A Grue Of Ice (17 page)

Another five minutes dragged by. The Tannoy broke

into life. I heard a door open, and almost at the same moment Upton's voice. " Yes, Carl, yes?"

I could not help admiring the brilliant, dispassionate professionalism of The Man with the Immaculate Hand. " Seaplane reporting ship contacts to
Thorshammer.
Five ship contacts on her radar."

" She's picked up the fleet," breathed Upton. " She's picked us up!"

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Pirow's voice was impersonal. " No sighting reports. Only radar contacts." He spoke slowly, telling me he was reading back the seaplane's signals to the destroyer as she came in t o w a r d s o u r f l e e t . "
R a d a r c o n t a c t f i v e s h i p s t w o z e r o
zero degrees. Surface wind forty-four knots."
There was a pause. Then he resumed. "Preparing
to orbit fleet as soon as
1 make visual sighting. Will run in and turn on target. Roger?"
A tinge of irony crept into Pirow's voice.
"Thorshammer
replies, Roger. Signal fleet's position and course."
I tensed as I heard Upton's words. " Peter," he said. " Fetch Wetherby and get over to
Aurora.
You know what to do. You're sure you will be O.K. in the boat by yourself?"

" I'm O.K.," I heard Walter grunt. " Have someone start the engine while
I
collect Wetherby.
I
have one hand on the tiller and other on the Luger, heh?"

" Good man," replied Upton.

I
heard the heavy clump of Walter's sea-boots
as he left
the radio office to come down to my cabin. The weakest link in Upton's disposal plan for me seemed to be the time
I
would be alone in the boat with Walter crossing to
Aurora.
He would be fully on the alert, but he would not know
I
had overheard them.
I
told myself
I
must also get out of the cabin as quickly as
I
could before Walter realised the Tannoy was switched on.
I
prayed that neither Upton nor 'Pirow would speak while Walter was in the cabin.

The door swung open. The Luger looked like a plaything in his massive fist. " Come!" he said. " I want no tricks from you, you Royal Navy bastard!"

He started to move towards
Sailhardy,
but he backed
as
I
walked quickly to the entrance. " You swine,"
I
replied. "
I
think you've killed him."

"Good," he replied. " Then there
is no
need
to
look closer." He shut the door. The Tannoy had kept silent. I walked away from the cabin door, and then stopped in

the long corridor.
I
faced Walter.

" Up on deck," he snarled. " No tricks! I am an excitable man with a gun. We go to my ship now."

" Not until
I
have spoken to Sir Frederick Upton,"
I
said.

" No!" he retorted.

I
learned against the steel wall. I knew their plan. They could not dispose of me down here. " If you're so keen to get me to your ship, hammer me unconscious like Sailhardy,"
I
sneered. " Go ahead."

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Walter looked nonplussed. " If it was me, I would shoot you here," he blustered. " Why must you see Sir Frederick?"

" Go and jump over the side," I said. " Either I see Sir Frederick, or I stay here."

" O.K.," he conceded after a pause. " We go to the companionway there, where there's a telephone. No speaking on deck. You can tell Sir Frederick what you want to say." There was an emergency telephone by the companionway leading up to the main deck. I rang the bridge and asked for Sir Frederick Upton. His voice came back, vibrant, full of good humour. I cut short his bonbomie. " Listen, Upton," I said. " I've been thinking over this Thompson Island business."

Upton's voice went cold. " No whining, Wetherby. You played—damn badly,
I
might say—and lost. The chart
is
mine. It stays so."

" That chart is not nearly as valuable as you seem
to
think,"
I
started to say. " I assure you you won't find Thompson Island in the position on the chart. The key is missing. I alone know where Thompson Island
is.
I'll take you there in exchange for an unconditional safe-conduct back to Cape Town for Sailhardy and myself, unharmed, and with the run of the ship."

Upton laughed so loud
I had to
keep the phone away from my ear. " It is really incredible," he said. " First, my daughter become starry-eyed because the great Captain Wetherby makes her land on an ice-floe. God alone knows

why, but it is so. What sort of line you shot, I wouldn't know. Then you yourself come along with a cock-and-bull story about the chart being wrong and you being the only person who knows where Thompson is situated. Balderdash!"

" I'll go further," I said. " Let us take the fleet to where the chart says Thompson is. If it is there, you can turn me over to
Thorshammer
and I'll take the rap for all this business. If not, then . . ."

Upton gave his answer, characteristically.
The
receiver at the other end was slammed down.

Walter gestured with the Luger. " Up, on deck! Quick!

There's not much time. We go to
Aurora."

I had no option. I walked ahead of him. Once we had reached the deck, he kept close behind me, the Luger hidden out of sight in his jacket pocket. Once I caught a sideways glimpse of the half-shaven face: I could see that Walter was
all
set for his killing orgy, for he was grinning slightly and
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the face was alive with a kind of sadistic joy. He would not need any excuse to kill me.

Aurora's
boat hung in the davits, engine running. Walter m o t i o n e d m e a h e a d m o c k i n g l y . " A f t e r y o u , C a p t a i n Wetherby." Two stolid Norwegian sailors were at the boatfalls. There was nothing to do but obey. I climbed aboard, and the two sailors dropped the boat skilfully into the sea. Walter threw in the gear with one hand, keeping the other on the concealed Luger. As we gathered way, he held the tiller and the Luger as I had overheard him tell Upton he would.

