‘Big wind, by the look of things,’ agreed Peter, speaking with all the experience of a man who has faced hurricanes since childhood. His eyes narrowed and he found himself wondering whether the removal of the cursed corpses was in fact going to bring about a change in their luck after all.
Richard nodded once, decisively, and was in action immediately. ‘Strong southerly at about a thousand metres up. I’d better get back to Titan and get ready to sort it out if it comes down here. It’s time we made a determined effort to find the Canaries current in any case. I want us out of this dead water as soon as possible. Especially if we’ve got to deal with contrary winds.’
The frown remained on Richard’s face as he strode out of the bridge and crossed to the lift which would take him down to the weather deck, the helipad and his own helicopter. He was by no means as confident as he appeared. Things were not going to plan — if a vague desire to pick up the Canaries current as soon as the impulse of the North Atlantic Drift began to fail them over die Cape St Vincent ridge could be called a plan. He was very much aware that they would soon begin to fall behind schedule and that the ice was beginning to melt too quickly, a fact emphasised by the increasing tension on the long black lines as the anchorage points inevitably began to rise. He was also too well aware that the exhaustion which held them all in its grip meant that they were on the verge of drifting mentally as well as physically, losing impetus, like their massive charge, in the dead water between the two great currents they were supposed to be riding southwards. Now the threat of a contrary wind, a southerly which would be bound to be hot, seemed to crystallise all his misgivings.
Richard stepped into the lift car and punched the button marked ‘A’. As soon as the lift was in motion, he lifted his walkie-talkie to his lips and thumbed Titan’s wavelength. The black machine was not powerful enough to communicate with the distant ship from within the bowels of Psyche’s bridgehouse, however, and he had to wait until he stepped out into the still, heavy air on the main deck before he could raise Sally Bell on his own navigation bridge.
‘Any further word from Yves?’ he asked as soon as she answered his call.
‘Nothing new. He’s with me here, though. Want to speak to him?’
‘Yes. Put him on, please. Yves, I’m coming across in the chopper. Any thoughts about the current? Is it possible that I could see it if I get high enough? I mean, would it be obvious to the naked eye?’
‘Yes. That is an extremely good thought, Captain. I can see nothing from down here and there has been no variation in sea temperature for some kilometres ahead, so I have found nothing working at sea level. But you may be lucky enough to see a change in surface colour or wave formation if you can get high enough. And if you see nothing on your way over here, then perhaps I can borrow the helicopter and go south myself.’
‘Perhaps.’
Certainly, now that Psyche was free of her unwelcome cargo, the necessity of hopping from ship to ship should be reduced, freeing the helicopter for other duties. And the loss of the current suddenly gave added priority to Yves’ work. Perhaps this was the time to let him have the chopper. He had been asking for it for long enough. Ever since his untimely absence during Tom Snell’s crisis, in fact.
Richard crossed the deck from the port bulkhead door to the helicopter which crouched just beyond the range of the incessant drizzle from the melting ice. After he had signed off, just before he climbed aboard, he paused, looking up at the tall white slope. There was a haze high in the sky, but it hardly cut the power of the sunshine and certainly did not detract from its brightness. The brightness of the ice cliff was painful to look at, but Richard forced himself to look up steadfastly for the few seconds it took to establish that the upper galleries still looked absolutely solid — as far as could be seen. The thought of an avalanche thundering down onto the deck of Psyche or Kraken on the far side was another nightmare he wished to keep firmly in his dreams and out of their actual experience — together with his fear that the whole berg might turn upside down and pull them all to sudden destruction. This last was a worry which was growing little by little in all their minds as they began to pay out the two lines metre by metre as the iceberg rose out of the sea.
‘We’ll have a look at the ice cliff from close up,’ he ordered as he climbed aboard.
‘Yes, sir,’ answered Doug Buchanan. He reported in to the bridge and alerted Peter Walcott that Richard was aboard and they were just about to take off.
Richard strapped himself in and settled back into his seat, his mind checking through the list of immediate priorities. He would give the upper slopes a close visual check on this side and the far side. Merely looking at the ice would tell him little enough, but the fact that everyone would see him checking on their safety would do no harm to the morale on the two ships. Since they had withdrawn Colin and Kate Ross’s team from Manhattan, the massive berg seemed to have attained almost a threatening air in the estimation of the crews most closely associated with it. Richard knew this as well as Peter Walcott did and was concerned to boost morale on every possible occasion. The most effective way of brightening everyone up would be to find the Canaries current and renew that sense of urgency which had dissipated with the North Atlantic Drift nearly seventy-two hours ago. Once they had checked the ice, he would order Doug to fly them over to Titan and then he would get the pilot to take them straight up into the sky until he could see the sea for a hundred miles ahead. They had to find the Canaries current before nightfall. Before that mysterious wind which had whirled the RAF chopper away so rapidly at a thousand metres up came down to sea level and began to push them backwards along the course they had just sailed so laboriously.
The upper slopes of the ice cliffs revealed nothing of immediate importance, even after the closest possible inspection. They fell back at thirty degrees from the horizontal, flawlessly carved into the safest possible angle by Tom Snell and — so long ago now, it seemed — Paul Chan and their explosives. There were no obvious cracks or loose ice boulders, though the smooth white surfaces were beginning to surrender to the relentless power of the runoff and the featureless skim of water was being channelled into increasingly obvious river valleys. This gave Richard some pause and he lapsed into deep thought as the helicopter flew south towards his command. If the runoff began to carve deep valleys into the ice slopes, then there would soon come a time when the ridged sections between the slopes might begin to break free and fall off in dangerously solid chunks. He would have to set up a routine for checking the slopes on a regular basis.
His eyes remained busy as they ran low above the white shoulder of Manhattan for kilometre after kilometre. No matter how deep in thought he was, his gaze could hardly fail to register the fact that the whole berg was beginning to change shape, and not just because the increasing height above the water was revealing slopes of beach reaching out at the waterline to echo the slopes up here. He would have to get Colin to give a detailed estimate on the current and projected rate of water loss. Or, to be fair, an updated estimate. Colin had been feeding rough figures into the regular meetings every day. They had been accurate enough to form the basis of the paying out of the line on a twice-daily routine, but it looked as though they would need more detailed and accurate figures as soon as possible. They still had ten days’ hard sailing — a fortnight’s if they failed to find the current. How much water would they lose in that time? Without detailed figures, it would be impossible to make any kind of realistic estimate.