A Grue Of Ice

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A Grue Of Ice Page 11

by Geoffrey Jenkins


  apparently reap no benefit from its rediscovery. And why was it so valuable that Upton would allow nothing to stand in the way?

  " The Blue Whale story was ideal cover," he explained. "

  I had to have a string of ships—you remember Nelson's frigates before Trafalgar? The catchers were to serve the same purpose in scouring the waters round Bouvet for Thompson. They were to be my eyes. That was before I knew you had the chart."

  " If Nelson had had a helicopter, he would not have needed a string of frigates," I replied.

  He grinned. " Touché. But I have read Kohler's weather study of Bouvet. If it's not blowing a bloody gale, it's fog ; and if it's not fog, it's total cloud ; and if it's not total cloud, it's an impossible sea. An American coastguard cutter flew a helicopter near Bouvet a couple of years ago. They damn near lost it, after only half an hour in the air. I don't have to tell you about Bouvet's weather."

  " If you didn't know I had Norris' chart, why bring me into it?"

  " Not even I could wheedle out of the Admiralty your secret report on the sinking of the Meteor," he said. " But I know that you sighted land as you went into action. Once I knew you had the chart, that naturally became redundant.

  The two things are the same."

  I averted my eyes so as not to give myself away. Let him go on thinking they were the same! He'd never find Thompson Island his way. If he went on regarding Sailhardy and me as expendable, my knowledge might well buy our

  lives.

  The door burst open. Walter and Helen tried to push through at the same time. Walter held the folded chart

  triumphantly. His right hand was smeared with blood.

  Helen gave a gasp as she saw Sailhardy on the floor. She looked in disbelief at Pirow and the gun, and at me. Her face was flushed with anger.

  " Daddy, what on earth . . . ?" She indicated Walter, 89

  speaking rapidly. " What right has this lout to break into my cabin, and tear down the fittings like a madman? It is my machine, and what I say goes. He grabbed the quilting and tore it to pieces. . . . Bruce, Bruce! He killed Suzie Wong!"

  " You bastard, Walter!" I said.

  " Who the hell is Suzie Wong?" demanded Upton.

  " My good-luck bird—this oaf killed her!" she repeated. "

  What right has he .. ."

  " I wrung the bloody thing's neck," said Walter: " It is unimportant. It flies at me when I look for the chart."

  Upton did not seem to hear her. He stood, mesmerised

  by the parchment Walter held in his hand. " Get out!" he told her roughly. " Get out! One miserable bird does not matter. Nor would a life—for this!" He took the chart from Walter. " Get out!" he said. " If you want to cool off and mourn your bloody bird, go and fly your precious helicopter in circles."

  Helen stook back, stunned by his outburst. His megalo-

  mania sickened me. She backed to the door. " Yes, that is just what I will do," she said in quiet anger. " I don't know what you all are up to, but remember I have seen this little scene, even if no one else of the crew has."

  She shut the door, but I do not think Upton even noticed.

  In less than a minute I heard the machine take off. Upton unfolded the chart. Then he stabbed his finger again and again at a little circle from which the wandering line of the Sprightly's track radiated. " Thompson Island! Thompson Island!"

  He turned on me. The fury was gone, and the eyes seemed even brighter. He could not control his hands. He pointed at the corner of the parchment, where there was a marginal note. " November-December 1825. The log and track of the Sprightly!" he whispered. "Thompson Island!"

  Pirow edged round, keeping the automatic trained on me. "

  There's Bouvet, too. There are Norris' soundings of the Bollevika anchorage."

  Upton could scarcely get the words out as he fumbled

  to decipher Norris' writing. " December the thirteenth, 1825.

  Log of the Sprightly:

  " 2 p.m. saw a small low Island bear W 6 miles. 3 rocks in a cluster bear NW, another rock NW nearly level

  with the water's edge. This island is in Lat 53.56 Long 90

  5°30. this island we have named Thompson's la bears

  NNE 15 leagues from Bouvet Island. Three rocks we

  named The Chinnies SE 4 or 5 miles off Thompson's la and another small rock 3 miles south of them.. .."

  Upton was silent for a long time. " So that is where Thompson Island is!" he exclaimed at last. " Fifteen leagues, or forty-five miles, north-north-east of Bouvet!"

