Alistair MacLean: Ice Station Zebra

They operated on the same wave length, all right. They didn't even look at one another. In pefect 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 movies aboard the «Dolphin», and every time a character in one of those movies 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 whirly-bird, 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, pussy-footing around in this God-forsaken dump, tape all over our mouths, sworn to eternal secrecy about mission and destination — and then what? I pick up this damned 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 God, there's even a picture of me."

Rawhings 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 piece. '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 U. S. Navy has willingly agreed that the U. S. 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 seven 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. Now, kindly shut up, your executive officer is talking. 'It is now sixty hours since the world was electrified to learn of the disaster that had struck Drift Ice Station Zebra, the only British meteorological station in the Arctic, when an English-speaking ham-radio operator in Bod?, Norway, picked up the faint S.O.S. 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 oil-fuel 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.

"'It is not known whether all the prefabricated huts, in which the expedition members lived, have been destroyed.

"'Drift Ice Station Zebra, which was established only in the late summer of this year, is at present in an estimated position of 85° 40'N., 21 °30'E., which is only about three hundred miles from the North Pole. Its position cannot be known with certainty, because of the clockwise drift of the polar ice pack.

"'For the past thirty hours long-range supersonic bombers of the American, British and Russian air forces have been scouring the polar ice pack searching for Station Zebra. Because of the uncertainty about the drift station's actual position, the complete absence of daylight in the Arctic at this time of year and the extremely bad weather conditions, they were unable to locate the station and forced to return.'"

"They didn't have to locate it," Rawhings objected. "Not visually. With the instruments those bombers have nowadays, they could home-in on a hummingbird a hundred miles away. The radio operator at the drift station had only to keep on sending and they could have used that as a beacon."

"Maybe the radio operator is dead," Hansen said heavily, "Maybe his radio has broken down on him. Maybe the fuel that was destroyed was essential f or running the radio. All depends what source of power he used."

"Diesel-electric generator," I said. "He had a standby battery of Nife cells. Maybe he's conserving the batteries, using them only for emergencies. There's also a hand-cranked generator, but its range is pretty limited."

"How do you know that?" Hansen asked quietly. "About the type of power used?"

"I must have read it somewhere."

"You must have read it somewhere." He looked at me without expression, then turned back to his paper. "A report from Moscow states that the atomic-engined «Dvina», the world's most powerful ice-breaker, sailed from Murmansk some twenty hours ago and is proceeding at high speed toward the Arctic pack. Experts are not hopeful about the outcome, for at this late period of the year the ice pack has already thickened and compacted into a solid mass which will almost certainly defy the efforts of any vessel, even those of the «Dvina», to smash its way through.