Ice Brothers

by Sloan Wilson

  “Skipper,” Williams said, “we’ve got a case of blackberry cordial in the lazaret. Can I give them some?”

  “I’m saving that for the next beerbust ashore. It’s worth fifty bucks a bottle. We’re not going to give it to the Krauts.”

  “I have a bottle of scotch in my bunk,” Williams said, “do you mind if I give that to them? Jesus, they look frozen to death.”

  “Do what you want with your own booze.”

  Williams went to the wardroom and soon came back with the bottle. The crew of the Arluk groaned as he passsed it aboard, but the men in the lifeboat cheered.

  “Boats, stream that boat astern,” Paul said. “Lieutenant, have someone steer who can keep in our wake. You’re going to have about a three-hour ride.”

  Before getting under way Paul climbed to the flying bridge. The PBY was circling so far away that he could hear only the faint drone of her engines. Jesus, I wish he’d find the hunter-killer, he thought, still unable to think of the craft as the Valkyrie. If he could get that bastard, I’d breathe a lot easier.

  “Mr. Williams, tell Seth to take the deck and set sea watches,” he said. “We’re going to Angmagssalik.”

  For the first time Paul realized that he would see Brit again. So much was happening that that no longer seemed important. He was not at all sure, after all, whose side the woman was on, and he had no idea how he would treat her. Going to the chart table, he drew a course to Angmagssalik. Glancing at the boat to see that the towing line was taut he said, “Ahead slow. Course three three four. Seth, build up the speed to nine hundred RPM if the boat can stand it.”

  “Aye,” Seth said. He looked as imperturbable as if he was setting out to fish on Georgia Banks. “The boat will give us no trouble in this kind of weather.”

  Paul climbed to the bridge. With the binoculars he studied the horizon all around the ship. He did not expect to see anything except sky, sea and ice, and was startled when far to the south he saw a streak of fireballs in the sky, tracers. The speck of the PBY was directly above the place from which they were arching into the air. Almost as soon as he saw this Paul heard the rattle of distant machine guns.

  “Jesus, the PBY has something,” he called into the voice tube. “Blake, tell Nathan to get on the radio. I want to find out what’s happening. Tell Sparks to stay on the radar.”

  Nathan ran from the forecastle to the radio shack. He had not been there two minutes before Paul saw a pale yellow bubble of fire on the southern horizon, just above a ridge of high ice castles. Jesus, the bastard got the plane, he thought, but maybe the hunter-killer had exploded. If that had happened, the plane would soon fly toward the Arluk, wagging her wings in triumph. No plane appeared.

  Five minutes ticked by painfully. A spiral of black smoke rose from the place the bubble of flame had burst. There was no sight or sound of a plane.

  “Skipper,” Nathan said, running to the bridge. “Green-Pat says the PBY was attacking the hunter-killer. There’s been no word from the plane since.”

  “Sparks, does the radar tell you how far away that ice ridge by the smoke is?”

  “Thirty-eight miles, sir.”

  At fifteen knots the hunter-killer could catch the Arluk near the entrance to Angmagssalik Fjord if she knew that was the destination and if she encountered no ice. That was not likely. But she could enter Angmagssalik Fjord and torpedo the Arluk at anchor if Paul couldn’t come up with some kind of defense.

  “What are you going to do, skipper?” Nathan asked.

  “Get rid of these prisoners in Angmagssalik and figure a way to hide the ship there until we can cook up some kind of plan for attacking the base.”

  “I have some ideas, skipper, but I’ve got some bad wounded up there.”

  “What are your ideas?”

  “I can rig depth charges as mines. We could mine the entrance to Angmagssalik. Let me give these guys some morphine. One of them is dying, I think.”

  Suddenly Paul’s and Nathan’s attention was drawn to the lifeboat in their wake. The Germans, they were discovering, often acted in astonishing ways. This time they were cheering. They had seen the explosion of the PBY, they were passing the bottle of scotch back and forth. Suddenly one very young seaman who looked a little like Blake started to sing Lili Marlene and tried to get the others to join him. Grim-faced, Nathan stood on the stern of the trawler with his hand on his pistol in its holster, and stared at the men in the boat. The German lieutenant glanced from this gaunt man on the trawler to his crewmen, a few of whom were starting to sing, and barked an order. Immediately there was silence. Nathan took his hand from his gun and walked slowly to the bridge.