  For the next half-hour Upton relapsed into long abstracted silences as if he had forgotten the presence of the three of us altogether—silences broken now and again by a volley of words. It was then that I first seriously doubted the man's sanity. The only sounds were Sailhardy's unconscious moans. We dared not break in upon the silences.

  Once Upton turned the parchment over and over. " God!

  Imagine that little ship Sprightly of Norris' at two o'clock in the afternoon coming out of the fog and being confronted with the island! Now it is mine!" He fell into a long silence, as if he were reliving Norris' great discovery.

  Then he came over to me, eyes bright, and grabbed me by the shoulder, completely carried away by what was going on in his own mind. " Tell me, man, does it look the way Norris says—small and low? How could it ever be confused with Bouvet, which is all cliffs and peaks? Did you see it like that? Tell me!"

  "I saw it like that," I said. "I saw Thompson Island I am the only man living to have seen it."

  He looked thoughtfully at me. " The only man living,"

  he echoed.

  I remember the ice, the dirty grey sky, the shroud of fog.

  Upton's next words added to my doubts about his mind.

  He traced with a finger, with almost reverential care, the old sealer's track past Thompson Island and its rocky outcrops. "Heavenly blue," he said. " Heavenly blue."

  The Tannoy loudspeaker above my bunk came alive with

  its disembodied crackle. " Bridge here! Bridge here! Sir Frederick Upton! Stand by for a repeat from radio office of an urgent message." Upton had been thorough. He'd told the bridge he would be in my cabin before leaving, so that he would not be out of touch while he searched my things.

  Something inside me cleared like a lift of fog when I

  heard Helen's voice, for it told me she had had no part in her father's scheme for Thompson Island. She came over the loudspeaker clearly, which meant she must have been

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  fairly close to the fleet, in view of the radio interference at any distance.

  " H for Helen! Do you hear me? H for Helen! Helicopter NRWH calling factory ship Antarctica."

  Upton wheeled on Pirow. " Get up to the radio office—

  jam her, swamp her, do any damn thing, but get her off

  the air—quick!"

  I felt somehow that the normal overtones in her voice were for me—the way she might think Royal Navy formality ran under stress. But her excitement overrode everything. "

  H for Helen! Position approx fifty-six degrees South, one degree West."

  Pirow stopped in his tracks, white-faced. "Plain language transmission! Thorshammer can't miss it!"

  " Dear God in Heaven!" shouted Upton. " Stop her, Carl!

  Perhaps the radio interference is too bad for Thorshammer to hear. . . ."

  " No," snapped Pirow. " Never. Some temporary sunspot fade, but nothing like as bad as I made out to the Herr Kapitan to get him off the ship."

  " Bouvet's dead spot . . ." began Upton.

  " Dead spot for equipment thirty years ago, but not now,"

  Pirow replied.

  Helen's voice cut in. "I can't see the end of them! There are thousands and thousands of them! There are Blue Whales everywhere! I have found the breeding-ground of the Blue Whale!. Big, small, bulls, cows, calves! I've never seen anything like it!"

  " Blast the girl!" roared Upton. "Blast! blast! blast! Just at this momen
t of moments! Everyone between here and South Georgia must have heard our position—including Thorshammer."

  Pirow stood as if undecided, the Luger in his hand. Helen's bombshell had put them off their guard, but I missed my opportunity.

  " Give me that gun!" went on Upton. " Get to your radio! Do something!" Pirow hurried off, but Upton and Walter remained behind. " They'll be safe enough if we lock them in here for the moment," said Upton. " How long will it be before that bloody islander comes round?"

  " An hour, maybe two," shrugged Walter. " What does it matter anyway?"

  " Yes," echoed Upton. " What does it matter, anyway?

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  It's Wetherby who is the problem." He smiled without humour. " I thought I was up against something in the great Captain Wetherby of war-time fame. I didn't even get a run for my money. One kick in the face of his friend, and the whole show was over. Come, Peter!"

