I jumped up and raced towards the tractor sled. How to belay the man who was lowered? With only eight or nine feet between the edge of the crevasse and the cliff behind, not more than three men could get behind a rope, and, with perhaps two men dangling at the end of it what possible purchase could those three find on that ice-hard snow to support them, far less pull them up? They would be pulled over the edge themselves. Spikes - drive a spike into the ground and anchor a rope to that. But heaven only knew how long it would take to drive a spike into the icy surface with no guarantee at the end that the ice wouldn't crack and refuse to hold, and all the time that snow-bridge crumbling under the feet of the two people who were depending on me to save their lives. The tractor, I thought desperately - perhaps the tractor. That would take any weight: but by the time we'd disconnected the tractor sled, pushed it over the edge and slowly backed the tractor along that narrow and treacherous path, it would have been far too late.
I literally stumbled upon the answer - the four big wooden bridging battens sticking out from the end of the tractor sled. God, I must have been crazy not to think of them straight away. I grabbed a coil of nylon rope, hauled out one of the battens -Zagero was already beside me pulling at another - and ran back to the spot as fast as I could. That three-inch thick, eleven-foot long batten must have weighed over a hundred pounds, but such is the supernormal strength given us in moments of desperate need that I brought it sweeping over and had it in position astride the crevasse, directly above Jackstraw and Helene, as quickly and surely as if I had been handling a half-inch plank. Seconds later Zagero had laid the second batten alongside mine. I stripped off fur gloves and mittens, tied a double bowline in the end of the nylon rope, slipped my legs through the two loops, made a quick half-hitch round my waist, shouted for another rope to be brought, moved out and tied my own rope to the middle of the planks, allowing for about twenty feet of slack, and lowered myself down hand over hand until I was standing beside Jackstraw and Helene.
I could feel the snow-bridge shake under my feet even as I touched it, but I'd no time to think about that, it would have been fatal if I had even begun to think about it. Another rope came snaking down over the edge and in seconds I had it tied round Helene's waist so tightly that I could hear her gasp with the pain of it: but this was no time for taking chances. And whoever held the other end of the rope up above was moving even as quickly as I was, for the rope tightened just as I finished tying the knot.
I learned later that Helene owed her life to Mahler's quick thinking. The dog-sledge carrying Marie LeGarde and himself had stopped directly opposite the spot where Helene had gone over, and he had shouted to Brewster and Margaret Ross to sit on it and thread the rope through the slats on the sledge top. It had been a chance, but one that came off: even on that slippery surface their combined weights were more than enough to hold the slightly built Helene.
It was then that I made my mistake - my second mistake of that afternoon, though I did not realise that at the time. To help those above I stooped to boost her up, and as I straightened abruptly the suddenly increased pressure proved too much for the already crumbling bridge. I heard the ominous rumble, felt the snow begin to give under my feet, released my hold on Helene - she was already well clear anyway - grabbed Jackstraw by the arm and jumped for the other side of the bridge a second before the spot where we had been standing vanished with a whroom and went cascading down into the gloomy depths of the crevasse. At the full extent of my rope I hit the ice on the far side of the crevasse, wrapped both arms tightly round Jackstraw - I heard his muffled expression of pain and remembered his injury for the first time - and wondered how long I could hold him when that side of the bridge went too, as go it must, its support on the far side no longer existing. But, miraculously, for the moment it held.
Both of us were pressed hard in against the ice, motionless, hardly daring to breathe, when I heard a sudden cry of pain from above. It came from Helene - she must have caught her injured shoulder as she was being pulled over the edge of the crevasse. But what caught my eye was not Helene, but Corazzini. He was standing very close to the edge, and he had my gun in his hand.
I have never known such chagrin, such profound despair, such bitterness of spirit - or, to be utterly frank, such depths of fear. The one thing I had guarded against all the time, the one thing I had dreaded above all other things, that Jackstraw and I should ever find ourselves, at the same time, completely at the mercy of the killers, had come to pass. But even in my fear there was savagery - savagery towards the man who had engineered this so beautifully, savagery towards myself for having been so easily and utterly fooled.
Even a child could see how it had been done. The series of snow-bridges had given Corazzini the idea. A little nudge to Helene Fleming at the right place - it was as plain as a pikestaff that it had been no accident - and it was a foregone conclusion that either Jackstraw or myself would have to go down to fix a rope round the youngster who, with her broken collar-bone, would be unable to do it herself: I suppose the possibility that she might have crashed straight through the snow-bridge must have occurred to Corazzini, but a man with a record of killings like he had wouldn't be worried unduly on that score - annoyance at the failure of his plan would probably have been his only reaction. And when one of us had gone down and the other was supervising the rescue from above - well, another little nudge would have solved all Corazzini's problems. As it was, I had played into his hands more completely than he could ever have hoped.
Mouth dry, sweat breaking out in the palms of my clenched fists and my heart going like a trip-hammer in my chest, I was wondering desperately how he was going to administer the coup de grace when I saw the Rev. Smallwood approaching him arms outstretched and saying something I couldn't catch. It was a brave gesture of the little minister's, but a forlorn and hopeless one: I could see Corazzini change his gun to his left hand, strike Mr Smallwood a heavy backhanded blow across the face and the sound of a body falling on the ice above was unmistakable. And then Corazzini was waving the others back at the point of the gun and was advancing towards the wooden battens that straddled the crevasse, and I knew with a dull certainty how he intended to dispose of us. Why waste two bullets when all he had to do was to kick the edges of these battens over the side? Whether these . battens, weighing two hundred pounds between them, struck us or smashed away the last remaining buttress of the snow-bridge was quite immaterial: the point was that I was inescapably attached to them by the nylon rope round my waist, and when they plummeted down I would go with them, tearing away the bridge and carrying Jackstraw with me to our deaths in the unthinkable depths below.
