The Chilling, page 6
Within minutes, they reached the Petrel. The helicopter hovered above the blackened deck, while each rescuer was winched carefully on board. The helideck wasn’t yet considered safe enough, and they didn’t want to improvise a landing pad on the ice.
Following a preliminary safety check, Kit was lowered out of the chopper. When her boots touched the metal of the deck, she detached the yellow rescue strop from her waist and let it fall to her feet. She deftly stepped aside and gave the helicopter crew a thumbs up. The strop was winched back to the cabin.
Kit took a deep breath. The scene was shocking but also unreal. The fire had left its mark on everything, reducing every piece of equipment to a blackened skeleton or husk. The walls of the deck were shades of grey and black. The entire superstructure of the ship looked haggard and old. Like a ghost ship, thought Kit. She wondered again why there was no sign of the Petrel crew. Was it possible they hadn’t survived?
Jamie called the party to attention. ‘Right, everyone,’ he said. ‘We’ve already spent half an hour getting on board. Let’s go—we’ve got to move quickly. Our team will start with the bridge.’
At his instruction, everyone turned on their oxygen tanks. As a safety precaution, he warned them not to take their masks off till they had re-emerged in the open air. Two of them also had fire extinguishers specially equipped with a charge of nitrogen to propel a fire-retardant powder at flames. One man carried a forcible-entry tool for wrenching open locked doors and breaking into cabins.
The first door they prised open led to the stairwell. Inside, they were relieved to find the stairs intact and unobstructed. The fire-resistant door and its steel frame had withstood the blaze. A little further up, by ghostly torchlight, they could see a fine dewy frost glistening on the steps. Though it seemed the fire had been confined to the deck, it appeared there was no power or warmth anywhere aboard the ship. Its engines were dead. Once the fire had died, the ice had stretched its tentacles to every corner. Soon the interior would be the same temperature as outside.
The group moved upwards. Within moments, a rescuer slipped a few steps and landed awkwardly ahead of Kit.
She darted to his aid. ‘Are you okay?’ she asked, a hand on his arm.
Using the handrail, the man pulled himself to his feet. He held the small of his back and grimaced but gave a thumbs up. Jamie nodded encouragement, and the group resumed their progress to the bridge.
On the way, Kit keenly observed her surrounds. The walls, the fixtures and the flooring were eerily untouched and undisturbed. There were no signs of panic or emergency. Someone shone their torch at a pristine fire extinguisher on the wall, its fasteners attached. There was an occasional creaking or scraping noise—the ice against the hull—but the ship itself was quiet. The only other noise they could hear was their own breathing. It came in a chorus of loud mechanical rasps as they climbed the stairs.
The door to the bridge refused to open. Jamie signalled that one man should come forward with his forcible-entry tool. Kit moved out of the way. The man heaved his weight against the instrument. The two other men came to help.
Finally the door sprung open. The glare from the bridge shone like a lighthouse beacon into the interior of the ship. Their torches were redundant.
Jamie entered the room first, then stopped.
Everything—the navigation equipment, the radio, the radar, the gyro—was blackened beyond recognition. The floor was littered with fresh snow and glass and pieces of crumpled metal. Kit could see that the heat or an explosion had shattered the high windows and destroyed everything. The captain’s chair was a bare distorted frame, creaking as it swung in the wind.
After a moment, Jamie ripped off his oxygen mask and pulled out his radio. Kit kept her mask on. The tank was keeping her breathing nice and regular; she was afraid that without it, she might start over-breathing. The destruction of the bridge was unnerving. The ship had lost its command.
Blondie stood next to her. He removed his mask, exposing the soft red stubble on his chin. ‘Someone must have had time to set off the distress beacon before this fire took hold. Where are they now? Why aren’t they here?’
‘The crew must’ve known they couldn’t fight it,’ replied Kit. ‘Everyone knows it’s impossible to fight a fire in the Antarctic wind.’
‘Perhaps they tried and then had to abandon ship …?’ said Blondie.
