The Blue Ice

'Take over the wheel, will you, Miss Somers,' I said.

'Keep her head to the wind.' As soon as she had relieved Dick, I called to Carter and we got the mainsail up. The canvas cracked as the boom slatted to and fro in the weird red and green glow of the navigation lights on either side of the chartroom. As soon as peak and throat purchases were made fast and the weather back-stay set up I had the engine stopped and I ordered Jill Somers to steer up Barrow Deep on course north fifty-two east. The mainsail filled as the ship heeled and swung away. In an instant we had picked up way and the water was seething past the lee rail. By the time we had set jib, stays'l and mizzen the old boat was going like a train, rocking violently as she took the steep seas in a corkscrew movement that brought the water gurgling in the scuppers at each plunge.

I sent Dick and his watch below. They were due on at midnight. Wilson was stowing gear down below. I was left alone with the girl. Her hand was steady on the wheel and she eased the boat over each wave with a sure touch, keeping steadily to her course. The light from the binnacle was just sufficient to show her features in silhouette against the howling darkness of the sea. Her fair hair blew free about her head. She was wearing a polo-necked sweater under a rainproof windbreaker. 'You're quite at home on a ship,' I said.

She laughed. And by the way she laughed I knew she was enjoying the wind and the feel of the ship under her. 'It's a long time since I've done any sailing,' she said. And then a shade wistfully: 'Nearly ten years.'

'Ten years? Where did you learn?' I asked.

'Norway,' she answered. 'My mother was Norwegian. We lived in Oslo. Daddy was a director of one of the whaling companies at Sandefjord.'

'Is that where you first met Farnell?' I asked.

She looked up at me quickly. 'No,' she said. 'I told you. I met him when I was working for the Kompani Linge.' She hesitated and then said, 'Why do you suppose poor Mr Dahler queried George's death?'

'I don't know,' I said. It was a point that had been puzzling me. 'Why do you speak of him as — poor Mr Dahler?'

She leaned forward, peering into the binnacle, and then shifted her grip on the wheel. 'He has suffered so much. That arm — it quite upset me to see him like that.'

'You've met him before?' I asked.

'Yes. Long, long ago — at our home.' She looked up at me, smiling. 'He doesn't remember. I was a little girl in pigtails, then.'

'Was he a business contact of your father's?'

She nodded and I asked her what sort of business he had been engaged in.

'Shipping,' she replied. 'He owned a fleet of coastal steamers and some oil tankers. His firm supplied us with fuel. That's why he came to see my father. Also he had an interest in one of the shore whaling stations, so they liked to talk. Father enjoyed being with anyone who was prepared to talk whaling.'

'Why is Dahler scared to go back to Norway?' I asked. 'Why does Jorgensen say he's liable to be arrested?'

'I don't know,' She was frowning as though trying to puzzle it out. 'He was always such a dear. Each time he came he brought me something from South America. I remember he used to say that's what he kept tankers for — to bring me presents.' She laughed. 'He took me skiing once. You wouldn't think it now, but he was a fine skier.'

We fell silent after that. I was trying to visualise Dahler as he had been. She, too, I think was lost in the past. Suddenly she said, 'Why doesn't Major Wright deliver those messages he talked about?' She did not seem to expect any reply for she went on, 'All these people on board your ship going to look at his grave; it's — somehow it's frightening.'

'Did you know him well?' I asked.

She looked at me. 'George? Yes. I knew him — quite well.'

I hesitated. Then I said, 'Does this mean anything to you — if I should die, think only this of me?'

I wasn't prepared for the jolt my question gave her. She sat for a moment as though stunned. Then like a person in a trance, she murmured the remaining two lines — 'That there's some corner of a foreign field — that is forever England.' She looked up at me. Her eyes were wide. 'Where did you hear that?' she asked. 'How did you know-' She stopped and concentrated on the compass. 'Sorry. I'm off course.' Her voice was scarcely audible in the sound of the wind and the sea. She put the wheel over to port and the ship heeled again until her lee scuppers seethed with water and I could feel the weight of the wind bearing on the canvas. 'Why did you quote Rupert Brooke to me?' Her voice was hard, controlled. Then she looked up at me again. 'Was that what he said in his message?'

'Yes,' I said.

She turned her head and gazed out into the darkness. 'So he knew he was going to die.' The words were a whisper thrown back to me by the wind. 'Why did he send that message to you?' she asked, suddenly turning to me, her eyes searching my face.

'He didn't send it to me,' I replied. 'I don't know who it was sent to.' She made no comment and I said, 'When did you last see him?'

'I told you,' she answered. 'I met him when I was working for the Kompani Linge. Then he went on the Maloy road. He — he didn't come back.'

'And you never saw him after that?'

She laughed. 'All these questions.' Her laughter trailed away into silence. 'Don't let's talk about it any more.'

'You were fond of him, weren't you?' I persisted.

'Please,' she said. 'He's dead. Just leave it at that.'

'If you wanted it left at that,' I answered, 'why did you come along this morning, all packed and ready to go to Norway? Was it just a sentimental desire to see the grave?'

'I don't want to see the grave,' she said with sudden heat. 'I don't want ever to see his grave.'

'Then why did you come?' I insisted.

She was about to make some angry retort. But suddenly she changed her mind and looked away from me. 'I don't know,' she said. She spoke so softly that the wind whipped her words away into the night before I could be sure of what she said. Then she suddenly said, 'Will you take the wheel now, please. I'm going below for a moment.' And that was the end of our conversation. And when she came up on deck again she stood out in the wind by the port navigation light, a tall, graceful figure, even in a duffle coat, moving rhythmically to the dip and climb of the ship. And I sat on at the wheel, talking to Wilson who had sat himself down in the cockpit and wondering how much she knew and what Farnell had meant to her.

We were near the Sunk Lightship now. I altered course for Smith's Knoll Lightship. An hour later we called the starboard watch and I took the log reading and marked up our course on the chart. Since setting sail we'd made a steady eight and a half knots. 'Course is north thirty-six east,' I told Dick as I handed the wheel over to him.

He nodded vaguely. He was always like that first day out. In the six years he'd been in the Navy he'd never been able to conquer sea-sickness. Wright was feeling bad, too. His face looked green and sweaty and in contrast his hair flamed a brighter red in the glare of the chartroom light. Jorgensen, on the other hand, attired in borrowed sweaters and oilskins, was as unaffected by the movement of the ship as Carter, who'd acclimatised himself by many years in the stoke-holes and engine-rooms of aged freighters.

My watch was called again at four in the morning. The wind had strengthened to about Force 5, but the ship was riding easier. They had taken a tuck in the sails. Nevertheless, the movement was considerable. The sea had increased and Diviner was plunging her bowsprit like a matador's espada into the backs of the waves. All that day the wind held from the south-east, a strong, reaching wind that sent us plunging on our course across the North Sea at a steady seven to eight knots. By dusk we were 155 miles on our way to Norway. Watch and watch about, and with every bit of sail we could carry, it was like real ocean racing. I almost forgot about the reason for the trip to Norway in the sheer exhilaration of sailing. The weather forecasts were full of gale warnings and shortly before midnight we had to shorten sail again. But the next day the wind lessened slightly and backed to the north east. We shook out one of our reefs and, close hauled, were still able to steer our course.