‘Perhaps it will be,’ said Richard quickly. ‘We should get a steady run during the next three days which will give us a chance to shake down the routines we’ll need to have in place when the going does get tougher. Still, that’s a good report. Good news. Thanks, Bob. John. Navigation?’
John got up and crossed to his chart. ‘We’re here, and doing bloody well, in my submission,’ he said bracingly. ‘Even as we speak, we’re just swinging past twenty degrees west longitude, sliding down off the back of the mid-Atlantic ridge here into the northeast Atlantic Basin at forty-four degrees north latitude. I couldn’t do a noon shot in this murk, so these are the satnav’s best figures, you understand, but it still looks pretty good. We’ve come the better part of two thousand and seventy-five kilometres in the last four and a half days, and to have pulled ourselves south of Bordeaux is particularly good. We’ll be down level with Corunna later tonight. Bang on track.’ He met Richard’s eyes and gave a tight grin.
Richard returned an infinitesimal nod. How absolutely he could rely on his ‘Little John’. For once, John had given a less than clinical navigation report, pulling in references to locations in France and Spain calculatedly, hoping to lighten the atmosphere by bringing Europe, and the next section of the voyage, closer.
‘Yves?’
The Frenchman availed himself of John’s chart. ‘As you know, I fly ahead in the helicopters and take readings of sea and sky. I also take the inflatables if I need to examine the state of the sea more closely.’ He paused, but not even Tom rose to the challenge. Yves took it as confirmation that the others had forgiven his absence as readily as he had forgiven himself, and he proceeded. ‘My readings show that we are in the following situation, which I must say is extremely fortunate. As we come down off the mid-Atlantic ridge here, so we are crossing a whirl of cold Arctic water. As you may know, as the Gulf Stream ages, so the straight line of the water’s flow breaks off into whirls, like enormous whirlpools. Warm water pools run westwards to the north of the main flow, up here towards Cape Farewell. Cold water pools run eastward and southward, here, towards Biscay. And the current which currently carries us east and south is a large one of these. We came into it, by my calculation, yesterday, and I may say that even as I was diving in the chamber beside Psyche, I registered a sudden drop in water temperature. I mentioned this to Bob who was with me, did I not?’
Bob nodded. ‘It suddenly went very cold in there,’ he confirmed.
‘The mean temperature of the water of the Gulf Stream is twenty-five degrees Celsius,’ continued the professor eagerly. ‘The mean ocean surface temperature for this section of the ocean at this time of the year is sixteen degrees, but the temperature in the pool which we are crossing is three degrees. I believe we can expect that all serious melting below the waterline will now slow, perhaps even stop.’
‘For how long?’ asked Richard.
‘When the weather clears, I will take the helicopter and fly on ahead. Such features can be many hundreds of metres in diameter. Thousands of metres, even. But there is no way of knowing how large this one is until I look ahead. I cannot be certain, but the way we are riding and the speed at which we are moving leads me to believe that we are going round the outer edge of it, at the south, along the strongest part of the flow. As we proceed, we will have to watch for a northward pressure of the current. But by then it may not be so strong, and the wind and the geostrophic force — the Coriolis force — will still be pushing us south. The wind is also colder than the mean air temperature for this time of year. We should be expecting mean temperatures of ten degrees. If you go outside, you will find that it is four degrees. But tomorrow, this depression will have passed, the sky will have cleared and the air will be warmer. More than this I cannot tell you at the moment.’
Colin Ross rose without Richard’s bidding. ‘A slowing in melt rate below the waterline fits in with what I have to report,’ he said, his voice a low rumble carrying effortlessly over the raving of the wind outside. ‘Since we turned east at Flemish Cap, the mean melt rate above and below the water has risen from negligible amounts to a much more serious one point five per cent per day. I had expected to warn this meeting that we were faced with a two per cent daily loss, rising further, but, as Professor Maille has observed, things have slowed down again. This is very good, because otherwise our friends aboard Psyche and Kraken would have to keep a very close eye on their lines indeed. The iceberg has lifted by little more than two and a half metres since we came east. When it gets hotter and the melt rate increases, I will be projecting lift rates of anything up to five metres a day, which will mean much careful slackening of lines, much less efficient towing regimes and a much increased danger that the whole thing will roll right over.
‘But that is looking well into the future. As I said, the mean melt and lift rates have slowed dramatically over the last twenty-four hours. Which is very good news indeed.’
‘Thank you, Colin. Any questions?’
There were none.
‘Right. Let me sum up, then. We are in optimum position, travelling faster than anticipated, but using exactly the predicted amount of fuel. Projections of the continuation of this situation seem excellent and, in the short term at any rate, the situation will only get better.’
‘I think that says it all,’ said John. He looked at his watch. ‘Time for Pour Out. Can I buy anyone a drink?’
Richard could not make an opportunity to talk to Peter Walcott over drinks or dinner, so he accompanied the quiet Guyanese back to his command that evening.
‘As soon as we get within anything like helicopter range of England, I’ll have them off.’ Richard looked up at the captain’s anxious face, and for the first time saw how worried he really was. ‘That will be in two days,’ he promised. ‘Three at the most.’
Peter Walcott nodded, but he didn’t look much happier. ‘I’m worried she’s getting a reputation,’ he said. ‘I’ve been worrying since I first came aboard. There’s little things, you know? I’m not a superstitious man, but she’s not a happy ship. Did you ever sail her when she worked for Heritage Mariner?’
‘No. But I’m sure she never had a reputation then.’
‘Well, I guess you’d be the man to know. But she’s working hard at getting one now. Perhaps she didn’t like being mothballed. Went sour off Piraeus.’
‘I thought you said you weren’t superstitious, Peter.’
‘Yeah. Maybe I’m just tired, is all.’
‘Well, is there anything else you think I can do for you? To ease the situation?’
Peter leant back against the outer wall of his day room. Behind his left shoulder, his window glimmered spectrally as the ice visible through it took and multiplied what little light there was. Wind thundered over the bridgehouse, its bluster hardly dimmed by the thick metal walls and heavy glass that cocooned them. A respectful tapping came at the door and a steward entered to close the curtains.