Jocasta placed a restraining hand on his arm.
The scientist spat an obscenity better suited to a truck driver, then turned to Dodge. "He could have taken us all. The rotten coward."
"I know, Doc."
There was another crack as a second Coffman charge fired on the Trimotor and then another. With all three engines turning, the plane began rolling forward and was soon swallowed up in the perpetual winter darkness.
"How long do you suppose before he comes back for us?" asked Newcombe, his rage now merely simmering.
Jocasta laughed derisively. "He's not coming back. Not until he's sure we've frozen to death."
Dodge nodded. "I wouldn't bet against you on that. But it doesn't matter."
"Why not?"
"Because we won't be here." He glanced around the tent and his gaze finally settled on the entrance to the Outpost or rather the jumble of ice that now occupied the space where it had once been. “Doc, that quake…it wasn't quite the big bang you expected, was it?"
"No. If I had to guess, I'd say that was simply the ice collapsing under its own weight. Like a sinkhole. If anything, it's going to make matters worse. The ice will seal over, creating a pressure chamber."
"And how long before that happens?"
"It could happen at any moment."
"What do you mean, 'we won't be here'?" Jocasta inquired.
Dodge gestured at the disabled Trimotor. "We've got a perfectly good airplane right here."
"In case you hadn't noticed, it seems to have fallen into a hole."
"But other than that, it looks airworthy."
Newcombe shook his head. "Dodge, that plane probably weighs four of five tons. I doubt all of the soldiers working together would have been able to lift it free. You'd need a crane."
"I'm betting on brains being more powerful than brawn," said Dodge. He gripped Newcombe's shoulder in a gesture of encouragement. "I've got an idea."
As he outlined his plan, Dodge was glad that it was Newcombe listening. Hurricane, Molly and the Padre—well, maybe not the Padre—would either have regarded him with a wide-eyed "that's crazy" expression or else simply placed blind trust in his ability to take charge. But the scientist listened intently, providing exactly the right information to turn what would otherwise have been an impossible crazy hare-brained idea into… well, a maybe possible crazy hare-brained idea.
"We should check the plane for tools… a knife… anything that will make this easier."
"I've got some tools that might help," Jocasta supplied, removing a cloth wrapped bundle from the depths of her winter parka. She unrolled it to reveal an array of rods, wrenches and blades — the tools of her trade. Dodge found himself perversely taking mental note of the unique tools; perhaps they would one day play a role in a Captain Falcon story. That's wishful thinking, he thought mordantly.
Because of his scientific expertise and his adeptness at fine calculations, Newcombe took the lead, directing them where to place the long tent poles so as to maximize the amount of leverage. That of course was the easy part. Measuring, cutting and tying the ropes from the tent tie-downs, without accidentally removing a crucial anchor and allowing their only shelter to fly away in the constant, raging katabatic wind, was the real challenge. Dodge and Jocasta did everything he said, with implicit trust that he would not lead them astray and that confidence translated into a surety of action. It took only about five minutes for them to complete the preparations.
"Now for the tricky part," declared Newcombe, unnecessarily. The execution of the plan had always been the area of greatest uncertainty, for it would demand split-second timing and worse, require them all to be virtually in two places at once. The solution to the latter problem presented itself when Jocasta revealed that she still had the Mark II fragmentation grenade. The charge in the grenade itself was too big for their purposes, but the triggering charge in the fuse mechanism was perfect, provided of course that they moved fast enough.
There was no time for a rehearsal. They each moved to a different corner of the tent and waited for the signal. Because she was the only one of the three with experience using explosives, Jocasta would provide that signal.
Dodge held his blade to the anchor rope and watched as Jocasta knelt down and placed the explosive charge on the rope on her side. "When you see me start running," she had told him, "count to five and then cut."
Newcombe, on the same side as Dodge, but at the far end, would not see Jocasta start running, but he would see her when she reached the remaining rope opposite him. Nevertheless, when she pulled the safety pin and let the trigger spoon pop free, Dodge started shouting.
"Five…four…" Jocasta disappeared behind the Trimotor's fuselage, but he kept up the verbal count. "Three…two…one…cut!"
It was difficult to say whether the actions were perfectly synchronized. Dodge did not look up from his labors until the taut rope parted with a noise like a whip cracking. The entire side of the tent flew up instantaneously, but Dodge paid no attention to whether the same thing was happening at the other corners; he had already spun around and was sprinting for the plane.
He got about halfway before something struck him in the back and sent him sprawling forward. He knew what it was and knew that it had been one of those things that they should have accounted for when drawing up their hasty plan. By some miracle, he kept his footing and reached the tent pole that he had earlier jammed under the tail end of the Trimotor, where it had dropped into the crevasse. He saw, out of the corner of his eye, Newcombe reaching his position near the sunken front wheel, but then a blast of ice particles borne on the wind snatched his vision away. He could barely see the pole in his hands, but as it turned out, he didn't need to. Newcombe had said they would need a crane to lift the Trimotor out of the crevasse. Dodge had suggested something with almost as much power: the wind. They had turned the tent canopy into a makeshift parachute, which was tied securely around the tail and wings of the plane and once the anchor ropes were cut away, the Antarctic wind had filled it up like the sails on a clipper ship.
The tent poles were not so much for leverage as to guide the plane out of the fissure without causing more damage. Dodge could feet the change in resistance on the pole and knew the plane was moving. Somewhere in the whiteout above, the chute was pulling the plane forward. Dodge jammed down on the pole and then abruptly found himself face down on the ice.
So powerful was the wind that the Tin Goose was airborne for a few seconds before it slammed down onto the ice, well clear of the fissure. With the chute still full of air, the plane began rolling away.
Hugging his winter coat close, Dodge moved along the edge of the fissure until he found an elated Newcombe, still gripping his lever pole. "It worked!" the scientist cried, his voice barely audible.
"Of course it did! You're a genius! Now let's go catch it before it leaves without us!"
The plane was over a hundred yards away and still picking up speed when the rope connecting it to the tail section separated. The end of the makeshift kite flipped over and whipped out ahead of the plane. The wind drag continued to pull, but it wasn't enough to overcome the plane's inertia. And then, even before the aircraft came to a halt, the remaining line came apart and the tent canopy was whisked away to oblivion.
Despite the urgency of the situation, Dodge and Newcombe set a walking pace. In the low visibility conditions, at a dead run, they might easily miss the plane and spend the last few minutes of their lives wandering in the wintry wilderness. And as cautious as they were, they would have missed their destination if Jocasta had not been calling out to them from the relative shelter of the plane's rear hatch.