Ian Slater: Arctic Front

They took Lawson’s dog tags but had no time to bury him. It was hardest on Choir, but it was necessary and, with only one backward glance, he moved off with the other three, telling them briefly about the choppers and the vanished crew who were no doubt dead inside them. It was up to David whether to go on and destroy the choppers but there would be the mines to negotiate — too time-consuming in itself and besides, any noise would only attract further enemy patrols. Plus the SPETS patrol could have already reported the position of the chopper to an HQ.

“We hike,” he said simply to Choir, Aussie, and Salvini. “East-nor’east.”

“Just what I felt like,” said Aussie somberly. “Bloody four-hundred-mile walk.”

They never doubted they’d make it. If an SAS/Delta man couldn’t make fifty miles a day, he was loafing. It would be eight days to the forward units of Second Army who, given the GST the team had taken out in the tunnel and the explosions from the lake, must be mightily relieved at having at least the cruise salvos already cut by more than half. Besides, the four men had their weapons, two MRE’s apiece, and after what they’d been through during winter — survival course at Brecon Beacons for the SAS, the High Sierras for Salvini — they had no fears except how cold it might become, already minus forty as it was growing dark.

But here, too, they had two outstanding allies: their physical condition — the ability to go beyond fifty miles a day with their much-lightened packs — and, just as important, the small Nu-wick 120-hour candle in their kit. Weighing fourteen ounces, looking like a can of tuna, the light/heat candle came with six small and, according to Aussie, obscene-looking movable candles: one candle for light, two for cooking and, as two troopers slept under their Norway flap tents, two on guard, three candles for heat.

The deaths of Lawson and the others on the mission weighed heavily on David during the next seventy-two hours, more so as there was no opportunity to talk — each man refraining from speaking unless it was absolutely necessary. They were conserving energy, all communication done by hand signal, tire four of them moving in a diamond firefight pattern, just far enough from one another to have arcs of interlocking fire should it be required. David had to force himself, especially when he was on the point, to stop thinking about the choppers they’d had to abandon; it irked him that even some of their equipment would fall into enemy hands.

As they got closer to the north end of the lake, his mood began to improve, however, with the expectation of meeting up with Freeman’s advance forces. The mood was shattered when they heard, though they couldn’t see, another salvo of four cruise missiles passing overhead toward Second Army. David’s anxiety increased, too, for his brother’s safety; but then on their satellite bounce shortwave radio they picked up a static-riven BBC overseas service broadcast announcing “reduced enemy cruise activity” and a substantial victory for Second Army east of Yerofey Pavlovich, which meant Freeman was on the march. Though it was a cause for celebration, they still couldn’t make any noise, and indeed the news only alerted them to another danger, namely that in their SPETS uniform any advance American patrols probing southwestward to Baikal would shoot first and ask questions later. They ripped off the SPETS shoulder insignia, but even so the Siberian white coveralls had a baggy form with a distinctive belt, unlike the Americans’ white overlays.

Robert finally had to sleep. But it wasn’t for long, and waking from his turn on the “plank,” one of the GST’s fold-down bunks, he felt sick from the suffocating smell of diesel. He was in a hellish red light, Johnson informing him triumphantly that he’d found the “rigged for red” switch while he, Brentwood, was asleep. In the event that they might have to go topside, through thin ice into the pitch-black Arctic night, the ruby glow would be easier on their eyes, allowing them to adjust to the darkness. “Do we still have them—” Brentwood almost passed out with the pain, a persistent hammer blow radiating from his shoulder through his neck and head muscles down into his lower back and buttocks. “Do we still have them in the northern quadrant? “

“Yes, sir,” answered Johnson. “One of ‘em moved a few hundred yards or so but not far. They’ve come up close to the surface — just fired off another salvo. Means they’re still pretty close to the ice hole — only about a hundred feet below. Guess they’re going to pop off another few. I figure they must be near some upwelling — thin crust — so why move? Probably don’t even have to use any ‘charge-pick’ through the thinner ice now they’ve fired.”

Robert Brentwood didn’t respond, for as he sat up he felt his head was literally going to fall off, consciousness having torn him brutally from a dream. He’d been with Rosemary and his little boy — would it be a boy or would it be a girl? — in a sylvan glade in Oxshott, the embracing, cool calm of a huge oak tree above them as they’d picnicked — chicken — with one of those wicker baskets so beloved by the English with everything in its right place, and his child smiling at him, eyes wide with wonder, and then David and Lana were there with her pilot boyfriend, the one she wanted to have as a fiancé if La Roche ever condescended to agree to a divorce, and the pilot’s head, which had somehow become Robert, was bandaged, sore, eyes covered as Lana had described in a letter.

“We’re going to fire our missiles,” he told Johnson and Lopez, easing himself off the bunk. “Convince ‘em we’re still one of them.” He paused then pointed at the ONC E-8 chart, the position of the two subs, from which they hadn’t moved, marked with red crosses. “They’ll think we’re hitting Second Army.” He tried to smile at his own brilliance, but even the effort emitted a fiery pain deep inside his skull.

“All right!” said Johnson, his enthusiasm echoing throughout the tiny sub, pummeling Brentwood’s head some more. Such enthusiasm was something that Robert Brentwood himself hadn’t been able to regain, however much he wished, after the shock of the knife wound. At forty-three he was still a relatively young man, but he was growing old for submarines.

“Way to go, Skipper!” echoed Lopez.

“You okay?” Brentwood asked, squinting in the redded-out light. “You look like hell.”

“A bit whacked, sir.”

“After we shoot off the missiles, you hit that bunk.”

“Sir, I’ll be all-”

“Do as I say.”

“Yes, sir.”

To Lopez’s utter amazement Robert Brentwood chewed two aspirin without water as he punched in the coordinate vectors for the attack arcs, double-checking the distances and remembering the forty-mile-an-hour winds expected in the blizzard they’d seen racing south down the lake as they’d egressed Port Baikal. In any event Brentwood knew that with the two enemy subs’ exact “quadrant 8 5” position known and the two subs being close to the surface, a direct hit wouldn’t be necessary. A half mile either way, even across the 8 5line into nearby 6 5or 5 6quadrants, would do the job. “I’d say that after that last salvo at Second Army they’re either into quadrant six five or just moving into five six. Here, southeast of—” He couldn’t pronounce it and spelled it, “S-B-E-G-A. Kow’d you say that, Johnson?”

“Asshole country, sir.”

Then Lopez had a suggestion. “Sir?”

“Yes?”

“Sir, could we pop one on Irkutsk?”

“Pop one?” In the fatigue that gives rise to silly laughter, even in the most introverted souls, during moments of high tension, Johnson and Robert Brentwood, a world apart in rank, broke up in common cause, Brentwood shaking his head, Johnson, tears in his eyes, looking across at Lopez. “Pop one! You dork!”