A Grue Of Ice (4 page)

wings.

Sailhardy was shouting and grinning. There was a ragged

hole in his mouth where a tooth had been knocked out.

" Island Cock!" he yelled. " Luck! It's as old as the D o d o ! T h e w i n d b l e w i t c l e a n o f f t h e i s l a n d ! L u c k y !

Lucky!"

Lucky! We would need every bit of luck, I thought

grimly, looking around. The bird's over-size talons gripped the gratings. The Flightless Rail, the bird that can't fly and lives in burrows in the ground. It's in the same category as the New Zealand kiwi. I had no interest in ornithological curiosities at that moment.

Sailhardy began his run in for the beach. At the base of a

thousand-foot cliff I could see the off-white streak of broken shingle which passes by the name of beach in these waters.

He shouted, and I shifted the rag of sail. The whaleboat slewed to port. There was more drift on her now. Sailhardy fought to keep her head up into the gale. Water poured

24

over the side. I baled. The pitch-black bird moved his grip and glared unwinkingly at me with his drunk's eyes.

Sailhardy shouted something, and indicated the sail. The wind blew his words away, but I knew what he meant. Either he had funked it, or there was some danger I was not aware of. He intended to go about! I flicked the sail free. The whaleboat began her next sickening plunge.

Then it was quiet.

On every hand was the evidence of the gale's dissoluteness. From the low level of the boat the sea was a terrifying sight. Suds and spume lay six inches deep on the jerking surface of the water. Nightingale Island soared, appeared, and disappeared
as
the waves obstructed our view.

It was quiet.

I heard the aircraft engine overhead.

2.
The Whale-Spotter

The engine coughed. The sound was as incongruous as the presence of the hovering helicopter. Tristan is too remote from the world ever to have seen an aircraft ; the South African Air Force men I took to the island during the war were not fliers, but radio personnel.

" Helicopter!" I exclaimed. " Where the hell it comes from, though, I wouldn't know."

Sailhardy's strong hands were on the tiller. He guided the boat through the next crest before replying. " The main body of the storm isn't here yet," he said. " If it was, that helicopter would be blown from here to Bouvet."

The black machine, its fat belly emphasised by orange paint, came closer. The colours gave it away: black and red, seen easiest against the ice. She was intended to operate over ice.

" She's a whale-spotter," I said.

Sailhardy jerked his head upwards. " I'd say it was fairly calm still at five thousand feet. Won't be for long, though."

" That's a damn brave pilot," I said. " I wouldn't care to fly in this lot, even if it is clearer farther up." The helicopter manoeuvred. It was clear it had not seen

the whaleboat.

" She's searching," I said, puzzled. " It can't be for whales. 25

No factory-ship skipper would fly off an aircraft in weather like this."

Sailhardy was anxious. " Any moment the storm will hit us. Then I don't give a fig for our chances or the helicopter's." The machine's movement became decisive. She started to

drop towards the whaleboat. The pilot had seen us.

1

" It couldn't be searching for us," I started to say. "There were no ships at Tristan when we left the anchorage this morning."

Sailhardy reached out and scratched the head of the strange bird. " Whatever that aircraft is about, this chick certainly brought us luck," he smiled.

" We haven't been rescued yet," I said. "Look at the sea. It's one thing to have a helicopter overhead, and another to pull you up from a swell like this."

He nodded. " We're rising and falling forty feet at
a
time," he said. " I reckon it can't be done." As if to refute him, the machine came down with a rush

directly over our heads. Its rotors drowned speech. From a

winch on its side, a rope snaked down. The pilot's judgement was superb. The rope was about three feet above

the boat but slightly to one side. Before I had time to grab it, we nose-dived into the trough. The helicopter waited. We shot upwards with the next sea. My heart was in my mouth.
I
thought the sea would touch the Westland. I saw the pilot behind perspex. There was a rapid movement of the controls. The machine edged out of reach.

