Free Firefox Down by Craig Thomas

bobbing him unresistingly onto his back, holding up his hanging, useless, numb legs, pushing his arms out into a crucifix, keeping his chin out of the icy water. He breathed air gently, savouring it, pushing at the water with gentle movements.
    A long time later, it seemed, his feet dragged gratingly against the pebbles of the shore. He was almost sitting in the water. He tried to stand up, could not, fell on his side - the life-jacket turning his face to the grey sky at once - and then turning wearily onto all fours and crawled the last few feet to the steep, snow-covered bank.
    And rested, shuddering with cold, hands and feet and knees still in the water, reminded of warmth and function by the sharp pebbles beneath them. The dinghy-knife was still in his right hand, sticking up out of the water.
    When his hands began to pain him with their freezing numbness, and his feet were dead from the cold, he clambered upright, and stood, rocking with exhaustion, gauging the height of the steep bank of the lake and his ability to ascend it. He succeeded in climbing by dragging his body behind his arms up the slope, digging the dinghy-knife deep into the frozen soil and heaving against it, digging it in again further up, heaving his body up to its level. It took him ten minutes; the bank at that point was a steep slope perhaps twelve feet high. He lay, when he had inched over the lip of the slope to the bole of the first fir tree, exhausted, panting, his eyes hardly able to focus. For one thing alone he was thankful. He had left the napalm of his nightmare down there behind him, in the lake with the MiG-31.
    Later, he ate chocolate. Later still, when feeling had returned to his hands, he was able to rub life into the rest of his body. The pressure-suit was stiffening as it slowly dried. Later, he inspected the area of water at the neck of the lake, realising that his panicky guess had been near the truth. The stream that acted as the lake's outlet was indeed now frozen. But it must have gone on draining the lake before it, too, froze. The draining water had left an airpocket which had kept the ice thin, dangerous.
    Later still, after the noise of a low-flying, searching MiG had faded east of the lake, he realised that he should put some distance between himself and the site of the forced landing. The ice would knit again, form like a cataract over the eye of water the airplane's weight had opened. The Firefox would be totally hidden by the following dawn. Already, the short Arctic day was beginning to fade.
    He had the dinghy-knife, the survival pack, his parachute, and the standard-issue Makarov officer's pistol and two spare magazines. He had no extra clothing, and his body was chilled to the bone. The dinghy had drifted out into the lake, like a marker to indicate the airplane's position. He drew the Makarov, hesitated, steadied his aim, and fired twice. The noise was deafening. Birds protested with cold voices. Slowly the dinghy deflated, began to sink. Gant sighed with relief. No trace.
    He was alive. Standard procedure dictated that he remain near the aircraft. In this case, he dare not. If they seached for him - when they failed to find any signs of wreckage they could attribute to the Firefox - then they must not find him near the plane. He had to head… north-west, try to make some indentation on the daunting twenty miles or more between his position and the Norwegian border. He had to blindly hope that it was not only the Russians who would be searching for him…
    The homing device. The transmitter -
    In a new moment of panic, he looked around sightlessly. It was nowhere to be seen.
    Had he - ? Had it been switched to transmit? He could remember every movement of his right hand as it sought the dinghy-knife and then his trapped sleeve. Now. he had to recall every moment of the few when the slim black plastic case was cradled in his left hand, against his body. Had he done it, automatically? Had he switched it on…?
    His