Under the Ice

At length Noah cleared his throat and left his curled hand at his mouth as he spoke. "Her name was Claudia. She was twenty five, a scientist like yourself. She was killed up here."

"Oh, I'm so sorry Noah. Forgive me. I shouldn't have asked."

Noah waved her apology away.

"There's no need for you to be sorry, Hannah. Nor should the bear that killed her -- it was just a bear. But the asshole who should have been watching her... He was sorry. I made sure of that."

Hannah didn't know how to react. She sat awkwardly, unable to swallow, unwilling to even breathe. The only sound in the room was the puttering sound of the stove and wind sighing outside.

"I was on the other side of the country, guiding tourists from England -- you know, adventure holiday types. I made our regular call from the camp that evening and that's how I found out. That was hard, you know. Surrounded by happy people on holiday.

"We had plans, Claudia and I. Yes, we had plans. We were saving money to get married and buy a place here. Working ourselves flat out. I made more money guiding tourists than working for the Institute.

"That's why they call me psycho, probably. That fellow. The man who assumed she was safe and wandered away, leaving her alone. I would have killed him, but luckily there were people to stop me. In the end, what good would that have done? Another life ruined. He has family, you know. So..."

Noah bent forward to top up his glass. He offered more to Hannah, who shook her head, no. Hannah desperately wanted to say something, to do something. How do you respond to someone who has lost a partner in that way? She was ashamed for putting a question that caused such memories to resurface.

"But that was a long time ago now. Life goes on, you know. Life goes on." Noah nodded and finally turned to look at Hannah, who eyes were thick with tears. His glance turned into a longer shared moment between them. His nod forgave her question.

"I can see you feel awkward to have mentioned it. I can see that, but don't upset yourself." He looked at her. "Can I say something that will make me embarrassed too? It will even things up between us." Noah smiled and tilted his head away bashfully.

"Of course, anything. Believe me, you won't embarrass me. Not after that." Hannah spoke softly and put her hand on his.

"Okay. Well. Now don't take this the wrong way because, given what I've just said, this will sound odd." He glanced at her again to see her quizzical expression.

"Gah -- there you go again! Claudia did that -- your expression just then. You're like her double. I don't mean you look the same, but the way you talk, your humour, your body language. It's been bugging me this whole trip. So. There. Now we have both said something we regret!" Noah laughed and hid his face by lifting his drink once again.

Hannah blushed, not from embarrassment but surprise. She wasn't quite sure what to make of his comparison. It didn't feel to her that he was hitting on her -- that would have been out of character, but she was infamous for not picking up subtle social signals so maybe he was. If he were, then the comparison would have been a corny line to use. He was talking about his dead fiancé. She decided to ignore such whimsical thoughts. She would play it straight and not leap to any conclusions. Besides, until this moment, any hint of romantic involvement never crossed her mind. They were working together, after all.

"That's a very kind thing to say, Noah. I'm not embarrassed but I hope my presence hasn't brought back painful memories." Hannah squeezed his hand affectionately.

"No," Noah spoke with a shake in his voice. "No, actually it's been fantastic. Yes, I lost Claudia and nothing can bring her back. But I don't see you as some kind of ghost or doppelganger; but you know, it's great to watch you, making the best of your life. Being a passionate, inquisitive scientist, full of life, just like her. It's good to see that. It's good to see that kind of enthusiasm is not lost in the world."

"I don't know what to say, Noah. Thank you. I love what I do but it's meeting other like-minded people, isn't that what counts? That's what matters, more than the science."

They fell silent, comfortable in each other's company, both certain that this friendship would long outlast this trip. That felt good. A new friendship made.

* * * * *

The next morning, Hannah made sure she was awake first by setting a silent alarm on her phone. She wanted to repay Noah's kindness and make him scrambled eggs and ham, and boil the kettle for fresh coffee.

It was his turn to pretend to be asleep, but finally he couldn't contain his curiosity. He rolled over in his bunk and opened one eye. Hannah spotted the movement straight away and padded over with a mug of coffee.

"I hope you don't have a hangover after last night, Noah," she said, smiling as she hunkered next to him.

"Oh bless you, Hannah." Noah sighed, and swung his legs in the sleeping bag to sit up. "Hung over? Me? Nah, it would take more than that thimble to be a problem. Oh, dette er vidunderligt, tak, tak."

