‘You’ve met Anne and Tony?’
‘Yes.’
Viola snorted. ‘I don’t know what’s come over Tony lately—he used to be a great guy even if he wasn’t much of a scientist. But Anne’s worth ten of him, scientifically and personally. She’s a darn good limnologist no matter what that dried-up Jeff Jost says. Jeff’s the shadow over there in the corner. He’s with the Geological Survey. His type gives civil servants a bad name.’
Simon appraised Jeff—a florid fifty-year-old with the figure of a pear and the expression of a prune. Another charming companion, he thought sourly. Damn Sylvester. Would he be any better off with this lot than he’d be at home?
Viola’s fingers bit into Simon’s arm as she hunched herself even closer, grey eyes flashing. ‘See that tall man beside Jeff? The one with his nose in the air?’
Simon nodded. This was the autocratic man who had questioned the Warrant Officer. In Simon’s opinion, the white goatee was a trifle overdone.
‘That’s Eric Karnot. Birds. He’s quite good, though I’d never tell him so. His opinion of himself is already overinflated. He’s followed his feathered flocks all over the globe, taking photos and writing monographs. I hear he’s even done one of those glossy coffee-table books about tropical birds. Very elegant, I understand. Eric’s the golden boy of Bellwood College.’ Viola paused to give Simon time to admire his classic profile.
‘What and where is Bellwood?’ Simon asked. ‘I’d never heard of it until my brother-in-law mentioned this expedition.’
‘Not surprised—we’re a small university. We have a reasonable reputation although Eric’s really the only “name” professor we’ve got. Bellwood owes its reputation to him. And Wally Gingras.’ Here Viola indicated the slovenly figure beside Eric Karnot. The contrast between the latter’s crisp, fashionable appearance and Wally Gingras’s unkempt person was startling. It was hard to believe they represented the same species.
In response to Hollingford’s raised eyebrow, Viola chuckled and continued in her penetrating whisper. ‘He isn’t your idea of a bright light? Dung’s his thing.’
‘You can’t be serious!’
‘Wally’s a world authority on microbial ecology or “dung decomposition” in arctic habitats. A very erudite field, I assure you.’
‘No kidding.’ Rubbing his chin thoughtfully, Simon studied Wally again. He was a short man, with greasy, yellow-grey hair hanging in lifeless hanks over his threadbare shirt collar. Thick lenses made his pale blue eyes bulge forward, and across the bridge of his bulbous nose a wad of adhesive tape held his glasses together. Simon guessed Wally to be about fifty-five and imagined he could smell him from where he was standing, fifteen or twenty feet away. Hope I don’t have to share a tent with him, Simon worried.
‘Isn’t it strange how so many people’s personalities match their field of expertise?’ Viola nudged Simon to regain his attention.
‘After that comment, I’m forced to ask what you do,’ Simon remarked.
Giving a crack of laughter, Viola poked his chest with a bony finger. ‘Mammals in general, musk oxen in particular.’
‘And what should I infer from that?’
‘Whatever you like, Young Man!’
Three hours later, Simon felt on the point of physical disintegration. Ever since the engines of the Hercules transport plane revved up, his body had vibrated like jelly in an earthquake. His very molecules were resonating in unison, about to finally split apart. And it wasn’t just the vibration. The sound waves themselves took possession of his brain.
Simon forced himself to re-examine his surroundings. He and his fellow sufferers sat strapped in web ‘seats’ slung just inches off the dull green metal floor. The accommodations could have been designed by the Inquisition’s Torquemada during a particularly bad attack of indigestion. The looming bulk of the tank three feet in front of him effectively eliminated any leg room. Fortunately, numbness had finally set in and his legs no longer felt cramped, but whether he would ever walk again was debatable. When Viola gave him a cheery wave from her comfortable seat in the assistant navigator’s chair he forced a smile in response. So much for equality!
Only a lucky few had been issued earplugs and Simon wasn’t among them. His eardrums were on the point of implosion.
To distract himself, Simon studied the young woman, Joan Winik, seated beside Viola. She hadn’t been part of the group in the canteen. A pain in the ass—wasn’t that how Viola had described her? She appeared anorexic and somewhat grim. Her long dark hair hung in a loose pony tail and, on her, the escaping tendrils looked messy rather than sexy. Maybe it’s those straight black eyebrows which make her look so angry, Simon decided, and the rude message on her sweat shirt. She dozed in her comfortable seat.
Simon groaned and shifted position, but he didn’t dare get up again, not after the last fiasco. When his leg cramps were at their worst, he had joined Private Schmidt in a stroll between the women’s seats and the freight. Pacing the six steps permitted in each direction, he fiddled idly with a steel funnel hanging from a string.
The private tapped him on the shoulder and said something.
Simon shook his head. ‘I couldn’t hear you. Speak louder!’
‘Stop playing with the urinal!’ Schmidt yelled.
It took a second for the message to register. When it did, Simon hurled down the funnel. It swung back and forth on its string, mocking him. Simon glanced around. Thank God he couldn’t hear the snickers! He’d slunk back to his web seat, vowing never to move again. So much for his brilliant deductive powers. Par for the course, of late.
The Hercules plane put down at Resolute, a tiny outpost on Cornwallis Island. At 75° latitude, it was the farthest north Simon had even been. Even at ten p.m., when they arrived, the sun shone with a distant, feeble light. The expedition members bedded down in the temporary army camp.
In the army mess the next morning, Simon breezed through the food line. Most of the soldiers had finished breakfast long before and the tent was almost empty.
The Colonel in charge motioned him over to where he sat alone at a long table. ‘Mr Hollingford, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, Colonel. Thanks for the hospitality.’
Colonel Fernald grunted. ‘Don’t thank me. Orders.’ However, after fortifying himself with another swig of the excellent coffee, Fernald relented. ‘Glad to have you all here, actually. It does my men good to see that some people actually want to come north.’
‘This isn’t a popular spot?’
‘No, but we’re only here for three months. We’re having exercises to test our men and equipment.’
‘Wouldn’t it be more sensible to test in the winter?’ asked Simon.
‘We’re going to be doing that too,’ Fernald replied. ‘Another popular idea. But manœuvring in summer isn’t all that easy either—no roads, lots of fog, hills, cliffs, sand and gravel, deep coastal indentations to cross, not to mention polar bears, wolves, and musk oxen.’
‘It sounds challenging,’ Simon commented, through his mouthful of bacon.
‘Just getting all the stuff here was half the battle!’ Fernald declared with feeling. ‘Even now, weeks into the exercise, we’re still bringing up odds and ends.’
Simon’s thoughts went back to the tank which had added such discomfort to his flight the day before. Was it an odd or an end? ‘Logistical problems, eh?’ he remarked with sympathy.
Fernald snorted. ‘You know what our biggest problem is? The weather at this godforsaken airport! The place is fogged in like it was Newfoundland. Every flight