My view was down, deckwards. The ice was green-white round the stern and bow and opaque amidships. That bore out what my elementary 'seismic charges' had indicated — thin ice there.
Next I looked up, seawards. My eyes filled with moisture from the wind and I ducked down to avoid it. I caught a distant glimpse of the Quest standing off, pitching and rolling.
I tried again. My first incredulous thought was that somehow our iceberg had doubled its size, for almost on top of it was a second iceberg. Breakers climbed high up its side, exploding soundlessly in a welter of white. The second berg's tabular top was big enough to land a helicopter squadron on.
It was heading for us with a kind of slow malevolent purpose like an old-time battleship going in to break the enemy's line but holding its fire until it was alongside the enemy.
I realized what would happen when the two bergs collided. I cocked a knee in the ratlines and locked both my arms round the backstay to prevent myself being shaken off.
'Stand by under for your lives!' I yelled at the deck.
Almost at once the inevitable happened.
Tens of thousands of tons of ice, propelled by a 30-knot wind, swung and struck the buttress next to me.
I ducked. Impact and thunder came almost simultaneously. The concussion was stunning enough to be heard half across the Southern Ocean.
My topgallant mast whipped like a fishing-rod taking a strike.
The mast lashed towards the ice-cliff. I thought I would be pitched headlong against it despite my hold.
Its supporting shrouds and stays made an agonized groaning, straining noise. The ropes tautened, tautened, tautened. How far to breaking-point? I could detect stretch — and I blessed the rigger who had used manila instead of wire.
Then the two bergs rebounded.
The mast whipped again, this time in the opposite direction. From the hull came the most dreaded of all sounds to a sailor's ear — a sound like timbers being torn apart.
But it wasn't Botany Bay's timbers.
It was the ice.
The ice immediately round the ship's sides started to break off. Loose blocks porpoised to the surface. Next, it seemed to me, the underwater shelf rose and took the ship under her lee beam and lifted her bodily — the collision had snapped off the shelf from the parent berg and it was rising to the surface, pushing the ship with it.
Under its thrust, Botany Bay's first movement was still further over to starboard, the iceberg side. I clung on. Any moment I feared the mast would shatter at the cross-trees and pitch me to death. Then the dizzy pendulum stopped short. The mast reversed its traverse. It rotated away to the lee beam in a long sickening arc. But it was a swing whose pivot was water, not ice! 'She's free! She's loose!' I shouted — but I couldn't hear my own voice above the uproar.
All round the ship the ice cracked, exploded and shattered in long cracks radiating from the hull. The noise was louder than gunfire. On the quarterdeck I spotted Linn, Wegger and Ullmann all hanging on to the big double wheel. On the main deck men with their feet sliding under them hung on for dear life to any rope they could find.
All round the sea boiled. The ship was half-lifted, half-pushed sideways. Then she went over until her port life-boats touched the ice-cluttered sea.
I hung on like a fly on the ceiling.
Would she ever come upright?
She did, swinging almost lazily on to an even keel.
I knew that I had to get her clear at once. At any moment there could be a second collision between the two icebergs. It would drive the jagged pieces of ice floating round the vessel like battering-rams through her timbers.
I threw a final look seawards. Floes of smashed ice were scattered all round the great berg, and the sea boiled and broke. The tens of thousands of tons of table-top was rocking slightly in the aftermath of the collision. That alone showed how stupendous it had been.
I took the quickest — and most dangerous — route to the deck. I went down, boots and hands, via the backstay. It took only seconds.
My mind had formulated its plan when I had felt the wind up aloft in the rigging. Down here it was still no more than a catspaw, not enough to power her big lower sails but Strong enough aloft for her uppermost sails.
'Hands to the braces!' I shouted. 'Break out the main and fore royals! Slap it about, men! All hands!'
They went automatically to their stations like a stunned gun crew after a near miss by a shell. They reacted like automatons, too.
The yards came round. Four men — two would have done — shinned aloft and broke out the small topmost sails.
Collecting the drifting motor-launch on the way, Botany Bay clawed her way with nerve-shattering slowness through the ice, bumping and thumping, until we were at last in the safe open water of the iceport.
CHAPTER TWENTY
'Back the main royals!'
Tired as they were, the crew were twice the men they had been a short while before, and they went willingly to the braces. Botany Bay had put the danger astern and was easing through the open water of the iceport.
At my order, Wegger came to where I was standing at the wheel, his face dark.
'What are you playing at, Shotton?'
The yards came round. The backed sail acted as a brake. Botany Bay slowed to a standstill as the way fell off her.
I ignored his question and asked the bo'sun, whose name was Clem Bent, at the helm, 'How does she feel?'
He spun the spokes first to port and then to starboard.
'A bit stiff, sir, but okay.'
'Good. Hold her steady.'
I turned on Wegger. 'Get that grenade off Miss Prestrud and I'll tell you.'
His face clouded still further. Try anything on me…'
'Wegger! I've just snatched your bloody ship out of a death-trap. I did my part. Now do yours.'
He gestured to Ullmann, who cautiously passed him the machine-pistol so that he could loosen the grenade.
I started forward angrily as Ullmann took Linn roughly by the shoulder but Wegger exclaimed wamingly, 'Keep away from that grenade, Shotton!'
When the grenade was free, I went to Linn and held her for a moment. I couldn't have cared whether or not a hundred hijackers were near.
She was trembling and she whispered, 'Thank God for you, my darling.'
'You were wonderful, Linn,' I replied.
Then I walked slowly back to Wegger.
'Listen,' I told him. 'Now's your time to reconsider, if you still intend to go ahead with that idea of yours about taking this ship to Prince Edward. She sailed in here, but she won't sail out. It's impossible to negotiate that entrance under sail — it's dead into the teeth of the wind. Also, the ship's damaged. She's got a leak in her bow. I don't know what other underwater damage she may have suffered in the ice.'
'We'll tow her out with the motor-launch,' Wegger replied. 'Don't try and blow up the damage. Kearnay himself said the leak wasn't bad.'
'A leaking ship is a leaking ship in the Westerlies — anything could happen.'
'Forget it. We go to Prince Edward, leak or no leak.'
I felt as trapped as Botany Bay in the ice. I said non-committally, 'I'll get the sail off her then if we're going to tow.' «'Not so fast,' replied Wegger. 'We've got some business first with the Quest.' Both he and Ullmann laughed. 'We've also got to collect Bravold. You and the girl can use the opportunity to pick up your things.'
'Her things!' I echoed. 'What do you mean? Linn's not coming in this old sieve…!'
'John!' exclaimed Linn. 'I go where you go. Prince Edward Island or no Prince Edward Island, leak or no leak.'
Too damn right,' sneered Wegger. 'She's coming — for my reasons, not hers, which don't count with me.'
'A sailing-ship is no place for a woman,' I protested. 'Especially one like this, Linn…'