The Kaiser’s Navigator (Peter Sparke Book 2) Page 3

  Opitz and several colleagues who had been reconnoitring further inland failed to reach the waterside in time and, in order to save the ship, the Deutschland was forced to abandon them on the ice, pulling out into clear water just in time to avoid a massive calving berg. The crew watched the wall of ice glide slowly towards the spot where they had been moored. The impact of the berg caused an explosion of noise in the silence as a slab of ice, hundreds of tons in weight, crashed into the sea. Had the ship been under the ice-fall there would have been virtually no chance of any of the crew or expedition seeing Germany again.

  Vahsel's quick response had saved the ship. But now a small party of men, with few stores, was trapped on land behind a smashed mess of deadly sharp ice.

  Had the ice arrived later that year, and had the coast been more accessible, there would have been no issue, but the Deutschland had moored at the only approachable point of land for miles.

  Filchner looked at the mound of supplies already landed, and then looked out to sea at the Deutschland, clearly visible but utterly unreachable. The ship's crew stared back in horror. Not even one of the ship’s small boats could make it through. The sheer amount of heavy, still-moving ice meant that the next place where they knew they could touch land was almost forty-eight miles away and a shore party would have to make their own way there, navigating over featureless ice.

  Opitz, standing on the ice with Filchner, raised his binoculars towards the ship. Even in this brightness, he could make out the tiny blinking light flashing from the bridge. Twice the signalling was interrupted as the ship had to turn away to avoid moving ice, but eventually Opitz was able to tell the expedition leader the message.

  Captain Vahsel had given them the map reference for the only other possible pickup point where they could rendezvous. Their only chance of survival was to immediately abandon the land base they had barely begun to create and head overland to reach the meeting point.

  Finding that point would take astonishing navigation skills and the only trained navigator in the stranded land party had never in his life navigated anywhere except on a ship.

  It was a terrifying prospect for the twenty-one-year-old Lt. Opitz.

  Chapter Four

  Libraries would envy the air of silence and concentration that pervaded the building. The huge reception floor was a chessboard of black and white marble. The walls and oversized stairways were a cool cream colour and the entire building looked to have been designed as a solid stone shield against external frivolity. This was not a building where excitable people worked and the only time anyone had ever ran in these corridors had been when a bomb crashed through the central stairwell seventy years ago. Only junior staff had actually run, of course.

  Sparke was received at the front steps by a uniformed doorman and escorted to the main door where a porter welcomed him. From here he was shown, by the porter, to the receptionist where his name was confirmed and a pass issued. Then he was met by an Assistant Administration Executive and conducted to the waiting room known as "The Parlour" where he was offered tea. As the tea arrived an Administrative Executive appeared through the glass door of The Parlour and, picking up the teacup, ushered him into The Library where an Under Secretary was waiting.

  "The Chief Secretary will join you in a moment," said the Under Secretary.

  The clock in the library ticked loudly. Sparke enjoyed his tea.

  Two minutes later the door opened and the Chief Secretary swept in.

  "You seem to be ridiculously overstaffed here," said Sparke.

  "We do that to impress the gullible," answered the Chief Secretary.

  "Well, that is a good use of taxpayer money."

  "Since you are not a UK taxpayer I am slightly mystified as to why you would care about that," smiled the Chief Secretary.

  Sparke returned the smile. "You asked to see me?"

  "Really, I thought you asked to see us?"

  Sparke knew that he was capable of doing many things, winning in this contest with the Chief Secretary was not one of them, but competing was fun. "How could I possibly help?"

  "You probably can't, but we do appreciate your eagerness."

  Acknowledging defeat, Sparke smiled and sipped his tea.

  Sparke had met the Chief Secretary several times, always as part of the British Government's crisis control system. He had quickly learned that the main role of the Chief Secretary and those like him was to convince the world that nothing of any great importance was likely to happen and to give them the impression that, even if it was, then certainly the Chief Secretary and his ilk were entirely innocent amateurs with no idea what was going on.

  It was people like the Chief Secretary who sipped their tea as they created the largest empire in the history of the world then, equally calmly, dismantled the entire thing within barely twenty years, once it had outlived its usefulness.

  The two men sipped their tea in silence for a moment. "You injured your head, I understand," said the Chief Secretary. "Does it mean that you are less than match fit?"

  Sparke smiled at the sporting term which seemed out of keeping in these surroundings. Sparke was one of the few people who knew of the Chief Secretary's devotion to the minor league northern English football team, Accrington Stanley. Despite his crushing workload, it was a rare Saturday that did not find him in Accrington for home games.

  "I am fully match fit, thanks for asking," said Sparke. "Match fit for what, though?"

  "Well, we have a little thing we might want you to take a look at for us. Nothing urgent, but quite important in a small way. We understand from your boss that since your company has reorganised, your team are able to take on freelance projects."

  "She is not my boss," said Sparke. "We are colleagues. Our company is now a separate subsidiary."

