Ice Station Zebra by Alistair MacLean Page B

few years then one day are released and drop to the bottom, two miles straight down. The United States Government wouldn’t like it, Commander.’
    ‘The prospects of further promotion for Commander Swanson would be poor,’ Swanson admitted. ‘I think -’
    ‘Hey!’ The shout came from the radio room. ‘Hey, c’m here.’
    ‘I rather think Zabrinski must be wanting me,’ Swanson murmured. He moved off with his usual deceptive speed and I followed him into the radio room. Zabrinski was sitting half-turned in his chair, an ear-to-ear beam on his face, the earphones extended in his left hand. Swanson took them, listened briefly, then nodded.
    ‘DSY,’ he said softly, ‘DSY, Dr Carpenter. We have them. Got the bearing? Good.’ He turned to the doorway, saw the quartermaster. ‘Ellis, ask the navigating officer to come along as soon as possible.’
    ‘We’ll pick ‘em all up yet, Captain,’ Zabrinski said jovially. The smile on the big man’s face, I could see now, didn’t extend as far as his eyes. ‘They must be a pretty tough bunch of boys out there.’
    ‘Very tough, Zabrinski,’ Swanson said absently. His eyes were remote and I knew he was listening to the metallic cannonading of the ice-spicules, a billion tiny pneumatic chisels drumming away continuously against the outer hull of the submarine, a sound loud enough to make low speech impossible. ‘Very tough. Are you in two-way contact?’
    Zabrinski shook his head and turned away. He’d stopped smiling. Raeburn came in, was handed a sheet of paper and left for his plotting table. We went with him. After a minute or two he looked up, and said: ‘If anyone fancies a Sunday afternoon’s walk, this is it.’
    ‘So close?’ Swanson asked.
    ‘So very close. Five miles due east, give or take half a mile. Pretty fair old bloodhounds, aren’t we?’
    ‘We’re just lucky,’ Swanson said shortly. He walked back to the radio room. ‘Talking to them yet?’
    ‘We’ve lost them altogether.’
    ‘Completely?’
    ‘We only had ‘em a minute, Captain. Just that. Then they faded. Got weaker and weaker. I think Doc Carpenter here is right, they’re using a hand-cranked generator.’ He paused, then said idly: ‘I’ve a six-year-old daughter who could crank one of those machines for five minutes without turning a hair.’
    Swanson looked at me, then turned awaywithout a word. I followed him to the unoccupied diving stand. From the bridge access hatch we could hear the howl of the storm, the grinding ice with its boom and scream that spanned the entire register of hearing. Swanson said: ‘Zabrinski put it very well … I wonder how long this damnable storm is going to last?’
    ‘Too long. I have a medical kit in my cabin, a fifty-ounce flask of medicinal alcohol and cold-weather clothes. Could you supply me with a thirty-pound pack of emergency rations, high protein high-calorie concentrates, Benson will know what I mean.’
    ‘Do you mean what I think you mean?’ Swanson said slowly. ‘Or am I just going round the bend?’
    ‘What’s this about going round the bend?’ Hansen had just come through the doorway leading to the for’ard passageway, and the grin on his face was clear enough indication that though he’d caught Swanson’s last words he’d caught neither the intonation nor the expression on Swanson’s face. ‘Very serious state of affairs, going round the bend. I’ll have to assume command and put you in irons, Captain. Something about it in regulations, I dare say.’
    ‘Dr Carpenter is proposing to sling a bag of provisions on his back and proceed to Drift Station Zebra on foot.’
    ‘You’ve picked them up again?’ Just for the moment Hansen had forgotten me. ‘You really got them? And a cross-bearing?’
    ‘Just this minute. We’ve hit it almost on the nose. Five miles, young Raeburn says.’
    ‘My God! Five miles. Only five miles!’ Then the elation vanished from voice and face as if an internal switch had been