Duncan Kyle - Whiteout!

'Right, let's go.' Smales turned to me and said, 'Talking about suspicions, how come you're always around bad news ?'

'Coincidence, I hope.'

'I hope so, too. Okay, let's move our asses.'

Uninvited, I went with Kelleher, and he made no objection. He carried a plastic pack with him, and when we reached the stopcock nearest to the reactor shed he turned it on so that water was flowing out fast, then broke open the pack and extracted a length of plastic tubing and a bottle. He pushed the end of the tube carefully into the mouth of the drain tap, waited until water flowed through the tube, then used it to fill the bottle. When that was done, he took a glass stopper from its plastic wrapping, sealed the bottle with it and wrapped it again in a plastic bag.

'Whole thing's clean sterile,' he said. 'No dust, nothing.' He put his hand in his parka pocket, fished out a pen, and marked the bottle label with a number. Then we went back to the reactor shed and he ran it through the electronic testing machinery. He said, 'There you are.' The scope flickered. One by one the technicians returned, each with one or two bottles. Every bottle was tested, and every time the scope indicated impurities. Smales stood watching, tight-lipped. Finally, Kelleher sighed and turned to him. 'Sorry, Barney. It's the well. It has to be the well. Something dropped down there.'

Smales said, 'That damn well trench is off limits!'

'I was taken in there,' I said.

'That was with my permission and under supervision. I'm damn sure Sergeant Vernon didn't let you drop something down there!'

'I didn't try.'

Smales said, 'Okay.' He crossed to a wall mike, switched it on and began to speak. We could hear his voice over the Tannoy: 'This is the Commander. I'm sorry to say we need a volunteer again, to go down the well. Any man who's willing, go to Main Street, to the entrance to the well trench, five minutes from now.'

Kelleher said, 'One day you're not gonna have a volunteer, Barney. It's a lot to ask and it's getting worse. Then what'll you do? Order some guy down.'

'No, I won't,' Smales said. 'I'll order no man down that hole. If it happens, I'll go myself.'

Four men stood waiting at the trench entrance, and Smales gave them a little nod of appreciation. I knew two of them, Sergeant Reilly from the tractor shed and Sergeant Vernon. The other two I'd not seen before. They were both privates, one only about eighteen. Smales looked from one man to the other.

'How d'you want to do it? Do I pick somebody, or do we draw straws?'

Reilly said, 'Me, I'd like to see it, sir.'

'Me, too, sir,' the youngster said quickly.

Vernon said quietly, 'I've been down there twice, Major. I know the way.'

Smales turned to the boy. 'How old are you, Kovacs ?'

'Eighteen, sir.'

'Get back to your work.'

'But, sir - ?'

'No reflection on you, son. But go back.'

The boy saluted and left, half-disappointed, half-relieved.

'You too, Jones,' Smales said. 'This is non-com or officer work.'

'Yes, sir.'

That left Reilly and Vernon, and Smales said, 'Reilly, how many men could take over from you in the motor shed ?'

'One, sir. Maybe two.'

'Not enough. You're too fat, anyway. You wouldn't get through the holes. Looks like you're it, Vernon. Sorry.'

Vernon nodded, his facial muscles tight.

'You don't want to back out?'

'Only half of me, sir.'

Smales said, 'When you go, the army's going to miss you, Vernon. Okay, let's get going.'

Captain Herschel came hurrying in, apologizing for being late. He'd been in the bath. Vernon tied his cap's earflaps under his chin, then lifted the bosun's chair down from the steel framework and strapped himself in. 'Ready, sir.' Herschel handed him a lamp and a water test pack.

'Right,' Smales said. 'Take it, Herschel.'

Captain Herschel moved a switch and the rope tightened, raising Vernon from the ground. He fended himself away from the corrugated steel barrier with his feet and then, when he was high enough, sat still in the swaying chair.

Smales and Herschel reached up to steady him, waiting until the chair stopped swinging. Then Herschel said, 'Real still now, Sergeant. You comfortable?'

'I'm okay, sir.'

The electric motor whined again and slowly the chair descended into the well-head, until only Vernon's head showed. 'At twenty feet we'll check the walkie-talkie,' Herschel said. 'Good luck.'

Vernon's head disappeared from sight and the steel cable paid out slowly from its reel. I noticed that it was marked at intervals of a yard, and began to count slowly to myself. The motor stopped again and Herschel spoke into a little radio handset, 'All okay?'

Vernon's voice came back. 'Lower away, sir,' and the cable began to move again. Smales stepped to the edge and looked over and Herschel said warningly, 'You'll watch that cable, Barney!'

'Like a snake.' It was obvious why. Vernon's safety depended upon the cable remaining vertical. If it began to swing, even a little, the swing would be wildly magnified down below, where Vernon would be at the end of the pendulum, and the giant icicles were less than three feet from him. 'He's doing okay,'

Smales said. 'Keep going.' He beckoned me over, repeated the warning about the rope, then said, 'Look down there.'

Already Vernon was far down in the shining whiteness. I'd counted twenty-five yards of cable, seventy-five feet, just over half-way down the first chamber.

Smales said, 'Down below there's another hole just like it, and below that, another yet. In case you miss the point, that's kind of a brave man down there.'

Vernon's voice crackled up through the walkie-talkie. 'Christ, I want to cough !'

'Suppress it,' Herschel snapped. 'Keep it under till you're in the neck of Chamber Two, then steady yourself.'

'That's what - ' Vernon's voice paused, and I could imagine the straining muscles seeking to control the cough reflex.

'You okay?'

'Okay, sir.' Vernon was nearly at the neck.

'Want me to stop it?' Herschel asked.

'No, sir. I got it. I'm okay now.' A few seconds later he disappeared into the black neck of the second chamber. Faintly I could see the gleam of his hand lamp. I looked up, watching the cable unroll. Herschel said, 'Two ten feet. What's it like down there?'

'They're bigger than ever, sir. Jesus! Must be sixty feet long, some of these things.'

'You clear of them?'

'In just a second . . , clear now, sir.' His sigh of relief came through. I could see nothing now; nothing except that steel cable running ruler-straight into the dead centre of that hole in the ice a hundred and fifty feet below.

'Coming up to three hundred,' Herschel said.

'I'm near the neck.'

'Want a rest there, Vernon? How's the cough?'

'Okay now. Keep lowering.'

'Three ten, three fifteen. You should be through any time now.'

'I'm through, sir.'

'See anything?'

'No, not yet.'

Smales said, 'Tell him not to go down to water level if he can help it.'

Herschel passed the instruction and Vernon's voice crackled back. 'Sure won't. But there's nothing to see, except a couple of icicles must have crashed down here. There's big hunks of ice floating.'

'Nothing else?'

'Not a thing. It all looks clear, too. Equipment's okay, so the icicles can't have hit it. Can't see how they missed, though.'

'Three fifty,' Herschel said. 'I'm calling a halt.'

'Can't see nothing down here, sir.'

'That lamp powerful enough ?'

'Lower me just a little more, sir. Twenty feet. No more than twenty-five.'

'Okay, It's your neck.'

I glanced at Barney Smales as he frowned into the depths, his jaw muscles standing out tautly. He said,

'Ask Vernon if he can see the bottom.'

The question was put.