ANTARCTIC PLATEAU
1973 - CREVASSE
The thermometer on his parka read minus
40 degrees centigrade. Whiteout and wind chill made the glacier a featureless
hell. Since the split had appeared in his boot-top, he'd tried everything to
patch it. If they kept on like this, he'd lose his toes.
One thing was
certain in Antarctica. Everything was ten times harder and more dangerous. The
'A' factor, they called it. The smallest mistake could kill.
Chafed by his
harness, anxious about his foot, cursing the man ahead of him, Cain struggled
on. They were on powder snow now, had cleared the sastrugi, thank God. But there
could be crevasses here.
Zuiden, far ahead all morning,
was now a speck at the end of his sledge tracks, his more powerful body better
at hauling 200 pounds. He'd stopped at the top of a rise to probe with the spike
of his ice axe.
Cain plodded toward him, straining to see
through his goggles. In this undefined, unrelieved whiteness it was hard to spot
slumps. The danger wasn't the centre of a snow bridge. You had to watch for the
fault line at the edge. Plumes blew from ridges. The wind was rising fast.
Last night in the snapping tent he'd hunched beside the Primus, shaken frost
from between his double layer of socks, checked his foot. Two toes - spongy,
painful.
'Amputation time,' Zuiden said through salami
and peas.
'You'd like that, wouldn't you?'
'Another Paki cripple. So what? You black bastards are a dime a dozen.'
Why
the fixation on skin colour? He wasn't even that dark. He'd been told his mother
had been Caucasian, his father Pakistani. Zuiden's parents were Dutch students.
So bloody what? They'd never known their parents. Why did deadshits like Zuiden
make such comments?
They were manhauling far south of
Alpha with a rendezvous point but no backup. EXIT cadets sank or swam. They were
both twenty-four years old. Training continued seventeen hours a day and seven
days a week for twenty years - special forces techniques and streaming for
specific operations. For Cain, that included a liberal education that Zuiden
ridiculed, probably from envy. He slogged on through squeaking snow, beard
frozen, eyelids encrusted. They were nearing the crest where the ice flow would
change direction. The second hour was up. His turn to lead.
He drew level with the Dutchman. 'Time to rope up.' 'Got to crap.' Zuiden's
overmitts hung from their harness. He struggled with zips.
Cain unhitched himself from the sledge and pulled the coiled safety-rope from
under the strapping. It was secured to the eyelet at the rear and he'd tied the
prusiks last night when they'd pitched camp. He tossed the coil on the snow,
removed his mitts, tied a figure eight in the shorter end and snapped it into
his harness karabiner.
He glanced at Zuiden - freezing
his arse off, squatting behind the windbreak of his sledge. Turds, in this
place, remained preserved forever. You were supposed to shit in the tent just
before you took it down but the bastard hadn't managed it this morning.
'Wind's getting up.' Cain's fingers were already numb and he wanted to keep
moving to stop heat draining from his limbs. He hitched up to the sledge again,
replaced his hands in the clumsy gauntlets and walked an idle step forward to
probe the drift with the spike of his axe.
The bridge
must have been a mere crust.
Like an unlocked trapdoor,
it dropped.
He fell in a cloud of snow, arms out, feet
kicking air, expecting the sledge to smash down on top of him, expecting a
100-foot fall.
Then he jerked, stopped, dangled against a
glacial-blue ice wall. Below him, the fissure widened to a bottomless blue-black
void.
The cascading snow stopped. He hung in tomb-like
silence, blood pounding in his ears. What had snagged him? He pushed back his
frosted hood, peered up.
The lip was 15 feet above. The
fibreglass sledge was jammed 8 feet down the slot on an irregular projection of
ice. He was hanging from the sledge poles. If the sledge slipped, he died.
He yelled up.
No answer.
Jesus.
He yelled again, disoriented, shocked.
In this
limbo-land, half the effort was psychological. He had to pull himself together,
think.
The safety-rope hung slack beside him. If the main coil
was still above the lip, Zuiden could belay it. Perhaps he was doing it now. But
the crap would have cost him - like everything on this continent cost you. His
hands wouldn't be warm for half an hour.
He yelled,
'Zuiden.'
He'd lost his ice axe. The strap had come off
his wrist. He checked for damage. Nothing seemed broken. The harness cut into
his thighs but he wore no crampons so had no forward spikes to kick into the
undercut wall.
One prusik hung near his side - a small
diameter loop of rope tied to the main one with a sliding hitch that jammed
under load. The other was attached to his harness. In theory, you used the loops
to inch your way up the rope. In practice it was hard. Although he was strong,
Antarctic gear was heavy. You really needed other men above, using an improvised
pulley system.
And if he yanked the safety-rope,
he'd jerk the coil into the crevasse.
