A Grue Of Ice (25 page)

roll them to their doom once they got outside the protection of the icefield, which damped down the great rollers of the Westerlies. Each ship had a white square on its black funnel on which was painted its name, and to the inexperienced eye all four might have been cut from the same matrix—the flared bows, the canvas-enclosed bridge, the big steam pipe running up and round the funnel, the heavy foremast with

a 'crow's-nest,
the long, low platform aft like a frigate's depth-charge platform. To a whalerman's eye, however, they

were as individual as those of us who made up the marching party. On the march, Upton had given no more trouble. He

had pulled his blue hood over his head and all we could see from behind was the hunch of his shoulders.

As we paused for a breather before making the last leg to

the catchers, Pirow fell back alongside me. The greyness had not passed out of his face, and he spoke low and agitatedly, so that Reidar Bull behind could not hear.

" Herr Kapitan! " he said. " Where is the rendezvous with
the
destroyer—with
Thorshammer?"

I was puzzled at his tone. " Why, at Bouvet," I said. " You know that already."

" Yes," he said quickly. "
But
where? Off the island, or where?"

141

" There's only one anchorage—in the south-west, at

Bollevika. That is the rendezvous."

He took my arm, as if to steady himself.

" What is it, man?" I asked, he appeared so agitated.

" The
Meteor
mined the approaches to the anchorage and Bollevika itself," he said.

10.
Bouvet

Pirow's words released in me a wave of depression which had been mounting ever since my unspoken farewell to Helen. Along the march, the image of that lonely figure in her sealeopard coat had returned again and again. Always, however, to my mind's eye rose those strange eyes which, I was able

to tell myself now, had come alive and vital—she had said

it herself—through me. In seeking The Albatross' Foot, I, like Saul, had gone in search of asses and found instead
a
kingdom. Now the full reaction of that empty farewell set in. I knew, as I considered the prospect before me, that there would be little chance of meeting her again. Reidar Bull had made it quite clear that, although not a prisoner like ourselves, she would not be free to come and go. If she disobeyed Reidar Bull and stayed at the
Antarctica,
she was courting disaster ; if she could locate
Thorshammer,
she could fly to the destroyer and tell her story—but would they believe her any more than Reidar Bull and the others did? The fact that she was Upton's own daughter made her suspect. The

thought of my own future brought me despair: as far
as
the Royal Society was concerned, I was probably done for.

Mere suspicion of what I was supposed to have done would

be enough for that august body to finish with me—and The Albatross' Foot. In the light of what had happened, it would appear as if the whole story of The Albatross' Foot had been simply a cover for dubious activities in the Southern Ocean along with Upton and his gang. What action would
Thors-
hammer
take. when Reidar Bull handed us over, as he had every intention of doing? I could not see Pirow's deception about the seaplane crew being more than a temporary red

herring. Short of Walter confessing, I could see no way out. Upton, Walter and Pirow's crime was an infringement of Norwegian waters—mine was murder, if things went the way they were going. The thought of Helen waiting for me to

142

become conscious after I had fallen off the Spandau-Hotchkiss into the sea, and the strange, deep look in her eyes when I told her what had really happened, made my prospects more agonising. She believed me ; Sailhardy believed me ; but the events which had enmeshed me in shooting down the seaplane

were as complex as those which had brought me to Bouvet, doorway to Thompson Island.

Automatically
I
felt for my sextant case, which
I
had hung from my belt. Inside that sextant case lay the secret

of the whereabouts of Thompson Island. It was no more than a notch on the vernier, the scale for reading the altitude of the sun and stars. It would mean nothing, in someone else's hands. I intended Thompson Island to stay unknown.