"I can imagine that, Noah. A big lummuck like you would take some stopping. I made you some scrambled eggs. I hope that's ok?" Hannah tousled his hair and turned back to the stove.

"Hey, I'm the paid staff, you know. I'm supposed to cook!"

"The cook deserves a day off, I think. They're keeping warm, but don't wait too long, Unless you'd like breakfast in bed, Mr Hansen?" Hannah put a hand on her hip to feign sarcasm.

"Can I rub your tits as well?" he asked, laughing.

"You are just this close, Mr Hansen. Down, boy!" Hannah gasped in mock indignation and wagged the spatula at him.

"Sorry -- old joke. I will behave now." Noah set his mug down and turned his back to pull on his clothes. Hannah kept her back to him, politely.

After they'd put away their breakfast dishes, they prepared to set off again to a different site. Hannah needed samples from ice that had more tidal flow and Noah knew a good spot.

Under a steely grey sky they worked through the morning, taking samples every hundred meters in the melting ice that fringed the beach. It was late morning and they had worked their way to an inlet where the tide was running, making the ice groan and rumble.

In places the water was a deep cyan, but where the current ran fast, it was black and thick with silt.

Hannah was in a routine of working and dragged the ice auger to another spot when Noah called out, "Be careful Hannah! That ice is too rotten. Step back the way you've come. I don't fancy pulling another scientist back to base with frostbite."

Hannah suddenly realised how foolish she'd been, because she'd stepped beyond the firm ice curtain and onto fragile pack ice. The overcast light made it difficult to see the differences in the underlying structure and she had let her concentration lapse. Realising her predicament she tensed up in fear.

"Noah! Shit, I can feel this moving," she shouted back to him.

"Move back, Hannah, right now." His voice was urgent.

At that moment, the weight of the auger and Hannah's sudden hesitancy made the block of ice suddenly tilt and she fell down. She let the auger go and it slithered into the dark water that had appeared at her feet. Her training kicked in and she automatically rolled to swing her ice axe into the surface.

Noah was several meters away but sprang across onto the floe with her. His weight helped reduce the angle but water now swirled up at her feet. He grabbed her arm and pulled so hard she was flung clear of the block and back towards the beach. The movement created a further roll in the block and Noah slipped. Without an ice axe his fingers could only claw at the surface. It was covered in loose snow and the incline meant he was immediately up to his waist in freezing sea water.

Hannah swung her axe again, finding solid ice and with her wrist in its leash, stretched her arm out to Noah, but he was too far away. She twisted her body, lying with her back on the surface and that was enough for Noah to grab first her one foot, then the other.

"Climb, you bugger, climb!" she screamed at him through gritted teeth because she wasn't sure how long her axe would hold them both.

She felt Noah's hand thump down on her knee, then grab at her waistband and finally the angle of the block eased so that he could crawl past her to safety.

"Here, Hannah. Climb back yourself. I have the axe - it can't move now." Noah was slumped over the axe, his extra weight securing the anchor. His face looked drawn and agonised and when she crawled back to him, she was immediately concerned by his condition.

"Move, Noah. Come on, move, for fuck's sake." He was already in shock from the cold water and fighting for breath. She knew she had to get him back to the quad bikes and every second mattered. Her eyes filled with tears of fright, but she focused on the effort of keeping themselves upright. They stumbled up the slope, with Hannah's shoulder under his armpit for support.

Between his stumbling and her pushing, she bundled him into the trailer of the quad. Hannah was able to check his vital signs and he was already showing signs of improvement because he was no longer gasping. She unlaced his boots and pulled them off along with his saturated socks. She dried his feet as best she could, then wrapped his legs in foil bubble-wrap normally used for the samples.

"Ok, Noah, give me a sit-rep. Talk to me, tell me what happened? Did you swallow any water? Tell me the ingredients of remoulade." Hannah was shouting at him and needed to know how alert he was.

"I'm not telling you my recipes woman. Jeez, lets get the fuck out of here before I lose my balls."

Hannah hugged his head to her chest, swearing and laughing as people do when they've had a fright. Noah had no idea Hannah knew so much bad language. Even though his legs were now throbbing in pain, he couldn't help but be amused.

