A Grue Of Ice (30 page)

Pirow was jubilant. "The radio is undamaged. I'll show you. I'll fetch the batteries and aerial wire." He looked sid eways at Upton. " It's a long time since
Thorshammer
heard from the seaplane crew of hers. I'd better get on the air before the destroyer starts to lose heart and comes to Bouvet to keep her rendezvous with the catchers."

168

" And us," said Walter grimly.

" And us!" echoed Upton. " Three days until we leave!

You can string the destroyer along for that length of time, can't you, Carl? After that they can send a whole fleet to Bouvet, but they won't find us."

" Don't you think the catchers were watching us through their glasses?" I said. "They saw the whole business. They'll see us leave in the whaleboat, too."

" So what?" said Upton. " They dare not risk coming into the Bollevika anchorage because of the mines. Let them see us go! The weather's getting worse, and that'll hide us too. Clear weather is quite exceptional here—you know that, and I've read Kohler's reports."

" Yes," I said. " The same goes for Thompson Island."

" Don't try and fob me off before we ever get there," snarled Upton. " Fog or-no fog, storm or no storm, we sail in three days' time."

Pirow came back and connected the batteries and aerial, which he looped outside over a metal stay-rope. The light was going and the dimness added to the weird air inside the icelined walls as Pirow, imitating the seaplane crew, began his probing, tentative tapping on the radio. We all huddled round the stove, except Walter, who stood far enough away to prevent Sailhardy or me from tackling him. Helen, half propped up among her blankets and
a
sleeping-bag, looked graved and troubled.

The faltering weak signal went out from the long fingers.

Again, I had to admire the uncanny skill of The Man with the Immaculate Hand. He clicked over the transmitting switch, paused, listened ; his fingers fiddled almost like separate thinking entities among the dials.

" Is
Thorshammer
answering?" Upton asked. Pirow waved him silent. The yellow light of the kerosene burners, hollowing his eye-sockets, sketched his remoteness from our group. Suddenly he stiffened, his left hand reaching automatically for the switch, the right for the transmitting key. His next signal faltered more than the first.

Then he smiled and broke the tension.
"Tharshammer
says, keep that key down—keep keying! She wants a fix!

She must get a fix to establish the life-raft's position!"

" Are you sure you gave her enough?" Upton asked. Pirow ignored him, but dummy-tapped with the key

switched off, smiling at me.

169

" QQQ . . . QQQ . .I am being attacked . ."

"
That is enough,
is
it not, Herr Kapital? Only three letters."

I got up and strode outside. The tension in the roverhullet, Upton's over-bright eyes, the agony in Helen's and the barbaric Walter brandishing the automatic pistol, had got me down. It was bitterly cold on the tiny plateau before the hut. Sunset saw-edged the west. I focused my powerful glasses on the catchers' silhouettes. Yes, there they were, lights on,
Crozet's
reflecting from the iceberg to which she was moored. There was a frightening immensity of silence. There was a fresh breeze, gusting up to about twenty-five knots, I reckoned, but still the storm from the south-west had been far longer in coming than either Sailhardy or I had anticipated. It would accordingly be the worse when it did come. Thinking of the whaleboat's chances in the great seas, I shuddered: Upton's plan seemed more insane than ever.

Next morning Upton woke us early. We had all slept round the stove, Upton, Pirow and Walter taking shifts to stand guard. We had broken open cases of stores and Sailhardy had prepared a meal, which we had eaten by the light of lanterns from the store-room. Helen looked tired and fell into a broken sleep. In the middle of night there had been a sound which

had seemed to me like the glacier falling on the roverhullet, but it had in fact been only the inner coating of ice on the walls crashing down. When Upton called next morning, the room was warm and comfortable.

" We're going to strip some big pieces of aluminium off the helicopter and take them down to the beach," he said decisively. " That should take us the best part of to-day. To-morrow Sailhardy and Wetherby will half-deck the boat while the rest of us get supplies down to the beach. On the third day we sail."

Some of my previous night's introversion
was
with me still when I thought of the puny boat and the great seas. " Weather permitting," I added.

" Weather or no weather," he replied. "You can make up your mind about that."

" And we sail down the channel into the waiting arms of the catchers," I went on.

Upton laughed. " Come, Wetherby. You're not as dumb as that."

So he had not missed the other ice-leads to the north and north-east.

170

Helen interrupted. "
I'm
helping Bruce and Sailhardy. It is my helicopter, after all."

I could not see how Sailhardy and I were
to
carry big sheets of aluminium down the cliff-side, especially in the

wind. We would be snatched off the pathway before we had

gone five hundred feet. There was also the problem of negotiating the ladder section.

I started to object, but Upton stopped me. "
You
obviously haven't taken a close look at the stores. The Norwegians

brought a winch up here with them. They must have hauled

the sections of the hut up with it. There's enough rope to

rig a windjammer. Here is some, already thawing."

Two big coils lay close to the fire and the film of ice was melting.

