A Grue Of Ice

by Geoffrey Jenkins

  Reidar Bull pointed the wicked-looking weapon at me. "

  Hanssen! Get those things off him! You, Brunvoll, watch the islander." He came closer to me. " Where are the others?"

  I shrugged. " In irons. I'm trying to salvage what is left of this ship. I would have saved the ship herself if you three lily-livered bastards had obeyed me and brought your catchers in to keep the lead open."

  Reidar Bull's savage mood seemed to be inflamed by my

  words. " Listen, Captain! You and this whole crooked bunch are under arrest. See? I'm taking you . .."

  " I know," I said shortly. " You're taking me and the others to a rendezvous at Bouvet and handing us over to Thorshammer. I heard it over the radio."

  Lars Brunvoll could not keep back his anger. " The killer whale I have seen go and tear out a Blue Whale's tongue just for the sport. You are not a killer whale, but by God! it made me wonder what you are when I saw you shoot down the seaplane !"

  Reidar Bull waved the Schmeisser in my face when I opened my mouth to tell them about the Spandau-Hotchkiss. Hanssen also swore threateningly. " Here in the Antarctic men die hard," he said. " However desperate you are yourself, you never call in help, if it will endanger their lives. That is the code. You know it, Captain. Your Captain Scott died like that, and the world still remembers. You, however, deliberately took life."

  " Norwegians' lives," added Reidar Bull. " Young Norwegians, who did not have your killer ways, Captain. I saw them. They flew right into your bullets. Your shooting was good—too good. Now you and your friends will pay for it.

  " he glanced down at his shattered hand, as if something in his past were bringing alive again the seaplane crew's agony when the bullets went home.

  " I have put these friends of mine, as you call them, in irons because they intended to kill me," I said. " Not only G.I.

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  myself, but Sailhardy here. Look at his face, if you don't believe me."

  I told them briefly about Norris' chart, Thompson Island, and what I had overheard on the Tannoy.

  Reidar Bull replied with a four-letter word. The other two laughed harshly.

  " I don't give a bloody damn for your fine stories—you can tell them all to Thorshammer," Reidar Bull said. " My job is to take you back to the destroyer, and I shall. We've got the catchers moored against the ice-edge about five miles from here. It will mean a slog across the ice, and I would not advise you to try any tricks. Now get down there!" He jerked the Schmeisser's muzzle towards the ice-platform. "

  Hanssen! Yours and Lars go and fetch the others there too. And get these gaping clots away—" indicating the crew—" I want a little talk with all the prisoners before we set off."

  Reidar Bull, Sailhardy and I waited fully ten minutes on the flag-marked platform for the others. When the three of us arrived, Helen swung herself slowly down from the helicopter cockpit. She said nothing. Our eyes met. In her sea-leopard coat, she seemed to merge with the surroundings.

  The curtain of snow saved us the embarrassment of being stared at by Antarctica's crew.

  Upton led, followed by Walter, Bjerko and Pirow, with Hanssen and Lars Brunvoll bringing up the rear. When Upton spotted Reidar Bull, he pushed back the hood of his bright blue weatherproof jacket, the flap of which was brilliant sky-blue and hung down on his chest like the bib under a locust's chin, and hurried towards him, smiling.

  " Ah, Reidar Bull!" he exclaimed. " I am glad to see you! Yes, keep that man and the islander guarded. I knew you would come and rescue me. Now get these damn manacles off me and we'll make a plan."

  Reidar Bull looked nonplussed. Hanssen and Brunvoll had obviously not told him about Thorshammer. The Norwegian's face became more sullen and angry. " You are all under arrest—no, not you, Bjerko, but you must make no attempt to help these men, do you understand?"

  Upton dropped his manacled wrists slowly. His voice

  was full of menace. " By whose orders, Reidar Bull?" "

  Thorshammer's," he replied.

  Upton rounded on the three skippers. " None of you has the guts of a wingless Bouvet fly," he said. " As soon as the going became a little tough, you ran off and blabbed 130

  everything to Thorshammer! Bah! You could have been rich men if you'd gone after the Blue Whales!"

  Brunvoll broke in. " The hell with you and your Blue Whales! We've all had a bellyful of you, Sir Frederick.

