Уильям Мейкл - Operation - Antarctica

“Dhumna Ort! Dhumna Ort!”

The night wore on. Banks’ palms ached from the clapping, his ankles throbbed from the stamping, and his throat threatened to dry and close from the strain of the repetition of the Gaelic. He saw the same effort show on the faces of the others. But they all knew they could not afford to stop. That point was proved all too noticeably when McCally had to take a break in order to stoke the stove, which was in danger of not burning hard enough to keep the frost at bay. In the few seconds that the corporal’s voice and clapping was not raised with the others, the frost crept in from the door, six inches closer across the hut floor, and Banks felt the bite of cold at his nose and cheeks.

He couldn’t afford to stop his own shouting, but he saw the look that McCally gave him after throwing three more short-cut logs in the stove. The area under the stove itself was now almost empty.

We’re running out of fuel.

There was no point in worrying about it. All they were able to do was keep up the shouting, clapping, and stamping and hope it was enough to keep the encroaching cold at bay. And if it wasn’t, well, there was always Wiggins’ option of opening the door and going at it all guns blazing. That was going to be Banks’ last resort, but he was coming to think it might also be his last available option.

It wasn’t long before McCally reached under the stove for more fuel and came up empty-handed. Banks didn’t stop stamping or shouting, but stopped clapping long enough to motion at the table and chairs. Thankfully, the corporal got the message, and quickly kicked and stomped the chairs and table into timber small enough to be fed into the stove. But the new fuel wasn’t as dense as the old logs, and burned faster. It was only ten minutes later that yet more fuel was needed. The frost grew another six inches across the floor as McCally and Parker tore planks and facing from the twin bunk beds and fed it into the flames.

Beds, bedclothes, shoring planks and all went to feed the ravenous stove, and all were too little to hold back the frost from creeping ever closer to their toes. The five men took turns, circling while stamping so that one of them was always closer to the stove and got a modicum of heat, for a time. But the spells between their turn at the warmth got colder, bitterly so, and despite their best efforts, they were all tiring now, their clapping and stomping and shouting not loud enough to drown the chanting.

As if sensing their weakened state, the thumping at the door started up again, and the frost crept faster across the floor, and also upward and outward, spreading along the walls in a spider-web crawl across the interior timbers.

Finally, McCally fed the last of their available fuel into the stove. Short of burning their own clothing and gear, there was no more they could do — all they had was the shouting, clapping, stamping, and what diminishing heat they could draw from the stove.

They kept circling.

Banks felt the cold with each breath when he wasn’t the man nearest the stove, felt ice crackle at his lips. His feet were like lumps of cold stone and he couldn’t feel his fingers when he clapped his hands. The monkish chanting was louder still and the tug of the darkness and the stars called hard now. Their shouting and clapping fell into the rhythm of a parade ground drill, and Banks put everything he had into it, one last effort. The others heard, and replied with a renewed burst of energy from all of them, but all they managed was to stop the ice coming any closer for a matter of minutes, and all too soon it had started to creep again.

All Banks knew was the stamping and circling, the clapping and the shouting. “Dhumna Ort!” he uttered, barely able to manage much above a coarse rasp.

It wasn’t enough. Slowly, remorselessly the cold crept in, reaching their toes, their heels and their ankles. They kept circling for a time, or at least it felt like they did, but gray crept into Banks’ sight with the cold, gray that became black, a deep well that was filled with stars. He tried to remember what it was he should be doing, words he should be saying, but another rhythm had him now, a cold throbbing in the dark. He tasted salt water at his lips, saw the void spread out like a blanket in front of him.

He fell into it, lost in the dance.

Banks came out of it slowly, not where he might have expected to inside the saucer, but standing, still out in the open, in front of the locked door of the disguised hut, the metal door that led into the base. Thin watery light washed the sky, and as purple gave way to azure, so too the distant chanting faded, and so too did the compulsion to dance in the darkness.

The coming of day had saved them. Part of Banks, a large part if he was truthful to himself, was saddened to feel the dance leave him.

The five men were all groggy and looked at each other in bemusement. Banks felt the cold bite hard at his feet and ankles. It might be morning, but it was a bitter one. A snell wind cut through his clothing and blew ice and snow around the doorway. Wiggins and Parker had gloved hands on the wheel of the lock mechanism, as if they’d been in the process of opening the door just before waking. They had to prise their hands from the metal where the material of their gloves had frozen to the wheel.

“What the fuck, Cap,” Wiggins said. “How the bloody hell did we get out here? It happened again, didn’t it?”

“Aye,” Banks replied. “But we fought it off. So don’t go worrying about it. Back to the hut. We’ve got some thinking to do, but we need to get out of this weather; it looks like a storm coming in.”

They turned away from the door and with Hynd and Banks in the lead made their way quickly back down the slope. Banks turned the corner to the doorway of the hut, and stopped so quickly that Parker walked into his back and nearly tumbled them both to the ground.

The hut door was wide open, but there was no space for the squad inside; that was taken up by the dead, both the Germans, half a dozen of them… and three new recruits to their ranks in Wilkes, Patel, and Hughes. Wilkes showed no sign of the bloody wounds he’d taken in getting slammed into the hut wall. Like the other two, he now wore an immaculately clean uniform, as pristine as that worn by the German officer. The only difference now was that each of them sported the familiar Swastika armband on their left upper arm. The three dead men stood just behind the tall German oberst, and all four of them raised their arm in unison, and pointed. Banks didn’t have to check the direction; he knew exactly where they wanted him to go.

“We can take them here and now, Cap,” Hynd said at his shoulder. “Just give the word.”

“No. We can’t,” Banks said. “That bastard has already proved that to us. What do they say — insanity is keeping doing the same thing and expecting different results? I’m done with that. And I’m not about to fire on my own men, dead or not. It’s time for a new tack. And we might as well be warm while we think on it. Back to the hangar base, lads. And down to the living quarters.”

Wiggins was the one to speak, but Banks knew most of them were thinking it.

“Bugger that for a game of soldiers, Cap. I’m pished off playing the hokey-cokey with these wee shitebags.”

Banks pointed into the hut.

“I’ve lost three of you already. I’ll be fucked if I’m losing anymore. Now get back to the hatch doorway. And in case you’ve forgotten your place, that’s a fucking order, Private.”

When Hynd called for them to move out, they all moved out. Banks was last to turn away. He had a final look at the three men — his men, his failure showing all too clear in the milk-white eyes. The sight of the Swastika band on their arms sickened him, as he knew it would have sickened them; now, it was just another taunt, another all too clear sign of how he had let them down. Their gaze bored into the back of his head as he walked away to join the remains of his squad.