Alistair MacLean - Bear Island

We made our way down to the jetty. From the main cabin it was a distance of just over twenty yards and it took us five minutes to find it. We did not dare use our torches and with that heavy and driving snow reducing visibility to virtually arm's length, we were blind people moving in a blind world. We edged our way very gingerly out to the end of the jetty-the snow had covered up the gaps in the crumbling limestone and, heavily clad as we were, the chances of surviving a tumble into the freezing waters of the Sor-Hamna were not high-located the workboat in the sheltered northwest angle of the jetty and climbed down into it by means of a vertical iron ladder that was so ancient and rusty that the outboard ends of some of the rungs were scarcely more than a quarter of an inch in diameter.

On a dark night the glow from a torch can be seen from a considerable distance even through the most heavily falling snow but now that we were below the level of the jetty wall we switched our torches on again, though still careful to keep them hooded. A quick search of the workboat revealed nothing. We clambered into the fourteen-footer lying alongside and had the same lack of success. From here we transferred ourselves to the mock-up submarine-an iron ladder had been welded both to its side and the conning tower.

The conning tower had a platform welded across its circumference at a distance of about four feel? from the top. A hatch in this led to a semicircular platform about eighteen inches below the flange to which the conning tower was secured: from here a short ladder led to the deck of the submarine. We went down and shone our torches around.

Give me subs any time," Smithy said. "At least they keep the snow out.

That apart, I don't think I'd care to settle down here."

The narrow and cramped interior was indeed a bleak and cheerless place. The deck consisted of transverse spaced wooden planks held in position at either side by large butterfly nuts. Beneath the planks we could see, firmly held in position, rows of long narrow grey-painted bars-the four tons of cast-iron that served as ballast. Four square ballast tanks were arranged along either side of the shell-those could be filled to give negative buoyancy-and at one end of the shell stood a small diesel, its exhaust passing through the deckhead as far as the top of the conning tower, to which it was bolted: this engine was coupled to a compressor unit for emptying the ballast tanks. And that, structurally, was all that there was to it: I had been told that the entire mock-up had cost fifteen thousand pounds and could only conclude that Otto had been engaged in the producers " favourite pastime of cooking the books.

There were several other disparate items of equipment. In a locker in what I took to be the after end of this central mock-up were four small mushroom anchors with chains, together with a small portable windlass: immediately above these was a hatch in the deckhead which gave access to the upper deck: the anchors could only be for mooring the model securely in any desired position. Opposite this locker, securely lashed against a bulkhead, was a lightweight plastic reconstruction of a periscope that appeared to be capable of operating in a sufficiently realistic fashion. Close by were three other plastic models, a dummy three-inch gun presumably for mounting on the deck and two model machine guns which would be fitted, I imagined, somewhere in the conning tower. In the foreword end of the craft were two more lockers: one held a number of cork life jackets, the other six cans of paint and some paint brushes. The cans were marked instant Grey."

"And what does that mean?" Smithy asked.

"Some sort of quick-drying paint, I should imagine."

"Everything shipshape and Bristol fashion," Smithy said. "I wouldn't have given Otto the credit." He shivered. "Maybe it isn't snowing in here but I'd have you know that I'm very cold indeed. This place reminds me of an iron tomb."

It isn't very cosy. Up and away."

"A fruitless search, you might say?"

"You might. I didn't have many hopes anyway."

Is that why you changed your mind about their getting on with the making of the film? One minute indifference, the next advising them to press on? So that you could, perhaps, examine their quarters and their possessions when they're out?"

"Whatever put such a thought in your mind, Smithy?"

"There are a thousand snowdrifts where a person could hide anything."

"That's a thought that's also in my mind."

We made the trip from the jetty to the main cabin with much greater ease than we had the other way for this time we had the faint and diffuse glow of light from the Colemans to guide us. We scrambled back inside our cubicle without too much difficulty, brushed the snow from our boots and upper clothing and hung the latter up: compared to the interior of the submarine shell the warmth inside the cubicle was positively genial.

I took screwdriver and screws and started to secure the window while Smithy, after some references to the low state of his health, retrieved the bottle I'd taken from the provisions shed and took two small beakers from my medical box. He watched me until I had finished.

"Well," he said, "that's us safe for the night. How about the others?"

I don't think most of the others are in any danger because they don't offer any danger to the plans of our friend or friends."

"Most of the others?"

I think I'll screw up Judith Haynes's window too."

"Judith Haynes?"

I have a feeling that she is in danger. Whether it's grave danger or imminent danger I have no idea. Maybe I'm just fey."

I shouldn't wonder," Smithy said ambiguously. He drank some Scotch absently. "I've just been thinking myself, but along rather different lines. When, do you think, is it going to occur to our directorial board to call some law in or some outside help or, at least, to let the world know that the employees of Olympus Productions are dying off like flies and not from natural causes, either?"

"That's the decision you would arrive at?"

If I wasn't a criminal, or, in this case, the criminal, and had very powerful reasons for not wanting the law around, yes, I would."

"I'm not a criminal but I've very powerful reasons for not wanting the law around either. The moment the law officially steps into the picture every criminal thought, intent, and potential action will go into deep freeze and we'll be left with five unresolved deaths on our hands and that'll be the end of it for there's nothing surer than that we haven't got a thing to hang on anyone yet. There's only one way and that's by giving out enough rope for a hanging job."

"What if you give out too much rope and our friend, instead of hanging himself, hangs one of us instead? What if there's murder?"

In that case we'd have to call in the law. I'm here to do a job in the best way I can but that doesn't mean by any means I can: I can't use the innocent as sacrificial pawns."

"Well, that's some relief. But if the thought does occur to them?"

"Then obviously we'll have to try to contact Tunheim-there's a Meteorological Office radio there that should just about reach the moon. Or we'll have to offer to try to contact Tunheim. It's less than ten miles away but in weather conditions like those it might as well be on the far side of Siberia. If the weather cases, it might be possible. The wind's veering round to the west now and if it stayed in that quarter a trip by boat up the coast might be possible-pretty unpleasant, but just possible. If it goes much north of west, it wouldn't-those are only open workboats and would be swamped in any kind of sea. By land-if the snow stopped-well, I just don't know. In the first place, the terrain is so broken and mountainous that you couldn't possibly use the little Sno-Cat-you'd have to make it on foot. You'd have to go well inland, to the west, to avoid the Misery Fell complex for that ends in cliffs on the east coast. There are hundreds of little lakes lying in that region and I've no idea how heavily they may be frozen over, maybe some of them not very much, maybe just enough to support a covering of snow and not a man-and I believe some of those lakes are over a hundred feel? deep. You might be ankle-deep, knee-deep, thigh-deep, waist-deep in snow. And apart from being bogged-down or drowned, we're not equipped for winter travel, we haven't even got a tent for an overnight stop-there isn't a hope of you making it in one day-and if the snow started falling again and kept on falling I bet Olympus Productions haven't even as much as a hand compass to prevent you from walking in circles until you drop dead from cold or hunger or just plain old exhaustion."