“Ram it,” Howe said. “It’s not thick. Only, for God’s sake, shut your engine off before you hit, otherwise you’ll damage it.”
I nodded. “Send word round the ship—everyone to lie flat on the deck. Don’t forget the engine-room.”
He clattered down the ladder and I stood there, waiting, my hands on the wheel, the engine-room telegraph at my elbow. I stared at the ice that barred our path, trying to gauge its thickness. It couldn’t be more than a foot or two. The edge of it was scarcely above the water, I wondered how strongly built the catcher’s bows were. The sides, I knew, were like tin when it came to meeting ice, but surely they’d have given the bows some strength. Anyway, there was no alternative. Hval 5 was holed. I didn’t dare wait in the hopes that a gap would be opened out by the swell. It might just as easily start grinding the ice up against us. Also the glass was still very low, and I didn’t want to be caught here in a resumption of the gale. It was a risk, but it had to be taken. I sent one of the crew to close the for’ard bulkheads and then with a lookout aft, I rang for slow astern and backed down the cut until we reached the limit of clear water.
Howe came to the bridge and reported that everyone had been warned. I waited until the man I’d sent to close the bulkheads had returned to the bridge, then I stretched out my hand to the engine-room telegraph and rang for emergency full ahead. The ship shuddered as the screw lashed the water. Above the hum of the engine I heard the froth of the sea under our stern. I braced myself against the wheel. The catcher gathered speed. The heaving ice raced past, sometimes grazing our plates.
We had nearly a quarter of a mile of clear water and as my hand reached for the handle of the telegraph we must have been doing six or seven knots. The unbroken sheet of ice seemed to hurl itself towards us. I braced myself against the wheeel and slammed the telegraph handle down. There was a sudden deathly silence as the sound of the engine dropped and the bridge became dead under my feet. There was an awful period of waiting—waiting in complete silence save for the soft hum of engines running free and the sound of water thrust back from our bows.
Then there was a crash. The ship seemed to stop dead. I was flung against the wheel, all the breath knocked out of me. The bridge swayed forward. A sound like rifle fire crackled ahead of us and then was lost in the grinding crunch of ice on steel. The whole ship was staggering and the noise of the ice attacking the steel plates was overwhelming.
Then we were driving slowly forward and a great crack was opening up in front of us.
I rang for slow ahead and, with the ice still grinding against our sides, we thrust like a wedge into the gap, the swell that was running helping us to break through. In a matter of moments it seemed we had thrust right through the thin barrier of ice and were in the open water of the lead.
I gave two whoops on the siren to tell the crew we were through. Then Gerda came running along the deck and up the ladder to the bridge. “We’re through,” I told her.
“I know,” she said. “Well done.”
“Isen! Isen!” Another half-submerged floe. I sent Gerda to sound the well and make certain that we had suffered no damage in ramming our way through the ice.
Howe came and stood at my side. We stared silently into the frozen waste of black and white that lay ahead.
“I wonder what Bland’s up to?” he said suddenly.
“How do you mean?” I asked.
“Tauer III never acknowledged that order to stand by.”
“Perhaps she didn’t get it,” I suggested. “Maybe their radio’s out of action.”
“Perhaps.” He was silent for a moment, and then he said, “Craig. You realise you and I are the only people that have the evidence to convict him?”
“What are you getting at?” I demanded.
“I don’t know. That’s the hell of it—I don’t know. But I’ve got a feeling. Here we are going into the pack and there’s not another boat within a hundred miles except Tauer III.”
“You’re crazy,” I said. Actually I thought he was getting scared. It was pretty frightening standing on the bridge there, driving into that world of ice. It gave one a horrible sense of loneliness.
“I don’t think I’m crazy,” he said slowly. “If Bland could get you and me out of the way at one blow he’d be safe.”
“What about Judie, Eide, Larvik, and there are probably others?”
