Desmond Bagley - The Snow Tiger

When he had recovered he looked again at the impossible. The mist was nearly gone and he could see as far as the Gap on the other side of the river. The other side. He moistened his lips. ‘Right across!’ he whispered. ‘I’ve been carried right across the bloody river!’

He looked across the river to where the township of Hukahoronui should have been. There was nothing but a jumble of snow.

Afterwards, quite understandably, he measured the distance he had been taken by the avalanche. His car had been carried nearly three-quarters of a mile horizontally, across the river, and lifted nearly three hundred feet vertically to be deposited on its four wheels a fair distance up the east slope. The engine had stopped but when he turned on the ignition it purred away as sweetly as ever.

Dr Robert Scott was caught in the avalanche and freakishly survived. He was lucky.

Ralph W. Newman was an American tourist. The ‘W’ in his name stood for Wilberforce, a fact he did not advertise. He had come to Hukahoronui for the skiing, having been led to believe by a man he had met in Christchurch that the slopes were exceptionally good. They may well have been but it takes more than snow on slopes to make a ski resort, and the essentials in Hukahoronui were lacking. There was no chair-lift, no organization and precious little après-ski conviviality. The two-bit dance they held Saturday nights at the hotel was not much of a substitute.

The man he had met in Christchurch who had told him of the charms of Hukahoronui was Charlie Peterson. Newman judged him to be a con man.

He had come to Hukahoronui for the skiing. He had certainly never expected to find himself in the middle of a line of twenty men, holding a long aluminium pole botched up out of a television antenna, and methodically driving it into the snow at the toe of each boot to the rasped commands of a Canadian scientist. It was all very improbable.

The man next to him nudged him and nodded at McGill. ‘That joker would make a bloody good sergeant-major.’

‘You’re right about that,’ said Newman. He felt the probe hit bottom and hauled it out.

‘Think he’s right about this avalanche?’

‘He seems to know what he’s doing. I ran across him up on the slope and he had some scientific gear with him. Said it was for testing snow.’

The other man leaned on his probe. ‘He seems to know what he’s doing down here, too. I’d never have thought of this way of searching. Come to think of it, the subject never entered my mind until half an hour ago.’

The line of men advanced one foot and Newman set his toes against the tautened string. The string slackened and he drove the probe into the snow again. ‘My name’s Jack Haslam,’ said the man. ‘I work at the mine. I’m a stoper.’

Newman didn’t know what a stoper was. He said, ‘I’m Newman.’

‘Where’s your friend?’

‘Miller? I don’t know. He went out early this morning.

‘What’s a stoper?’

Haslam grinned. ‘The chap at the sharp end of a mine. One of the elite. I get the gold out.’

In went the probes again. Newman grunted. ‘If we have to do this for long it’s going to be tiring.’

‘Listen!’ said Haslam. ‘I think I hear a plane.’

They stopped and listened to the drone overhead. Soon the whole line of men had stopped and were staring at the greyness above. ‘Come on!’ called the team leader. ‘Haven’t you heard a plane before?’

The line moved ahead one foot and twenty probes were raised for driving downwards.

Newman worked methodically. Drive down left... haul out... drive down right... haul out... advance one foot... drive down left... haul out... drive down...

A sudden yell from McGill stopped him. There was something in the quality of McGill’s shout that made the hair prickle at the nape of his neck and caused a sudden hollowness in his belly.

‘Take cover!’ shouted McGill. ‘Take cover right now! You’ve got less than thirty seconds.’

Newman ran towards the place that had been allotted to him in case of emergency. His boots crunched crisply on the snow as he ran to the cluster of rocks, and he was aware of Haslam at his elbow. McGill was still shouting hoarsely as they reached the rocks.

Haslam grabbed Newman by the arm. ‘This way.’ He led Newman to a cranny not more than two feet wide and three feet high. ‘In here.’

Newman crawled inside and found himself in a small cave. Haslam was breathing heavily when he hauled himself in. Between gasps he said, ‘Used to play in here when I was a kid.’

Newman grunted. ‘Thought you miners all came from outside.’ He felt apprehensive. This was a silly time and place for inconsequential conversation.

More men came through the narrow hole until seven of them were jammed in the small cave. It was a tight fit. One of them was Brewer, the team leader, who said, ‘Quiet, everyone!’

They heard a distant shouting which suddenly cut off, and then a faint faraway thread of noise difficult to interpret because it was like nothing any of them had heard before. Newman checked his watch. It was dark in the cave but he peered at the luminous second hand as it marched steadily around the dial. ‘Must be more than thirty seconds.’

The air quivered imperceptibly and the noise grew a little louder. Suddenly there was a violent howl and air was sucked out of the cave. Newman choked and fought for breath and was thankful that the suction ceased as suddenly as it had begun.

The live rock underneath him quivered and there was a thunderous drumming noise overhead, deafening in its intensity. The air in the cave filled with fine particles of snow which settled everywhere. More and more snow came in and began to build up thickly about the tangle of huddled bodies.

The noise grew louder and Newman thought his eardrums would split.

Someone was shouting. He could not make out the words but, as the sound eased, he knew it was Brewer. ‘Keep it out! Keep the bloody snow out!’

The men nearest the entrance scrabbled with their hands but the snow came swirling in faster and faster, much more quickly than they could cope with. ‘Cover your mouths,’ shouted Brewer, and Newman brought his arm across his face with difficulty because of the restricted space.

He felt the snow build up about him, cold but dry. Finally, what space in the cave not occupied by bodies was filled completely with snow.

The noise stopped.

Newman kept still, breathing deeply and evenly. He wondered how long he could go on breathing like that — he did not know if air could penetrate the snow mass. Presently he sensed someone stirring and he made a tentative movement himself.

He was able to push with his arm and found that by pushing he could compress the snow into a smaller volume and thus make a bigger air space. From what seemed a hundred miles away he heard a faint voice and he stopped moving so that he could listen. ‘Can anyone hear me?’

‘Yes,’ he shouted. ‘Who are you?’

‘Brewer.’

It seemed pretty silly that you had to shout at the top of your voice to a man not many feet away. ‘Newman here,’ he yelled. He remembered that Brewer had been nearest to the cave entrance. ‘Can you get out?’

There was a pause and presently he heard another voice.

‘Anderson here.’

Brewer called, ‘Not a chance. There’s a lot of snow outside.’

Newman was busy clearing a space. He pushed the powdery snow away, plastering it on the rock wall of the cave. He shouted to tell Brewer what he was doing, and Brewer told everybody else to get busy and do the same. He also asked them to call out their names.

Newman was aware of the dead weight of Haslam next to him. Haslam had not moved or made a sound. He put his hand out and groped for Haslam’s face and found his cheek. Still Haslam did not move, so Newman pinched the flesh between thumb and forefinger very sharply. Haslam remained inert.