Southtrap

by Geoffrey Jenkins

  He got my message, this time.

  'Aye, aye, sir.'

  Then get the bloody thing rigged. Now.' I snapped. 'And send Mr Wegger in.'

  'Mister Wegger?' he asked.

  'You may be in for a surprise soon,' I retorted as he left.

  Wegger had certainly willed himself on to Quest, and I would have preferred some elbow-room in choosing a new officer. But we sailed tomorrow. The McKinleys might have their place entertaining passengers but the sort of man I wanted out there where the ice was, was Wegger's type.

  He came in, looking as if he were trapped with steel wire, and asked right away, 'How is Captain Prestrud, sir?'

  'He's bad. They're operating now. Skull fracture.'

  'What chance has he got, sir?'

  I shrugged for reply.

  Wegger made a gesture of enquiry which took in the chart which I had still not put away, and the ship at large. He must have heard me giving orders to McKinley.

  I answered his unspoken question. 'Quest sails tomorrow. I've taken over.'

  He gave a smile, if you could call it that. It was more a self-satisfied twitch of the lips.

  'I'm glad, sir.'

  'How do you mean, you're glad?'

  'I mean, I'm glad Quest will be sailing after all, and I'd rather see you in command than anyone else. I know a sailor when I see one.'

  Oddly enough, I felt that he wasn't trying to flatter me. It was a sizing-up, as if he were gauging the odds.

  I had a sudden thought. 'What do you know about Dina's Island?'

  His face and eyes remained blank. But the cords knotted in his neck as if he were trying to raise the anchor from the seabed all on his own.

  'Never heard of it,' he said.

  'Nor have I.'

  He picked his next words. 'Then what makes you ask, sir?'

  All of a sudden there was about him that intensity which I had noticed earlier in the day, as if the pressure inside him were mounting to bursting-point.

  'Captain Prestrud mentioned it.'

  I could see Wegger was holding something back. His next words were too casual. It was this that decided me to tell him nothing more of what Captain Prestrud had said.

  'What did he say?'

  'It doesn't matter,' I replied. 'There is no Dina's Island. He probably didn't know what he was saying.'

  If he was as bad as you say, that's probably it.'

  Wegger ought really to have been asking me about the job, not concerning himself with Captain Prestrud. I hadn't got to the bottom of this, but it didn't make me any less keen to have a first-class officer aboard.

  I asked, 'What do you know about Prince Edward Island?'

  I've been there.'

  'When?'

  I couldn't read his eyes.

  'Years ago. Not recently.'

  'I was there only a couple of weeks ago,' I said. 'It's the Quest's first port of call — if by any stretch of the imagination you could call it a port.'

  He then said, 'Why is Quest going to Prince Edward? There's nothing there. The logical stop would be Marion — it's only twenty-two kilometres away. It's also inhabited — the permanent weather teams are stationed there. They'd be glad to have a big ship like this call. And to see the tourists — plus a bit of skirt, whatever shape might be inside. They do a year's stint on Marion without a sight of a woman.'

  'I told you this morning,' I replied. 'This cruise is following the route taken by HMS Erebus and Terror. They called at Prince Edward — or tried to. In fact, they never landed at all. They hove to off the island for the night but a gale caught them and blew them sixty miles towards the Crozets. That's why the Quest is bound for Prince Edward.'

  'You're prepared to risk a ship for that sort of lark?'

  'It's not my decision. That's the way the cruise has been planned. Miss Prestrud will fly in with the tourists this afternoon. That's what they're paying to get — and we've got to give it to them.'

  I realize that by saying 'we' I had included him.

  He went on forcefully, 'If the wind shifts south-east when you're anchored off Cave Bay, you can say your prayers.'

  'I know. But it's usually out of the west or southwest.'

  'What about the kelp barrier?' he demanded further. 'If it fouls Quest's engine intakes, you'll never get clear.'

