The radio key started to clatter as he called up the destroyer.
" Reidar Bull, skipper catcher Crozet, to Thorshammer. I have under arrest the men who shot down and killed your seaplane crew. I will rendezvous with you at Bouvet as arranged."
Pirow's sending was fluent, proficient, staccato. He wasn't trying to bluff Thorshammer that he was anyone else. Why had he agreed so readily to send Bull's damning message? He was in the business as deep as Upton or myself.
Then came Thorshammer's reply.
" Thorshammer to Reidar Bull, catcher Crozet. Rendezvous at Bouvet as ordered. Part of your message not understood. Thorshammer's seaplane ran out of fuel. Crew safe on life- raft. Position approx 100 miles west of Bouvet. Am searching for fliers."
I could not believe my ears: the seaplane safe on the water, out of fuel, which I had seen go to its death under a hail of bullets from the Spandau-Hotchkiss! I was so astonished that I forgot Reidar Bull and his Schmeisser and jumped up the steps into the radio compartment. Brunvoll stood, Luger in hand, frowning, unaware of what was passing over the air.
" The seaplane!" I said incredulously to both Pirow and Brunvoll. " How can the seaplane be signalling?"
" What are you saying?" demanding Brunvoll. " The seaplane which I saw shot down?"
Pirow grinned at me. He flicked off the transmitting key, so that the tapping which followed was for my benefit alone. Gone was the German staccato. This was The Man with the Immaculate Hand, slipping into one of many guises. Now he had projected himself into being the seaplane crew, sending emergency signals from their life-raft. The dummy signal he tapped for me was fragmentary, a little breathless, just as it would sound from a couple of inexperienced fliers facing possible death on a life-raft in the wild seas. It all fell into place, then, why Thorshammer had not come to arrest us herself. Pirow, during his long period in the factory ship's radio office, must have sent off a series of faked messages purporting to come from the seaplane crew on their life-raft. He was clever enough not to have given Thorshammer time enough to get a bearing-the only man who could get a bearing on a dozen letters was Pirow himself. He must have thought up his ingenious plan while he listened to the catchers signalling Thorshammer. The destroyer was at present on her way to an imaginary position given by Pirow to pick up a seaplane crew which no longer existed. He was giving Upton and himself a breathing-space. He was also proving that Walter had committed no crime, for Thorshammer's radio log would show that the seaplane had been signalling long after she had, in fact, been shot down; moreover, Thorshammer had already indicated that there had been no signal from the plane to show she had been shot down, but that instead she had got lost, run out of fuel, come down on the water, and the two-man crew had taken to the life-raft. I saw the mettle of The Man with the Immaculate Hand. Thorshammer would then be arresting us" for an infringement of Norwegian territorial waters and hunting the Blue Whale.
" Come!" I said to Brunvoll. " I want you to hear this, too." I strode to the cockpit door. The circle of faces on the ice looked up at me. Helen's was troubled, anxious. " Reidar Bull!" I called. " Thorshammer has just signalled back. She says her seaplane crew is safe on the water. They were never shot down. They ran out of fuel."
" God's truth! What is this?" he roared. " Safe on the water! Am I drunk or mad?"
Brunvoll gripped my arm with a fist of iron. " I saw every one of us saw-the seaplane fall in the water, shot to ribbons by you and Walter."
" By Walter," I said steadily. I told them what I believed Pirow had done. As I did so, I saw a look of savage triumph and determination cross Upton's pewter-hued face, framed by the blue hood. Helen caught my glance and looked at her father. She half started forward, and again looked up at me. She had seen and I had seen. I was glad of the manacles on Upton's wrists, supplemented by the Schmeisser guarding him. Hansen shook his head, like a boxer clearing his mind after a blow. " I see a plane fly into a gun. I see the gun fire. I see the plane crash. Now I am told it is not so."
" The three of you have been taken for the biggest ride of your careers," I said. I told them who Pirow was. Reidar Bull's face went black. " Thorshammer won't listen to you now, after Pirow's signals. Heaven knows how long you'll have to hang around at Bouvet while she searches for that seaplane crew of hers."
Upton's voice was tense. " Tell them too, Wetherby, that there is no extradition for murder in the Antarctic. It's all in the Antarctic Treaty, which your bloody country signed, Reidar Bull. There is no treaty obligation to hand over anyone."
Reidar Bull clicked the Schmeisser as if to assure himself that it, at least, was real. " I don't know what extradition means," he replied. " I don't know what anything means any more, with bastards like you around me. All I know is that we march-now! You can take any small personal things." He gestured with the Schmeisser at Upton. " You first. What do you want?"
" Look in my desk drawer," he said. " There is an old chart. Bring it. There is a little leather bag next to it. There's a first-aid kit with a hypodermic, too. And my guarana in the liquor cabinet. That is all I want."
" You, Captain?" asked Reidar Bull.
" My sextant," I replied. " That is all." It was the sextant with which I had plotted Thompson Island.
Sailhardy came forward, his thumb flicking in its strange way against his palm. " I march because Captain Wetherby marches, Reidar Bull. You are sailors, and you each have your ship. I also have a ship. It is everything I have in the world. To a Tristan islander, it is worth more than his life, almost. I will march, but I will carry my boat."
For the first time that morning Reidar Bull's face relaxed a little. " By everything that's holy! This islander! I could almost wish he was my friend and not the Captain's!" He looked at the other two skippers. They were men who knew what it was to have one's own ship under one. There was almost no need to get their approval. " You can load it aboard my own ship," Reidar Bull went on, brusquely, as if afraid to show sentiment. " Wait! I know! Captain Wetherby can help you carry the whale-boat. It will keep him out mischief on the march." The others grinned.
" I have a small case ready," said Helen. " I packed it ready to leave last night. It is on the bridge."
In a moment, Reidar Bull's face reverted to its grimness.
" You'll stay right here, miss. Captain Bjerko will remain behind and see to the unloading of the ship. When we reach the ice-edge, I will signal on the W/T and you will fly the helicopter to the catchers. It may be very useful to us yet. You'll land on the ice by the catchers, and we'll manhandle it aboard my ship."
Helen started to protest, but he cut her short. " Hanssen!
Go and get the things they have asked for. Be quick! I want to go before the weather gets worse." He spoke to Bjerko. " We'll come back with the catchers after we have met Thorshammer at Bouvet. She ordered all three of us to come, and Aurora makes four. There'll be enough room aboard to take off Antarctica's crew. We'll be away only a couple of days. The ice won't break up before then. You'll be safe enough."
Bjerko looked dubiously at the factory ship, whose outline we could see, despite the snow flurries. " I have never seen ice like this. Come back soon. I don't like it."
Nor did I. Behind the doomed ship, where the raft of ice had broken off, it had carved the likeness of a gigantic sphinx head with defined lips and a brooding forehead. Even the neck was there, in the shape of a series of striated cliffs; almost meeting, 150 feet from the surface, was a double cantileverlike wing which was held at its base by three fluted columns, each one fifty feet in diameter.
I started to go over to Helen, but Reidar Bull waved me back. Upton infected us all with his tension. He appeared to be expecting something. Brunvoll seemed grateful to have something to do when Reidar Bull sent him back to guard