The Snow Tiger / Night of Error Read online

  ‘Okay,’ Peterson slammed down the telephone and snapped at Bobby Fawcett, ‘Everyone downstairs. Move it, Bobby.’

  Fawcett left the room on the run and Peterson looked out of the window at the telephone exchange up the street. The street was deserted with not a sign of movement. He thumped the table nervously and wondered what to do.

  As soon as Mrs Scanlon had put the call through to Peterson she took off the headset, stood up, and lifted her coat from a hook. She knew exactly what to do because Peterson had told her. She was to join him in the old Fisher building, one of the few houses in town which had a basement. She did not bother to put on the coat but had taken only one step to the door when the switchboard buzzed at her. She turned back, plugged in and lifted the headset. ‘What number do you want?’

  ‘Maureen, this is Jim Hatherley at Matt Houghton’s house. Old Jack Baxter took a bad fall and we think he’s broken his leg. Do you think you can find Dr Scott?’

  She bit her lip. ‘I’ll try.’ She plugged in a jack and rang Scott’s house.

  In the Fisher house Peterson made up his mind. He ran from the room and into the hall. A freckled-faced fourteen-year-old girl was standing in the doorway, and he said, ‘Into the basement, Mary. On the double.’

  The crackle of authority in his voice moved her body without her consciously willing it. But she said, ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To fetch Mrs Scanlon.’ He ran out into the street, and Mary Rees went down into the basement to join the others.

  Peterson ran up the empty street towards the telephone exchange. He reached the corner where a road ran off to the left towards the mine, cast a hurried glance along it, and skidded to a frantic halt. What he saw was incredible. The mist was gone and he could see as far as the mine, but that was not what held his attention. A building was flying through the air directly at him, disintegrating at it came, and in that split second he recognized the mine office block.

  He jumped back and dived behind a concrete wall, landing heavily, and then he twisted over so that he could see. There was a fierce blast of wind in his face and then he saw the office block fall squarely on to the telephone exchange, obliterating it.

  The wind gusted at him again and he felt a tremendous pain in his chest. Heart attack! he thought dimly, I’m having a heart attack. Even while fighting the pain he lost consciousness and died very soon thereafter.

  In the basement of the Fisher house Mary Rees added her screams to those of the others as the structure collapsed overhead and something or someone fell on top of her. No one died in the basement but there were several serious injuries, including Mary’s broken leg.

  VII

  In the Supermarket Phil Warrick looked about him and said with satisfaction, ‘We’ve just about got it cleared.’ He lifted the lid of the stove and dropped in some chunks of wood.

  The Reverend Howard Davis, vicar of St Michael’s Anglican Church, agreed. ‘Just about,’ he said. ‘This will be the last load. He wheeled a pushcart before the biscuit counter and began to fill it with packets.

  Warrick watched him and grinned. ‘McGill said no chocolate biscuits.’

  ‘I don’t know what Dr McGill knows about nutrition, but he certainly knows nothing about children,’ said Davis with a smile. ‘Chocolate biscuits are better than baked beans for keeping up morale.’

  Warrick nodded. ‘I hope he knows what he’s doing about this avalanche. I swear my arms have lengthened two inches because of lugging around all these cases of canned food.’ He replaced the lid of the stove.

  Davis regarded him with amusement. ‘Do you mean you’ll feel sorry if there is no avalanche?’

  ‘Oh, you know I don’t want an avalanche, but it would be a shame to see all this hard work go for nothing.’

  ‘I don’t want an avalanche, either, but there’s no harm in being prepared. If John Peterson is willing to have his store looted like this then he must believe McGill, and John is a level-headed man.’

  A truck pulled up outside, and two men got out and came into the Supermarket. Warrick said, ‘Hi, Len … Dave.’

  Len Baxter said, ‘That plane has come back. It’s still floating around up there. Wonder what he wants?’

  ‘He’s not going to land,’ said Warrick. ‘This fog’s too thick.’

  Davis picked up a coffee-pot and put it on the stove top. ‘You’ll need something to warm you up.’