The pilot waited his moment. So did Sailhardy. The

whaleboat rose. The line snaked again. It hit one of the thwarts with a thump. I grabbed, missed, and something rushed past me. A flutter was all
I
was aware of. Sailhardy burst out laughing. Up our lifeline was clambering, foot over foot, the Island Cock. With remarkable speed he reached the helicopter window and dived in.

The Westland was snatched away by a gust of wind.
It
missed us by about fifty yards on the next run.

Sailhardy watched the south-west with growing concern " It hopeless," he shouted as the machine roared overhead again.

H e w a s w r o n g . T h e p i l o t w a s r e a l l y g o o d . T h e l i n e clatter aboard. I snatched it, but Sailhardy knocked my hand away. The boat yawed wildly.

" What the hell . .." I began. 26

" I t ' l l t e a r y o u i n h a l f , i f y o u e v e n m a n a g e t o g e t i t around you," he replied. " The jerk as it lifts will be too much. Before they get you aboard, you'll be dead."

" It's our only chance," I retorted heatedly. " We can't make the beach."

The machine came right down low this time, without

making any attempt to drop a line. A man with a megaphone shouted at us: " Don't you want to be rescued?"

I left it to Sailhardy. His gale-cheating modulation would

be audible. " Too risky," he yelled. " Cut a man in half." The helicopter rose steeply, as if in disgust. At the top of a wave Sailhardy took a sweeping glance at the southwest. He pointed the boat's nose at Nightingale.

" It's coming up quickly," he said. " The beach is our only chance. Get that sail up—quick!"

As the whaleboat gathered way, the helicopter dropped right down over us. The window opened again. " Get that mast down!" shouted the voice. It sounded slightly foreign. " Co-operate! We're taking the whole boat for a buggy-ride." I knocked out the wooden wedge holding the mast and thrust it under the thwart. To me anything seemed better than the break for the beach. Sailhardy shrugged. This time a second rope dropped from the rear cabin window, in addition to the one from the winch. I saw what was intended. The two ropes would have to be secured within seconds as the craft of the air and the craft of the sea came together—if their respective pilots could achieve that hair'sbreadth synchronisation. Sailhardy's lean brown hands on the tiller seemed to move almost in advance of his eyes, which searched for an easier patch, a less broken wave-top.

We rose. The helicopter hovered at an angle to our drift. At the very top of the crest, his hands tugged at the worn tiller ropes and laid the boat beam-on. She hung uncertainly, and he held her there. She did not take the next plunge, which would have torn us from the rescuers. The pilot's reaction was equally swift. He dropped to within fifteen feet. One rope fell aft and the other forward of the mast. I whipped mine round the metal skid of the foresail with a running knot. I couldn't see what Sailhardy was about, but if he did not succeed, the whaleboat would be upended at the next lift by the very rope I had secured, and both of us would be emptied into the water. The bow started to lift. Sailhardy's reaction times were incredible. In the few 27

brief seconds the rope had lain within his reach, he had slipped it round the odd tiller plank which projects athwartships on all Tristan whaleboats.

The wave dropped away. There was no sickening plunge

as before. The boat was airborne.

The pilot lifted the helicopter gently. The weight of the suspended whaleboat seemed to steady it, like a bee carrying a pebble pulled level with the bow. The pilot was working his winches with the same nicety of judgement he had shown in the rescue. The boat was drawn towards the aluminium belly. Within a couple of feet, the winches stopped and a window opened. We climbed through.

A hand steadied me through the entrance. The interior

was in maroon quilting, dark as the storm in the south-west. " Welcome aboard, Herr Kapitan," said the man.

I should have remembered the cocksureness, and the slight sneer of the Germanic gutturals. His hair was blond and over-long. The steadying grip, too—that wasn't learned anywhere except in bringing a man over the side—the side of a ship, not an aircraft.

" Thank you," I said. " It was a magnificent piece of rescue work."

He shrugged and nodded forward to the cockpit. " Not

me to thank," he said. " Up there."

