A Grue Of Ice

by Geoffrey Jenkins

  " The same thought struck me," I said. " Your assumption is that an old-time sealer was capable of getting an accurate fix, and that Bouvet's position itself was known."

  " Bouvet itself?"

  " I drew a map superimposing the various positions where Bouvet has been plotted," I replied. " There are at least four from reliable sources, and three from less reliable. To say that Thompson lies forty-five miles north-north-east of Bouvet doesn't mean a thing. In fact, I found on checking that the man who discovered Bouvet, the Frenchman Captain Bouvet de Lozier, first was supposed to have sighted land somewhere near where Norris said Thompson lies."

  She laughed. " I'll bet you shot Bouvet's position down in flames too!"

  I grinned back. " Yes, I did. You see, Bouvet based his longitude on the Cape Verde Islands, not on

  Greenwich." 176

  " I told you so!" she said delightedly. " But what about the old-time sealers you were starting to tell me about?"

  I caught her mood. " Two important things: I spent months checking and rechecking logs and sealers' sighting reports in the Southern Ocean among old Wetherby's records.

  Briefly, it was nothing for a sealer to be out ten minutes in latitude under the most favourable conditions of weather, sun and stars. Their longitude really had them beaten, though.

  Don't forget, even during the Napoleonic wars, the only British warships which carried chronometers—essential for determining longitude—were the commanders of convoys. It was only four years after Napoleon's death that Norris found Thompson Island. After months of research, I found one could more or less rely on any old whaler being out about a degree and a half in longitude—say, ninety miles."

  " What I can't understand is why you didn't tell the Admiralty all this when you were pressing your point about having seen Thompson Island."

  I shrugged. " I was laughed practically out of the Admiralty down the Horse Guards Parade," I said. " I could see it in their faces—crackpot! Prove it, they kept on saying. It was just that opportunity I was asking for. One gentleman in the Hydrographic Department told me pointedly that it would throw every map ever made of the Southern Ocean and Antarctic into the wastepaper basket, and such waste could not be afforded. I remember his words still: ' Empiricism versus absolute knowledge, Captain Wetherby. We prefer absolute knowledge '."

  " It may sound silly, but how did you arrive at the true position of Thompson Island, when your sextant lied, along with all other sextants?"

  " By taking four different sextant sightings of the stars—

  not the sun—to balance the refraction errors four ways." I said. " Norris was not . . ."

  " Bruce!" she interrupted quickly. " Bruce! Look!"

  She pointed up the incline to where the slope resumed beyond the barrier of ice. Leaning over was the unmistakable snakelike head of a sea-leopard. Unless there was some way round and down, however, we were in no immediate danger.

  " We must get back to the roverhullet and warn them," I said. The massive head and shoulders swayed backwards and forwards as if seeking some way down.

  Suddenly, from high above towards the summit of the

  glacier, a white object detached itself.

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  I thought at first it was a chunk of ice. " Look, Helen.

  There's something diving down on the sea-leopard!"

  It was a giant bird, his neck outstretched. He plummeted down like a Stuka dive-bomber. He could not be making for the sea-leopard, I told myself quickly—there must be some other prey we could not see on the ledge where the animal stood.

  " Albatross!" exclaimed Helen.

  The diving bird was upon the sea-leopard. He ballooned his wings to avoid hitting the snakelike head, but it was too late. We saw a flash of light as a claw lashed out.

  There was a burst of white feathers, and the white war-paint of the albatross was stripped down to the red flesh underneath. I could almost see the effort of the bird's neck muscles as he tried to lift himself. He would have made it, except for a projecting saw-edge of cliff. Wounded, he could not pull himself clear. He crashed into the glacier ice and came tumbling down in an untidy heap among the rocks at our feet.

  Helen started to run towards the albatross, which rose up to a crouching position. He craned his fine neck and tried to rise. Across his left wing was a long tear from the sea-leopard's claws.

  Bruce, we must help him . . ." she began, but she stopped at the look in my face and the ice-axe in my hand.