Sweet Jesus,
Brahma and Allah. Zuiden had to belay him or he was dead.
'Zuiden!' He shrieked it.
Nothing.
He hung, helpless, chilled by the smooth walls. It was hard to look up. Ice on
his facemask had stuck to his hood halfway around. Zuiden would need to anchor
himself off, then take up the slack and belay.
At last, a
masked, goggled and hood-shrouded head appeared above the lip.
Cain yelled.
'Belay the rope.'
The shape went. Cain waited, losing
sensation in his limbs, inertia pooling warmth in his core. Soon he'd shake with
cold and his hands would be senseless meat.
A jerk.
Ice particles pattered on his hood.
The sledge had
slipped and he'd dropped three inches down the face.
He
dangled from the poles, scared to breathe.
Zuiden's hood
again, a dark triangle, snow building on one side. 'Okay. You're anchored off.'
Cain pulled on the rope. 'You could have taken up the slack.'
'You do it.'
'Bastard. You're supposed to winch me up.'
'Suck arse.' The hood disappeared.
Cain cursed and
raved. The deadshit didn't care if he fell.
He pulled on
the live rope. Still slack. Each time he pulled, he had to slide the prusiks
higher - the one attached to his harness, and the other longer loop for his
foot.
Was it anchored off at all? Or had Zuiden just
decided to leave him? He wouldn't put it past the bastard. Although his jammed
sledge held much of the food, Zuiden had the vital tent and stove.
Yes, the black-hearted swine would enjoy arriving at the rendezvous alone.
They'd question him but have nothing to go on. All evidence would be in the
glacier. Entombed.
He kept pulling until the rope hung
like a lift cable loop far below. Perhaps the shit hadn't anchored off at all.
He mightn't even be up there - could have left.
Cursing,
heart pounding, he dragged on the rope.
A jerk as it took
up.
He gasped with relief.
He
worked a foot into the long loop and slowly added weight, saw the knot jam and
kink the rope. As he stood in the stirrup-like loop the cutting pressure of the
harness eased. Next problem - the sledge poles. They held him down. But if he
unbuckled from the sledge, he'd rely entirely on the rope.
He slipped off his gauntlets and fumbled around his hips. He could barely feel
his fingers and needed his hands or he was dead. There was no sensation through
the gloves he still wore, the silk inner and thick, thermal outer. After a long
fiddle, the poles and flexible links hung free.
Shaking
with effort, he slid the harness loop high, bent his leg so it took his weight
and slid the knot of the foot loop higher. The tension had to be off the knots
to move them along the rope. Even then they were hard to dislodge. He had to
push the loop against the knot each time to free them.
He
rested a moment, exhausted. In this frigid hell, each movement hurt.
He stood in the stirrup loop again. His body weight twisted the rope until the
loops twined around it like vines. After he worked the slack knot loose he had
to turn it to untangle the loop and the gloves made it as easy as playing a
piano with his feet. He hung in the chasm, revolving on the rope, fighting to
make the loops work.
'Zuiden,' he bellowed. The sound
was absorbed by the ice.
Above him, the loop knots were
fraying but the lip was closer at least. Working the loops, he drew level with
the sledge then dragged himself up until stopped by the loop secured to its end.
Without help there was no alternative. He'd have to cut the tie to the sledge.
'Zuiden,' he yelled again.
Nothing.
He waited to gain strength, worked the knife from its sheath on his harness
strap and sawed at the loop. As the strands gave, the live rope straightened in
a spray of ice. Wind moaned above. The weather was getting bad.
The fibreglass sledge hadn't budged and seemed jammed enough to stand on. Now
he was half on the rear of the sledge, his head two feet below the crevasse lip.
He slid the loop knots as high as he could to guard against falling back. Thank
God for the foothold of the sledge. He rested, panting in the thin air,
staring up.
The two feet might as well have been ten. The
lifeline had cut into the lip. Zuiden should have put an ice axe handle
crossways under the rope but hadn't bothered.
A rising
gale swirled snow down the slot. How to climb out without help?
Gasping,
yelling curses, his beard iced to his face mask, shivering like a wet dog, he
pushed the harness loop as high as he could.
He dangled,
looking up.
No Zuiden. Just snow blowing across the gap.
The only way to move up was to shorten the foot loop. He'd have to tie a knot
in the bight.
With fingers that barely worked, he finally
got it done, put his foot in the loop and clutched the rope. When he
straightened his leg, his head moved higher than the lip. Snow pelted his face,
turning his eyelashes to ice.
'Zuiden, you arsehole.'
His bellow was stolen by the wind.
All his rage at his
companion was suddenly in his arms. He clawed at the drift until he could see
the rope taut against the ice then chipped a hole with the knife so that he
could work a hand around the rope. With one grip secure, he reached far forward,
used the blade as an ice spike and dragged himself out of the slot.
