The Snow Tiger / Night of Error (19 page)

When the Commission of Inquiry reconvened in the afternoon Harrison said acidly, ‘I hope we do not have a recurrence of the behaviour which led to the adjournment of this morning’s session. Whether Mr Ballard was wise to say what he did is not for me to judge. However, I believe he was goaded into it by the adversary tactics I warned against at the opening of this Inquiry. Mr Rickman, I give you a final warning: you must not be over-zealous in the protection of your client’s interest. One more instance like that of this morning and I shall have to ask your client to find someone else to represent him.’

Rickman stood up. ‘I apologize to the Commission if I have offended in any way.’

‘Your apology is accepted.’ Harrison consulted his notes. ‘I would like to ask one further question of Mr Ballard. It will not take long and you may keep your seat. Mr Ballard, you say that you consulted with Mr Cameron. I have looked through your evidence most carefully and I find that Mr Dobbs, the mine manager and Mr Cameron’s superior, has figured little. Where was Mr Dobbs all this time?’

Ballard hesitated. ‘I don’t really know. Something seemed to have happened to him.’

‘Such as?’

‘Something psychological, I’d say. He seemed to retreat into himself. He relinquished all his duties into my hands. Naturally I was perturbed about this, so I sent Dr Scott to talk with Mr Dobbs to see if he could discover what was the matter. I think his evidence would be best. I am not a medical authority.’

‘Yes, that would be best. I will call him later, if it proves necessary.’ Harrison consulted his notes again. ‘Dr McGill seems to have effectively taken charge at this time. He was, as it were, the organizing force because only he had any idea of what was to come. I think we had better hear his testimony.’

McGill took his seat, and said immediately, ‘I think I can clear up a point that was worrying Professor Rolandson. The mist.’

Rolandson looked up. ‘Yes, I’d like to know about that.’

‘It worried me, too,’ said McGill. ‘Although I tried not to show it. I couldn’t see how there could be so much mist in a rapidly falling temperature. It was quite thick – almost to be classified as a fog – and was very troublesome to us. It was only after the avalanche that I got it figured out.’

He knew he would be giving evidence all afternoon so he made himself comfortable in his seat. ‘You may remember that the first avalanche blocked the river as well as the road. The river had been frozen, but of course the water flowed freely under the ice. When the river was blocked the water rose and broke the ice. That water was relatively warm and on contact with the cold air produced the mist. It was actually freezing out into frost all the time, but as the water spread over low ground there was a great deal of surface area presented to the air, and mist was being generated faster than it was frozen out.’

‘An ingenious theory,’ said Rolandson. ‘And no doubt correct.’

‘As I say, it gave us a great deal of trouble that day. It hampered our operations considerably.’

‘What was the prime consideration in your mind?’ asked Harrison.

‘The safety of the people,’ said McGill promptly. ‘And I had a great deal of co-operation once the gravity of the situation was made clear. I would like to say now that those who had already realized that gravity gave of their utmost. I would like especially at this time to commend John Peterson.’

Harrison nodded and made a note. ‘What steps were taken?’

‘It was important to communicate with outside. Two teams were sent to climb out of the valley as soon as light permitted. One team was to climb the avalanche debris blocking the Gap, while the other took a more circuitous route. Once that was set going, I had all the children rounded up and sent to Turi Buck’s house which was on the record as being safe. At this time I became worried about the vulnerability of the central, and I – ’

‘The central?’ queried Harrison.

‘I’m sorry,’ said McGill. ‘A transatlantic – or transpacific – confusion. You’d call it the exchange – the telephone exchange. It was right in the open and sure to be hit – and yet we had to have communications. A failure of the telephone system during the organizing period would have made things most difficult. I discussed this with Mr Ballard and Mr Peterson, and one of the mine electricians volunteered to man the board. However, Mrs Maureen Scanlon, the operator, would not give up the board. She said she would be derelict in duty and refused to leave, She also said that it was her board and that no one else was going to touch it.’

