Southtrap

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The sound of the launch's engine brought figures rushing on to Botany Bay's deck. They started to wave frantically.

I picked a cautious way through the soupy water and as we neared I saw that the windjammer was listed over in a tumble of small, broken blocks of ice. She lay on her starboard beam with warps out. The port anchor, the one facing open water, was cockbilled at the cathead like a last vain attempt to claw her way free of the icy fist which had closed round her.

Wegger said to Ullmann, 'Put that gun away — for the moment.' He shoved his own pistol into his pocket but kept his hand on it.

Two men broke away from the stranded vessel and came ploughing across the ice-blocks to the water's edge.

'Stand off at speaking distance,' Wegger warned me. 'No going close.'

The motor-launch reached the ice edge before the men. I held her off a couple of boats' lengths away — it was a natural jetty. I couldn't judge how thick the ice was; it groaned when we ranged close.

Small haloes of steam from their panting enveloped the two men's heads when they reached the water's edge.

'Ahoy!' yelled the taller. He was fair-haired, with a non-descript beard. He wore a shabby peaked cap. 'Ahoy! What the hell! Come close! Let me grab your hand!'

'Keep off!' Wegger growled at me.

'I'm Shotton,' I called back. 'You must be Kearnay. Glad to see you.'

He was grinning and gesticulating. 'Aye. This is my second string, Geoff Biggs. That was a great effort, Captain Shotton!' Then he repeated, 'Bring your boat in. It's safe enough. I should know.'

When I still did not approach, he looked puzzled and went on, 'Botany Bay isn't a yellowback case, Captain, come on in!'

I replied as evenly as I could, 'Looks as if you've got problems.'

'Problems — my bloody oath!' he exclaimed. 'I never thought I'd see another ship again — where is she, Captain?'

'Lying off outside. It's pretty snug in here. The weather's getting worse out there.'

'A couple of trips will do for all of us,' Kearnay went on. 'We're only fourteen all told.'

'What happened?' Wegger asked. 'Is Botany Bay damaged?'

Throw us a line,' said Biggs. 'I'll hold her fast. Then we can talk.'

'We're quite comfortable where we are,' replied Wegger.

Kearnay looked startled. 'Who's the captain — you or…?' He nodded in my direction. His open face was as uncomplicated as a trade wind.

To paper over the situation, I called, 'Listen, Kearnay — how did all this happen?'

He looked taken aback by our cool reception but he explained slowly, eyeing us all the time in a puzzled way.

'Five, no six, days ago Botany Bay smacked into a growler at night. We couldn't see a thing. She took it for'ard, under the starboard cathead. Carried away the anchor and lower bowsprit guys. I think the fore topmast stay caught it somehow too — anyway, it's weakened the fore topgallant mast. It's a wonder it's standing up to its present strain.' He indicated the vessel's tilted masts.

'How did you get into this place?' demanded Wegger.

Kearnay's glance again travelled from Wegger to me. His growing puzzlement at Wegger's assumption of authority was clear.

'She was leaking for'ard,' he went on. 'There was a lot of water coming in. It seemed worse than it was, maybe, and it was blowing great guns. So I decided to warp her fast to an iceberg and try and fix the leak before she went to the bottom.'

'It's been done before,' I said.

He threw me an appreciative glance. 'To begin with, the berg gave me a lee where the water was smooth enough to work. Then, when I got close, I saw through the arch that there was an iceport inside. It seemed safe enough at the time.'

'As one sailor to another, that was quite something, to do in a windjammer,' I remarked.

He laughed self-consciously. 'She's an old bitch and she sails like a teatray, but I'll be sorry to abandon her.'

'I want to see for myself whether that will be necessary.' Wegger interrupted.

'You can have her,' Biggs added. 'She'll never get out of this trap.'

'How did you come to be nipped by the ice?' I asked. That's what I don't understand.'