“He doesn’t think they’re important, otherwise he wouldn’t have tried to make a bargain with you.” He began stamping his feet. “He can handle Eide. No man’s going to risk a new command by trying to incriminate the chairman’s son the first season he’s out with the company. Judie can’t give evidence anyway.”
“And Larvik?” I asked. “He knows something. I’m certain.”
“Larvik knows nothing—nothing definite,” he replied. “I had a talk with him after you’d had him up for cross-examination.”
“Then how could he give such an accurate description of Bland’s last meeting with Nordahl?” I asked. “Bland himself confirmed it. It was correct in every detail, even to the cigar. He couldn’t have made it up and got it so accurate.”
“He didn’t make it up.” He stopped stamping his feet and turned to me. “Apart from Erik Bland, Larvik was the last person to see Nordahl alive. He was with him up on the deck. He left him just after twelve. They decided the fog was going to lift and Larvik went to arrange for a boat to take him back to Hval 5. The fog lifted a quarter of an hour later.”
“Then why didn’t he tell us he was one of the last people to see Nordahl alive?”
“Because he knew his evidence would be regarded as prejudiced,” Howe answered. “He didn’t see it happen. He only guessed at what happened. But he knew where Nordahl was at the time he disappeared. If you’d told Bland the information had come from Larvik you’d never have got him to admit he’d had a row with Nordahl up there by the boats. Peer Larvik never made any secret of the fact that he loathed Bland’s guts.”
“I see.”
“Anyway,” Howe added, “Judie and Larvik are on Hval 5. If we don’t reach them for some reason, then Bland would be ordered to try. And if he said conditions were impossible, they might never be rescued.”
“What the devil are you suggesting then?” I demanded.
Howe slammed his fist against the windbreaker and a shower of ice tinkled on to the winches below. “I’m not suggesting anything,” he said. “I’m just wondering. Bland would never get an opportunity as good as this. That’s all I know.” His voice was agitated and I felt as though he were wound up like a clock. “Something’s driving him. Something that’s bigger than himself, bigger than life. And Judie, the little fool, hasn’t made a will.”
He caught hold of my arm then. “I know a good deal about psychology. It doesn’t help me solve my own problems. But I can understand other people’s. Erik Bland was brought up by his mother. He’s always had money. Anything he wanted, it was there. He’d only got to ask for it—boats, parties, cars, girl-friends. But power—you can’t buy that, can you? All his life he’s been dwarfed by his father. I think that’s what’s driving him—a sense of impotence—an inferiority complex if you like. He’s no real sense of values or morals. He’s never given a thought for anyone but himself. That’s what makes him dangerous. His sense of frustration is like a load of dynamite inside him.” Then, as though he’d revealed too much of himself, he added quickly, “I’m just guessing. Forget it.” He turned towards the bridge ladder and then paused. “Only, for God’s sake, make all the speed you can.” With that he left me and went below.
I thought of Tauer III somewhere astern of us. Suppose Howe were right? It was fantastic. But though I tried to dismiss it, the idea kept coming back. If Erik Bland would commit a murder. … Well, a murderer doesn’t always stop at one crime, and certainly Howe’s diagnosis of the man’s mental state seemed reasonable enough. It fitted his actions. But surely the man had shot his bolt. I remembered the scene in his cabin on board Tauer III. Fear
had driven him then—fear of a rope round his neck. He’d been badly scared. Another squall enveloped us and the icy cascade of sleet washed all thought of Erik Bland out of my mind.
And with the squall came the wind. It seemed to materialise out of nowhere like a howling demon coming up out of the ice. This time it was from the north-east and it lashed the sleet in a stinging sheet against our faces. Visibility was cut in a moment to a few hundred yards. I didn’t reduce speed. I just huddled my chin into my oilskins and kept on, peering into the watery murk, my face numb with the bite of wind and sleet.
We were in constant communication with Hval 5 now. Gerda kept me in touch with the reports. Two miles south-west of the damaged ship there was a large iceberg with a flat top like Table Mountain except for a tall pinnacle of ice at its southern end. This was our mark.
