They reached the rubble line and Val got Jack sitting down in the lee of a boulder that was a foot or two taller than she was. As good a start for their shelter as any she could see at a quick glance, and so she made her way around to the others, and using hand signals got them all to move to the huddled Jack. The rubble line was a big collection of rocks, from chunky boulders to pebbles and sand, all piled in a surprisingly well-defined line on the ice, resting in a shallow depression. Startling features at first sight, they were often found many kilometers away from the rock banks that fed them; they were something like the lines of debris that collected around the eddies in a stream, Val wasn’t clear on the dynamics, but she seemed to recall they marked the quickest-moving parts of the ice. And as befitted one of the largest glaciers on Earth, this rubble line was big too, a kind of pebble road studded with boulders and dolmens.
Val bent over and picked up the biggest boulder she thought she could lift, given the body-blows from the wind, and gestured at X to do the same. She started filling a gap between the tall boulder and a chest-high one nearby, while at the same time clearing all large rocks out of the space on the lee side of them. Carlos saw the plan and pulled his banana sled over to the gap, tipping it on its side to form a windscreen at the bottom of the wall. X hopped around propping it in position with rocks, moving fast, in X overdrive. He could lift rocks none of the others would even think to try. As they lifted and set rocks he and Val banged into each other hard, and they grabbed each other to keep from going down. He looked at her as if asking a question, but masked by sunglasses and clothing they could see nothing of each other’s face, and the roar of the wind made it impossible to talk. They might as well have been on opposite sides of the glacier. She felt stuffed with energy, and went for another rock, mute in the howl of the storm, which if anything was louder here than it had been out on the glacier; shrieking over the rocks, no doubt. They were all cut off from each other. Nine strangers in a storm. Windchill factor must have been a hundred below; it dropped exponentially with the speed of the wind. Too windy to put up any tents. But the rock wall was growing. Had to be careful, though, as the wind would quickly throw any loosely placed rocks down on their heads. The stacking had to be right. It was something to concentrate on, something with which to distract herself; and it was the only thing she could do at this moment to improve the situation. So she set about building the best rock wall she could. X was a big help, it was amazing what heavy rocks he could lift. Carlos and Wade too were helping, as was Ta Shu. Jorge and Elspeth and Jim were getting sleeping bags off the banana sled and out of their stuff sacks, dropping big slabby rocks on them as they pulled them out so that they wouldn’t blow away. The wall was thigh-high now, and beginning to help; though it was still insanely loud, behind Jack’s rock there was some shelter from the blast, and more with each row they managed to stack on the one below, and each foot of curving extension to the sides. The work kept them not warm but at least functional, and there was an endless supply of rocks to choose from. A U-shaped wall to start with, then perhaps a full oval later, to ensure that any more reversals of wind didn’t take them from the rear. After that they might be able to set up one of the tents inside the rock wall and get even more shelter, enough to light a stove. It was actually looking pretty good, Val thought; if it hadn’t been for Jack, huddled at the foot of the largest boulder, she would have considered the situation to be somewhat in hand, given the circumstances. Jim and Jorge were pulling a sleeping bag up over Jack’s legs and torso. When the wall was finished they would all be able to get into bags. They would be all right. Except they didn’t have enough food or stove fuel to wait out a storm of any great length. Hopefully coms would come back and they could get a report on the weather. So odd to have all this happen in the mute solitude of the storm’s roar. And the light was odd too, fluctuating rapidly as thinner or thicker clouds shot overhead; despite all it was a well-lit scene, the sun wheeling about somewhere overhead though it was the middle of the night, Val thought; but it didn’t matter. The flickering made it like being inside an antique film. X put his face against her ear: “It’s good shelter!”
She nodded to show she had heard. She appreciated the gesture. The others were now sitting in the lee of the rock wall, clustered around Jack to give him more warmth; he looked like he was sinking into hypothermia again, and she wouldn’t be surprised if he was, lying there with a broken collarbone, cut hand, lost blood; in shock, and maybe concussed as well. He was in trouble.
Which meant she could not rest. The shelter didn’t matter; she had to get to Shackleton Camp, bring back a snowmobile and sled to carry Jack to real shelter, and at least the first aid that the people at Shackleton Camp would be able to provide. Something. To do it she needed a bit of a break in the storm, she judged. And she would need a GPS position to come back to. And perhaps a companion, for safety’s sake; Carlos, though Carlos should probably stay here to take care of the others. X, then. The truth was she didn’t know what to do. The obvious thing was to stay put, but with a failing client on her hands, she wasn’t going to do that. And they were short of food and fuel anyway. Storms here could last over a week. Something more would have to be done. And she had walked in storms like this before, she had climbed in storms like this for that matter; tough work, but not impossible if you kept your head.
She crouched down to have a shouted consultation with the others. She got X’s attention and he crouched next to her. Ta Shu was still moving about the others, adding rocks to the wall; suddenly they looked to Val like a little huddled pile of bodies, with Ta Shu building a memorial cairn.
white cloud
X kept adding rocks to their rock wall until he could find no good candidates for stable stacking in the immediate area. The work had warmed him, although the rocks themselves had been cold, and heavy enough to crush his gloves’ insulation, so that his hands were frozen insensible, and tired. Val gestured him to her and he crouched next to her. She was getting into a sleeping bag next to Wade, and gestured for X to do the same. He struggled into a sleeping bag much too small for him, lay against the rock wall next to Val.
Down on the pebbles it was remarkably calm. Given the insulating power of their clothing, and the warm red masses of their sleeping bags, and the shelter of this nifty windbreak they had built, X supposed he should have been as comfy as if he were at home in bed; in actuality it was nothing like that, as each howling buffet of wind jolted through him in a kind of mental electrocution. He couldn’t get used to these slaps of wind; they were so hard and distinct they seemed not like wind but the concussions from great explosions, any one of which could knock their wall over. Little lulls, moments of relative calm, and then WHAM, another shock to the system.
Val was crawling around in her bag, having shouted conversations with Carlos, then Wade. She seemed calm and deliberate, her posture relaxed; she did not seem appalled at the power of the wind, just dealing with it. X however was appalled. He had never been in any Condition One in Mac Town that had been anything like as strong as this wind. He hadn’t known they got this strong.
Val crawled over to him and sat beside him, leaned into him, one arm around him, and shouted in his ear. “I may have to go down to Shackleton Camp! To get help for Jack!” She gestured at Jack. “I’m worried about him!”
“What about the storm!” X shouted in her ear.