I could still see the way Sailhardy had taken hold of the situation as the flagship teetered on the edge of destruction in the narrow gap which leads into the deeper anchorage-the flooded volcanic crater-beyond.
" It was that afternoon," I said slowly, " that you told me about The Albatross' Foot."
Deception harbour had been full of bergy bits of ice. They had come in crabwise through Neptune's Bellows and started to freeze together in the inner anchorage. It seemed quite clear to me. what would happen: my small force was about to be frozen solid in the harbour. As I had seen it, it would have remained bottled up there for the next six months, unable to move, while the U-boats and raiders sneaked past in the Drake Passage. Destroyers and frigates are not sturdy ships like whale catchers; the ice would have damaged them severely. There were no installations or dockyards to repair them. As the harbour started to freeze, I had climbed the cliff entrance and had been appalled at the gigantic phalanx of solid ice moving through the strait between Deception and the mainland. Some of it was turning aside from the main body into Deception harbour. If enough did-it would have meant death to my whole task force.
Sailhardy had stood with me gazing at the fantastic sight. " The Albatross' Foot!" he had exclaimed softly. " The warm current was sweeping past Tristan as we left the other day. It will be here in a day or two. It will cut that ice up like a hot knife through butter."
It did. I watched in amazement as Sailhardy's strange story of the warm, life-bringing current came true. The great moving battalions of ice, and even the landfast ice on the mainland, wilted before the attack of The Albatross' Foot. In a world where everything was frozen, The Albatross'
Foot was the only warm thing. I blessed the day I had brought the islander with me. My squadron was saved. During the next two years, Sailhardy told me many things about the strange current of Tristan da Cunha-completely fascinating to an oceanographer like myself. But it was war, and we had work-grim work-to do, and there was not time or opportunity to carry out even the preliminaries to the study I wished to make of The Albatross' Foot. After the squadron had been saved Sailhardy had enjoyed a privileged position on the bridge of H.M.S. Scott.
"I don't think Jimmy the One ever got used to my being on the bridge," smiled Sailhardy, as if reading my thoughts.
" Regular Royal Navy," I said. " The form, old boy. Everything according to tradition. Even the admiral at the
Cape never got used to me, a mere volunteer sailor, being given a strategic command. I was in the same category as yourself. Not a hundred per cent. A week-end sailor. An upstart. An islander and a Cambridge scientist-it was just too much for some of the old school of regulars to stomach."
" Yes," exclaimed Sailhardy hotly. " Their goddamned prejudice! Jimmy the One asked me once, what does your captain-you were always my captain-know of running a ship the regular way?"
I hadn't heard this one.
" And what did you say?" I asked.
" I said," replied Sailhardy vehemently, " the Wetherbys have explored and been in these waters for a century or more. He's a Wetherby and a sailor first, and a scientist at Cambridge second. The Wetherbys' goddamned ships were the first to discover the Antarctic mainland, and a Wetherby ship anchored in Deception harbour itself while Napoleon was alive."
I grinned. " What did Jimmy the One say to that?" Sailhardy gave his low laugh. " He said, ' If you ever use the expression " goddamned " on my bridge again, I'll put you on a charge.' "
Sailhardy was sitting on the rough thwart. He seemed to have forgotten his fears about a storm. The whaleboat rolled easily in the slight swell.
" At least the admiral made a hell of a fuss of your being purely a Volunteer Reserve man when he dished out the D.S.O. after you sank the German raider."
Sailhardy's words dissolved my holiday feeling. Maybe it was the memory of the Meteor's deadly 5.9-inch salvos bracketing my small ship as I went in with torpedoes. My guns were useless against the raider's. They had neither the range nor the calibre to match hers.
" Sailhardy," I said incisively, " as you know, I've been back on Tristan for only a couple of days. We've scarcely seen each other until now, what with my having to make social calls to almost every home on the island and the weatherstation men into the bargain Foot." I looked hard at him. " I believe there is another Albatross'
" You believe-what?" he asked incredulously.
" Listen," I said. " During the war you and I went over every shred of evidence, every accompanying phenomenon,. from whales to weather, about The Albatross' Foot. The Tristan one."
" What do you mean-the Tristan one?" he asked. " The Albatross' Foot belongs to Tristan. It is Tristan." 17
" We sank the German raider near Bouvet Island," I replied. " From Tristan that is about two thousand miles." Bouvet! If ever Sailhardy's war-time words to my first lieutenant about the Wetherbys' held true, it was in regard to Bouvet Island. Sixteen hundred miles south of Cape Town towards the South Pole, and slightly to the east of the Greenwich meridian, lies an island. It is about five miles long and slightly over four across. It is the only point of land between Cape Town and the ice continent. There are no other islands, no other land. Bouvet, rivalling Tristan's claim to be the loneliest inhabited island in the world, is the loneliest uninhabited island. Men have not succeeded in landing more than half a dozen times on Bouvet. It lies deeper into the heart of the Roaring Forties than ordinary ships ever go; even the daring clipper captains of the past would seldom venture into such high gale-lashed, ice-strewn latitudes. A Wetherby ship had been there before Napoleon died on St. Helena. I had seen Bouvet once, from the deck of a fighting ship in action; the waters of Bouvet had brought me glory in sinking the Meteor, one of the war's deadliest armed raiders.
" Bouvet," I said slowly to Sailhardy. "We'd • cleared H.M.S. Scott for action. I was on the bridge, of course. You couldn't see what I could. The Meteor was getting our range-quick. She was good, that raider. Kohler's gunnery officer was in a class by himself. From the bridge we could just see Bouvet in sight behind the raider. Every eye was on her. I took one last look round before opening fire. We'd dodged round a big icefield to the south. We all heard Meteor's guns open up. It wasn't guns, Sailhardy. In time, Meteor' s guns were way ahead of the fall of shot."
Sailhardy stared. " What are you saying, Bruce?"
" It was the thunder of ice breaking up," I replied. " Not guns. Everyone aboard H.M.S. Scott was so intent on the raider that they didn't notice the time lag. I did. I also saw."
" You saw what, Bruce?"
" I saw a great spurt of fragments as the ice started to break up. Like the day it broke up in Deception harbour. The day you told me about The Albatross' Foot."
" Then why…"
I shrugged. " Who would believe a story like that? Strain of going into action, they say. Putting my hobby-horse to the front. I couldn't prove it, any more than I can prove the presence of The Albatross' Foot round Tristan. I couldn't even suggest it scientifically. That is, not until a year ago." " What do you mean?" he breathed.
" You know my story," I said briefly. " When the war was done, I brought H.M.S. Scott back to Tristan to take home the radio station men. I was demobbed. I did everything to get back to Tristan. The first freighter back was two years later-1948. I was aboard. You know. I spent that year with you searching for The Albatross' Foot. I spent every penny I had. You know the result-nil. I went back to the
Scott Polar Research Institute at Cambridge. Three years ago they sent me to South Africa to act as liaison officer to the expeditions going South. A shore job, but at least there was no land between me and the Antarctic."
Sailhardy grinned. " Except Bouvet."