"I'm going to fly over the top to look for a break in the cloud. We might bump a couple of times." The overcast was thick enough that Hart was quickly blind. The plane jostled in the turbulent air and the pilot prayed he'd climbed high enough that they wouldn't slam into an unseen peak.
A strong updraft hit the Dornier and the pilot's nose tightened. "What's that?"
Drexler sniffed. "Sulfur." A moment's bewilderment gave way to understanding. "Volcano, I think. We're passing over it."
They came out of their own cloud and looked down at others. It was as if the island was in a cocoon. Then a curtain of overcast parted to reveal a curving knifelike ridge with a crest of dark rocks like stitching on the snow. The rim of another volcano? Beyond it the overcast thinned further. Water. Then snow again.
"What the hell?" Hart circled. Clouds teased them, swirling in and out, but slowly the terrain revealed itself like a series of snapshots. Part of the island was a crater, a volcanic crater filled with water. And at one point on the wall— there? — no, clouds again… yes! A slot led from the caldera to the sea. Torn apart at one side by a violent explosion, the old crater formed a bay of the Southern Ocean.
It was the snuggest harbor Hart had ever seen: a bowl with a gate, perfectly protected from storm. If the sea channel and lagoon were deep enough the Schwabenland could obtain ideal shelter. Drexler uncharacteristically whooped and pounded on Hart's shoulder. "We found it!"
Then it was gone again, shrouded by storm. Hart looked at the fuel gauge. They might just make it. "Can you find the ship again?"
The German nodded, newly determined. "Of course." With purpose the old confidence was returning. He studied his notes. "Steer west-northwest for two hundred and eleven kilometers." He peered down at the whitecaps on the ocean. "We still can't land, can we?"
Hart shook his head. "The wind would flip us like a toy before they could pick us up. We need to find the ship, drop instructions, and get back to that crater before we run out of fuel. I wish these planes had a spare radio."
Drexler nodded. "Already planned. For next year's expedition."
The galley had prepared three old flour sacks as aerial "bombs," filling them with dried peas for weight. Drexler calculated the island's direction and distance from the Schwabenland, copied it three times, and inserted each in a sack and tied it up.
Hart flew on through squalls, the seaplane rattling, fuel slowly eroding, always looking for the ship. At Drexler's calculated rendezvous point they were flying in milk. He dropped to three hundred feet to get below the ceiling. No such luck. He swung north.
"Christ!" It was the German. The tooth of a towering iceberg passed just beneath the belly of the plane. "Can't you pull up, Hart?"
"Not if we're going to find the ship."
Then they broke clear and there it was, tilted to starboard in a stormy sea streaked with foam, its lights blazing as requested. Waves were throwing spray across the catapult deck. "Get ready!" Hart said. "I'll pass over. Aim for the stack!"
Drexler nodded, crawling back to the hatch. There was a shriek of wind as he opened it. The American approached the ship from its starboard side, tiny figures waving. He shot by at two hundred feet, banked hard… and the first bomb whizzed briskly past the smokestack and made a neat splash in the sea. Damn. One fewer pot of pea soup on the way home.
Drexler crawled back up. "I missed."
"Let's try again! I'll come in lower, up the length of the ship!" He began to turn. The stern of the ship came into view again.
Come on, Hart breathed to himself. It worked with Ramona. "Let go just before we reach the stern!"
This time the pilot aimed his airplane directly for the stack, determined to just barely clear it as he flew the length of the ship. He roared over close enough that some of the sailors ducked… yes!
He circled. A group had clustered around the sack of dropped peas and then waved madly. The hatch shut and Drexler came back, his face raw with cold. "Perfect hit," he said, grinning. "One to spare." He held up the third message sack.
"Save it until we get to a post office."
Hart turned to the east again, glancing at the fuel gauge. One third left. The German handed him the course and coordinates, all business now, his fear of the airplane under control. "Good job, Jürgen." The partnership gave him new respect for the man.
"And good flying," the German allowed. "The message aboard, my stomach intact… maybe God's on our side after all."
"We'll know that when we put down inside that lagoon."
The island was not difficult to find on the return trip. The overcast was breaking up and the volcanic shape became more distinct as they neared. There were two main mountains, Hart saw: the crater with its harbor and behind it a higher, steeper, narrower volcano with a wispy plume of steam coming off the top. Ridges and valleys connected the two and glaciers stuck out from the flanks like tongues, feeding ice into the sea. The crater looked too deep and narrow to fly into from above so he dropped to fifty feet and aimed for the slot in the volcano's flank, skimming the wave tops. No second chances: the gas gauge was on empty. The pilot hoped winds wouldn't blow them into the cliffs.
Eruptions of spray were coming off rocks near the narrow entrance. The seaplane passed over a small flat berg, a sapphire in an otherwise monochrome world. The engine coughed and the plane dipped an instant, its propeller on fumes. Don't give up yet! Then they were in the slot through the side of the crater, water welling up from the ocean swells below to curdle with foam, wet basalt cliffs on either side, spray spattering the canopy… and on into the foggy caldera, its shorelines shrouded, the surface relatively calm. Hart dropped the seaplane quickly, the floats skidding with a hiss. They were safe, the Boreas at heel. Its nose slowly rotated, looking for a place to tie up.
"My God."
It was Drexler. He was looking back toward the caldera entrance. Hart turned too, the airplane slowly pivoting in that direction. The engine coughed again, then caught. "Come on baby, just a bit more…"
The pilot stared. There against the shore, its bow reaching vainly toward the harbor entrance, was a half-sunken, snow-encrusted ship, its stern underwater as if pulled down while trying to escape. Fog and flakes of snow whipped past its ice-coated superstructure. At its bow like a menacing figurehead was the muzzle of a harpoon, pointed to the cliff face above.
"I think we've found the missing Bergen," the German said. "The Norwegians never came off this island."
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Hart taxied the plane toward the wrecked ship. "Jürgen, there's a line in the nose compartment. You're going to have to get out on the float, tie it to the plane, and then jump for the ship when I taxi over the sunken afterdeck. Be careful. Can you manage that?"
"I can manage the careful part. I can't swim." He bent to fetch a rope.
The derelict whaler actually proved ideal as a moorage point. The seaplane's pontoons slid shallowly over its half-drowned deck, a wing tip just clearing some stanchions. Drexler leaped nimbly, caught a railing, and braked the aircraft. Hart swiftly shut down the stuttering propeller, starved of fuel anyway. Then he came out the hatch grinning.
"I guess God showed up for us after all."
Pulling up their parka hoods and tugging on their mittens, the two men stood on the ship's slippery deck and looked around. The caldera was easily two miles across, Hart guessed, maybe more, the swirling mist revealing no other sign of human habitation. Yet their protection from the storm was complete. They were in a natural amphitheater in which the swells surging in from the caldera entrance quieted to a moderate chop. It was a perfect natural harbor.