Ice Brothers

by Sloan Wilson

  “You and Mr. Green are the two most important men aboard this ship right now,” Paul said to him. “You’re the only ones who can get any hint of where the Germans are. So go without sleep the way Mr. Green does. If you dope off, we’re all liable to sleep a long time.”

  Only four days after Nathan’s system was in full operation, he received brief coded signals that were so faint that he guessed they must come from a very distant source. With the rather recalcitrant help of Boats, he rigged complex aerials from the bow to the mastheads and stern. These enabled him to bring the signals in louder. By turning the ship when the ice occasionally relaxed its grip, he could use the big aerials as a giant radio direction finder. Thus he determined that the signals came from the north, probably from some point on the east coast of Greenland above the Arctic Circle. When Paul sent this information to Commander GreenPat, he was told that no Americans were near the indicated region, and the signals were presumably German.

  Lying in his cabin, Paul tried to guess the nature of the German stations. Signals could be transmitted from planes or balloons, but these sources appeared to be stationary, Nathan reported. They could come from ships very near shore, but with ice conditions as they were, any vessel jammed against that rocky coast would be in danger and would not be left there long on purpose.

  It was more likely that the Germans had established shore bases, Paul concluded. If he were a German commander who had been given the job of getting Greenland weather reports, he would send one ship which would establish and supply shore bases, not several ships, especially at a time when Germany probably needed all the ships she could find nearer home. In Denmark the Germans would be able to find plenty of old Arctic hands, and although the Danes rarely worked for the Germans, it would be possible to find some who would obey, either for money or to insure the safety of their families. Danes who were secretly working for the Germans would be welcomed as refugees in any of the few settlements on the east coast and could easily persuade a few Eskimos to work with them. With dog sleds they would establish two- or three-man weather stations almost anywhere on the coast where a trawler or icebreaker could occasionally land supplies.

  As he studied the charts Paul realized that this could be almost anywhere. For more than a thousand miles the east coast of Greenland was an intricate maze of fjords, some of which wound more than a hundred miles inland and joined with other fjords. There were uncounted thousands of islands which were separated from each other and the mainland by endless narrow channels. There were hundreds of places where the combined navies of the world could be hidden. Most of these Arctic wastes were unexplored, and the Danish charts, which were the only ones in existence, gave few details. Only a small percentage of the islands and fjords were even given names.

  Still, the countless fjords all looked navigable on the charts, though the pilotbook said that most were almost always filled with ice. Soundings were given only in the few fjords which the Danes had fully explored. If he were the captain of a German ship, he would have no more information than this. If he were trying to establish weather bases and lacked the time for exploration, he would choose places which the pilot book reported to be usually free of ice and where hidden rocks were charted. This would greatly narrow the range of possibilities.

  The Danes apparently had discovered and thoroughly explored only two major deep-water ports which were usually free enough of ice to be approachable the year around—Angmagssalik, about 500 miles north of Cape Farewell, and Scoresbysund, which was another 500 miles beyond. The two biggest settlements were at those places, but they consisted of only a few dozen natives and fewer Danes who would be unable to patrol the lacework of fjords and islands which surrounded them for countless miles. The Nanmak had been sunk about fifty miles southeast of Angmagssalik at a point where a German supply ship bound to or from that area might have encountered her. Perhaps the whole key to the situation could be found in that region, where, according to the pilotbook, the Eskimos and ancient Norsemen had lived for centuries.

  Calling Nathan to his cabin, Paul told him his theory and asked his opinion.

  “That could tie in with some theories I have,” Nathan said. “The real question is how the Krauts are getting their weather reports out of Greenland to Germany. If they just sent regular signals from shore bases, we’d be bound to pinpoint them soon enough, no matter what tricks they used, and bomb the hell out of them. The point is, we’re not getting any strong regular signals, just occasional ones too weak for long-distance transmission.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “They must be using a high-enough frequency for their daily weather reports to escape detection. That high-frequency stuff just travels line of sight, like light. They could be beaming it to a plane overhead, on mountain peaks to get it all the way to Iceland, where low-frequency signals to Germany could be disguised in the regular flow of traffic. But they must have some kind of central base.”

