Джон Болл - Phase Three Alert

“Hurrah,” Ferguson said. He could hardly believe how well things were going.

“Now, sir, I’ve got to tell you that we also have an almost insurmountable problem.” Ferguson felt a sudden sinking feeling, but he did not dare to show it. “What is it?” he asked.

The flight engineer was suddenly quite grim. “Sir, you’d better brace yourself for this one. We are keeping on with the work, and we aren’t going to stop, but we’re afraid that we’re licked. It’s the wing root sections. You see, sir, we measured them. At the point where they attach to the fuselage, the chord is almost exactly nineteen feet.”

Ferguson tried to absorb that. “I didn’t realize they were anything like that wide,” he said.

“That’s how it is, and we can’t help it.”

Ferguson fought against what he already knew. “Andy, we’re going to have to split them some way.”

Holcomb shook his head. “No way, skipper. To split them you would have to take the whole wing literally apart, spars and all. Take off all the skin and if we did that, there’s no chance we could ever get them back together again without jigs and the whole lot. And the rear opening of the C-130 is just about nine feet square, as you know. It’s out of the question to try and carry those wing sections on the outside; it would be dangerous as all hell.”

“In other words?”

“In other words, we’ve got two vitally essential wing root sections out here on the ice cap, a helluva long way from Thule, and absolutely no way at all to bring them in. We’ve had it.”

Lieutenant Scott Ferguson sat alone, his forearms resting on the table, his head tilted forward as he communed with his own thoughts. It was very quiet in the dining room of the NCO Club; the blare of the jukebox across the hall in the bar seemed not to penetrate. The Officers’ Club was open and available, but Ferguson was awaiting the arrival of Sergeant Feinberg, who had promised to join him. Meanwhile an almost untasted drink rested before him; he was in no mood for any temporal pleasures.

Everything had gone so splendidly until the wing root chords had been measured. Somehow everyone working on the recovery of The Passionate Penguin had known; the job had gone on, but it had become a mechanical exercise — something that had been started and therefore everyone went through the motions of continuing until such time as it was formally called off.

The ice cap had won.

Or the Penguin had lost: the ice cap hadn’t made her wings too big to load even into the wide-mouthed C-130.

Another young officer entered the room and looked about him. Ferguson inspected him, but as far as he knew, they had never met. Ferguson definitely did not want any company, but he was also acutely aware of how close-knit the Thule community was — there was no other air base like it. The extreme Arctic isolation brought everyone together and he could not afford, as one of the newest officers aboard, to appear less than cordial. Therefore when he met the man’s eye, he gestured an invitation.

The other lieutenant came over, drew out a chair, and sat down.

“My name is Collins,” he said. “Tom Collins.”

“Yes, sir,” a waiter said, directly behind him.

Collins raised a hand. “That’s my name, not an order. Bring me a martini.” He looked again at Ferguson. “What are you drinking?” he asked.

“I’m fine, thank you. Scott Ferguson.” He held out his hand.

“Are you on the C-130 that came in?”

“It’s my airplane.”

“Welcome aboard. You don’t look too happy.”

“I’m not.”

“Brace yourself; Thule isn’t that bad. One year and it’s all over. And in summer, the scenery is pretty spectacular.”

Ferguson didn’t want to pursue that topic any further. “What’s your job?” he asked.

Collins sat up straighter and assumed an attitude. “I am one of the chosen few,” he replied. “The gods of fortune have smiled upon me. I am a helicopter pilot.”

“Sit down anyway,” Ferguson said. Collins was already sitting, but that was an unimportant technical detail.

“Someday,” Collins continued, “you may have to ditch in the drink. When that happens, do not despair. We’ll be along to fish you out.”

“There isn’t any water up here,” Ferguson noted. “It’s all ice. Unlimited masses of ice.”

“So much the better — that way you don’t have to get wet.”

The waiter reappeared with the martini and set it down. Close behind him Andy Holcomb was approaching. Ferguson waved him to a chair. “Lieutenant Collins, Sergeant Holcomb. My flight engineer.”

“My pleasure,” Collins said, and shook hands.

Holcomb had some notes he spread out on the table. “Sir, do you feel like talking?” he asked.

“Go ahead. Tom here will keep his mouth shut I’m sure.”

“About the B-17? Everybody knows, but whatever goes on at this table is under the rose, OK?” Collins signaled the waiter and pointed to Holcomb. Andy ordered a beer.

“I’ve come to discuss some possibilities,” Holcomb began. “First, I reviewed the idea of disassembling the wing root sections, but finally and absolutely that’s out. I can quote a dozen engineering reasons, one of them being we don’t have any jigs to put them back together in. Forget it.”

“All right,” Ferguson agreed.

“So we’ve got to move them in as is — or as will be when we get them off the rest of the airframe. The nacelles don’t come off; possibly we could drill the rivets out, but it would be a hideous job to try and disassemble the engine frames and then get them back together again. Nyet.”

Ferguson tried his drink at last; he needed it. “I won’t argue; they’ve got to come in as is. If we get them in at all.”

“I know, sir, I feel just the way you do. But there’s got to be a way. Alternative one — dog teams. Det. Four, the helicopter outfit, flies regularly to an Eskimo village north of here, seventy or eighty miles up the coast. It’s called Kanak, I believe. They have dog teams. And dog teams, I find out, have been regularly moved by helicopter. So we get the whirlybird boys to bring in a couple of dog teams and drivers. We take them out on the ice cap. Then they go to work.”

“Andy, I don’t want to be the devil’s advocate,” Ferguson said, “but that’s an awfully long shot. It’s a helluva ways out there, you know that. Secondly, I don’t know how much a dog team can handle, but remember that those damn root sections are nineteen feet wide and twenty-five feet long, more or less. Plus the nacelles. I don’t think they can do it; they won’t have sleds anything like that size.”

“How much do they weigh?” Collins asked.

Holcomb had been working on that. “I’ve made an estimate,” he replied. “I can’t get the exact data; maybe Boeing has it, but it would take two weeks at the least to try and find out from them. Basically there are three elements: the skin, the spars, and the fuel cells. The skin won’t amount to much. There are two spars and they are rugged as hell, so they will weigh up. Then there are the fuel cells and they can’t be removed without taking the whole wing apart. I figure four hundred pounds for them. So all told, I make it about twelve hundred and fifty pounds. That’s an informed guess, no more.”

“I don’t know how much distance a dog team can make in a day, but thirty miles should represent a limit,” Ferguson said. “That means a minimum of ten days at maximum output. And we’d have to drop supplies all along the way. Plus the fact that there are two of those root sections. Forget the dog teams, Andy, they’d never be able to do it.”

“All right, we come to that noble organization, the United States Army. The Army built Camp Century; tons upon tons of stuff were hauled out onto the ice cap. They built a whole city, remember, and our wing roots can’t be the same load as, say, a nuclear reactor. They must have the sleds that can do it, and the snow cats to pull them.” By the time he had finished there was a decided look of hope and expectation on his face.