Desmond Bagley - The Snow Tiger

To Ballard he said, ‘Take three men and go to Turi Buck’s house. Find out how they’re shaping.’ Others he sent to Matt Houghton’s house and he himself set off for the town. His last command was: ‘If anyone finds Dr Scott, he’s to report to me.’

As it happened, Dr Scott was also on his way to town. He had to cross the river and the bridge had been swept away, but there was no need for a bridge because the river bed was full of snow and he was able to walk across, but with difficulty because the snow was soft. He crossed the river opposite the bluff about where the Supermarket had been and he was still unable to take in the enormity of the disaster. It did not seem either reasonable or possible that the Supermarket should have disappeared.

He trudged through the hampering snow holding his bag, the contents of which were precious. In the distance he saw something black outlined against the prevailing whiteness which, when he came nearer, proved to be a man buried to his waist. Next to him was an overturned coffee-pot.

Scott bent down, turned the man’s head and recognized the Reverend Davis. He was alive but his pulse was weak and fluttery. Scott scrabbled at the snow, digging with his gloved hands. The snow was not very compacted and the digging was comparatively easy; within ten minutes Davis was freed and lying on the surface.

As Scott was opening his bag he heard voices in the distance, so he stood up and saw a group of men picking their way over the snow where the town had been. He shouted and waved, and presently they came up to him. The man in the lead was the Canadian, McGill.

‘I’m glad you survived, Doctor,’ said McGill. ‘You’re going to be needed. How is he?’

‘He’ll live,’ said Scott. ‘He needs to be kept warm. Hot soup would help.’

‘He’ll have it if Turi Buck’s house held up. The church is still standing so we’ll use that as a base. Better take him there.’ McGill looked down at Davis and noted the clerical collar. ‘Seems appropriate. As for heat, he’ll have that if we have to burn all the pews.’

Scott looked around. ‘What a hell of a mess.’

McGill turned to MacAllister, the man from the power station. ‘Mac, you take a couple of guys and go to the Gap. If anyone is coming over tell them we need help real bad. But we need trained help — men who know about snow rescue. We don’t want a lot of amateurs lousing the place up.’

MacAllister nodded and turned away. McGill said, ‘And, Mac, if there are trained snow dogs in New Zealand we need those, too.’

‘Right,’ said MacAllister, and selected his men.

Others helped pick up Davis, and McGill led the way to the church.

Turi Buck had left McLean when the engineer was still in a shocked stupor. He went to the source of the screaming, taking with him a jar of barley sugar which he found in the kitchen. It took him a long time to subdue the terrified children, but presently he was helped by Ruihi.

‘The barley sugar is good,’ she said. ‘But hot, sweet cocoa would be better.’ She went into the kitchen and had to remake the fire which had been extinguished, and when she lit the fire the kitchen filled with smoke because the flue was choked with snow.

Miss Frobisher was of no use at all. She was curled into a foetal ball and whimpered from time to time. Turi ignored her and directed his attention to the children.

McLean looked down at the spanner in his hand and frowned. Slowly his mind began to work. Why am I holding this spanner? he asked himself, and the answer came creaking into his mind. The generator!

He moved stiffly towards the door and opened it. A light breeze came into the room, whirling up the powdered snow on the floor. He stepped outside and looked towards the rock of Kamakamaru and crinkled his eyes in disbelief. The generator stood where he had left it, even though it had not been bolted down. Thank God! he thought. What’s good for rabbits is good for generators.

But the portable air compressor he had used to drive the drill had vanished, and he remembered it had stood on the place on the rock where he had first proposed to put the generator. He walked forward past a tree which had been sheared at a height of ten feet. He stopped and grunted in his throat as he saw the drill. The air hose which had connected it to the compressor had snapped and now swayed in the breeze; the drill itself was driven deep into the trunk of the tree as though it had been flung like a giant dart.

When Ballard and his team arrived at the house he was thankful to hear the voices and even laughter. Children are resilient, and, once the shock had worn off, they became excited, even over-excited. He went inside and saw Turi sitting in a big armchair surrounded by a flock of children and looking somewhat like a biblical patriarch. ‘Thank God!’ he said. ‘Are you all right, Turi?’

‘We’re all fine.’ Turi nodded across the room to where Ruihi was supporting Miss Frobisher and administering tea. ‘She was shaken up a bit.’

From behind the house came a whine which settled into a steady throb. Startled, Ballard said, ‘What’s that?’

‘I think Jock McLean will be testing the generator.’ Turi stood up. ‘Would you like some tea?’ he asked, as politely as though they were ordinary guests visiting his home.

Ballard nodded dumbly. Turi sent one of the older children into the kitchen with instructions to bring back tea and sandwiches. Then he said, ‘What happened to the town?’

‘Turi, there is no town.’

‘Gone?’

‘I saw nothing standing except the church.’

‘And the people?’

Ballard shook his head. ‘I don’t know. Mike is there now.’

‘I will come to help search,’ said Turi. ‘After you have refreshed yourselves.’

Presently the tea and sandwiches arrived and Ballard ate as hungrily as though he had not eaten for a week. The hot tea was welcome, too, especially as Turi had laced it liberally with brandy.

When he had finished he idly picked up the telephone and held it to his ear. All he got was silence. As he cradled it he said, ‘Communications — that’s what we’re going to need. There was some food supposed to come here, Turi.’

‘It came. We have plenty of food.’

‘We’ll take some back to town. It will be a load to carry but we’ll have to manage.’

Ruihi said, ‘The car’s in the garage, isn’t it?’

Ballard sat upright. ‘You have a car ?’

‘It’s not much of a car,’ said Turi. ‘But it goes.’

Ballard thought of the soft snow which covered Hukahoronui and thought that perhaps the car was not such a good idea after all; but he went out to have a look at it. It proved to be an elderly Australian Holden station-wagon and he ignored it because the Massey-Ferguson tractor standing next to it looked to be worth its weight in diamond-studded platinum. Fifteen minutes later it was loaded with canned goods and on its way to town, towing an improvised sledge.

When Ballard arrived at the church he found more people than he had expected, with McGill at an improvised desk by the altar, the centre of a growing organization. In one corner Scott was very busy, aided by three women. Most of his patients had broken bones and two men were breaking up a pew to make splints. Ballard saw that Eric Peterson was in line for attention, so he strode over to him. ‘Is Liz all right?’

Eric’s face was white and drawn. ‘I don’t know. She and that American girl were at Rawson’s shop, I think, when we were hit.’ His eyes were bleak. ‘The shop’s gone — not there at all.’ There was hysteria in his voice.

‘You have your arm fixed,’ said Ballard. ‘I’ll check.’

He went over to McGill. ‘Turi’s place is okay,’ he said. ‘Everyone is fine there. They’ve got a generator working and I have a load of food outside — with a tractor. You’d better take charge of that.’