Killer

“I see,” he said. “Well, I’m glad to see you’ve been making yourself useful after all. It’s not a bad idea; I’ll think about it.” He turned away, safe in the knowledge that his outrageous behaviour would disarm Ross.

“Don’t be bloody silly, Simon. This is no time to regress to our old fourth-form days. We could die up here; for God’s sake try to act like a grown-up!”

“Don’t tell me how to behave! Good Christ, I’ve been on the ice now for ten years. I’m chief of the camp we’re going to. I haven’t­­­­ been hiding behind a desk for the last five years; I haven’t got eleven deaths on my slate. Where did you get the arrogance to think that I should listen to your advice rather than looking at the problem and making up my own mind?” His voice had risen, but not in hysteria: in the righteous anger of an offended man who has been grievously misjudged by one who should know better. The others had gathered around now.

Ross gave his lopsided shrug, and moved off. Job followed him.

Kate came out of the tent. “What was that all about?” she asked.

Warren and Preston looked away.

“It’s very simple, Miss Warren; Ross believes we should all do as he says, whether we want to or not. He supposes himself to be so much better equipped to survive than us, that we should consider his words gospel.”

“And is he? Is he better equipped to survive?”

“My dear Miss Warren! I understood you had been in cold climates before?”

“So I have. In Iceland and Norway.”

“And your father?”

“Of course.”

“Mr Preston?”

“Yes; I have been in Greenland and Iceland.”

“Well there you are! We all know our way around; why should we take orders from someone who’s been sitting behind a desk for the last five years because the last time he was in a position anything like this one, everyone who was with him died?” He could see he had scored a telling point, and was willing to leave it there.

He turned again to the crate of sleeping bags and a quiet voice interrupted.

“So,” said Job, “you all know your way around. You, Doctor Warren, when was the last time you were on the pack?”

He waited a moment or two for an answer.

“Miss Warren?”

“I’ve never actually . . .”

“Mr. Preston?”

“Me neither.”

“Simon; I don’t have to ask you. Unless you’ve been doing it in secret, you have never survived off land either.”

“It makes no difference, Job . . .”

“A moment, please, Simon. Let us take it a slightly different way. Look around you, please, and tell me what you see.”

Quick, feeling the incentive slipping away, thought desperately, shading his eyes and looking around. “I see the ice, the ice hills, the sea, the sky, the sun . . .”

“Quite right, Simon. There is nothing else to see. But it is understanding what you see that counts. When you look around, you must not see sea, ice, hills, sky and sun, but enemies bent entirely upon your destruction.”

“Oh. For Heaven’s sake!”

“No, Simon . . . Although the sea is seven feet beneath our feet on average, we are in fact only inches above sea level; and the water is our enemy. This current is cold. It is several degrees below freezing because it is salt. If you have a weak heart the simple shock of falling in means instant death. If you are fit and well, you might last for a couple of minutes.”

Kate moved a little closer to her father.

“The sky. The sky is either clear or cloudy. If it is clear, it drives the temperature down; if cloudy, it heralds a storm. The sun. The sun will send you blind if you are not very careful. And the ice. The ice once again is an enemy; perhaps our greatest enemy, because it masquerades as a friend. I have said that it is about seven feet thick. This is the average thickness of a pack. It varies. In many places, on the hills for instance, it is very much thicker; here it may be thinner: it may be only a crust over a hole reaching seven hundred feet down to the bottom of the ocean. You will not be able to tell the difference until it is far too late. It feels as firm as a mountain-side, as safe as the sidewalk; but it is not. When you walk you must never trust it to support you, for as sure as you do so, it will let you down, and you will fall through, drown and die. Remember this: no matter what happens, no matter how good things seem to be, even if there is the promise of imminent rescue, you must think of it as yet another trick of the pack to try and fool you into dropping your guard. Whatever the pack does to us, it is part of its plan for our destruction.”

He looked around them. “Now you think I have gone too far. You begin to doubt me. Well; it may sound paranoid, but that is how you must think, or you will surely die.”