by Peter Tonkin
From sea level, the wall of blue-grey ice rose through three hundred metres sheer. It stretched away on either hand as though determined to join Canada and Greenland. The Bell helicopter was so low that no one aboard could guess what lay beyond the crest of the cliff, but both of the passengers had been on the ice and they knew well enough. The wind roared over the high edge of it, pulling great streamers of spray off its crests. The crystalline cliffs ahead of them streamed with a deluge of rain, spray and meltwater. The helicopter dipped and swooped again.
‘Over or round?’ asked the pilot.
‘Over!’ ordered Richard.
The Huey climbed vertiginously, as though it was an express elevator. The cliff face seemed to plunge in and down at once, falling towards them like a great wave breaking. The illusion was compounded by the spray which foamed over them in the wind. Foamed towards them, overwhelmed them and was gone in a flash as they broke through into the higher reaches.
The strength of the wind keeping the overcast at bay allowed them a brief glance along the length of the iceberg - nearly fifty kilometres of it above water - before the helicopter pirouetted and dived west across the narrow southernmost section towards the south-western corner where the explosive charges had been laid. On their left hand, the cliffs which they had just passed stood in a long, curving line at an angle to the rest of the berg. They came in towards the central axis as though trying to form a point. Beyond the centre, however, the cliffs of the south-western section curved out into a hook, which over the last months had dragged the berg westward one kilometre for every kilometre south it had drifted, spinning it slowly on its axis. This was not easily achieved; the length of the berg under the water was more than one hundred kilometres, and forcing it to spin required forces which were almost incalculable.
As things stood, the monster berg, the ice island, largest of its kind ever seen in these waters, was just about to enter the Western Ocean shipping lanes. Unless something was done, it would cross them slowly and unpredictably, drifting south-westwards, spinning lethargically and presenting a massive danger. What it would do as it grated across the Newfoundland Banks defied calculation. What it would do if it drifted onto the eastern seaboard of the United States and ground down the edge of the continental shelf from Boston to Barbados went beyond imagining.
But, as the two tall men in the Huey knew, if the iceberg had an almost unlimited potential for destruction, it had an equal potential for good. By their rough calculation they were looking at about one and a half billion metric tonnes of water. All of it fresh. All ice cold.
So, before the US authorities called upon the full power of the armed forces to destroy it, these two extraordinary men were going to try and make some use of it - if they could manage to control, and ultimately direct, its movement. And they had sold their idea to the United Nations so that they had some backing and a little financial support, for the moment, if things went well.
The radio crackled into life again and Sam switched over to RECEIVE.
Below the helicopter, the southern section of the iceberg wheeled, the massive hook of ice seemingly trying to catch at Baffin Island, as though the distant land was some kind of fish. Abruptly, black figures came into view, scurrying across the milky surface below, and as soon as the eye discerned the existence of life down there, so it immediately discovered the geometric shapes of tents and even huts, and the rude beginnings of roads. There was an encampment on the berg and it was manned.
‘Five!’ relayed the pilot, the volume of his voice more than was needed just to overcome the noise.
‘We won’t be down in time, Sam. Keep clear!’ called Richard.
‘Four!’ The helicopter danced obediently eastwards, but remained hanging high enough on the wind for the men aboard to see what was going on.
‘Can we get round for a close look. . .’
‘THREE!’
‘. . . after the detonation?’ bellowed Colin Ross. This was his baby, after all. He was in charge on the ice.
‘Good idea. Sam . . .’
‘TWO!’
‘. . . get us in under the cliff there as soon as it blows.’
‘SURE! ONE!’
The helicopter swung back, tail up, to give the three men aboard a grandstand view as Sam yelled ‘ZERO!’ and in majestic series a line of explosions erupted across the base of the ice hook as though a stick of bombs had been dropped there. The burgeoning thunder of the explosions overwhelmed even the engine noise. The power of the blast made the little craft dance back in a way that even the squall wind could not enforce. A wall of ice dust and fragments hurled high into the lightening air, then thinned, billowed, became a cloud which joined the others scurrying southwards to rain on Newfoundland. The helicopter darted in behind it to overlook the destruction the explosions had wrought.
At first it seemed that nothing much was happening. Twelve craters in a curving line lay open to the stormy sky. The ice dust in them seethed and bubbled like some kind of volcanic activity. On one side of the line, the bulk of the berg with its little village stood firm; on the other, the massive hook of ice kept up its unwelcome pressure against the water, turning the southward pressure of the wind into a westward drift for the ice.
‘Nothing doing!’ yelled Sam.
‘Give it time,’ said Colin Ross, his voice quiet but carried to the others by its desperate tone. ‘It has to work. We calculated everything so carefully.’
‘Back to the drawing board, Colin!’ said Richard. Then, ‘NO! Look. Something’s happening after all!’
