“Wait!”
Beck put up a hand to stop Jonas and the other boy looked at him in surprise.
“Va?”
Beck just nodded at what lay ahead. The ground dipped suddenly in front of them, and then there was a few hundred metres of flat, rumpled white ahead of them. Jonas looked at it blankly.
“More snow. So what?”
“It’s not snow.”
Maybe Jonas couldn’t see the difference, but Beck could. It was distinctly different terrain — a band, in fact, that came down from above, to their right, and carried on down to their left as far as he could see.
“It’s the glacier,” Beck said. “It looks solid, and it mostly is — but there’ll also be places where the snow is just a thin crust over a crevasse. And a crevasse here could mean a sheer drop, maybe fifty, sixty metres deep, and it’s invisible until you fall into it.”
“Ah.”
Jonas looked with more respect at the Storkittel glacier, the massive river of ice that blocked their path.
“Well…” He was obviously having a struggle in his mind. On the one hand, he knew — because he had heard — about the dangers of glaciers. On the other, he could see one in front of him and… well, it looked okay. “We couldn’t just — you know — walk very carefully…?”
“We could — but if anything went wrong we die.” Beck shrugged the pack of his back and pulled the rugs out, to get at the length of rope underneath. Jonas looked like he understood.
“Aha! I see. Like when we climbed across that slope, we tie ourselves together…”
“And if one of falls into a crevasse, then the second person should in principle be able to stop that fall. Well, in principle.” Beck said again.
Beck tied a bowline around Jonas' waist and then measured out about five or six metres of rope and then tied the rope around his own waist. The rest of the line he coiled around his shoulders, like a climber.
There were ready to go.
“You lead the way Jonas, and then I can be your anchor if anything happens. But take your time and tread softly.”
And so, the two boys moved cautiously out onto the glacier, testing each step carefully before putting their weight on it.
Neither of them spoke. This wasn’t a time for chat — it was for concentrating, keeping an eye on the snow in front, scanning for the slightest clue as to what lay beneath. A dimple, an unusually smooth patch, a concave trench that was just a little lower than the snow around it…
It was midday now so the sun was directly above them. Beck knew this wasn’t a good time of day to be crossing a glacier.
First of all the sun would have heated up the snow by now making it weaker, but also because the sun didn’t cast any shadows across any depressions in the snow. Early in the day even gentle dips in the snow, where it sagged across crevasses, would stand out much clearer with a shadow. At midday it all just looked white and dead flat. Beck knew that was deceptive. But they had no choice. They had to keep moving.
“Hey.” Jonas spoke suddenly, quietly. “I think this could be one. Right in front of me. What do I do?”
Both of them had stopped. Beck peered over at the snow in front of his friend. He couldn’t see anything from where he was. Beck kicked himself for not having given Jonas the crowbar before setting out. If he had then Jonas could prod the snow to see if there was anything below the surface or not. If Beck walked over to Jonas with it, that would just miss the point of having the length of rope between them in the first place.
“What does it look like?”
“It’s sort of curved, downwards, a couple of centimetres.”
“Okay, that could be one…” The crevasse would have formed as the glacier stretched and flexed beneath it, leaving the crust of snow on top. That crust would now be unsupported, and sagging. “Lie down where you’re standing — don’t move forward. Spread your weight, then reach forward and hit the snow gently with your hand.”
Beck was pretty sure that Jonas wasn’t standing directly on a crevasse, because he hadn’t fallen, so he would be safe in that position. And if there was a crevasse ahead, then hitting the crust in front of him would make it crumble, and hopefully reveal the direction the crevasse was taking. Then they would know which way to go to get around it.
So Jonas lay down, reached out tentatively, and prodded the ground. Nothing happened. He tried again, a little harder. All that happened was his wrist sank into the snow to the depth of his fingers.
“False alarm. Sorry.” Jonas clambered to his feet again and took a step back. “I— Yah!”
And suddenly he wasn’t there.