" According to my calculations, we're sailing over the solid land of Thompson Island at this moment," I said.
The irony in my voice brought him to me. " It's another filthy Wetherby trick!" he screamed. " It's a trick, I tell you!
You bastard!" He thrust the Schmeisser against my chest.
" Father! Don't!" Helen stumbled over, but he thrust her aside roughly.
" What have you done with Thompson Island?" he shouted. " Thompson Island! Thompson Island!..
He was so beside himself that I don't think he consciously grabbed the sextant, but despite the fact that he was unaware of its workings he picked it up and tried to read the fix I had made. He stiffened. When he spoke, the hysteria was gone and in its place was a coldness which was more deadly. " Why," he asked, " would a man make a notch on his sextant, Wetherby? Why, Walter, I ask you as a navigator of sorts too, why would a man file a little notch?"
" Let me see," said Walter. Upton handed him the sextant; his eyes never left my face.
" What does it mean, Walter? Read it! Would the position of the notch be anywhere near here?"
" I'm not the bloody Captain, and I need time for a thing like this," said Walter sullenly. " This is a fancy instrument, too."
Upton was frighteningly quiet. " You've got a minute to tell me whether the notch indicates Thompson Island, Wetherby."
It was Walter's fumbling with a type of sextant he had never handled before that reaffirmed in my mind my resolution that I, and I alone, would keep the secret of
Thompson Island. I could almost sense Helen's and Sailhardy's shock as I pretended to acquiesce.
" Yes," I said. " That is the position of Thompson Island." Helen gazed at me, wide-eyed. " Here, let me show you." Walter, unthinkingly, handed me the instrument. I was barely a jump ahead of Upton. " Walter!" he shouted. " Don't…"
He was too late.. I took the sextant and tossed it overboard. It was fully two minutes before Upton spoke, in a strangled voice. " In God's name, what did the notch in the sextant say, Walter? What is the real position of Thompson? Where is Thompson Island?"
" I dunno. I hadn't a chance to see. I don't know my way round a fancy thing like that sextant. The island can't be so far from here, though, because the notch lay close to his reading to-day."
Upton's hands were shaking so that I thought he would fire the Schmeisser involuntarily. " Where did your notch show Thompson Island to be, Wetherby? Where, man, where?"
I laughed harshly. " Look around you, Upton! It's not here, is it? And while I live, you won't find out either." He levelled the Schmeisser at me. " You'll take me there! I say, you'll take me…"
I cut him short. " We're in the middle of damn-all in as bad a storm as I've seen. It may get worse. If you've any sense left, you'll tell Pirow to signal Thorshammer now now, do you hear, and try and have her pick us up while there's still time."
" Never!" he said. " In the space of a few minutes you have become the most valuable person in the world to me. You, and you alone, know where Thompson Island really is."
Heaven help us if he should find out that Helen knew, I thought.
His voice was unsteady. " You would not have thrown away the sextant if you had not believed in the caesium, would you, Bruce?" He became almost imploring. " Bruce, I know about caesium and you know about Thompson Island. We could be a great team…" He saw the look in my face and his eyes became hard. " Very well, then. We search. We'll search the sea for Thompson Island."
I saw that he meant it, despite the weather. I knew, too, how many expeditions with specially equipped ships had searched thousands of square miles of these self-same waters for Thompson Island, all without succes. A search in the tiny whaleboat would result in one thing only-death within a few days. If I set course-with the loss of the sextant, 190
I would have to rely on Sailhardy's methods of navigation – to pass near Bouvet, we might be able to regain the roverhullet. I felt sure that in the exhausted state we would find ourselves in then, Upton would be forced to lie up, and I could try and get a signal off to Thorshammer. I was firmly resolved as before, not to reveal the whereabouts of Thompson. I was gravely concerned at Helen's weak state, and a search which I knew in advance to be futile would bring tragedy.
" No," I said. " We do not search. It would be suicide. Sailhardy will have to navigate-his own way."
" You mean… 7" breathed Upton.
I turned away from the overwrought face to the islander. " Steer south-with a little east in it."
Sailhardy looked keenly at me, and then, without a word, brought the whaleboat round to the course. The gale seemed to be mounting in fury and we were driven forward by a tiny storm staysail, no bigger than a man's shirt, which I rigged.
The whaleboat tore to the south and east-towards Thompson Island. By afternoon it was a full fifty-knot blow, near the top of the Beaufort wind scale. If we could have hove-to we would have, but there was nothing to be done but try and keep afloat. For three days the whaleboat raced like a frightened animal before the gale. There was no stopping, guiding or holding it. Sailhardy and I shared the tiller watches. Sitting in the high stern, the wind threw against our baths, as we huddled over almost double, a volley of ice, snow and frozen spray with the Sten-gun-like insistence of a Spanish dancer's heels. At times I found myself sobbing at the remorseless beat, the long bursts of the fusillade, until I thought I could endure no longer; then would come a merciful lull, only to be followed by a further savage volley scything everything before it. I was barely conscious of bits of ice, growlers and small bergs storming past in the uncertain light, which seemed to vary between pale green by day and complete blackness by night. Wherever the spray settled it froze, until our faces, the mast, thwarts, gratings and canvas sides were coated. The motion of the boat prevented any heating, and the meals were sorry affairs scooped with fingers out of cans. Walter and Upton shared the forward decked-in section with the albatross, and Pirow was in the stern section with the radio. It was dark inside his cubbyhole and he might have been dead except for the occasional flicker of sound as he continued to fox Thorshammer. The irregular ribs and rough gratings made sleeping a hell, and the wicked chill seemed to penetrate through the waterproofing and fleece of our sleepingbags. I had stretched the ochre-coloured mainsail from the stern decking to a thwart, and under it Helen, Sailhardy and I lived, either he or I being on tiller watch. The seal pup shared Helen's sleeping-bag and brought a tiny patch of warmth in the pervading cold. When I had called Sailhardy during the previous night and crept into my sleeping-bag, I had been desperately worried to hear her talking deliriously.
Now, in the middle of the morning, seeing her lying semicomatose, I made up my mind to carry out the plan I had formulated when I had thrown my sextant overboard-to overpower Pirow and signal Thorshammer. If she could find us and it was a big " if," in the gale-the secret of Thompson Island would still be mine, for no one would listen to Upton's ravings. I knew too, that I must act speedily. The strength was running out of me, and when taking over the tiller from Sailhardy for the dawn watch, I saw what a toll the Southern Ocean had taken of his great strength: his eyes were sunken after the cruel watches of the past week and he had been slow in speaking, wiping his lips with the back of his gloves to clear away the frozen saliva and mucous on the stubble of his upper lip. Upton and Walter had given up their gun-watch over Sailhardy and me-it was hardly possible in the storm-but they still watched me carefully whenever I moved from my sleeping-bag. I looked at my watch. Ten-thirty. Sailhardy had been at the tiller since eight o'clock. I had heard Pirow give a brief signal when the islander had taken over, and as it was midmorning, Upton and Pirow might not suspect if they heard another after a break of several hours. I would have to muster all my strength and speed to overpower Pirow and get off a message before they missed me. I looked down at Helen. The ice had rimed her closed eyes, making them strangely ethereal. She broke into an incoherent mutter. I caught nothing except my name. The exquisite little seal pup peeped out from the mouth of her sleeping-bag. Up forward, there was no sign from Upton or Walter.