At Book Group, we finally brought our A-Z of Flora & Fauna to a close last night with our discussion of a classic thriller. Going forwards, we’re taking a pause from themed reads to go with nominating ‘a book you’d like to read’ until we get the urge to get themed up again! I read this book in May, so it doesn’t count towards my #20BOS26.
In 1958, a USS nuclear submarine did visit an Ice Station in the Arctic as part of International Geophysical Year, and MacLean is said to have been influenced by the press reports of this visit. Compared with some of his earlier thrillers, which have dated, Ice Station Zebra largely holds its own pretty well. There may well be no women characters at all, and only a couple of brief mentions of wives and daughters etc. throughout, but given that the action largely takes place on a submarine, that’s not a surprise. The US only lifted the ban on female submariners in 2010, and the UK in 2011.
It’s the cold war, and the British have lost contact with their meteorological (aka radio monitoring) station Drift Ice Station Zebra in the Arctic. Bad weather prevents an air rescue. It just so happens that USS Dolphin, one of the first US nuclear submarines has just returned to base in Holy Loch, Scotland. As the novel opens, a British spook (not stated, but obvs!) Dr Carpenter is showing his bonafides to gain a place on the sub, which is due to leave asap to travel under the ice to find the missing men at the station, which is on drift ice – ie: it moves! Commander Swanson of the submarine isn’t having any of it. And leaves Carpenter in the hands of his trusted hands Rawlings, Hansen and Zabrinski while he speaks to the Admiral. Grudgingly accepting Carpenter on board, he asks,
“Why you, Carpenter?”
“I have some knowledge of the Arctic, sir. I’m supposed to be an expert on the medical treatment of men subjected to prolonged exposure, frostbite and gangrene, I might be able to save lives or limbs that your own doctor aboard might not.”
“I could have half a dozen such experts here in a few hours,” [Admiral] Garvie said evenly. “Regular serving officers of the United States Navy, at that. That’s not enough, Carpenter.’
This was becoming difficult. I tried again. I said: “I know Drift Ice Station Zebra. I helped select the site. I helped establish the camp. The commandant, a Major Halliwell, has been my closest friend for many years.” The last was only half the truth but I felt that this was neither the time nor the place for over-elaboration.
So they set sail for points North. Things go smoothly and they’re soon under the Arctic ice, looking for a ‘polynya’ – a sea lake in the ice. Finding a hole, they surface, and get a faint intermittent signal, giving them a vague direction in which to head. Diving again, things don’t go as well this time – someone jams one of the torpedo tubes open – they are sinking – the pressure could crush them! Despite being older than many of the submariners, Carpenter gets to demonstrate his he-man credentials having trained for these catastrophes under pressure. The sub is saved. It’s clear, though, that there is an enemy on board.
They reach thin ice a short distance away from the now-located camp, and use their remaining torpedoes to blast a hole through. Carpenter and a few others, including the sub’s doctor, Jolly, head out onto the ice to see what has happened. They find only a few of the staff still alive, and most of the buildings burned down. They concentrate on getting the injured men stable enough to move back to the sub, but Carpenter goes scouting around the ruins, finding weapons hidden in the fuel tank of a remaining tractor…
Hereon, it’s a game of cat and mouse between Carpenter, Swanson and the agent. It’s not until this stage that we discover that it’s the images from a failing Soviet satellite that Carpenter and the Soviet agent are after… (although the blurb on the back of the current paperback edition gives this away). As you can imagine, the agent is identified,
You learn more about submarines and travelling under the ice that you ever thought you needed to know from this novel. MacLean obviously researched the subject well. However, our group did criticize his dialogue – given that the submarine was American, the crew rarely expressed any Americanisms at all! We did find Commander Swanson to be a good and decisive leader, calm under pressure, and joked about Carpenter’s – I’ve trained for that, and that, and that – he-man attitudes.
A couple of our group watched the 1968 film too. It makes Rock Hudson (who had replaced Gregory Peck) as the submarine commander, Ferraday, very much the lead character, and Patrick McGoohan as the British agent, Jones, supporting. Ernest Borgnine is Vaslov, a Russian defector on board, Jim Brown takes charge of the marines on the ship. Given the hard time Carpenter is given about boarding the
Why they felt they had to change the character names is a mystery. They also changed the ending to create more of a drama there too; in the book, Carpenter made it all seem too easy to outwit the enemies. The film, although, not brilliantly received, and three hours long, was apparently a favourite of Howard Hughes!
Next month’s book: Fair Play by Louise Hegarty.
Source: Own copy – Alastair MacLean, Ice Station Zebra, 1963, Harper Collins pbk, 400 pages.
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