  Dave Scanlon held out his hands to the stove. He wore a worried look. ‘That’ll go down well. I’ll swear it’s getting colder.’ He glanced at Davis. ‘I’m getting worried about Maureen. Someone said the exchange is too exposed.’

  ‘John Peterson told me he’d look after her,’ said Davis. ‘I’m sure she’ll be all right.’ He laid the back of his finger on the coffee-pot to test the heat. ‘Won’t be long.’

  ‘Got any more oil?’ asked Len.

  ‘Two more forty-five-gallon drums,’ said Warrick. ‘The last I could find. But we must have taken nearly six hundred gallons out of that tank.’

  ‘I was talking to one of the mine engineers up at Turi Buck’s place,’ said Len. ‘He’s fixing up a generator there. He said the diesel engine could use fuel oil at a pinch. I never knew that.’

  Dave said, ‘I think I’ll go and check on Maureen after I’ve had some coffee.’

  As Davis picked up a cup, Len Baxter said, ‘That reminds me. Does anyone know where my old man is? I’ve been so busy this morning I’ve lost track of things.’

  ‘He’s gone up to Matt Houghton’s house. McGill thought it was one of the safest places in the valley.’

  Warrick nodded. ‘We discussed that in the council meeting. That and Turi Buck’s place are the two oldest houses. The kids have gone to Turi Buck and the old people to Matt’s place.’

  ‘Not all the kids,’ said Dave. He took a cup of coffee from Davis. ‘I saw Mary Rees just now.’

  Warrick frowned. ‘Where?’

  ‘Here in town. She was standing in the doorway of the old Fisher house.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Davis. ‘It has a basement. That’s where Maureen will go. John Peterson organized all that.’

  ‘Where will you hide out?’ asked Len.

  ‘I will be in the church,’ said Davis firmly. His tone rejected any suggestion that he would be hiding anywhere.

  Len considered it. ‘Not bad,’ he commented. ‘The church must be the strongest building here. The only one built of stone, anyway.’

  Dave Scanlon finished his coffee. ‘I’ll just pop along and see Maureen, then I’ll be back to help you load.’ He waved his hand. ‘I’ve never seen the town so deserted, not even on Sunday.’

  He turned to go, and froze in mid-stride. ‘The mist’s go …’

  The three-ton truck parked outside was picked up bodily and thrown through the plate glass windows of the Supermarket like a monstrous projectile. Even as it came the building was collapsing around them. It had not been built too strongly in the first place and, hit by the giant fist of the avalanche, the showy false front sheared off and fell through the roof.

  Suddenly the Reverend Davis found himself floundering in snow. He was dazed, and when he put his hand to his head it came away bloody. He was up to his waist in snow and, to his surprise, in his right hand he still held the coffee-pot. He opened it and looked inside and found it half full of steaming liquid. His head was spinning and hurt when he moved it suddenly. Darkness spiralled before his eyes and everything became dim just before he fell unconscious. The coffee-pot dropped from his hand and fell over on its side, and coffee stained the snow.

  Dave Scanlon died instantly. He was hit by the truck and mashed to a bloody pulp. Len Baxter was hit on the head by a falling brick which was driven through the roof from the false front. His body was quickly covered by rubble which, in turn was covered by a rush of snow. He was still alive at that time but he died within a few minutes.

  The cast-iron stove was ripped from the concrete plinth to which it was secured by four
half-inch bolts. It was driven through the rear wall of the store and hit the fuel oil tank, which ruptured. Phil Warrick went flying after the stove and fell on top of it. He had been stoking it up liberally all morning and it was nearly red hot. The lid came off and a stream of hot embers shot out, igniting the fuel oil which streamed from the tank. Flames ran about and a cloud of black smoke went up, to be shredded immediately by the roaring wind.

  The fire could not last long because of the snow which drove over the area, but it lasted long enough to kill Phil Warrick. Embracing the hot stove, he was burned alive under six feet of snow.

