Duncan Kyle - Whiteout!

'I'm looking over it now, sir. Slow scan with the lamp.'

We all waited, then Vernon's voice came again. 'Nothing in there. Water's clear and nothing shows.'

'Can you fill the bottle?'

'I'm trying, sir, right now. Damn thing won't go under. When I lower it, it floats. Hold on, I'll try again.'

The rope quivered as he moved, far below, in his seat, and Herschel said, 'You be careful there, Vernon.'

'Still floats, sir. Got to get lower, try and scoop it up from the seat. But lower slowly, sir.'

'I sure will.' Herschel switched on the motor again and allowed the rope to unwind a few inches at a time. 'How's it going?'

'Yard more, sir.'

The rope unrolled, then stopped.

'And again.'

Herschel controlled it with tremendous care. 'How's that?'

There was a grunt of strain from the handset. 'Maybe a foot more.'

'One foot. Okay?'

'Damn thing has too much . . , buoyancy,' Vernon said jerkily. 'Hold on, I'm trying - ' The taut line jerked suddenly and Herschel said, 'You okay?'

'Yup, okay, sir.' The strain was audible. Then Vernon said, 'Guess I'll have to get my feet wet.'

Smales snapped: 'No!'

'Commander says no, Vernon,' Herschel said. 'It's too risky. You'll freeze your feet. Try another time with the bottle.'

Again the rope quivered. Then Vernon reported. 'Got a few drops, I think. Yeah, just a little.'

Smales turned to Kelleher, who had stood grave and silent throughout. 'That enough?'

'Should be,' Kelleher said. 'Have to be, won't it?'

Smales nodded to Herschel.

'We're bringing you out of there, Vernon. Real still now!'

'No, sir. Let me try again.'

Smales shook his head.

'Commander says no. You got that?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Hold tight.' The motor whined and the line began to reel in over its spool. Smales turned to me. 'Okay. Step back.' He remained where he was, leaning over, staring down into the depths of the hole. Kelleher came and stood beside me. He said, ‘Coming up out of there's worse than going down. More tendency to swing the chair. 1 wouldn't be in that seat for a million. And all for a few drops of water!'

Vernon's voice came suddenly. 'Can you hold it, sir?'

'Something wrong?' Herschel demanded.

'Just cramped.'

“Where are you?'

'Under the neck of Chamber Three. Be okay in a second, sir.'

'Okay.'

Everybody waited. About a minute passed and the rope kept vibrating. Then Vernon said, 'Okay, sir.'

Herschel let the rope move again. It didn't stop this time until about two minutes later Vernon's head appeared suddenly over the top of the corrugated barrier. He was pale and obviously shaken and the precious bottle was clutched in his mittened hand. As Herschel stopped the motor, Kelleher stepped forward to take the bottle from him and hold it up to the light. There was about a quarter of an inch of water in the bottom.

Smales and I pulled the chair over, and as Vernon unstrapped himself, he said, 'Gee, I'm sorry, sir. I just couldn't make it sink. If I'd had something to force it down . ..'

Kelleher said, 'This'll just have to do it. You did a fine job there, Vernon.'

'You'll get a commendation from me,' Smales said. 'No use to you now, but you'll get it.'

Vernon thanked him, picked up his parka and put it on and Smales said, 'That's it. We're gonna have to sink another hole. Can't go on this way. How bad down there?'

Vernon turned to face him. He looked very drawn. 'It's kinda scary, sir. I have to say that.'

'I believe you. Thanks, Vernon. Go get drunk.'

Vernon managed a grin. 'I don't think so, sir.'

Smales said, 'It's an order, Sergeant.' Then he turned to me. 'What's the best Scotch we got in the officers' club?'

'Tomatin,' I said. 'Though it's a personal opinion.'

'Well, do me a favour, Bowes. Get a bottle of Tomatin and take it to Vernon's quarters. Then pour it down his goddam throat!'

I obeyed the first two instructions, but not the third. Vernon took the glass and sipped it, shuddered once, and said, 'If it's all the same to you, sir, what I'll do is sleep.'

It turned out that the water was pure.

I'd passed a lot of hours just waiting about, since my arrival at Camp Hundred, and 1 was passing another, reading in the library hut, when Lieutenant Foster came in. It was an hour or so before dinner. He smiled and said, 'Hi!'

I said, 'How are you feeling?'

'Okay, I suppose.' He sat down and started turning the pages of Newsweek, but he wasn't reading, I said, 'Tell me about your cousin,' thinking it might help if he talked. 'I thought I told you. They were coming back from the - '

'No,' I said. 'I meant what sort of a man was he?'

'Charlie? Oh, he was okay.' Foster paused and fumbled for a packet of cigarettes. His hand shook a little as he lit one. 'Had kind of a bad patch, but he was over it, I guess. Making good. And then . . .'

'Would you like to tell me?'

'You some kind of a head doctor?'

'No.' I smiled. 'Don't if you don't want to. But Newsweek's doing you no good. If you'd prefer a game of ping-pong or a drink at the club?'

'First one, then the other.'

'Right.'

We played for half an hour or so, neither of us particularly well, then put on our wrappings and went to the club. As we went inside, Barney Smales was taking the top off his Martini jug. Herschel was there too.

Smales poured four glasses, added olives to three and a silver onion to his own, and handed them round. He said, 'Well, at least these are pure. We'll drink to purity, gentlemen.' He was clearly angry but holding it back, overlaying it with an excessive bonhomie.

I said, 'The water?'

His eyes swivelled at me. 'The water,' he said, 'is contaminated in the reactor, contaminated in the pipes and clean in the well.'

'So it's somewhere in the pump,' I said, 'or the pipe between the bottom of the well and the top.'

'That's how I figure it, too.' His tone had an edge of sarcasm.

'And now you replace it?'

'That's right. Four hundred feet of neoprene pipe. Only we haven't got four hundred feet of neoprene pipe.'

Herschel said, 'Or any other kind.'

'Haul it up and wash it,' I said.

'With contaminated water?'

'Clean water,' I said. 'Melt some snow.'

Smales said, 'I thought of it. We could only trickle it through. Couldn't get a big enough pressure head. What it needs is steam-cleaning, but you can't shoot high-pressure steam through neoprene.' The heel of his hand was drumming on the bar top in frustration. 'I'd just like to know what the hell we got in that tube. This kind of thing, most places, it's a dead rat, or something like that. But we got no rats here. In any case, it's not blocked, water's getting through.'

They were still discussing it when I left them. The obvious answer, it seemed to me, was to start a new well and quickly, but there seemed to be an almost superstitious attachment to the old one. I'd actually heard Smales and Herschel agree on the need for a new well, but they seemed to avoid even mentioning it now, continuing to prowl round the problem of cleaning the pipes. Nor could I understand why Camp Hundred, lavishly equipped, should be short of a few hundred feet of piping, especially when several hundred men depended for their work, their comfort, and ultimately even for life itself, on a steady and large supply of fresh water. They were double and treble-banked on everything from generators to food. So why on earth was there only one water pipe? I decided to see if I could find some sort of answer, but knew it wouldn't be easy. One and all were getting a bit tired of my questions, however much they might say they weren't. But as it happened, I didn't get the chance to start asking until a good deal later, because not long afterwards a soldier knocked on my door, presented Major Smales's compliments, and the major would be glad if I could come to the command office right away. No, sir, he didn't know why. But Smales wasted no time in telling me. He'd decided to send a Polecat on a hundred-mile dash to Camp Belvoir to pick up replacement neoprene and thought it might be a good idea if I went along. I said,’ Why me?'