Ice Brothers

by Sloan Wilson

  “Thank you,” he said. “Probably it’s silly, but I’m very glad to hear that.”

  “Do you want me to prophesy your future? My husband used to say I was a witch.”

  “Maybe I’m afraid to hear it.”

  “I don’t know if you will work out your troubles with your wife or not, but you’re not the kind of man who will let a woman destroy your self-confidence for long. My guess is, you’ll know lots of women before you find one that will let you be as idealistic as you want.”

  “Maybe.”

  “I wish I were twenty years younger and could meet you about five years from now. When you’ll be old enough really to settle down.”

  “I guess this sounds corny, but I’ll never find anyone like you—”

  “Not as old, not as cynical and not as educated,” she said with a laugh. “Now eat. If we hurry, we’ll have time for laughing together one more time before you have to go back to your ship.”

  The whaleboat took Paul back to the Arluk later that afternoon. The men greeted their captain stonily. Only Nathan was friendly. They went to Paul’s cabin to talk and Cookie brought coffee which tasted good after the sweet hot chocolate ashore.

  “Skipper, I’ve been thinking a lot about our whole situation,” Nathan began. “The only thing that’s happened here is that that ski plane showed up again today with the sun. He just took a peek over the mountain at us and disappeared again. Maybe we can deduct something from that.”

  “Like what?”

  “The Krauts probably are not in radio contact with people here. If they were, they wouldn’t need to take a peek at us every day.”

  “Sounds reasonable.”

  “And maybe they’re more afraid of our attacking them than they are anxious to send their ship over to attack us.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “They’ve known where we are now for some time. The weather’s been good enough for them to attack. If they had been smart they would have hit us before we got the prisoners organized and got over the pasting they’d already given us. If they’re smart enough to have done some of the other things they’ve pulled on us, they’d be too smart to let us get all ready for them. I know we can’t be sure, but I think the odds favor some such interpretation.”

  “Their main job is of course to defend their own base, and maybe they think they can do it better by preparing a real hot reception committee for us than by trying to get us here,” Paul said. “They must know we’re cooking up something, now we know where they are. Maybe they’re concentrating on making a place where their ship will be safe from aircraft, or just building up their defenses. When you come right down to it, they may be just too smart to walk into the trap we’ve set for them here. The bastards always seem to be one ahead of us.”

  “I have some suggestions that might let us catch up,” Nathan said. “In the first place, we ought to get that damn little plane of his. I don’t like letting him keep track of us so easily. He seems to show up just about two minutes after sunrise every day. If we got a Lightning to time its arrival just right tomorrow, it might catch him.”

  “Tell GreenPat that.”

  “I’ve got a message all ready to go. Now do you mind if I talk for a minute about some ideas which might help our overall strategy?”

  “I’ve got a few. What are yours?”

  “I’ve been studying the charts and the pilotbook. The fjord the Krauts have is just about like this one—it’s different only in detail.”

  “As far as we know,” Paul said.

  “Peomeenie will probably be able to tell us more, but for the time-being let’s assume that the two fjords are very much alike. We can assume that with prepared positions, most of the Krauts can survive any air attack, and will be ready to fight like hell when the planes go.”

  “That’s the assumption I’ve been going on.”

  “One thing we could do is to ask for not just one air strike, but several. There’s a chance we might bomb them into surrendering. That would save a lot of lives.”

  “But I don’t think it will happen. Their primary job is to get out weather reports. If they’ve prepared underground shelters, enough could survive any number of air attacks to keep a weather station in action.”

  “All right. Surrender is unlikely but still possible if we make things tough enough for them. So our job is to hit with the greatest possible shock while they’re still dazed by the bombs.”

  “My idea is to sail right into the mouth of that fjord with all our guns firing. We’ll have a land force ready to hit them from behind the minute they start shooting at the ship.”

  “How many Eskimos do you think you can recruit?” Nathan asked.

