Алистер Маклин - Ice Station Zebra

He grinned and said: ‘In the matter of coffee, friend, I have no principles. Especially tonight. Someone should have warned us about these Scottish winters.’ He not only looked like a cowboy, he talked like one: I was an expert on cowboys as I was sometimes too tired to rise to switch off the TV set. ‘Rawlings, go tell the captain that we are sheltering from the elements.’

While Rawlings went to the dockside phone Hansen led the way to the nearby neon-lit canteen. He let me precede him through the door then made for the counter while the other sailor, a red-complexioned character about the size and shape of a polar bear, nudged me gently into an angled bench seat in one corner of the room. They weren’t taking too many chances with me. Hansen came and sat on the other side of me, and when Rawlings returned he sat squarely in front of me across the table.

‘As neat a job of corralling as I’ve seen for a long time,’ I said approvingly. ‘You’ve got nasty suspicious minds, haven’t you?’

‘You wrong us,’ Hansen said sadly. ‘We’re just three friendly sociable guys carrying out our orders. It’s Commander Swanson who has the nasty suspicious mind, isn’t that so, Rawlings?’

‘Yes, indeed, Lieutenant,’ Rawlings said gravely. ‘Very security-minded, the captain is.’

I tried again. ‘Isn’t this very inconvenient for you?’ I asked. ‘I mean, I should have thought that every man would have been urgently required aboard if you’re due to sail in less than two hours’ time.’

‘You just keep on talking, Doc,’ Hansen said encouragingly. There was nothing encouraging about his cold blue Arctic eyes, ‘I’m a right good listener.’

‘Looking forward to your trip up to the icepack?’ I inquired pleasantly.

They operated on the same wavelength, all right. They didn’t even look at one another. In perfect unison they all hitched themselves a couple of inches closer to me, and there was nothing imperceptible about the way they did it either. Hansen waited, smiling in a pleasantly relaxed fashion until the waitress had deposited four steaming mugs of coffee on the table, then said in the same encouraging tone: ‘Come again, friend. Nothing we like to hear better than top classified information being bandied about in canteens. How the hell do you know where we’re going?’

I reached up my hand beneath my coat lapel and it stayed there, my right wrist locked in Hansen’s right hand.

‘We’re not suspicious or anything,’ he said apologetically. ‘It’s just that we submariners are very nervous on account of the dangerous life we lead. Also, we’ve a very fine library of films aboard the Dolphin and every time a character in one of those films reaches up under his coat it’s always for the same reason and that’s not just because he’s checking to see if his wallet’s still there.’

I took his wrist with my free hand, pulled his arm away and pushed it down on the table. I’m not saying it was easy, the U.S. Navy clearly fed its submariners on a high protein diet, but I managed it without bursting a blood-vessel. I pulled a folded newspaper out from under my coat and laid it down. ‘You wanted to know how the hell I knew where you were going,’ I said. ‘I can read, that’s why. That’s a Glasgow evening paper I picked up in Renfrew Airport half an hour ago.’

Hansen rubbed his wrist thoughtfully, then grinned. ‘What did you get your doctorate in, Doc? Weight-lifting? About that paper – how could you have got it in Renfrew half an hour ago?’

‘I flew down here. Helicopter.’

‘A whirlybird, eh? I heard one arriving a few minutes ago. But that was one of ours.’

‘It had U.S. Navy written all over it in four-foot letters,’ I conceded, ‘and the pilot spent all his time chewing gum and praying out loud for a quick return to California.’

‘Did you tell the skipper this?’ Hansen demanded.

‘He didn’t give me the chance to tell him anything.’

‘He’s got a lot on his mind and far too much to see to,’ Hansen said. He unfolded the paper and looked at the front page. He didn’t have far to look to find what he wanted: the two-inch banner headlines were spread over seven columns.

‘Well, would you look at this.’ Lieutenant Hansen made no attempt to conceal his irritation and chagrin. ‘Here we are, pussyfooting around in this God-forsaken dump, sticking-plaster all over our mouths, sworn to eternal secrecy about mission and destination and then what? I pick up this blasted Limey newspaper and here are all the top-secret details plastered right across the front page.’

‘You are kidding, Lieutenant,’ said the man with the red face and the general aspect of a polar bear. His voice seemed to come from his boots.

‘I am not kidding, Zabrinski,’ Hansen said coldly, ‘as you would appreciate if you had ever learned to read. “Nuclear submarine to the rescue,” it says. “Dramatic dash to the North Pole.” God help us, the North Pole. And a picture of the Dolphin. And of the skipper. Good lord, there’s even a picture of me.’

Rawlings reached out a hairy paw and twisted the paper to have a better look at the blurred and smudged representation of the man before him. ‘So there is. Not very flattering, is it, Lieutenant? But a speaking likeness, mind you, a speaking likeness. The photographer has caught the essentials perfectly.’

‘You are utterly ignorant of the first principles of photography,’ Hansen said witheringly. ‘Listen to this lot. “The following joint statement was issued simultaneously a few minutes before noon (G.M.T.) today in both London and Washington: ‘In view of the critical condition of the survivors of Drift Ice Station Zebra and the failure either to rescue or contact them by conventional means, the United States Navy has willingly agreed that the United States nuclear submarine Dolphin be dispatched with all speed to try to effect contact with the survivors.

“‘The Dolphin returned to its base in the Holy Loch, Scotland, at dawn this morning after carrying out extensive exercises with the Nato naval forces in the Eastern Atlantic. It is hoped that the Dolphin (Commander James D. Swanson, U.S.N., commanding) will sail at approximately 7 p.m. (G.M.T.) this evening.

‘ “The laconic understatement of this communique heralds the beginning of a desperate and dangerous rescue attempt which must be without parallel in the history of the sea or the Arctic. It is now sixty hours–” ’

‘ “Desperate,” you said, Lieutenant?’ Rawlings frowned heavily. ‘ “Dangerous,” you said? The captain will be asking for volunteers?’

‘No need. I told the captain that I’d already checked with all eighty-eight enlisted men and that they’d volunteered to a man.’

‘You never checked with me.’

‘I must have missed you out. Now kindly clam up, your executive officer is talking. “It is now sixty hours since the world was electrified to learn of the disaster which had struck Drift Ice Station Zebra, the only British meteorological station in the Arctic, when an English-speaking ham radio operator in Bodo, Norway picked up the faint SOS from the top of the world.

‘ “A further message, picked up less than twenty-four hours ago by the British trawler Morning Star in the Barents Sea makes it clear that the position of the survivors of the fuel oil fire that destroyed most of Drift Ice Station Zebra in the early hours of Tuesday morning is desperate in the extreme. With their fuel oil reserves completely destroyed and their food stores all but wiped out, it is feared that those still living cannot long be expected to survive in the twenty-below temperatures – fifty degrees of frost – at present being experienced in that area.