‘Okay,’ Jamie spoke up, addressing Kit and Blondie in particular. ‘Let’s just keep doing our job and find the crew as quickly as possible. I want us to leave here in less than an hour. If the storm hits while we’re here, the choppers will be grounded.’
A healthy gust of wind blew into the bridge. The bad weather front was rolling in, reminding them that hurricane-force gales were on the way.
Jamie held up a fluttering sheet of paper and pointed. ‘Our next destination is the mess and the galley, and we’ll proceed from there to the cabins on the C deck and the hospital room. Okay? The other party will be inspecting the engine room, the cargo holds and the laundry.’
As he spoke, a chopper could be heard hovering overhead: the second rescue team was being delivered.
Kit’s group filed out of the bridge. Before she left, she turned to look one more time at the console of blackened knobs, buttons and dials. She shook her head and followed the others.
•
The mess was quiet and empty. Plates and bowls lay abandoned on the tables. Coats and jackets were thrown over the backs of chairs. Magazines were spread out, their crosswords and Sudoku puzzles only half-finished. There was a lot of frost-covered Weet-Bix and Vegemite on toast—the crew had left their breakfast in a hurry.
Kit’s group moved into the galley, where the cooking area was in disarray. Frying pans and their contents littered the floor, pots and pans were strewn over the bench, onions and apples had rolled out of their boxes. Yet the ship should have been relatively still, trapped in the ice.
Clearly something had happened in the kitchen area. It looked as if someone had gone on a rampage. Kit shivered despite her cold weather gear. The scene in the mess had been concerning enough, suggesting a hurried exit, but this was chilling—this suggested violence.
Scanning the galley, Kit spotted a dark brown streak on the floor in one corner. She moved in closer and knelt down. Her gloved hand wiped at the smear, brushing up against something hard and jagged, a pebble-like fragment. She pressed the piece between her thumb and forefinger, and squinted in the torchlight.
When she finally realised what it was, she almost laughed: it was part of a tooth. Here she was, a dentist, and she’d found a tooth. She took off her oxygen mask. ‘Blondie,’ she called.
He came over. ‘What is it?’
‘It’s part of a tooth. And I think there’s blood.’ She pointed at the streak on the floor. Her disquiet mounted as she noticed the dark brown streak continued across the galley. It reminded her of a crime scene she’d seen in her previous job. ‘Look,’ she said, gesturing. ‘They’re drag marks. They go from under the sink to the coolroom. And look—’ she pointed beneath the sink ‘—one of the black slip mats is missing.’ The galley floor was covered in black rubber slip mats, the industrial kind with textured tessellated holes, but not in that part of the room.
Blondie tried the coolroom door, but it wouldn’t open. ‘I think it’s locked,’ he said, shaking the handle.
The coolroom was a large stainless steel walk-in cupboard that housed all the fresh fruit and vegetables aboard the ship. It was equipped with an ozone generator to help the produce ripen. At the start of a trip, a coolroom was typically overcrowded; by the end, it was almost empty. After several days of besetment in Prydz Bay, it might have been necessary to lock up the Petrel’s remaining food. That made sense.
Kit tried the coolroom door for herself. It wouldn’t budge. Blondie tried again.
Jamie interrupted their efforts. ‘We have to speed this up,’ he said from the doorway. In the dim light, his face looked serious and unnaturally grey. ‘Our job is to search for survivors. And we don’t have much time. Come on, we’ve got to get to the cabins.’
‘We think something could be in the coolroom,’ said Kit. ‘It’s locked, and we can’t get it open.’
‘Forget about that. We have less than forty minutes, and if there are going to be people anywhere, they’ll be in the cabins, not in the food store.’
‘Okay,’ agreed Kit with some reluctance. ‘But if there’s time, we should come back.’
At the doorway to the first cabin, she steeled herself for the potential horror. She’d seen dead bodies before, so she knew what to expect. It was easier if you didn’t look at their faces, but it was even better if you didn’t look at all.
With her foot, she inched the door open and peered inside.
To her relief, the cabin was empty.