  “What do you say we ask permission to take a look at Angmagssalik if we ever get out of this ice?”

  “We might find something. And the men sure won’t object.”

  Commander GreenPat was quick to approve Paul’s request to visit Angmagssalik. Sardonically aware of his own eagerness to please his crew, Paul called the men to quarters. It was a clear cold morning when the men lined up on the well deck and snapped to attention at the captain’s approach. Expecting another lecture on cleanliness or on the necessity to remain alert on watch, they looked even more sullen than was now usual.

  “At ease,” Paul said. “I have a bit of good news. If we ever get out of this ice, we’ve got orders to go to Angmagssalik, a fjord about five hundred miles north of here where there is a good-sized settlement.”

  A ragged cheer.

  “I don’t know whether the Danes will allow anyone ashore, but there isn’t much military activity on this coast and the rules shouldn’t be so stiffly enforced. I’ll do my best for you.”

  This time the cheer was louder. The men puffed steam. Paul could almost feel approval coming from them. No matter what Mowrey had said on the subject, right now it felt damn good to Paul.

  “I don’t think there’s much point in trying to make a secret of why we’re going to this unpronounceable place, Angmagssalik,” Paul continued. “There’s some reason to suspect that Danes and maybe Eskimos are helping the Germans to maintain weather stations ashore. We’re going to be looking for evidence of that and if you go ashore you can play detective with us. We are picking up radio signals from the vicinity of this place, so something is going on there. Of course the people there may be completely innocent, but we can all keep our eyes open. I don’t know how long it will be before we can get clear of this ice. The fall storms ought to break up the pack before long. Until then, we still have to stay alert. This is no time and place to dope off. Dismissed.”

  The men ignored Paul and flocked around Nathan to ask questions. Nathan’s popularity with the men had been growing ever since he brought the radar aboard. Paul was angry at himself for feeling a twinge of something like jealousy. While Mowrey had been in command, the crew had regarded Paul as their best friend.

  The ice continued to imprison the ship and the anticipation of getting ashore soon made the crew more quarrelsome than ever. A machinist’s mate got into a fight with a coxswain, hit him and broke his hand on his head without seriously hurting him. While Nathan doctored the man’s hand, Paul looked up the procedure for a deck court.

  “The guy is in pain,” Nathan said. “Isn’t that punishment enough?”

  “I’ve got to stop this fighting from the start. What the hell do you think old Mowrey would do in a case like this?”

  “Stamp around a lot and get drunk. He never held any deck courts.”

  “Maybe because he knew enough to keep the men afraid of him.”

  “God,” Nathan said, “don’t copy Mowrey. Be yourself.”

  “Somebody’s got to have some balls around here,” Paul called after hi
m. Nathan gave no sign of hearing, and once it was out of his mouth he was glad for that.

  The next day Paul reduced the coxswain to first class seaman. The man loudly complained that the machinist’s mate had started the fight and had taken the first swing, a charge that the machinist’s mate denied. Since there were no witnesses Paul decided to let his decision stand, but he felt he somehow deserved the angry looks the entire deck force now shot at him. In a strange way, Paul thought, Mowrey had won a victory. By making Paul afraid to show any weakness, he was making him fuck up in another way that could cost him the respect of the men.

  That night Paul was unable to sleep. He was on the bridge in an instant when the bow watch reported a blinking light on the horizon. It was a little after two o’clock on a cold morning and a half moon was turning the ice pack into a vast mirror of many gleamings. Staring in the direction the lookout pointed, Paul saw a flicker brighter than the surrounding reflections. As he was studying it through his binoculars, Guns said, “Do you think it might be Captain Hansen out there signaling?”

  “Hansen sank almost five hundred miles from here.”

  “Could it be the Krauts trying to get us to give away our position?”

