Pirow must have wondered from my long silence if I d i s b e l i e v e d h i m, f o r h e w e n t o n q u i c k l y: " T h e H e r r Kapitan Kohler mined the South African coast as far as the hundred-fathom line. Meteor carried ninety-five mines. We used eighty off South Africa. Then we came to Bouvet. We used the other fifteen at Bouvet."
" We must tell the skippers right away," I said. " God!
Fifteen sea-mines in the Bollevika anchorage!"
"Yes, Herr Kapitan," he said sombrely. " And you know what the approaches will be like."
" I haven't been closer than twenty miles, but I can guess," 143
I said. When I had seen Bollevika, the icebergs made a belt round the island, broken here and there by zigzag open leads of water. Heaven help the crew of any ship mined under those conditions, I thought. What would be the consequences if it happened to be Thorshammer?
" Reidar Bull!" I called. " Come here!" The big Norwegian, suspicious and with the Schmeisser at the ready, came across to us. I outlined what Pirow had told me.
Reidar Bull's reaction took me unawares. " Christ!" he exclaimed angrily. " Must I now be frightened by some bloody fairy-story about mines which you two naval types c o n c o c t? H a n s s e n! B r u n v o l l! " T h e o t h e r s j o i n e d u s. " Listen to this. We mustn't keep the rendezvous at Bouvet because-so our German friend now tells us-his ship mined t h e a p p r o a c h e s t o B o l l e v i k a d u r i n g t h e w a r! I s a y – nonsense!"
" It is true," retorted Pirow angrily. " There are fifteen deep-sea contact mines."
Lars Brunvoll's temper had not improved with the long hike across the ice. " So the first person you run to tell is the English captain, heh? Is he in command of this party? Why must he know first, heh?"
" Because it is a scare-story they have thought up between themselves," said Reidar Bull. " I don't believe a word of it." Hanssen grinned. " We don't need to believe or disbelieve, Reidar Bull. We can prove it quite easily."
" What do you mean?" asked Bull.
" Let us send Aurora on ahead of our own ships," he said. " If Pirow's story is a lie, which I think it is, then no harm will come of it. If it is not…" he shrugged-" it is just too bad. Good riddance, I say."
Pirow was as white as the moment he had come on the factory ship's bridge and saw the blue icefield. " I was there -
I know the place is mined!" he exclaimed. " Don't be such damned fools!"
" These men are as slippery as the Great Ice Barrier," interrupted Brunvoll. " We may be damned fools, but we are not criminal maniacs," he went on. " Yes, send Aurora in with the lot of them aboard, and we'll see what happens. If she blows up, our own ships will still be safe."
" Aye," said Reidar Bull. " But I won't send Aurora's crew. They had no hand in it."
" Easy," said Hanssen. " If we sail to-night, we can be off Bouvet to-morrow morning. We'll transfer Aurora's crew 144 at the approaches. She won't need a full crew to take her in. Walter can manage the engines for a couple of miles. Captain Wetherby will find no problems in sailing a ship."
" I don't like the idea of letting Captain Wetherby have a ship," grumbled Brunvoll. " Anything can happen-a squall, a patch of fog, and-poof-when we look, the sea will be empty and Aurora will have disappeared. If anyone needs to be guarded, it is the English captain."
" We'll guard him all right," said Hanssen with a grim smile. " We'll unship that hellish gun on Aurora. I'll have it rigged forward on my harpoon platform. It'll only take a couple of hours. Kerguelen can sail maybe half a mile astern of Aurora as we approach the Bollevika anchorage. If any tricks are played, they'll get a double stream of lead the way the seaplane did."
It was no use arguing with' men in their savage mood. I turned to Pirow. " Can you remember-even vaguely how Captain Kohler mined Bollevika? Did he lay a definite pattern, taking a bearing on something ashore?* Was it a regular line? Have you any idea at what intervals Meteor dropped the mines overboard?"
Pirow shuddered. " No, but I remember how Herr Kapitan Kohler laughed after we had mined the Agulhas Bank, off
South Africa. We came close inshore towards a big lighthouse, which the fools had left burning-in wartime! We started mining from the hundred-fathom mark, and zigzagged shorewards. ' If anyone ever finds the plot of these mines, it is more than I would know,' Captain Kohler said. He did the same at Bouvet. The mines were also set to float at any depth."
I was not as concerned as Pirow. I knew that Kohler must have used the German " Y " type mine, which was fitted with a self-destroying device should it break loose. To lay his mines deep, as he must have done at Bouvet and off South Africa, he also must have used a very light mooring-wire, and the odds were that Bouvet's heavy seas had since loosened the moorings, and that the mines had destroyed themselves. My mind raced ahead: if I could get hold of Aurora… but I would want Sailhardy and his whaleboat.
I looked at the islander. " You hear what Pirow says, Sailhardy. I can't ask you to come, in the face of that. I'd like your boat, though."
Sailhardy smiled faintly. " Were they Y' type mines,
Bruce?"
" Yes," I answered. The skippers looked suspicious. Mines and mining were above their heads.
" I'd come, even if they weren't," he replied.
Reidar Bull shook his head. " I don't like a man going just because of his captain."
" There's no need to worry about me if Aurora strikes a ' mine," replied Sailhardy. " The man you should have on your conscience right now is Captain Wetherby. He did not shoot down the plane."
Brunvoll was unimpressed. "I'll follow your Kerguelen into Bollevika, Hanssen. We must all take bearings and check Aurora's course-we don't want to be mined ourselves through carelessness."
" We could send the helicopter in ahead as a spotter…" began Reidar Bull.
" Leave Miss Upton out of this," I said roughly. " You bastards are very fond, it seems, of playing around with other people's lives while you sit safe on your arses. I know what Bouvet weather can be fog, gales, high seas, damn-all visibility. Leave her out of it, I say! You couldn't spot a mine moored at depth from a helicopter anyway, and particularly in these seas."
" It is strange to see a man who can get behind a gun and kill like you have done, becoming so concerned over anyone," sneered Reidar Bull. " You shouldn't keep your soft side for women only."
I had to see Helen again. Reidar's Bull's remark brought home how curiously she had come to be allied in my own mind with the Southern Ocean. Twenty years previously, on a night as wild as the Creation, I had taken my squadron of warships past Cape Horn into the Drake Passage and its mountainous seas. La Mer-I could not think of it without hearing Trenet's voice singing the song of that name. Now the wild threnody sobbed at some inner part of me when I thought of our unspoken farewell. At the moment, Meteor's mines seemed unimportant beside my wish to see her.
Helen's face was before my mind's eye. " I couldn't give a seal's burp for your plan to save your skins and make us into a lot of guinea-pigs," I said harshly. " I'll take Aurora in. But only if you let me see Miss Upton again before we sail." I turned on Pirow. " Pull yourself together, man. If we strike a mine, you won't know what hit you, anyway."
He smiled wanly. " I wish I could detect them by radio." Reidar Bull dropped the barrel of the Schmeisser a little.
" You are a brave man, Captain Wetherby. Mikklesen said so, too. War has no place in peace, though. I could almost wish it had been Walter who had shot down the seaplane.