She seemed paler. " That means we can't get off this island."
Upton came in. " Yes, indeed we shall. With bits of your helicopter, if not with the whole." He seemed scarcely concerned about her.
Geoffrey Jenkins
A Grue Of Ice
Walter followed, Schmeisser in hand.
" What the hell are you talking about now?" I asked.
" Get this clear, Wetherby," said Upton. " I am going to Thompson Island in Sailhardy's whaleboat. So are you-all of us, in fact. I need you to navigate. I need Sailhardy to sail it." He indicated the Schmeisser. " Beyond that, I have no use for you. Remember that."
Sailhardy came back.
" Sailhardy! You have the material now to half-deck your boat. There's all the aluminium you need. How long will it take?"
Sailhardy put down the wood and looked at me for support.
" A day, maybe. Two, provided the weather doesn't get much worse. We'll have to carry the aluminium down to the beach, and that will be quite a job."
Helen listened in disbelief. " Father!" she said quietly.
" You have cause so much misery already. Drop this idea of yours about Thompson Island. What we need most is warmth, shelter, civilisation."
He burst out laughing. Pirow returned, carrying the helicopter's radio. " Hear that, Carl,! My daughter wants warmth and civilisation! We've got everything we need for the moment here, and Thompson Island is forty-five miles away. Do you think I would give up now?"
Helen recoiled and sat silent. We would make the boat voyage, all right, I told myself, but when he had failed to find Thompson Island, I could then try and locate Thorsham- mer and give ourselves up. We would be in no shape for anything else, after a few days in an open boat in a Southern Ocean storm.
Pirow was jubilant. "The radio is undamaged. I'll show you. I'll fetch the batteries and aerial wire." He looked sid eways at Upton. " It's a long time since Thorshammer heard from the seaplane crew of hers. I'd better get on the air before the destroyer starts to lose heart and comes to Bouvet to keep her rendezvous with the catchers."
" And us," said Walter grimly.
" And us!" echoed Upton. " Three days until we leave!
You can string the destroyer along for that length of time, can't you, Carl? After that they can send a whole fleet to Bouvet, but they won't find us."
" Don't you think the catchers were watching us through their glasses?" I said. "They saw the whole business. They'll see us leave in the whaleboat, too."
" So what?" said Upton. " They dare not risk coming into the Bollevika anchorage because of the mines. Let them see us go! The weather's getting worse, and that'll hide us too. Clear weather is quite exceptional here-you know that, and I've read Kohler's reports."
" Yes," I said. " The same goes for Thompson Island."
" Don't try and fob me off before we ever get there," snarled Upton. " Fog or-no fog, storm or no storm, we sail in three days' time."
Pirow came back and connected the batteries and aerial, which he looped outside over a metal stay-rope. The light was going and the dimness added to the weird air inside the icelined walls as Pirow, imitating the seaplane crew, began his probing, tentative tapping on the radio. We all huddled round the stove, except Walter, who stood far enough away to prevent Sailhardy or me from tackling him. Helen, half propped up among her blankets and a sleeping-bag, looked graved and troubled.
The faltering weak signal went out from the long fingers.
Again, I had to admire the uncanny skill of The Man with the Immaculate Hand. He clicked over the transmitting switch, paused, listened; his fingers fiddled almost like separate thinking entities among the dials.
" Is Thorshammer answering?" Upton asked. Pirow waved him silent. The yellow light of the kerosene burners, hollowing his eye-sockets, sketched his remoteness from our group. Suddenly he stiffened, his left hand reaching automatically for the switch, the right for the transmitting key. His next signal faltered more than the first.
Then he smiled and broke the tension. "Tharshammer says, keep that key down-keep keying! She wants a fix!
She must get a fix to establish the life-raft's position!"
" Are you sure you gave her enough?" Upton asked. Pirow ignored him, but dummy-tapped with the key switched off, smiling at me.
