Southtrap

CHAPTER ELEVEN

My thoughts spun like the circular fan that cleared the bridge window of fog condensation and of the vicious spatters of rain brought by every squall. It was after midnight and I was on watch on the port side of the bridge, trying to see through the cleared space. Two of the nine bridge windows had the fan-like device for keeping vision clear. Mine was the second from the port side. There was a similar window to starboard.

I could not penetrate the murk ahead. The fo'c'sle deck and bow searchlight were an amorphous blur. Mentally, I was equally blind — in the fog of unanswerable questions, surmises and doubts which Holdgate's death had pitched at me. I had no recollection of making my way from the body in the sick-bay to the bridge. I might have been suffering from that strange loss of memory which hits men in mid-winter deep in the ice towards the South Pole.

I crossed impatiently to the window on the starboard side of the bridge, as if that would help. In spite of the fan it was as fogged as the one I had left. The wind rattled a loose pane — this was the windward side and taking its force. I felt confined and restricted, as out of touch with the elements as the ship's models in bottles which the travel agency had distributed among the passengers as a publicity gimmick.

Inside the steel-and-glass capsule of the bridge each man was at his station and all was in order — the big wooden wheel, the instruments, the clicking log, the silent Kelvin Hughes echo-sounder, the pulse of diesels, the brass clock on the bulkhead with its hands at ten minutes past midnight. I felt trapped, insulated from reality. I wanted the icy wind on my face; I wanted to watch it mow the tops off the white-capped swells racing in from the south-west as they became visible close to the Quest's side. I needed its lash to shake loose from deep within me solutions which were at that moment out of reach.

I made up my mind suddenly. 'I'm going up aloft for a moment,' I told Jensen at the wheel.

I secured my weatherproof and made my way up to the exposed flying bridge above.

As I reached it, I gasped and ducked at the icy punch of a fresh rain-squall. I abandoned the windward side for the lee. Then, almost at once, the rain stopped and the Quest broke out of the patch of fog. I saw that the smother overhead was not a deep overcast but a ragged conglomeration of cloud, whipping and plunging eastwards. I saw a star briefly; without the cloud the night would have been aglow with the magic light of the Antarctic summer. That magic had been strong enough to have been in Captain Prestrud's mind when he had been dying.

The first I knew that Linn was with me was when she took my arm. I hadn't heard her come. The frame of her dark woollen cap emphasized the fine bones of her face.

She said, 'It's your world up here, isn't it, John?'

'We've just crossed into the Westerlies. They're trying to prove they're Westerlies but they're not succeeding yet. This capful of wind is nothing to what is to come.'

The Quest lifted her bows high and then plunged deep. A burst of spray drenched the figurehead and searchlight platform.

The Roaring Forties,' she said.

'Aye, Linn. But you're wrong if you think they blow steady all the time. They don't. They work themselves into a frenzy, blow their heads off, then slacken. Then the process begins all over again.'

She laughed. 'How much is slacken, sailor?'

I grinned at her. I wished I could see more of her face.

'See those seas? Something holding them down. They're being damped. They're not doing their best — or worst.'

'Why not, John?'

'Ice. There's ice ahead. Big ice. A lot of ice.'

Then why isn't the searchlight on?' she said.

'The ice is still quite a way off, I'd say. I don't smell it. This wind hasn't got ice on its breath — yet. It's a raw, primitive, exciting, frightening smell, Linn. The weather people showed me a satellite photo before we left. They reckoned the ice was farther north in the Southern Ocean than it usually is in January.'

'How close are we, according to the photo?'

'I don't believe everything I see on a satellite photo. The experts often get mixed up and interpret a white cloud-cover as ice. I prefer to trust my own senses.'

'You love this Southern Ocean, don't you, John?'

I ran my fingers inside her cap and tucked in a strand of hair which had blown loose.

'I'm my own man down here, Linn,' I replied. The place throws you back on what you really are — look at the Quest now, at this moment. The radio's out. The gyro's also affected by the ionospheric storm, and so is the compass. We're practically down to man himself — man against the elements. Your own resources, your own ingenuity, against an enemy which never lets up. Both sides play rough. It's the way I like it.'

I was looking at her. Her face suddenly became clearer, lighter. Her eyes, too, defined themselves in the darkness of their sockets.

'John!' she exclaimed. The sun's rising!'

She pointed. There was a glow, like dawn, low on the horizon ahead.

'The sun doesn't rise in the South, Linn. Nor in the middle of the night.'

'Then what…'

It was not the rose of the sun's dawn. It was palest mother-of-pearl, faintly green.

'It's making amends for bugging our radio and instruments,' I told her. 'It's the aurora.'