  “Thirty or forty anyway. They’re not so hard to persuade. And we can let about half our men go with them.”

  “If only half the Germans survive the planes, and if they are trained troops, they could kill us. They could find cover from the ship’s guns—remember, we’ll be fighting in their back yard. They’ll concentrate on the land force and wipe it out. There won’t be much the ship can do. If the hunter-killer is still in action, you’ll have your hands full without even worrying about the men ashore.”

  “What else can we do?”

  “The greatest power of this ship is in all those depth charges in the hold, something like three tons of TNT. Our problem is to put it where it will kill Germans.”

  “How are we going to throw three tons at them?”

  “We have the Danish launch and the whaleboat. Figuring a way to steer them in there by radio might be a little too fancy to be reliable, but if we figured the tide and the current right, we might be able to drift them in. I can rig all kinds of fuses.”

  “If we could blow those boats up near them, it would make a hell of a diversion, even if we couldn’t get them close enough to do any real damage.”

  “We’ll have to see how close their installations are to the bank of the fjord and how far in. An Eskie might even take one in under cover of darkness, moor it and escape in a kayak. I’m just mentioning possibilities. There’s another one that may prove more practical. If the Krauts’ main attempt has been to protect their base from air attack, they probably have put it at the bottom of a ravine, where Lightnings can’t come in and strafe really low. That would be effective against planes, but leave them highly vulnerable to caveman tactics.”

  “You want to throw rocks at them?”

  “No, I want to roll stones, or in our case, depth charges.”

  “I’ve thought of that. If the terrain really turns out to be right.…”

  “We could work out variations on the theme. In certain kinds of situations, we might let a sled loaded with fused charges coast down a slope.”

  “Or we could get Eskies to plant charges down there ahead of time at night.”

  “That would be risky for the Eskies, but it might work. Okay, we should be able to deliver charges so that we can ring the bastards with really massive explosions the minute after the planes disappear. That should confuse the hell out of them. Then if you sail in the mouth of the fjord with all guns going and a ground force attack from the other direction, we might produce the kind of shock that actually will get them to surrender. There’s at least a chance that we can pull this thing off without losing a man.”

  “O.K. That’s good, Nathan. Now we got to set all this up—”

  “We don’t want just to wait for Peomeenie to come back. All he’s going to tell us is details. Our main job will be to move men and all those heavy charges thirty miles over the ice where we can lie waiting for the planes to strike. If the weather’s bad, we might have to wait days. We’ll need advance bases.”

  “The Eskies will help us do that.”

  “Then there’s a technical job of rigging all those fuses, figuring out the exact times. No one can do that but me.”

  “I can’t quarrel with you there.”

  Nathan took a deep breath. “Skipper, the law requires you to stay a
board your ship during a battle. I want to be in charge of everything else.”

  “All the ground forces?”

  “Yes.”

  “I was planning on putting Guns and Boats in charge of the land force.”

  “A commissioned officer should be with them.”

  “I was planning on sending Williams—”

  “He can’t rig fuses. Neither can Guns or Boats.”

  “Can’t you prepare all the gear in advance?”

  “I may have to guess the amount of time it takes a depth charge to roll down a cliff, and set the fuses accordingly. I’ll have to be there.”

  “I’m not sure I want to run this goddamn ship all alone.”

  “You’ll keep enough crew to man the guns. The whole thing will probably be over, one way or another in about ten minutes if we set it up right.”

  “You want to be in charge of training the Eskies?”

  “I want this to be my baby, right from the start.”

  There was a moment of silence while Paul drained his coffee mug. “I’ve got to put it bluntly,” he said finally. “You’re a smart man, Nathan, but I’m not sure you’re too good at handling men.”

  “I have an idea that the Eskies might respond better to someone who isn’t too damn military.”

  “How about Guns and Boats? Can you handle them?”

  “Yes. I’ve grown up a little.”