" QQQ… QQQ.. I am being attacked.."
" That is enough, is it not, Herr Kapital? Only three letters."
I got up and strode outside. The tension in the roverhullet, Upton's over-bright eyes, the agony in Helen's and the barbaric Walter brandishing the automatic pistol, had got me down. It was bitterly cold on the tiny plateau before the hut. Sunset saw-edged the west. I focused my powerful glasses on the catchers' silhouettes. Yes, there they were, lights on, Crozet's reflecting from the iceberg to which she was moored. There was a frightening immensity of silence. There was a fresh breeze, gusting up to about twenty-five knots, I reckoned, but still the storm from the south-west had been far longer in coming than either Sailhardy or I had anticipated. It would accordingly be the worse when it did come. Thinking of the whaleboat's chances in the great seas, I shuddered: Upton's plan seemed more insane than ever.
Next morning Upton woke us early. We had all slept round the stove, Upton, Pirow and Walter taking shifts to stand guard. We had broken open cases of stores and Sailhardy had prepared a meal, which we had eaten by the light of lanterns from the store-room. Helen looked tired and fell into a broken sleep. In the middle of night there had been a sound which had seemed to me like the glacier falling on the roverhullet, but it had in fact been only the inner coating of ice on the walls crashing down. When Upton called next morning, the room was warm and comfortable.
" We're going to strip some big pieces of aluminium off the helicopter and take them down to the beach," he said decisively. " That should take us the best part of to-day. To-morrow Sailhardy and Wetherby will half-deck the boat while the rest of us get supplies down to the beach. On the third day we sail."
Some of my previous night's introversion was with me still when I thought of the puny boat and the great seas. " Weather permitting," I added.
" Weather or no weather," he replied. "You can make up your mind about that."
" And we sail down the channel into the waiting arms of the catchers," I went on.
Upton laughed. " Come, Wetherby. You're not as dumb as that."
So he had not missed the other ice-leads to the north and north-east.
Helen interrupted. " I'm helping Bruce and Sailhardy. It is my helicopter, after all."
I could not see how Sailhardy and I were to carry big sheets of aluminium down the cliff-side, especially in the wind. We would be snatched off the pathway before we had gone five hundred feet. There was also the problem of negotiating the ladder section.
I started to object, but Upton stopped me. " You obviously haven't taken a close look at the stores. The Norwegians brought a winch up here with them. They must have hauled the sections of the hut up with it. There's enough rope to rig a windjammer. Here is some, already thawing."
Two big coils lay close to the fire and the film of ice was melting.
Upton went on: "You'll also see that Christensen's men drilled some bolt-holes in the rock. A few sheets of light metal won't be any worry "
He was right. After Sailhardy and I, using ice-axes to prise loose the rivets, had stripped off several large sheets from the helicopter to deck the bow and the stern of the whaleboat, it became obvious it would be simplicity itself to lover them down the cliff face by hand, without resorting to the winch, which Walter was busy rigging, while Upton kept watch with the Schmeisser. Helen was shaky when we began, but seemed to pick up her strength as the day progressed. By mid-afternoon we had ripped the metal skin from a large undamaged section to the rear of the cockpit and had stacked it ready for lowering to the beach next day. I had seen Helen smile for the first time since landing on Bouvet when Sailhardy insisted on chopping loose her seat in the cockpit and putting it in front of the fire in the roverhullet. Either Walter or Upton had kept guard from the front of the hut while we worked, and Pirow had occupied himself with the radio and preparing meals. There was not only quantity among the stores, but a wide variety which would have kept a marooned party from boredom for months. When Sailhardy, Helen and I returned to the roverhullet for our midday meal, Upton had selected and stacked a pile of cases to provision the whaleboat. The were also a couple of alpine-type light-weight stoves to heat things in the boat. To me the cases looked woefully few. Upton had asked Sailhardy how long it would take to sail the forty-five miles from Bouvet to Thompson