  We don't know yet what you're up to, but it has ceased to include us, see? Your daughter sighted a big school of Blue Whales, but then we left them and went off at high speed into the worst ice I've ever seen. Blast your Blue Whales, and your blue ice also! All we're likely to get by staying with you is a blue arse as well."

  Hanssen had his say, too. " In all our experiences, none of us has ever seen ice like this. Your fine ship's finished, and it serves you damn-well right."

  Upton looked contemptuously at the blond Viking. " You're so scared, you're wearing your lucky charm."

  The spur of a Wandering Albatross, mounted in silver at the base, was pinned in Hanssen's lapel. He started to finger it sheepishly, but Reidar Bull went on in a hard voice. " When we started out from Tristan, we knew we would take some risks.

  We knew we would come inside Norwegian territorial waters—

  technically. That is nothing. A chance to make a little money, and a little risk on the side—that is fair enough. But the seaplane—we say Captain Wetherby, Walter, Pirow and you are bloody murderers. You're all in this together. We are turning you all in."

  Upton swung on his toes. He tried his comradely charm. "

  Sailhardy had no part in the shooting. He was unconscious in his cabin. Let him go!"

  Sailhardy's voice had an edge like the wind. " True, I was unconscious. I was unconscious because what Captain Wetherby told you is true—they knocked me out."

  Reidar Bull waved the Schmeisser. " You can go free, Sailhardy, but be careful. That is all I say. Try and help your captain and see what happens."

  " If he goes, I go," retorted the islander. " If you march him to the catchers, I march too."

  " Listen," I said roughly, " I'm not taking the blame for what Walter did. I didn't shoot down the seaplane. Ask the Aurora's helmsman."

  " We did," said Brunvoll. "He saw you and Walter go up to the gun. He heard it fired."

  " It is a weapon for two men, not one," Hanssen filled in. " Petersen the helmsman heard both the Spandau and the Hotchkiss. Two men fired that gun."

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  " Walter .. ." I started to say.

  Neither Hanssen nor Brunvoll nor I are here to pass judgment," said Reidar Bull. " We are under orders—orders from a warship of my country, and we shall carry them out."

  Walter flicked a quick glance at Upton. " It is true I went up to the gun platform with Captain Wetherby," he said. "

  We crossed together from the factory ship to Aurora. It was Captain Wetherby's idea to shoot the seaplane down if it shadowed the fleet. At that time, I too agreed, but my heart failed me when I saw those poor boys come into the s i g h t s . I t o o a m a N o r w e g i a n . A m I t o k i l l m y o w n countrymen just because this English captain says so? Just for the sake of a few Blue Whales? I pull the gun harness to one side—you saw how the first burst of tracers went wide. But he is good on a gun, this captain. He is also strong. He pulls the gun round and gets in a burst with the quick-firer, the Hotchkiss. Then he tries to kill me with the same gun. He is kill-crazy. I have to shoot him with the Luger to stop this madness."

  " Walter, you bloody lying bastard!" I snapped. "Reidar Bull, Brunvoll, Hanssen! These men are evil, and they are after something which is evil too. I have come to Bouvet to see what The Albatross' Foot is all about. I have no other interest."

  " So," said Reidar Bull, " you are so keen on this current that you shoot down a seaplane? We are simple men, Captain Wetherby, but not as simple as that."

  " It was I who pulled Walter off the gun," I protested.

  Their faces were har
d with disbelief. "It was I who turned aside the first burst."

  Reidar Bull waved aside what I was saying. " You can tell all this to Thorshammer. We are not very good men, Captain, and not very honest men, but we have seen two of our own kind killed coldly and ruthlessly. That is all we know. That is what made us signal Thorshammer." He turned to Pirow. "

  Get up there in the helicopter and signal Thorshammer. No tricks." He tossed the Luger across to Brunvoll. " Go with him, Lars, and see to it. Pirow, tell Thorshammer, I, Reidar Bull, have arrested the men who shot down the seaplane and will rendezvous with her at Bouvet, as arranged before."

  When Pirow had come across the ice to the platform, he had looked utterly worn out. Now his fatigue seemed to drop like a cloak. He shot a glance at Upton and shrugged 132

  slightly. He turned to me, showing off. " The Herr Kapitan reads Morse," he smiled. " Perhaps he will come to the door of the cockpit and assure you that I am sending the right message."

