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than half speed.
Chapter VI
'Isen! Isen!' The cry was from the masthead. The lookout at the end of the c
atwalk signalled to starboard. The helmsman swung the wheel. The flat surfac e
of a floe slid by, glimmering grey in the half light. Then the messboy cam e
hurrying along the after-deck, clinging like a monkey to the life-line tha t
had been rigged. He reported that Hval 5 was still alfoat but in danger of
being trapped between two icefloes.
Shortly afterwards Howe came up. They're all right so far,' he shouted to me.
'I've been talking to Dahle, the first mate. He says they've been holed by t
he ice, but he thinks the pumps can handle it for a time at any rate. Eide ha
s just been on the radio. He confirms your decision to go to Hval 5. We're th
e nearest boat. Tauer III has been ordered to stand by at her present positio
n. But she hasn't acknowledged the order.'
'Do you think they're in trouble, too?' I asked.
He shrugged his shoulders.
'Isen! Isen.' Another change of course. Another floe. Gerda tugged at Howe'
s sleeve. 'Walter! Do you think we shall reach them in time?' She screamed the
question at him, yet her voice barely reached me.
'Yes,' he shouted back. But I wasn't so sure. It depended on how much ice la y
between them and us. I was feeling pretty scared. I'd never taken a ship i nto
ice before. I cursed Bland for putting me in command on a catcher and in the
same breath thanked God that I'd be the one to reach Judie first.
'Isen! Isen!' I reduced speed to slow ahead. The ice was all round us now. A
sudden jar ran through the ship and there were a number of sharp, staccato
cracks and then the grinding of ice along the sides. I stopped the engine, p
eering into the glimmer of white ahead. Then a squall came. It was sleet thi s
time, not rain, and it blotted out everything. We lay there, drifting slow ly
forward, ice all round us. The sea was much less now. As though she read my
thoughts Gerda said, There is much ice, I think. It is holding down the sea.
Half an hour went by whilst we lay there, waiting for the sheet to pass. The
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water froze on our oilskins. It was bitterly cold and every now and then ther
e was the horrible grating sound of ice against the steel sides of the catche
r. But the weight of the wind was lessening. The sleet no longer drove horizo
nal with stinging violence. And with the passing of the sleet, an immense sil
ence secerned to brood over us, as though we had drifted into a vacuum. 'It i
s getting lighter,' Gerda said, and her voice, raised against the wind that w
as no longer there, seemed unnaturally loud.
Visibility was increasing and we could see that we'd fallen foul of a small
huddle of icefloes. We watched the black rearguard of the rain sweep north-e
astward and as it went it showed us more and more ice. Behind us the low clo
uds were dark and louring as though heralding another storm. But ahead they
were a dazzling white, their torn bellies mirroring the ice below, picking i t
up in a blinding light. I backed the catcher carefully out of the icefloes
and headed her at half speed into the ice blink. A little group of Emperor
penguins huddled on a floe watched us go, bowing sedately as though to hide
the joy they felt at our departure in diplomatic etiquette.
The ice blink was criss-crossed by dark lines and we scanned it, reading it
like a map, searching for the most suitable lead. As we approached the loose
pack the ice blink mapped for us a narrow lead like a long tendril that end ed
at the broad line of a much wider lead running north-east, and we headed for
this. The ice closed round us, a flat, broken plain of dazzling white th at
heaved to the swell like ground moving under the impact of an earthquake.
In the distance a large berg towered like a small mountain. Another, smalle r
one, showed against the dark background of the clouds behind us. It looked
like a sailing ship, hull down and driving under every stitch of canvas.
I didn't dare move from the bridge now. Gerda or Howe were constantly in Ra
adal's cabin and they kept me informed of all radio messages. Hval 5 report ed
the propeller shaft cracked and rudder almost ripped from its seating. T
hey were attempting to clear it and rig a jury rudder. With the passing of the
storm they were no longer in imminent danger of being crushed. They rep orted
a wide lead running sou'west and passing within half a mile of their position.
'I hope to God that's the lead we're making for,' I said to Howe, who had b
rought me this piece of information. The lead we were following was narrowi ng
rapidly now. Another mile and it had petered out into a litter of small floes.
I took the wheel myself and at slow ahead twisted and turned through the
narrow channels. From the bridge we could no longer see the lead we we re
making for. I had to work on the instructions of the masthead lookout.
The channels were becoming narrower and narrower. Sometimes I had to stop t he
engine altogether, the ship's sides practically scraping the ice. Fortun ately
the edges of the floes were fairly smooth. The comparative warmth of the sea
at that time of the year had smoothed off the sides except where th ey had
been broken up in the storm. At times I had barely steerage way on t he ship.
Soon we could see the broad lead from the bridge. But between us and it the
pack seemed to huddle closer in a protective bank. I turned the edge of a floe
into a narrow gap and jerked at the engine-room telegraph. I had turne d into
a cul-de-sac. The gap just petered out. And there, not two hundred y ards
ahead of us, was the dark water of the lead. As we drifted towards the flat
sheet of ice that barred our progress, I went to the side of the brid
ge and leaned out, gazing aft along the length of the ship. The gap we had
come up had almost closed behind us, the floes on either side having been s
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ucked together by the movement of the ship. There was no question of going
astern. We should have damaged our rudder, possibly sheered the blades off our
propeller.
'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 whee
l, 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 water. I wondered how strongly built the c
atcher'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 n
o alternative. Hval 5 was holed. I didn't dare wait in the hopes that a gap w [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]