Southtrap

'Repeat! Repeat!'

Persson was sitting with his elbows on the desk juggling with the clumsy microphone like a rock star bewitching a teenage audience. His jaw was dark with unshaven beard and his short hair was uncombed.

A fresh burst of hissing filled the room. Then a tiny hard core of voice became audible.

'Mayday!' it whispered. 'Mayday! May…'

'Goddammit!' exploded Persson. 'Just got him, then it goes!'

He beat at the microphone. 'Repeat! Receiving your Mayday. Repeat! Repeat! What ship is that…?'

'Mayday,' it whimpered. 'Mayday. Mayday. Mayday.'

'Repeat!'

The voice brightened like a sight of salvation. 'Do you hear me? Mayday! Mayday!'

Another long surge of sound broke over the reefs of interference.

'Don't lose him!' I snapped at Persson. 'Where is he? Is he close?'

'He could be anywhere — I can't get a D/F bearing on that sort of transmission,' he answered. He said coaxingly into the microphone, 'I hear you, Mayday. Repeat, I hear you. What ship is that?'

'Position.' I broke in. 'Give his position!'

'… Bay. Mayday…'

'Did you hear Bay or Day?' I demanded.

'Bay. B for Bertie. Sure.' Persson replied.

Then the voice, as disembodied as if it came from a microphone in the throat of an albatross a thousand kilometres away, said, 'Full-rigged ship Botany Bay. Repeat, Botany Bay. Collision…'

'Botany Bay!' I echoed. 'That was the horror ship in Cape Town! She was on her way to Australia!'

'Got him!' Persson's voice vibrated. 'Botany Bay — I hear you!'

'Position!' I repeated. 'He was starting to give it.'

'No.' Persson shook his head. 'Botany Bay said collision, not position.'

'In these waters?' I asked incredulously. 'There's not another ship to collide with!'

There was another long burst of sferics. We only caught the last few words'… collision with ice…'

'Iceberg!' I echoed. 'My oath, she hit an iceberg!'

Persson said, 'Botany Bay — repeat your message about collision…' To me he added: 'Did he say iceberg? I only heard ice.'

'She must have collided with an iceberg — it's all it could be down here,' I answered. 'We must get a bearing on her — we must!'

Persson fiddled with the dials. Hissing noises cascaded over everything.

Then he observed, 'She's just about on the limit of reception range.'

I recalled what Smit had told me. 'Four hundred kilometres? Or less?'

'Less, I'd say. But I don't know. I can't place him…'

Again came the tiny thread of human voice. 'Botany Bay. This is the master of the Botany Bay speaking. Tom Kearnay. Mayday. Do you hear me?'

'I hear you, Botany Bay,' replied Persson. 'Keep talking. Cruise ship Quest here.'

He was manipulating the reception dials and the remote control for the D/F aerial alternatively. But one D/F bearing is not enough: to fix a vessel's position there must be at least two intersecting, and ideally three or more. Persson had the radar going too. The sweeping beam showed nothing.

'Give me the mike,' I ordered Persson. 'Botany Bay! This is Captain John Shotton, cruise ship Quest, speaking. Reply! Reply!'

Persson and I strained for the response. It came, fragmentary, but still a reply. 'I hear you, Quest.'

'State your position,' I said. 'We can scarcely hear you. Do you understand? Position!'

It was hopeless. Somewhere in the remote background I could distinguish Kearnay's voice, repeating, repeating. What it was was the waves' guess.

I cut in on him. 'Shotton here again. Hold it, Kearnay. Listen carefully. I reckon you're at the extreme range of voice radio. That makes you within four hundred kilometres. We heard the word ice. Collision with ice. Ice means you're south of me. I'm heading due south along the twentieth parallel. Twenty degrees east. Approximately forty-four and a half degrees south. Your position, please!'

I half-heard the answer but Persson's more finely attuned ear caught it and he grinned triumphantly. Approximately forty-seven degrees south, eighteen east.'

'Roger, Kearnay,' I said into the microphone. Position heard. Approximately forty-seven south, eighteen east.'

'… sinking…' the voice wavered on.

'What's that?' I asked. 'Sinking? Are you sinking?'

The reply was incomprehensible. I handed the microphone to Persson. 'Keep at it,' I told him.

My mind raced. Angles, distances, calculations. I could hardly credit Botany Bay's position. If the windjammer was where Kearnay said she was, she certainly was way off course between the Cape and Australia. A mental picture flashed in front of me of the Southern Ocean chart. Kearnay's position put the windjammer about 280 kilometres distant from the Quest, slightly off to the south-west. What about the buoy launch? A new set of time-distance calculations flooded my mind. Could the Quest afford to go to the rescue of the sailing ship if we were to launch the buoy on schedule?

I saw in my mind's eye the relative positions of the two ships and the buoy's launching-point. They formed a triangle. Botany Bay was about 110 kilometres west of the launching point, the Quest about 280 kilometres north-east of her. But would the Quest's engines stand up to the hammering I'd have to hand out in order to make it? Equally problematical, would the hull stand up to the kind of sea that was building up? I'd have to put the Quest at full belt through a sea which I now knew via Kearnay was dangerous with ice. One touch and the Quest's thin hull would rip open like a sardine-can…

Yet I couldn't leave a shipful of men to die. Risking the rescue would mean a hell of a squeeze between distance and time. I reckoned I could get to Botany Bay in ten hours. It would be then four in the morning — light enough to carry out a rescue. From Botany Bay to the launching-point, another four hours, give or take some. That left two hours for the operation of saving the windjammer crew. I could just make it — if everything worked out according to plan.

Persson broke in on my thoughts. 'He's fast to the ice, sir! He says he's fast to the ice!'

'Fast!' I exclaimed. 'What the hell does he mean? He can't be fast to ice in these waters! The pack's still thousands of kilometres further South.'

'He said fast,' reiterated Persson. 'I'm sure, sir.'

'Keep at him — find out what's happened!'

Again the sferics hissed like a gale. It was that comparison which brought home to me why Botany Bay had landed up where she was and not well to the east en route to Australia. I'd been thinking like a steamship man. If Kearnay had sailed in a southeasterly gale from the Cape as the Quest had done, he would have followed the course of any true deep-waterman in saiclass="underline" he would have stood away boldly to the south-west, apparently away from Australia, in order to get well south. There he would pick up the powerful westerlies to enable him to run his easting down to his destination and more than make up lost time. It made sense. Botany Bay could be where she was, with reason.

Persson said, 'I heard something about damage, sir. Bow split, or something like that.'

My mind was on windjammers. 'You're sure he didn't say bowsprit?'

'Could be either,' Persson replied.

'More likely to have been bowsprit,' I went on. 'If he tangled with ice, Botany Bay's bowsprit would have bought it first.'

I glanced up at the big brass-faced clock on the shack's wall. Five minutes past six.

I borrowed the microphone from Persson. 'Kearnay — Shotton here. If you have to abandon ship, keep your boats together as near your present position as you can. I estimate I am now two hundred and eighty metres north-east of you. My ETA to be up with you is about four a.m. I'll use my searchlight, but it'll probably be light enough to see. Start burning distress flares from o-three-hundred-hours onwards — a pair of red every ten minutes. Got that? Confirm, if you can.'