  Reidar Bull looked puzzled, but agreed. I walked with Brunvoll and The Man with the Immaculate Hand to the

  helicopter. Helen stood back, white-faced, silent. There was a pause while Pirow, encumbered still with the manacles, went to the machine's radio.

  The radio key started to clatter as he called up the destroyer.

  " Reidar Bull, skipper catcher Crozet, to Thorshammer. I have under arrest the men who shot down and killed your seaplane crew. I will rendezvous with you at Bouvet as arranged."

  Pirow's sending was fluent, proficient, staccato. He wasn't trying to bluff Thorshammer that he was anyone else. Why had he agreed so readily to send Bull's damning message?

  He was in the business as deep as Upton or myself.

  Then came Thorshammer's reply.

  " Thorshammer to Reidar Bull, catcher Crozet. Rendezvous at Bouvet as ordered. Part of your message not understood.

  Thorshammer's seaplane ran out of fuel. Crew safe on life-raft. Position approx 100 miles west of Bouvet. Am searching for fliers."

  I could not believe my ears: the seaplane safe on the water, out of fuel, which I had seen go to its death under a hail of bullets from the Spandau-Hotchkiss! I was so astonished that I forgot Reidar Bull and his Schmeisser and jumped up the steps into the radio compartment. Brunvoll stood, Luger in hand, frowning, unaware of what was passing over the air.

  " The seaplane!" I said incredulously to both Pirow and Brunvoll. " How can the seaplane be signalling?"

  " What are you saying?" demanding Brunvoll. " The seaplane which I saw shot down?"

  Pirow grinned at me. He flicked off the transmitting key, so that the tapping which followed was for my benefit alone.

  Gone was the German staccato. This was The Man with the Immaculate Hand, slipping into one of many guises. Now he had projected himself into being the seaplane crew, sending emergency signals from their life-raft. The dummy signal he tapped for me was fragmentary, a little breathless, just as it would sound from a couple of inexperienced fliers facing 133

  possible death on a life-raft in the wild seas. It all fell into place, then, why Thorshammer had not come to arrest us herself. Pirow, during his long period in the factory ship's radio office, must have sent off a series of faked messages pur-porting to come from the seaplane crew on their life-raft. He was clever enough not to have given Thorshammer time enough to get a bearing—the only man who could get a bearing on a dozen letters was Pirow himself. He must have thought up his ingenious plan while he listened to the catchers signalling Thorshammer. The destroyer was at present on her way to an imaginary position given by Pirow to pick up a seaplane crew which no longer existed. He was giving Upton and himself a breathing-space. He was also proving that Walter had committed no crime, for Thorshammer's radio log would show that the seaplane had been signalling long after she had, in fact, been shot down ; moreover, Thorshammer had already indicated that there had been no signal from the plane to show she had been shot down, but that instead she had got lost, run out of fuel, come down on the water, and the two-man crew had taken to the life-raft. I saw the mettle of The Man with the Immaculate Hand. Thorshammer would then be arresting us" for an infringement of Norwegian territorial waters and hunting the Blue Whale.

  " Come!" I said to Brunvoll. " I want you to hear this, too." I strode to the cockpit door. The circle of faces on the ice looked up at me. Helen's was troubled, anxious. "

  Reidar Bull!" I called. " Thorshammer has just signalled back. She says her seaplane crew is safe on the water. They were never shot down. They ran out of fuel."

  " God's truth! What is this?" he roared. " Safe on the water! Am I drunk or mad?"

  Brunvoll gripped my arm with a fist of iron. " I saw—

  every one of us saw—the seaplane fall in the water, shot to ribbons by you and Walter."

  " By Walter," I said steadily. I told them what I believed Pirow had done. As I did so, I saw a look of savage triumph and determination cross Upton's pewter-hued face, framed by the blue hood. Helen caught my glance and looked at her father. She half started forward, and again looked up at me.

  She had seen and I had seen. I was glad of the manacles on Upton's wrists, supplemented by the Schmeisser guarding him.

  Hansen shook his head, like a boxer clearing his mind after a blow. " I see a plane fly into a gun. I see the gun fire. I see the plane crash. Now I am told it is not so."