  “Skipper, I’ve got some ideas that won’t wait,” he said. “Let’s go to your cabin.”

  Paul sat on the edge of his bunk while Nathan perched on the stool by the chart table.

  “The damn prisoners almost stopped me from thinking,” Nathan said. “GreenPat is bound to send more planes out here to look for the hunter-killer. Our job is to keep tracking him. We shouldn’t be messing with these prisoners at all. Right now we know just about where the bastard is. We should be hunting, not rescuing.”

  “Jesus, you’re right,” Paul said. “Do you want just to cut the bastards adrift?”

  “We could tie them up and put them in the hold.”

  “I have a better idea.” Paul got up, opened the door of the cabin and said, “Stop the engine, Seth. We’ve got a change of plan.”

  “What are you going to do?” Nathan asked. His voice sounded tense.

  “Our whaleboat can tow that lifeboat to Angmagssalik. I’ll put Williams and Seth in it with enough men to handle the prisoners. I can trust Boats to keep them in hand. You’re right. We have a job to do.”

  “If you closed with the bastard tonight, our radar would give us the edge.”

  “With all this ice, we’d never be sure where he was,” Paul said. “He’s got twice our speed. Damn it, I haven’t been thinking. He won’t come after us now. He’ll want fuel before he starts something like that, and he’s got all the brass from the Norway aboard. He must be running short on everything. With a crowded little vessel like that, he’d head for his base first.”

  “Probably.”

  “I was talking to that old Norwegian about the base. Odds are he’s telling the truth. He says Supportup can’t be mined.”

  “It’s too deep,” Nathan said. “I looked at the chart.”

  “The Norwegian says they have field artillery trained on the mouth of the fjord. We could hang close outside if we can find a place to hide in the ice. We’re going to have to let the bastard come to us. We’d never catch him if we go looking for him. He’s like an eel out there in broken ice.”

  “Did the Norwegian tell you anything about the base?”

  Paul gave him the information he had received from the old engineer.

  “We should call in an air strike right now before the weather closes in again,” Nathan said. “Hell, we know where they are. What the hell are we waiting for?”

  “The base is at the bottom of some kind of a ravine. Christ, there are hundreds of ravines in there. Remember, GreenPat said the air photos don’t show anything.”

  “They could send in big bombers to blast hell out of the whole area. We shouldn’t have to go in there.”

  “I don’t know. The main fjord is thirty miles long. They can’t bomb it all.”

  “I’ll tell GreenPat what we’re doing,” Nathan said.

  “I’ll get rid of the prisoners and head toward Supportup,” Paul said. “Damn it, Nathan, we almost booted it. Our trouble is, we’re still too damned soft …”

  Paul outlined his plans to Seth and the others and told the men to hurry. It took only a few minutes to launch the whaleboat. Williams, Seth, Boats and six seamen carrying automatic rifles and submachine guns got in to take charge of the prisoners.

  “Seth, when you get into Angmagssalik, tell the Danes to clear one of their damn little houses for the pris
oners and post a damned good guard,” he said. “Mr. Williams, find out how much diesel oil the Danes have and guard it. I don’t want the Krauts going in there to refuel while we’re waiting for them at Supportup.”

  The whaleboat cast off, took the lifeboat in tow and started toward Angmagssalik. Seth kept the chart Paul had given him folded under his jacket. He had been in there once, he said, and could always return to a place he had seen.

  The Germans kept shouting questions in German and broken English as the whaleboat headed to the northwest with them in tow, but no one answered.

  GreenPat soon replied that a reconnaissance plane was on the way to inspect Supportup Fjord. Paul charted a course. In his mind’s eye he saw the Arluk hiding in the ice where her bow guns could command the entrance to the fjord. There they would just wait, sure that their prey would show up sooner or later, no matter what the air force discovered.