  “I think it’s just a planet rising. It’s due east.”

  “What makes it blink?”

  “The atmosphere. Maybe there’s ice between it and us that’s rising and falling in a swell.”

  “Is it saying anything?” Guns asked.

  “No,” Nathan said. He too was studying the light through the binoculars.

  “I’ll look it up in the almanac,” Paul said. “I think it’s Mars.”

  Before he had a chance to confirm this the planet rose above the horizon, a surprisingly large red ball that left a crimson path on the ice.

  “What makes it so big?” Guns asked.

  “The atmosphere can have a magnifying effect,” Nathan told him.

  Paul returned to his bunk. He did not believe in omens, but this strangely enlarged aspect of Mars with its lurid glow on the ice would have meant all kinds of things to the Vikings, he was sure. He lay expecting the ice to part suddenly and free the ship for battle.

  Which did not happen. The wind started to pipe up the next day, but it was from the east and simply pressed the ice harder around the ship. Some of her timbers groaned and even Seth’s assurance that a trawler could take far more than this did not ease Paul’s fears.

  That night it began to snow hard, the first real Arctic blizzard they had seen. Snow filled the well deck until gusts of wind scooped it out and sent it swirling off to leeward. The wind varied from a moan to a shriek and back to low groans, sounds that the new aerials made louder than usual. At a little after four in the morning, Paul awoke suddenly. He thought he had felt the ship shudder, and sure enough, there was a definite tremor. Undoubtedly the ice was shifting. As Seth had said, a trawler could take much more than this, but Paul got up to take a look around. As he buttoned up his parka he listened to the wind, guessing by its pitch that it must be blowing close to sixty miles an hour. It was Nathan’s watch. When Paul stepped from his cabin to the bridge he saw in the dim light a figure sitting on the stool by the wheel, the silhouette of a man sleeping with his face resting on the collar of his parka. Good God, I don’t want to catch Nathan asleep on watch, he thought, but then drew close enough to see that this was a much smaller man. Clapping him on the shoulder, he saw it was Blake, who awoke with a start.

  “Where’s Mr. Green?” Paul asked.

  “I—I don’t know, sir.”

  At that moment the door to the pilothouse opened and Nathan came in, brushing snow from his parka. “Morning, skipper,” he said. “When I felt that tremor, I checked the engineroom and the hold to see if everything’s all right. There’s nothing wrong that I can see.”

  “Good. Blake, where are you supposed to be standing watch?”

  “The gundeck, sir. I just ducked in to get warm.”

  “And you fell asleep.”

  “I wasn’t really asleep, sir.”

  “You were asleep when I came in. Didn’t you hear me say that any man who slept while on watch would finish his Watch in the crow’s nest?”

  “Yes sir. But I wasn’t really asleep, and I can’t go up there, sir …”

  Blake pulled down the hood of his parka. He was eighteen years old, still rather childlike with curly blond hair and a face that looked startlingly angelic even when scared. “I’d freeze up there, sir, and I’m scared of heights. The rigging is all icy—”

  “Skipper, come in here a minute, will you?” Nathan said, gesturing toward the cabin. When Paul went in Nathan closed the door after him. “Skipper, you can’t send that boy up there in weather like this.”

  “Nathan, you’re good at radar and radio. I can’t let the crew sleep on watch. So let me handle the men.”

  “Yes sir, but it’s cruel and unusual punishment. It wouldn’t stand up in court.”

  “Are you going to be a sea lawyer?”

  “No, but Paul, I am executive officer, and we both need common sense.”

  Paul was surprised by the surge of anger he felt. “You just let me handle the men,” he said. “Didn’t you tell me you’re just an electronics specialist?”

  When Paul returned to the bridge he found Guns standing beside Blake.

  “Sir, you aren’t going to make my striker climb the goddamn mast, are you?”

  “You think it’s dangerous?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Blake, you slept on watch. That endangers every man aboard this ship. If you’re not man enough to take your punishment, I’ll show you how. Follow me.”