Despairingly, I considered the idea of snatching at the rifle still strapped to Jackstraw's back, but dismissed it even with the thought. It would take me seconds to get it off. There was only one thing for it, and it wasn't going to do me any good at all. With a jump I could be half-way up the rope in a second, the increased weight would make the battens difficult to kick over, and while Corazzini was either pushing these or pumping bullets into me as I swarmed up the rope, somebody - Zagero, say, could get him from the rear. That way there might, at least, be a faint chance for Jackstraw. I swung my arms behind me, bent my knees then remained frozen in that ridiculous position as a rope came uncoiling down from above and struck me across the shoulder. I glanced up and saw Corazzini smiling down at me.
"You two characters fixin' on stayin' down there all day? Come on up."
It would be useless to try to describe the maelstrom of thoughts and emotions that whirled through my mind in the ninety seconds that elapsed before Jackstraw and I stood once more in incredulous safety on the trail above. They ranged from hope to bafflement to wild relief to the conviction that Corazzini was playing a cat-and-mouse game with us, and no one thought was in my mind for more than seconds at a time. Even when I was safe, I still didn't know what to think, the overwhelming relief and gladness and reaction blotted out everything. I was trembling violently, and although Corazzini must have noticed it he affected not to. He stepped forward and handed me the Beretta, butt first.
"You're a mite careless about where you stow your armoury, Doc. I've known for a long time where you kept this. But I guess it may have been fairly useful these last few minutes."
"But - but why-?"
"Because I've got a damned good job and a chair behind a vice-president's desk waiting for me in Glasgow," he snapped. "I'd appreciate the chance to sit in that chair some day." Without another word, he turned away.
I knew what he meant, all right. I knew we owed him our lives. Corazzini was as convinced as I that someone had engineered the whole thing. It didn't require any thought at all to guess who that someone was.
My first thought was for Jackstraw. Jackstraw with a broken arm was going to make things very difficult for me: it might well make things quite impossible. But when I'd worked his parka off it required only one glance at the unnatural twist of the left arm to see that though Jackstraw had had every excuse for thinking his arm gone, it was, in fact, an elbow dislocation. He made no murmur and his face remained quite expressionless as I manipulated the bone back into the socket, but the wide white grin that cracked his face immediately afterwards was proof enough of his feelings.
I walked over to where Helene Fleming sat on the sledge, still shaking from the shock, Mrs Dansby-Gregg and Margaret Ross doing their best to soothe her. The uncharitable thought struck me that it was probably the first time that Mrs Dansby-Gregg had ever tried to soothe anyone, but I was almost ashamed of the thought as soon as it had occurred to me.
"That was a close call, young lady," I said to Helene. "But all's well.. . . Any more bones broken, eh?" I tried to speak jocularly, but it didn't sound very convincing.
"No, Dr Mason." She gave a long shuddering sigh. "I don't know how to thank you and Mr Nielsen-"
"Don't try," I advised. "Who pushed you?"
"What?" She stared at me.
"You heard, Helene. Who did it?"
"Yes, I -1 was pushed," she murmured reluctantly. "But it was an accident, I know it was."
"Who?" I persisted.
"It was me," Solly Levin put in. He was twisting his hands nervously. "Like the lady said, Doc, it was an accident. I guess I kinda stumbled. Someone tapped my heels and-"
"Who tapped your heels?"
"For cryin' out loud!" I'd made no attempt to hide the cold disbelief in my voice. "What would I want to do a thing like that for?"
"Suppose you tell me," I said, and turned away, leaving him to stare after me. Zagero stepped in my way, but I brushed roughly past him and went up towards the tractor. On the sled behind I saw the Rev. Smallwood sitting nursing a bleeding mouth. Corazzini was apologising to him.
"I'm sorry, Reverend, I'm really and truly sorry. I didn't for a moment think you were one of them, but I couldn't afford to take any chances back there. I hope you understand, Mr Smallwood."
Mr Smallwood did, and was suitably Christian and forgiving. But I didn't wait to hear the end of it. I wanted to get through the Vindeby Nunataks, and get through with as little loss of time as possible, preferably before it became dark. There was something that I knew now that I had to do, and as soon as possible: but I didn't want to do it while we were all teetering on the edge of that damned crevasse.
We were through without further incident and at the head of that long almost imperceptible slope that fell away for thousands of feet towards the ice-bare rocks of the Greenland coast, before the last of the noon twilight had faded from the sky. I halted the tractor, spoke briefly to Jackstraw, told Margaret Ross to start thawing out some corned beef for our belated mid-day meal, and had just seen Mahler, now semi-conscious, and Marie LeGarde once again safely ensconced in the tractor cabin when Margaret Ross came up to me, her brown eyes troubled.
"The tins, Dr Mason - the corned beef. I can't find them."
"What's that? The bully? They can't be far away, Margaret." It was the first time I'd called her that, but my thoughts had been fixed exclusively on something else, and it wasn't until I saw the slight smile touching her lips - if she was displeased she was hiding it quite well - that I realised what I had said. I didn't care, it was worth it, it was the first time I had ever seen her smile, and it transformed her rather plain face - but I told my heart that there was a time and a place for somersaults, and this wasn't it. "Come on, let's have a look."
We looked, and we found nothing. The tins were gone all right. This was the excuse, the opportunity I had been waiting for. Jackstraw was by my side, looking at me quizzically as we bent over the sled, and I nodded. "Behind him," I murmured.
I moved back to where the others were grouped round the rear of the tractor cabin and took up a position where I could watch them all - but especially Zagero and Levin.
"Well," I said, "you heard. Our last tins of beef have gone. They didn't just vanish. Somebody stole them. That somebody had better tell me, for I'm going to find out anyway."