winter in greenland

on the ice sheet.

The visual conditions were not good. Although the snowstorm was much smaller than before, the cold wind was still howling and blowing. Coupled with the falling snowflakes, August and the others were not moving fast.Dan felt that they had been walking forward against the cold wind for a long time, but when they turned around, they realized that they were only less than 500 meters away from the scientific research station.

"It's too slow." August held the rein in his hand, his tone rare and agitated.

Through the flying snowflakes, Dan could barely distinguish the heat exhaled by the sled dogs. He just wanted to say that there was another vibration under his feet. This time the feeling was much clearer than before, and the vibration was much more obvious. It lasted about two seconds.

"Throw away all the unnecessary materials and reduce the load!" August obviously felt it too, and made a decision within a second, cutting the ropes that fixed the materials on the sled, and put the two heavy large The bag was dropped.

Dan was like drawing a gourd. He had just cut the fixed rope on his side when a slight sound came from the bottom of his feet.

"What's that sound?" He looked down at his feet.

"What?" Fengxue Auguste couldn't hear what he was saying.

Dan didn't respond, and made a silent gesture towards him, squinting and looking down at his feet.

As the cold wind roared, the tiny voice seemed to grow a little louder, and then, a creepy "click" sound clearly entered the ears of the two of them.

Dan suddenly raised his head and met August's eyes. August obviously heard the sound, and his pupils constricted suddenly: "The ice shelf is cracked! Don't take anything! Let's go!"

The sled dogs in front clearly sensed the approaching danger, and desperately dragged the sled and ran forward.Just behind them, at the place where they stopped for a short time, a huge hole had been cracked in the ice surface, and the sound of "crash" followed them closely.

Dan tightened the rope in his hand, his palms were full of cold sweat.

Suddenly, the front half of the sled sank and got stuck in an ice bucket formed by the sinking at an unknown time.The sled dogs failed to stop, and fell into a ball and rolled down. Neither August nor Dan could stand still. Before he could let go of the rein, he was pulled violently by inertia , the whole person rolled down towards the slope of the ice bucket.

As Dan held onto the side of the sled to steady himself, he looked up to see August's body being pulled sideways.His pupils constricted suddenly, his breathing seemed to be stagnant for a second, and then he rushed towards the direction where August slipped without thinking.

He barely had time to grab one of August's arms, and the rein was wrapped around his other wrist a few times, and the weight of the two of them and several sled dogs hung on the thin on the rope.Even through the thick coat, he could still feel the rope as if it was being strangled into his arm.

The wailing of the sled dogs came from below. August was already prepared for the impact. After hanging on the snow slope, he looked up and immediately understood the current situation.

"Dan, let me go, that board is stuck in the ice crevice, it can't support our weight." He whispered.

Dan gritted his teeth: "I can pull you up."

"Don't be stupid! There are 7 or 8 dogs under me, can you pull it?! Let me go! You can climb up, then radio the base and let the Hiss come to rescue!"

In the darkness, separated by the flying snowflakes, Dan's eyes were amazingly bright: "Do you know how deep it is down here? Are you sure you can survive until rescue?"

"Even if I can't last, what good is it for you to fall together?!" August's voice contained real anger.

Dan didn't let go, and looked at him stubbornly: "I'm sorry, I can't do it."

August wanted to say something more, but the sled above the two of them was already overwhelmed.After making a toothache "creak" sound, it was finally broken in two from the middle.

Dan only felt his hands loosen suddenly, and he fell down before he could react.

With sharp eyesight and quick hands, August grabbed the rope on his wrist and put his weight on his right hand. At the same time, his left hand took out an ice chisel from the equipment bag on his waist and plunged into it forcefully. The ice layer slowed down the falling trend of the two.

The tables turned abruptly, and now it was August holding Dan, his left hand dangling over the little ice pick.The wound on his right arm had just healed, and under such a violent pull, the wound soon opened.After a while, blood dripping down the back of Dan's hand drop by drop still warm.

Dan turned his head and looked at his feet, then at August's direction, with a faint trembling in his voice: "Major...your arm..."

August didn't seem to care at all. He gritted his teeth for a few seconds and let out a breath: "Dan, I may not be able to hold on anymore. Are you ready?"

Dan Dingding looked at him, with a little redness in the corner of his eyes: "You can let go at any time, I will be under you, with you..."

At an angle he couldn't see, the corners of August's lips raised slightly, and then he let go of the ice chisel.

This ice bucket was temporarily formed after the ice shelf broke, and the slope was very steep. All the snow on the ice surface fell to the bottom of the funnel, and there was nothing to cling to on the smooth slope.

