breeze off our starboard. Seven hundred, six, five, four. Ready yourselves for landing, three, two, one.’
The ski-plane glided into the landing strip at the correct speed and made what appeared to be a perfect landing.
‘Jesus, Oh Fuck,’ shouted the pilot. ‘The landing strip is not ice packed as it should be. We’re landing on a lake of melted water. The snow was disguising thin surface ice that has now broken.’
The plane’s skis were not designed to facilitate a landing on a watery surface. Instead of gliding straight along the ice the plane started to shudder abruptly as it tried to progress along the landing strip. It could not get traction on water.
Suddenly the plane veered sharply to the right off the designated landing strip. At over a hundred kilometres an hour it ploughed through the slush and meltwater cracking the thin veneer of surface ice that hid an all too different surface underneath. It careered past the Portakabin.
‘Lars, we’re in serious trouble.’
Lars looked at the images on his screen generated by the sky camera positioned in the nose cone of the Twin Otter. Without warning the plane halted suddenly on its side in what appeared at first to be a shallow pool of water. The left wing snapped off with the impact. The pilot cut of the engines to stop the propellers rotating. There was silence for a moment. Then, without any warning, the Twin Otter was moving again quite quickly.
The pilot was now in a state of blind panic. ‘We’ve landed in a fast-flowing river of ice-melt and are bei
ng pushed forward. I can’t control anything. We’re like a bottle in the centre of a river current.’
What was a fast river torrent ended abruptly. The plane tumbled upside down some fifty metres into a deep precipice marked by sheer ice walls. It dropped down headfirst and hit a rock, or something solid, and jack knifed in the other direction in slow motion. The cockpit was sheared almost in half and the right wing split off with the rotors continuing to spin for several seconds.
‘Oh my God,’ said Alice, simultaneously in prayer and in amazement at what had happened in the past seconds.
‘We’re pointed face down about fifty metres into a precipice.’
What remained of the plane’s left wing then broke under the pressure and the main fuselage dropped another twenty metres to rest precariously on a narrow ledge of a waterfall under the ice. The deep blue water thundered past them into the abyss showering everything with an icy spray.
‘We’ll never get out of this.’ She knew her number was up. As if rehearsed, she unclipped her safety belt and searched for the box with the golf balls.
‘Alice, what is happening?’ Lars could barely hide his state of panic. He didn’t know if the communications unit was still working. He was surprised when he got a response.
‘Lars, good to hear your voice from seventy metres under the ice sheet. It may be my last act on earth, but I believe I can spill the golf balls into the chasm.’
‘Alice, hang in there. We’ll send help.’
‘I’m sure you will, but I’m afraid all that will you retrieve will be frozen bodies. I’ll complete the mission.’
Alice took off her headset and, to her amazement, easily opened the twisted passenger door of the plane. She sat on the base of the door of the shattered Twin Otter. The pilots were dead. The impact had smashed their heads. Blood flowed from ear to ear and was splattered over the cockpit. The drone support team had fared no better. Seated behind her, they had had their necks broken with the whiplash effect as a result of the fall into the precipice.
Heavily bruised, but with no broken bones, all she could see was a torrent of water flowing strongly about three metres away. The noise was deafening. She was, after all, on the inside of a waterfall. She stepped onto the base of the door with her precious cargo under her arm. She raised the box to shoulder height and started to throw the two hundred golf balls into the frozen subterranean river. They plunged out of the box like greyhounds chasing a rabbit, all eager to do their duty. Within a short while the box was empty. The golf balls had left the first tee on their adventure into the depths of the Greenland Ice Sheet.
The computer screen monitoring the site at the Summit Station lit up as the software programme started to track the progress of the cargo.
She crawled back into what remained of the cockpit and put her headset back on. To her surprise it was still working.
‘Lars, all the others are dead. It’s only a matter of time before the plane is dragged further into the precipice. The flow rate of the ice-melt is ferocious.’
Lars knew that to be case as the monitor was showing a forty-kilometres an hour speed reading for most of the golf balls. A dozen or so were stationery, presumably isolated on ice ledges. He said nothing. He knew that Alice could not survive for too much longer.
‘If I’m going to go, I may as well do it in style. I’ve the four camera golf balls in my hand. Can you see the images?’
Lars held back his tears, just about. ‘They are crystal clear. The light on your safety vest is helping visibility.’
‘Good. Bye then and give my love to all.’
Alice slid herself into the fast-flowing ice flow clutching her precious cameras. As soon as she exited the aircraft her head hit a jagged outcrop of ice. She lost consciousness. Even the shock of the frozen water into which she plunged didn’t revive her. She died within minutes.
Her safety jacket gave her buoyancy, enough for her to stay above water. In her tumble into the ice-melt she inadvertently opened her hands and so released four camera golf balls. Three progressed independently and joined their two hundred or so fellow travellers as they made their way down and through the streams far below the Greenland Ice Sheet. The fourth became lodged in her safety belt.