  " No," I said gently. " No, Helen. Five minutes ago he was an adventurer who could have flown from here to the South Pole and back. Now he is a heap of feathers." I moved forward to administer the coup de grace. " He'll die slowly if we leave him, but quickly and mercifully if I

  do it. He must die, either way."

  Helen's eyes were full of pain. I raised the ice-axe. As I did so, the albatross swung his neck round in the exquisitely beautiful motion which is the act of courtship of the great wanderer of the seas, a grace worthy of a Fonteyn. I lowered the ice-axe and looked at Helen. She went forward and examined the half-extended wing.

  I went closer. I expected a savage slash from the strong beak. It did not come, but instead the albatross stood swaying his head.

  " I'll come back with Sailhardy," I said. "We'll bring some ropes and get the bird down to the hut. At the beach to-morrow we can catch some fish for him—there are bound

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  to be some left behind in the rock-pools when the tide recedes.

  We mustn't wait here much longer."

  We hurried to the roverhullet as quickly as our crampons and the ice-slope would allow. Sailhardy was delighted at the thought of saving the albatross ; rather than ropes he brought a fishing-net which had been thawing in front of the hut on the rocks. Walter, with the gun, did not hinder us.

  At the ice-cliff, Sailhardy and I found the great bird still crouching. It was a matter of minutes to put the net round it. Together we carried it back and set it free in front of the hut as sunset closed on our second night on Bouvet.

  At first light next morning Upton began preparations for lowering the aluminium sheets to the beach. Sailhardy, Helen, Walter and I set off down the cliff-side track, the Norwegian bringing up the rear with the automatic. Even at the ladder, down which I helped Helen hand over hand, there was no chance to jump Walter. The descent was easy this time with ropes secured to the upper rungs ; Walter came down them with the agility of a cat. For the last section of the descent, I roped Helen to myself in front and to Sailhardy behind. About three hundred feet above the beach Sailhardy stopped and called " Look! The catchers are launching a boat!"

  Helen stood hard back against the rock face, away from the fearful drop.

  I trained my glasses on the ships. " The crazy idiots!

  What are they trying to do?"

  Walter tapped the Schmeisser. " Coming to get us. I don't see Lars Brunvoll just sitting waiting."

  Sailhardy pointed at the seas breaking heavily on the rocks and the beach. " No one could land from an ordinary ship's boat in that."

  " The sea is the same for sailing to-morrow," I said grimly. "

  We have a Tristan whaleboat," replied Sailhardy.

  " My God!" exclaimed Helen, watching the white-capped rollers race across the anchorage.

  The islander looked with a curious mixture of satisfaction and awe. " It will be easier when we get into the open sea, ma'am. True, the boat will pitch a lot, but she's small enough not to stretch from wave to wave. That helps quite a bit."

  I focused the glasses on Chimay, Brunvoll's catcher. " Boat away!"

  The tiny thing pulled hard from the ship's side with two 179

  men at the oars on either side. The man at the tiller could have been Brunvoll, but I was not sure. The boat rode clear of the catcher's lee and disappeared in a welter of spray. I saw it capsize and the five men were flung into the water. "

  She's over!"

  " They'd better haul them out of the water
—quickly!"

  exclaimed Sailhardy. " They won't last long in this cold."

  The catcher steamed in what seemed slow motion to the struggling men and I saw some being hauled aboard.

  " Good riddance!" said Walter. " Come on, we've got work to do. Let's get down to the beach."

  We scrambled down the final section to the rough shingle.

  The whaleboat lay where we had left her. We unroped ourselves. I looked up. From the top of the cliff the first piece of aluminium decking was starting to swing down at the end of a long rope.

  Helen, Sailhardy and I started for the boat. As our boots crunched on the shingle, a tiny head rose over the side of the whaleboat. The soft, luminous eyes of the creature, no bigger than a full-grown dachshund, stared at us.

  " It's a Ross seal!" whispered Sailhardy.

  Neither he nor I had ever seen this rarest and most beautiful of Antarctic animals. Helen started forward. "

  Don't ma'am . . ." began Sailhardy, but she was already at the tiny creature. It went unhesitatingly into her arms. His mink-grey fur was slightly darker underneath than above.