  VIII

  Joe Cameron, driving the truck back to the mine after delivering the load of snow probes, was caught right in the open. Not for him the eerie sensation of driving a floating car as experienced by Dr Scott. The air blast slammed at the truck broadside on and it rocked violently. The left wheels rose from the ground and the truck went careering along for a few yards on two wheels and it was within a breath of toppling over. Then the wheels came down again with a crunch and Cameron fought to keep control.

  After the air blast came the snow cloud of a much denser material. It pounded the side of the truck much more forcibly and this time toppled it over on to its side. The truck did not lie there. Pushed by the snow it began to roll over faster and faster.

  In the cab Cameron was getting a mauling. His right foot was trapped between the accelerator and brake pedals; every time the truck rolled the gear lever ground into his stomach as his body flopped helplessly from side to side, and once, when his arm went through the spokes of the driving wheel, a blow on the front axles made the wheel spin and his arm broke with a dry crack which he did not hear.

  When the truck finally came to rest it was upside down under fifteen feet of snow. Cameron was also upside down, his head resting against the top of the cab and his foot still trapped. The windscreen was smashed and there was much snow in the cab but enough of an air space left to provide the breath of life for a fairly long time. He was bleeding profusely from a gash on his cheek and the blood stained the snow a bright red.

  He was unconscious, but presently he stirred and groaned. As he came round he felt as though he had been through a grinding machine and then stretched on a rack; every part of him ached and there were bits that were very painful. He tried to move his arm and felt the edges of bone grind together at the same time as a hot knife was stuck into his shoulder-blade. He did not try to move his arm again.

  The danger of death in the snow was very real, but what Cameron did not know was that he was in much more danger of dying by drowning.

  First came the air blast and then the heavy hammer fist of the snow cloud. Following these came the sliding surface snow. Not as fast as its predecessors, it moved in a flowing tide inexorably across Hukahoronui. It washed around the church and the spire shuddered; it obliterated the wreckage of the Hotel D’Archiac and swept over the remnants of Mr Rawson’s shop; it reached the Supermarket and covered the burned body of Phil Warrick, then it went on across the bluff to the river where it spilled over the edge and filled the river bed with snow.

  Across the river its energy was spent and it slowed until it was moving at no more than the speed of a man running fast. A little later, when it encountered the rising ground of the east slope, it stopped entirely having clothed destruction in immaculate whiteness.

  The avalanche had finished.

  The disaster had not.

  IX

  McGill climbed to the top of a small mound of snow in order to get a good view. He looked down the valley, and said softly, ‘Oh my God!’

  Most of the town had gone. The only building he could see was the church, which looked as though it had been given a coat of whitewash. Finely powdered snow had been driven into the stonework so that it looked like the ghost of a church. For the rest, there was just a hummocky expanse of snow.

  He went back to Ballard and bent over him. ‘Come on, Ian. It’s over now and we have work to do.’

  Ballard raised his head slowly and looked up at McGill. His eyes were dark smudges in a white face and showed no comprehension at all. His lips worked a little before he said, ‘What?’

  McGill felt compassion because he had a good idea of what had happened to Ballard. His senses had been so assaulted in an unexpected manner that the wits had been driven from him as a soldier might be shell-shocked in an artillery barrage. McGill was not feeling too good himself, but because of his knowledge and experience he had known what would happen and thus armoured had been able to ward off the worst effects.

  Ballard was suffering from disaster shock.

  McGill shook his head slowly. Compassion was not enough. A lot of people must have died and, if the rest of the survivors were like Ballard, then a lot more would die from want of help. He drew back his arm and slapped Ballard across the face very hard. ‘Get up, Ian,’ he said harshly. ‘Jump to it!’

  Slowly Ballard lifted his hand and fingered the red marks on his cheek. He blinked rapidly, weak tears coming to his eyes, and mumbled, ‘What did you do that for?’

  ‘You’ll get worse than that if you don’t get up.’ McGill put a crackle in his voice. ‘On your feet, man!’

  Ballard heaved himself up and McGill led him to the viewpoint. ‘Take a look.’

  Ballard looked down the valley and his face crumpled. ‘Christ!’ he breathed. ‘There’s nothing left.’

