The Killing Ship

by Simon Beaufort

  ‘Me?’ asked Joshi uneasily. ‘With you? Have you done this before? I know Graham has.’

  Berrister could only suppose that his obsession with safety had given Joshi the impression that he didn’t know what he was doing. Mortimer hastened to reassure him.

  ‘You’ll be fine with him, Joshi – just do what he tells you. Now, it’s six-thirty. Everyone should look up at the scarp on the hour, every hour. If Lisa has her arms at her sides, it means the others have come home. If she holds them over her head, it means keep looking. Any questions?’

  There were none, so they took their leave of the camp. Graham shot up the steep slope like a gazelle, Joshi hot on his heels with Sarah, while Berrister brought up the rear. It was markedly colder than it had been earlier, and the sky was a dull, leaden grey. The wind had picked up, too, and seemed to blow straight into their faces. It slowed Berrister down, especially when combined with the heavy pack he was carrying.

  By the time they reached the top, his legs were shaking from fatigue. Graham barely gave him time to catch his breath before beginning the descent. Joshi shot past them, trying to be first, and Berrister yelled at him to slow down. Joshi ignored him, then caught his foot on a rock and took a long tumble.

  ‘For God’s sake!’ snapped Berrister, hauling the student to his feet. ‘We can’t be ferrying you back to the camp with a broken leg – not when Dan and Freddy might need us.’

  But Joshi barely heard him. He was gazing at something in his hand – a dirty brown hat that might have gone unnoticed if he had not been face down on the ground.

  ‘This is Freddy’s,’ he said in a cracked voice.

  Berrister and Sarah exchanged a glance: the hat was Freddy’s good luck charm, and the fact that he was parted from it did not bode well. Berrister shoved it in his pocket without a word.

  ‘Which rock did Dan say he wanted to examine?’ he asked Joshi. ‘Not the one by that fresh ice fall – the one surrounded by water?’

  Swallowing hard, Joshi nodded. ‘It isn’t surrounded when the tide’s out.’

  ‘That ice wasn’t there earlier,’ said Graham unnecessarily. ‘Maybe you were right, Andrew – maybe those snaps were the sounds of it shearing off.’

  They struggled along the shore, keeping as far away from the towering cliffs as possible, all acutely aware of the danger of another fall. They reached the rock, where Berrister removed his boots and tugged on a pair of waders instead.

  ‘Tie this around you,’ said Graham, pulling a rope from the rucksack. ‘Then if you fall, we can pull you back.’

  Berrister waded into the surf. The cold penetrated the thin boots immediately, and a sudden, agonising ache told him they leaked. The water soon reached his waist. The rock, when he reached it, was wet and slippery, making it difficult to get a good grip. Eventually, he managed, and had almost reached the top, when part of it came away in his hand. He began to slide back down into the icy water.

  Garik snored softly on the bridge. Had Hasim not been there, hovering possessively, Yablokov would have woken him and suggested he nap in his cabin, as it was hardly edifying for the captain to sleep on duty. Garik grunted and settled himself more comfortably. The two Norwegian officers exchanged a smirk, but stopped when Yablokov glared at them.

  Yablokov smothered a sigh. He appreciated that Lena was not all she had once been, but he took pride in her nevertheless, and liked to see her well run. But how was he supposed to maintain discipline when the captain set that sort of example?

  The wind was rising and there were whitecaps on the waves. Scattered across the surface were chunks of ice, some the size of cars, and every so often there was a thud as one hit the ship. As the barometric pressure continued to drop, Yablokov recommended finding a safe anchorage until the storm blew itself out. Hasim disagreed: they were on a tight schedule, and had no time to wait for squalls. Yablokov scowled: he knew they were running late. However, their success depended on good seamanship as well as keeping to a timetable, and they would be no use to their employers if they sank.

  Hasim opened his mouth to argue further, but at that moment, a wave tossed a huge lump of ice on the foredeck, where it smashed a hatch. Seething with impotent anger, Hasim woke Garik and told him to look for a place where they could wait out the storm. Yablokov studied the charts and recommended one himself, not trusting Garik to make a sensible decision. Of course, the men on the Zodiac were unlikely to guess where they’d gone, but the inflatable was now hours overdue, and looking at the monstrous grey waves, Yablokov doubted they would see it again. He said as much to Garik, but the captain only turned to ask Hasim what they should do about it. Disgusted, Yablokov went to the mess for some sensible company.