  “How are you going to handle Guns if he tries to fuck every man, woman and child ashore instead of training anyone?”

  “Tell him you’ll break him down to seaman and give him permanent galley duty if I don’t give him a good report. Don’t let him have any booze, not even a beer. And give me three seamen who can tie him up if he gets really out of hand.”

  “I think you’re getting the idea. All right, the whole shore operation is your baby. I don’t mind saying the ship is all I want to worry about. I’m a sailor, not a marine.”

  Nathan laughed. “One of my big ideas was to join the marines. They turned me down. I have an idea they didn’t think marines should be Sheenies with PhD degrees.”

  “Looks like they missed a good bet. If I were a real Kraut, I don’t think I’d want to be up against a Sheenie with a PhD and three tons of TNT.”

  “I don’t want to get cocky. Maybe none of this stuff will work. But Paul, for the first time I can see how I can really fight. Maybe it’s corny, but I’m getting a sense of power. I don’t feel so much like a victim anymore.”

  “Don’t let it go to your head. What’s your first step?”

  “I’m going to get GreenPat to send a Lightning to go after that ski plane.”

  “And after that?”

  “I want to go ashore and stay there until I get the Eskies organized. I want them ready by the time Peomeenie gets back.”

  “Get Brit to find you a place to stay—maybe Swanson’s house. Take any five men you want with you, including Boats and Guns. Can Flags stand routine radio watch?”

  “He’s smart and I’ve shown him enough to get by.”

  “Take some rifles and as much canned stuff as Cookie can spare you. The Eskies should get a taste of their pay. Use Brit as an interpreter. She’s so much on our side now that she damn near scares me. She wants to kill all the Krauts single-handed.”

  “I’ll give her one,” Nathan said without a smile. “The rest are mine.”

  CHAPTER 47

  Before Nathan went ashore, he got confirmation from GreenPat that a Lightning would arrive at Angmagssalik at dawn the next day to try to catch the ski plane. Word of this spread quickly to the forecastle. The men of the Arluk had named the ski plane “Hans” and began to bet on how long he could survive attack by one of the Lightnings, which had eight guns to his one if he had any at all, and which was at least four times as fast as a light plane. Some bet that Hans wouldn’t last ten seconds, while Cookie maintained he might survive for ten minutes by ducking in and out of narrow ravines. The meeting of the two planes, if it actually occurred, promised to be a memorable spectacle. A half hour before daybreak the next day, the crew gathered on the forecastle and the flying bridge, coffee mugs in hand. The betting now was on whether either plane would actually appear, or which plane would show up first, and on whether the Lightning could locate the ski plane and pounce on it before it could make a getaway, perhaps by making an emergency landing on some snowy slope on the other side of the mountains.

  As the first streaks of dawn turned the edges of a ridge of dark clouds low on the eastern horizon to gold, excitement ran high. Paul stood on the starboard wing of the bridge after making sure that the antiaircraft guns were manned to guard against the possibility of the ski plane making a last desperate dive into the ship. Deep down he felt that nothing would happen, as it usually did. Fat Herman had disappointed him by failing to sail his hunter-killer into a well-prepared trap, and now Hans would probably prove to be just as shrewd. Paul was surprised when he heard the faint drone of the light plane’s engine, and saw it appear, no bigger than a fly, just above the ridge of the mountains. He was even more astonished when a few seconds later he heard the roar of an approaching Lightning. For once everything seemed to be working right.

  The Lightning came in low over the ice cap, swerved sharply up to clear the mountains, saw the ski plane almost at once and hurtled toward it. Hans swerved as though in panic and headed back to his base, but even before he had a chance to finish his turn, the Lightning swooped down on him like a hawk on a sparrow. The men on the Arluk could hear the rattle of her guns and see tracers stab out from her wings. The men who had bet on a quick decision cheered, but Hans dived, swerved to the left and leveled out over the water in the fjord instead of crashing. Carried by its 400-mile-per-hour momentum, the Lightning disappeared into the clouds before completing a wide circle, and returning to search for its tiny antagonist. Catching sight of him headed out to sea only a few feet above the highest icebergs, the Lightning dived to attack again.

