Southtrap

She looked at me wonderingly. 'You're a strange sort of man for a ship's captain,' she said.

I tried to laugh it off. 'Fanciful, you mean? Let's forget it. For a cruise like this you need a strong ship and strong men and we've got both.'

'No,' she said. 'We can't forget it. You're so worried about the Quest's cruise, and I want to know why.'

'You're going to laugh at this,' I said slowly. 'I'm superstitious. Doesn't fit in the space age, does it? But there it is. I don't like starting a voyage on a Friday.'

She leaned forward impulsively as if to touch my arm, and then withdrew.

That's not the whole of it,' she said. 'A skipper like you wouldn't be put off by superstition alone.' Still I tried to fence. I didn't want to voice my fears.

'Quest's a fine ship but she's old, and above all she isn't ice-strengthened. The later Thai ships that went up the St Lawrence seaway were ice-strengthened. It's very important. Without it a bergy bit on a dark night could tear open the plating as if it were brown paper. Don't forget we've got the lives of thirty passengers and scientists at risk.'

'I don't forget. Go on.'

Rather to my own surprise I did go on. 'There's another thing that's worrying me. It's the man I hired today as first officer. His name's Rolf Wegger. He's the right type, he's got all the right qualifications and he's already proved what he can do. With your father out of action it's essential I should have the right kind of support. There's no doubt that he can give it, but there's something about him I don't understand and don't like.'

'What's the matter with him?'

'I wish I knew. Little inconsistencies — things that don't ring true. He's as tough as they come and yet the sight of some old tanker's name written on a chart threw him into a flat spin. He said it made him feel nostalgic. Then there's Prince Edward Island. He says he's not been there for years but he seems to have some sort of obsession about it.'

It sounded lame and I could see she wasn't impressed. She said, 'Aren't these pretty nebulous grounds for anxiety? Especially at this late stage of things?'

'All I know is, I smell ice. Dangerous ice.'

She stood up. 'Thanks for taking me into your confidence, John. As far as I'm concerned the decision's already been made. As you promised my father, the Quest sails tomorrow.'

I felt as if I had lost her. 'I also promised your father that the dinner he'd planned to mark the anniversary of some wartime escapade he was involved in would go ahead without him.'

Linn said, 'Oh yes, I'd forgotten Captain Jacobsen. He was with Dad at the time. The dinner's for him, too. He'll have to be told about this business. He was on the plane with me.'

'Do you know anything about your father's war-time adventures?' I asked.

'Not very much. He didn't talk about them. I only know he escaped with two other catchers when the Antarctic whaling fleet was captured by a German surface raider.'

'So you don't know any details? Nothing about something he did and later felt guilty about? Nothing about a torpedo?'

'Did he tell you this himself?' she asked quietly.

'Yes, but he may have been delirious. He was in and out of a coma,' I replied. 'That's why I hesitated about my promise to him.'

She came so close that I could see the tiny golden flecks in her eyes. 'He said something else that's eating you, didn't he? Something you haven't told me?'

'Not your father,' I answered, 'but the doctor. He said your father's injuries had been caused by being pistol-whipped.'

Before she could reply, there was a knock at the door and Wegger came in.

CHAPTER SIX

'Sorry to interrupt, sir, but the weather team has just arrived on the dockside with the drifter buoy. They want to see you. Got to have the captain. You'd think the thing was made of gold.'

'It's the star of our show,' I replied. 'In a way it's the most valuable thing we'll be carrying in the Quest.'

He looked curiously at Linn. This is Miss Prestrud,' I said. 'Our tour leader. Captain Prestrud's daughter.'

A moment before, Wegger's bearing had been no more than that of a busy, competent officer. His oil-stained overalls, open to reveal his hairy chest, added to the picture. But as I introduced Linn there came over him that strange intensity I had sensed at our first meeting.

'You don't look like your father.'

No polite formalities, no sign of sympathy or concern, just that jerky, out-of-context remark.

It produced a silence between the three of us. In that vacuum, the thought struck me — to be able to make the comparison, Wegger must have met Captain Prestrud. That meant he had been lobbying for the job before I appeared on the scene.

Wegger jounced his oil-stained cap between his hands. He asked curtly, 'The cruise — it's still on?'

'Captain Shotton and I have discussed it,' Linn replied coldly.

Her tone pulled Wegger up short. He said hastily, 'All I meant was that if it's not, there's no point in rushing things the way we're doing — there are hundreds of things still to be done…'

'Go ahead, Mr Wegger, the cruise is on,' I told him. 'We sail first thing tomorrow.'

'Good. The drifter buoy…?'

'All right. I'm coming. Join me, Linn?'

She nodded. I found my cap — its badge depicted a penguin, which I thought ridiculous, but Captain Prestrud had insisted it was part of the tour motif — and we went out on deck.

Wegger went quickly aft ahead of us towards a group on the quayside opposite one of the ship's main lifeboats. McKinley was at the foot of the ladder to the main deck chatting to a dark girl whose sultriness exploded into a constellation of acne on her left cheek.

When we had passed them, Linn said, 'That's Barbara. She's the head of the Knowledge Hounds.'

'She'll get knowledge from McKinley all right.' I grinned at her. 'What sort of hounds did you say you'd brought aboard my ship?'

She slowed, as if not wanting to reach the quayside group too soon.

Her smile was all the more attractive because of its slight irregularity. 'They're very important passengers, Captain Shotton. The Knowledge Hounds. Five of them. Four women and one man. Never heard of them?'

'Never.'

'It's a society in Britain which specializes in in-depth studies of faraway places. Very intense. Very knowledgeable. They first got in touch with me because they thought the Quest was making for the Diomede Islands.'

'Don't trouble to ask whether I've heard of them. I haven't.'

They're frozen islands in the Bering Sea. Twins like Marion and Prince Edward, but the other side of the world.'

'What made them pick on Prince Edward, for Pete's sake?'

She halted. 'What do you think made me?'

The south-easter was blowing her fine hair into her eyes. I could not read what was in them. She was still smiling as she pushed the hair aside. I wished the deck were a mile long to walk.

'Your father, I suppose. The Southern Ocean meant a lot to him.'

She unzipped the bag on her arm and pulled out a piece of faded blue satin, which was overprinted with what looked like a newspaper article.

She held it out. This is a souvenir of a grand ball which HMS Erebus and Terror gave about a hundred and forty years ago in Tasmania. They'd been to Prince Edward Island and had broken through the ice near the South Pole. The printed part is from the Hobart Town Courier. It's an account of one of the greatest social occasions Tasmania has ever known. Strange, how something can act as a trigger. I got hold of this in London, and it made me feel I simply had to see Prince Edward for myself. It was like a catalyst. It started off a whole process in me. It had nothing to do with my father. His reasons for the cruise were entirely different.'