Warren took out his pipe, and put a few shreds of his remaining tobacco in it. He was still lost in thought.
They set up the tents between the guy ropes at the edge of the net, all facing inwards, except the latrine tent which faced the other way. The side of the net facing the nearest shore, the shore opposite the ice hills, was left empty. On the opposite side to this, under the shadow of the hills, were the two tents shared by Ross and Job, Preston and Quick. On the other two sides, one still looking north towards the pack, the other south towards Alaska, went the three other tents: the latrine on its own, to the south; the supply tent and the Warrens’ tent to the north, facing south. In the corner, between the Warrens’ tent and that shared between Preston and Quick, stood the fire tray. They trooped back up to the ice to start on the crates.
Warren’s mind had returned from the past, and was foraging ahead now. In front of his blind eyes a thick cloud of smoke hung on the still air. The black and gold curves of the calm sea broke up silently, and began to form spikes; black triangles. He was so preoccupied with his thoughts that he did not see a great black fin break the surface twenty yards away. He did not hear the quiet hiss of the water on the broad, glistening back as the whale drew rapidly nearer. He was not aware that anything at all was wrong until the killer blew. Then the sudden roar, the smell of fish and death whipped him back to the present: he saw the tall column of water vapour, the huge shoulders powering towards the ice, the turbulence of the working tail, and he aimed, still partly in a dream, and fired. The coiled rope followed the flashing blur of the harpoon in its slight curve into the flesh beside the fin. There was a solid thump! as the arrow went in. The whale slewed round, showing a gaping mouth, a huge black flipper, sending up a cloud of spray, and it began to run hard until it sounded. The rope attached to the harpoon was rushing coil by coil into the ocean, its friction melting a deep groove in the ice.
Warren stood, transfixed, letting the roar of the running rope wash over him, then he yelled, “I got it; I got it!” and he raised his hand and hallooed like a schoolboy playing Indians.
Within seconds all the rope was gone from the coils. It snapped taut with a crack! and hummed with bass overtones. Slowly, incredibly, the floe seemed to swing round. Warren brought his hand down and held the gun tightly, forcing its pointed legs even further into the ice. He glanced over his shoulder: they were labouring up the treacherous ice from the new campsite.
The angle of the line altered: the whale was coming up again, but there was no slackening on the pull. Warren, his gloved hands tight on the handles of the harpoon gun, leaned forward, searching the brightness of the water for the first sign of the broad black back. Roaring filled his ears; the sharp percussions and the crackings of ice. He disregarded them, concentrating . . . There it was.
“There she blows!” he yelled. The fierce joy of it possessed him. He was Ahab with two good legs, and this was his Moby Dick! He turned exultantly to wave to the others, when he was thrown against the gun with vicious force. He lurched forward and back. He turned forward again. Spray lashed up into his face: he was moving very fast. Behind him came a scream: he turned back and saw the widening gap. The ice he stood on had broken away and the whale had pulled him free.
Job watched incredulously as the ice broke, and the fifty square feet that Warren was standing on lurched away into the sea, gathering speed as it went. “JUMP!” he yelled: it was the old man’s only chance. He saw Warren turn and look at the foaming water. “JUMP!” he yelled again, but it did no good. The large floe had broken into smaller floes which ground against each other only feet away. Warren’s small floe was rocking violently now; as Job watched Warren staggered, and his little floe tilted dangerously. Job stood, bitterly helpless. Around the floe, other fins began to appear, following easily, silently.
Ross took it all in at a glance: the distant floe, the rigid man, the black sails taller than he was. His face twisted and his mind raced: if Warren stayed where he was, he was dead; if he went into the water, he was dead; he had one chance: the smaller floes, spread like stepping stones out over the water.
“Rifle,” snapped Ross. They had not yet moved the rifles down to the new campsite. Preston passed the Weatherby to Job. He aimed at the killers.
“No: at Warren. Close as you can!” Kate’s mouth opened. Ross’s hand came down on her shoulder. Job aimed, fired. A little plume of ice puffed up at Warren’s feet. “Again,” said Ross.
Warren had never been so frightened. He glanced to his side, and the tall black fins seemed to tower above him. He did not dare look down into the rushing water. “God, help me,” he said. It was a prayer.
CRACK.
He looked down at his foot, not understanding.
CRACK.
This time he saw the ice kick up into a cloud. “Sweet Jesus, they’re shooting at me!” He looked around for somewhere to run. He took one hand off the gun to signal the lunatics. He half turned.
CRACK.
He took a half-step forward: the ice tilted. He looked around wildly, and the next floe was upon him. He went for it, screamed as the cold water closed over his legs, his pipe at last falling into the sea, and then he was scrambling out like a madman and up on to the ice. The black sails moved silently past.
He pulled himself to his knees and looked over the bright water to where the tiny raft with the harpoon gun on it finally toppled over and abruptly vanished as the whale sounded again.
He looked back to where the others were, automatically flinching before he realised that the shooting had stopped. He recognised Ross because of the tattered sleeve of his anorak. Ross was beckoning him, urgently. He got up and walked unsteadily over the ice of the floe. At the edge he found the edge of a second, larger floe only five or six feet away. He paused, looking at the unsteady gap, walked back a little, then ran up and jumped. This time he didn’t even get his feet wet. The ease of the jump, however, seemed to trigger a reaction to his terrible fear. As he walked across the floe his knees began to quake, and he found he couldn’t breathe properly. He fell, picked himself up, fell again. The edge of the ice seemed further away than ever. He began to crawl towards it.
The killer thrust itself out of the water perhaps twenty feet from the crawling man. It rose for over fourteen feet before hooking its flippers on to the edge of the ice, adjusting itself to compensate, for the movement of the floe settled into the water under its weight. It breathed out. Warren turned his head at the sound, and what he saw drove him to his feet again. He began to run in earnest. The whale turned its head slightly, and the brightness caught the puckered lines and scars on its face. It watched him with all the detached indifference of a pagan god, then it sank again. Warren gasped and wheezed; his head reeled with the effort of running. He stumbled over the rocking floe. The ice seemed to be breaking up around him. He reeled forward, drunk with panic. The floe lurched again as another of them threw itself out of the water, skidding along the ice, reaching for him with huge teeth. The rifle spoke three times in rapid succession, and gouts of blood blasted loose from the killer’s head with a crisp slapping sound. It shivered and sank away. Warren ran on, his legs shaking, making each step an enormous victory of the will. He blotted everything out except the necessity of putting his right foot before his left, his left foot before his right. The floe began to heave again, but he hardly noticed. He lurched from one foot to the next, oblivious of everything, nearer and nearer the edge . . .