  He found it in Nikos, the chief engineer, a small, bald man with wall eyes, who spoke Russian with an almost incomprehensible Greek accent.

  ‘How long since it left?’ asked Nikos, rolling a vile-smelling cigarette. ‘Five hours?’

  ‘Eight,’ replied Yablokov tightly.

  ‘Well, at least they’re Hasim’s team, not the crew,’ said Nikos, blowing pungent smoke through his nostrils. ‘His loss, not ours. I’m worried about the cargo, though.’

  ‘You are?’ asked Yablokov, surprised. ‘You told Garik earlier that it was fine.’

  ‘It is – for now. But it was loaded with far too much haste. I told them to slow down, to do it properly, but they said they had no time. No one around here has time.’

  ‘Garik doesn’t – he needs to get Lena to Murmansk for the start of the cod season, or the rest of the fleet will steal the march on us. And Hasim told me that he’s got to be home soon, too.’

  ‘Something terribly important, no doubt,’ sniffed Nikos.

  Yablokov nodded. ‘He wants to get his hair cut.’

  Nikos laughed, then became serious. ‘But the cargo bothers me. A few more hours would have seen it much better stowed, then we could have weathered all the storms you like.’

  ‘Is that why you told Hasim that our bows are weak – that Lena can’t take ploughing through so much ice? It was the first I’d heard about it.’

  Nikos waved a dismissive hand. ‘You’re right – this old bucket has a few years in her yet. And yes, I lied because we can’t have the cargo breaking loose and rolling around.’

  ‘Then why not tell Hasim so?’

  ‘I did. He came for a quick look, pronounced all was well and told me not to mention it again.’

  Yablokov was about to suggest that they went to the holds themselves when a crewman came to report that the Zodiac had been spotted. Astonished, Yablokov ran to the foredeck, mustering hands as he went. He yelled for the crane to be readied, and told Zurin to arrange for blankets and hot food to be ready, too, knowing that Hasim’s people would need them.

  The little craft bobbed closer, labouring up the sides of the great waves and racing down into the troughs. Yablokov squinted into the wind, eyes streaming. Something was wrong! Zurin thought so too, and handed him his binoculars.

  Berrister did not fall far, and soon regained his footing. He climbed quickly to the top of Wells’ outcrop, but it was all for nothing: a quick search revealed that neither Wells nor Freddy was there. Several tiny scratches showed that Wells had recently taken some samples, but that was all.

  He checked once more, then waded back to the shore, gritting his teeth against the cold. Shivering, he kicked off the waders and dragged on dry clothes, telling the others what he had found as he did so.

  ‘Then it’s obvious what happened,’ said Graham. He glanced over his shoulder at the ice fall. ‘Dan’s under that. Freddy saw it drop on him from the scarp and came to help, but then he was crushed, too. We did hear three separate cracks – which means three different falls.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ argued Berrister, although he was inclined to think the Scot was right. He sensed Joshi was close to tears. ‘So you two walk to the end of the beach – maybe Dan found some new species there, and Freddy can’t tear him away. Go on – hurry.’


  ‘What will you be doing?’ asked Graham, not moving.

  Berrister indicated the tumbled ice. ‘Investigating that.’

  ‘You can’t possibly excavate it all,’ said Graham, looking at it in dismay.

  He was right, but Berrister did not want to admit it in front of Joshi. ‘Be as quick as you can, then come back and help us,’ was all he said. ‘And don’t forget to look up at the ridge in five minutes for Lisa’s signal.’

  Graham nodded once, then began walking rapidly along the beach. Joshi glanced miserably at Berrister before following, staggering as the wind bore him forward. Berrister and Sarah turned into it, and began slogging back towards the ice fall.

  It was not a large one, but still comprised blocks three times as high as they were tall, all covered in white, powdery snow. Waves lapped around its edges, making greedy sucking sounds. While Sarah watched for Lisa’s signal, Berrister climbed across it, looking for signs that someone was underneath. Sarah joined him after she had watched the lone figure stand with arms raised, struggling to stay upright in the wind.

