As they worked, Pete said, “You’ve noticed the wind direction?”
They still had to raise their voices to hear each other, but it wasn’t necessary to shout. Harry said, “Fifteen minutes ago it was blowing from another quarter of the compass.”
“The iceberg changed direction again.”
“What do you make of that?”
“Damned if I know.”
“You’re the demolitions expert. Could the torpedo have been powerful enough to push the whole berg temporarily off its previous course?”
Shaking his head emphatically, Pete said, “No way.”
“I don’t think so, either.”
Suddenly Harry was desperately weary and oppressed by a sense of utter helplessness. It seemed as if Mother Nature herself had set out to get them. The odds against their survival were growing by the minute and would soon be insurmountable—if they weren’t already. In spite of the Vaseline that coated his face and the knitted snow mask that was usually so effective, in spite of layers of Gore-Tex and Thermolite insulation, in spite of having been able to shelter in the cave for part of the night and periodically in the comparative warmth of the heated snowmobile cabins, he was succumbing to the unyielding, merciless, thermometer-bursting cold. His joints ached. Even in gloves, his hands felt as cold as if he had been arranging things in a refrigerator for half an hour. And an unnerving numbness was gradually creeping into his feet. If the fuel tanks on the sled ran dry, denying them periodic sessions in the fifty-degree air of the cabins, frostbite of the face was a real danger, and what little energy they still possessed would be sapped quickly, leaving them too exhausted to stay either on their feet or awake, unable to meet the Russians halfway.
But no matter how heavily weariness and depression weighed on him, he could not buckle, for he had Rita to think about, he could not buckle, for he had Rita to think about. She was his responsibility, because she was not as comfortable on the ice as he was; she was frightened of it even in the best of times. Come what may, he was determined to be there when she needed him, till the last minute of her life. And because of her, he had something to live for: the reward of more years together, more laughter and love, which ought to be enough to sustain him no matter how fierce the storm became.
“The only other explanation,” Harry said as he switched on the radio and turned up the volume, “is that maybe the iceberg was picked up by a new current, something a whole lot stronger that pulled is out of its previous course and got it moving due south.”
“Is that going to make it easier or harder for the Russians to climb up here and get us?”
“Harder, I think. If the ice is heading south, and if the wind is coming pretty much from the north, then the only leeward area is at the bow. They can’t put men onto the ice as it’s rushing straight at them.”
“And it’s nearly ten o’clock.”
“Exactly,” Harry said.
“If they can’t get us off in time… if we have to stay here through midnight, will we come out of this alive? Don’t bullshit me now. What’s your honest opinion?”
“I should ask you. You’re the man who designed those bombs. You know better than I what damage they’ll do.”
Pete looked grim. “What I think is … the shock waves are going to smash up most of the ice we’re standing on. There’s a chance that five or six hundred feet of the berg will hold together, but not the entire length from the bow of it to the first bomb. And if only five or six hundred feet are left, do you know what’s going to happen?”
Harry knew too well. “The iceberg will be five hundred feet long and seven hundred feet from top to bottom.”
“And it can’t float that way.”
“Not for a minute. The center of gravity will be all wrong. It’ll roll over, seek a new altitude.”
They stared at each other as the open radio frequency produced squeals and hisses that competed with the wind beyond the cave entrance.