  "Karin is not your boss? Does she know that? She certainly talks like your boss. Perhaps you should clarify that for her. Anyway, about this little thing we might ask you to look at." The Chief Secretary turned in his chair and looked towards what Sparke had assumed was a print of an eighteenth-century sailing-ship on the wall, but which he now realised was a screensaver on a computer display.

  A map slowly appeared which seemed to consist almost exclusively of sea blue, with a few patches of yellow land. The blue sea area contained several irregular box shapes.

  "There are a few interesting things about this map, Mr. Sparke, most of which I think you are probably familiar with," said the Chief Secretary. "Probably the most interesting, and certainly the most relevant to our discussion, is that this map depicts an area of the South Atlantic which contains the Falkland Islands, the tip of South America and the coast of Antarctica." He paused to reflect briefly on the endless problems created for his office by those relics of imperial necessity, such as the Falklands, before continuing. "These islands are ours, and so, therefore, are all of the seas, and sea beds around them."

  Sparke knew better than to interrupt the Chief Secretary in the middle of a briefing. Any question Sparke could ask would certainly be covered, and any observation he could make would be spurious. He sipped his tea.

  Recognising that Sparke was not about to offer any comment, the Chief Secretary continued.

  "Normally, our concerns in these waters are limited to the rights of a few thousand Falkland Islanders to remain subjects of this country, and the large number of military personnel maintained there to defend them from foreign invasion, but," he paused again, considering the weight of yet another burden on his shoulders which kept him away from too many Accrington Stanley football matches, "it seems likely that there may be a significant amount of other civilians in this area in the not too distant future. Since these islands, the waters and the sea beds are all our territory, it seems only reasonable that we have some duty of care for any civilians who find themselves within them." He looked at Sparke. "Don't you agree?"

  Sparke had spent far too long around intelligent and powerful people to allow himself to answer dangerous questions like tha
t. "When you use a phrase like 'duty of care', I feel just a bit nervous," he answered slowly. "I think I will probably not answer your question, if that's all right with you."

  The Chief Secretary smiled. "Quite right, too," he said. "No idea what the phrase really means personally, but it seems to be popping up in memos with alarming frequency at the moment. Let me tell you what we need from you."

  Chapter Five

  As they watched the tiny Deutschland disappear into the haze, Opitz and the expedition leader both silently took stock of their situation. They were alone and unprepared for the challenge of walking with a small group across almost fifty miles of unchartered frozen wasteland. In fact, as a feat of navigation it had never been accomplished in this way by any previous Antarctic traveller. Before talking to the others, the two men conferred in private.

  They had few options. To survive, they would have to take what they could use from the stores already landed, get their small party into marching order, cross fifty miles of barren ice and find the spot of land exactly where the Deutschland would try to recover them. It was perfectly possible that the ship would find itself unable to reach the land due to the heavy ice. It was even more possible that Opitz and the group would miss the spot and walk off into certain death. A mistake of even one degree in his navigation would take the party to the wrong spot and such an error would be fatal. With this amount of large, loose ice moving along the coast and ice shelf it would be impossible for the ship to simply sail back and forth looking for the men.

  Discipline and confidence were the only options. Within an hour, Filchner had the men breaking down the stores and assembling their travelling supplies. Fortunately, although not all the cargo had been landed, it was soon obvious that the group would be as well-equipped as possible for the journey.

  Despite their situation, both Opitz and Filchner felt a degree of comfort when the line of men assembled for the march. They had the best equipment in the world and more than enough provisions for the journey. They carried extra stores, which they planned to drop off on the journey in case they failed to make the rendezvous and had to make their way back to the original landing point. Opitz, Filchner and, in fact, most of the men, knew that this was a forlorn hope. Spending a winter here, waiting for rescue next spring with the limited supplies at their disposal, was a slow death sentence.

  As the line formed, none of the men grumbled, there was no questioning of their orders. They trusted in their leader, remembered their training and looked to their comrades.

  Schaldecker, the brawny quartermaster of the expedition took the lead and set a steady pace. As navigator, Opitz walked just behind him, his eyes constantly on his compass, counting steps. Periodically, he would drop out of line to check the distance counters being towed behind two of the sledges. His own count and the two measures were of critical importance in determining their position, particularly as the heavy clouds threatened to obscure the sun at any point, leaving them without a true reference point.

  The pace was slow but regular and they covered the ground well. The men had been on board ship now for weeks and, despite regular exercise, they lacked the stamina that they had intended to build up prior to undertaking long marches over the ice.

  By the time they halted to set camp on the first night, they had beaten their target distance. As the short summer night set in, Opitz managed to make a clear sighting of the southern stars. He spent quiet moments calculating their position and was pleased to report to Filchner that they were exactly on course.

  The next morning saw them break camp and form into their line of march in good time. Opitz grew concerned at the low, heavy cloud hiding the sun entirely from view and the slightly undulating land making it difficult to find the true horizon. When the group halted again for the night, he told Filchner that he planned to climb a low hill slightly to their north in order to take a more accurate bearing on the horizon. Although the charts for this area were far from accurate, by his reckoning he should have brought the group close to the coastline. Despite the ice it was possible that the coast was discernible.