  ‘We’re definitely in for another storm,’ remarked Berrister. ‘So when Joshi and Graham return, I want you to take them back to camp, while I continue to dig here. Hopefully, Geoff will have contacted the Chileans by then, and they’ll help.’

  ‘Yes, but not until the storm dies out,’ said Sarah.

  ‘No,’ agreed Berrister sombrely. ‘Not until then.’

  For an hour, they scratched and scraped, constantly glancing upward in fear of another collapse. They levered away some chunks with driftwood, but most were too big and the wood too soft. At nine o’clock, Sarah went to watch Lisa’s next signal, then returned to report that Wells and Freddy were still missing. By now, the sun had set and the light was fading fast.

  ‘This is worse than useless!’ she snapped, kicking one slab in an agony of frustration. ‘We need a mechanical digger to excavate this, not bare hands.’

  She was right, but there was nothing they could do except keep trying. Berrister’s gloves were soaking, and he could barely feel his fingers. He began to dig again, concentrating on a point where the ice was looser.

  Eventually, Graham and Joshi arrived, exhausted from their battle against the wind. Their grey, tired faces and a rip in Joshi’s waterproof trousers suggested that they had done their best, although to no avail.

  ‘We need to stop now,’ said Graham in a low voice, looking at no one in particular. ‘We’re too tired and cold to be effective, and it’s getting too dark to see. If we stay out much longer, we’ll end up in trouble, too.’

  ‘He’s right,’ said Sarah wretchedly. ‘We’ve done all we can.’

  By giving up, they were effectively acknowledging that Wells and Freddy were dead, something Berrister was unwilling to do. He started to shake his head, but then his eye was caught by something he had just uncovered. He bent to pick it up. It was a plastic specimen bag with a red resealable top.

  ‘One of Dan’s,’ said Sarah softly. ‘With today’s date on it, and a time of eleven-thirty.’

  ‘That’s just before I heard …’ Graham faltered, wiping his nose on his hand.

  ‘When you heard what you thought was gunfire, but was probably the ice calving,’ Sarah finished. Her expression was bleak. ‘I’m sorry, Andrew, but there are only two places Dan and Freddy can be: under this or washed out to sea. Either way, they’re beyond our help, and we need to go back before we get into trouble, too. Look at Joshi – he’s all in.’

  ‘You take them,’ said Berrister. ‘I’ll keep looking for a bit longer. Besides, while the bag might mean that Dan is under here, there’s nothing to say that Freddy is with him.’

  ‘No,’ acknowledged Sarah. ‘But we did find his hat – his lucky hat, which he’d never have abandoned without good reason.’

  ‘That’s a good point,’ said Graham, a little too eagerly for Berrister’s liking – the Scot was clearly more concerned with his own welfare than his missing friends. ‘Staying here any longer is pointless. We have to go. Now.’

  Leaving was one of the most difficult things Berrister had ever done, and he could not rid himself of the conviction that a few more moments might save a life. But Joshi’s nose had the dull, whitish look of frost-nip and the daylight had almost gone. Without waiting for permission, Graham began to lead the way home. Berrister stared at the ice for some time before following.

  That night, a short but fierce storm swept across the island. The wind screamed down the glacier, ripped across the beach and tore out into the bay. Pieces of rock and ice buffeted the tents so violently that the poles groaned under the pressure. It was not the first gale the scientists had experienced at Hannah Point, nor the wildest, but with two of their friends missing, it felt like the worst.

  But by five o’clock the following morning, it had abated somewhat. Berrister emerged from his tent, and when he went to check the temperature, he found the thermometer had blown away. So had the store-tent, because the empty boxes had been insufficient to anchor it down. It lay in a soggy heap several hundred metres away. He went to the cook tent, and found Mortimer already there. The fat glaciologist gave him a haunted look.

  ‘We’re in a fix here, Andrew.’

  Berrister nodded. ‘We’ll ask the Chileans to evacuate us today. But we’ll search for Dan and Freddy until they arrive.’

  Mortimer narrowed his eyes. ‘Didn’t you hear what I told you last night? We can’t call the Chileans – neither long-range radio works and the generators are down, so we can’t power them up. We can’t call anyone.’

