Southtrap

'We're on the same beam, Kearnay.'

He followed my eyes and looked puzzled. But he went on about the ship.

'I'll have to do something about that rigging before she'd take a blow — that is, if she ever sees the open sea again. I won't be happy until I've checked the rudder also. Come and look at this.'

He led me along the slippery deck to the big double wheel and indicated the base of the binnacle.

The dark teak of the deck had been inlaid with a segment of wood of lighter colour.

It was the shape of a coffin.

In my surprise, I forgot all about Wegger for a moment.

'This wheel's a killer — it was in the original Botany Bay,' Kearney explained. That's an in memoriam notice in wood. The helm works off a tiller below decks…'

'A tiller!'

He grinned. 'Aye, a great hunk of wood. I've got kicking tackles rigged on it, but let a beam sea strike the ship and it throws the helmsman across the deck as if he didn't exist. It takes four men to hold her in a quartering sea.'

Wegger interrupted us harshly, pointing overside. We'll drill a row of holes for charges along the length of her side — how thick's her timber, Kearnay?'

Kearney bridled at his tone but replied levelly, 'Four inches, mainly. Six in places. The knees of the beams below-decks look like whole trees.'

'I'll use ten-kilogram charges,' Wegger went on. We'll fuse 'em for simultaneous firing. They'll crack the ice in a line along her keel. When the ice gives, the weight of the ship will do the rest.'

That's fine — as far as it goes,' I said. 'But the main cause of the trouble seems to be the underwater ice shelf, the bummock. You won't blast that loose.'

'Don't start creating difficulties,' he snapped back. 'My plan will work, I say!'

It took me everything I had to hold myself back. Nor did it escape Kearnay. He gave Wegger and myself a long, contemplative look.

Then he went quickly to the poop rail.

'Men!' he called to the crew on the main deck. 'Aft here, all of you. I want to say something to you.'

'There's nothing to discuss,' Wegger retorted. 'I've sent for explosives and a couple of augurs to drill holes in the ice, and that's that.'

Kearney didn't turn at his truculent tone, but I saw the red flush of anger mount in his neck.

'I happen to be the skipper of this outfit, and on my ship what I say goes.'

The men filing aft must have heard his rejoinder because there was an air of expectancy about them. They congregated on the port side, the side canted highest away from the ice-cliff, because of the weight-balance factor. Geoff Biggs headed the crew, standing at the foot of the ladder leading to the break of the poop.

At that moment I saw my chance.

On Kearnay's left, within reach of his hand, was a row of belaying-pins in a rail.

The belaying-pin — a length of iron round which rope is cleated home to make it secure — was the favourite weapon of tough old skippers who held on to their sails when their crews thought the world was falling on top of them when running their easting down.

There were fourteen able-bodied gale-hardened men in a group within feet of one man with a pocketed pistol. I'd get Wegger before his hand even reached his gun. One quick rush would do it.

I edged forward towards the belaying-pins as if to hear better what Kearnay was saying.

Kearnay slapped the palms of his hands down on the rail. He rounded on Wegger and myself, talking to the crew as well as to us.

'Men — there's a scheme here to blow Botany Bay free of the ice. I'm all for it, and I know you will be. But there's something I have to understand. At the moment I don't.' He addressed Wegger and me. 'You say you are the captain, Shotton. But it seems to me that Wegger gives the orders.'

A hush settled over the men. I didn't have to look at Wegger. I could feel his vibrations. I wondered for how long he would be able to hold himself in.

I moved forward quickly, then leapt. I shouted, as I snatched a heavy belaying-pin from the rail, 'Wegger hi-jacked my ship! He's a maniac — !'

I swung at Wegger. His gun-hand was moving — fast.

I'd overlooked the state of the deck. The teak was as treacherous as the ice which coated it.

My feet spun from under me as I struck at Wegger. I hit the deck with a bone-thumping crash. The wind was kicked out of me.

Time seemed to go into slow motion as I watched what followed.

Kearney was lightning-quick, a man used to taking snap decisions in conditions which would mean life or death to his ship.

He grabbed a belaying-pin and went for Wegger.

I found breath to jerk out to Kearnay, 'He's got a gun!'

Kearnay was almost on him when two shots rang out. The momentum of the downward blow he had aimed at Wegger's head carried him onwards, but the two 9mm man-stoppers had done their work. There was no power left in his blow. The glancing impact as Wegger dodged knocked the pin from his paralysed muscles. The belaying-pin and his head struck the deck at the same moment with a crack. He cartwheeled over into the starboard scuppers.

I tried to raise my head. 'Get down!' I yelled feebly at the men. 'Down all of you, for your lives!'

But Biggs came bounding up the four-step ladder shouting an oath.

Wegger steadied, shot him between the eyes.

The body spun, recoiled into the men crowding up behind him. They broke.

Wegger held a striking crouch, feet splayed, Luger levelled, deadly as a mamba.

I saw two of the crew crawl on hands and knees to try and shelter behind a brace-winch at the foot of the mizzen mast. There was no other shelter between it and a cabin skylight across an open stretch of deck.

'Stop!' Wegger ordered. 'Anyone who moves gets it! Stay where you are! All of you!'

Suddenly there was nothing but the silence. A fine cascade of ice crystals and frozen snow, dislodged by the concussion of the shots, filtered down from the mizzen yard like a delicate shroud. A straining piece of ice groaned under Botany Bay's keel. There was a light patter on the deck from Biggs's body. A last reflex of a signet-ring ringer beat a faint tattoo on the planking. Then it, too, stopped.

'Shotton!' snarled Wegger. 'Up! On to your feet! Get up!'

I rose slowly, still breathless, wondering how soon the bullet would come.

'I ought to kill you!' Wegger went on. 'This is the second time I've been near it. It's only because you're useful to me…'

'Go ahead!' I retorted. Take your own bloody ship to Prince Edward Island!'

'Shut up!' He glanced at the men holding frozen attitudes about the deck. 'Keep your mouth shut!'

Then he shouted at the crew. 'Everyone get below! And keep below!' He moved the Luger threateningly in an arc across the main deck.

The men near the winch got to their feet. They were frightened, sullen. One of them pointed at Biggs.

'What about him? You can't leave him like that.'

'He'll stay there until I say move him,' snapped back Wegger. 'Get below, all of you, and keep out of my sight!'

The men filed away. They were a young lot, all in their early twenties.

When the deck was clear, Wegger came upright from his shooting stance. He kept the gun on me.

'Here!' he indicated a stretch of quarterdeck for'ard of the wheel and binnacle. 'Keep clear of the gear and rigging. And that belaying-pin rail.'

I took up the position as ordered.

'It's a pity Kearnay made me shoot him,' he said. 'He'd have served my purpose and I could have got rid of you.'

'You wouldn't have sold Kearnay that gold yarn any more than me,' I answered.

'It doesn't matter a damn to me what you believe,' he said. 'All that matters is to get to Prince Edward and collect it. And that's what I'm going to do.'

I checked the time. It was shortly before six o'clock.

'You've got four more hours of freedom, Wegger,' I said. 'The buoy launching is due at ten. After that the Quest is a marked ship. They'll hunt the seas for her. They'll find her, all right. And you too. You've killed men here and aboard the Quest in front of enough witnesses to convict you a dozen times over.'