As soon as August let go of the ice chisel, the two slid towards the bottom of the ice bucket in an instant.Dan was thinking about his arm injury, twisted an angle abruptly in mid-air, and adjusted himself to a posture with his back on the ground.

August didn't care about his small movements, his eyes were fixed on the bottom of the ice cirque, the two of them fell for about 5 seconds, and a dark shadow suddenly rose from below.

"Dan, we're almost at the bottom!" he yelled to the person next to him.

As soon as the words fell, both of them fell heavily on a layer of ice, and the reins in their hands were tangled up in a mess.

Tango lay on his back, but there was no pain as expected, on the contrary, there was some warm touch.

He struggled to prop himself up, and August's voice came from the side: "Dan? Are you okay?"

"Well, it's alright."

That August fiddled with the headlight on the hat a few times, but the thing was not broken, and a somewhat dim white light illuminated the positions of the two of them.

The first thing Dan noticed was the corpses of several sled dogs under him. They should have died when they fell from above, and then they acted as a buffer between him and August by accident, so that Neither was injured.

August obviously saw this scene too. He frowned and untied the rope wrapped around him and threw it aside. He stood up and checked the sled dogs one by one. His voice was a little low: "They're all dead."

Dan also stood up, silently glanced at the corpse on the ground, and turned on his own headlamp: "What place is this?"

August looked around and frowned: "According to my estimation, the distance we left from that scientific research station should be enough for us to enter the inland area of ​​Greenland, but it seems..."

"There are ice walls all around here." Dan continued.

Within the area illuminated by their headlights, the walls are covered with smooth ice layers. These thick ice layers are formed by the solidification and deposition of seawater near the island after thousands of years.Behind them was a steep slope from which the two fell.

"There seems to be an ice cave inside." Dan took two steps inside, and there was indeed a crack about two meters high in front, which could allow one person to pass through.

"Let's count our remaining supplies first." August stopped him.

The situation is not optimistic. In order to reduce the load of the sled and speed up, most of their things were thrown away, and now there is only one backpack left.Dan opened it and looked inside. Inside was a sleeping bag, four packs of compressed biscuits, a roll of gauze, an alcohol stove, and nothing left of the radio.

Dan sighed: "There are only so few supplies, and I don't know what the situation is like up there."

August was dragging the corpses of the sled dogs aside. Hearing this, he looked up and looked in the direction of the slope: "I can't go up anyway, so let's wait for rescue here. This time the movement is so big, And we also sent a communication to the Royal Scientific Expedition Team before, and we will come to find it soon if the base cannot be contacted."

Dan nodded, walked over to him, and just bent down, surprised to find that the body of the dog under him was still heaving weakly.

"August, this one is still alive." He called softly.

August turned around sharply and recognized Rogers at a glance: "It's Rogers."

Dan carefully moved the other sled dogs away from him, squatted down and took one of his front paws: "Hey, Rogers, old man, can you hear me?"

Rogers seemed to feel the temperature around the paw, or maybe he heard Dan's voice, moved his nose, and slowly opened his eyes.

Dan patted the top of its head lightly: "Good job, buddy, how are you feeling now?"

Around Rogers's nose was covered with fine blood froth. He tried hard to raise his head, but in the end he could only exhale a faint breath from his nose.

August sat down next to it, and took it into his arms, resting its chin on his arm.Rogers smelled his master's breath, arched his head towards his heart, and let out an indistinct whimper in his throat.

August didn't speak, just ran his hands along the hair on Rogers' back over and over again.There was a palm-wide wound near its spine, the blood around it had solidified and turned black, and the thick fur was tangled up.

Dan roughly checked the rest of its body, looked at August, and shook his head slowly.

August didn't speak, his eyes fell on Rogers.

As if he had a premonition that he was running out of time, Rogers stretched his head in Dan's direction, stuck out his tongue and licked his palm lightly, then turned his head to look at August with some effort, his blue eyes slowly shed A tear fell.

August covered its eyes with trembling palms: "I know, Rogers, I know you tried your best. I'm sorry, I'm not a good master. You can go. Arthur is over there, he will take good care of you .”

After an unknown amount of time, that small body stopped heaving and became stiff little by little.

"August..." Dan still held one of Rogers' front paws, and looked at the person in front of him with some concern.

August looked up at Dan, his eye circles were a little red, he stood up without saying anything, and put Rogers' body with the other sled dogs.

Dan looked at his back in silence, and belatedly realized that there was a sharp pain in his right rib.