  She turned to me, her eyes shining. " Bruce! Look at him! See how he trusts me!"

  I laughed and stroked the lovely head of the seal pup. "

  That is just the trouble with the Ross seal. They trust everyone. The old sealers exterminated them by simply hitting them over the head. They trust humans completely."

  Helen put the little creature on the beach. He walked from her to me and then to Sailhardy. He did not, like the common Southern fur seal, turn his flippers forward when he walked, and I was surprised that he did not slip on the wet rocks since the undersides of his flippers were covered in softest down. I had never before seen a seal's flippers with fur on them. He allowed us to stroke his head, but Helen was clearly his favourite. She picked him up again and he nestled in the crook of her arm.

  " I have never seen anything so lovely," she smiled. " I'm going to take him with us in the boat. We'll take fish along for him too."

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  It was the remembrance of Helen with the exquisite creature in her arms, half enveloped in her sea-leopard coat, with the backdrop of the basalt cliffs and little beach, that was to return to my mind's eye again and again in the days to come.

  " Bring him along, for sure," said Walter sullenly. " He'll make good eating when the going gets tough."

  " Walter!" I said quietly. " If you touch this pup, I'll kill you with my bare hands."

  He raised the Schmeisser at my tone. " Keep back!" he said surlily. " You'll find you're killing the bloody thing yourself when your belly cries out for fresh meat."

  A sheet of aluminium clattered on its rope over our heads.

  Sailhardy and I seized it as it swung in the wind against the cliffs. We found that we would probably need only four sheets to half-deck the boat both fore and after. With rope and tools we had brought down from the roverhullet, we bent, shaped, tied and fastened the aluminium to the canvas and wooden ribs. We worked all day, pausing only to unship the cases of stores which Upton and Pirow lowered to stock the boat. By the middle of the afternoon the boat was ready half-decked, but Sailhardy was not satisfied. I wanted to get away from the raw little beach to the roverhullet before the weather became worse. The sun was obscured and great clouds drifted round the twin peaks. From time to time squalls masked the tap of the cliff. Helen helped stack the cases of supplies out of reach of the sea in the natural corner of the cliff where Horntvedt's flagstaff was. The seal pup followed her everywhere.

  Although I wished to get away, Sailhardy took a long look at the ominous weather build-up in the south-west and started in on the steering lines and the rudder. For fully an hour he flexed the supple lines through the holes, greasing and regreasing them, checking, testing again and again. He went repeatedly over the odd projection on the port side near the rudder, from which a rope ran through the sternport into a big enclosed space below the helmsman's seat. Nothing would make him hurry over his searching examination.

  While he checked and Walter stamped in the growing

  cold, Helen and I fished in the rock-pools with the seal pup, which joined in hauling up the codlike Notothenia fish as if it had been a game. By the time Sailhardy had finished, we had collected a pile of about twenty, which we stacked with the other supplies. Upton had agreed the 181

  previous night to taking the albatross in the boat because of Sailhardy's insistence that the great bird would be invaluable in finding land once it could fly again—the islander reckoned it would be within a week—and so, he said, help us locate Thompson Island. Sailhardy had reinforced his argument by pointing out that in a small boat in bad weather it would be virtually impossible to take an accurate sighting. I suspected, however, that Sailhardy was more concerned with the albatross' safety than with locating Thompson Island. We had decided, too, that we could lower the bird down the cliff-side by the rope by putting the net round it again. I was well aware of Sailhardy's methods of navigation—by the

  direction of a flock of petrels flying, by feeling the temperature of the sea at hourly intervals with his hand, the colour of the water, and a host of other esoteric sealore. His only man-made instrument was a kind of rough wooden backstaff by which he took angles on the stars, but never the sun. His landfalls were as good as mine.

  When it made the climb to the roverhullet the wind began gusting heavily and plucked at us on the exposed rock faces. As it increased during the evening, Upton became more uneasy and morose. Almost nothing was said, but he pored over the chart after our evening meal round the stove and at intervals he opened the door and looked out. On one occasion I caught a glimpse of the catchers' lights, rising and falling. The night had a resonant, ominous background of sound from the waves thundering on the cliffs below and the wind tearing at the glacier above. I went with Upton to the door and found the albatross huddled against the front wall.