  After getting the ship started on the course to Supportup at full speed, Paul sat studying his chart. The shore topography was not shown enough to indicate where a base could be hidden. He started to get the pilotbook down from a shelf. Next to it was a dictionary. On a whim he looked up the word “Valkyrie.”

  “Any of Odin’s handmaidens who hover over battlefields, choosing warriors to be victorious and conduct the souls of slain heroes to Valhalla,” he read. “Old Norse: chooser of the slain.”

  Now why the hell, he wondered, did dad pick a name like that for a summer yawl? Did he just like the sound of it, or has he always been a warrior in his dreams?

  No matter. This Kraut Valkyrie might think of herself as the chooser of the slain, but she never has tangled with an American rattlesnake. Handmaiden of Odin or not, she is going to get bit. Maybe the bastards can hide from planes, Paul thought, but I’m right down here in the ice with them, and I’ve got radar.

  In these fierce thoughts Paul felt some comfort, but the knowledge that he was about to engage a ship of a type called a hunter-killer was not too reassuring. She was fast, and her torpedoes would have a better range than his own crazy five-inch gun without sights. Her skipper was smart, ruthless, and experienced—that much he had amply demonstrated. Soon he might have light planes locally based to scout for him.

  “Quartermaster, tell the lookouts to keep an eye out for enemy aircraft or a small ship.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  Nervously Paul glanced at the sky. Gray clouds were beginning to scud over the northern horizon, and the short day was coming to an end. Hell, it was November in Greenland. How long did he expect good weather to last?

  CHAPTER 39

  The sunset that afternoon was spectacular, but in the circumstances, it struck Paul as more eerie than beautiful. The gray clouds blooming on the horizon turned to ribbons of red separated by curiously even bands of fog on the western horizon. The veils of mist parted for just an instant, revealing the sawtoothed pattern of the granite mountains silhouetted black against the great dome of the ice cap. To Paul there seemed to be something infinitely ominous about that stark coast. Nothing could be trusted here in Greenland, not the weather, not the sea, the ice, the rocky shores … nor the people.

  The icebergs were jammed more closely together as they approached Supportup-Kangerdula. The Arluk twisted through a maze of crystal castles which the dying sun bathed in its ruddy glow, turning them pink and gold with flashes of crimson. As they neared the shore a great many large white sea gulls with blacktipped wings appeared from nowhere and wheeled in circles over the ship emitting melancholy mewing cries that sounded more like cats than birds. Paul had always admired the freedom of the gulls over the ice pack, but now he remembered that Boats had said the gulls had been feasting on the eyes of the corpses in the lifeboat they had discovered, and suddenly the big birds appeared to be enemies patiently awaiting their death. The black tips of their wings, which he had never before noticed, seemed to be a bad omen. Were these the real Valkyries, the handmaidens of Odin who hovered over the battlefields, the “choosers of the slain”? Had the Vikings really believed such bullshit?

  Paul shivered. He did not believe in crazy myths, the legacy of the bloody past of which the Germans were so proud. It was not the “handmaidens of Odin” who would hover over battlefields, choosing which men were to be slain and which would be heroes, it was the invisible, inaudible radar signals that would spot an enemy and give the range for the guns.

  So much appeared to come down to numbers. How far offshore could the German artillery shoot? Even if he knew the caliber of their guns, Paul did not have enough expertise to know their range, and had to guess. Five miles at most? Everything in war was guesses when he came right down to it. The theoretical range of guns did not mean much in an ice field like a ruined city in darkness. Precision in war was an illusion even for experts.

  When the last glow of the sun died there was an interminable hour of utter blackness until the moon rose enough to turn the clouds to silver gray and the surrounding shambles of ice to a sea of shadows. Using radar and that sea sense which he felt growing within him, Paul felt his way closer to the mouth of the Supportup-Kangerdula Fjord. As often happened, the ice thinned when he got about three miles from shore, and the radar showed a ribbon of clear water about a mile wide between the coast and the ice floe, which appeared to end a few miles to the north, where a long rocky point extended into the ice. The hunter-killer could hide in the ice or in any number of places in the lacelike coast near Supportup-Kangerdula, but if he was trying to get to his base, he would have to cross that belt of open water. Because of that long point to the north, he would probably come from the south or the east.

