The Snow Tiger / Night of Error. Desmond Bagley
Ballard accelerated to get ahead and then waved Peterson down.
As Peterson drew alongside McGill wound down the side window. ‘Going far, Mr Peterson?’
John said, ‘I’ve an early business appointment in Christchurch tomorrow, so I thought I’d leave early and get in a couple of rounds of golf there today.’ He laughed as he waved at the snow. ‘Not much chance of golf here, is there?’
‘You may be disappointed,’ said McGill. ‘Our information is that the Gap is blocked.’
‘Blocked? Impossible!’
‘We’re just going to have a look. Maybe you’d like to tag along behind.’
‘All right. But I think you’ll find yourself mistaken.’
McGill closed the window. ‘As the White Queen said – I can think of six impossible things before breakfast. Carry on, Ian.’
They drove up the road that rose towards the Gap and which paralleled the river. As the headlights’ beam swept across the ravine which the river had cut McGill said, ‘Jack Stevens could be right. Have you ever seen the river as full as that?’
‘I’ll tell you when we come to the next bend.’ At the next corner Ballard stopped the car. The beam from the headlights played in calm waters which swirled in smooth eddies. ‘I’ve never seen it so high. The ravine is more than thirty feet deep here.’
‘Let’s get on.’ McGill turned in his seat. ‘Peterson is still with us.’
Ballard drove as far as he could until he was stopped by a cliff which suddenly appeared from out the darkness – a cliff which had no right to be there. ‘My God!’ he said. ‘Just look at it!’
McGill opened the door of the car and got out. He walked towards the wall of snow and was silhouetted in the headlights. He prodded at the snow and then looked upwards, shaking his head. With a wave of his hand he gestured for Ballard to join him.
Ballard got out of the car just as John Peterson drew alongside. Together they walked to where McGill was standing and beating his gloved hands together. Peterson looked at the piled snow. ‘What caused it?’
McGill said blandly, ‘What you are seeing, Mr Peterson, is the end result of an avalanche. Not a big one, but not a small one, either. Nobody will be leaving Hukahoronui for quite some time – at least, not in a car.’
Peterson stared upwards, holding his hand above his head to stop snow driving into his eyes. ‘There’s a lot of snow there.’
‘Avalanches tend to have a lot of snow in them,’ said McGill drily. ‘If the slope above the town gives way there’ll be a hell of a lot more snow than you see here.’
Ballard walked over to one side and looked at the river. ‘There’ll be floods in the valley if the water keeps backing up.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said McGill. ‘The water is deep here and there’ll be considerable pressure at the bottom. It will soon drill a hole through this lot – I’d say before the day is over. That will leave a snow bridge over the river, but it won’t help any to clear the road.’
He went back to the snow wall and took out a handful of snow and examined it. ‘Not too dry but dry enough.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Peterson.
‘Nothing. Just being technical.’ He thrust his hand under Peterson’s nose, palm upwards. With the forefinger of his left hand he stirred the snow around. ‘Soft, harmless stuff, isn’t it? Just like lamb’s wool.’ His fingers closed on the snow, making a fist. ‘There was a man in my line of business called Zdarsky,’ he said conversationally. ‘He was a pioneer working before the First World War. Zdarsky said, “Snow is not a wolf in sheep’s clothing – it is a tiger in lamb’s clothing.”’
He opened his fist. ‘Look at that, Mr Peterson. What is it?’
In the palm of his gloved hand lay a lump of hard ice.
‘So that was the first avalanche,’ said Harrison.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And it meant that no vehicles could leave or enter the valley?’
‘That is correct.’
‘So what happened next?’
McGill said, ‘It had been my intention to persuade the town council that the best course of action was to evacuate the population of the valley until the danger had receded. This was now impossible.’
‘You say impossible. Surely the obstacle could be climbed.’
‘It could be climbed by the fit and active, of course; but what of the elderly, the handicapped and the children? But at least one member of the town council was now convinced that avalanches were something to be reckoned with in Hukahoronui. He was now ready to go back to town and throw his full weight into implementing any action I recommended. Mr John Peterson had been the first mayor and his words and actions would count for a lot. We went back to the town to get some action going.’
Harrison nodded and made a note. ‘What was the name of the man you quoted to Mr Peterson? How do you spell it?’
‘Z-D-A-R-S-K-Y, Matthias Zdarsky. He was an Austrian and an early pioneer in snow studies.’ McGill hesitated. ‘I have an anecdote which may have some bearing on what I quoted to Mr Peterson.’
‘Proceed,’ said Harrison. ‘As long at it does not take us too far from our purpose here.’
‘I don’t think it does. A couple of years ago I was in Western Canada as a technical adviser on avalanche protection. There was a cartographic draughtsman who had been given the job of drawing a map of the area showing all the sites of avalanche hazard. It was a long job but he had nearly finished when, one day when he got back from lunch he found that some joker had written in medieval lettering on each avalanche site the words “Here be Tygers”, just as on an old map.’
He smiled slightly. ‘The draughtsman didn’t think much of it as a joke, but the boss of his department took the map, had it framed, and hung it on the wall of his office as a reminder to everyone about avalanche hazard. You see, everyone in the game knows about Matthias Zdarsky and what happened to him.’
‘An interesting anecdote,’ said Harrison. ‘And perfectly relevant. At the risk of wasting more time I would like to know what did happen to Zdarsky.’
‘He was in the Austrian army during the First World War. At that time both sides – Austrians and Italians – were using avalanches as weapons in the Dolomites and the Tyrol. It’s said that eighty thousand men died in avalanches during the war. In 1916 Zdarsky was going to the rescue of twenty-five Austrian soldiers who had been caught in an avalanche when he himself was caught in one. He was lucky enough to be rescued alive but that’s about all you can say. He had eighty broken bones and dislocations, and it was eleven years before he could ski again.’
The hall was hushed. Presently Harrison said, ‘Thank you, Dr McGill.’ He looked up at the clock. ‘I think we will now adjourn for the weekend. This hearing will recommence at ten in the morning on Monday.’ He tapped lightly with the gavel ‘The hearing is now adjourned.’
Next morning Ballard went to the hospital to visit Cameron. He tried to do this as often as possible to keep the old man company and cheer him up. It was a fact that Cameron now was an old man; his experience in the avalanche had almost killed both spirit and body. McGill said, ‘I’ll go to see him tomorrow. I have things to do at Deep Freeze Headquarters.’
‘I’ll be out that way this afternoon,’ said Ballard. ‘I’m picking up Stenning at Harewood. Want a lift back?’
‘Thanks,’