Moments later the Twin Otter broke up. Its shattered fuselage was crushed to pieces in a wild descent to the base of the crevasse.
Eriador Seamount
The RV Celtic Explorer’s bridge was full to capacity ahead of a de-briefing about the day’s activities.
‘Before we schedule another dive by the PLU, perhaps as early as tomorrow morning, we need to find out if there was any seismic activity in the British sector north of our location. The scientists at HUGO will also have some observations, no doubt, about the analysis of the geo-chemical samples we gave them. Thanks to the on-board laboratory team that processed the data so quickly.’
Gilmore was conscious that the manned submersible launch team and all the supporting scientists were all equally surprised that volcanic activity, however small in scale, was evident from the time PLU went to the target location.
‘What was the reading?’ asked Gilmore.
Gallery had the facts at his fingertips. ‘Just 2.1 on the Richter scale, so not much different from last week’s earthquake. However, what is of more concern is the frequency between the readings.’
‘Maeve, what should we make of this?’
She was expecting the question.
‘We’ve every reason to be curious as the flanks of the mid-Atlantic rim have been dormant for as long as we’ve been tracking seismic activity. A minor tremor or two, or even three should not be of any concern provided this was an isolated sub-sea vent or cluster of small vents. We’re here because seismic activity has been recorded along a line of some one hundred kilometres and we just viewed the southernmost location. I think …’
She didn’t get to finish her sentence as the communications console panel lit up.
‘RV Celtic Explorer, this is Áras 2 calling. Over’
The LÉ Michael D. Higgins’ call sign was known to everyone.
‘Hi, Captain. I assume you were monitoring our progress and the surprise package that we found?’ said Gilmore.
‘Yes, and I hope Maeve and Andy were not too shaken,’ said Captain Brennan. ‘I’ve no sympathy for young Smith of course! You will not be surprised to hear that the tremor was registered along the line we’ve been monitoring. The British submersible didn’t launch today due to bad weather, but they also picked up a 2.1 reading and at a very shallow depth. The Global Seismographic Network got in touch with us through the US Geological Survey. They are getting early indications of a similar set of readings from La Palma.’
‘La Palma?’ asked Maeve.
‘Yes, it appears there have been recent but recurring low levels of seismic activity in some of the Canary Islands,’ said Captain Brennan.
‘That is most unusual,’ said Maeve.
She did not have time to consider the incident any further or to offer an opinion. The PLU’s next dive was the priority.
Captain Brennan continued, ‘As we’ve the most significant naval asset on site and are directly adjacent to the seismic line, we’ve patched the GSN into our comms network for PLU’s future dives. It appears that this Operation Eriador is attracting a lot of attention. What are your plans?’
Gilmore replied. ‘Oh, we’ll be going back as soon as PLU’s batteries are re-charged. In the morning, I guess. I’ve asked Captain Killen to take us to a new location about five kilometres to the north-east, directly above the edge of the Eriador Seamount. We’ve asked HUGO for an assessment of the geochemistry from yesterday’s data, but we’ll still proceed if we hear nothing.’
‘That seems reasonable. We’ll follow you.’
‘Captain Brennan, this is Maeve O’Farrell here. Perhaps I might give you some insights as to why the U
S Geological Survey and indeed most other volcanic observatories will be taking a keen interest in what happens over the next while.’
‘Go on Maeve. I’m all ears.’
‘There is, unfortunately, a precedent and a recent one at that. In 2004, seabed earthquakes appeared along a hundred kilometre stretch of the Sunda Trench that’s located off the northern tip of Sumatra. Within days the intensity of seismic activity rose surely and steadily but gave no cause for alarm. However, it was followed by what became known as the St Stephen’s Day Tsunami, caused by a 9.1 megathrust earthquake at a depth of just twenty kilometres below the seabed. With the available technology at the time, it wasn’t possible to predict such a massive upheaval. We know much more now, thanks to advanced satellite, submersible technologies and a variety of sophisticated seabed sensors. What I’m saying is the glitch we saw this morning could be just that, an isolated series of small vents. But we should be alert to a scenario that this could be a pre-cursor to wider and more extensive volcanic activity.’
‘That’s very cheerful, Maeve! We should be prepared to anticipate a more aggressive environment in future dives.’
There was silence in the room, a deep air of reflection, as everyone digested what they had heard.
Captain Brennan sensed the mood despite being on another ship a kilometre astern. He tried to open up a new line of conversation.
‘By the way how did the other research team get on?’
‘Tony, what’s the story?’ asked Gilmore.
‘No whales, no lava bombs, and no evidence of a fully working column. There was very poor salinity at depth. We can only confirm that at this location the satellite observations of a partial but significant collapse can be confirmed. The specially designed electrically conductive devices and the water canisters captured all the data we needed from the location. I’m glad we’re moving north-east. We can conduct another ROV dive while the PLU is being prepared.’
Doherty took a long sup of coffee. He took comfort in the fact that his experiments, and the careful preparation that was done in the past months, had paid an instant dividend.
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