Winter menaces the two stragglers. It is a heartless beast. Tooth and claw, it will fight to claim their last breaths; but Johansen is every bit its match. Drawing on the blackness inside himself, the empty bits where love and hope and glory once lived, he fights on. Bitterness and hate swell in his chest; they’ve struggled to find expression until now.
Leaving us to die out here. Johansen’s resentment nestles deeper into his core.
Johansen knows one thing: he must get Prestrud to shelter. It’s clear his feet are badly frostbitten. The man can hardly propel himself forward. His staggering, his mumbling avowals – it all points to hypothermia.
‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,’ he slurs in waves of contrition that are totally out of character.
‘Keep moving,’ Johansen urges.
They’ve had their moments, Prestrud and Johansen. The deep division that occurred during depot-laying has never had a chance to mend. None of it matters out here. Only Johansen’s dark loathing for their leader matters. It drives him ever onward, head bowed against the squalls of driving snow.
After midnight the temperature stabilises at minus 51 degrees. They are getting close, but other perils lie in wait for the two men.
‘Why are we stopping?’ moans Prestrud.
‘No tracks.’
Johansen knows they’re fast approaching the barrier edge and that it’s so dark they’ll likely miss the narrow path to lead them down safely. A 50-foot drop cannot be negotiated, he knows that for sure. And yet where is the way down? The fog is at its thickest. The compass is useless. Framheim lies somewhere on the edge of this oblivion.
‘Devil take you, Amundsen,’ he fumes.