The frost crackled on my gloves as I crunched them together. The four catchers lay off the ice-edge, steam rising from their funnels like frost-smoke. Had I only known that Kohler had mined the approaches to Bouvet, I might have caught him months earlier. I had sent a damaged ship to anchor temporarily at Bouvet—and all I had heard from her

again was
a
stifled, desperate message: " Underwater explosion ..." and then no more. A day later another merchantman had been sunk a thousand miles away and I had rushed off on
a
wild goose chase.
I
had assumed from the two widely separated sinkings that Kohler was working with a U-boat in my waters. Now I knew it was a mine. One might,
I
suppose, call Bollevika an anchorage, but really there's scarcely any holding ground for an anchor: Lars Christen'

sen's ship, under the most favourable conditions, had had to steam backwards and forwards slowly for a whole month waiting for the shore party to return, since she was unable to obtain anchorage at Bollevika, which lies open to the gales and seas which sweep in endlessly from the south-west quarter.

Pirow must have wondered from my long silence if
I
d i s b e l i e v e d h i m , f o r h e w e n t o n q u i c k l y : " T h e H e r r Kapitan Kohler mined the South African coast as far as the hundred-fathom line.
Meteor
carried ninety-five mines. We used eighty off South Africa. Then we came to Bouvet. We

used the other fifteen at Bouvet."

" We must tell the skippers right away,"
I
said. " God!

Fifteen sea-mines in the Bollevika anchorage!"

"Yes, Herr Kapitan," he said sombrely. " And you know what the approaches will be like."

"
I
haven't been closer than twenty miles, but
I
can guess," 143

I said. When I had seen Bollevika, the icebergs made a belt round the island, broken here and there by zigzag open leads of water. Heaven help the crew of any ship mined under those conditions, I thought. What would be the consequences if it happened to be
Thorshammer?

"
Reidar Bull!" I called. " Come here!" The big Norwegian, suspicious and with the Schmeisser at the ready, came across to us. I outlined what Pirow had told me.

Reidar Bull's reaction took me unawares. " Christ!" he exclaimed angrily. " Must I now be frightened by some bloody fairy-story about mines which you two naval types c o n c o c t ? H a n s s e n ! B r u n v o l l ! " T h e o t h e r s j o i n e d u s . " Listen to this. We mustn't keep the rendezvous at Bouvet because—so our German friend now tells us—his ship mined t h e a p p r o a c h e s t o B o l l e v i k a d u r i n g t h e w a r ! I s a y —

nonsense!"

" It is true," retorted Pirow angrily. " There are fifteen deep-sea contact mines."

Lars Brunvoll's temper had not improved with the long hike across the ice. " So the first person you run to tell is the English captain, heh? Is he in command of this party? Why must he know first, heh?"

" Because it is a scare-story they have thought up between themselves," said Reidar Bull. " I don't believe a word of it." Hanssen grinned. " We don't need to believe or disbelieve, Reidar Bull. We can prove it quite easily."

" What do you mean?" asked Bull.

" Let us send
Aurora
on ahead of our own ships," he said. " If Pirow's story is a lie, which I think it is, then no harm will come of it. If it is not . . ." he shrugged—" it is just too bad. Good riddance, I say."

Pirow was as white as the moment he had come on the factory ship's bridge and saw the blue icefield. " I was there —

I know the place is mined!" he exclaimed. " Don't be such damned fools!"

" These men are as slippery as the Great Ice Barrier," interrupted Brunvoll. " We may be damned fools, but we are not criminal maniacs," he went on. " Yes, send
Aurora
in
with the lot of them aboard, and we'll see what happens. If she blows up, our own ships will still be safe."

" Aye," said Reidar Bull. " But I won't send
Aurora's
crew. They had no hand in it."

" Easy," said Hanssen. " If we sail to-night, we can be off Bouvet to-morrow morning. We'll transfer
Aurora's
crew 144

at the approaches. She won't need a full crew to take her in. Walter can manage the engines for a couple of miles. Captain Wetherby will find no problems in sailing a ship."