Hannah was calmer down and drove back at a sensible speed, glancing over her shoulder frequently to make sure Noah had not moved. As they came to more familiar ground, with tyre marks from previous trips, she relaxed a little. She was running through her emergency training in her head, forming her plans for when they reached the safety of the cabin.

Just as she made a final turn towards the cabin, she saw a polar bear, a hundred meters away. It looked directly at them, rearing up on its rear legs as Hannah braked hard. She was immediately angered, outraged that this animal was between her and getting Noah to safety.

"Fuck this!" she roared, jumping off the quad and reaching for Noah's rifle in its holster. Noah was alert enough to wonder what the problem was and propped himself up, looking in horror as Hannah strode directly towards the bear.

She threw off her gloves and glanced at the mechanism. 'Red spot bad' she assumed and pushed the safety mechanism to off.

By this time the bear had begun to lumber towards her, not quite a charge, but making an aggressive move with its four-hundred kilogram bulk.

Hannah pointed the gun and fired. She was taken aback by the force of its recoil into her shoulder but the pain made her even more angry.

"Fuck you, bear. Get the fuck away!" She screamed at the top of her voice. She fired twice, holding the rifle tighter this time. From behind her she could hear Noah shouting, but she was too angry and his warnings and reason were lost on her.

The bear had stopped some fifty meters away. She could see the breath from its mouth and its black tongue as it stood panting, shuffling its weight from one paw to another.

"I'm gonna fucking kill you, bear, you stupid dumb fucking animal!"

Hannah fired again, actually taking aim this time, so that the bear bent to sniff at the ice where the bullet had impacted.

That was enough for the bear and it turned sideways -- a sure sign it was submitting to her. It turned and began to walk away. Another shot over its head persuaded it to break into a trot, away from Hannah and the nearby cabin.

She stood with the rifle across her chest, watching it retreat. Making sure it saw her posture and dominance.

"Are you fucking crazy, Hannah?" Noah arrived and crashed into her shoulder in his haste. "Give me the rifle."

"No, Noah. You get inside now and out of those wet clothes, I've got this. You've got nothing on your feet man!"

Hannah shouted back at him, wrestling the rifle back into her arms. Noah looked past her and could see the bear still trotting away, to where it was soon lost in the ridges of tundra.

They both turned and stumbled towards the safety of the cabin. Once inside Hannah helped Noah pull of his soaking layers. He had only been immersed to the waist but that was enough. She hunted though their bags to throw him towels. Getting him dry was the priority. Now he was in shelter and she could heat the room, his own body would restore its equilibrium.

She fiddled with the paraffin stove, copying what she'd seen him doing and soon had its blue flame purring.

She turned to Noah who had managed to pull on fresh clothing. Hannah observed he had a much better colour to his face. For the first time since the incident she began to feel her adrenaline melting away.

"If you're okay, now Noah, I'm going to park up the quad and grab our things."

"Take the rifle, Hannah. There are some more shells by the door."

"Oh, I'm taking the rifle, Noah -- you'd better believe it."

Hannah made a quick circuit around the cabin on foot, finding higher ground to get a vantage, but there was no sign of the animal. All the same she was still wary and kept turning to look about her as she walked to the quad. She holstered the rifle and swung her leg over the saddle, then burst into tears. Big sobbing, bear-chasing, mad-girl terrified tears. Instead of anger and fear, she now felt like a complete idiot.

She'd done everything wrong. She'd allowed herself to become complacent on the ice, risked Noah's life, lost important equipment, and done exactly the wrong thing in a bear encounter. And now she was crying.

Crying was such a stupid thing to do, she hated crying. Crying was something her body did when it was overwhelmed and clouded her thinking. When she reasoned crying would achieve nothing, she began to calm down.

Crying done, she looked around again.

"Fucking bear," she muttered to herself and fired up the engine.

* * * * *

"I'll be cooking this evening, Noah," she announced as she pulled the door closed. Noah was still shaken and feeling the physical effects of his dunking. But he could not believe what he'd seen this young woman do. He lifted his hands in a shrug.

"You'll let me do something, Hannah? I feel like a naughty child sitting here while you fuss over me. Seriously, I'm fine now. I'm dry, warmed up. Even my cock is talking to me again."

