Southtrap

'Lying off outside. It's pretty snug in here. The weather's getting worse out there.'

'A couple of trips will do for all of us,' Kearnay went on. 'We're only fourteen all told.'

'What happened?' Wegger asked. 'Is Botany Bay damaged?'

Throw us a line,' said Biggs. 'I'll hold her fast. Then we can talk.'

'We're quite comfortable where we are,' replied Wegger.

Kearnay looked startled. 'Who's the captain — you or…?' He nodded in my direction. His open face was as uncomplicated as a trade wind.

To paper over the situation, I called, 'Listen, Kearnay — how did all this happen?'

He looked taken aback by our cool reception but he explained slowly, eyeing us all the time in a puzzled way.

'Five, no six, days ago Botany Bay smacked into a growler at night. We couldn't see a thing. She took it for'ard, under the starboard cathead. Carried away the anchor and lower bowsprit guys. I think the fore topmast stay caught it somehow too — anyway, it's weakened the fore topgallant mast. It's a wonder it's standing up to its present strain.' He indicated the vessel's tilted masts.

'How did you get into this place?' demanded Wegger.

Kearnay's glance again travelled from Wegger to me. His growing puzzlement at Wegger's assumption of authority was clear.

'She was leaking for'ard,' he went on. 'There was a lot of water coming in. It seemed worse than it was, maybe, and it was blowing great guns. So I decided to warp her fast to an iceberg and try and fix the leak before she went to the bottom.'

'It's been done before,' I said.

He threw me an appreciative glance. 'To begin with, the berg gave me a lee where the water was smooth enough to work. Then, when I got close, I saw through the arch that there was an iceport inside. It seemed safe enough at the time.'

'As one sailor to another, that was quite something, to do in a windjammer,' I remarked.

He laughed self-consciously. 'She's an old bitch and she sails like a teatray, but I'll be sorry to abandon her.'

'I want to see for myself whether that will be necessary.' Wegger interrupted.

'You can have her,' Biggs added. 'She'll never get out of this trap.'

'How did you come to be nipped by the ice?' I asked. That's what I don't understand.'

'The leak wasn't too bad, actually, we found,' Kearnay went on. 'We wrapped a sail round the hole as an emergency patch. We were all dead on our feet and in need of a night's rest. So I warped her fast to the ice-cliff. There must have been a bummock or underwater shelf under the ship which was attached to the main ice. The place was also full of grease ice as well as some bergy bits. When we woke up in the morning the whole lot had banked up against the ship and frozen solid. But we were still okay and I could have got her free. Then there was one hell of a crash — the berg must have calved on the seaward side and she tilted. That brought the bummock up under Botany Bay's keel. She went over on her side — she would have gone further except that the yardarms propped her up against the cliff. There she is. That's the story.'

'The hull's still sound, though?' Wegger demanded.

'Sound as a bell. She's built of teak — teak decks even. They slip like hell in a seaway. I keep the lifelines permanently rigged.'

'We'll come and examine her for ourselves,' said Wegger.

Kearnay replied, still watching me as if he could not understand why Wegger should be spokesman, 'Come, by all means. But there's not a chance of getting her out.'

'We'll see,' Wegger answered. He turned from Kearnay to me. 'Stand away until we're out of earshot.'

I gunned the engine.

'Hey!' yelled Kearnay. 'What's up? Where are you off to? You can't leave us!'

Wegger gestured impatiently. 'Back in a moment or two.'

As we withdrew I saw men start to climb Botany Bay's rigging. They must have been as puzzled as Kearnay and Biggs were.

'Get back to the Quest,' Wegger ordered Ullmann, 'and bring that case of explosives we have for the kelp at Prince Edward.'

Ullmann exhibited a flicker of animation at the word explosives. 'Will do.'

'You, Shotton, come with me. We're going to blast that windjammer free with the kelp charges.'

I shrugged. I knew a beset ship when I saw one. Better ships than an ungainly replica showboat had been pinched to crumbling timber in the Southern Ocean.

The blue veins in Wegger's face darkened with fury at my reaction. He drew Ullmann aside and whispered something I couldn't catch. It was obviously something to do with me and whatever it was, it pleased Ullmann.

Take the boat alongside now,' Wegger instructed me. 'And remember, Shotton, I've got a gun in my pocket.'

At the ice edge Kearnay and Biggs caught our rope and I jumped ashore. Kearnay pump-handled me but nevertheless he eyed me searchingly. With the other man, Biggs, my hand might have been a buntline in a gale, the way he gripped it.

'Ullmann is returning to the ship for help,' Wegger announced briefly.

Kearnay's handshake for Wegger didn't emulate Stanley's for Livingstone. The hijacker's aura was as frigid as the Pole of Relative Inaccessibility.

We started towards the windjammer. Kearnay fell into step alongside me, with Biggs on my other side. Wegger was behind. The ice shelf had a brittle, shiny crust between the broken mass of blocks. From the shuga — the spongy white lumps of ice which floated greasily off the ice edge — and the tumble of accumulated blocks I could deduce by hindsight the tragedy which had overtaken Botany Bay. She had been in clear water of low salinity when she had originally entered the iceport; the switch in the wind had brought with it a sudden freeze-up which had solidified her haven into a death-trap. There was no knowing how long that freeze would last. The berg might drift east in high latitudes for another six months and never relax its fist round the sailing-ship.

Kearnay broke the awkward silence as we stumbled towards the ship which lay like an old-timer beached for careening. The port ratlines below the maintop were full of men waving and shouting.

'I told the crew to keep aboard until Geoff and I found out from you what the score was,' he explained. 'I didn't want to raise their hopes unnecessarily.'

Biggs added, 'Every man jack of 'em's there — even a couple of frostbite cases.'

As we approached the stem, under its elaborately carved quarter galleries, the men burst into spontaneous cheering. Hands reached down and helped us aboard. The ordeal still apparent in their taut faces exploded into relief in the form of a flurry of back-slapping and hand-shaking.

Wegger barely gave it time to work itself out before he made his way carefully across the tilting deck to the starboard rail of the quarterdeck to examine the windjammer's side. The ship lay at a 15-degree angle to the ice-cliff with her fore royal topmast yard against it. I estimated the cliff to be about 35 metres high — higher than the top of the vessel's main royal mast. Between the ship's side and the ice-cliff — a distance of about 10 metres — the sea had frozen and locked her in. There was no way of knowing how thick the ice was which supported her. But it had been strong enough to have lifted the windjammer's 600 tons clear of the water.

Kearnay called out to the chattering crew, 'Stay on the port side, lads — keep as much weight there as we can.'.Then he showed me the foremast. 'See that? She's leaning all her weight on that parrel of the topsail yard — I reckon it's bent already and could go at any moment. Those topmast shrouds and backstays must be as tight as a fiddler's bitch. See the strain they're taking?' He grinned apologetically. 'Sorry. You don't know what I'm talking about.'

'On the contrary,' I replied. 'I've sailed everything except a square-rigger.'

'Good. Then we're on the same beam.'

I risked a glance at Wegger, who seemed preoccupied. I eyed Kearnay keenly and hoped he got my message.