  Berrister recalled very little about the return journey and their arrival back at the camp, assailed as he was with the sense of having condemned two friends to death. He scrubbed at his face with his hands. ‘What about Joshi’s Iridium phone? I saw him talking to his brother on it a few days ago.’

  ‘Quite – he ran down the battery and forgot to recharge it. The bloody thing’s useless. The phone, I mean, not Joshi.’

  ‘Then we’ll repair the generators.’

  Mortimer’s expression was grim. ‘I’ve been trying – all night, as it happens. But they’ll never work again. Never.’

  Berrister frowned. ‘They were working OK yesterday. What’s the problem?’

  ‘Sabotage,’ replied Mortimer. Berrister gaped at him. ‘I’m serious, Andrew – someone mixed sugar with the fuel. To put it in layman’s terms, the inside of each motor is full of sticky gunk.’

  Berrister felt his stomach churn. ‘Are you sure the cold hasn’t affected the consistency of the fuel? Perhaps if we warmed it …’

  ‘It’s sugar,’ said Mortimer firmly. ‘And whoever put it there knew what he was doing, because neither will ever work again.’

  But Berrister shook his head, unwilling to believe it. ‘You must be mistaken. You’re upset over Dan and Freddy—’

  ‘I am upset, but I’m not mistaken: someone deliberately destroyed our only means of communication. And obviously, whoever it was also stole our food. You clearly think I’m mad, but the facts are that we’re marooned here with no supplies and no way of calling for help. Go and look at the generators yourself if you don’t believe me.’

  Berrister went, but it did not take many minutes for him to see that the glaciologist was right. He returned to Mortimer, his stomach churning.

  ‘Do you think Freddy did it?’ asked Mortimer. ‘Or Dan?’

  ‘Of course not! Lisa heard a boat, Graham and I found tracks and a cigarette end … but who would want to do this to us? We’re scientists, for God’s sake.’

  ‘Good question,’ said Mortimer. ‘But two of us are missing, and Graham says he found blood on the beach. Perhaps Dan and Freddy aren’t so much missing as … dispatched.’

  ‘Dispatched?’ cried Berrister, shocked. ‘But that’s insane!’

  ‘Yes,’ acknowledged Mortimer. ‘But so are two sabotaged radios, no food and a pair of vanished friends.’

  ‘No,’ said Berriste
r, stubbornly refusing to believe it. ‘There must be a rational explanation – an innocent one.’

  ‘Such as what?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Berrister admitted. ‘But help will come soon. When we fail to contact Rothera, they’ll ask the Chileans to send a plane to check on us.’

  Rothera was a British research station on Adelaide Island, off the Antarctic Peninsula, some 550 kilometres south. Several of their colleagues were working there, and the arrangement was to check in with them by radio every night. Three missed calls would result in rescue protocols being initiated – a reconnaissance plane from Chile’s Eduardo Frei base on nearby King George Island in the first instance, followed by a message to all ships in the area if necessary.

  ‘They won’t do anything until the day after tomorrow at the earliest – and then only if the weather is clear enough for a flight,’ Mortimer insisted. ‘It might be days before anything happens.’

  Berrister gave a wan smile. ‘Fortunately, I’ve been collecting krill for Noddy Taylor. He’s an absolute fanatic, and when he doesn’t get last night’s data he’ll want to know why. He’ll be all over Vince until he has an answer.’

  Vince was Rothera’s communications officer, a quiet, businesslike man, known for the brevity of his messages. No one dared clutter the airwaves with inconsequential chatter when he was at the console.

  ‘Yes,’ acknowledged Mortimer. ‘There’s not much Noddy lets between him and his krill. He—’

  He faltered as the tent flap was wrenched open. It was Joshi, eyes alight with excitement.

  ‘There’s a ship on the other side of the scarp – a little rust-coloured thing, anchored about a kilometre out. It must’ve come in during the night. We’re saved! Now we need to work out how to contact it.’

  ‘Let’s look at it first,’ cautioned Mortimer. ‘And if it seems friendly, we’ll let off a flare. I’ll fetch some while you wake the others.’

  ‘Is it true?’ asked Sarah, as she emerged from her tent. Her eyes were red; she had been crying. ‘Rescue is at hand?’