Under the Ice

“Thanks for the pep talk, Sergeant-Major. And with that said, how about getting this bunch of ragtag malcontents on the road?”

As he fit on the white ski mask he had stuffed into his parka’s pocket, Jack Redmond turned to check on the status of his squad. The majority of the men were huddled behind the Jamesway hut, using its rounded south face as a windbreak. Corporal Eviki was in the process of gassing up the last of the snow cats and seeing this, Redmond boomed out loudly.

“Gentlemen, it’s show time! Mount up, and get those engines purring! We’ll be forming a single line behind the sergeant-major. The going might be slow, but it’s a hell of a lot better than dropping off into an open lead of water. So keep your formation tight, and hit those sirens the second you run into any trouble.

Otherwise we might never be able to find you again.

Do I make myself absolutely clear?”

Looking like heavy-handed ghosts in their white parkas and snow pants, the squad sprinted out to their individual vehicles. One by one the ignitions were triggered, and for a second the high-pitched whines of six engines rose above the incessant roar of the wind. Yet the howling gusts all too soon took precedence as the drivers shifted their vehicles into gear and followed the dogsled out of the compound and into the swirling wall of snow that lay beyond.

Petty Officer First Class Stanley Roth was at his wit’s end. As the headphone-clad senior sonar technician sat at the console with dozens of dials staring back at him, he found his thoughts were far away from his current duties. That throbbing, never-ending pain in his tooth was so unbearable he felt as if the entire top of his head was going to erupt.

Hardly paying the least bit of attention to the conglomeration of sounds being conveyed through his headphones. Roth reached into his breast pocket and removed a single plastic vial. Inside this small container were a dozen pills. For a fleeting second, he toyed with the idea of popping open the vial and swallowing one of the tablets. The powerful narcotic they contained had already successfully dulled his pounding ache a number of times. Yet in each instance it had inevitably left him drained, irritable, and groggy. And besides, only a few hours later the pain would be back in all its excruciating glory!

One and a half days ago. Roth had taken his captain’s advice and had visited sickbay. Pharmacist Mate Charles Krommer had been anticipating his visit and, after initiating a cursory examination, had prescribed the mildest pain killer in his medicine chest.

With the greatest of expectations, Stanley swallowed one of these pills and went off to work. Forty-five minutes later, he was found slumped over his console, in the midst of a sound sleep that took him over ten hours to snap out of. Upon awakening, the conscientious sonar operator swore that he would somehow learn to live with the pain and would stay as far away from the pills as possible.

“Damn it!” cursed Stanley to himself as he rubbed his throbbing left jaw and resolutely stuffed the unopened vial back into his pocket.

Desperate to escape from his agony, he attempted to refocus his thoughts on his work. He sat up straight in his chair, and turned up the volume gain to his headphones a full notch. The distinctive whining crack of fracturing sea ice met his ears, and he closed his eyes in an attempt to visualize the monumental forces at work on the surface to create such a racket.

Unfortunately at about this same moment an excruciating, piercing spasm of pain flared up the left side of his jaw leaving him trembling in pure agony. It was then he realized that he had had enough.

Roth reached out for the nearby intercom handset and made two quick calls. The first one sent his replacement. Seaman Lester Warren, scrambling from his bunk. The second call pulled Pharmacist Mate Charles Krommer away from a poker game that he had been in the midst of.

“I don’t give a damn if you are on a hot streak, Krommer,” the desperate sonar technician said forcefully.

“As God is my witness, you’re going to do something about this friggin’ tooth right now!”

Stanley Roth had to wait for his breathless replacement to arrive before storming off to meet the perplexed pharmacist mate in the Defiance’s sickbay.

This infrequently patronized portion of the ship contained a complete operating theater, including a dental chair. Though any number of complicated surgeries could be performed here, the crew of 107 physically fit young men rarely came down with anything more serious than a cold or the flu, so the pharmacist’s mate’s main responsibility was to monitor the radiation badges each crewman wore to insure that his exposure was kept to a minimum.

“Now are you certain you want to go through with this. Roth?” quizzed Charles Krommer as he changed into his gown and scrubbed up.

“I’m warning you, I’m not a licensed jaw breaker.”

“Of course, I’m positive!” Roth retorted passionately.