I inched out of my sleeping-bag and dragged myself along the gratings to Pirow's cubbyhole. It was so dim that it took me a minute to make out The Man with the Immaculate Hand.
He was sitting in front of the radio. I heard him move and I 192 jammed myself hard down on the grating. The snap of a switch followed. He became silhouetted as a weak dial light came alive. I could not see his face, but from the stoop of his shoulders it was clear that he, like the rest of us, was nearing the end of his tether. Let him start sending, I thought let him get the preliminaries done. Then I would jump him when
Thorshammer was listening.
The weak signal started.
"Thorshammer! Thorshammer!"
It scarcely needed Pirow's skill to bluff the destroyer now. The signal was weak and faltering enough to be genuine.
Pirow threw over the receiving switch. I was surprised to hear the strength of Thorshammer's reply. She must be very close to come through as clear as that.
"Thorshammer to Life-raft. Personal Captain Olstad to Lieutenant Mosby. Keep your key down. Let your batteries run out. We are close. We will find you. Keep your key down.".
Pirow started to exclaim in German. I slithered forward along the gratings. My left arm went hard round his windpipe. He gave a strangled gasp. With my free right hand, I locked down the transmitting key. My instinct told me something was wrong. I wrenched round. Walter was coming on hands and knees from the bow, a flensing knife in his fist. Behind him, Upton was standing, the Schmeisser pointed.
I threw myself out of the cubbyhole, but I was still fulllength. Walter leapt to his feet at the entrance as I shot out. He paused momentarily. Perhaps even he would not kill a man lying at his feet. I jerked sideways and, jack-knifing my body, kicked his legs from under him. He was adroit. He fell heavily, twisting like a cat, and took the fall on his shoulder, but it kept his right hand under him for a moment. I grabbed for his thick beard and swung astride his powerful body. The knife-thrust would come before Sailhardy could help me. My hands clamped on his beard and I jerked his head a couple of inches sideways. The crude skill of the Tristan boatmen had not succeeded in smoothing one of the gnarled knots in the ribs. It would serve as a garotte as efficient as anything in South America. I felt Walter's knifehand go up for the plunge. I rammed the top of his spine, where it joins the head, hard against the knot. His mouth was wrenched wide open. Fear burst into his eyes.
" Drop that knife!"
I heard the weapon clunk against the bottom-boards. We were within three feet of Helen. I saw that her eyes were open and she was staring, startled, at what was going on. Now is the time, I told myself savagely with the feel of the thick beard in my hands and kill-lust in my heart, to get the record straight about the shooting down of the seaplane from Walter's own lips.
" Walter! Say it, and say it quickly. Who shot down the seaplane? Who ordered it?"
Helen's eyes dilated with horror and fixed on her father. I heard three clicks. -I jerked round without releasing Walter. Upton was tugging at the Schmeisser's trigger. It was pointed into my back. My fear and the explanation of the misfire were simultaneous. The firing mechanism was locked by oil which had frozen solid.
I scarcely recognised my -own voice. " Upton! You can go on clicking that blasted thing as long as you like in this weather, but it won't fire." I shoved Walter's head further back. His spine would snap in a moment. " Tell her! Tell who it was!"
" I shot it down. Sir Frederick ordered me to."
I took the knife and dragged myself upright uncertainly. I lost my footing as the whaleboat rolled, and I crashed heavily on the thwart, the knife spinning across to Upton's feet. He picked it up. Walter pulled himself forward and crouched on his hands and knees near Upton, his face livid, unable to rise.
Upton's eyes were bright. He seemed in better shape than any of us. " I should say thank you to this frozen gun," he said slowly as I gasped for breath. " I forgot for a moment that you are the only person who knows the secret of Thompson Island. Don't be a bloody fool again and waste your strength. I want it all for Thompson Island."
" Thompson Island! For God 's sake, Upton! ' Your daughter's not going to last…"
" But you are," he said. " You are the one person who matters to me. We will find Thompson Island-together." My weary brain made a hurried calculation. Assuming that we had travelled directly due south-east from the Norris chart position of Thompson Island, we might well, in the past three days, have covered the one hundred and ten miles which separated the false and the true positions of the island. In my weak state, and for Helen's sake, I was almost tempted to try and find the warmth and the good anchorage Pirow had spoken of-how many days ago now? How I could locate the island without my sextant I did not know, but Sailhardy might be able to, with his strange methods of natural navigation. Bouvet, with its well-stocked roverhullet, was a better proposition if we could find it again than an unknown anchorage, but at that moment I would have welcomed any shelter away from the storm. But I did not intend Upton to know how near I was to agreeing to find Thompson Island.
" You were mad to leave Bouvet," I said. " Listen, had Thompson Island been where Norris had charted it, what could come of finding it? There could be all the caesium in the world, but you couldn't take it away in this little boat. You might find it, but you would have had to give its position away in order to be rescued."
Upton's answer underlined the state of his mind. " You're wrong, Bruce. There's a whole fleet of ships waiting at Thompson. We wouldn't need to be rescued." He laughed to himself. " You can take your pick when we get there-you can have a liner, or a freighter, or a tanker, just what you wish."
There was no point in going on with talk of that kind. I crawled into my sleeping-bag to try and get some rest before taking the afternoon watch from Sailhardy. Upton stood grinning down at me, and then he too stumbled forward out of reach of the ice-sharpened file of wind. I fell into a broken, uneasy state which was half sleep and half semi-consciousness. Towards midday I drew Helen's head into the crook of my arm. She did not wake, but mumbled something which I could not follow. I feared for the coming night.
Sailhardy, too, must have passed out at the tiller, for half the afternoon was gone when I heard him slither down the decking and shake me. His articulation was thick and the long vowels seemed to have difficulty in getting past his cracked lips. He tried to say something, but gave it up and instead gave a curious, stiff and unnatural wave of his arm at the sea and the wind. It was a gesture of surrender. I was aware of a life-sapping lethargy in my limbs and arms. Why not, I argued, leave the whaleboat to it own devices with the rudder lashed rather than forsake the warmth and shelter of my sleeping-bag for the raw hell of the tiller seat? Better to let the boat broach to and sink, for none of us, I felt sure, would see the next day out. I chafed Helen's hands, which was as cold as a corpse's; the seal pup provided a tiny patch of warmth. I watch Sailhardy, eyes shut, drag himself half into his sleeping-bag and then fall full-length on the gratings.
I sat upright. It took me about five minutes to kick myself clear of my own bag. Forward, Upton and Walter lay like dead men. There was silence from Pirow's cubbyhole. The only sign of life was the albatross near the two men in the bows, which was moving his wing as if exercising it.