  Alone, he moved quickly over the snow up the gentle slope until he reached the flat crest. He was only a hundred metres or so higher than the camp, but in this flat landscape he had a much better view. It was full night, but the brilliance of the snow reflected the light from the moon so well that he could see without using his torch. As he began to pull off his heavy rucksack to reach his navigation instruments, his eye was suddenly arrested by an image totally out of keeping with the rest of the landscape.

  The object was as shocking for its shape as it was for its dark colour. In this land of white, the huge, sharp, black triangle jutted directly out of the ice towards the sky. There was no way this could be a natural phenomenon. In a field of ice as flat as a billiard table it stood out more clearly than the moon on a dark night.

  It looked to be no more than a few hundred metres distant, at a point where Opitz had hoped to see the outline of the coast. Without hesitating, he set off on his skis, down the reverse slope of the small hill. It was clearly man-made, almost ten metres high and perhaps half that across the base.

  Opitz stopped short and, foolishly, wished he was carrying a firearm. He unbuckled his feet from the skis and walked slowly forwards. He could now make out a length of chain draped from the apex of the triangle, and he began to discern the surface of the object. It was the bow of a ship, a ship with a metal hull and timber deck pointing directly upwards into the dark sky. He circled the ship slowly without directly approaching it, his gaze never leaving the terrible spectacle.

  It was only once he had walked almost completely around the wreck that he noticed a low hump in the snow fifty metres from it, too small and steep to be a natural feature. The closer he got to it, the more out of place it seemed. Using his ski pole and his mittened hands he began to clear away the snow and ice from the mound. He quickly uncovered what lay beneath. It was a section of wooden planking, rough timber, like that used for packing cases. He pushed away more snow. It looked to be the wall of a rough hut.

  One of the planks was split across nearly its full breadth so Opitz pushed the tip of his ski pole in to the rough seam near it and gently began to leverage it. The timber snapped in half like a piece of hard candy leaving a jet black hole in the wall.

  Opitz went to his canvas rucksack and pulled out the small safety lamp he was carrying. It lit first time and, after adjusting the flame, he slowly raised it towards the gap he had forced in the wall. Holding it outside the wall did nothing to illuminate the interior so he slowly pushed his arm, holding the lamp, inside squinting along the length of his arm through the small gap remaining.

  It took several seconds for Opitz to make out dull shapes inside, but not where he had expected to see anything. He realised that he was not looking at the inside of a small hut, but the apex of a wall much larger than he had thought. He was, in fact, standing near the roof of a building buried in the snow. On the floor of the buried building, he could make out what seemed to be a long table. Around the table were the bodies of perhaps a dozen men, some seated, some slumped, and all frozen solid.

  Chapter Six

  For his entire working life, Sparke had been involved in helping find and extract minerals from below the earth's surface. For the past dozen years he had focused, almost exclusively, on managing the risks and dangers encountered by those men and women who had to do the actual work, as one of the tiny group of crisis managers who spend their working lives planning for disasters and managing the chaos when things go very badly wrong.

  The longer he spent in this business, the more he had come to realise that for every potential project that existed for the drilling and mining of the resources needed to keep the modern world turning, there would always be at least one group of people militantly opposed to the idea and at least one government who felt that they had some claim to the wealth which they felt would be created from it.

  In terms of complexity, the map
he was looking at in the Chief Secretary's office seemed to hit the jackpot on both counts.

  He stared at the map on the screen and saw four things: one was a huge expanse of open ocean. Obviously, there was a belief by some that there was something of real value to be gained in these waters or he would not be here. Drilling deep holes in the ocean floor was not something that gave Sparke much concern. He had seen too many examples of human ingenuity overcoming seemingly impossible obstacles to believe that any part of the planet was truly inaccessible.

  What worried Sparke were the bits of land surrounding this patch of ocean: Antarctica, Argentina, and the Falkland Islands.

  "As I was saying," said the Chief Secretary, interrupting Sparke's thoughts, "perhaps I can explain what we would like you and your company to do for us?"

  "Of course," said Sparke, his mind already deep in the detail of the issues around oil-drilling in deep waters, thousands of miles from the sort of support facilities normally required.

  "First of all, in the event that this area does become the focus for commercial exploitation of any kind, we need to show that we have thought things through a bit. In fact what we need is a sort of code of practice for anyone we choose to let work there."

  "Covering what?" asked Sparke.

  "Two things, mainly. Firstly, keeping the people who go and work there safe and free from harm, and secondly, stopping any companies who work there doing anything foolish which might cause unacceptable problems to the rest of the world."

  "So, health and safety regulations and environmental protection? Can't you just take the system in place for the North Sea and amend those?" Sparke was talking about the systems put in place, mainly by the United Kingdom and Norway, for the drilling in the waters that separated them. Between them they had created the toughest regime on the planet covering working practices.