Уильям Мейкл - Operation - Antarctica

Hynd and McCally stepped out, weapons raised to flank Banks.

“Cap?” Hynd said, and Banks knew it was a request to start shooting. But that hadn’t worked out well for them so far.

The oberst raised his left arm again and pointed up toward the hangar. Banks considered it, but now it felt like it would be an insult to the two dead men to give in to the demand. He raised his voice and spoke so that his squad behind him would hear the conviction in his voice. They needed to hear it, and Banks needed to say it.

“The answer’s still fucking no,” he said, then turned to Hynd.

“Back inside, right now. We don’t have the firepower to take them down. We need to try something else.”

The others complied with his order and seconds later, the five of them were back in the hut. McCally closed the door, but within seconds, something pounded heavily on the other side, the force of it shaking the door in its frame. At the same time, a layer of frost grew, impossibly fast, across the inside surface. McCally had to forcibly peel his gloved hand from the door; it had been flash-frozen against the wood in seconds. Banks saw his breath condense in the air and felt cold bite at his nose and lips.

“Heat. We need more heat,” he shouted. “Get that fucking stove stoked as high as you can get it, Cally.”

The corporal moved quickly to the stove and threw cut logs into the open grate, as many as the small stove could hold comfortably. All of the squad stepped away from the doorway, instinctively looking for more heat. The logs cracked and crackled as the flames took hold.

“Will this work, Cap?” Wiggins said.

“It did in the hangar, lad,” Banks said, trying to put some reassurance into it, although he wasn’t sure he believed it himself. “It’s all we’ve got, so get to it. Let’s warm things up a bit around here.”

The extent of the frost spread quickly, crawling along the walls as if being laid down by some invisible painter, creeping across the floor towards Banks’ feet, tendrils reaching out, looking for prey.

He stepped further backward, trying to get even closer to the stove. Flames roared in the grate at his back but it seemed to give out little heat. In truth, he had never felt such cold, not even in the far north in the waters off Baffin Island. It was as if his blood thickened, freezing solid in his veins. A strange lethargy began to take him. He was looking at the doorway, but he saw stars, the infinite blackness, calling him to sweet oblivion. He took a step forward, towards the door rather than the fire, then another.

“Cap!” Hynd shouted and pulled Banks back towards the stove, putting his own body between the captain and the creeping ice. Banks’ head cleared immediately, all compulsion gone as quickly as it had come.

“Thanks,” he said to the sarge. He raised a hand, intending to pat Hynd on the arm, and saw to his dismay that his hands were almost as blue as those of the German Oberst outside. A thin layer of frost ran, all the way up to his wrists.

“Best warm your hands, Cap,” Hynd said. “It’s turned a bit on the nippy side.”

Banks turned and faced the stove, feeling the heat tighten the skin across his cheeks. The frost on his hands quickly melted away, although it was going to take a bit longer for them to lose the blue tinge of cold. His blood began to move again, but he still felt sluggish.

The ice thickened on the inside surface of the door, freezing faster than the heat from the stove could melt it. Hughes’ singing rose up from immediately outside the door.

And now these soldiers, these Scottish soldiers, who wandered far away and soldiered far away, see leaves are falling, and death is calling. And they will fade away in that far land.

“Fuck this shite, Cap,” Wiggins said. “I’m a soldier, not a fucking ice cube tray. Open the door. Let’s go down shooting.”

“I’m not ready to give up yet. Stoke the flames, man. Keep stoking the flames. It’s all that stands between us and a cold grave.”

The fire had grown so as to fill the interior of the stove and there wasn’t room for any more fuel. They had to stand back away from the waves of heat, but still the ice crept across the room towards them from the doorway and the squad huddled closer together in the space between the stove and the table.

“It’s getting right cozy in here, Cap,” Hynd said.

“Funny, that’s what your wife said too,” Wiggins replied.

The old familiar banter bought a round of laughter and raised their spirits. But the good humor didn’t last for long. One by one, the men fell silent, each lost in his thoughts. The thudding on the door stopped, and now the only sound was to be heard was the crackle of the logs as the fire ate through fuel as fast as they could throw it on the flames.

But it seemed to be working. The spread of the ice slowed and finally it stopped six inches from their feet. It did not retreat, but Banks began to believe that they might yet survive this.

“Is it over, Cap?” Parker asked. Despite the heat, Banks saw that the private’s lips were gray, almost blue, and that a layer of frost coated his thick eyebrows.

“Maybe aye, maybe no,” Banks replied, hoping for one thing, fearing the other.

And then it came, the exact thing Banks had been dreading. *

It started quietly again, the same far-off chanting, the monkish choir in the wind. Banks didn’t know what was worse, a dead man singing, or this insistent, far too seductive plainsong.

“Earplugs,” he said, loud enough for everyone to hear. “Plugs in now.”

They all complied. For several minutes, the chanting seemed to recede and fade, but it was still getting louder, and eventually, the plugs weren’t enough to mute the sound, and Banks felt the pull of the dance, the twitch in his muscles as they remembered the dark and the void.

“Dhumna Ort!” he muttered, hoping for the same protection as previously, but the chanting kept getting louder. The pounding came at the door again, keeping time with the beat, a rhythm that tuned into his breathing, his heartbeat, even the crackle of flame on the damp wood in the stove, everything dancing in time. He felt the tug and call of the infinite, knew that the stars and dark spaces were waiting a heartbeat away, and all he had to do was let it take him and all would be well. But it wasn’t the stars he was seeing in his mind now — it was Patel, dark eyes pleading just before the German broke his neck.

“Dhumna Ort!” he shouted, and this time he got something, a certain distance from the relentless beat, a dimming of the chanting. He shouted the phrase again, and the distance between him and the darkness increased farther. Hynd had also got the message and he and Banks started into a chant of their own in an attempt to beat back that of the distant choir, the two words repeated over and over.

“Dhumna Ort!”

The ice that had been stopped six inches from their feet retreated, only by the width of a finger, but definitely noticeable.

“Come on, you buggers,” Hynd shouted to the other three men, “join in. Or would you rather wait until your bollocks freeze off?”

It took several seconds before they all got it, but once the five of them chanted the words in unison, the ice retreated even faster. Their shouting, discordant as it was, muffled the monkish chanting, their stamping and clapping nullified the pounding at the door and sent the frost melting away from them across the floor leaving only damp floor behind it.

Banks almost yelled in triumph but could afford to break the rhythm of their chant. Besides, the closer the frost got to the doorway, the slower it retreated, until finally the retreat stopped where the foot of the door met the floor. Although the crawl of tendrils of frost on the walls had also disappeared, the ice on the surface of the door itself remained as thick as ever. They had reached an impasse, but had bought themselves time, and a larger area clear of the biting cold. But Banks knew that if they stopped chanting and stamping, or if the stove were allowed to burn any less fiercely then the ice — and the call of the stars — would be back in full measure. He kept shouting, kept clapping, and kept stamping.