We reached what I thought was the approximate position of Hval 5 shortly after nine. That was on the morning of 8th February. Visibility was very poor. There was no possibility of our sighting the ice mark and I hove to, waiting for the weather to clear. We were then in open water with no ice in sight. The wind was rising to gale force and there was a lumpy sea that caused us to pitch a lot. Above the howl of the wind we could hear the ugly sound of icefloes crashing against each other. Behind this was a deeper, more violent sound which Gerda told me was a pressure ridge building up amongst a solid area of pack.
That wait seemed endless. I had a horrible feeling of being trapped. I couldn’t see it, but I knew there was ice all round us, and I felt as though it were closing in. We could hear it, and in that twilight of driven sleet it grew like a barrier between us and safety. The only thing that gave me courage was the thought that Judie was somewhere quite close and that I was there to bring her out of the ice.
Then Gerda came up to say that we were no longer in radio contact with Hval 5. “It was quite sudden—in the middle of a message.” Her face looked scared.
The loneliness of the Antarctic seemed to have moved a step nearer. “What was the message?”
“He said, ‘The ice is very thick now. We are getting—’ And that was all. I thought I heard someone shout. I am afraid—” She didn’t finish, but stared at me round-eyed.
“Get Raadal to call them,” I ordered.
“He is doing that.”
“Tell him to go on trying.”
She nodded and clattered quickly down the ladder.
Howe came up shortly afterwards. When I questioned him he shook his head. “We keep calling, but there’s no reply.” I listened to the grumbling of the ice out there beyond the grey curtain of the sleet, and the cold seemed to eat right into me.
“We must do something,” Howe shouted at me. “Start the engine. We must find them.”
My hand reached for the telegraph. Anything rather than this enforced inactivity. But the rigid discipline of six years in the Navy stopped me. I shook my head. “No good until visibility improves. We’ve the lives of our crew to consider.”
He opened his mouth to argue, then stopped and nodded. After that he paced up and down the bridge, with his awkward, crab-like shuffle till every turn he made jarred on my nerves. And I just stood there, staring into the driving murk and praying for the sleet to lift.
Shortly after ten the weather began to show signs of improving. The sleet slackened and gradually visibility lengthened out and the atmosphere became full of light. Gerda came out on to the after-deck and sniffed at the wind. Then she hurried to the bridge. “It is better, ja?” Her voice sounded thick and guttural.
I nodded, peering into the light that was beginning to hurt my eyes. “Any news?” I asked.
“Nothing. They do not answer.”
A moment later the sleet lifted like a curtain and we could see the dark water of the lead with the ice all round it. It was like a black waterway in a dead, white plain. And as the rain rolled south-westward, a mercurial flash of sunlight showed an iceberg on our port quarter, flat like Table Mountain, with the pinnacle at its southern end glistening like a spearhead.
I ordered half ahead and starboard helm. As the catcher swung round, the flash of sunlight vanished and the world was grey and cold, a frozen etching across which torn wisps of cloud scurried before the wind. “There is more sleet to come—maybe snow,” Gerda said, gazing at the sky to windward, where the clouds were gradually darkening again.
I nodded. Every moment was important now. The break might last only a few minutes. I searched the area just north-east of the berg with my glasses. The ice looked a solid mass, torn like ground after an earthquake where the floes had been layered by the pressure ridge that had been built up against the massive bulk of the iceberg. Then suddenly I saw it. A black patch in the torn surface of the ice. Through the glasses it resolved itself into the upper works of a catcher. The masts and funnel slanted so sharply that it looked as though it were lying on its side. I gave several blasts on the siren. Then I called the lookout down and climbed to his place in the tonne.
From the masthead I could see it quite plainly. It was not more than a mile away and appeared to be in the grip of two floes which were layering under the pressure of the ice thrusting against the berg. I could see tiny figures moving about on the ice, and as far as I could tell, with the mast swaying and dipping, they were unloading stores on to the ice. I swept the area between the broad lead we were in and the ship. The shortest distance was about half a mile. Several leads thrust out towards the stricken ship like crooked lines drawn in charcoal. The sudden tingle of sleet on my face made me look at the sky. The weather was closing in again from the north-east. The clouds were black and heavy. The wind seemed driving the clouds down on to the ice.