'The leak wasn't too bad, actually, we found,' Kearnay went on. 'We wrapped a sail round the hole as an emergency patch. We were all dead on our feet and in need of a night's rest. So I warped her fast to the ice-cliff. There must have been a bummock or underwater shelf under the ship which was attached to the main ice. The place was also full of grease ice as well as some bergy bits. When we woke up in the morning the whole lot had banked up against the ship and frozen solid. But we were still okay and I could have got her free. Then there was one hell of a crash — the berg must have calved on the seaward side and she tilted. That brought the bummock up under Botany Bay's keel. She went over on her side — she would have gone further except that the yardarms propped her up against the cliff. There she is. That's the story.'

'The hull's still sound, though?' Wegger demanded.

'Sound as a bell. She's built of teak — teak decks even. They slip like hell in a seaway. I keep the lifelines permanently rigged.'

'We'll come and examine her for ourselves,' said Wegger.

Kearnay replied, still watching me as if he could not understand why Wegger should be spokesman, 'Come, by all means. But there's not a chance of getting her out.'

'We'll see,' Wegger answered. He turned from Kearnay to me. 'Stand away until we're out of earshot.'

I gunned the engine.

'Hey!' yelled Kearnay. 'What's up? Where are you off to? You can't leave us!'

Wegger gestured impatiently. 'Back in a moment or two.'

As we withdrew I saw men start to climb Botany Bay's rigging. They must have been as puzzled as Kearnay and Biggs were.

'Get back to the Quest,' Wegger ordered Ullmann, 'and bring that case of explosives we have for the kelp at Prince Edward.'

Ullmann exhibited a flicker of animation at the word explosives. 'Will do.'

'You, Shotton, come with me. We're going to blast that windjammer free with the kelp charges.'

I shrugged. I knew a beset ship when I saw one. Better ships than an ungainly replica showboat had been pinched to crumbling timber in the Southern Ocean.

The blue veins in Wegger's face darkened with fury at my reaction. He drew Ullmann aside and whispered something I couldn't catch. It was obviously something to do with me and whatever it was, it pleased Ullmann.

Take the boat alongside now,' Wegger instructed me. 'And remember, Shotton, I've got a gun in my pocket.'

At the ice edge Kearnay and Biggs caught our rope and I jumped ashore. Kearnay pump-handled me but nevertheless he eyed me searchingly. With the other man, Biggs, my hand might have been a buntline in a gale, the way he gripped it.

'Ullmann is returning to the ship for help,' Wegger announced briefly.

Kearnay's handshake for Wegger didn't emulate Stanley's for Livingstone. The hijacker's aura was as frigid as the Pole of Relative Inaccessibility.

We started towards the windjammer. Kearnay fell into step alongside me, with Biggs on my other side. Wegger was behind. The ice shelf had a brittle, shiny crust between the broken mass of blocks. From the shuga — the spongy white lumps of ice which floated greasily off the ice edge — and the tumble of accumulated blocks I could deduce by hindsight the tragedy which had overtaken Botany Bay. She had been in clear water of low salinity when she had originally entered the iceport; the switch in the wind had brought with it a sudden freeze-up which had solidified her haven into a death-trap. There was no knowing how long that freeze would last. The berg might drift east in high latitudes for another six months and never relax its fist round the sailing-ship.

Kearnay broke the awkward silence as we stumbled towards the ship which lay like an old-timer beached for careening. The port ratlines below the maintop were full of men waving and shouting.

'I told the crew to keep aboard until Geoff and I found out from you what the score was,' he explained. 'I didn't want to raise their hopes unnecessarily.'

Biggs added, 'Every man jack of 'em's there — even a couple of frostbite cases.'

As we approached the stem, under its elaborately carved quarter galleries, the men burst into spontaneous cheering. Hands reached down and helped us aboard. The ordeal still apparent in their taut faces exploded into relief in the form of a flurry of back-slapping and hand-shaking.

