Firefox Down

fell to the ice, or onto small ridges and drifts of snow, he felt the wind dragging or pushing him; inflating his parka like a balloon in order to move him on his back or stomach across the ice. Because of the Russians, because of the distance yet to travel, because of the utter isolation he felt in that wind and flying snow, Gunnar was deeply, acutely frightened. He was lost, completely lost.

He sat on a wind-cleared patch of ice, hunched over his compass. It was only a few hundred metres, metres, hundreds of metres, hundreds — a few hundred metres, only a few hundred metres, to the shore. He got onto all fours, having removed his snowshoes, and began to crawl.

He met a low hard ridge of snow and climbed it until he was half-upright. With a huge effort, the wind charging against his side like an attacker, a bullying ice-hockey opponent, he stood fully upright -

And ran. Floundering, charging, slipping. Ice-hockey opponent. It reduced the wind to something he knew, something he could combat. He blundered on, as if skating the barrier, charged again and again by his opponents. They blundered and bulled into him, but he kept going, arms round his head, hood pulled over his numbed face, lips spread in a mirthless grin. Another and another charged him, but he kept going. Slipped, recovered, almost tripped over softer snow, skidded on cleaned ice, knowing he was being blown like a small yacht on a curving course across the lake.

Then the shore. He blundered onto it, and fell. He could hear the very, very distant hum of one of the chain- saws. He had made it. Quickly, before the elation deserted him, he crawled towards the trees on all fours, scampering like a dog through the snow. His hands climbed the trunk of a tree until he was standing pressed against its solidity, its unmoving, snow-coated strength. His body was shuddering with effort. Then he turned his back to it.

Jesus Christ, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus…

His mind chanted the word over and over until his breathing slowed and quietened. Then he listened, heard the chain-saws stop, and the crack of a falling tree followed by its dull concussion into the snow. He walked towards the sounds, nodding almost casually to the men clearing the fallen trunk. One of them — his companion pilot? — waved. Gunnar waved back. He hurried, then, along the cleared shoreline but just inside the remaining trees, towards the main clearing and Waterford. He forgot his R/T. Crossing the lake had somehow stripped him of any sense of technology, of being able to do more than speak face to face with anyone.

Waterford was talking to Buckholz. The Firefox was beyond them, as sheltered and camouflaged as it possibly could be in the circumstances. Men swarmed ovei it, lay upon the airframe, busied themselves beneath it. Gunnar was aware of the nakedness of the clearing, of eyes behind him. He turned to look. Nothing. Only the rushing white wall passing the clearing. Had they seen — ?

Must have seen -

'Major Waterford!' he called, realising only when he spoke how small and ridiculous his voice sounded. It was like an echo of the past minutes. He coughed. 'Major Waterford!' he called more strongly, hurrying forward. Waterford turned to him, quickly alert. Even Buckholz's features mirrored the concern he evidently saw on Gunnar's face.

'What is it? What's wrong with the choppers?' Waterford snapped.

'Nothing, nothing,' Gunnar blurted out. He could hear Moresby cursing something, above the noise of the wind.

'Then what is it?'

Gunnar was aware of the arm he pointed across the lake, as if it would be seen by the Russians. He snatched it back to his side, but Buckholz and Waterford were already staring into the snow, in the direction he had indicated.

'Russians — '

'What?'

'Russian soldiers — I don't know what unit… I heard only two voices, saw movement from one man — '

'Where?'

'The other side of the lake — ' They had all three turned now to face towards the blind western shore of the lake. 'On the shore. They must be — '

'Watching us? Yes.' Waterford's face had already absorbed shock, and closed again into grim lines. 'How many?'

'I don't know-'

'Did you look?'

'I thought I should get back as quickly — '

'Damn! Damn it!'

Buckholz said, 'We have to know how many.'

'We have to eliminate them,' Waterford replied.

'What-'

'Work it out! If there were enough of them, they'd be sitting in our laps by now. No, there aren't very many of them. They're a recce party, keeping tabs on us.'

'Where have they come from?'

'Those bloody choppers that crossed the border before the weather closed in! They've backtracked along bloody Gant's hike — and found us! They'll have a radio and they'll have told Moscow by now.'

'Could they have seen us?'

'They must have done! Christ, don't count on them sitting there just because it's snowing and they don't like the weather!' Waterford stared at Buckholz. 'Get Moresby and his people working as fast as they can — no, faster than that. If Moscow knows, then they'll be dropping in for tea if that weather-window arrives. Oh, shit — '

'And you?'

'I'm going to find out who's over there. Invite them over for a quiet game of bridge. Gunnar, you come with me!'

Gunnar glanced around at the rushing snow, and then nodded silently at Waterford's back. The soldier was already speaking softly and swiftly into his R/T, summoning marines and SBS men. Gunnar hurried after his determined footsteps.

Buckholz moved towards the back of the clearing, into the false shelter of the remaining camouflage netting and the windbreaks. Like a stage, he thought. Lit, peopled, props and furniture set out. Now, they had an audience.

Welding torches flared around that area of the fuselage which had been damaged in the dogfight with the second Firefox; beneath the ruptures in the skin, the fuel-lines had been punctured, bringing the airplane here. Moresby was standing up, waist-deep in the cockpit, a conductor in a white parka directing a noiseless orchestra. His arm movements appeared like semaphore, signalling for help.

They wouldn't do it, Buckholz thought. No way would they do it now, with the Russians knowing everything.

* * *

Aubrey watched the storm through the running window. The winds, turned and channelled by the fjords and mountains, flicked the snow towards the hut and away again. For moments, the town of Kirkenes on a headland above the Langfjord which separated it from the airfield, was almost entirely visible. The roots of the peaks on Skogeroya could be seen, as could the creased grey surface of the Korsfjord. Then, for longer, gloomier periods, nothing, except the snow lying heavily on the grass, and the gleam of the nftiway. A yellow snowplough moved across his line of sight, hurling the latest snow aside, preparing for the Harrier's attempt to land.

Aubrey was no longer even certain that Gant would arrive, would share this room with himself and Curtin and the radio operator. He turned from the window, his eye passing over the rucked sheets and blankets of the camp beds on which they had spent some of the long night. He crossed to the table and its heaps of paper. Beneath a rough-hewn paperweight, beside the maps and charts and other implements of their desperation, lay the sheaf of transcribed signals he had received since setting up his headquarters at Kirkenes. He lifted the paperweight in a gingerly fashion. The last two signals, one from Eastoe and the other from Buckholz, were little short of unbearable. Yet he was drawn to re-read them, as if to punish himself for his mistakes and his pride. Mortification by coded transmission.