It was a bird that lived on carrion—a bird that ate the dead.

Arindam heard the skua gull before he’d fully regained consciousness. He was still strapped into his plane seat and had no idea how long he’d been there. The impact of the landing must have knocked him out. As he came to, the bird’s repetitive burr echoed over the empty white valley.

There was usually no life in this godforsaken place, nothing that could eat or breathe or even make a background noise—no trees, no dogs, no trilling insects. But now there was this one bird somewhere outside his window. It had to be a skua, didn’t it? The predatory creature was known for scavenging the carcasses of seals and penguins. It also chased, robbed and pirated the food of other birds, and it gorged on their fledgling young. But mostly, it ate the dead.

Oh great, thought Arindam in despair.

He knew his injuries were not catastrophic: there was only a cruel throbbing in his head and a stiffness in his neck—he’d been in worse pain with a dislocated shoulder last summer. But he couldn’t ignore the sickening dizziness and the furious pounding of his heart. He was suffering from severe shock and he wasn’t dressed for minus eight degrees Celsius. A search-and-rescue team wouldn’t make it in time. As an ice driller, he’d done too many field-training exercises to fool himself otherwise: he would soon be carrion.

Prior to the crash, their twin-engine aircraft had been lost, technically speaking. On any other day, the captain would have handled the weather with ease. An experienced pilot and a fellow Brit, Noah was used to flying in snow-covered terrain. He’d flown the same interior route to East Antarctica dozens of times—he’d already transported Arindam’s field research group twice that season—and he knew what to do in a whiteout. But today, when the aircraf had reverted to flying by instruments, something hadn’t been right. Noah suspected the altimeter was broken.

‘We’re not where we’re supposed to be,’ he said, an edge of concern to his voice. ‘I don’t think we’re in position. I’m just going to duck under this cloud bank.’

He was speaking to his co-pilot Roger, but Arindam heard everything from the first row. He’d learnt they’d been in the air too long and should’ve been approaching the runway by now.

‘If I could find the horizon,’ muttered Noah, ‘I’d have a visual reference.’

In an Antarctic whiteout there was no way of telling the difference between the sky and the ground. There was no contrast between the clouds, the great sheet of ice on the water and the snow coating the surface—everything was a uniform shade of white. Usually, the pilot could catch a glimpse of shadow or a jagged peak. But in the current conditions, he was having trouble finding even the landing aids.‘I don’t like this,’ said Noah, glancing back at his three passengers. ‘This just doesn’t look right.’…

His voice had been calm, but when Arindam saw the captain’s face, his stomach plunged. There’d been a flicker in Noah’s eyes, a flash of panic.

Arindam couldn’t remember much afer that. There was the deafening roar of the engines as Noah tried to turn the plane, and there was Roger’s frantic mayday call to base. Arindam clung to his seat, the aircraft rocking, his muscles aching with the strain. When he glanced at the window, a blur of white sped past before a grey ridge loomed into view.

Now the plane was still and quiet. There was a pile of snow where the cockpit had been. On top, a pale arm stuck out at an odd angle, still and frozen. Arindam registered that it was wearing Noah’s watch before a wave of nausea pulled him under.

When he woke again, a cold wind was blowing through the fuselage. His head felt worse than before. He slowly turned and saw that the tail section was gone. A gaping hole exposed the wreckage to the drif outside. It was still daylight, but the sky had turned a dishwater grey.‘Hello?’ he croaked into the void. His throat felt dry, like he’d been shouting.No one replied. No one else was on board. It occurred to him he was going to die alone…