Wegger barely gave it time to work itself out before he made his way carefully across the tilting deck to the starboard rail of the quarterdeck to examine the windjammer's side. The ship lay at a 15-degree angle to the ice-cliff with her fore royal topmast yard against it. I estimated the cliff to be about 35 metres high — higher than the top of the vessel's main royal mast. Between the ship's side and the ice-cliff — a distance of about 10 metres — the sea had frozen and locked her in. There was no way of knowing how thick the ice was which supported her. But it had been strong enough to have lifted the windjammer's 600 tons clear of the water.

Kearnay called out to the chattering crew, 'Stay on the port side, lads — keep as much weight there as we can.'.Then he showed me the foremast. 'See that? She's leaning all her weight on that parrel of the topsail yard — I reckon it's bent already and could go at any moment. Those topmast shrouds and backstays must be as tight as a fiddler's bitch. See the strain they're taking?' He grinned apologetically. 'Sorry. You don't know what I'm talking about.'

'On the contrary,' I replied. 'I've sailed everything except a square-rigger.'

'Good. Then we're on the same beam.'

I risked a glance at Wegger, who seemed preoccupied. I eyed Kearnay keenly and hoped he got my message.

'We're on the same beam, Kearnay.'

He followed my eyes and looked puzzled. But he went on about the ship.

'I'll have to do something about that rigging before she'd take a blow — that is, if she ever sees the open sea again. I won't be happy until I've checked the rudder also. Come and look at this.'

He led me along the slippery deck to the big double wheel and indicated the base of the binnacle.

The dark teak of the deck had been inlaid with a segment of wood of lighter colour.

It was the shape of a coffin.

In my surprise, I forgot all about Wegger for a moment.

'This wheel's a killer — it was in the original Botany Bay,' Kearney explained. That's an in memoriam notice in wood. The helm works off a tiller below decks…'

'A tiller!'

He grinned. 'Aye, a great hunk of wood. I've got kicking tackles rigged on it, but let a beam sea strike the ship and it throws the helmsman across the deck as if he didn't exist. It takes four men to hold her in a quartering sea.'

Wegger interrupted us harshly, pointing overside. We'll drill a row of holes for charges along the length of her side — how thick's her timber, Kearnay?'

Kearney bridled at his tone but replied levelly, 'Four inches, mainly. Six in places. The knees of the beams below-decks look like whole trees.'

'I'll use ten-kilogram charges,' Wegger went on. We'll fuse 'em for simultaneous firing. They'll crack the ice in a line along her keel. When the ice gives, the weight of the ship will do the rest.'

That's fine — as far as it goes,' I said. 'But the main cause of the trouble seems to be the underwater ice shelf, the bummock. You won't blast that loose.'

'Don't start creating difficulties,' he snapped back. 'My plan will work, I say!'

It took me everything I had to hold myself back. Nor did it escape Kearnay. He gave Wegger and myself a long, contemplative look.

Then he went quickly to the poop rail.

'Men!' he called to the crew on the main deck. 'Aft here, all of you. I want to say something to you.'

'There's nothing to discuss,' Wegger retorted. 'I've sent for explosives and a couple of augurs to drill holes in the ice, and that's that.'

Kearney didn't turn at his truculent tone, but I saw the red flush of anger mount in his neck.

'I happen to be the skipper of this outfit, and on my ship what I say goes.'

The men filing aft must have heard his rejoinder because there was an air of expectancy about them. They congregated on the port side, the side canted highest away from the ice-cliff, because of the weight-balance factor. Geoff Biggs headed the crew, standing at the foot of the ladder leading to the break of the poop.

At that moment I saw my chance.

On Kearnay's left, within reach of his hand, was a row of belaying-pins in a rail.

The belaying-pin — a length of iron round which rope is cleated home to make it secure — was the favourite weapon of tough old skippers who held on to their sails when their crews thought the world was falling on top of them when running their easting down.

There were fourteen able-bodied gale-hardened men in a group within feet of one man with a pocketed pistol. I'd get Wegger before his hand even reached his gun. One quick rush would do it.

I edged forward towards the belaying-pins as if to hear better what Kearnay was saying.

