Southtrap

by Geoffrey Jenkins

  Quest barrelled into the roller. The searchlight blanked opaque. Water broke and roared. Where was the growler? For a fearful moment I thought it would fall bodily on the foc's'le deck.

  The wave punched the swinging bow like an upper-cut to the jaw. No man-made force could have done what that huge wave did. It slammed Quest's bow aside. The searchlight beam held the growler like a bomber trapped in a night raid. The white menace cartwheeled.

  Quest's bow slewed to port. Sweat poured off my hands on to the spokes. For a moment the growler hung suspended in the beam's maximum traverse. It was whiter than the white foam. Then it slid, yawed. Quest swerved aside.

  It missed; it vanished into the night behind.

  I still held on to the wheel. My legs felt as if they wouldn't hold me. Then I shifted the helm back amidships. When I handed over I scarcely recognized my own voice.

  'Steady as she goes,' I told the white-faced helmsman. 'Keep her south-west by south!'

  Then I rang the engine-room pointer down to three-quarter speed.

  Wegger was still clutching the crow's-nest phone unseeingly in his damaged hand. The gun hung loose in the other at his side. His face was a grim mask of fear.

  I relieved him of the phone. 'Crow's nest!' I said. 'That's the first of 'em — there are plenty more ahead. Keep your eyes skinned if you don't want an ice-bath tonight.'

  The man's voice replied, 'I thought we'd bought it, that time.'

  The Quest plunged on into the mounting storm.

  By midnight, the scheduled time of Botany Bay's signal, the Quest's bridge and superstructure were streaked with long streamers of spindrift. It collected round the pulpit rail of the crow's nest like clotted cream. When it became thick enough, it blew clear in great dollops which smashed against the bridge windows like snowballs bursting. I had the look-outs replaced every hour. An hour was about all they could take in the freezing wind. The searchlight shifts were even shorter — forty minutes. The drenched and frozen crews were fed coffee laced with rum when they were relieved. The hands of the bridge clock were on midnight when Persson reported.

  'Botany Bay, sir.' He did not address either Wegger or me directly, which satisfied protocol.

  I looked my question at Wegger without speaking.

  'Take it — I'll stay here,' he said. 'Report to me as soon as you've spoken to Kearnay. Ullmann, watch him.'

  I went with Persson. The wind ripped and pummelled the ship. He opened the radio shack door for me.

  'Linn!'

  'John!' She came forward and kissed me. She smiled but her eyes looked tired and drawn. She was wearing her heavy Icelandic sweater and dark pants. 'I've brought you some coffee.'

  'MacFie's own special?'

  'Yes. I didn't want to bring it to the bridge. If I'd mentioned Wegger, MacFie would have put poison in his, for sure.'

  She tried to smile. Then she said with a rush, 'I couldn't stay in my cabin as he ordered — you see, I heard them carrying Captain Jacobsen…'

  'Where did they put him?' I asked gently.

  She shuddered. 'In the sick-bay. Just like Holdgate. It's become a mortuary, for me.'

  'And Mrs Jacobsen?'

  'She's still unconscious.'

  'Botany Bay, sir,' interrupted Persson.

  Reception was hardly better than it had been earlier.

  'Kearnay! This is Captain Shotton!'

  I caught only isolated, out-of-context fragments. '… bow-sprit… ice…'

  Persson whispered to me, 'She should be much clearer than she is, sir. Those batteries are packing up fast.'

  'Kearnay,' I said, 'hold it. Save what power you've got for later. Just answer briefly. Are you still afloat?'

  The reply was just audible. 'Not afloat… on the ice 'The ship!' I repeated. 'Is she afloat or has she sunk?'

  I caught a word of the reply clearly and Persson and Linn both nodded confirmation as I repeated it.

  'Iceport.'

  The rest was lost in a surge of sferics.

  The weather, Kearnay — what's your weather?'

  Persson strained and repeated the fragmentary answer. 'Calm in here. Outside…'

  'Outside?' I echoed. 'Outside where, Kearnay?'

  The answer was as faint and indistinct as a dying man's whisper.