McGill lowered his voice. ‘The telephone system worked perfectly all during the organizing period and right up to the time of the
avalanche, when the exchange was destroyed and Mrs Scanlon was killed. Mr John Peterson was also killed at that time in an effort to save Mrs Scanlon.’

The silence in the hall was total, and then there came a long, shuddering sigh.

Harrison said quietly, ‘You seem to have had your hands very full.’

‘Well, Mr Ballard and John Peterson were very able joint chiefs of staff, as you may say. Mr Ballard provided all the resources of the mine and did the organizing from that end, while Mr John Peterson did the same for the town, aided by the other members of the council. The main problem at first was to convince the town people that we were serious, and this is why the telephone system was so important. The council members spoke personally by telephone to every head of household in the valley. For myself, I merely provided overall direction in order to prevent mistakes being made and, after a while, I was able to think of what to do after the avalanche hit.’

Professor Rolandson said, ‘How certain were you, at this time, that there would be another avalanche?’

‘I was not dealing in certainties but in probabilities. As a scientist I am accustomed to doing this, but it does tend to preclude exactness. Avalanches are notoriously unpredictable. I know of a case in Switzerland where a five-hundred-year-old-building was swept away, thus proving that no avalanche had followed that path for five hundred years. No one could have predicted that. But based upon my investigation of the slope and upon what little theory we have and my own past experience I put the chance of an avalanche at about seventy per cent – and rising as the temperature fell.’

‘Would you say rising to eighty per cent?’

‘Yes, I’d say that, or even higher.’

‘Let me put that in lay terms,’ said Rolandson. ‘What Dr McGill is saying is that the chance of
not
having an
avalanche was the same as throwing a die and showing a six on the first throw. The chances of an avalanche occurring, in his opinion, was about four or five to one.’

‘Odds that only an inveterate gambler would accept,’ commented Harrison. ‘I take it that the people were advised to go to safe places. Who determined those places?’

‘I did, sir.’ McGill hesitated. ‘Safety is relative. To tell the truth, I wasn’t even too sure of the safety of Turi Buck’s house with all the trees gone from the slope. But it was the best we had and that’s why we put most of the children there. As for the rest, I looked at the map and as much of the actual ground as I could – the mist made that difficult – and tried to take advantage of topographical features; anything to put something between the people and the snow.’ He paused. ‘In one case I have to say I made a bad error of judgment.’

‘No one can blame you for that,’ said Harrison.

‘Thank you, sir. The main difficulty was to get the people to move. No one wanted to leave a warm house to stay in the open in the snow, and the thick mist didn’t make the prospect more inviting. Constable Pye, a very forceful man, did a lot there.’

‘You say there came a time when you were able to think of what to do after the avalanche. What did you mean by that?’

‘Speed in rescue after an avalanche is the first essential, but the rescuers must know what they’re doing. To find a person buried in snow is exceptionally difficult. Swiss experience shows that it takes a trained team of twenty men twenty hours to thoroughly probe an area of one hectare.’

‘A hectare being two-and-a-half acres,’ interjected Rolandson.

‘Well, we had no trained men and we had no equipment. We couldn’t be sure of outside help so we had to improvise with what we had. We stripped TV antennae from the
houses; these provided aluminium tubing to make probes for the rescue teams. Mr Cameron, at the mine workshop, made them up into lengths of ten feet. I organized three teams, a total of sixty men, and tried to give a crash course in avalanche rescue.’

‘At what time was this?’

McGill shook his head. ‘I couldn’t say, sir. I was too busy to keep my eye on the time.’

The mist was clammy against the skin. It wreathed in coils as the slight breeze shifted and the range of vision changed sharply. A large group of men, bulky in cold weather clothing, milled about somewhat aimlessly, some stamping their feet to keep warm, others blowing on their fingers and beating their arms across their chests.