  The door crashed to and I heard the lock turn. I knelt down and tried to do something about Sailhardy's face. It was a savage wound, and he would carry the scars to the end of his life. The way Upton talked, he did not intend either Sailhardy'

  s life or mine to reach its natural span. I looked round the cabin, but escape seemed hopeless. My cabin was situated at the end of the corridor. Beyond the solid steel bulkhead were the big compartments for processing the whales. The porthole was there, but short of jumping into the sea, it offered no escape for me.

  My own danger was not uppermost in my mind. I was thinking of Helen, and I hated Upton for his part in moulding her, fashioning her whole existence, to be the instrument of his dream, Thompson Island. It was typical of the man that he had not confided his secret to her, but in the shock of her own escape long ago in Norway, the lack of a mother had so influenced her—not unwillingly, I told myself, but that was her part of the story, unknown to him—to be the brilliant but oulless automaton I had first met. I could not get out of my mind the transformation I had witnessed on the ice, and the vital, attractive personality I had seen as she had stood in this very cabin doorway.

  SaiIhardy stirred, but did not regain consciousness. I tore off part of my sleeve and made an improvised bandage. I waited. After about half an hour I heard the roar of the helicopter's rotors overhead, as Helen came in to land. In less than five minutes there was a knock at the cabin door. I did not reply.

  " Bruce!" Helen called. " Bruce! Are you all right?"

  " Yes," I called. " Helen! For God's sake, get me a gun or a knife, and let me out of here!"

  " My father seems beside himself," she called softly. "I gave him the slip for a moment." I heard the sound of her footsteps running back along the corridor.

  I nearly jumped out of my skin as the Tannoy spoke. "

  AXM. Canberra International Antarctic Weather Analysis Centre. WMO code Fm forty-five on the zero zero GMT

  analysis ..."

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  I looked in astonishment at the grilled space above the bulkhead. Upton and Pirow must have forgotten to switch off the repeater from the radio shack.

  Then I heard Upton's voice. " Nothing but bloody weather reports! That's all there ever is from the Antarctic!"

  Pirow's voice, intent, came through. " I told you, let a ship send eleven letters, and I'll find her. Thorshammer .is silent."

  " It doesn't surprise me," I heard Walter say. " Christ!

  After all we've done to keep our position dark."

  Upton was rattled. His voice was harsh with anxiety. "

  Try and get Thorshammer, Carl ! Change frequency, do any damn thing!"

  " The Herr Kapitan Wetherby should be here," came Pirow's cool voice. " We'll try eighteen and twenty-four metres—

  raider's frequency."

  There was a pause. Then Upton's voice broke in. " What is it, Carl? Have you got her?"

  " Thorshammer," replied Pirow. " She's flown off the seaplane!"

  I heard the crash of a telephone receiver being picked up. "

  Bjerko!" snapped Upton. " Alter course! Turn away, south and west! Full speed ahead!" I felt the pulse of the factory ship start to quicken under the cabin floor.

  " That won't help at all," said Pirow. " The seaplane will be using radar, anyway. Thorshammer took a hell of a risk flying her off in this sea."

  " It just shows how important she considers us," said Walter. " There's nothing we can do now to avoid being caught."

  " Don't throw in the bloody towel before you're even hit," said Upton curtly. " I'm not beaten, by a long chalk.

  By all that's holy!" I heard him say slowly. " Wetherby has been of more use than he thinks. We'll keep our previous course.

  We'll hide away in the heart of his so-called atmospheric machine. If it's anything like he says, there'll be so -much fog and ice that Thorshammer will never find us. And in that weather, she won't be able to use her seaplane."

  My heart sank as I heard him pick up the telephone and

  order Bjerko to return to our former course. The ship had scarcely had time to settle on the south and west course. We were now racing towards our doom as fast as the screws could turn. By the vibration, I could tell that the Antarctica's engines were being pushed to the limit. In my mind's eye I 94

  saw that deceptively calm sea, damped by the ice as the crystals formed, and thickening to a viscous-porridge-like consistency ; the loss of speed as a ship fought against the massive drag of the sea starting to freeze ; the great bank of fog which was the invariable accompaniment of the freeze-up ; and finally, the rapid coagulation of water into jaws of ice which would clamp like a vice round the ship and crush her to death.

  " Anything from the seaplane?" asked Upton.

