Gallen heard the crackle of reply but passed out before he could make out the words.
CHAPTER 20
Gallen came out of a deep dream to a knocking sensation on the back of his head: Donny McCann, head-butting him.
‘Get up, boss,’ said McCann. ‘Got company.’
Pushing himself off the ice, groggy as a drunk, Gallen shook his head clear and looked around. ‘Where?’
‘In the roof, boss.’
Looking up, Gallen saw a dark shape flat against the snow, about fifteen yards from the hole McCann had fallen through.
‘Kenny?’ he said, as loud as he could before the rib spasmed again.
The reply echoed around the ice walls. ‘Boss.’
‘Don’t come any closer, I can see your body through the snow.’
‘I’m roped,’ said Winter. ‘Got Mike anchored in the hard stuff.’
The shape wriggled further along the snow and Gallen hunched his body over McCann, giving him some protection should the roof cave in.
Winter looked down through the hole. ‘You two okay?’
‘No,’ said Gallen. ‘Donny’s got a broken back. I’ve got a rib and hypothermia.’
Rope appeared in the hole and then it was falling to the floor about nine feet from McCann. Picking it up, Gallen checked it was still attached to Winter.
‘I’m going to move back to the anchor,’ said Winter. ‘Secure Donny and give three tugs when you want him outa there.’
As carefully as he could, Gallen attached the end of the rope under McCann’s armpits and around his chest. In all other circumstances, the military advised against moving a man with spinal and neck injuries. But this was different. Donny McCann was dying of hypothermia and shock from the broken back. He needed a hospital.
Gallen was about to tug on the rope three times, but he realised McCann was unconscious again. Slapping him, he felt emotions coming up. ‘Don’t slip away on me, you tough bastard. Don’t you dare.’
McCann mumbled something and Gallen slapped him again.
‘We okay, boss?’ came Winter’s voice from topside.
Gallen yelled, tears in his eyes, almost unable to articulate a single word. ‘Wait a minute — Donny, wake up,’ he said, giving him a third slap.
McCann’s eyes opened and he spoke. ‘It’s over, boss.’
‘No,’ said Gallen. ‘It’s over when I say it’s over, Corporal.’
‘Momma gets my payout, okay?’
‘Shut up,’ said Gallen, pulling three times on the rope.
The rope tightened and Donny McCann started his ascent, the rope tearing through the roof so that Donny kept falling back to the ice floor before the rope hit the hard stuff and the lift got purchase.
‘Tell her I forgive her.’ McCann’s eyes rolled back in his head as he rose to the top.
‘Shut up,’ said Gallen.
‘Terry weren’t her fault,’ said McCann. ‘Tell her that.’
‘Tell her yourself,’ said Gallen, warm tears falling down his face as he watched the broken body ascend.
Hands tore at McCann as he reached the surface, the still body too much for Gallen to stomach.
‘Okay, your turn, boss,’ Winter called, and the rope came down again. Wiping his tears on the back of hands he could no longer feel, Gallen used the last remaining dexterity in his hands to tie on to the lift and pull the rope three times. He felt the rope go taut and let himself be pulled upwards, clambering at the precipice as he reached the surface and then was dragged over the dome and onto the downward slope, sliding until he came to rest.
Hands reached for him, untying the rope.
‘Can’t breathe,’ he gasped, trying to stand as his ribs spasmed. ‘Fucking cold.’
Winter led him by the arm to a makeshift sled. It was the upright section of a leather seat on the Challenger, now with ropes attached to the front. McCann was already laid along its length and Mike Ford was waiting for Gallen to lie on it too.
‘Cuddle up to Donny,’ said Winter, ‘and hold on tight. Might warm you up — might be the only way you make it through the next twelve hours.’
Lying alongside McCann, Gallen put his arms around him and immediately felt sleep claiming him. He fought it, trying to stay awake as Ford and Winter grunted and strained through the chest-high snow, pulling the makeshift gurney like a couple of mules. Drifting in and out of what Gallen knew were hallucinations, he remembered the fireman lifts at Pendleton: two men buddying up for a two-hundred-yard race. One carried for the hundred yards going out and the carrier became the carried on the inbound hundred. Not even the toughest Marine liked that weekly test of character, but by the time the Force Recon candidates were assigned to a unit, they understood what the fireman lift was all about: I bust a gut for you, so you can bust a gut for me. Gallen remembered how the load changed when you knew it was going to be subsequently taken by your buddy. It was a load shared, after all, and once he’d realised that, it was lighter all round.
The noises and shapes whirled around him, it was hot and then cold and smells blended together in an indistinguishable blur. Gallen slept deeply, occasionally conscious of someone trying to wake him and open his eyelids. He went deep into a world of brothers and sisters, of summers baling hay and winters testing the pond to see if it was ready to take skaters; of a mother beeswaxing the furniture and hockey games where all he could hear was the sound of his father telling him to get off the damn ice: ‘Don’t you dare stay down.’
Gradually, slowly, Gallen came out of the dream world, until he opened his eyes, finding himself in a room that was dark save for a small fire burning a few feet from him. Beside him was another body and they were bundled together, thick layers of clothes and blankets across them.
As soon as he took a breath he started coughing, the soot from the fire too much for his lungs.
‘Kenny!’ It was a woman’s voice. ‘He’s awake.’
Gallen tried to sit up but couldn’t because of the layers. The air around his face was very cold and as his eyes became accustomed to the gloom, he could make out Florita sitting on the other side of the fire.
She moved around to him. ‘Welcome back.’
‘Where have I been?’ he asked.
Winter appeared from under a hanging tarp. ‘You’ve been in a coma, boss,’ said the Canadian. ‘Hypothermia. Real bad.’
Turning his head, Gallen came face to face with McCann and realised they were both naked under the layers. ‘Hey, I love Donny like a brother, but it stops at a hug.’
Florita laughed softly, her face kind in the firelight. ‘I think you’re much better.’
‘How’s Donny?’ Gallen looked for signs of consciousness.
Winter shook his head. He helped Gallen out of the layers, then handed him his dried kit. The last thing Gallen put on was his Goodhue boots, fire-dried and warm.
Hissing out the pain in his ribs and needing Winter to help him into the parka, Gallen took a cup of warmish tea from Florita. For the first time he made out the form of a man lying still in the shadows on the other side of the fire, only his face showing.
‘Harry,’ said Florita, following his gaze. ‘He’s vomiting blood.’
Durville groaned like a drunk man dreaming, and rolled slightly to his back, exposing what looked like a briefcase with a strap wrapped around his neck and shoulders.
Taking a seat so he could almost touch the fire, Gallen swapped a brief look with Florita. He’d ask her later; he wouldn’t make the query public.
‘Kenny,’ he said, ‘wanna brief me?’
‘Both pilots dead on impact,’ said Winter, whose mouth and eyes operated from the gap in his black balaclava which was tucked back behind the wolverine-fur hood of his parka.