A great arc, stretching from horizon to horizon, began to emerge in place of the glow. It was greenish-yellow, a rainbow of single, not multiple colour. We could see the cloud-wrack spinning against it like ragged patches of batik-work.

'John-look!'

The single band of the rainbow began to dissolve into a series of rays whose points reached upwards into the firmament itself. Meanwhile the entire arc moved above the southern horizon — ever upwards. Next, like a scene-shift whose stage was the world, another arc materialized from under the horizon and followed the first up into the sky. It was like a procession of lightning-kings.

The top most peaks of the pale greenish-yellow rays became tipped with purple, blue and red. As the first arc reached a point overhead, a third arc heaved over the horizon, while the middle rainbow dissolved into steepled rays.

Then the uppermost arc burst into a corona like a gigantic napalm explosion. Whirling, spinning, interweaving, blending, its colours were red, blue, purple and orange. It was a tapestry which occupied the whole sky, from the zenith to the southern horizon.

'John!.. John!.. John!'

The strange light from the firmamental draperies played across her upturned face, making it indescribably lovely.

Then the aurora died suddenly, like a brief burst of breathless love-making that would be remembered always.

Linn said very quietly, 'I see now what the Southern Ocean holds for you, John. It's not only its challenge. It's also the most beautiful place in the world.'

The soaring glories of the aurora meant less than nothing to Persson. Linn and I left the flying bridge and went together to the radio shack.

'Any luck?' I asked him.

'Dead. Stone dead,' he replied gloomily. 'Not a murmur. Not even a distorted voice, let alone a distorted signal. There must be a million amps circulating in the upper atmosphere to do things like this to reception.'

This is the Year of the Unquiet Sun,' I told him. 'Isn't there supposed to be an eleven-year cycle of sunspot activity?'

Then I guess we're right in the middle of it,' he said.

He picked up the voice microphone with its heavy stand and stared at it. Then he stared at the typewriter on the low side desk; then at the main table bearing the transmitter and a metal box containing signals filed in loose plastic envelopes. He might have been willing, the whole set-up to react.

'Keep at it,' I told him. There was a similar big black-out some years ago during a Presidential election. The Yanks at McMurdo nearly went crazy. No one knew for days who'd been elected-'

He began his muezzin-like chant with Quest's call sign. 'F-L-O-E… calling all ships and shore stations… F-L-O-E… F-L-O-E…'

Linn and I left him to it, and went down to the day cabin. I turned off the main overhead light, leaving only the desk lamp. The place was warm and inviting.

Linn's face looked very tired.

'Wouldn't you be better off in your cabin?' I asked.

'It's no good,' she said. 'I can't possibly sleep. There's too much going on inside me.'

I kissed her. 'Me, too. But I have the advantage that I can work mine off in running the ship.'

'You've been away from the bridge a long time.'

'I know. I'll get back. I'll come down here now and then and if you want me in the meantime just pick up the phone.'

When she hadn't rung an hour later, I went back to the cabin. She was curled up fast asleep on a worn leather couch with her cap for a pillow. Her knees were drawn up and her hands tucked between them for warmth.

I went quickly to my own cabin and brought back a rug made out of penguin skins which had been given me by a seaman whose life I had saved one night in a Southern Ocean storm. I put it over her and she did not wake.

I was making my way back to the bridge when I met Wegger. He was fully dressed and was carrying a. tin plate and a mug.

'Raiding the galley,' he said jocularly. 'I said I wouldn't sleep. Everything in order?'

There was an odd air of levity about the man. At 1.30 in the morning humour is hard to take. I wondered whether he had been drinking, but couldn't smell any sign of it.

'Why shouldn't it be?' I retorted.

'Well, we've just had a murder. What time is the burial service? I expect you want all the officers to be present.'

The fact that the Quest was holding course was enough to make my intentions about burial clear. All the same, I didn't care for the way he was usurping my prerogatives.

I said briefly, 'I've put Persson on round-the-clock non-stop radio watch. I'll decide about the burial when I get a signal out.'

He still seemed amused. 'Did you see the aurora?'

'Yes. I don't think I've ever witnessed a finer.'

'Persson doesn't stand a hope in hell,' he said. 'The further South we go, the worse it will become. We're now into the northernmost reaches of the auroras. They usually stretch in a great ellipse about three thousand kilometres long starting from the South Pole. The field shifts from west to east as the summer wears on, and then back again.'

'You seem to know a hell of a lot about it, Wegger.'

'Radio is my subject. Always has been. I know what a black-out means down in this part of the world.'

'Maybe you can suggest something to Persson? I've told him to try with the radio-telephone.'

