Free Blazing Ice by John H. Wright Page A

… four … three … two … one …
Fire in the hole!
”
    Ka-whammmmm
! Bits of snow and ice filled the air, though they didn’t amount to near the volume we had just drilled and shot.
    Shaun roped up after the smoke cleared on surface, and Eric belayed him to the edge of the hole. “The crater’s about eight feet in diameter,” Shaun announced over his shoulder. Peering over the edge once more, he turned back to us, wide-eyed. “Now that’s a hummer! And it’s all black down there, full of smoke.”
    We’d let it air out and have a look into it tomorrow.
    GAW was just a post in the snow the week before. Now we relaxed there in our Shear Zone camp. A carpenter crew had come out from McMurdo and erected a Jamesway tent for us. An olive drab, canvas-covered relic of the Korean War, it would be our shelter for the season. Its insulated skin stretched over wooden arches in the style of a Quonset hut. Ours measured sixteen feet wide by forty-eight feet long. Wooden boxes that contained the tent pieces for transport now formed its plywood floor. Exposed ribs inside the tent caricatured the inner belly of Jonah’s whale.
    The carpenters built in conveniences for which we’d have never thought to ask. A partition inside the tent separated sixteen feet of sleeping space from thirty-two feet of common space. Two dormers in the common room, one on each side, were both fitted with windows. A long, narrow plywood table hung from the arches along one wall. It served as our radio station and catchall working surface. A propane cooking stove fit neatly into one of the dormers. Farther down that wall a fuel-oil heater not only heated the room but also melted snow for drinking and cooking water. At both ends of the tent, vestibules gave us space to sweep snow off our boots and clothing.
    Having several metal folding chairs, tables, and cots, we arranged our inside space to suit us and wound up with a cozy home. The mountaineers, preferringcomforts peculiar to their trade, set up their own small field tents apart from the Jamesway.
    We kept our frozen food outside, upwind, in large cardboard boxes covered with shoveled snow. Downwind and off to one side, we located our bucket-equipped privy. Downwind and to the other side, we stationed our bulldozer and camp generator in the lee of the huge steel fuel tank Stretch had skidded out from McMurdo.
    Our camp lay within very high frequency (VHF) radio range of town. Daily we reported our well-being to Mac-Ops, the radio communication center. In case our VHF radios failed, we set up a ultra high frequency (UHF) unit, running its long-wire antennas outside, suspended to the tops of bamboo poles. Sometime later, radio technicians would set us up with a radiophone and e-mail links to McMurdo and the world.
    This was our home for now. At season’s end, it all would vanish, boxed up and carted back to McMurdo. For the time being, we were warm and comfortable in camp, thinking about the “Hummer.”
    Shaun and Erick rappelled into Hummer’s hole while I lay on my belly, peering over the edge. We were all tied off to the PistenBully, its brakes locked and parked a safe distance from the crater.
    â€œThis one measures fourteen feet across at the base of the bridge,” Shaun called up.
    â€œWhat does the underside of the bridge look like?” I hollered.
    â€œIt’s arched, and smooth for as far as I can see. Blocky around the shot hole, but I’m not worried. “
    Dangling from the slender rope, Shaun spread his arms to show the direction the fissure took. It ran back toward our road, though our radar had not traced it that far.
    â€œI want to go to the bottom now. This crack pinches to nothing, but there’s a big pile of snow right below me. Must be the stuff we shot.”
    A person could get wedged tight at the bottom, but Shaun stood safely on the snow pile. I lowered the zero end of our measuring