Beneath the Ice (2 page)

There was a secondary jolt as the enormous shock wave from the fall cracked the snow under the tractor’s rear axle. The machine listed to one side then suddenly it was free, and tumbling downwards.

Forty feet lower down, a column of ice jutted out from the main wall of the crevasse like a tree branch. As the full weight of the tractor crashed down upon it, the column splintered, collapsing in on itself, but it was enough to arrest their fall. Everything went still, with only the soft tinkling sound of loose shards of ice spinning off into the depths below. The tractor was stuck, wedged to a standstill between the sidewalls of the crevasse.

Sommers opened his eyes. It was as if everything were moving in half time, every sense straining from adrenalin. He could feel the pulse beating at his throat, while his vision seemed sharper somehow, heightened by fear. His own body was jammed into the driver’s footwell, while next to him the passenger door swung loosely on its hinges – Akira was gone.

Grabbing the VHF radio off the dashboard, Sommers pressed down on the comms switch and spoke quickly. There was only static. He tried again. Nothing. Checking the frequency on the miniature console, he read the numbers out loud – 145.15. It was correct, but nobody was replying.

Craning his head out of the open window of the tractor, Sommers looked up. A halo of dazzling white light poured in through the tear in the surface snow, illuminating the upper reaches of the crevasse. There, the ice was a deep, iridescent blue – the same mesmeric colour as the shallow waters of the Indian Ocean.

The hole in the surface looked impossibly small to have allowed their tractor to pass through, but then he realised just how far they had fallen. They were too deep to transmit a radio signal. Here, the ice had faded in colour. It was black, and deathly cold. ‘Sommers!’

He turned to see Akira wedged into the sidewall of the collapsed column. He was about twenty feet lower down, with only his head and shoulders visible. The force of the fall had jammed his legs under his torso, twisting his body unnaturally to one side. ‘Sommers!’

The sound of Akira’s voice was high-pitched and panicked, making it difficult for Sommers to think. He had enough experience of the mountains to know that he should take things slowly and not rush into any rescue plan. He had to think how to get them out of there and, as his eyes passed across the massive bonnet of the tractor, he suddenly remembered the winch. The steel cable was easily capable of getting Akira out.

Yanking open the glove box, he found the winch remote hidden under a clutter of charts and old clothing, and jammed it into the breast pocket of his jacket. Raising his head once more, he paused, the rush of blood making him reach out to steady himself. Blood streamed down his face and into his neckline, soaking his thermals. He was going to have to take this slowly. Focus on each step.

Carefully opening the door, he couldn’t resist glancing downwards. The walls of ice were so linear and unbroken that the perspective was dizzying. Everything looked so still, the air absolutely static, as if unchanged for hundreds of years.

Clambering up on to the tractor’s bonnet, Sommers inched his way along it, his entire body pressed flat against the freezing metal. Reaching forwards to the winch cable, he heaved hand-over-hand until the heavy metal hook appeared. Then, twisting his body round, he managed to jam the toe of his climbing boot inside and, gripping tight, moved out towards the edge.

Every instinct screamed against the thought of swinging out over the side of the tractor. All he could see was the yawning darkness below. He hesitated, willing his body to comply. He could see his hands shaking, while his breath came in quick, shallow bursts, condensing in the air above.

‘Sommers!’ The sound of Akira’s voice drifted up towards him once again.

‘For Christ’s sake!’ he snapped. ‘Give me a bloody minute.’

He inched closer to the edge, letting his body slip the final few inches. The drop was sudden, jolting him to a halt just beneath the line of the tractor’s giant caterpillar tracks. He let himself swing for several seconds, too scared to do anything but grip onto the steel cable, before finally his right hand crept higher, searching for the remote in his pocket.

The winch lowered, the steady release of the cable his one reassurance. In only a few moments he was at the site of the splintered column and the broken body of his colleague.

Akira was staring up at him, eyes wide with shock. His fleece hat had been ripped off by the fall and now his long, jet-black hair fanned out around him, with clumps already frozen to the sidewall of ice. An open flap of skin hung from his chin, whilst his shattered cheekbone distorted his face. As Sommers’ climbing boot came to rest on the slab of ice next to him, Akira desperately grabbed on to it.