" I don't like the idea of letting Captain Wetherby have a ship," grumbled Brunvoll. " Anything can happen—a squall, a patch of fog, and—poof—when we look, the sea will be empty and
Aurora
will have disappeared. If anyone needs to be guarded, it is the English captain."

" We'll guard him all right," said Hanssen with a grim smile. " We'll unship that hellish gun on
Aurora.
I'll have it rigged forward on my harpoon platform. It'll only take a couple of hours.
Kerguelen
can sail maybe half a mile astern of
Aurora
as we approach the Bollevika anchorage. If any tricks are played, they'll get a double stream of lead—

the way the seaplane did."

It was no use arguing with' men in their savage mood. I

turned to Pirow. " Can you remember—even vaguely—

how Captain Kohler mined Bollevika? Did he lay a definite pattern, taking a bearing on something ashore?* Was it a regular line? Have you any idea at what intervals
Meteor
dropped the mines overboard?"

Pirow shuddered. " No, but I remember how Herr Kapitan Kohler laughed after we had mined the Agulhas Bank, off

South Africa. We came close inshore towards a big lighthouse, which the fools had left burning—in wartime! We started mining from the hundred-fathom mark, and zigzagged shorewards. ' If anyone ever finds the plot of these mines, it is more than I would know,' Captain Kohler said. He did the

same at Bouvet. The mines were also set to float at any depth."

I was not as concerned as Pirow. I knew that Kohler must

have used the German " Y " type mine, which was fitted with a self-destroying device should it break loose. To lay his mines deep, as he must have done at Bouvet and off South Africa, he also must have used a very light mooring-wire, and the odds were that Bouvet's heavy seas had since loosened the moorings, and that the mines had destroyed themselves. My mind raced ahead: if I could get hold of
Aurora . . .
but I would want Sailhardy and his whaleboat.

I looked at the islander. " You hear what Pirow says, Sailhardy. I can't ask you to come, in the face of that. I'd like your boat, though."

Sailhardy smiled faintly. " Were they Y' type mines,

Bruce ?"

145

" Yes," I answered. The skippers looked suspicious. Mines and mining were above their heads.

" I'd come, even if they weren't," he replied.

Reidar Bull shook his head. " I don't like a man going just because of his captain."

" There's no need to worry about me if
Aurora
strikes a '

mine," replied Sailhardy. " The man you should have on your conscience right now is Captain Wetherby. He did not shoot down the plane."

Brunvoll was unimpressed. "I'll follow your
Kerguelen
into Bollevika, Hanssen. We must all take bearings and check
Aurora's
course—we don't want to be mined ourselves through carelessness."

" We could send the helicopter in ahead as a spotter . . ." began Reidar Bull.

" Leave Miss Upton out of this," I said roughly. " You bastards are very fond, it seems, of playing around with other people's lives while you sit safe on your arses. I know what Bouvet weather can be fog, gales, high seas, damn-all visibility. Leave her out of it, I say! You couldn't spot a mine moored at depth from a helicopter anyway, and

particularly in these seas."

" It is strange to see a man who can get behind a gun and kill like you have done, becoming so concerned over anyone," sneered Reidar Bull. " You shouldn't keep your soft side for women only."

I had to see Helen again. Reidar's Bull's remark brought home how curiously she had come to be allied in my own mind with the Southern Ocean. Twenty years previously, on a night as wild as the Creation, I had taken my squadron of warships past Cape Horn into the Drake Passage and its mountainous seas. La Mer—I could not think of it without hearing Trenet's voice singing the song of that name. Now the wild threnody sobbed at some inner part of me when I thought of our unspoken farewell. At the moment,
Meteor's
mines seemed unimportant beside my wish to see her.

Helen's face was before my mind's eye. " I couldn't give
a
seal's burp for your plan to save your skins and make us into a lot of guinea-pigs," I said harshly. " I'll take
Aurora
in. But only if you let me see Miss Upton again before we sail." I turned on Pirow. " Pull yourself together, man. If we strike a mine, you won't know what hit you, anyway."