‘All right, you guys,’ yelled McGill. ‘Those who have probes step forward and line up.’ He inspected them with a critical eye. ‘Line up as though you’re in the army and on parade – shoulder to shoulder and standing at ease. Feet about ten inches apart.’

The men shuffled about. There was embarrassed laughter as they realized the spectacle they must make. ‘There’s nothing funny about this,’ snapped McGill. ‘You other guys gather around and watch.’

He walked forward, holding a ball of string and gave the end to the man on the extreme left of the line. ‘Hold that.’ He walked along the line, unreeling string, until he was at the extreme right, then he cut the string, and gave it to the man on the end. ‘Now, you two guys are the markers. Bend down and stretch that string tight on the snow. Everyone else put the toes of their boots against the string.’

He watched them get into position. ‘Right. Now, in front of you is an area in which you think someone is buried, but you don’t know exactly where. You put the probe just in front of the toe of your left boot, and push down. You’ll hit
bottom hereabouts at less than three feet. If there’s an avalanche there’ll be a hell of a lot more snow than that.’

All the men probed. ‘Okay, now you do the same at the toe of your right boot.’

Someone called out. ‘How do we know when we’ve found a body?’

‘You’ll know,’ said McGill. ‘It’s unmistakable. If you hit a body go easy on the pressure – don’t use that probe as a spear. Call your team leader who will mark the spot for the digging team. Right, now you markers take a step forward – not more than a foot – and stretch that string again. All you others put your toes against it and probe again the same way as before.’

He turned to the crowd of watchers. ‘You see what they’re doing? They’re probing every square foot; we call this a fine search, and there’s a ninety-five per cent chance of finding a body if there’s one there. For a really fine search you probe in front of each boot and then again in the middle. That gives a hundred per cent chance, providing the body isn’t deeper than your probe.’

Someone said, ‘It’s bloody slow, though.’

‘Right,’ said McGill. ‘It’s slow. When the next lot of probes comes I’m going to teach you guys coarse probing. There’s a thirty per cent chance of missing a body, but it’s faster and sometimes speed is more efficient than thoroughness.’

‘Here comes Cameron with more probes now,’ someone called.

McGill swung around to see the truck coming towards them. As it pulled to a halt he said, ‘Okay, get them out of there.’

He pulled out a packet of cigarettes. Cameron got out of the cab and crunched across the snow to take a cigarette from the outheld packet. ‘Thanks, Mike. How are you doing?’

McGill looked about to make sure he was out of earshot of the men. ‘Not good. You know how long it takes to train the men of the Parsenndienst in Switzerland? And
they
have the equipment.’

‘What’s that … what you said? Some sort of snow rescue service?’

McGill nodded. ‘These guys are enthusiastic enough, but when it comes to the crunch they’ll not be much use. Some of them might be under the snow, instead of on top where I want them. The rest will be good for nothing.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘A million tons of snow – or anything else, for that matter – dropping close by takes the pith out of a man.’ McGill blew a long plume of smoke. ‘It’s known as disaster shock. We’ll need outside help and we’ll need it fast, and I hope to hell they have dogs. A trained dog can find a body in a tenth of the time it takes a twenty-man team. Half the victims of avalanches in Switzerland are found by dogs.’

Cameron turned and watched the line of men probing into the snow. ‘Then what are you doing all this for?’

‘Just to keep up morale. It helps if they have something to do. How many probes did you bring?’

‘Twenty. There’ll be another twenty in under an hour.’ He looked back at the truck. ‘They’ve unloaded. I’ll be on my way.’

‘Okay, Joe.’ As Cameron drove away McGill stepped forward. ‘You guys with the new probes come over here. I’ll show you coarse probing.’ He paused as a Land-Rover swept up and stopped close by. Two men got out, one of them Ballard. McGill had not seen the other man before.

Ballard hurried over. ‘Mike, this is Jack MacAllister. He came over the Gap.’

‘We met a couple of your people on top,’ said MacAllister. ‘They’ve gone on to get to a telephone. They told us what was happening so I came on down to see for myself.’