After a quick inspection, they moved on to the other rooms. Each one had an unlocked door, an unmade bed, and a pile of clothes and toiletries. But after a while, Kit noticed what was not there—each room was missing its crew member’s survival kit. The red bags contained immersion suits, thermal clothing, socks, balaclavas, gloves, and various crucial items such as whistles and drinking cups.
At the end of their search, Kit mentioned the bags to Jamie.
‘Good.’ He rubbed the back of his neck. ‘This is good—this is really good. There’s obviously no one here. I think everyone got out. Let’s check the sick bay and the last few stairwells on our list, then get the hell out too. We have less than thirty minutes.’
•
On deck, they waited for the helicopter to return from scouting the bay. The rescue parties had found nothing and no one. In the meantime, the temperature outside had become shockingly cold. The wind whipped about their heads.
Near the ship’s rail, Kit stood with gloved hands on hips. When Jamie joined her, she asked him, ‘Where are the lifeboats kept?’
‘Usually different places on both starboard and port side,’ he said, panting heavily. It took some effort to speak in the cold air.
‘One of the lifeboats isn’t there,’ she said pointing.
The Star had been facing the Petrel’s starboard side, unable to see the missing lifeboat on the left. Jamie now took a closer look. ‘There’s a slim chance that during the firestorm it was burnt loose from the launcher and crashed through the ice. But I reckon someone’s cut the line.’
Kit squinted hopefully into the distance, looking for tracks or ridges. All she could see was white expanse and grey sky. Wherever the orange lifeboat had gone, it was now out of sight or covered by snow. ‘Could a group of people drag one of those boats across the ice?’
‘I don’t see why not.’ Jamie pulled out his radio and asked to speak to the Legend.
The news from the pilot was disappointing. In a crackling voice, he reported that he’d searched the surrounding area until the ice began to thin out. Due to fog, visibility had been reduced to twenty metres in some places. It was possible the crew were on an icefloe heading out to sea, he said. The currents in that part of the bay were strong, making the pack ice fragmented and unstable. But the Legend hadn’t been able to spot them. And without knowing the precise direction of the current, any further search would use up valuable time and fuel. He would have to resume once visibility improved.
The Legend was on his way back to get the rescue teams. The storm was due to arrive in less than twenty minutes.
While Kit’s group waited, the other rescue party emerged on deck, looking cold and miserable. The team leaders swapped notes and spoke in grave hushed tones, while the other rescuers milled about, stamping their feet and trying to keep warm.
Kit sat with Blondie in a sheltered part of the razed deck. She kept thinking of the smear of blood and the tooth fragment in the galley. Kicking restlessly at the ground, she scanned the deck with a suspicious eye. Again she was reminded of crime scenes from her work in forensics. ‘Does this look deliberately lit to you?’ she asked Blondie.
‘I don’t know,’ he said, taking a cursory glance around.
‘It just seems hard to believe that so much of this could be burnt to a crisp. Look at it—it’s all made of steel.’
‘Perhaps there was an accident, a fuel spill …? Over there.’ He pointed to a dangerous patch of deck near starboard, where the flooring had burnt away.
‘Yes, a fuel spill. An accidental fuel spill that accidentally ignited in the Antarctic.’
Blondie raised a brow in response to Kit’s tone.
‘Someone was bleeding in that galley,’ she ruminated. ‘And someone jammed the coolroom door. Perhaps to hide whatever they had put in there.’ She looked at the ground and tapped out a nervous rhythm on her knee.
‘All right. So what exactly are you getting at?’
She made eye contact. ‘We should go back and look in that coolroom.’
He laughed. ‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Do you want to spend the night out on this boat? We have less than twenty minutes.’
‘That’s enough. The helicopter has to take the rescue parties back one at a time, anyway. We’ll be sitting out here, freezing our tits off, until they return. Don’t you want to find out what’s in that coolroom? We searched everywhere, we found nothing and no one, and we couldn’t get inside that bloody fridge.’
‘We should tell someone.’
Kit jumped up and called to Jamie, who was still talking into his radio. ‘We’re going back to the galley,’ she said, the cold piercing her lungs.