Wegger replied — a little contemptuously, it seemed to me, 'Have you withdrawn your ban on me and the radio, then?'

I repeated, 'Any suggestions?'

The R/T simply hasn't got the range. These seas are empty. Persson's wasting his breath.'

I knew in my heart that I had put Persson on merely to salve my conscience. I realized as well as Wegger did what an Antarctic black-out meant.

'Persson will keep trying,' I retorted. 'Thanks for your help.'

He went off in the direction of the galley: It seemed to me that the plate and mug had a jaunty clatter to them.

The horizon was already lighter when I got to the bridge. Given a clear dawn, one can see by 3 a.m. in these high latitudes. I rang for more speed. The Quest's motion became quicker, and an occasional dollop of sea came aboard.

After a while we ran into a fresh patch of squalls and more fog. The night reverted to pitch-black under heavy overcast, and I reduced speed. It was a routine procedure which was to go on until morning.

My mind swung as erratically over the problem of Holdgate as does a compass needle when a ship gets close to Prince Edward Island. Scientists have yet to account for it. Nor could I account for Holdgate. I did not fancy the idea of putting possible suspects through the hoop. Yet it was something I had to do, and I began trying to compile a short list in my mind. It was obvious that since Smit, T-shirt Jannie and Pete had the only keys to the scientists' work-place they must come first. Besides, they had play-acted with Holdgate alive on the burial-board. It seemed to me that all three of them were very unlikely suspects, but I had to begin somewhere…

Captain Jacobsen!

All my free-wheeling suspicions suddenly came into abrupt focus. What did I know of Jacobsen? I hadn't even clapped eyes on the man. He hadn't been in to meals. He had always stayed in his cabin because — according to his wife — of his heart condition. Only Linn, as far as I knew, had spoken to him.

Jacobsen, as I had reminded Linn, was now the sole survivor of the three catcher skippers who had been involved in the war-time adventure with the German raider. And that adventure had been so significant that Captain Prestrud had tried to tell me about it with his dying breath.

I decided to interrogate Jacobsen with an eye to the mystery surrounding Holdgate's death, but I would still see the three met. men first. It was very likely that their interview would be purely a formality.

At the very moment when my mind was breaking into greater clarity the Quest broke out of the fog-bank, and it became remarkably light.

I rang for full speed ahead.

That killer-whale knife.

Captain Jacobsen was a whalerman. He might know something about it. I checked myself. As if Jacobsen would admit to knowing anything about such a knife if he were in any way incriminated in Holdgate's death! The kicker was that there was no way in which Jacobsen or anyone else could have removed the knife from Holdgate's throat from inside the locked sickbay. There was only one key, and it had been in my pocket. I had been with the body all the time from the moment Wegger and I had lifted it on the board. I knew how tired I was becoming when my mind latched on the question — could the knife have been dislodged and was it, in fact, still with the body hidden in the blanket? I hadn't searched for it. I had worked on the assumption that, as Wegger had stated, the blade had been lodged firmly in Holdgate's neck vertebrae. But was that so? After all, I had only Wegger's word for it. No one else had touched the knife.

My thoughts turned to my coming interview with Jacobsen, and I asked myself again and again what possible connection Holdgate could have had with the war-time adventure. He'd only have been a young child at the time. And how was I going to talk my way past Mrs Jacobsen? Was the heart condition genuine? Or only an excuse for keeping him hidden?

I decided I would announce Holdgate's death to the ship early over the loudspeaker system, but that I would not mention foul play. I would leave everyone to think it had been a sudden tragedy. If I could establish radio contact with the outside world I would call off the burial. It would take place about mid-morning, before the seas became too heavy to risk stopping the ship.

Yet another squall and a new blanket of fog doused the ship in darkness again. The Quest slowed.

McKinley came on watch at 4 a.m. He was heavy-eyed but clean-shaven and smelt of after-shave and fresh deodorant. I took him aside and briefed him about Holdgate.

He examined his nails and said, 'I hope it doesn't upset some of the passengers.' He didn't specify which.

I checked again, via the intercom, with Persson. Nothing. When I enquired, he said that Wegger hadn't been near the radio.

When finally the daylight held, I sent for Frank Gretland, the ship's carpenter. He came, half-asleep. He left, wide awake, after I had shown him what was in the sick-bay. I told him I wanted Holdgate sewn into a length of canvas with a couple of anchor-links at his feet to take him deep. I didn't want the body sucked into the screw once the Quest started on her way again.

I went to the day cabin. I opened the door quietly. Linn was still asleep.