  Without glancing behind him, Paul walked to the well deck, padded through the snow there and jumped up to the rail by the rigging. The steel shrouds were covered with snow and ice. His heavy mittens made them hard to grasp, but Paul was angry enough to pull himself up until his boots hit the first ratlines. Then the climb was surprisingly easy, despite the fact that the wind tore at his shoulders. Glancing down, he saw the white blur of Blake’s scared face. The boy had his feet on the ratlines now and was following him. Quickly Paul climbed past the crow’s nest. With his feet on the last ratline he embraced the icy mast. The wind caused his parka to flap, making a sound like a luffing sail. He watched while Blake stepped into the relative security of the crow’s nest, where he was sheltered from the wind up to his shoulders.

  “You all right now?” Paul yelled.

  “Yes sir.”

  “You going to freeze to death?”

  “I—I don’t know, sir.”

  Paul allowed himself to slide down the rigging until he could hook his arm around the topmost ratline. Unbuttoning his parka, he managed to wriggle out of it while holding on, first with one hand, then the other. He was concentrating on hanging onto the flapping garment so hard that he didn’t even feel the cold.

  “Wrap this around your shoulders,” he said to Blake, shoving the parka at him. When he was sure the boy had a firm hold of it, he allowed himself to slide down the rigging to the deck. The wind was piercing his uniform and long underwear. He ran to the bridge.

  “Get me another parka please,” he said to Nathan.

  “Yes sir.” Nathan disappeared without a word.

  “Guns, do you have any more ideas on how I should run this ship?”

  “No sir, but he could still freeze up there inside of the next three hours.”

  “Give him another half hour and then send him below. Get somebody to stand the rest of his watch on the gun deck.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “And pass the word that my orders hold. Anyone found asleep on watch will go to the crow’s nest.”

  Paul went to his cabin. He was allowing himself a rare drink of brandy when Nathan appeared with another parka. “Your parka, sir.”

  “You want a drink, Nathan?”

  “No thank you, sir.”

  “You still think I should let people go to sleep on watch without pu
nishment?”

  “I don’t know, sir. As you say, I’m just good with radar and radio. I’m not much of an administrator.”

  “But somebody has to handle the men—” Paul realized that he was asking for approval, but he didn’t get it. Nathan just shrugged, turned and left.

  There was no sound but the rising shriek of the wind. Paul lay down on his bunk and tried to review the whole episode. Shit, first I tried to be as tough as old Mowrey, and then I overcompensated with the big brother act. Nathan says to forget Mowrey and be myself, but who wants to have a college boy for a captain? I have to invent myself as I go along.…

  Two days later the wind veered to the north and continued to blow hard. Paul had hoped that a north wind would free the ship, but the ice around them remained as solid as concrete. The men began to speculate about the possibility of being frozen in for the winter. Cookie said that by April they’d be down to canned beans and codfish, a prospect which oddly seemed to delight him. “Then you bastards will appreciate the food I’ve been cooking,” he said.

  Paul always had imagined that weeks stuck in the ice would be unbearably boring, but the frustrations of the crew kept him busier than ever. Sparks accused a seaman named Wollinger of stealing money from a wallet he kept hidden under his mattress, and what was worse, of taking the photograph of his nude wife, which he also had kept secreted there in its cardboard folder. Wollinger acted completely innocent. His wallet was full of bills, but no one could prove that they had come from Sparks, and no trace of the photograph could be found. Although he hated the idea of crime without punishment aboard his ship, Paul was unable to think of any way to handle this. Apparently Sparks or his friends took care of the matter, for soon Wollinger complained that all his money had been stolen. No one could prove anything and Paul had to content himself with indignant lectures about thievery aboard a small ship.

  A week after this incident, while the north wind continued to shriek through the rigging, Boats lodged a more serious complaint. It was nine o’clock in the evening when the red-haired chief petty officer knocked on the door of Paul’s cabin. Taking his cap off as he came in, he said, “Sir, I want to put Guns and Blake on report.”