  The more I heard of his expertise, the more I knew that Wegger was the sort of officer I wanted. McKinley probably thought kelp was a new hair-spray. Nonetheless, I wasn't having Wegger supply me with a lesson in seamanship.

  'Just for the record, Wegger, I've done a milk-run'. through the islands for some years now — Marion, Gough — keeping the weather stations supplied. I know.'

  He eyed me. Something was still nagging him.

  But my mind was jumping ahead to the thousand and one jobs which still lay ahead in order to get the Quest ready for sea.

  I said briefly, 'This ship's in a mess. Can you start now? Not this afternoon, or in an hour, but right now. The job's yours if you can.' — What job?'

  'First officer.'

  He looked surprised, then replied after a short pause, 'Right now it is. I brought my gear aboard — just in case.'

  'Good. Then…' I was about to start on technicalities when he pulled a pistol out of his pocket and threw it on to the chart that lay half-rolled upon the table in front of me.

  It was an old 9mm Luger with a four-inch barrel, one of those early war-time guns collectors go crazy about. But this wasn't a collector's gun. It had a streak of rust from the muzzle to the safety-catch.

  'Mind if I bring this along?'

  'Why?'

  'If we're going ashore at Prince Edward I want some protection against the skuas.' He rolled up his left sleeve. There was a long scar on the forearm in the place where a man might throw up his arm to protect his head.

  He said venomously, 'One of 'em did that. I hate the bastards. There's only one thing for them — shoot them.'

  I said, 'All the wild life is protected. Both Prince Edward and Marion are nature reserves. Don't forget.'

  He gave an exaggerated laugh. 'Show me just one game ranger on those goddamned places! If we shoot a few birds, who's going to know?'

  He was right of course. And those skuas have no fear of man. I'd been attacked by them on my own deck.

  'How much ammunition have you got?'

  He put two small boxes next to the pistol. One had been breached.

  'About a hundred rounds.'

  That's a lot of shells.'

  There's a lot of skuas.'

  'All right then. But take it easy, Wegger. I don't want any complaints. Only if it's absolutely necessary…'

  He leaned forward to scoop up the shells with his sound left hand. As their weight came off the chart it rolled itself up an inch or two of its own accord so that the names which had been inked in were under his fingers.

  He snapped the parchment down again so hard that it crackled. He stared at the names as if transfixed: Teddy. Atlantis-Pinguin-Sibirien. January 14th 1941.

  'Where does this come from?'

  His question came out like a pistol shot as he picked up the Luger. He was so stunned by what he had just read that I don't think he realized what he was doing nor where he was pointing the gun.

  In fact he was pointing it straight at me.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Several hours later after lunch, I was alone in the Captain's cabin. I felt even more of an intruder than in the chartroom earlier. Captain Prestrud had left his imprint upon the place, even in the short time he had owned Quest. A big roll-top desk, old-fashioned and friendly, contained a mixture of official and private papers and photographs. A smoked pipe and tobacco jar and an unfinished letter all pointed to a man who had gone out and meant to come back. But I couldn't help doubting Captain Prestrud would ever return.

  I could still sense his warm presence. It was here that I had had my interview for the Quest job. The ship's documents were now my immediate concern. For the sorting and clea
ring of the desk with its personal possessions I decided to await Linn's arrival. Among his books I noted Captain Benjamin Morrell's autobiographical Voyage to the Antarctic, dating back a century and a half. After its publication Morrell had been dubbed a liar but in the course of time his accounts were confirmed by others. I made a mental note to check if he mentioned Dina's Island.

  Dina's Island — the chart. Why had Wegger attached so much importance to it?

  It was a question I had asked myself a score of times while sorting out all the things that needed doing to get the Quest ready for sea. I had asked him point-blank as he stood there staring at the chart: What was it that had shaken him so?

  It had got me really rattled. Wegger had come aboard trailing as much tension as a primed hijacker's grenade and then this business of the chart. I was on the point of revoking my offer of the job. He sensed this, and had explained quickly that he had been serving in Teddy, a supply tanker to the Norwegian Antarctic whaling fleet at the outbreak of World War II. It was just that the unexpected sight of a chart from his first ship had touched a nostalgic chord of memory.

