the rocks of Cape Alarm, in which case there would be no pay'.
Now Levoisin was desperately eager to strike a daily hire contract,
including the ran from South America and the ferrying of survivors back
to civilization. He was offering his services at $10,000 a day, plus a
bonus Of 21/2% of any Salved value of the vessel. They were fair terms,
for Jules Levoisin had given up the shining dream of millions and he had
returned to reality.
However, Christy Marine, who had previously been offering a princely sum
for daily hire, had just as rapidly with drawn that offer.
We will accept Lloyd's Open Form, including ferrying of survivors/ they
declared on Channel 16.
Conditions on site have changed/ Jules Levoisin sent back, and the Trog
got another good fix on him.
We are head-reaching on him handsomely/ he Announced with satisfaction,
blinking his pink eyes rapidly while Nick marked the new relative
positions on the chart.
The bridge of Warlock was once again crowded with every officer who had
an excuse to be there. They were all in their working thick blue boiler
suits and heavy sea boots, bulked up with jerseys and balaclava helmets,
and they watched the plot with total fascination, arguing quietly among
themselves.
David Allen came in carrying a bundle of clothing. I've working rig for
you, sir. I borrowed it from the Chief Engineer. You are about the
same size. Does the Chief know? Nick asked.
Not exactly, I just borrowed it from his cabin Well done, David/ Nick
chuckled. Please put it in my day cabin. He felt himself warming more
and more to the younger Captain, sir/ the Trog sang out suddenly. I'm
getting another transmission. It's only strength one, and it's on 121,5
Mega Hertz. Oh, shit! David Allen paused in the entrance to the
Captain's day cabin. Oh, shit! he repeated, and his expression was
stricken. It's that bloody missing life-raft. 'Relative bearing!
snapped Nick angrily.
She bears 2800 relative and 045 magnetic/ the Trog answered instantly,
and Nick felt his anger flare again.
The life-raft was somewhere out on their port beam, eighty degrees off
their direct course to the Golden Adventurer.
The consternation on the bridge was carried in a babble of voices, that
Nick silenced with a single black glance and they stared at the plot in
dismayed hush.
The position of each of the tugs was flagged with a coloured pin and
there was another, a red flag, for the position of the Golden
Adventurer. It was so close ahead of them now, and their lead over La
Mouette so slender, that one of the younger officers could not remain
silent.
If we go to the raft, we'll be handing it to the bloody frog on a plate.
The words ended the restraint and they began to argue again, but in soft
controlled tones. Nick Berg did not look up at them, but remained bowed
over the chart, with his fist on the table-top bunched so fiercely that
the knuckles were ivory white.
Christ, they have probably all had it by now. We'd be throwing it all
away for a bunch of frozen stiffs. There is no telling how far off
course they are, those sets have a range of a hundred miles. La Mouette
will waltz away with it. We could pick them up later - after we put a
line on Golden Adventurer. Nick straightened slowly and took the
cheroot out of his mouth. He looked across at David Allen and spoke
levelly, without change of expression.
Number One, will you please instruct your junior officers in the rule of
the sea. David Allen was silent for a moment, then he answered softly
The preservation of human life at sea takes precedent over all other
considerations. Very well, Mr. Allen/ Nick nodded. Alter 8o to port
and maintain a homing course on the emergency transmission. He turned
away to his cabin. He could control his anger until he was alone, and
then he turned and crashed his fist into the panel above his desk.
Out on the navigation bridge behind him nobody spoke nor moved for fully
thirty seconds, then the Third Officer protested weakly.
But we are so close! David Allen roused himself, and spoke angrily to
the helmsman.
New course 045 magnetic. And as Warlock heeled to the change, he flung
the armful of clothing bitterly on to the chart-table and went to stand
beside the Trog.
Corrections for course to intercept? he asked.
Bring her on to 050V the Trog instructed, and then cackled without
mirth. First you call him an ice-water pisser - now you squeal like a
baby because he answers a Mayday. And David Allen was silent as the
Warlock turned away into the fog, every revolution of her big
variable-pitch propellers carrying her directly away from her prize, and
La Mouette's triumphant transmissions taunted them as the Frenchman
raced across the last of the open water that separated her from Cape
Alarm, bargaining furiously with the owners in London.
The fog seemed so thick that it could be chopped into chunks like
cheese. From the bridge it was not possible to see Warlock's tall bows.
Nick groped his way into it like a blind man in an unfamiliar room, and
all around him the ice pressed closely.
They were in the area of huge tabular icebergs again. The echoes of the
great ice islands flared green and malevolently on the radar screen and
the awful smell and taste of the ice was on every breath they drew.
