Anne murmured, red-faced.
Joan sprang up from her crate and planted herself in front of Eric. ‘I think Phillip came to a fitting end. It’s appropriate a man willing to sell out this land to an oil company should end up having his body here. Maybe in a few million years he’ll be oil!’ She stirred her hot chocolate so savagely that it slopped out on to her parka. ‘Shit.’
‘You’re exaggerating,’ Eric protested. ‘Besides, he was my son. Have a little consideration for my feelings.’
‘Your stepson, Eric, there’s a difference,’ Wally said in a voice hollow with pain.
‘A technicality.’
Joan put her hand on her hip and pointed her finger at Eric. ‘Don’t try to con us. We all know you couldn’t stand each other!’ Eric shifted his feet, ready to spring up but Anne leaped into the breach. ‘Have some more cocoa, Eric,’ she urged, waving the pot of water and a drink packet between the potential combatants. Eric hesitated momentarily, but relaxed again. Joan laughed harshly and headed for her tent. Simon felt a twinge of disappointment—the conversation was just getting interesting.
Before turning in, Simon decided to uncrate the radio—his major charge. The tent farthest from the circle contained the scientific stores and doubled as the communications centre, a grandiose name for one short-wave radio. The instrument was well wrapped in bubble pack inside a heavy crate. Colonel Fernald’s radio operator had provided instructions but basically the radio was idiot proof. Twice daily Simon was to check in with the army camp, once at 0800 and once at 2000 hours, starting the next morning. He’d have to be up early to erect the aerial in time for his first report.
Carefully he set the radio on a sturdy crate which had contained the emergency medical supplies. Joan, as the senior Red Cross graduate present, had taken these to her tent. As well as the usual disinfectants, splints, antibiotics and painkillers, there were several ice-packed vials of blood for emergency use. Duplicate medical histories of everyone had been provided—one copy Joan kept next to the medical supplies and the other Simon now hung on the side of the radio. He skimmed the medical histories—nothing interesting—and they showed an average cross section of North Americans with respect to blood type—three A’s, four O’s and a B.
Easing herself silently into her sleeping-bag, Anne tried not to disturb her husband who lay, similarly shrouded, on the far side of their tent.
‘So you finally decided to join me.’
Sighing, she answered. ‘Viola and I were completing the sanitation facilities.’ Why am I explaining, she asked herself? It’s my right to go to the toilet! But anything for peace.
‘I heard you. So did everyone in camp, I expect. Do you have to keep the rest of us up half the night with your stupid chatter?’
‘Good night.’ Anne wiggled farther into the down bag as if hoping it would shield her from her husband’s inexplicable anger and her own silent misery. Sleep was long in coming to both sides of the battleground.
Simon finished rigging the aerial before anyone got up. The wires drooped like a clothes line between the supports. Functional, if not artistic, he decided. When Anne appeared, Simon had just completed tying a series of makeshift red bows on to the thin wire.
‘What do you think?’ Simon asked, indicating his contraption.
‘Colonel Fernald would have you peeling potatoes for a year! Good thing you’re not in his outfit!’ Anne giggled.
Simon enjoyed the friendly banter they exchanged when Tony wasn’t around. ‘I’m anxious to see if it works. I wish Eric had let me set up last night.’
Yawning, Anne headed for the sixth tent where they’d stored the food boxes. ‘I hate the way the sun shines in the middle of the night. I have trouble sleeping when it feels like high noon, don’t you?’ she asked, stooping to enter the tent.
‘I can sleep anytime, anywhere I get the chance.’
‘Let’s see …’ Anne pried the lid off one of the crates marked BREAKFAST. It contained thirty-six white cardboard boxes, each labelled in bold red letters. The first layer read ‘mushroom omelette’, the second, ‘bacon and eggs’, and the last, ‘sausages’. ‘What takes your fancy, Simon?’
‘I’ll try the bacon and eggs.’
‘I’ll have sausages,’ Anne decided, removing two boxes. ‘I’ll boil some water.’
Simon bumped into Joan as he headed back to his tent.
‘What’s this rat’s nest?’ she jeered, pointing at the sagging aerial.
‘My “rats’ nest” is your only link with civilization,’ he retorted. ‘Be careful how you insult it!’
By the time the water was boiling, everyone was up. They all hovered around the two stoves set up in the middle of the circle.
‘Let’s see what we’ve got here.’ Viola ripped open her meal box and tipped out the contents. ‘One chocolate bar. One packet of instant coffee. One packet of orange crystals. Crackers—I’ll keep those for later. Plastic cutlery, napkin, cream and sugar packets. And this.’ She held up a slim foil package about eight inches by five. ‘This is bacon and eggs?’ She eyed it doubtfully but dropped it into the pot of water to heat.
While the eight foil pouches simmered in the water, the others sipped coffee or hot chocolate.
Jeff turned to Simon. ‘What’s your job in real life? Obviously you’re no scientist.’
‘I’m a policeman.’
Several heads jerked up.
‘Sylvester didn’t tell me that,’ Eric accused.
‘That’s where I learned how to operate a radio.’
‘Hell! Here I am, trying to get away from the Establishment, and who comes along but a damned cop!’ Joan shook her head in disgust.
‘I’m on holiday,’ Simon protested.
‘Once a cop, always a cop.’
‘Policemen aren’t needed up here,’ Wally mumbled. ‘Should stay where you belong.’
‘Breakfast must be ready by now,’ Viola interrupted, shooting Simon a pleading glance.
Simon’s lips thinned but instead of retorting he gingerly gripped the corner of his package and lifted it out of the hot water. He slit the top of the envelope and squeezed up the contents. His bacon and eggs emerged as a rectangular pressed grey mass with unidentifiable bits of brown embedded in it. He sniffed cautiously and nibbled a corner. He wrinkled his nose.
‘Well?’ Eric demanded.
‘Tastes like cardboard with a chemical aftershock.’
‘It can’t be that bad.’
They all reached for their pouches. Anne’s sausages were a suspicious reddish grey and laden with nitrates. Viola’s mushroom omelette resembled the bacon and eggs but had grey bits instead of brown.
‘We