  The planes were so unevenly matched that it took discipline for Paul not to start cheering for David and jeering Goliath. As the Lightning flashed by the tiny plane, Paul realized that its speed, which could not be reduced enough, was its greatest handicap. No sooner had the pilot of the Lightning got Hans into his sights than he had to swerve to avoid crashing into him as he rushed by. The far tighter turning circle of the ski plane enabled Hans to reverse direction with startling suddenness, while the big Lightning kept zooming out of sight before hurtling back with the necessity of locating its prey before trying another attack. Of course Hans had no guns or fired none, and the final outcome of the battle seemed beyond doubt, but for twenty minutes the two planes swooped and circled over the mountains, through the fjord and above the ice cap.

  At first Paul thought that the jerky movements of Hans meant that he was panicking, but his completely unpredictable course made him almost an impossible target. The pilot of the Lightning clearly was becoming more and more angry as his frustrations continued. In an effort to follow the intricate maneuvers of the ski plane he forced the big fighter into aerial acrobatics which almost made him lose control. When he should have been slowing almost to landing speed, he poured on the power and banked so sharply that his plane flipped onto its back and did a complete barrel roll, narrowly missing a mountain peak before it straightened out. Hans used the seconds the Lightning lost to head north along the coast, just skimming the ice pack, and dodging into every cove and mountain notch. The Lightning circled high over him before catching a glimpse of the little plane as it hopped over a long granite point that extended into the sea. With its wings and engine screaming it dived, missed again, and began circling Hans, a procedure that enabled him to keep his prey in sight but made shooting him almost impossible. As the men of the Arluk watched, the two planes disappeared between two snow-covered mountain peaks. There was an instant of silence, followed by the sound of a sharp explosion in the distance. A bubble of yellow flame rose from the notch between the mountains.

&n
bsp; “Well, he finally got the bastard!” Flags said, and a ragged cheer came from the men of the Arluk. Before it died, they were astonished to see the ski plane reappear. It waggled its wings before scooting over the ridge of mountains to its base. There was no sign of the Lightning except a plume of black smoke in the distance.

  “Now how the hell did that happen?” Flags asked.

  It seemed obvious to Paul that the rage of the Lightning pilot had caused him to dive too fast to pull out, or had blinded him to the sides of the canyons around which the ski plane was ducking.

  “The guy flying that Lightning must have been one of the pilots my brother trained,” he said in disgust. “Damn it, we’re getting to be a whole nation of fuck-ups.” Perhaps that was no joke. Paul was beginning to fear that the Germans really could not be beaten, even when they were hopelessly outclassed. And the escape of the ski plane meant that it would still be there to observe Nathan’s ground troops when they finally started toward its base.

  When Nathan returned to the ship, they sent a message to GreenPat, explaining the debacle. GreenPat merely acknowledged the information, but at dawn the next day a PBY showed up. The big sea plane was slow enough to float astern of a light plane while she gunned it down, but not fast enough to catch it. At the first sight of the PBY, the ski plane disappeared over the ice floe.

  After that the ski plane gave up its regular dawn patrol, and GreenPat soon tired of sending planes to try to catch it. On bright moonlight nights, though, Paul could still hear the drone of the little engine, and on one cloudy dawn he caught a glimpse of it just before the last rays of sunlight died on the horizon.

  Nathan and Paul felt that no supplies could be moved toward Supportup until Peomeenie returned, presumably with some information about the location of the ski plane’s hidden base. The whole operation would have to start with the Lightnings’ putting an end to Hans on the ground. Nathan guessed that after that at least a week would be needed to move his men and supplies up and make all the necessary preparations for the final attack.