He held the radio to his chest and cupped a hand to his ear. ‘What?’
She gestured at the door. ‘We’re going back!’
‘No, you’re not,’ he said, pointing to the flooring of the deck. ‘Sit back down.’ He turned his head again to speak into the radio.
The wind was growing fierce. Flecks of snow darted back and forth in the air. When the Legend returned, the groups would have a narrow window to get back to the Star.
Kit recalled Hank’s stern face and thick tattooed neck. She trembled inwardly at the thought of him looking at her with disapproval. Could she really disobey a direct command?
Don’t do anything without telling me. Stay together.
But somehow she found the courage to stand up. ‘Come and get me if I’m not back in fifteen minutes,’ she said to Blondie. She headed below deck.
•
Kit knelt beside the coolroom door. She had her torch in her mouth, and she was poking and prodding at the lock with tweezers and a sickle-shaped dental probe. Her heart was thudding wildly in her chest. She tried to calm herself by listening to her own breath, but it came in a heaving pant. Her mind was filled with the horror of possibly being left behind.
When Blondie rushed in wielding a fire axe, she jumped back in alarm.
‘Out of the way,’ he instructed.
‘Jesus!’
Dramatically, he swung the axe at the handle of the coolroom door. Upon impact, the knob sprang off, almost hitting him in the head. He swore, but was undeterred. He swung again.
Finally, something went click. The sliding door opened by itself, just a few millimetres.
Kit pushed, but it wouldn’t open any further. Something was obstructing the entrance. She squeezed her head in and shone her torch on the ground.
At first, she couldn’t comprehend what she was seeing. It looked like a leg of lamb, something you might see hanging in the butcher’s front window. It was bluish-white and cadaverous. She shone the light further in.
It was the leg of a man—a large man, lying naked and curled up on his side.
‘What is it?’ asked Blondie impatiently from the galley.
Kit glanced back at him, barely registering the question. ‘Can you shine this into here?’ she said, handing him her torch and dropping her bag. She pressed her weight against the door, forcing the man’s knee off the sliding track. She sucked in her stomach and eased herself through the narrow opening.
‘What’s in there?’ asked Blondie, a rising note of concern in his voice. He wedged his large head into the gap and peered awkwardly around. ‘Jesus,’ he breathed.
Kit knelt before the unmoving figure and grabbed at his frigid hand, pressing two fingers against his wrist. She held up a finger to Blondie, warning him to be silent. She had to concentrate for at least a minute. The body was cold, but perhaps not fatally cold—not yet.
‘I think he’s got a pulse,’ she said. ‘Throw me the first-aid kit.’
Blondie did as he was told.
She pulled out her stethoscope and listened for a heartbeat. After half a minute, she was sure: she heard a faint palpation. ‘He’s alive,’ she said. ‘Quick, go get help.’
Once Blondie was gone, Kit unfurled the first-aid blanket and threw it over the man. He was tall and muscular. In the confines of the room, he seemed gigantic. The crumpled silver throw barely covered his legs. She patted and rubbed his shoulder. Then she curled up behind him and hugged his back.
They had to get him off the Petrel. Soon the storm would bear down on them. The ship wasn’t a stable place to be in a snowstorm. If they stayed aboard, this man would die.
Leaning on her elbow, Kit scanned the coolroom with her torch. The cold air contained the faint stench of vomit and faeces and blood. Clothing had been scattered about the shelves and the floor. Some of it looked like extreme cold weather gear, turned inside out and roughly torn at the seams. There was a smear of blood on the ground next to the man’s head.
Sitting upright, she shone the torch full on his face.
The man looked to be in his thirties. He had lank dark brown hair and a full reddish-brown beard. His skin was unnaturally blue and puffy, and his eyes were closed as if he were asleep. His lips were slightly apart and barely discernible beneath his whiskers. There were obvious signs of trauma. Around his eyes, there was grey and purple bruising, and there was a faint trickle of blood from his nose. His beard was soaked in blood from his bottom lip to his chin. On his forehead, there was an ugly black and red gash: a head injury.