  I called Sailhardy and we carried him, unprotesting, through to the store-room. We did not need to tell each other how little we thought of our chances of leaving Bouvet the next day.

  In the middle of the night my sailor's instinct suddenly brought me broad awake. I raised up in my sleeping-bag-we had each selected our own for the boat—and looked round. The dim light of the stove etched Walter, unshaven and with sockets of shadows for eyes, evil as he sat cross-legged with the Schmeisser across his knees ; Helen lay with her back towards me, and the yellow light made even softer the colour of her hair loose on the flap of the sleeping-bag.

  Pirow turned uneasily as if his mind were on the faked messages he had sent earlier in the evening to Thorshammer; but it was Upton's face that brought me fear and revulsion-182

  the pewter hue was tinged with blue, including the eyelids, as if the caesium were justifying the blue in its spectrum. Perhaps the light added to the grotesqueness, for there was no sign of age, not a wrinkle anywhere: everything was taut—it was the face of a dead man, mummified with his dreams in his face.

  Sailhardy had heard, too, and was awake. It had sounded

  to me like a double bass string being plucked. Both of us guessed what had happened—one of the steel cables holding the hut had parted. The wind shook the walls and a peckle of hail rattled against them. We kicked ourselves out of our sleeping-bags and crawled across to Walter.

  I spoke softly, so as not to wake the others. "That was one of the guy-ropes, wasn't it?"

  Walter was on edge. " Aye, it was. I'll tell you straight, Captain, although we're on the wrong sides, I don't like this bloody wind. It'll be blowing a full gale by morning.

  Christ! What will it be like at sea?"

  " Try and persuade your boss about that," I replied roughly. The wind carried a burst of low thunder from the breaking waves. " We won't last more than a couple of days."

  " Bruce! We must rig a new rope—now! If anything else gives, the roverhullet will go over the cliff !" whispered Sailhardy. " I reckon we would be better at sea than here,"r />
  he added defensively.

  " Jesus!" said Walter. " Okay. See what you can do."

  In the store-room, we cut off a length of the thick rope which had been used for lowering the aluminium and supplies.

  We opened the door. The icy wind took our breath away.

  We drew our windbreaker hoods round our heads. The air was laden with flying spicules. We could not see, but felt our way to the corners of the hut to locate the broken stay. It was one of two in front. With expert hands, although in gloves, Sailhardy knotted one end of the rope round the iron pole in the rock and the other to the trailing end from the roof.

  Upton was waiting by the stove when we returned. Helen

  and Pirow were also awake.

  I turned back my hood and pulled off my gloves. " Are you still going ahead with this insane idea of yours?" I asked Upton.

  " If I have to drive everyone of you down to the beach at the point of the automatic—yes."

  I glanced at Helen. " You can do that, but you won't 183

  be able to drive a fully-laden boat into the breakers at the point of a gun," I said. " If we ever get the boat into the water, I'll tell you what will happen—she'll be smashed against the rooks by the next roller."

  " Don't try and stop me, Wetherby!" he shouted. " We sail to-morrow, sea or no sea, gale or no gale!"

  " Listen ..."

  " I won't listen to a Wetherby!" he yelled, completely out of control. The contorted face bore no relation to the sleeping mask. " Thompson Island is mine, I tell you."

  There was no point in arguing, but on the rough little beach next morning, following a nightmare descent after slinging the albatross down in the net, he saw what I meant.

  We had loaded the boat while she lay behind the corner of the cliff. Great seas crashed on to the rocks. Under favourable conditions, lifting the boat as she was—the helicopter's radio under the stern decking added to the weight—was a job for six men. Upton and Pirow would not hear of leaving the radio, and we had used it as ballast in the net with the albatross. The tiny seal pup, which had shared Helen's sleeping-bag in the roverhullet, had come down the pathway buttoned inside her coat. Upton raised no objection—I think he was trying to make a gesture to her.