began to rise, up along the hogging steel hull, faster and faster as the
oxygen in Nick's bag expanded with the release of pressure. Now their
plight was every bit as desperate, for they were racing upwards to a
roof of solid ice with enough speed to break bone or crack a skull.
Nick emptied his lungs, exhaling on a single continuous breath, and at
the same time opened the valve to vent his bag, blowing away the
precious life-giving gas in an attempt to check their rise - yet still
they went into the ice with a force that would have stunned them both,
had Nick not twisted over and caught it on his shoulder and outflung
arm. They were pinned there under the ice by the cork-like buoyancy of
their rubber suits and the remaining gas in Nick's bag.
With mild and detached surprise Nick saw that the lower side of the ice
pack was not a smooth sheet, but was worked into ridges and pinnacles,
into weird flowing shapes like some abstract sculpture in pale green
glass. It was only a fleeting moment that he looked at it, for beside
him Baker was drowning.
His helmet was flooded with icy water and his face was empurpled and his
mouth contorted into a horrible rictus; already his movements were
becoming spasmodic and uncoordinated, as he struggled for breath.
Nick realized that haste would kill them both now. He had to work fast
but deliberately - and he held Baker to him as he cracked the valve on
his steel oxygen bottle, reinflating his chest bag.
With his right hand, he began to unscrew the breathing pipe connection
into the side of Baker's helmet. It was slow, too slow. He needed
touch for this delicate work.
He thought, This could cost me my right hand, and he stripped off the
thick mitten in a single angry gesture. Now he could feel - for the few
seconds until the cold paralysed his fingers. The connection came free
and while he worked, Nick was pumping his lungs like a bellows,
hyperventilating, washing his blood with pure oxygen until he felt
light-headed and dizzy.
One last sweet breath, and then he unscrewed his own hose connection;
icy water flooded through the valve but he held his head at an angle to
trap oxygen in the top of his helmet, keeping his nose and eyes clear,
and he rescrewed his own hose into Baker's helmet with fingers that no
longer had feeling.
He held the Chief's body close to his chest, embracing like lovers, and
he cracked the last of the oxygen from his bottle. There was just
sufficient pressure of gas left to expunge the water from Baker's
helmet. It blew out with an explosive hiss through the valve, and Nick
watched carefully with his face only inches from Baker's.
The Chief was choking and coughing, gulping and gasping at the rush of
cold oxygen, his eyes watery and unseeing his spectacles blown awry and
the lenses obscured by, sea water, but then Nick felt his chest begin to
swell and subside. Baker was breathing again, which is more than I am
doing Nick thought grimly - and then suddenly he realized for the first
time that he had lost the guide line with his weight belt.
He did not know in which direction was the shore, nor which way to swim
to reach the Zodiac. He was utterly disorientated, and desperately he
peered through his half flooded visor for sight of the Golden
