radio to try and get through and five times he had failed. 'Damned thing never works when you need it,' Beaumont had commented. He hovered the machine, dropped it slowly and landed on the knoll fifty yards away from the stationary machine. It had a dead look, as though Tillotson never expected to return to it. He switched off his motor. 'I should be back in an hour, Sam,' he said casually as he put on his parka with difficulty.
Grayson nodded, knowing that if Tillotson was armed with a rifle the Englishman could be dead in a good deal less than an hour. But in the long dangerous trip to Spits bergen the three men - Beaumont, Grayson and Horst Langer - had learned never to waste words or energy. You just got on with the next job. And Beaumont's next job was capturing or eliminating Tillotson.
The atmosphere inside the cabin was very warm and he tensed himself as he opened the door and picked up the carbine. The temperature dropped - from forty above to forty below. 'Get on with it,' Beaumont muttered to him self. He dropped out of the machine and the iron-hard ground hit his feet like a blow from a hammer. The paralysing cold choked him. He fastened the parka up to his neck, pulled the hood over his head. Behind him Grayson slammed the door shut quickly without so much as a word of farewell. Again no wasted words. Above him the blades had stopped whirling and an incredible silence descended, the silence of the Arctic night.
He tried to take short breaths as he trudged past Tillot son's Sikorsky to the edge of the knoll, then he stood looking down the vast sweep of the glacier slope. The second knoll further down the glacier was clearly visible in the moon light, a small cap of rock surmounted by a crude wooden cross. Tillotson was stooping over something perched on an Eskimo grave, a sacred place in Greenland which couldn't be disturbed under any circumstances by edict of the Danish authorities. The something was a box-like object with a small mast protruding above it. Beaumont's face tightened: Tillotson did have a transmitter.
The rock side above the glacier was too steep to make his way down, so he was forced on to the glacier itself. Ten tatively, he began moving down the ice with the carbine trailed in his hand: the light was too difficult to try a shot at this range. He found the surface horribly treacherous and it was rather like climbing down the side of a skating rink in clined at an angle, a skating rink corrugated with ridges and gullies. His rubber-soled shoes were not ideal footwear and he was worried that if he started to slide he might never stop before he reached the brink of the icefall. Grimly, he kept moving as fast as he dared because Tillotson might already be transmitting. And the Soviet agent, hidden behind the knoll, was completely out of sight now.
Lower down it became much more dangerous because frequently the glacier was split open, exposing crevasses of unknown depth, dark gashes which disappeared in the shadows. He had to move more slowly, using the carbine as an improvised support, treading from one rib of ice to another, crossing the narrow crevasses between. And all the time he was waiting for the first slither. The intense cold didn't help: Beaumont, whose resistance to low temperatures was phenomenal, probably because of his boyhood spent at Coppermine, wasn't properly clothed for Arctic work. The cold was penetrating his gloves, infiltrating his parka, creeping up his legs.
He was very close to the knoll, no longer using the carbine as a support, holding the weapon ready for instant use, when he looked up for the third time in a minute. Tillotson had appeared from the far side of the knoll, a tall fur-clad figure holding something in his right hand. Perched about twenty feet above the Englishman, Tillotson whipped back his hand in a throwing position. For one terrible, drawn-out moment Beaumont thought he was hurling a grenade. He jerked up the carbine and then the missile was hurtling
Grayson nodded, knowing that if Tillotson was armed with a rifle the Englishman could be dead in a good deal less than an hour. But in the long dangerous trip to Spits bergen the three men - Beaumont, Grayson and Horst Langer - had learned never to waste words or energy. You just got on with the next job. And Beaumont's next job was capturing or eliminating Tillotson.
The atmosphere inside the cabin was very warm and he tensed himself as he opened the door and picked up the carbine. The temperature dropped - from forty above to forty below. 'Get on with it,' Beaumont muttered to him self. He dropped out of the machine and the iron-hard ground hit his feet like a blow from a hammer. The paralysing cold choked him. He fastened the parka up to his neck, pulled the hood over his head. Behind him Grayson slammed the door shut quickly without so much as a word of farewell. Again no wasted words. Above him the blades had stopped whirling and an incredible silence descended, the silence of the Arctic night.
He tried to take short breaths as he trudged past Tillot son's Sikorsky to the edge of the knoll, then he stood looking down the vast sweep of the glacier slope. The second knoll further down the glacier was clearly visible in the moon light, a small cap of rock surmounted by a crude wooden cross. Tillotson was stooping over something perched on an Eskimo grave, a sacred place in Greenland which couldn't be disturbed under any circumstances by edict of the Danish authorities. The something was a box-like object with a small mast protruding above it. Beaumont's face tightened: Tillotson did have a transmitter.
The rock side above the glacier was too steep to make his way down, so he was forced on to the glacier itself. Ten tatively, he began moving down the ice with the carbine trailed in his hand: the light was too difficult to try a shot at this range. He found the surface horribly treacherous and it was rather like climbing down the side of a skating rink in clined at an angle, a skating rink corrugated with ridges and gullies. His rubber-soled shoes were not ideal footwear and he was worried that if he started to slide he might never stop before he reached the brink of the icefall. Grimly, he kept moving as fast as he dared because Tillotson might already be transmitting. And the Soviet agent, hidden behind the knoll, was completely out of sight now.
Lower down it became much more dangerous because frequently the glacier was split open, exposing crevasses of unknown depth, dark gashes which disappeared in the shadows. He had to move more slowly, using the carbine as an improvised support, treading from one rib of ice to another, crossing the narrow crevasses between. And all the time he was waiting for the first slither. The intense cold didn't help: Beaumont, whose resistance to low temperatures was phenomenal, probably because of his boyhood spent at Coppermine, wasn't properly clothed for Arctic work. The cold was penetrating his gloves, infiltrating his parka, creeping up his legs.
He was very close to the knoll, no longer using the carbine as a support, holding the weapon ready for instant use, when he looked up for the third time in a minute. Tillotson had appeared from the far side of the knoll, a tall fur-clad figure holding something in his right hand. Perched about twenty feet above the Englishman, Tillotson whipped back his hand in a throwing position. For one terrible, drawn-out moment Beaumont thought he was hurling a grenade. He jerked up the carbine and then the missile was hurtling
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