  'Kearnay. Listen. I reckon I'm ninety, maybe one hundred and ten kilometres north-east of you. I'm using a searchlight. Watch out for it. Start firing those flares from three o'clock onwards. I'll be up with you thereabouts, depending on the weather.'

  It was, in fact, nearer four o'clock when the phone from the crow's nest cut through the long tense silence on the bridge.

  I snatched it up.

  It was the look-out. 'Distress flares, sir! Fine on the starboard bow!'

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  'Bearing? Distance?' I snapped.

  'Bearing two-two-zero, distance approximately fifteen kilometres.'

  'Good. Keep a sharp look-out. Keep me informed.'

  'Aye, aye, sir.'

  I touched the mouthpiece down for a moment, lifted it after the cut-off. I glanced at Wegger. There was no sign of the exhaustion which I had hoped would dull his vigilance. His stubble-coated face seemed to tauten and become youthful at the news from the look-out.

  'Bo'sun?' I enquired. 'Rescue team to emergency stations amidships. Everyone to wear survival kit — parkas, overpants, rubber thermal boots, gloves. I want scrambling nets rigged both port and starboard sides below the lifeboat-deck.'

  'Hands to emergency stations — aye, aye, sir.'

  Wegger still wasn't interfering. However, Botany Bay was in sight and that was what mattered — for the moment.

  I made another call. 'Persson? Botany Bay's in sight. See what you can manage with the R/T, will you? Tell him we've sighted his flares. I'm going up aloft to assess the situation for myself.'

  I worked the engine-room pointer to 'slow ahead'.

  Then I said briefly to Wegger, 'I'll be on the flying bridge.'

  He nodded to Ullmann without speaking. He uncurled himself from a high stool on which he'd spent most of the night like a sleepless tiger. I was uneasy. The entire rescue procedure was too normal, as if they hadn't hijacked the ship at all. McKinley was on watch. He looked like a playboy deprived of his playthings.

  I caught my breath as he swung on to the outer companionway with Ullmann behind. The wind was backing west from the north-west. As it did so the snow squalls would come, just as surely as the northwester had brought the rain. It shoved a frozen fist into my face and icy fingers lanced through the gaps in my parka hood and blew the nylon securing cords against my mouth. The flying bridge's deck was slippery with accumulated spume; below me the winches, hatches and rigging were all white, like a snowstorm.

  I tried to forget Ullmann's presence and my glance sought the south-west quadrant where the look-out had seen the flares. The light had an out-of-this-world quality, as unreal and insubstantial as a dream. It wasn't Captain Prestrud's blue mystical light. It was like seeing things through a stage curtain of grey. The horizon and sky were like a vast inverted bowl which was lighted round the rim where it met the ocean; overhead it was almost black from the overcast, plus a curious touch of blue depth. The eastern rim of the sky-bowl was light with the new sun, but the southwest was lighter — a wide band of strange, hard, white light which illuminated ten degrees from the horizon upwards into the overcast. Ice blink! That was ice ahead!

  At first I couldn't distinguish anything against the line of white which might be a ship.

  I found my Bausch and Lomb G-15 sunglasses which, with their Eskimo slit-goggle principle, improve light-shadow discrimination.

  Immediately a row of table-topped objects like castle battlements showed up against the flat white line.

  Icebergs!

  The crow's nest must have seen me on the flying bridge. The man called through a megaphone.

  'Icebergs, sir. Five — no, six…'

  I cupped my hands and shouted back, 'W
here's the windjammer?'

  'No ship in sight, sir. Nothing on the bearing of the rockets.'

  Had Botany Bay indeed sunk? How then could she be signalling? The rockets were too big for boat flares.

  The Quest rattled and vibrated as the way fell off her. She was dipping and sliding into the deep troughs and then lifting with a protesting groaning. She wasn't throwing water all over herself as she'd done during the night. Her well-modelled bow lifted over all but the biggest rollers now that she had slowed down.

  Three red rockets rose against the white horizon like stripes across a top secret file. I trained my binoculars on the spot.

  The masts and spars which would be a windjammer's tracery against the backdrop were missing. There was nothing.

  I shouted to the crow's nest. 'Where is that ship?'

  'No ship, sir. Those rockets came from an iceberg.'

  I headed for the radio shack. Persson held up his hand for silence when I entered.