Radio Officer? Nick asked tensely, without taking his eyes from the
swirling fog curtains ahead.
Still no contact/ the Trog answered, and Nick shuffled on his feet. The
fog had mesmerized him, and he felt the shift of vertigo in his head.
For a moment he had the illusion that his ship was listing heavily to
one side, almost as though it were a space vehicle. He forcibly
rejected the hallucination and stared fixedly ahead, tensing himself for
the first green loom of ice through the fog.
No contact for nearly an hour now/ David muttered beside him.
Either the battery on the DF has run down, or they have snagged ice and
sunk volunteered the Third Officer, raising his voice just enough for
Nick to hear.
or else their transmitter is blanketed by an iceberg/ Nick finished for
him, and there was silence on the bridge for another ten minutes, except
for the quietly requested changes of course that kept Warlock zigzagging
between the unseen but omnipresent icebergs.
All right, Nick made the decision at last. We'll have to accept that
the raft has floundered and break off the search., And there was a stir
of reawakening interest and enthusiasm. Pilot, new course to Golden
Adventurer, please, and we'll increase to fifty percent power. We could
still beat the frog. Again speculation and rising hope buoyed the young
officers. She could run into ice and have to reduce -'They wished
misfortune on La Mouette and her Captain, and even the ship beneath
Nick's feet seemed to regain its lightness and vibrancy as she turned
back for a last desperate run for the prize.
All right, David/ Nick spoke quietly. One thing is certain now, w
e
aren't going to reach the prize ahead of Levoisin. So we are going to
play our ace now -I he was about to elaborate, when the Trog's voice
squeaked with excitement.
New contact, on 121,5 he cried, and the dismay on the bridge was a
tangible thing.
Christ! said the Third Officer. Why won't they just lie down and die!
The transmission was blanked by that big berg north of us/ the Trog
guessed. They are close now. It won't take long., Just long enough to
make certain we miss the prize,, The berg was so big that it formed its
own weather system about it, causing eddies and currents of both air and
water, enough to stir the fog.
The fog opened like a theatre curtain, and directly ahead there was a
heart-stopping vista of green and blue ice, with darker strata of
glacial mud banding cliffs which disappeared into the higher layers of
fog above as though reaching to the very heavens. The sea had carved
majestic arches of ice and deep caverns from the foot of the cliff.
There they are! Nick snatched the binoculars from the canvas bin and
focused on the dark specks that stood out so clearly against the
backdrop of glowing ice.
No/ he grunted. Fifty emperor penguins formed a bunch on one of the
in the lens, they were deceptively humanoid.
Warlock passed them closely, and with sudden fright they dropped on to
their bellies and used their stubby wings to skid themselves across the
floe, and drop into the still and steaming waters below the cliff. The
floe eddied and swung on the disturbance of Warlock's passing.
Warlock nosed on through solid standing banks of fog and into abrupt
holes of clear air where the mirages and optical illusions of
Antarctica's flawed air maddened them with their inconsistencies,
turning flocks of penguins into herds of elephants or bands of waving
men, and placing in their path phantom rocks and bergs which disappeared
again swiftly as they approached.
The emergency transmissions from the raft faded and silenced, then
beeped again loudly into the silence of the bridge, and seconds later
were silent again.
God damn them/David swore quietly and bitterly, his cheeks pink with
frustration. Where the hell are they?
Why don't they put up a flare or a rocket? And nobody answered as
another white fog monster enveloped the ship, muting all sound aboard
her.
I'd like to try shaking them up with the horn, sir/ he said, as Warlock
burst once more into sparkling and blinding sunlight. Nick grunted
acquiescence without lowering his binoculars.
David reached up for the red-painted foghorn handle above his head, and
the deep booming blast of sound the characteristic voice of an
ocean-going salvage tug, reverberated through the fog, seeming to make
it quiver with the volume of the sound. The echoes came crashing back
off the ice cliffs of the bergs like the thunder of the skies.
Samantha held the solid-fuel. stove in her lap using the detachable
fibreglass lid of the locker as a tray. She was heating half a pint of
water in the Aluminium pannikin, balancing carefully against the
wallowing motion of the raft.
The blue flame of the stove lit the dim cavern of plastic and radiated a
feeble glow of warmth insufficient to sustain life. They were dying
already.
Gavin Stewart held his wife's head against his chest, and bowed his own
silver head over it. She had been dead for nearly two hours now, and
her body had already cooled, the face peaceful and waxen.
Samantha could not bear to look across at them, she crouched over the
stove and dropped a cube of beef into the water, stirring it slowly and
blinking against the tears of penetrating cold. She felt thin watery
mucus run down her nostrils and it required an effort to lift her -arm
and wipe it away on her sleeve. The beef tea was only a little above
blood warmth, but she could not waste ume and fuel on heating it
further.