I stood by the couch. She looked about sixteen, except that there was a small in-drawn line at the right-hand corner of her mouth and a faint purplish-blue in the delicate flesh of her eyelids. I paused for a moment before rousing her, conscious of how I would look to her when she woke, with the whiteness of sea salt on my overnight beard and on the shoulders of my dark pea-jacket.

Her fingers plucked convulsively at the edge of the penguin-rug and her eyes came open. They were on me, but unfocused. Then recognition came into them and she reached out a hand to me.

'Hello, John.'

I wanted to have her say that a thousand times, to hear her sleep-soaked voice linger over my name.

'Hello, darling.'

I put my hands under her armpits and lifted her into a sitting position.

She looked at me but it was plain that her thoughts were turned inward.

'I was dreaming,' she said. 'I dreamed I was a penguin and was being chased round and round an ice-floe by a savage bird with a knife for a beak.'

'You'd better consult Miss Auchinleck about it,' I replied, lightly. 'You're guaranteed protection if you're a penguin.'

She kept on looking at me. I was to remember that look.

She went on, as if the dream was enacting itself still, 'You were on another floe nearby. There was a cold green sea between us. I couldn't reach you in time.'

'That comes of sleeping in a penguin-skin.'

She smiled. 'It's yours, of course? I didn't even hear you come.' She lifted her lips to mine. 'You taste of salt and salt and salt. I don't suppose you've had a wink of sleep.'

'I've been thinking.'

'I feel ashamed of myself. You could have thought out aloud to me, if I'd managed to stay awake.'

In my mind I said, Not my terrible knife-thoughts, Linn darling. I'd kill anyone with my bare hands who touched her.

Aloud I said, 'I'm going to have a chat with Captain Jacobsen this morning after I've buried poor Holdgate.'

'You don't think he did it, of all people?'

'He might have done it. He might have had the opportunity — or the motive, for all I know, But he certainly didn't have the opportunity to remove the murder weapon.'

She sat up straight, every trace of sleep gone, and echoed my last words.

I told her what I had discovered in the sick-bay, and she looked stunned. 'The whole thing grows more and more incredible!'

'Listen, Linn,' I went on. 'I told you earlier I was lacking a reference-point to start off from. I'm beginning to wonder now whether that reference-point might lie further back than we think.'

'What do you mean, John?'

I said slowly, 'I want Captain Jacobsen to tell me exactly what happened during or after his escape with your father and Torgersen from the German raider. Everything. What the three of them did that made your father feel guilty when he realized he was dying. Why he begged me to stay away from Prince Edward — from Dina's Island.'

She stood up and straightened her jersey so that her breasts and nipples swelled against the wool.

'In spite of not knowing, you're still pressing on.'

'I feel rather as if I were being programmed by an invisible computer into taking my actions,' I replied. 'Each step seems so right, so inevitable. I wonder where it's all leading. I can't even send a radio signal to consult authority.'

'You didn't engineer the radio black-out, John.'

'No, but it's a vital factor, nevertheless. It could have been anticipated by someone with sufficient opportunism.'

She came close to me. She smelt dry and sweet, an overtone of slept-in wool. 'You've had a rough night, John,' she said. 'Things can look very distorted after nights like that.'

I smiled at her concern. 'I've had lots of nights without sleep at sea. One sleepless night doesn't matter much.'

'May I come and attend the burial this morning?'

'I had hoped you'd be with me.'

'Will everyone be there?'

'Everyone will know. Whether they'll come is another matter. There's something far more awesome about a burial at sea than one on land.'

'It's a frightening thought that the murderer could be there watching it all.'

'I've thought of that, too. There might even be a giveaway.'

'John, what hideous things we're talking about — burial, murder, knives!'

I drew her against me. 'Why do you think I don't sleep?'

She said decisively, and I loved her the more for it, 'Do you want me to be at your interview with Captain Jacobsen?'

'Not at first. Later, perhaps. It depends how it goes.'

'You'll have to get past Mrs Jacobsen.'

'I intend to. She may be part of his cover.'

'You must find out, John.'

'Again, I intend to.'

'You'll be careful, won't you, my darling? I could not bear anything to happen…'

'For your sake, Linn dearest, I won't let it.'

She kissed me and said, 'I'm off to bath and change now. I want to be ready in time for your announcement over the public address.' She consulted her watch. 'When's it to be?'

'When I've changed too — in about half an hour.'

'It all sounds so normal,' she said, 'but it isn't. It's horrible. It's all shadows and horrors and unknown things. Like in my dream. And I'm frightened. Like in my dream too.'

She went. I took the penguin-skin rug and folded it slowly, feeling the warmth of her body spill out of it.

Then I, too, left the cabin and made for my quarters.