William Dietrich - Ice Reich

They circuited the crest in a window of brilliant sunshine, Hart looking down the dry valley where he knew the husks of the dead Germans still lay scattered. Was that where Schmidt was aiming? To get the bodies or the spores? The pilot decided against pointing out the deadly vale to his group of Germans. Like it or not, they all needed each other to descend safely into the mountain. Panic wouldn't help.

Beyond the valley he could see the other volcano, exhausting unevenly. Sometimes the plume would be dark with ash and other times it would lighten with steam. The snow around its top had been stained charcoal. He wondered what Elmer would make of this. "The island doesn't want you to be here," the old Eskimo would have said. "I don't want to be here either," Hart would have replied.

When they'd hiked the rim to the seaward side of the crater Hart abruptly turned off the crest. Below was a panoramic view. To his left was the sea, the island skirted by a fractured maze of pack ice. Directly ahead was the snowy plateau where he'd landed the Boreas, bordered by the adjacent jagged ridge of rock that linked the two volcanoes. Behind, to his right, was the valley. Without a word he led them skittering downward on the snow of the volcano's outer flank. They stopped on the shelf of bare basalt that extruded from the mountain a third of the way down its slope.

Hart looked back up. "It's tough going back over the rim of the volcano," he told the soldiers. "You're going to get a workout packing our cargo to the submarine."

"We're not afraid to work," Hans said.

Hart nodded. "Of course we did have a tube leading right through the mountain, right out to the caldera, but Colonel Drexler demolished that one. Back in 1939. You can ask him about it on the way back up."

"It was an accidental collapse, Hart. And keep your tiresome history to yourself."

"Yes, my commander." He gave a mock salute and pointed with the tip of his ax. "The exit I found is right there."

Still looking like a sleepy eye, a dark slit of a hole looked out at the ocean and its mosaic of ice. "We're crawling in there?" Rudolf, the man Hart knew as Bristle-Head, asked doubtfully.

"It's bigger inside."

They paused to get out the ropes and lights, including miner's helmets with headlamps. As the others finished preparing to enter the cave, Hart looked intently down the volcano's flank at the small, relatively ice-free bay far below. His eye swept its shoreline as if searching for something. Then, while Drexler was bent over his pack, he moved quickly to Greta.

"It's still there," he whispered.

She looked down the slope quickly, not seeing what he'd spotted, and then glanced at the sea. "The ocean's so vast," she worried.

"But possible."

She stole a touch of his gloved hand.

"Hart, are you ready?" Drexler snapped. He was following their gaze with suspicion, obviously irritated at the whispering but not wanting to make a scene. The SS men looked at the trio with interest.

"I'm ready."

"Then do your job and lead."

The initial crawl led to the sandy room near the entrance. Then the tube became tight again as it led down into the mountain. Hart explained that he'd leave a colored flag every ten meters or so to mark the convoluted route. The cave would temporarily widen when they reached the long vertical chimney- the elevator shaft- that he and Fritz had descended so long ago. Then narrow once again before the grotto. They'd fix climbing ropes along the route.

The group worked slowly, bracing themselves against a sudden fall. Periodically a rock would break loose and roll down through the spelunkers, banging its way ahead of them into the pits below.

"Dammit! This is worse than that midget-designed submarine," Hans complained after sliding through a tight spot on his back, dragging his pack behind him.

"At least it's warmer in here than outside," Bristle-Head responded.

"It's warmer anywhere than outside."

Hart had to pause several times, occasionally backtracking. The lava tubes were a labyrinth; it'd been a miracle he'd found his way back out in the dark. Now he deliberately took a periodic wrong turn, trying to develop a mental picture of where all the alternate routes led. The rest of the party rested gratefully while he explored. "I nearly died in here once and I don't want to make a wrong turn again," he explained.

The chimney remained the most daunting. The lava tube descended to its roof with the dangerous pitch of a children's slide, then opened to a vertical well hundreds of feet deep. Owen cautiously let himself down on a rope to that junction and, letting his legs dangle in space, dropped a rock to emphasize the need for caution. It fell into the blackness without a sound for what seemed like an eternity of time, finally banging and bouncing somewhere far below. Its echoes drifted up to them.

"Jesus," one of the SS men said. "This dung hole is virtually bottomless. We're climbing down there?"

"Not only that," said Hart, "but you're going to have to climb back out. With a heavier pack than you have now."

"I hate this fucking war."

"Finally, we agree."

The pilot unreeled a rope into the darkness and started down, pausing periodically to drive climbing pitons to anchor the line. Gingerly, the others followed.

At the shelf where the tube from the old entrance joined the chimney, Hart paused until the group reassembled. Everyone was breathing hard. He glanced at Greta. She'd been compliant but silent, freezing the Nazis out, and the soldiers tended to keep a wary distance. Drexler stayed nearer, always between his wife and Hart, and yet avoided looking at her.

She was gazing down the chimney to where they'd descended before, lost in memory, when Hart jerked his head down the horizontal tube and said, "This way." Greta's mouth opened in surprise and then closed. They walked as if exiting the mountain from the tube that had collapsed.

"Jurgen!" Hart called. "Can you come up to the front? I want to show you something."

Drexler pushed ahead. The beam from his headlamp picked out a wall of cascading rock from the cave-in, and it was obvious that Hart had led them to another dead end. He was impatient with the frequent detours but had refrained from complaining: he still needed the American. "What is it?" he asked grumpily.

"The result of German purpose." Hart was searching with the beam from his own helmet. "There." He pointed.

Greta gasped. Bones. Lying broken in a heap of rubble was a body, decay far advanced in the relative warmth of the cave. The skull still had a few leathery scraps. A buckle, buttons, and a pocketknife were ensnarled on the web of tendrils clinging to the skeletal ribs. Rocks still obscured the mashed legs.

Drexler had gone rigid.

"Why it's Fritz, Jurgen!" Hart said. "Lying right where that cave-in you started crushed the life out of him."

There was a murmur of unease among the SS men. "This is bad luck," one muttered.

Drexler looked balefully at Hart. "What's this got to do with our mission?"

"Just underscores your deep concern for the men who serve under you."

"Spare me the finger pointing, Hart. Smart-mouthed communist or not, Eckermann was not someone I wished dead. He simply was in the wrong place at the right time."

"Well, we're going to bury him."

"We don't have time for this maudlin pity!"

Hart crossed his arms. "We're staying here until he's covered with rocks and a prayer said over his grave."

No one wanted to spend more time arguing in the depth of the cave. The little German was swiftly covered with stones and Hart led the others in the Lord's Prayer, a couple of the SS men stumbling over the words. Then he turned to the others. "This was one man. Before we go farther on this mission, I want you to imagine burying a million others: the victims of a new plague."