The metal pannikin passed slowly from mittened hand to numbed and clumsy
hand. They slurped the warm liquid and passed it on reluctantly, though
there were some who had neither the strength nor the interest to take
it.
come on, Mrs. Goldberg, Samantha whispered painfully. The cold seemed to
have closed her throat, and the foul air under the canopy made her head
ache with grinding, throbbing pain. You must drink! Samantha touched
the woman's face, and cut herself off. The flesh had a puttylike
texture and was cooling swiftly. It took long minutes for the shock to
pass, then carefully Samantha pulled the hood of the old woman's parka
down over her face. Nobody else seemed to have noticed. They were all,
too far sunk into lethargy.
Here/whispered Samantha to the man beside her - and she pressed the
pannikin into his hands, folding his stiff fingers around the metal to
make certain he had hold of it.
drink it before it cools., The air around her seemed to tremble suddenly
with a great burst of sound, like the bellow of a dying bull, or the
rumble of cannon balls across the roof of the sky. For long moments,
Samantha thought her mind was playing tricks with her, and only when it
came again did she raise her head.
Oh God/she whispered. They've come. It's going to be all right.
as an old woman.
They've come. It's all right, gang, it's going to be all right/ she
mumbled, and she lit the globe on her Mejacket. In its pale glow, she
found the packet of phosphorus flares.
Come on now, gang. Let's hear it for Number 16. She tried to rouse
them as she struggled with the fastenings of the canopy. One more
cheer/ she whispered, but they were still and unresponsive, and as she
fumbled her way out into the freezing fog, the tears that ran down her
cheeks were not from the cold.
She looked up uncomprehendingly, it seemed that from the sky around her
tumbled gigantic cascades of ice, sheer sheets of translucent menacing
green ice. It took her moments to realize that the life raft had
drifted in close beneath the precipitous lee of a tabular berg. She
felt tiny and inconsequential beneath that ponderous mountain of brittle
glassy ice.
For what seemed an eternity, she stood, with her face lifted, staring
upwards -.then again the air resonated with the deep gut-shaking bellow
of the siren. It filled the swirling fog-banks with solid sound that
struck the cliff of ice above her and shattered into booming echoes,
that bounded from wall to wall and rang through the icy caverns and
crevices that split the surface of the great berg.
Samantha held aloft one of the phosphorus flares, and it required all
the strength of her frozen arm to rip the igniter tab. The flare
spluttered and streamed acrid white smoke, then burst into the dazzling
crimson fire that denotes distress at sea. She stood like a tiny statue
of liberty, holding the flare aloft in one
hand and peering with
streaming eyes into the sullen fog-banks.
Again the animal bellow of the siren boomed through the milky, frosted
air; it was so close that it shook Samantha's body the way the wind
moves the wheat on the hillside, then it went on to collide solidly with
the cliff of ice that hung above her.
The working of sea and wind, and the natural erosion of chancing
temperatures had set tremendous forces at work within the glittering
body of the berg. Those forces had found a weak point, a vertical fault
line, that ran like an axe-stroke from the flattened tableland of the
summit, five hundred feet down to the moulded bottom of the berg far
below the surface.
The booming sound waves of Warlock's horn found a sympathetic resonance
with the body of the mountain that set the ice on each side of the fault
vibrating in different frequencies.
Then the fault sheared, with a brittle cracking explosion of glass
bursting under pressure, and the fault opened. One hundred million tons
of ice began to move as it broke away from the mother berg. The block
of ice that the berg calved was in itself a mountain, a slab of solid
ice twice the size of Saint Paul's cathedral - and as it swung out and
twisted free, new pressures and forces came into play within it, finding
smaller faults and flaws so that ice burst within ice and tore itself
apart, as though dynamited with tons of high explosive.
The air itself was filled with hurtling ice, some pieces the size of a
locomotive and others as and as sharp and as deadly as steel swords; and
below this plunging toppling mass, the tiny yellow plastic raft bobbed
helplessly.
There/ called Nick. On the starboard beam. The phosphorus distress
flare lit the fog-banks internally with a fiery cherry red and threw
grotesque patterns of light against the belly of lurking cloud. David
Allen blew one last triumphant blast on the siren.
New heading 5 ,1, Nick told the helmsman and Warlock came around
handily, and almost instantly burst from the enveloping bank of fog into
another -arena of open air.
Half a mile away, the life-raft bobbed like a fat yellow toad beneath a
glassy green wall of ice. The top of the iceberg was lost in the fog
high above, and the tiny human figure that stood erect on the raft and
held aloft the brilliant crunson flue was an insignificant speck in this