  'Botany Bay says, "I can't see you from inside,"' he reported.

  'Inside! What the devil is he talking about? Why is the R/T so faint — we're within a few kilometres of her.'

  I took the microphone impatiently. 'Kearnay! Shot-ton here. I've sighted your rockets. But where in hell are you? Is your ship afloat?'

  '… inside an iceberg,' said Kearnay's remote voice. '… Fast… on the ice… not afloat…'

  'For crying in a bucket!' I rejoined. 'You're inside an iceberg?'

  '… Iceport… watch out for grease ice…'

  I passed the instrument back to Persson. 'One of us is nuts. I'm going in close to that berg to find out what the position is. If Botany Bay makes sense, call me. I'll be on the bridge.'

  When I got there with my gun-toting shadow Wegger said, 'What's the delay, Shotton?'

  I didn't care for his tense, hectoring tone. There's no ship. It's as simple as that.'

  'Don't give me that sort of double-talk,' he snapped. 'I saw the rockets myself.'

  'The flares came from an iceberg,' I replied.

  'There has got to be a ship! Do you hear! There has got to be a ship!'

  As if in answer, another trio of rockets fanned upwards from one of the bergs near the windward edge of the line. The bergs looked like old-time men-o'-war formed up in battle line ahead. The red flares cast an unearthly glow over the steely turquoise hue of the ice. It wasn't the usual plaster-of-Paris colour of the flattop which is common to Antarctica: I could distinguish an irregular outline against the skyline, which meant that the berg was old and weathered. We were still too far away to make out detail.

  It also showed me something which made me reach for the engine-room intercom. Despite the swell, the sea in the vicinity of the berg had an odd matt appearance — it was thick and soupy.

  'Mac,' I said, 'we're running into grease ice. Watch those engine suction strainers. I don't want 'em fouled.'

  'I'll watch 'em all the way,' Mac replied.

  The Quest tiptoed through the turgid sea towards the group of bergs. Small lumps of ice thumped against her hull.

  I kept my binoculars on the rocket-berg. From our angle of approach, the lee or port side of it consisted of a weathered pinnacle fronted by two lower flat-topped pieces of ice each a couple of hundred metres long. It was impossible to tell whether or not they were attached to the main berg. The right-hand slope of the peak fell away sharply. Because of shadow (it was on the side away from the sun) I could not make out detail at water-level. The extreme windward bulk of the berg consisted of a solid flat-top at least 300 metres long and 30 high.

  Where was Botany Bay?

  I noted as I cased the mass with my glasses that the shadow cast by the peak against the massive upright section moved. The berg was swinging. That meant the wind was slowly revolving it.

  Then the berg swung further in the Quest's direction and everything became clear.

  Between the left-hand peak and the right-hand buttress was an enormous archway through the solid ice. Open water lay beyond.

  I realized immediately where Botany Bay was. She was inside! In an iceport, a calm sheltered embayment with ice of the berg all round and a gateway to it via the majestic archway.

  That is what Kearnay had meant.

  I tried Persson's intercom. 'What does the windjammer say?'

  'Her batteries must be dead,' he replied.

  'Tell her…' I began but Wegger snatched the instrument from my hand.

  'Tell Botany Bay nothing — understand?' he snapped.

  'Fine,' I said. 'Run the bloody show yourself, Wegger, if that's the way you want it.'

  He responded by shouting to the rescue team sheltering in the lee of the Quest's bulwarks.

  'Clear away the motor-launch!'

  A single rocket — green this time — soared from somewhere inside the iceport.

  'She's inside — but where, I don't know,' I pointed out to Wegger.

  'I'm going to look — and you're coming, too. Ullmann, you also. Call Bravold to replace you.'

  Ullmann went, passing his Scorpion to Wegger, who stood against the bridge windows and regarded us.

  'See here,' he told the others on the bridge, 'don't get any ideas of seizing the ship while I'm away. Bravold is a very impatient man. There's nothing he likes to hear more than the sound of automatic fire. His own.'

  I wondered afresh at Wegger's concern for the windjammer. There was a great deal in his mind that I didn't understand.

  'Motor-launch cleared away, sir!' came a shout from the seamen in their orange lifejackets.