  " Yes," said Pirow, " steering straight here. She can't miss.

  She'll be overhead in less than a couple of hours."

  " Peter!" came Upton's voice. " When do you think, at our present speed, we will be in Wetherby's danger area?"

  " Maybe twelve hours," replied.

  " We could avoid Thorshammer intercepting us herself to-day, and during the darkness to-night we could dodge

  her," went on Upton. " By early to-morrow the weather will probably start to become pretty bad. With Thorshammer minus the seaplane, we have a sporting chance."

  " Minus the seaplane," echoed Pirow.

  Upton's voice was brittle when he spoke after a pause, even allowing for the quality of the loudspeaker. " Your Spandau-Hotchkiss is a very fine weapon, Peter."

  Pirow's voice held a thrill—whether of dismay or astonishment, I could not tell. " You'll get Walter to shoot down a plane--a naval plane—in cold blood in peacetime?"

  I could tell from the way Upton said it, that he had just thought it up, and novelty of the idea appealed to him. "

  No, not Walter, Captain Wetherby will shoat down Thorshammer's seaplane."

  I went closer to the loudspeaker grille to make sure I was not dreaming. It was a closed-circuit affair between the cabin and the radio office, but the voices were as close as if they had been talking next door and reaching me through an open ventilator. The diabolical ingenuity of Upton's mind revealed itself as he went on.

  " We now have the chart, and both Wetherby and the

  islander are only in the way," he said. " Sailhardy is easy to dispose of. Walter will rough him up a bit more, and

  he'll be found to-morrow morning, or the morning after, lying under one of the big tackles aft. Poor fellow, they'll say, the tackle came adrift in the gale and its whole two tons fell on him."

  Walter interjected, " Someone else will have to do the 95

  job, specially since it'll be at night. I can't shuffle backwards and forwards from Aurora in a small boat with a tiny engine in these seas. It was bad enough to-day. If the weather becomes anything like Wetherby says, it'll be impossible."

  " It is not vital," said Upton. " I'll smash him up myself."

  " The Herr Kapitan Wetherby is the one to be afraid of,"

  said Pirow. I wondered wryly if he was thinking o
f the Meteor's end. " I want to see you force him to shoot down Thorshammer's plane."

  " So do I," said Walter.

  The voices receded and I jumped up and jammed my ear against the loudspeaker. I heard only a word here and there—" Luger . .. take him across to Aurora . . . clear them out of the way, of course, they're your crew, Walter ..

  . lash his wrists, one each side of the trigger . . ." Upton's voice and the others sank into an incomprehensible mutter.

  What in God's name was Upton about, I asked myself.

  It was obvious from the scraps of conversation I had heard that I was to be tied to the Spandau-Hotchkiss and be made to take the blame for shooting down the seaplane. How?

  Then I saw: Walter would take one harness and I would be lashed into the other—it must have been the crew Upton had been referring to, about clearing them out of the way.

  In the sort of seas we were encountering, the only members of the crew who would be about would be those strictly on duty, a handful of men who could easily be ordered out of the way. The gun itself was situated aft the wheelhouse, and the helmsman would not be able to see what was going on without leaving his post. I guessed Walter would come to take me across to Aurora from my cabin. He'd stick the Luger in his pocket and be at my back....

  The voice became stronger as the three men moved about

  the radio office. I could pick up Upton's words, faint at first and then stronger. ". . . other harness. Wetherby will be helpless. Shoot the bloody thing down and don't fluff it, do you hear, Walter?"

  There was a surly mutter and then Pirow's voice was clear. " It is clever, Sir Frederick. So Wetherby takes all the blame, if Thorshammer should catch us?"

  I lost the end of Upton's sentence, but the beginning sent me cold. " The blame—and the bullet . . . through the head with the Luger ... cut him loose .. ."

  I could see it in my mind's eye: a burst from the Spandau-Hotchkiss from Walter which would send the seaplane

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  into the sea. A bullet for me and then a fake rescue attempt, Walter shouting to the helmsman to alter course to the crashed plane, knowing full well that the cold water would kill them in three minutes. And then Walter explaining how he had been obliged to shoot me to stop my madness with the gun. The pieces fitted together with diabolical cunning.

 

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