I parted the quilting and stood behind the pilot's seat. Tiny beads of sweat lay on the leather shoulders of the flying suit. The pilot did not look round. The Island Cock was perched on the compass mounting, gripping it with its oversize talons. I saw a pair of eyes in the rear-view mirror above the

bird's perch.

They were a woman's eyes.

Women simply don't exist in the Southern Ocean. They have been known, like black icebergs. There are, it is true women's names in Antarctica—Marie Byrd Land, Edith

Ronne Land, Sabrina Coast. But the women were not there. They were at home.

I could not credit what I saw. I stepped forward, the thanks dying on my lips in surprise. I looked look at her, the face framed by the black leather helmet and its intercom wires. The eyes were the strangest and the most beautiful I had ever seen. They were the colour of the sea, I thought. Later, I knew they were not. Like the South African flower which ha

g no colour in itself, but takes its turquoise from the

28

refraction of white light within its own heart, so hers reflected what she was seeing—the sea, and the angry storm. The pupils were, like the central spot of that same strange flower, almost green-black by virtue of some other intriguing juxtaposition of fabric and light.

" Please take that bird off the compass," she said. " be flying on instruments alone in a moment."

The modulation in Sailhardy's voice was an acquired

control. I felt the same about hers. Why, I could not guess. I gripped a metal stay with one hand and prised the bird

off the compass. She looked past me, weighing up the storm. I was at a complete loss. " This bird is terribly lucky . . ." I started to say.

" There is no such thing," she replied. " Judgment is everything."

" To pick us up like that—your judgment was spot-on," I said.

Her eyes looked at the sea, and through them the sea looked back at me. There was no warmth in them. " So was your boatman's," she replied.

" Sailhardy and I are most grateful."

" Sailhardy!" she said. " What a name! You can practically smell tar in the rigging." Sailhardy balanced himself with his sailor's grace in the

small cabin. She turned to him. " You know these waters well?"

" I do, ma'am," he replied.

What are our chances against that lot?"

The islander shrugged. " It depends—on you, ma'am."

" Carl!" she called. He came through to the cockpit. " What's it like back there in the anchorage? What does the

factory ship say?"

" Starting to roll. Like a drunken fiddler's bitch."

" That's what I thought," she said. She jerked her head towards me. " Captain Wetherby. Carl Pirow, radio operator. Oh—

and Sailhardy. Boatman."

Her staccato, offhand manner grated on me.

" We're now all known to one another—except one," said.

" Helen Upton," she said, as if it were no more important than the piece of metal she held in her hand. " Whale-spotter." She craned forward. " What is that over there—about two hundred and seventy degrees? Inaccessible Island?"

" Yes, ma'am," replied Sailhardy.

29

" Thank you, Sailhardy," she said. She looked at him for the first time. " Sailhardy—what? Obviously the Royal Navy wants formal introductions."

" That's all, ma'am," he replied. " Just Sailhardy." " You must have a surname," she said.

" Sailhardy—no more," replied the islander.

She shrugged. " It's enough, I suppose."

His eyes shifted, embarrassed, away from hers to the horizon. He stiffened. " Ship!" he exclaimed. He screwed up his eyes. " A small one. Maybe a catcher."

" Your eyes are as good as your boatmanship," she said. That's praise indeed from Helen Upton, I thought. She was

as
impersonal as the instruments around her.

" It must be one of them making for the rendezvous," said Pirow.

" See if you can get her on the blower, Carl," she said. " Ask where the others are."

To me, the horizon was blank. " I don't see
a
thing," I said.

She pulled my arm and pointed. Her heavy woollen

sweater did not smell bitter of sheep grease, like a man's, but there was that curious, shut-off mustiness which all garments acquire in the South. The setting sun dyed the onrushing banks of cloud. Against them,, Inaccessible Island took on an even more sinister air. Its flat, black silhouette seemed to cower away from the coming onslaught. By contrast, Nightingale's cliffs were splashed with great patches of early summer pelargoniums, incongruously bright in the last light. I saw no ship. Then I caught what might have been the flash of a tunny's dorsal fin—or a catcher.