The tiny craft bucked in the swell. To throw myself at Walter would have meant upsetting the boat and drowning both of us.
Aurora
had lost way and I saw the measure of Walter's seamanship as he brought the tiny boat alongside the low bulwarks of the catcher.

" Jump, Captain!" grinned Walter. " Jump for your Mel I'

ll be right behind you!"

I jumped as we swung level with the bulwarks, coming down heavily on the deck. Walter had judged it to a nicety. He did not even wait for the next wave. He too jumped, rope in hand, while two of his crew secured the boat. Despite his bulk, he was on his feet as agilely as a cat.

He grinned again and stripped off his jacket, thrusting

the Luger into his trousers pocket. Under the thick black woollen sweater his chest seemed more massive than before.

He shouted something in Norwegian to the two men on deck,

who disappeared below.

" You are a fighting man, Captain," he leered. " Now you see my own special ack-ack gun in action, heh? You even sit in one of its harness." He laughed again. I said nothing. His face went heavy with anger. " All right, you Royal Navy bastard! Get up there ahead of me!"

As I started to go up the bridge ladder, Walter snarled something at the first mate, who also went below. Above decks, the only person visible was the helmsman, and the lookout in the crow's nest. Walter bellowed at him, too. I glanced upwards at the lookout. I saw a tiny flash of silver in the sky, far out to port. Walter saw it too.

Walter half thrust me up the last few rungs on the steel

ladder leading from the bridge to the gun platform. At the top, out of the helmsman's sight, he pulled out the Luger. The brutal face was tense. " Into the Hotchkiss harness—

quick! We haven't much time!" He grabbed me by the neck of my jacket with his left hand and savagely rammed

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the harness down over my head and shoulders. Once I was in

its strait-jacket grip, he came round and deftly threw a loop of rope round the trigger guard, but not about the swivel bar, leaving my arms at half stretch to the trigger, with my face hard up against the sight.

Walter pushed the Luger loosely into his waistband and slipped quickly into the harness of the Spandau. He swung the double weapon round, taking me with it. I could see the seaplane passing over the outermost ship of the fleet, the
Crozet,
still fully five miles away from the factory ship. The Hotchkiss' long metal sight was at full extension above the cooling ribs in the middle of the weapon. Walter's right eye was screwed up against the rubber-mounted sight at the rear of the Spandau, and I could see the line of his teeth as he kept his left eye firmly closed. Our faces were only nine inches apart. His breath was foul with stale Schnapps. His right hand was on the trigger beneath the long curve of the Narwhal tusks.

The seaplane started to make a long dive towards-the

factory ship. It came into my sights. Although I was expecting it, the heavy 400-round-a-minute burst of the Spandau took my breath away. Cordite fumes blew back. The two weapons were beautifully synchronised, and as Walter swung the Spandau to keep his sights on the seaplane, so mine held steady on it.

I saw my chance.

If I too joined in the firing, using my left hand to pull the Hotchkiss' trigger, I could not help having my right wrist hard up against the spent cartridge ejectment outlet. The Hotchkiss fires fourteen hundred rounds a minute. Thought

and action came simultaneously. I pulled the trigger, pushing my right wrist against the outlet. The searing blast of whitehot gas snapped the rope. I yelled with pain as it scorched my wrist. At the same moment I threw full weight against

the harness to drag the double weapon down. A double stream of tracer-lighted lead arced through the sky, wide of the seaplane. I cut my fire, jamming my left knee against

the centre metal support of the gun to win control from Walter. The tracers flew wide of the plane in a golden orbit. Using all his strength, Walter swung the double weapon back round against my hold, sighting on the aircraft. The heavy bullets from the Spandau tore into its flimsy fuselage. The machine fluttered down towards
Aurora,
yawed wildly, passed almost between the big gantries of the factory ship, and fell into the sea beyond. The splash looked like the combined spout of a family of Blue Whales.

My hands were already at Walter's throat as he fought to get clear of his harness.
I
kicked his feet from under him as he fumbled. I was still held in the strait-jacket grip of the Hotchkiss harness. Walter fell, rolled, dragged himself on one elbow, pulling the Luger from his waistband. He raised the automatic to fire.

I
swivelled the twin interlocked muzzles to their maximum depression, fixed on Walter. Stark terror leapt into his face. I fired. The spray of bullets ripped into the deck plating, turning everything into a blinding hell of red-hot ricochets and noise.

Walter was
too
close. Even at maximum depression, the guns, although firing straight at him, could not reach down far enough. The stream of bullets was passing over him, the deck was shredded, but Walter was unharmed. He

launched himself forward under the swath of death, grabbed the silent Spandau by the chain which runs from its watercooler backwards, and swung the double weapon backwards so that the barrels pointed wildly skywards.
I
hung, off my feet, above the gut platform, looking at the
Antarctica.
The helicopter was rising from the flensing platform.
I
shouted insanely, impotently, at Helen. Walter raised the Luger and fired. Terror struck through me at what I saw below me.