I turned my attention back to Hval 5 and the lines of open water between the floes, trying to memorise them. The crew were up on deck, leaning over the rail, talking excitedly. I clambered down on to the bridge and took a bearing. I had barely finished before the sleet closed in on us.
Howe clutched my arm. “Isn’t that a ship—coming up the lead towards us?” He was pointing away from Hval 5, straight over our bows. But even as I followed the line of his finger the atmosphere seemed to thicken and congeal into a solid wall of grey that blotted out sight.
“I didn’t see anything,” I said. “It couldn’t have been.”
He hesitated as though about to argue. Then he shrugged his shoulders. “I could have sworn I saw the outline of a ship steaming towards us.”
“The light plays tricks,” I said.
He nodded. “Yes. I suppose that’s it. I was thinking about Hval 5.”
I took over the wheel now and at slow ahead we felt our way down the northern edge of the lead until I saw what I thought was the opening we wanted. Cautiously I turned into the gap and we began to thrust our way between the floes on a general course of N.55° W. Ahead of us we could hear the gunfire sounds of the pressure ridge building up towards the iceberg. Every 30 seconds I gave three blasts on the siren, hoping that Hval 5 would still have steam up and be able to reply.
For perhaps ten minutes we forced our way deeper and deeper into the loose litter of icefloes, sounding our siren. We strained our ears, listening for the answering call. But there was no sound except the wind’s howl in the rigging and the sizzle of the sleet as it lashed the decks. Beyond these sounds we could hear the sharp thunder-cracks of splitting ice. The floes gradually thickened, packing tighter until at last we could go no farther. I stopped the engine and we lay there, heaving to the storm waves which were blanketed by miles of ice into a long, heavy swell. All we could do was keep sounding the siren and continue to listen. But there wasn’t even an echo. Its moan went off in a wisp of steam at the funnel top and was instantly whipped away by the wind and lost in the grey void that surrounded us. It was like being buried alive. I thought of the Flying Dutchman and all the other mysteries of the sea. It was so easy to imagine ourselves lost for ever as we lay there in that waste of ice and storm with the floes grinding against our sides.
And i
t was at this moment that Howe gripped my arm and shouted, pointing over the port quarter. A vague shape drifted on the edge of visibility. I lost it and rubbed my eyes, thinking I must have imagined it. But a moment later it was there again. A ship! I could see the faint outline of funnel as well as bows. It was like a ghost ship—faint and indistinct, one moment visible, and the next, lost behind that curtain of sleet.
“Is it Hval 5?” Howe shouted to me.
I shook my head. I had lost it again. But I knew it wasn’t Hval 5. It was bigger than a catcher and it was headed into the ice just as we were. It reminded me of a warship. Could a vessel have been lost down here in the ice during the war? But I could have sworn I’d seen smoke coming from its stack. I pulled myself together and ordered slow astern. There was a lead of clear water running towards the spot where we’d seen the ship and I decided to investigate.
I continued sounding our siren and with lookouts fore and aft began to manœuvre into the lead. But I’d barely ordered slow ahead when there was a sudden shout from the lookout in the bows and Gerda screamed for full ahead. The telegraph jangled as the curtain of the mist to port seemed thrust aside by the knife-edged bows of a ship bearing straight down on us.
There was no time to do anything and yet the moment of waiting seemed like eternity. I seized the cord of the siren and kept it at full blast. But the ship that bore down on us seemed to gather speed. I could hear the hum of her engine and see the water creaming up in a cold green wave at her bow. Howe shouted something and jumped for the catwalk. It was only as he ran for the harpoon gun that I realised what he’d said ; just one word—Bland. And immediately I recognised those warship lines, that sharp, deadly-looking bow. It was a corvette. And now I could see the name white against her black paint, Tauer III.
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