  It sounded phoney. I told him so.

  He then said that the Teddy had been captured and burned early in the war by a German raider and that it had moved him to see this tangible relic of her all these years later.

  Wegger looked to me as sensitive as those Antarctic fish which don't need haemoglobin in their blood, they are so tough.

  'What raider?' I asked.

  With the third finger of his wrecked right hand he had stabbed the. name hand-printed on the chart. Atlantis.

  But he couldn't — or wouldn't — offer an explanation for that last name, Siberien, or the date, or any possible connection with the other German raider Pinguin.

  He was saved from further cross-examination by McKinley bursting in to say that the clutch on a derrick winch loading Number 3 hatch, between the bridge and the stack, had stripped. With it out of action, we'd never get to sea in time.

  If I had my doubts about Wegger in one respect, I had no reason to question my judgment of him as a seaman in the next few hours. He personally took on the job of repairing the clutch — which even I considered to be a shore workshop job — and laboured at it, stripped and sweating in the hot wind, driving his squad as mercilessly as an old-time bucko mate until the job was done. When I was sure loading had been resumed, I made my way for'ard along the deck past the lifeboats — painted red for emergency sighting in the ice — to check the Captain's cabin. As the Quest's new captain the cabin was now mine.

  I left the desk and opened the ship's safe with the combination numbers I had discovered in a drawer. The Quest's documents were all there, together with the wages for the crew. I riffled through the papers. Everything was in order.

  Under a ledger I found a folding leather case, the sort of frame which is intended to house portrait photographs. I opened it. One half was empty: the other revealed a picture of one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. She was young, dark, and her eyes seemed a little heavy. There was about her a timeless loveliness, a heart-stopping quality, and at the same time an almost unnatural stillness, a curiously blank expression in the eyes. She wore a sealskin jerkin with a high Cossack-like collar. I couldn't make out any more details.

  I knelt down to get more light on the picture, but it didn't help. The photograph itself was poor. It looked as if it had been shot through glass with an electric flash.

  Could this enigmatic face possibly be that of Linn Prestrud, now our tour leader? 'What are you doing with my father's belongings?'

  As I spun round to face her, my mental tumblers fell into place as surely as those of the safe's combination: it wasn't Linn Prestrud's portrait that I held. It was she who stood in the doorway. Hers was an animated face by contrast with the picture's — somewhat puzzled, a little angry, maybe. Jet-lag after her 6000-mile flight from Europe showed round her green-grey eyes; she held her head back in a way which I was always to associate with her. She looked about twenty-five. Blue slacks with a blue-and-white striped top enhanced her slim figure. Her top blouse button was undone.

  I felt at a disadvantage down on the floor, like a kid caught stealing jam. I said nothing and got to my feet.

  She pushed aside a drift of corn-gold hair which was falling across her right temple.

  'Who are you?'

  'John Shotton. You must be Linn Prestrud.'

  Her glance went over my grubby uniform. 'What are you doing prying into my father's things?'

  A line that ran from the right-hand comer of her mouth showed how tired and tense she was.

  I said quietly. 'You've had a long flight. Sit down and I'll order some coffee. Then I'll explain what I'm doing here and we'll work out things together.' I dreaded the moment when I would have to break the news about her father.

  'Together? I don't even know who you are.'

  'Until this morning I was the first officer. Your father hired me.'

  She gave me a long searching look which came to rest on the photograph in my hand.

  'What is that photograph you're stashing away in the safe?'

  I held it out without replying and she came close. She had the dry, closed-in smell of jet travellers — upholstery, deodorants, the sterile accoutrements of high altitudes.

  'Lovely face,' she said. 'But something odd about it.'

  'I've never seen her before,' I told her. 'I've just found it tucked away in your father's safe.'