‘You’re OK. You hear me? You’re OK,’ Sommers soothed, but even he could hear the flatness in his own voice. The fall had forced Akira’s entire body into an impossibly tight crack, pinning him from his waist to his feet. He was trembling, the onset of hypothermia only minutes away, while his body heat had already begun to melt the ice around him, soaking his clothes until they were wringing wet. Sommers stared down at him, amazed by how pale Akira looked. His lips had drained of colour, becoming a cold and bloodless blue.

‘This winch can move a five-ton truck, mate,’ Sommers said, forcing a smile. ‘It’s going to hurt like hell, but it’ll pull you free.’

Akira only nodded as Sommers knelt down on the ice and fed the cable underneath the injured man’s thighs in a loop. It took several attempts to reconnect it, but finally he was done.

‘I’m sorry,’ Sommers whispered before pushing down on the button. The cable tightened, the immense power of the machine ratcheting tighter and tighter. At first, Akira gulped, the pain making him gag, and then suddenly he flung back his head and let out a sound that Sommers had never heard a human being make before. His mouth stretched wide as if about to vomit, then a gurgled hiss of agony escaped Akira’s lips. ‘Shit,’ Sommers breathed. ‘Come on!’

He could see his colleague’s whole body being torn between the vice grip of the crevasse and the power of the winch. His eyes were wide with unspeakable agony as his spine seemed to buckle under the incredible pressure. Slowly, his thighs were being wrenched from their sockets, each muscle and sinew tearing beyond its limit. On it went, millimetres at a time, the two opposing forces splitting his flesh and bone as if trying to divide it between them.

Sommers shook his head, unable to cope with the terrible pain he was inflicting. He pressed the remote once more and immediately the winch cable reversed, releasing Akira. His whole body slumped back, with the cable slackening off and lying innocently beneath him.

There was a long pause before Akira finally tilted his head up and stared directly into Sommers’ eyes.

‘Again,’ he breathed.

‘Just wait a minute,’ Sommers pleaded, staring down at the top of Akira’s head. ‘Please.’

‘Again,’ he repeated, trying to raise his voice, but the sound was lost to the cavernous walls of ice.

Sommers pushed his thumb down on the remote once more. There was the same sound, the same immeasurable pressure on a human form. He counted the seconds as the cable pulled inexorably tighter with each one. It sawed through the soft flesh at the back of Akira’s thighs all the way down to the bone, before there was a dull crack as his hip joint finally collapsed. But still, Akira did not pull free.

Sommers killed the winch, tears welling up in his eyes.

‘Please,’ he begged. ‘I can’t do this any more.’

Akira’s eyes were half closed, while his breath came out in a horrid rasping sound from somewhere deep within his chest.

‘I’m sorry,’ Sommers whispered, kneeling down at his side.

‘It OK,’ Akira breathed, reaching up to grab his hand. Somehow both of them had lost their gloves and their bare fingers curled tightly together. Then Sommers’ body began to shake. As he silently wept, tears rolled down his face mingling with a line of snot from his nose.

‘It OK,’ Akira repeated, the words coming out breathlessly. His free hand moved up, tugging at the collar of his jacket. ‘
Bushido
,’ he whispered, revealing a little more of the tattoo on his neck. Sommers could see the tip of a samurai’s
katana
sword, wreathed in blossom. ‘Death not the end.’

Sommers looked away, this mention of death too soon for him to consider. He swivelled round so that his back was against the ice and let his eyes run up the side of the crevasse. His vision settled on the aura of light pouring in from the outside world and he exhaled, watching the vapour hang listlessly in the air. The light seemed so very far away.

For the first time, he felt cold. Sweat and blood had dampened his thermal layers, leaving only his thin windproof jacket to retain body heat. It wouldn’t be enough to see him through the next hour.

‘Don’t know how I expected to climb out of here anyways,’ he said, more to himself than Akira. ‘Nowt but tools and some rope in the tractor. Be bugger all help climbing to the surface.’

He was about to turn back to his companion when a shadow played across the interior of the crevasse, partially blotting out the light. Sommers tried to focus, pulling his vision back from a blur. There, at the top of the crevasse, was a figure. He could see it now, the silhouette haloed by blinding white light.

