FireWall

'Don't moan,' I said. 'They're better than those fucking stupid daps of yours.'

He started to laugh, but it turned into a cough.

I looked up and saw nothing but blankets of white tumbling down at us out of the blackness. If I'd had access to a genie at that moment, the one thing I'd have wished for was a compass.

Jesus, a compass. A compass can be made from any iron metal. It should have been so simple, but it seemed to take me for ever to work it out: Tom had a faceful of the stuff in the rim of his parka hood.

Could I use it? And if so, then what? It was like trying to remember the ingredients of a particularly complicated cake I'd been shown how to bake twenty years ago.

I tried hard to visualize the process, closing my eyes and thinking back to all those times when I'd got so bored making shelters, traps, and snares with bits of string and picture wire.

Tom had other ideas. 'Let's go, Nick, I'm cold. Come on, you said..

.' He was clinging to me like a baby monkey on its mother's back. It was good, I needed him to warm me just as much as he needed me for reassurance.

'In a minute, mate. In a minute.'

Something had to be in the memory banks somewhere. We never forget anything; it can all be brought back to the surface if you press the right button.

It happened. The trigger was remembering being given a silk escape map in the Gulf, with a needle pinned in it.

'Tom, are you still wearing those silk thermals?'

He shook his head. My heart sank.

'Nah, just the top. I wish I did have the bottoms, I'm freezing. Can we go now? You said to tell you, Nick, and I'm telling you.'

'Hang on a minute, mate, I've just had a great idea.'

I unwrapped my arm from him. As I moved, I was forcibly reminded of the awful discomfort of my wet clothing. My jeans clung to my legs and my T-shirt was cold and clammy.

I removed my glove, holding it in my mouth while I pulled out the Leatherman. Opening the pliers, I put the glove back on before the skin of my hand was exposed for too long.

'Look at me for a sec, would you, mate?'

The parka hood came up and the snow that had collected on it fell onto his shoulders.

Feeling around the frozen ring of fur with my gloved hand, I located the wire, then trapped it in the jaws of the pliers and squeezed until I felt it give. Teasing apart the material at the site of the cut, I exposed the metal, gripped one end of the cut with the pliers and pulled, grasping the exposed wire in my hand. I made another cut and put the two-inch strip inside my glove for safe keeping.

I thought Tom might have been interested, but he was concentrating one hundred percent on feeling cold and miserable.

Bending down some more, I peered into the darkness behind his hood. 'I need some of that silk, Tom.'

He shrugged. 'I don't have to take it off, do I?'

'Just unzip your coat a bit more so I can get a hand in. I'll be as quick as I can.'

His hands slowly came out of his pockets and fumbled for the zip. In the end I shoved both of my gloves between my teeth so I could help him; then, having battled with numb fingers to open the blade of the Leatherman, I felt under his shirt.

He sat there like a tailor's dummy as I pulled at his clothing. I didn't have enough feeling in my hands to be gentle about it, and he flinched as my freezing fingers gripped the silk and came into contact with his skin.

My nose was streaming as I grabbed a handful of the undershirt and started cutting, pulling so hard that I nearly lifted Tom off the ground. I wanted to make sure the material ripped, so there were loose threads dangling.

The knife jerked as it made its final cut. Tom yelped as the tip of the blade flicked into his chest. He sat there with an exposed finger over his little cut, the snow settling on his hand.

I said, 'For fuck's sake, Tom, keep the heat in.'

He pulled his clothing together, shoving his hands back in his pockets, and dropping his head. 'Sorry.'

'I tell you what,' I zipped him up once more, 'I'm going to be a couple of minutes doing diis. Why don't you do some exercises to get some heat going?'

'I'm all right. How much longer do you reckon to the train, Nick?'

I dodged the question. 'Come on, move about, it'll warm you up.'

He started to move as if he was snuggling under a comforter, but the only thing covering him was snow.

'No, Tom, you've got to get up and get your body moving. Come on, we haven't got that far to go, but we won't make it if you start seizing up.' I shook him. 'Tom, get up.'

He hauled himself to his feet reluctantly as I brushed the snow from his shoulders. His fur rim was now a white ring of snow framing his face.

'Come on, with me.'

Hands in pockets, we started to play aerobics with his back to the wind, squatting down and standing up again, elbows out, flapping like demented chickens.

I kept my head down, protecting it from the wind as I got him to keep in time with me. 'Good stuff, Tom, now keep going, I won't be long.' I got back on my knees and into cover.

It was gloves-off time again as I lay them in the snow. I crouched over to protect myself from the snowstorm; my hands were so numb that I had to pull threads from the silk with my teeth. Once I'd teased out a decent bit about five inches long I put it between my lips and fished out the needle-sized length of wire from my glove. Tying the loose end of the silk shakily around the middle of the metal, I finally managed a knot on the fourth attempt.

Richard Simmons next to me grunted and groaned, but was sounding a bit happier. 'It's working, Nick. I'm getting warmer, mate!' He beamed, blowing out the snot from his nose.

I muttered encouragement through gritted teeth as I held the thread and wire, shaking the snow off my gloves and quickly putting them back on.

My hands were now so wet they stuck to the inners.

After trying to get some blood circulating by clapping them together for a while, it was gloves-off time yet again. As I bit on the free end of silk thread with my teeth, it seemed to take forever to grasp the dangling wire in one hand and the square of silk in the other. At last I began stroking the wire along the silk, repeating the motion over and over, always in the same direction. After about twenty strokes I stopped, making sure there were no kinks in the thread that would affect the balance of the metal once I let go.

I fished in my pocket for the flashlight, switched it on and put it in my mouth. Still crouching over it to make sure the wind wouldn't affect the thread and needle, I let go and watched it spin. The short length of wire eventually steadied, just moving slightly from side to side. I knew the direction of the North Star from my snow marker, which was now quickly disappearing in the storm, so all I had to do was identify which end of the wire, magnetized by the silk, was pointing north. I could tell the difference between the ends from the way the Leatherman had cut them.

The huffing and puffing went on behind me as I shivered and worked out what I was going to do next. Getting through this weather tonight was going to be a nightmare, but we absolutely had to be at that rail track by morning. In theory, moving cross country in these conditions was a huge blunder, but fuck the rules, it was too cold for them now. I didn't care about leaving sign; I needed roads to make distance, and besides, if Tom, or I, for that matter, started going down with hypothermia, we were more likely to find some form of shelter near a road. My new thought was to go west until we hit one, then hang a right and head north for the train track. One of the few things I knew about this country was that its main highway, and the one and only train track, ran east to west between Tallinn and St. Petersburg. The roads on either side were bound to make their way to it eventually, like streams toward a river.

Nobody was going to see the flashlight in this weather so I turned it on again and looked down as I let the metal drop and had another check to make sure it still worked. As the compass needle oriented itself, I realized that the wind was doing its bit to help. It seemed to be prevailing from the west, so as long as I kept it in my face I would be heading the way I wanted.

I was ready to go, gloves back on, the silk in my pocket, the compass thread and needle wrapped round my