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  " The three of you have been taken for the biggest ride of your careers," I said. I told them who Pirow was. Reidar Bull's face went black. " Thorshammer won't listen to you now, after Pirow's signals. Heaven knows how long you'll have to hang around at Bouvet while she searches for that seaplane crew of hers."

  Upton's voice was tense. " Tell them too, Wetherby, that there is no extradition for murder in the Antarctic. It's all in the Antarctic Treaty, which your bloody country signed, Reidar Bull. There is no treaty obligation to hand over anyone."

  Reidar Bull clicked the Schmeisser as if to assure himself that it, at least, was real. " I don't know what extradition means," he replied. " I don't know what anything means any more, with bastards like you around me. All I know is that we march—now ! You can take any small personal things."

  He gestured with the Schmeisser at Upton. " You first. What do you want?"

  " Look in my desk drawer," he said. " There is an old chart.

  Bring it. There is a little leather bag next to it. There's a first-aid kit with a hypodermic, too. And my guarana in the liquor cabinet. That is all I want."

  " You, Captain?" asked Reidar Bull.

  " My sextant," I replied. " That is all." It was the sextant with which I had plotted Thompson Island.

  Sailhardy came forward, his thumb flicking in its strange way against his palm. " I march because Captain Wetherby marches, Reidar Bull. You are sailors, and you each have your ship. I also have a ship. It is everything I have in the world. To a Tristan islander, it is worth more than his life, almost. I will march, but I will carry my boat."

  For the first time that morning Reidar Bull's face relaxed a little. " By everything that's holy! This islander! I could almost wish he was my friend and not the Captain's!" He looked at the other two skippers. They were men who knew what it was to have one's own ship under one. There was

  almost no need to get their approval. " You can load it aboard my own ship," Reidar Bull went on, brusquely, as if afraid to show sentiment. " Wait! I know! Captain Wetherby can help you carry the whale-boat. It will keep him out mischief on the march." The others grinned.

  " I have a small case ready," said Helen. " I packed it ready to leave last night. It is on the bridge."

  In a moment, Reidar Bull's face reverted to its grimness.

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  " You'll stay right here, miss. Captain Bjerko will remain behind and see to the unloading of the ship. When we reach the ice-edge, I will signal on the W/T and you will fly the helicopter to the catchers. It may be very useful to us yet.

  You'll land on the ice by the
catchers, and we'll manhandle it aboard my ship."

  Helen started to protest, but he cut her short. " Hanssen!

  Go and get the things they have asked for. Be quick! I want to go before the weather gets worse." He spoke to Bjerko. "

  We'll come back with the catchers after we have met Thorshammer at Bouvet. She ordered all three of us to come, and Aurora makes four. There'll be enough room aboard to take off Antarctica's crew. We'll be away only a couple of days. The ice won't break up before then. You'll be safe enough."

  Bjerko looked dubiously at the factory ship, whose out-

  line we could see, despite the snow flurries. " I have never seen ice like this. Come back soon. I don't like it."

  Nor did I. Behind the doomed ship, where the raft of ice had broken off, it had carved the likeness of a gigantic sphinx head with defined lips and a brooding forehead. Even the neck was there, in the shape of a series of striated cliffs ; almost meeting, 150 feet from the surface, was a double cantilever-like wing which was held at its base by three fluted columns, each one fifty feet in diameter.

  I started to go over to Helen, but Reidar Bull waved me

  back. Upton infected us all with his tension. He appeared to be expecting something. Brunvoll seemed grateful to have something to do when Reidar Bull sent him back to guard

  Pirow. As Hanssen emerged from the path on his return from the ship, Upton went forward quickly and took the map from him.

  It was Norris' chart of Thompson Island.

  Upton knelt down and spread it open on the ice. "Come here, Reidar Bull," he said authoritatively. We all gathered round. Upton spoke quickly, and there was a tic at the corners of his mouth and eyes. His fingers were shaky as he pointed to the spidery track of the old Sprightly, and Norris'

  position of Thompson Island. We were drawn inside the circle of his compelling personality.

  " Have you ever heard of Thompson Island?" he demanded.

  Reidar Bull glanced at the old map. He shrugged. " Yes.

  I have also heard of the Aurora Islands, down in the Scotia Sea. Men have searched for a hundred—maybe two hundred