Kearnay slapped the palms of his hands down on the rail. He rounded on Wegger and myself, talking to the crew as well as to us.

'Men — there's a scheme here to blow Botany Bay free of the ice. I'm all for it, and I know you will be. But there's something I have to understand. At the moment I don't.' He addressed Wegger and me. 'You say you are the captain, Shotton. But it seems to me that Wegger gives the orders.'

A hush settled over the men. I didn't have to look at Wegger. I could feel his vibrations. I wondered for how long he would be able to hold himself in.

I moved forward quickly, then leapt. I shouted, as I snatched a heavy belaying-pin from the rail, 'Wegger hi-jacked my ship! He's a maniac — !'

I swung at Wegger. His gun-hand was moving — fast.

I'd overlooked the state of the deck. The teak was as treacherous as the ice which coated it.

My feet spun from under me as I struck at Wegger. I hit the deck with a bone-thumping crash. The wind was kicked out of me.

Time seemed to go into slow motion as I watched what followed.

Kearney was lightning-quick, a man used to taking snap decisions in conditions which would mean life or death to his ship.

He grabbed a belaying-pin and went for Wegger.

I found breath to jerk out to Kearnay, 'He's got a gun!'

Kearnay was almost on him when two shots rang out. The momentum of the downward blow he had aimed at Wegger's head carried him onwards, but the two 9mm man-stoppers had done their work. There was no power left in his blow. The glancing impact as Wegger dodged knocked the pin from his paralysed muscles. The belaying-pin and his head struck the deck at the same moment with a crack. He cartwheeled over into the starboard scuppers.

I tried to raise my head. 'Get down!' I yelled feebly at the men. 'Down all of you, for your lives!'

But Biggs came bounding up the four-step ladder shouting an oath.

Wegger steadied, shot him between the eyes.

The body spun, recoiled into the men crowding up behind him. They broke.

Wegger held a striking crouch, feet splayed, Luger levelled, deadly as a mamba.

I saw two of the crew crawl on hands and knees to try and shelter behind a brace-winch at the foot of the mizzen mast. There was no other shelter between it and a cabin skylight across an open stretch of deck.

'Stop!' Wegger ordered. 'Anyone who moves gets it! Stay where you are! All of you!'

Suddenly there was nothing but the silence. A fine cascade of ice crystals and frozen snow, dislodged by the concussion of the shots, filtered down from the mizzen yard like a delicate shroud. A straining piece of ice groaned under Botany Bay's keel. There was a light patter on the deck from Biggs's body. A last reflex of a signet-ring ringer beat a faint tattoo on the planking. Then it, too, stopped.

'Shotton!' snarled Wegger. 'Up! On to your feet! Get up!'

I rose slowly, still breathless, wondering how soon the bullet would come.

'I ought to kill you!' Wegger went on. 'This is the second time I've been near it. It's only because you're useful to me…'

'Go ahead!' I retorted. Take your own bloody ship to Prince Edward Island!'

'Shut up!' He glanced at the men holding frozen attitudes about the deck. 'Keep your mouth shut!'

Then he shouted at the crew. 'Everyone get below! And keep below!' He moved the Luger threateningly in an arc across the main deck.

The men near the winch got to their feet. They were frightened, sullen. One of them pointed at Biggs.

'What about him? You can't leave him like that.'

'He'll stay there until I say move him,' snapped back Wegger. 'Get below, all of you, and keep out of my sight!'

The men filed away. They were a young lot, all in their early twenties.

When the deck was clear, Wegger came upright from his shooting stance. He kept the gun on me.

'Here!' he indicated a stretch of quarterdeck for'ard of the wheel and binnacle. 'Keep clear of the gear and rigging. And that belaying-pin rail.'

I took up the position as ordered.

'It's a pity Kearnay made me shoot him,' he said. 'He'd have served my purpose and I could have got rid of you.'

'You wouldn't have sold Kearnay that gold yarn any more than me,' I answered.