"Oh, good point. You'll need plenty liquids. Pee in a bottle if you need to." Hannah voice was sounding distinctly school teachery.

"Hannah, please, come here. Here, come sit. Your patient needs to talk." Noah patted the bunk next to him.

"You did nothing wrong. I can see you're angry with yourself and probably blaming yourself, huh?" He put his arm round her shoulders as she slumped next to him.

"I did everything wrong, Noah. I got lazy, I didn't listen to you, I lost the equipment and I nearly killed you. I'm so sorry. You must think I'm a fool -- just another of those stupid English women sent to try you." Hannah flapped her hands, uncertain where to put herself or her muddled emotions.

Noah nodded, leaning forward to rest his elbows onto his knees. He'd seen this kind of reaction before and needed to stop it.

"Okay, Hannah, lets break this down and be objective. That would be the scientific approach, yes?"

Hannah nodded glumly, uncertain where this was going, because her head was full of failure.

"Starting at the end -- are we both safe?" he asked, checking that she was nodding in agreement.

"Was it my job to watch you?" He raised his hand as she spluttered, "But.."

"Yes, my job. Did you use your axe correctly? Yes. Did you get the wet things off me? Yes. Did you check my alertness with your cheeky question about my remoulade? Yes."

Hannah smiled and wiped a tear off the end of her nose with the back of her hand.

"You did everything by the book, apart from one thing." Noah turned to look at her face, but she stared resolutely at the floor to avoid his eyes.

"What you did isn't in the books. Maybe it should be? Maybe they'll put an extra chapter for angry English women in bear encounters?

"I'm not going to chastise you for that, Hannah. Stuff like that isn't written in books. You are so fierce. Where do you keep that? For fanden! I can't wait to tell my friends about this crazy English woman who chases bears."

"I did chase it, didn't I?" Hannah slumped into Noah's shoulder and he put his arm around her again. "I was so scared it would attack you. It was in the way and I needed to get you inside and make you safe."

She turned to bury her face into his shoulder.

"I'm not going to cry, Noah," Her voice muffled by the thickness of his jumper, but her shoulders gave her away.

Noah let her cry - that was his job too. It was her turn to feel the effect of shock and they'd both had enough of that for one day.

* * * * *

Hannah woke suddenly. Noah's voice. At least it sounded like his voice. It was the right tembre and coming from vaguely the right direction, so it wasn't a bear, which had been the first thought in her mind.

She dismissed his voice as sleep talking and instinctively pulled her sleeping bag over her ears, despite the warmth in the room. She heard him more clearly, the next time he murmured.

"Claudi, Claudi," he said, then muttered something in his native Danish.

Hannah listened a little longer and heard another strange sound that unsettled her. She couldn't understand it, until she realised he was crying.

She swung herself upright, still wearing her sleeping bag like a giant sock. She heard it again and she was right - Noah was crying in his sleep. It was a sound to break the hardest heart.

Rather than have him suffer through a nightmare, she thought she should help move the dream along. She knew she could stop a snorer by telling them to be quiet or moving their limbs without them waking, so maybe it would work for nightmares too? She hated hearing him being tortured by his own imagination and she wouldn't be able to sleep while it went on.

She stepped across to room in her thermals and sat on the edge of his bunk.

"Noah, you're dreaming. It's a bad dream that's all. You should turn over now." Hannah spoke loudly and firmly and felt sure her mother would approve. Her subconscious prodding had no effect and Noah continued to chatter away to himself, with occasional shouts.

Hannah leaned closer to his ear, thinking a more comforting voice might be more effective. She repeated the instruction but a little more quietly. In response, Noah draped an arm around her waist and pulled. She hadn't expected that and was already unbalanced so she fell sideways onto his bed.

"Are you awake, Noah?" she asked pointedly, thinking he was having a joke, but he slumbered on. What would he think if he awoke to find her in his bed? She tried to slip away from him, but his dreaming self would have none of it, putting his other arm round her waist.

Hannah lay rigid, trying to figure out the best plan of action. She rehearsed their conversation in the morning. "You were having a nightmare, I came over to quieten you and you pulled me into bed with you," ranked almost as bad as, "I thought if I lay in bed with you, you might feel my tits after all." Hannah chuckled to herself at the idea and the absurdity of her situation. Unless she could unpeel his big fingers, she would remain stuck.