  Paul found two small bergs lying close together in broken ice near the edge of the pack. He maneuvered his ship between them, sheltering her hull from viewers ashore, or from a ship to the east. His camouflaged bow would be hard to see from the south and because of the ice formation and the point, he did not think a ship could approach close to him from the north. The tip of his mast stuck high enough above the ice for his radar to work, and by edging the bow a little forward, he could command the entrance to the fjord and the southern sector with his forward guns. This was the best way he knew to set his trap, and the ship rested easy in her niche.

  When he stopped the engine, there was nothing to be heard but the moaning of the wind and the strange catlike mews of the gulls in the darkness overhead. Clouds soon covered the moon and he could see nothing. The mercury in the thermometers and the barometer fell as the velocity of the gale rose. Good, Paul thought—a trawler was better able to endure bad weather than a narrow, crowded little ship designed to hunt whales, not men. What was the hotshot skipper of that ship doing now?

  If he’s making a run for his base, he’s cursing this total darkness, Paul thought. Without radar or even with it, no ice pilot, however experienced would try to grope his way into the narrow, rock-strewn entrance to Supportup-Kangerdula in utter blackness. Almost beyond doubt, the German was sitting in the ice, just as the Arluk was, waiting for the first streaks of dawn. It was almost as dangerous to attribute magical powers to an enemy as it was to underestimate him. Until visibility improved, the Arluk was fairly safe. Except for a routine sea watch, the men should get some much-needed sleep.

  Everyone off watch did sleep heavily, except Nathan who between short naps kept making sure that the radar detected no motion in the surrounding ice. Sparks nodded as he tried to monitor all radio channels they thought the German might use. Nothing but static and stuttering signals from great distances came to his earphones.

  Paul told the quartermaster to wake him at the first sign of dawn. The call seemed to come only minutes after he closed his eyes. Buttoning his parka tightly, drawing a knitted watchcap over his ears under the hood of his parka, and putting on heavy mittens, he went to the wing of the bridge. His ears had grown so used to the pitch of the gale that he no longer was aware of it, but now he could see snow spume being blown from the peaks of the icebergs in the gray light. The whole ice fie
ld looked curiously as though it were speeding to windward. No longer did anything appear motionless. The stiff canvas covers on the guns appeared to breathe in the wind like the flanks of animals. The rigging and the aerials vibrated like plucked guitar strings. The leather on the palms of his gloves stiffened and cracked when he flexed his hands. His face stung. Hurrying into the pilothouse, Paul checked the thermometers. The temperature was fifty-three degrees below zero, their first real taste of a Greenland winter. Good, Paul thought. If that son of a bitch tries to go fast in this stuff with a narrow, wet little ship, he’ll have to keep chipping ice. No mechanism, including torpedo tubes, could be expected to work smoothly in such temperatures.

  “Quartermaster, tell Guns to take the canvas off the guns.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  Guns, Blake and three seamen had to cut the frozen lacings of the canvas covers and lift them off like big boxes, punching them with mittened fists to work them free. Cookie brought coffee and hot Danish pastries to Paul in the pilothouse.

  “Cookie, you’ve got a little smoke coming from your Charlie Noble. If you can’t adjust your range to get rid of that, you’re going to have to turn it off.”

  “I fix,” Cookie said, and ran across the well deck toward the warmth of the forecastle.

  As the sun rose there was little change in the gray light, but the visibility increased to about five miles. Suddenly there was a high whine followed by a thunderous roar to the west and three Lightnings hurtled overhead only about a thousand yards above the ice. Apparently they did not see the Arluk as they descended to skim just over the tops of the tallest ice castles, seeking to avenge the lost seaplane. If they didn’t even notice the Arluk, how could they be expected to find the even smaller hunter-killer? The PBY had been too slow to escape antiaircraft fire, but the Lightnings were too fast to make a meaningful search. They should work in teams, Paul thought. Perhaps he should radio that suggestion to GreenPat, but he didn’t want to advertise his position to the Germans.