'It doesn't matter a damn to me what you believe,' he said. 'All that matters is to get to Prince Edward and collect it. And that's what I'm going to do.'

I checked the time. It was shortly before six o'clock.

'You've got four more hours of freedom, Wegger,' I said. 'The buoy launching is due at ten. After that the Quest is a marked ship. They'll hunt the seas for her. They'll find her, all right. And you too. You've killed men here and aboard the Quest in front of enough witnesses to convict you a dozen times over.'

'It's a pity about Kearnay,' he remarked thoughtfully. 'Maybe I should only have winged him. I've got to have someone who can handle a sailing ship.'

'Biggs could too,' I replied.

'He had his chance. He came at me,' Wegger retorted. That ugly look was coming back into his face at the recollection of the rush at the quarterdeck as he justified the shooting to himself. Wegger couldn't help himself. He'd kill — regardless.

'Wegger,' I said, 'all this is getting us nowhere. If you have anything to say to me, say it.'

'Don't come the heavy captain over me! Shut up and listen!'

'I'm listening.'

He said breathily, as if the words were being forced out of him under pressure, 'I told you I'd show you how to hide a ship in the Southern Ocean. And that's what I'm going to do.'

I showed him my watch. 'You can still make it to the buoy's launching-point if you hurry. Four hours and you could be there. First we rescue this crew in two trips with the motor-launch…'

'Stow it, Shotton. Don't tell me what to do. Get this absolutely clear, there is not going to be any buoy launch. Next…' he leaned forward towards me and made little chops at the air with the Luger '… you're taking this ship to Prince Edward Island.'

'This ship!'

'This windjammer, this ship, Botany Bay.'

'It's impossible!'

'You and Ullmann and Bravold and me — we're going to Prince Edward in Botany Bay.'

I simply stared at him.

I realized all along it would be pretty risky using the Quest, but I had no choice,' he said. 'But the minute Botany Bay's Mayday signal came in, I had my answer.'

'Go on.'

'What's one unknown windjammer compared to a vessel which the eyes of a hundred and forty-five nations are on?' he asked rhetorically. 'No one but the Quest heard her Mayday call. If she doesn't turn up in Australia, so what? There'll be very few questions. She'll be dismissed as a cranky replica of a cranky old windjammer. She won't be considered worth searching for. There'll be no follow-up when she's posted overdue. She'll be lucky if she rates a paragraph or two in the newspapers. So you and I and Bravold and Ullmann will take Botany Bay to Prince Edward, lift the gold, and sail on to Mauritius. My plan goes ahead as scheduled.'

A new fear swept over me. What did he intend to do with the Quest? He'd not mentioned Linn either.

'And Quest?'

I didn't like the way he laughed. 'You'll see. You'll see for yourself in good time.'

I kept my feelings hidden. 'Your plan is fine and dandy except for one thing.' I waved a hand at the ice locking in Botany Bay. 'You talk as if you had a ship to sail. You haven't. You'll never get Botany Bay out of this.'

He pointed the gun between my eyes, grinning like a death-mask.

'You will Shotton. You will, if you have to spill your guts on the deck doing it. You'll see why.'

I did, half an hour later when Ullmann returned, bringing Linn with him.

I recognized her as soon as she stepped on to the ice shelf from the motor-launch by her brown-and-white coat and hood.

When she came close to Botany Bay's side I saw she was walking stiffly and holding her head awkwardly.

I hurried to help her aboard. She stood on the ice, unspeaking, looking up at me, strained and white-faced, her head at a strange, stiff angle.

'Linn! What…!'

Wegger was laughing. He called down to Ullmann, who had unmasked the Scorpion after Wegger had shouted a go-ahead to him.

'Show him, Ullmann! Show him why he'll do everything to get Botany Bay free.'

Ullman went to Linn and wrenched down her hood. Her lovely hair was pale gold against the whiteness of the ice.

But it wasn't her hair my eyes were riveted on.

A grenade was tied against her neck.