It was the coldest thing Olly had ever known. It was agony. The cold was chewing his bones like an animal. It was a million times worse than when you turn the shower to cold by mistake.
He tried to scream again but the freezing water was like bands of iron around his chest that paralysed his lungs. It was all Olly could do to draw another breath.
The water was shallow and Olly’s head and shoulders were still above water. Bear grabbed the rope between them and pulled hard on the slack until it went taut. He then rapidly dropped onto the ice and wrapped the rope around his body.
“Use the rope to pull against, Olly,” Bear shouted. “Wriggle like a seal and get yourself out back onto the ice. Work quick, Olly, come on!”
But Olly couldn’t do it. He was floundering about in shock and numbed by the cold. He could hardly even keep himself from slipping beneath the water.
Bear saw that Olly was struggling and reacted fast. He flung himself flat, rope in one hand, holding Olly in tight against the edge of the hole and the other arm outstretched towards him.
“Grab my hand!”
Olly reached out, but he was shivering so hard that he had to force his hand to go towards Bear’s. Shock, cold and fear were stopping him.
Bear’s strong fingers closed around his wrist and he pulled Olly up and out of the hole. Then he started dragging him away from the danger and towards solid ground. Bear then quickly started unlacing Olly’s boots.
“You need to get this wet gear off!” Bear ordered.
“But I’ll die!” Olly howled.
“You’ll die if you don’t,” he replied. “Wet clothes will steal the heat away from your body fifty times faster than dry clothes. You need to get them off. Now move it!”
Olly started to peel off his boots and clothes, all the way down to his shorts. He noticed his hands weren’t working so well and were shaking frantically with the cold. The material clung to his body like wet plaster, and the freezing air on his skin gave him goose pimples. Bear rapidly pulled a man-sized shirt out of his rucksack and threw it to Olly, along with dry shorts.
“Put these on. Wet pants could kill you. And this hat and dry socks.”
Bear took off his waterproof coat and placed it down on the ground. “Stand on this and get marching fast on the spot. Good. Now, keep going!”
Bear started to wring streams of water out of Olly’s clothes.
“W-w-what’s the point of this marching?” Olly complained. “I’m tired.”
“Your body is in shock and you’ve had a huge dose of adrenaline and fear to deal with.” He paused. “Marching up and down will help keep you warm.”
So Olly kept marching.
Bear fished the gas stove out and packed more snow into the metal saucepan. While they waited for the snow to melt, Bear stuffed another pair of socks into Olly’s boots to soak up as much water as they could. And he asked the question Olly had been dreading.
“So, what happened back there?”
“I didn’t follow you,” Olly admitted. Bear looked at him. “I was near the edge, and I thought it would be easy to reach it. I’m sorry.”
“Did you see the rocks sticking up through the ice? They break up the ice and make it thin. Even near the edge of the lake.” Bear paused. “Olly, we’re a team, and we will survive together. We all make mistakes sometimes. It’s okay. Just do your best to keep focused.” Bear paused again, then said seriously. “You were on borrowed time there. The combination of cold, shock and fear numbs the body’s senses and makes it almost impossible to do even simple tasks. That’s how people drown so fast in cold water. Next time you might not be so lucky!”
He rolled Olly’s clothes in the powdery snow to absorb more of the moisture, then beat the snow off them again. Olly’s legs were aching more than ever. More than anything he just wanted to stop and lie down. His feet stumbled.
“I don’t think I can go on much longer,” he complained.
Bear was spreading Olly’s clothes out flat on a rock. He didn’t look up.
“A hundred years ago,” he said, “a man called Ernest Shackleton led an expedition to the South Pole. One of his men fell off the ice into the sea. They fished him out, but they didn’t have anything to make a fire with. So he just had to walk in circles until he was dried out. It took him twelve hours. Twelve hours of freezing cold and pain.”
“Twelve hours!” Olly gasped.
“Yes. Grim, eh? But guess what? He lived. That’s our goal too. Fortunately we can make a fire, so we can get some hot drink inside you.”
Olly started to slow down.
“Keep going, Olly. That’s your part of the deal. And remember, if it was easy, anyone could do it.”
Olly pictured that poor man at the South Pole. Twelve hours, and nothing to warm him up at the end of it.
“Besides,” Bear added, “I don’t think we’ve got twelve hours.” He shot a dirty look at the sky and Olly remembered the storm. He looked back the way they had come, but he couldn’t see the smudge. He was about to say so, when he realised why he couldn’t see it.
It wasn’t a smudge any more. It had grown. When they had started to walk, Olly had been able to see the mountains miles away in the distance. Now the smudge had got much closer and it was big enough to hide the mountains completely.
The snow melted and boiled. Bear made a cup of hot tea which Olly drank as he marched. His shivers made the rim of the mug clatter against his teeth but he felt the heat of the tea warming him from the inside out.
“Okay, I think we’re there,” said Bear at last. Olly’s clothes had now frozen stiff in the freezing air. Bear bashed them against the ground so that bits of ice flew in all directions. He tossed Olly’s trousers over to him.
“Here. Try those.”
Olly put them on again and, amazingly, they were almost completely dry.
But Olly winced when he pulled on his boots. Despite everything Bear had done, and another fresh pair of socks, they were still cold and damp inside.
“Damp is better than wet,” Bear said directly. “Meanwhile you can stuff your wet socks down your trousers to dry them out. Okay, now we need to press on.” He gave the sky another look. “We might just be able to get out of this valley before the storm hits.” He pointed. “See that bend ahead? If the valley ends after that, then maybe we can drop down to lower ground and find some shelter.”
So together the pair started to move again.
Olly trudged on after Bear. For the time being his feet were dry in thick, new socks, but he could feel the cold of his wet boots soaking through. Eventually he would have to change them, but for now he knew he just had to deal with it. After all, if he had listened to Bear, he wouldn’t have fallen into the water in the first place.
Plus the thought of finding shelter from the storm gave him new strength.
It got darker as they walked. Back when they had started, the snow had shone so bright in the sun that Olly couldn’t see without the snow goggles. Now he had to pull the goggles down around his neck just to see clearly.
They reached the bend in the valley. Olly’s hopes were at their highest as they came around the corner.
Then they came tumbling down.
The rocky sides just kept going. It wasn’t the end of the valley. There was still no way out except to go forward.
Olly was so tired, and he couldn’t see anywhere they could shelter. He looked back at the approaching storm. It filled the valley behind them. He couldn’t see where they had been. It was all just a mass of swirling snow.
“We’re too late,” Bear said grimly. “It’s going to hit us.”