‘Down here!’ he bellowed, bringing his hands up to wave. The figure moved slowly, eyes scanning from one thing to the next as it took stock of the situation, but it did not respond.

‘Hey! Down here!’ Sommers shouted again, this time clambering to his feet. It was impossible that the other person couldn’t see them. ‘We’re about sixty feet down and Akira’s hurt . . . bad!’

The figure paused for a moment more, then vanished. As light flooded back into the crevasse, Sommers stared up towards the opening in confusion.

‘What the hell’s he playing at?’ he asked, then switched his attention back to Akira. ‘Don’t worry, mate. The cavalry’s here. We’ll get one of them oxy-acetylene torches from the base, and a hammer drill. It’ll crack this shit right open.’

As he looked closer, he saw that Akira’s head had slumped forward. His eyelids drooped, the exhaustion and pain finally too much to bear. The last vestiges of colour had drained from his face, leaving only an ashen mask. He was barely recognisable. Sommers moved closer, gently slapping his hand across Akira’s face.

‘Come on!’ he said, trying to shout, but his voice seemed somehow disconnected from himself. ‘You’ve got to stay awake.
Bushido
. You told me all about that once.
The way of the warrior,
right?’

Akira didn’t respond. His eyelids were closed.

‘Come on, mate. One last fight.’

Taking off his own fleece hat, Sommers jammed it down on top of Akira’s head, poking some strands of loose hair back under the warm brim.

‘Akira-san,’ he whispered. ‘You’re one of my only real mates. You’ve got to pull through this. Please, for me.’

Sommers exhaled a great cloud of air against his fingertips, but they were already numb from cold. He knew that his core was starting to protect itself, re-routing the warm blood from his heart so that it cut off his extremities. It was the first stage of hypothermia, and soon the rest of his body would systematically start to shut down.

He stared towards the light once more. Why was the figure up there taking so long to help them? And how had he found them so quickly? They were over two days’ tractor drive from their base.

‘Help!’ Sommers screamed. He waited, then screamed again, this time louder. After a moment more, he sat down next to Akira and curled his legs up against his chest.

‘Please,’ he whispered. ‘Somebody . . . help us.’

RAIN MIXED WITH
sleet hit the side of the helicopter window.

The North Sea was its habitual grey-blue, near perfectly matching the autumnal sky. The only discernible differences between the two elements were the breakers playing across the surface of the water like the strokes of a paintbrush, but even they faded from view as the helicopter passed into yet another bank of heavy cumulus cloud.

Kieran Bates sat bolt upright in his seat, trying to focus on anything other than the flight. The austere cabin lights accentuated his already pale features, while his auburn hair was slicked back from his face, partly from sweat. Every few seconds the helicopter lurched in a new bout of turbulence and Bates’ eyes would drop to his watch, willing the time to pass. He could feel the sweat slowly running down his back and collecting in between his buttocks, dampening the seat of his suit trousers.

Far below, there was a small collection of lights – the only feature for hundreds of miles in the desolate sea. They were nearing the oil rig.

The helicopter whined, the pilot feathering the collective, as first one skid, then the next, clumsily banged down on the concrete helipad. As he opened the door of the helicopter, Bates drew the thick sea air deep into his lungs, trying to steady his nerves. This had better work.

A surly rig worker, as indifferent to Bates’ presence as he was to the weather, led him across the metal grating of the main platform and out towards one of the lower decks. Bates could hear the roar of the seawater swelling up from beneath them and smashing into the rig’s mighty supports. His eyes followed the line of the scaffolding towers as they reached up into the turbulent sky, hundreds of feet above where he stood. The sheer scale of the structure was monstrous.

As they entered through a storm-sealed door, his guide suddenly turned to face him.

‘Matthews, right?’ he asked, the pitch of his voice unexpectedly high.

‘Right.’

They followed the tunnel through one prefabricated module and into another, twisting down two flights of stairs to a lower level.

‘Like being in a bloody rabbit warren this,’ Bates offered, but his guide pressed on without comment. Arriving at what was obviously the canteen, the man simply gestured forwards and then left, leaving Bates with the smell of old cigarettes and recently fried food.