He lay prone, close to hypothermia, wind moaning around him, driven snow
pounding his hood.
He'd survived the crevasse. Now the
blizzard - they called it a blizz - was the threat. The rope was all he could
see. Visibility was almost zero.
'Zuiden, I'll bloody
kill you.'
He crawled along the rope, reached the anchor,
a single snow stake. Zuiden should have anchored twice but obviously didn't give
a damn.
He couldn't think properly, didn't know what to
do. He had no equipment, just the rope. Should he use it to search in widening
circles around the spot? No. He'd slot himself again.
He needed shelter desperately. The wind was strong enough to blow him off his
feet. If he'd had a bivvy bag or extra insulation, he could have dug himself
into the snow. He realized with terror that he could no longer feel his left
foot.
'Jesus,' he whimpered. So this was how you died.
Then, through blasting drift, he glimpsed a yellow smear. An illusion? He
crawled ahead.
Yes a yellow tinge.
The tent!
Relief flooding him, he crawled forward
yelling, lurched into a guy-line and turned for the cross-wind face. The
entrance was meant to be there and Zuiden had done the job by the book - dug in
the floor and heaped snow on the valance to stop wind getting underneath. A
polar pyramid tent, properly pitched and secured, could withstand the highest
winds.
At the end of his strength, Cain got himself
inside.
Zuiden sat, legs in his sleeping bag, melting
snow on the stove. He didn't bother to look up.
Cain pulled the entrance drawstring tight, dislodging frosted condensation, lay
on the cell-bed matting, too weak to move.
Above the
snapping of the fabric, the thrumming of the guy-lines and the storm, Zuiden's
laconic voice. 'What took you so long?'
'You arsehole.
You left me to die there.'
'No point in two croaking. And
you'd be stuffed now without the tent.'
'If you'd bloody
winched me out, you would've got the tent up faster.'
'This is survival training. Why should I give a stuff?'
'You don't just look after number one, you incredible arsehole shitface...'
'Edict fourteen. DEATH IS AN ASPECT OF LIFE.'
'Don't
quote me the edicts,' Cain roared. 'I've probably lost my bloody foot.'
'Edict six. LOYALTY TO PEOPLE IS WEAKNESS. Down here, your poncy degrees don't
cut any ice.'
Cain wanted to sob. With relief? For his
foot? He didn't know. But he was damned if he'd do it in front of this callous
shit. He was alive at least and able to get warm. And, for once, kerosene fumes
were the sweetest smell in the world.
He looked at his
damaged left boot, frightened to take it off.
He said,
'An eye for an eye. And a foot for a foot. You heard it here.'
Zuiden sneered and raised a middle finger.
color=#000080>LAHORE, PAKISTAN MARCH 1978 - SCREAMS AT MIDNIGHT
Kot Lakhpat Jail. Iron gates sweating and rusted with heat. Filthy cells the
sun never found. Iron beds chained to the floor. Cockroaches crawling from the
toilet hole. Flies. Stench. Endless merciless mosquitoes.
The man sat on the lice-infested mattress, his body covered with sores. He had
lately vomited blood but hadn't told his daughter. They'd let her see him
yesterday. He'd trained her well. She hadn't cried.
To
guard against a coup, he'd chosen an obsequious buffoon. But the man was sly.
Strange how you attracted what you feared.
It was
starting again in the courtyard. They began it at midnight so that screams kept
the prisoners awake. Each man was spreadeagled on the slanting rack - belly on a
bolster, feet in stocks, hands tied above his head. Then they'd flog him with a
lathe, running at him and striking sideways with full force. He could hear the
long cane whistle as it slashed the victim's bare arse, hear the scream, hear
the army officer count off the stroke.
He
slapped mosquitoes, remembering the meeting with Kissinger last year. The
agreement with France on the nuclear reprocessing plant was meant to offset
soaring oil prices. But the 'free world', the rumbling voice had explained,
wouldn't tolerate an Islamic bomb. Henry had actually threatened him, said he
could become 'a horrible example'.
The screams outside
had stopped. The prisoner would have fainted. They'd wait for the doctor to
check his pulse and revive him with smelling salts.
Kissinger, of course,
had also attracted what he feared. America feared fundamentalists and now had
one. Zia would play the Islamic card - bruise his head on his prayer mat and
enforce the old barbaric laws.
They began flogging the
clod again but he was pointlessly, desperately brave - still screamed 'Jiye
Bhutto' with each stroke.
The man sweated in the cloud of
insects, listening to the wretch repeat his name.
Long
live Bhutto. Ironic. He was born to lead the rabble of course, but his life had
hardly been guiltless.
Now only roaches and pain
remained.
Zia would hang him within the month.
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