Southtrap

He tugged at the dip-net and gave a small whoop. 'Got him!'

Deftly he swung the net clear of the ship's side and manoeuvred it upright. Then he rummaged inside the muslin-like material and towing bridles and untied the tapes that held a collecting-jar in position at its rear, and showed us the bottle containing the sea-creature. It looked like a beautiful pale pink toadstool, except that it had trailing tentacles. It was all aglow.

'Noctiluca — light of the night,' Toby Trimen said. 'Poor thing! He's still trying to get orientated after what I've done to him.'

Linn smiled at his enthusiasm. 'Did he tell you.that?'

Toby made a gesture which took in the whole sea as far as the South Pole. His eyes were as limpid as new ice.

'It's not sea or ice or creatures but a wonderful — an enormous wonderland,' he said. 'It's so full of wonders that it makes me breathless. Look, our jelly-fish is getting orientated. He's got the most wonderful built-in gadget inside him to tell which way up he is. Just like a plane's blind-flying instruments — would you believe it?'

He saw from our polite amusement that we didn't. He plucked the jelly-fish delicately out of the bottle and continued, 'Inside this umbrella, which is his top, is his self-righting gear. When he tilts, there's a small ball which rolls around inside and touches nerves which automatically stabilize him. It's a miracle in itself. If you were an atheist, you'd be cured if you knew just half of the master plan there is among the creatures in these seas.'

He put the jelly-fish back in the bottle and held up his hands like a showman. They were all aglow from handling the creature. Then he bent down and scrawled 'Quest' on the deck with the luminous slime, straightened up again, and grinned at us.

'D'you see the jelly-fish's trailing tentacles? At the base of each one there's a group of cells which is sensitive to light. If I once start on the mysteries of phosphorescence you'll… you'll…' he was at a loss for words. 'It's what scientists don't know about it that's even more wonderful still. The photophores — those are the light-giving mechanisms on sea creatures — are so engineered, so perfectly planned…'He shook his head like a diver coming up from a deep dive. 'It's a miracle. They've found out that the light's produced by a substance called luciferin plus oxygen reacting in the company of an enzyme named luciferase…'

He laughed back his own exuberance. 'See why they say we oceanographers are nuts? Why, even the krill are packed with wonders. They're those tiny creatures which are the basic diet of whales. Their sex-life is the most delicate and lovely thing I know — the male has a special very complex little hand complete with minute fingers, and with this he takes a little flask of sperm to the female during courtship…' He turned away, as if he realized he was over-reaching himself, and pitched the jelly-fish carefully into the sea.

Then he resumed in a much more matter-of-fact voice. 'With conditions like these tonight, we could get a superb display of phosphorescence. But it seems to need a sort of trigger to set the whole sea alight. If you suddenly switch on a ship's radar, for instance, it's enough to do it. No one knows why it does, but it does.'

Linn said, with a twitch of her lips, 'Why don't you ask the captain to switch it on then?'

'I wish I could.'

'He's standing in front of you.'

'You're kidding!' he replied. 'If I'd known…'

'Don't panic,' I assured him. 'I don't eat passengers. The radar should start working any time now. We're approaching the tanker lanes and if there's anything that needs watching with radar, human eyes, directionfinders, the lot, it's super-tankers. They'll mow you down without batting an eyelid…'

Suddenly the sea switched on as if my words had liberated light. The whitecaps of the day's gale became vivid lantern-bearers of the night, rippling, foaming, recurving in fantastic shapes. The churning screw threw up a wide wake of what looked like a billion Bunsen-bumers of blue-green flame. The water which burst from the Quest's sharp cutwater was softer in colour than bursting napalm, harsher than phosphorus. All the waters to the horizon were a welter of living and moving light.

Toby Trimen's recital of the scientific names of the creatures staging this fabulous display sounded like an incantation: 'Ceratium! Peridinium! Noctiluca!'

Linn whispered to me, as if speaking louder would destroy the magic, 'John — have you ever seen anything like this before?'

I found myself whispering back. 'Once. Further South. Not anything as spectacular as this, though.'

'It's fabulous… it's… there are no words…'

It was I, however, who was at a loss for words at what followed. As we stood entranced, there was a series of loud clicks: the Quest's masts, derricks, wire stays, the oval of the stack, the extremities of the deckhouses and bridge, the radar and D/F aerials all lighted up, each a flaming point of light. The clicking reverberated like a chorus of ten thousand beetles.

I wheeled round to face Linn and Toby Trimen. Linn's fine hair was surrounded by the sort of golden halo you see on old frescoes in Italy; the fire crackled off the oceanographer's auburn top-knot and contrasted with the jelly-fish's luminous slime on his hands. Then there.came striding towards us the figure of Miss Auchinleck, who had materialized out of the blackness of the stern. She looked like a devil with a flaming poniard in her mouth: the discharge spat off the end of her cigarillo-holder.

The sight of her brought me back to earth.

'John!.. what's happening?' gasped Linn.

I answered a little unsteadily, as the unburning flames enveloped the ship. 'St Elmo's Fire! I've only heard about it — never seen it. It's caused by the buildup of electricity… it's discharging from every point of the ship…'

Toby Trimen began to laugh; he looked like a fire-eater breathing out little bursts of blue-green.

I went on, 'What's happened is that the Quest has become the conductor for a big electrical build-up in the atmosphere — that's why it was so oppressive all evening. It's a natural phenomenon — no need to be scared. It looks bad, but it won't last…'

'But that noise, John!'

It sounded like foil being crumpled by a thousand hands.

That's the sound of the discharge. I believe it's harmless. But I'm worried about the radio and other instruments. It could damage them…'

Persson came sprinting along the deck, trailing fire like a jet's afterburner.

'Sir! Sir! What's happening! The radio's gone — it nearly burst my eardrums — everything's blown — '

I repeated my explanation and added quickly. 'It'll pass. There's nothing to be done until it does.'

The Quest was a fiery ship slicing through a burning sea; the firmament above our heads was black, except where Orion's belt cut it like a sword. Toby Trimen held up a hand in astonishment — it pulsed flame from the tip of each finger and thumb.

I told them, 'St Elmo's Fire is believed to bring a ship bad luck. At any rate the U-boat aces of the last war thought so. One of the greatest of them — Kretschmer — found his U-boat enveloped in St Elmo's Fire just before it was sunk.'

'I think they were wrong, John,' said Linn in a strange, subdued voice. 'Look at that.'

She gestured astern of the ship. Holding position effortlessly above the jackstaff was a Wandering Albatross. He was the biggest I have ever seen. He must have measured four metres from wing-tip to wing-tip. As. he came into the ship's field of discharge, the individual feathers of his great wings stood out clearly demarcated. Each one became a tiny muzzle of soft flame which he aimed at us.

Linn took my arm and held me to her, so that I felt the softness of her breast against my upper arm.

'It looks — holy!' she burst out.

The great bird lifted slightly as an updraught from the stack eddied in his direction. For a moment he hung there, the silent and luminous ambassador of the Southern Ocean.