The furthest crater was suddenly joined to the distant shoreline by a crack. It stretched for the better part of a kilometre. A crack a metre wide. No, ten metres wide, twenty, no . . . Distantly, a massive wall of spray rose up as though some huge surf had thrown itself against the ice cliffs. And the crack extended itself magically to the second crater and then to the third.
‘There she goes!’ exulted Colin but his voice was lost beneath the noise. It was as though the greatest tree in all the world was slowly toppling down and the sound it made was amplified a million times. The fissure, widening to a valley even as they watched, sprang from crater to crater beneath them. And the ice beyond the line was in slow, terrifying motion. Calving off from the mass of the big berg, another, made up only of the ice hook, was tearing itself away. Such was the power of the forces at work here that both of the bergs seemed to be in contrary motion. The main one seemed to be striking directly southwards, with the current and the wind, newly liberated and gathering way. The hook as it fell free spun westwards and, impelled by the force of its birth, seemed to be riding northward over the stormy, slate-grey waters.
But then the three men in the helicopter, almost stationary in the sky above this enormous process, saw other forces begin to come into play. The power of the explosion so carefully, and accurately, calculated by Colin and Kate Ross had lanced deep into the iceberg to ensure that not only was that portion of the ice above the water amputated, but a corresponding section beneath the water broke loose too.
The new berg, free of its mother, began to come to terms with its changed situation. Still spinning, it began to topple until it fell on its side in the ocean with an eruption of white water like the greatest of whales spouting.
That was the last the three in the helicopter saw at that stage, for Colin Ross, his excitement out of control, was pounding on Richard’s shoulder and yelling, ‘Down! Let’s go down!’
At first, Richard thought the glaciologist wanted to go immediately to the camp atop the ice cliff, but no. Colin meant straight down and right now. Sam got the message fast enough and the Huey dropped like a stone thrown carelessly over the edge of the new cliffs. At first they could only see the sea ahead, which heaved and foamed as though a hurricane was passing, in the wake of the tumbling calf berg. The water foamed like molten lead and spewed up great pieces of ice to bob between the two greater pieces - debris from the explosion. Richard felt a fleeting worry for any wild
life in this immediate area of the ocean, but then he remembered how careful Colin and Kate had been to ensure that none of the creatures they spent so much time studying were anywhere near enough to be injured.
Then his thoughts moved on, as the helicopter itself moved round to show its occupants the result of all this destruction. The new cliffs were like galleries of blue-green glass. Shattered out of the heart of the ice, they had had no time to weather during the moments since their explosive birth. The rain had stopped now and the last of the runoff spread itself thinly down the new cliffs and froze into place so they seemed to be composed of massive panes of glass, almost like gigantic gemstones in the crystal beauty of their planes and surfaces. Had the sun been shining on them, Sam, Colin and Richard would probably have been blinded. As things stood, they looked, awestruck, into the very depths of the berg. It was as though they could see deep into the antediluvian soul of it, as though they could see back in time to the snows of a thousand years BC which had fallen on Greenland when it had still been a green land and had given slow birth to the monster before them. The crystalline past faded slowly, imperceptibly, into blue-green shadows which in turn became a velvet darkness calling like the spaces between the stars.
But only the longest of inspections would have allowed the spectators to plumb those depths. Now there was only the opportunity to register the dazzling surfaces and to see that this new, beautiful range of cliffs swept inwards along a line which brought them to a sharp edge against the first set so that, three hundred metres high from waterline to topmost gallery, with a bit of a rake from forecastle to forefoot, the iceberg had a pair of proper bows like a ship.
Even before the helicopter’s skids kissed the ice, Colin was wrestling himself out of his seat strap and hooking his mitten-covered right hand round the door release. Richard was a little slower. He thanked Sam for the flight and advised the pilot to grab himself a hot drink from the camp; they would be returning to Antelope in half an hour or so, weather permitting.
When Richard leaped down onto the berg, he found his big colleague had waited for him. Side by side, crouching under the idling rotor blades, they dashed across the ice towards the makeshift encampment. As they ran, they splashed through the last of the puddles left by the rain before they were absorbed into the massive bulk of the berg beneath them. The ice was cold enough to freeze water and big enough to dictate its own microclimate, especially under calm conditions, but both men knew it was only a matter of time before it began to melt.
‘She even rides differently,’ called Colin the second they were clear. They paused for an instant and stood erect, testing the ice with the soles of their feet. Richard had been a seafarer since boyhood, a ship’s captain for more than twenty years, but he would be damned if he could feel any movement in the ice at all. He might just as well have been standing on the pavement outside Heritage House in London. ‘Good,’ he said amiably, infected by the other’s enthusiasm.
Then they were off again, running side by side towards the huts, and abruptly there was a figure from the huts running out to greet them.
This was Colin’s wife and colleague Kate. Kate Ross stood tall and reed-thin, by no means dwarfed by her husband’s massive size - or overcome by his ebullient enthusiasm; if anything, she seemed more excited than he, for she threw her arms round him and gave him the most unscientific hug and kiss. Were it not for their stature, they could have been Eskimos embracing, with their bulky sealskin leggings and hooded jackets of Caribou hide. But Inuit are a small-boned people and it would have taken several of them to fill Colin’s clothing and a couple to fill Kate’s.