  I focused my glasses again on the arch. Stretched across the entrance like the arm of a breakwater was a low line of what looked like small pieces of ice coagulated together. If that line were as unnegotiable as it appeared from a distance, nothing could save Botany Bay. She was completely boxed in.

  Bravold came on to the bridge. He was as thin as Ullmann was broad but his face appeared more intelligent. He must have been asleep somewhere, but his eyes were alert. Like Ullmann's, they had an awful blankness of emotion. In addition to his machine-pistol his belt was strung with five grenades.

  'Warn the passengers over the public address system to keep off the decks,' Wegger told him. 'Shoot anyone who disobeys — right?'

  Bravold's eyes travelled round the bridge. McKinley dropped his glance. There was a line of sweat on his upper lip.

  'Right.'

  'Shotton, Ullmann — come!'

  The three of us made our way to the lifeboat deck. The motor-launch, a 25-footer with auxiliary sail and decked-in bow and stern, hung in the falls.

  'In,' Wegger ordered me.

  'How many men are coming?' I asked.

  'None. Three's a crowd. Let go of those falls!'

  The men seemed only too eager to get away from the gun muzzles. The launch reached the water.

  'Fend her off!' said Wegger. 'You're not the captain any more, Shotton. Get going!'

  I fired the engine and took the tiller. The mast, unshipped, lay the length of the craft. My eye went to its step in the bottom of the boat, which was where I had hidden Linn's golden coin. It looked as if we would need a lot more than Viking's luck to beat Wegger.

  We headed for the iceberg over roller-coaster waves, weaving and dodging between the smaller ice clutter. My approach was roundabout in order to avoid the spit across the entranceway. When we came closer, I could see that it did not extend right across: there was open water both under and beyond the arch.

  The whole majesty of Antarctica was in its frozen architecture. The arch was fronted by a double portico on the left side towering almost as high as the main structure itself. There was a deep cleft between it and the great main solid buttress on the right. The passage led through and under a soaring bridge which ended in a triangular roof like a huge hall. Calm open water was beyond.

  What lay inside there was anyone's guess.

  Wegger was for'ard gazing at the stupendous natural wonder. Ullmann didn't take his eyes or the Scorpion
off me.

  I called to Wegger, 'What now?'

  'Take her in! I'll con her.'

  I throttled back slightly as we passed under the ice-bridge. The wind cut off and we were in a haven. And a death-trap.

  Why, I saw.

  The sight ahead looked like an.old print from the days of sail.

  Threequarters of a kilometre away a windjammer with bluff bows and bulging sides lay canted over against an ice-cliff across ice-blue water. She looked like a bygone East Indiaman. She was full-rigged, and her sails were harbour-stowed. Her stern was half towards us. It was a great square-cut affair with big windows and quarter galleries. Gingerbread work flowered gold against dark blue, the colours bright despite the grey light. She must have been about 45 metres long with a beam of nine. The steeve or angle of her bowsprit was very sharp against the ice and I could see heavy chain guys holding it in position. The bowsprit was not fashioned to form a harmonious whole with the bow; there was a tiny platform under it, for'ard of which was a figurehead. Ice coated her footropes, sheets and stays.

  Wegger swung round. 'She's afloat! She's afloat! d'you hear!'

  I throttled back to a crawl and indicated a solid shelf of ice which locked Botany Bay to the cliff.

  'No. She's fast. She's trapped.'

  'Get on over there!' he ordered. 'Get on! We'll move her out of here!'

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The sound of the launch's engine brought figures rushing on to Botany Bay's deck. They started to wave frantically.

  I picked a cautious way through the soupy water and as we neared I saw that the windjammer was listed over in a tumble of small, broken blocks of ice. She lay on her starboard beam with warps out. The port anchor, the one facing open water, was cockbilled at the cathead like a last vain attempt to claw her way free of the icy fist which had closed round her.

  Wegger said to Ullmann, 'Put that gun away — for the moment.' He shoved his own pistol into his pocket but kept his hand on it.

  Two men broke away from the stranded vessel and came ploughing across the ice-blocks to the water's edge.

  'Stand off at speaking distance,' Wegger warned me. 'No going close.'