The sight of the gun filled me with dismay. It was a magnificent 5.9-incher, mounted in a concrete emplacement about twenty feet above the level of the fjord on a shelf of rock. Concrete had also been poured over the rock at waterlevel to provide a landing-stage, in which were sunk several metal mooring rings. Helen bit her lips when she saw the gun and cast me a glance of apprehension; Sailhardy looked strained and reserved, but Upton and Walter were jubilant. We tied up and Walter and Upton jumped ashore, Walter guarding us with the Schmeisser while Upton investigated. It was clear to me that a destroyer, even ready for action, would fight a one-sided battle against the gun. Upton ran back to us down the concrete steps from the gun itself, carrying a Czech pistol he must have found in the arsenal.
"Come on, Wetherby! Come and have a look! Thors- hammer's in for the surprise of her life!"
There was no doubt about that. On the firing platform I realised again what a genius of a gunnery officer Kohler must have had. For a moment as I stared along the sights of the weapon I remembered what Kohler's guns had done to H.M.S. Scott before I could get close to sink him with torpedoes: one of the 5.9-inch shells had gone through the starboard boiler while her whole 30,000 horsepower was thrusting her in for the kill, and she went over to starboard with a list which drew the awe and admiration of the Simonstown Dockyard when eventually I made my stricken way through the Roaring Forties to Cape Town. One boiler-room and the after messdeck were full of water and dead men, and at times the starboard gunwale was awash. I remembered, too, how when Kohler's superb salvo crashed home into the vitals of my ship, I automatically ordered Sailhardy, on the torpedo tubes, to fire all torpedoes into the sea " set to sink " before we ourselves were blown up by them. His voice had been steady over the phone back to the bridge: he had asked me to lay H.M.S. Scott broadside to her target and to let him fire them at the enemy rather than into the sea. Water pouring in,
H.M.S. Scott had swung beam-on to the wild sea. Sailhardy, like Nelson's gunners at Trafalgar, had fired over open sights on the roll of the sea. Two of his salvo four torpedoes had sent Meteor reeling to the bottom of the sea.
I dragged myself back into the present. Kohler's gunnery genius had rigged an effective hand-hoist for the heavy shells, which meant that firing them was easy. There was a complete set of calibrated ranges according to the speed of the current and the physical features of the fjord. The headland was sketched next to its range-oddly enough in yards and not metres-9,300. Where the cliff started to ascend from the entrance there was a patch of pumice like a brick kiln: it was marked as such on the range chart-8,000 yards.
I did not want to see any more. Thorshammer's fate was sealed once she came round the headland into the fjord. I went back to the boat without speaking. Walter inspected the gun while Upton guarded us, and then Pirow removed the radio from the cubbyhole and spent the best part of an hour rigging it at the rear of the gun.
The journey back to the warm side of the fjord was easy: we drifted down the slack counter-current on the glacier side towards the entrance and then rowed into the strong current, which carried us down past the ships' graveyard to our original landing-beach with its steam jets.
We collected more driftwood and lit a big fire. The sun's last light made the glacier-caul more evilly green than before. Darkness fell. The stars themselves looked baleful, reflecting off the glacier. We ate another huge meal and lay in our sleeping-bags. Upton had told us to be ready to leave for the gun before dawn. Walter, who seemed to have regained much of his strength, sat by the blaze with the Schmeisser. I lay awake, turning endless futile schemes over my mind. I fell into an uneasy sleep.
The air of unreality of the fjord-the gun, and the destroyer coming to her doom-was heightened when Upton woke us: the Southern Lights lit the fjord in blue and violet and glittered off the glacier-caul, dominating everything. Sailhardy and I rowed like sleep-walkers. Helen drew her hood over her face when the chill of the glacier struck us. I could not see her eyes, but I felt inwardly that they too must have taken on the unreal light of our surroundings. Pirow was talkative, tense, back in his war-time role of The Man with the
Immaculate Hand; Upton and Walter eagerly discussed ranges and speed of loading. The afternoon before, they had 211 slid one of the long naval shells into the breech and swung the muzzle of the weapon from one range to the next, according to the calibrations. Then they had set it on the headland target. All that was left to do now was to pull the firing lanyard when Thorshammer appeared.
The whaleboat eased alongside the landing stage.
" Come on, Walter! Come on, Pirow!" said Upton. He turned to me. " You three stay right here in the boat, see? We're going to be busy as soon as it's light, but don't try anything, anything, do you hear?"
" Do you expect me to sit here with hands folded if the Thorshammer returns your fire?" I asked.
" She won't," he said confidently. " You're quite safe." Helen dropped back the hood of her sea-leopard coat. " Father, for the sake of…"
He turned his back and said harshly to Pirow: " Call out Thorshammer's signals, and yours to her."
In the silence, the boots of the three men clumped up the concrete steps to the gun. I heard the radio come alive. Pirow repeated Thorshammer's signals in a low chant.
" DR-I am coming to your aid."
" Shall I reply, Sir Frederick?" he asked in his normal voice.
In the silence, Upton's voice was clear. " How soon will it be light, Walter?"
Half an hour, maybe."
" Light enough to fire?"
" Aye, I can see the outline of the headland already." Across the fjord the tracery of old masts and the silhouettes of the dead ships were starting to show against the first light, which unobstructed by the low entrance to the anchorage, unlike the glacier end where we were, which was still in blackness.
Upton's voice was exultant. " Bring her in, Carl! Bring her in!"
" Life-raft," stumbled The Man with the Immaculate Hand. " Mosby to Thorshammer. Cannot send much longer." The transmission rose, fell, ebbed-weakness, a surge of 1 strength, then exhaustion.
" Hold on, hold on!"
Pirow was calling out Thorshammer's signals.
" Taking bearings on this transmission." I could almost see Pirow grinning at his eat-and-mouse game.
" Can't last much! onger…" he tailed off. Then, like an exhausted man taking a grip of himself: "Are you close, Thorshammer?"
Thick fog. Radar show island or big iceberg. Keep sending. Keep sending."
Upton broke in: " Say it is ice, not land, Pirow. She mustn't be warned. She must not know anything until she comes round the paint on the current."
Pirow resumed his chant while he transmitted: " Ice. No! and. Clear visibility here."
" Strong current," came back Thorshammer. " Are you ex- periencing same?"
Upton's voice came back, jubilant. " We've gat her, Carl!
We've got her, Walter! She's in the fog-belt, caught by the current!"
I stood up and shouted. "Upton! Stop this madness!
Stop…"
His face was livid as he leaned over the edge of the firing platform. " Shut up, do you hear! Shut up!" He pointed the pistol at me. " You've outlived your usefulness…"
" Sir Frederick!" called Pirow. " She's saying, ' put your key down, put your key down!' Do I?"
The interruption diverted Upton's attention and saved my life. " For God's sake how long will she take in the grip of the current to get here?" he asked, disappearing from view.
" About twenty minutes, I guess," replied Pirow.