  ‘There’s plenty left,’ contradicted McGill. ‘But we have to find it.’

  ‘But what can we do?’ said Ballard in despair.

  ‘You can wake up for a start,’ said McGill brutally. ‘Then we look for the rest of the guys who were around here, and we wake them up. We have to get some sort of organization going.’

  Ballard looked once more at the desolation and then stepped down from the mound. He rubbed his stinging cheek, and said, ‘Thanks, Mike.’

  ‘Okay,’ said McGill. ‘You look over there and see who you can find.’ He turned his back on Ballard and walked away. Ballard trudged slowly in the direction McGill had indicated. His brain still felt pummelled.

  Fifteen minutes later they had grown from two to twenty. One by one the stunned survivors were ruthlessly extracted from the holes where they were hiding, and McGill showed no mercy in the way he handled them. They were all shocked in varying degrees and all showed a marked aversion to looking up at the slope, now visible, from which disaster had come. They stood around apathetically with their backs to the west.

  McGill selected the brightest of them and set them searching in their turn and more survivors came to light. In half an hour he was beginning to believe they might stand a chance. He gave one man his notebook and a ball pen and instructed him to take the name of each survivor. ‘And ask him who he was standing next to just before he ran for cover. We want to find out who’s missing.’

  To Ballard he said, ‘Take three men and go to Turi Buck’s house. Find out how they’re shaping.’ Others he sent to Matt Houghton’s house and he himself set off for the town. His last command was: ‘If anyone finds Dr Scott, he’s to report to me.’

  As it happened, Dr Scott was also on his way to town. He had to cross the river and the bridge had been swept away, but there was no need for a bridge because the river bed was full of snow and he was able to walk across, but with difficulty because the snow was soft. He crossed the river opposite the bluff about where the Supermarket had been and he was still unable to take in the enormity of the disaster. It did not seem either reasonable or possible that the Supermarket should have disappeared.

  He trudged through the hampering snow holding his bag, the contents of which were precious. In the distance he saw something black outlined against the prevailing whiteness which, when he came nearer, proved to be a man buried to his waist. Next to him was an overturned coffee-pot.

  Scott bent down, turned the man’s head and recognized the Reverend Davis. He was alive but his pulse was weak and fluttery. Scott scrabbled at the snow, digging wi
th his gloved hands. The snow was not very compacted and the digging was comparatively easy; within ten minutes Davis was freed and lying on the surface.

  As Scott was opening his bag he heard voices in the distance, so he stood up and saw a group of men picking their way over the snow where the town had been. He shouted and waved, and presently they came up to him. The man in the lead was the Canadian, McGill.

  ‘I’m glad you survived, Doctor,’ said McGill. ‘You’re going to be needed. How is he?’

  ‘He’ll live,’ said Scott. ‘He needs to be kept warm. Hot soup would help.’

  ‘He’ll have it if Turi Buck’s house held up. The church is still standing so we’ll use that as a base. Better take him there.’ McGill looked down at Davis and noted the clerical collar. ‘Seems appropriate. As for heat, he’ll have that if we have to burn all the pews.’

  Scott looked around. ‘What a hell of a mess.’

  McGill turned to MacAllister, the man from the power station. ‘Mac, you take a couple of guys and go to the Gap. If anyone is coming over tell them we need help real bad. But we need trained help – men who know about snow rescue. We don’t want a lot of amateurs lousing the place up.’

  MacAllister nodded and turned away. McGill said, ‘And, Mac, if there are trained snow dogs in New Zealand we need those, too.’

  ‘Right,’ said MacAllister, and selected his men.

  Others helped pick up Davis, and McGill led the way to the church.

  Turi Buck had left McLean when the engineer was still in a shocked stupor. He went to the source of the screaming, taking with him a jar of barley sugar which he found in the kitchen. It took him a long time to subdue the terrified children, but presently he was helped by Ruihi.

  ‘The barley sugar is good,’ she said. ‘But hot, sweet cocoa would be better.’ She went into the kitchen and had to remake the fire which had been extinguished, and when she lit the fire the kitchen filled with smoke because the flue was choked with snow.