Алистер Маклин - Ice Station Zebra

‘So your end would have started to go on fire first?’ I said to Jolly.

‘Must have done,’ he agreed. ‘Quite frankly, old chap, my recollection of the whole thing is just like a dream – a nightmare, rather. I was almost asphyxiated in my sleep, I think. First thing I remember was young Grant bending over me, shaking me and shouting. Can’t recall what he was shouting but it must have been that the hut was on fire. I don’t know what I said or did, probably nothing, for the next thing I clearly remember was being hit on both sides of the face, and not too gently either. But, by jove, it worked! I got to my feet and he dragged me out of my office into the radio room. I owe my life to young Grant. I’d just enough sense left to grab the emergency medical kit that I always kept packed.’

‘What woke Grant?’

‘Naseby, here, woke him,’ Kinnaird said. ‘He woke us both, shouting and hammering on the door. If it hadn’t been for him Dr Jolly and I would both have been goners, the air inside that place was like poison gas and I’m sure if Naseby hadn’t shouted on us we would never have woken up. I told Grant to waken the doctor while I tried to get the outside door open.’

‘It was locked?’

‘The damned thing was jammed. That was nothing unusual at night. During the day when the heaters were going full blast to keep the huts at a decent working temperature the ice around the doors tended to melt: at night, when we got into our sleeping-bags, we turned our heaters down and the melted ice froze hard round the door openings, sealing it solid. That happened most nights in most of the huts – usually had to break our way out in the morning. But I can tell you that I didn’t take too long to burst it open that night.’

‘And then?’

‘I ran out,’ Kinnaird said. ‘I couldn’t see a thing for black smoke and flying oil. I ran maybe twenty yards to the south to get some idea of what was happening. The whole camp seemed to be on fire. When you’re woken up like that at two in the morning, half-blinded, half-asleep and groggy with fumes your mind isn’t at its best, but thank God I’d enough left of my mind to realise that an SOS radio message was the one thing that was going to save our lives. So I went back inside the radio hut.’

‘We all owe our lives to Kinnaird.’ Speaking for the first time was Jeremy, a burly red-haired Canadian who had been chief technician on the base. ‘And if I’d been a bit quicker with my hands we’d have all been dead.’

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, mate, shut up,’ Kinnaird growled.

‘I won’t shut up,’ Jeremy said soberly. ‘Besides, Dr Carpenter wants a full report. I was first out of the main bunkhouse after Captain Folsom here. As Hewson said, we tried the extinguisher on Major Halliwell’s hut. It was hopeless from the beginning but we had to do it – after all, we knew there were four men trapped in there. But, like I say, it was a waste of time. Captain Folsom shouted that he was going to get another extinguisher and told me to see how things were in the radio room.

‘The place was ablaze from end to end. As I came round as close as I could to the door at the west end I saw Naseby here bending over Dr Jolly, who’d keeled over as soon as he had come out into the fresh air. He shouted to me to give him a hand to drag Dr Jolly clear and I was just about to when Kinnaird, here, came running up. I saw he was heading straight for the door of the radio room.’ He smiled without humour. ‘I thought he had gone off his rocker. I jumped in front of him, to stop him. He shouted at me to get out of the way. I told him not to be crazy and he yelled at me – you had to yell to make yourself heard above the roar of the flames – that he had to get the portable radio out, that all the oil was gone and the generator and the cookhouse with all the food were burning up. He knocked me down and the next I saw was him disappearing through that door. Smoke and flames were pouring through the doorway. I don’t know how he ever got out alive.’

‘Was that how you got your face and hands so badly burnt?’ Commander Swanson asked quietly. He was standing in a far corner of the wardroom, having taken no part in the discussion up till now, but missing nothing all the same. That was why I had asked him to be present: just because he was a man who missed nothing.

‘I reckon so, sir.’

‘I fancy that should earn a trip to Buckingham Palace,’ Swanson murmured.

‘The hell with Buckingham Palace,’ Kinnaird said violently. ‘How about my mate, eh? How about young Jimmy Grant? Can he make the trip to Buckingham Palace? Not now he can’t, the poor bastard. Do you know what he was doing? He was still inside the radio room when I went back in, sitting at the main transmitter, sending out an SOS on our regular frequency. His clothes were on fire. I dragged him off his seat and shouted to him to grab some Nife cells and get out. I caught up the portable transmitter and a nearby box of Nife cells and ran through the door. I thought Grant was on my heels but I couldn’t hear anything, what with the roar of flames and the bursting of fuel drums the racket was deafening. Unless you’d been there you just can’t begin to imagine what it was like. I ran far enough clear to put the radio and cells in a safe place. Then I went back. I asked Naseby, who was still trying to bring Dr Jolly round, if Jimmy Grant had come out. He said he hadn’t. I started to run for the door again – and, well, that’s all I remember.’

‘I clobbered him,’ Jeremy said with gloomy satisfaction. ‘From behind. I had to.’

‘I could have killed you when I came round,’ Kinnaird said morosely. ‘But I guess you saved my life at that.’

‘I certainly did, brother.’ Jeremy grimaced. ‘That was my big contribution that night. Hitting people. After Naseby, here, had brought Dr Jolly round he suddenly started shouting: “Where’s Flanders and Bryce, where’s Flanders and Bryce?” Those were the two who had been sleeping with Hewson and himself in the cookhouse. A few others had come down from the main bunkhouse by that time and the best part of a minute had elapsed before we realised that Flanders and Bryce weren’t among them. Naseby, here, started back for the cookhouse at a dead run. He was making for the doorway, only there was no doorway left, just a solid curtain of fire where the doorway used to be. I swung at him as he passed and he fell and hit his head on the ice.’ He looked at Naseby. ‘Sorry again, Johnny, but you were quite crazy at the moment.’

Naseby rubbed his jaw and grinned wearily. ‘I can still feel it. And God knows you were right.’

‘Then Captain Folsom arrived, along with Dick Foster, who also slept in the main bunkhouse,’ Jeremy went on. ‘Captain Folsom said he’d tried every other extinguisher on the base and that all of them were frozen solid. He’d heard about Grant being trapped inside the radio room and he and Foster were carrying a blanket apiece, soaked with water. I tried to stop them but Captain Folsom ordered me to stand aside.’ Jeremy smiled faintly. ‘When Captain Folsom orders people to stand aside – well, they do just that.

‘He and Foster threw the wet blankets over their heads and ran inside. Captain Folsom was out in a few seconds, carrying Grant. I’ve never seen anything like it, they were burning like human torches. I don’t know what happened to Foster, but he never came out. By that time the roofs of both Major Halliwell’s hut and the cookhouse had fallen in. Nobody could get anywhere near either of those buildings. Besides, it was far too late by then, Major Halliwell and the three others inside the major’s hut and Flanders and Bryce inside the cookhouse must already have been dead. Dr Jolly, here, doesn’t think they would have suffered very much – asphyxiation would have got them, like enough, before the flames did.’