Upton went on: "You'll also see that Christensen's men drilled some bolt-holes in the rock. A few sheets of light metal won't be any worry "

He was right. After Sailhardy and I, using ice-axes
to
prise loose the rivets, had stripped off several large sheets from the helicopter to deck the bow and the stern of the

whaleboat, it became obvious it would be simplicity itself to lover them down the cliff face by hand, without resorting to the winch, which Walter was busy rigging, while Upton kept watch with the Schmeisser. Helen was shaky when we began, but seemed to pick up her strength as the day progressed. By mid-afternoon we had ripped the metal skin from a large undamaged section to the rear of the cockpit and had stacked it ready for lowering to the beach next day. I had seen Helen smile for the first time since landing on Bouvet when Sailhardy insisted on chopping loose her seat in the cockpit and putting it in front of the fire in the roverhullet. Either Walter or Upton had kept guard from the front of the hut while we

worked, and Pirow had occupied himself with the radio and preparing meals. There was not only quantity among the stores, but a wide variety which would have kept a marooned party from boredom for months. When Sailhardy, Helen and I

returned to the roverhullet for our midday meal, Upton had selected and stacked a pile of cases to provision the whaleboat. The were also a couple of alpine-type light-weight stoves to heat things in the boat. To me the cases looked

woefully few. Upton had asked Sailhardy how long it would

take to sail the forty-five miles from Bouvet to Thompson

Island. The islander replied that it had usually taken about four hours
to
cover the eighteen miles from Tristan to 171

Nightingale—perhaps a day to a day-and-a-half's hard sailing to Thompson. The wind and run of the sea would be behind

us. Knowing there would be no Thompson Island, I had persuaded Upton to take supplies for about ten days, which I considered might be enough if we had to beat back to Bouvet in the teeth of the gale. We were also taking the helicopter's radio and my hope was that after a week in the whaleboat in a blow, everyone would be only too glad to surrender themselves to
Thorshammer—if
we could locate her, or she us. The project seemed riskier, whatever way I thought about it.

Sailhardy wrenched the last sheet of metal skin loose from the helicopter. He smiled at Helen. " Well,
ma'am,
I suppose it's better than using sea-elephant hide to half deck the boat with."

She mocked him gently. " So that's what you had in mind for your epic voyage from Bouvet to the Cape!"

I really think that Sailhardy was sold on the idea—if only as
a
thought—of making the voyage to the Cape. He was serious immediately. " You must not forget, ma'am, that on Tristan, the first, and maybe some of the beet whaleboats were made of sea-elephant hide stretched over wooden ribs. Three or four sea elephants would give us enough hide to do the job."

" Where do you propose to find sea elephants on Bouvet?" she asked.

He pointed
at
the blockhouse shape of a small island which lay at the southern entrance to Bollevika. " I'd bet you, ma'

am, that you'd find some there."

" There aren't any animals on Bouvet!" she exclaimed. " Or insects. Or plants."

" You're wrong, ma'am," he replied. "If you look hard, you'll see penguins on that little island. I smelt them as we came in. I'm sure there are seals round on the sheltered side of the island." He waved his hand beyond the glacier.

" If we are very lucky, we might see a Ross seal—they're supposed to breed on Bouvet," I said. " It is the most beautiful creature in the Southern Ocean, and its eyes are quite wonderfully affectionate."

Helen laughed again. " How you two stick up for your Southern Ocean in every way!"

Sailhardy was carried away. " If there are Adelie penguins down there, ma'am, then I don't need Bruce for a navigator. The Adelie is the best pilot in the Antarctic. We on Tristan

172

know he steers by the stars and the sun, and if I were making for Cape Town, he'd be the pilot I would choose."

She shook her head, but I backed Sailhardy. " The Americans down at McMurdo Sound thought the Adelie's navigation was just one of those stories. They carried out a test. They ringed and marked five Adelies and flew them two thousand miles away. A year later the five walked back into their rookery at McMurdo. Don't laugh!"

Sailhardy touched her leopard-seal coat. " That
is
the creature you want to be afraid of, ma'am. He's wicked, through and through. He's the colour of dirty snow and his head looks like a huge snake's."

" I don't want to hear any more," she smiled. " You've convinced me. The job's done and we can't move anything until to-morrow. I want Bruce to take me for
a
walk up the glacier slope."

" I'll put this sheet on the pile, then, and get both of you some crampons and an ice-axe," replied Sailhardy. He looked up the long incline, scattered here and there with boulders cemented into the ice. " You won't be able to go far up, ma'am."

" I don't want
to
go far," she replied. " All I want to do is to get away from this feeling of being watched all the time. Will you tell that oaf with gun?"

Sailhardy grinned and went off. Helen pulled back the hood from her hair. In the pale sun it was golden.

" Bruce," she said when the islander was out of earshot, " all this has a dreadful inevitableness about it. No one seems to be doing anything."

I nodded towards Walter. " That automatic pistol would cut anyone in half with a burst. We must pretend to fall in with the idea of leaving the island, under pressure."

"For God's sake! Not here—they might hear you!" she said. " Thompson Island . . ."

" Yes," I replied. " I want to talk to you about Thompson Island. Up there, where no one can possibly hear."

Sailhardy returned with an ice-axe for me and crampons for our shoes. He started to be jocular, but he too lapsed

into silence when he saw our faces. Not speaking, Helen and I trekked up the slope. Above us towered the massive cone of the Christensen glacier. A rag of cloud about the peak made me uneasy about the storm which had been so tardy in

coming. There was a bank of low cloud against the sun, and

I wondered if the reason for the relatively light wind so far 173

from the south-west meant a blow not from that quarter but from the north-west. A north-westerly cyclone meant a heavy swell from the same direction, which would throw up a tumbled sea to make our voyage to Thompson Island all the more hazardous ; worst of all, however, would be the low cloud and poor visibility which went with it.

About half a mile above the roverhullet, Helen and I found our further path blocked by a face of ice which rose for about two hundred feet sheer. We leaned against a big rock. I handed her my glasses. The view was stupendous. She studied the catchers for a long time, and then cased the whole quadrant of sea and ice to the north-west, the north and the north-east, until her view was obstructed by the glacier.

" Looking for Thompson Island?" I joked.

She dropped the binoculars to the length of their lanyard. She gestured to the north-east. " It's not there, is it, Bruce, despite the chart?"

" No," I said. " It's not there at all. You could not see it in its real position, from here, even if it were clear. The glacier is in the way."