‘She’s riding differently! Can you feel it?’ she asked the instant they broke apart.
‘Yes! I was just saying to Richard here . . .’
‘I think we’ve got it right this time. Paul and his engineers are checking the new cliffs now but it feels right.’
The two glaciologists hurried off without a further word, leaving Richard to follow more slowly. Their excitement was perfectly understandable, he mused as he walked carefully over the treacherous surface. This was the climax of many months of calculation, experiment and planning. It represented the opening of a doorway to them; a doorway into an Aladdin’s cave of possibilities, through which he had promised to accompany them.
Abruptly, Richard turned left. The camp and the waiting helicopter were now both behind him and only the cliffs, old and new, lay ahead. As the last squall fled away south ahead of him, he strode purposefully down the berg. Even if his sailor’s feet were not attuned to the movement of the massive vessel beneath them, there was a vantage point relatively close at hand where his eyes would soon tell him what the soles of his feet would not.
The ice ahead seemed in fact to slope upwards as the edges of it closed together, giving the impression of a massive forecastle head. And it was onto this that Richard strode, marvelling as he did so at the manner in which the horizons fell away. Only as he reached the point which his observation from the helicopter had warned him was very much like the near overhang at the prow of a cruiser did his purposeful stride begin to slow. The new form of the ice was so much like the bow of a ship that it was all too easy to forget that this was not safe steel beneath his feet.
He looked down. The ice, weathered white here but containing the hint of a blue glow within, came to a sharp point a couple of metres further forward. Beneath that point, the two cliff edges met in a sheer cutwater three hundred metres high. Reaching back on either hand, the cliffs formed a carefully calculated forecastle big enough, they all prayed, to give the long, narrow iceberg a shiplike form regular enough to allow them to guide it along something approximating to a straight line. If they had managed that, then they were all in business.
Richard stood rapt, thinking about the business they were in and how they had come to be in it at all. The Rosses had come onto the ice because a berg this big in these waters was a once in a lifetime experience. The Antarctic calved bergs as big as Belgium - the largest on record was 335 kilometres long and 100 kilometres wide, twenty times the size of this one in surface area alone. But something this size in these waters was rare, to put it mildly. The Rosses saw it as a floating laboratory where they could carry out research impossible anywhere else. And they saw it as a unique chance to try and fulfil a dream long held by themselves and countless others: a chance to supply a worthwhile amount of fresh water to the drought-stricken coasts of Africa. It was a dream they had shared with many people over the years, and not just with academics like themselves. They had caught the interest of some senior officers of the United Nations for whom they did some of their scientific work. The Americans had been supportive too, for the experiment promised to rid them of a nasty and costly danger to the eastern seaboard. Various rich sheikhs and sultans were interested, for it had long been a dream cherished in the Gulf that icebergs could be pulled into the heart of the desert; pulling an iceberg even to Africa was something they would therefore be happy to support. And the Third World was interested, for the Rosses promised to bring some relief from the terrible droughts in Africa.
All that interest had firmed up into Paul Chan and his small team, the good offices of the nearby deep-sea research vessel Antelope, and the promise of more help. More political path-smoothing. More money. But only if the iceberg could be controlled. Controlling the movement of something this big was going to be nearly impossible, but at least an iceberg of this size would still be there when the African coast hove into view.
Richard had first come across the berg when one of his ships had been marooned upon its shores six months earlier. While trying to rescue the ship, her crew and his wife Robin who had been in command, Richard had met the Rosses and had become infected with their dreams. They had the idea of moving the berg. He had the power. Literally. He had a fleet of supertankers currently underemployed. They calculated that if they could make the berg begin to drift in what approximated to a straight line then six of his supertankers could contro
l the drift - affect the course and speed just enough to make a difference. Icebergs had been sighted as far south as Bermuda before now; they just wanted this one to end up a little further west and south, that was all.
There were those who said it couldn’t be done; of course there were. There were those who said it would be impossible to get the berg across the equator, and many who said that if they wanted to tug ice around the southern hemisphere, they should start with the big tabular bergs off the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica.
But the fact was that this berg was big enough to make the scheme look feasible. It was here. It was available. Together with the work of the Rosses, it had generated enough interest at a sufficiently high level to make dreams border on reality and words upon action. They had the backing. They had the will. They had an agreement with the United Nations that if Colin said this step was passed, the UN would charter six of Richard’s tankers. It was the promise of this deal which had brought him a quarter of the way round the world during the last few days, from London via Reykjavik and Julianehab to the deck of Antelope where Colin Ross had come to meet him. Richard was a humanitarian but he was also a businessman. He would have swum up the Amazon to meet a man who had the power to charter six of his supertankers, all at once.