  'That makes two of us.' She held the photograph sideways to get more light, as I had done.

  'It's out of focus, or something,' she said.

  'Or something. It must be your father's. I'd say it was rather precious to him too, to keep it locked away in a safe.'

  I went to the desk and rang the chief steward. 'I want two cups of coffee and some sandwiches. In the Captain's cabin. Right away.' I listened to his reply for a moment. 'I don't give a damn whether or not twenty passengers have just come aboard. I want that coffee here quick.'

  Linn Prestrud said, 'Anyone would think you were captain of this ship.'

  I took the photograph from her and put it back in the safe.

  'They'd be right,' I said. That's just what I am. And it's just what I want to talk to you about.'

  I sat her down in a well-worn leather easy-chair and took Captain Prestrud's revolving desk-chair myself.

  'Cigarette?'

  'Thanks. I don't smoke.'

  I couldn't see anything of her father in her features but she had something of his controlled warmth. I found it very attractive.

  I said slowly, 'Your father has been injured and he is in hospital…' I gave her a quick run-down on the situation. She listened in shocked silence: when I told her the extent of his head injuries her fingers went to the undone blouse button and subconsciously fastened it, as if trying to shut out the bad news. As I proceeded to tell her the whole story, her eyes misted. I was relieved when the steward arrived with the coffee and sandwiches. I poured her a cup of strong coffee. Her hand trembled as she took the cup. She refused a sandwich.

  As soon as the man was gone she said, 'I must get to the hospital right away.'

  'I'm afraid there's nothing you can do at the moment,' I said gently. 'I received a call from the hospital just before you arrived. He's in a deep coma now, and they don't expect him to come out of it — not at least until after the operation. He should be in the operating theatre at this moment.'

  'I must go just the same. My God, he's my father!' she said, choking with emotion.

  I put a hand on her shoulder and told her of my last conversation with him a couple of hours ago. I told her that her father had made me promise to sail on schedule whatever happened to him. I also told her of his last request and my promise to tell her she must sail on Quest as arranged.

  Quietly, she picked up her bag, asked me to call a taxi, and said she would be back as soon as she could. She gulped the last of her coffee, and was gone.

  When sh
e returned, a couple of hours later, her eyes red with tears, she came straight to my cabin and sat down in the chair she'd occupied earlier. She gave a deep sigh, and apathetic smile.

  'I don't know what to call you,' she said. 'I can't really call you Captain…'

  'John will do,' I said. 'It's because of your stake in what is basically your father's dream that I want to talk to you.'

  'Meaning?'

  I was grateful to be deflected from the emotional aspect. She was taking the crisis well.

  'What worries me is that I may have promised your injured father something that I had no right to promise.'

  'Meaning?' she said again in a voice as faraway as Prince Edward Island.

  'I gave your father an assurance that I would take Quest to sea tomorrow on schedule to launch the drifter buoy and balloon. You are as much part of this cruise as he was. I think the decision ought now to be yours.'

  'He must have trusted you very much to have asked you that,' she said.

  'For the record, I greatly admire and like your father.

  But I feel like an actor stepping into someone else's part. I haven't the same motivations.'

  She once again fiddled with the top button of her blouse. 'You may think so, John. But when you mentioned the Southern Ocean jut now you talked in quite i different voice. My father must have noticed it too. That's why he asked you to step into his shoes.'

  There's no glamour down there in the ice, Linn, whatever the Orbit Travels' sales talk might have been. It's an icy hell which breaks men's bodies as well as their spirits. Prince Edward Island is nothing but one twin of a volcanic peak which had the nerve to stick its head out into the storms. If you want to see what a mere few thousand years of gales can do to solid rock you want to take a look at the western cliffline of the island where it faces the winds. It's the windpipe of the world, down there. Your ship can lie off for a month waiting for one day calm enough to land — if her engines can take it. I've known a destroyer's turbines at full revs unable to make headway of one knot against the wind. I know. I've been there.'

  'And you've always gone back.'