Ice Brothers (50 page)

As the ship approached Angmagssalik, Paul could not help but start toying with the idea of stopping there to see Brit. Any number of excuses could be found—he could tell Commander GreenPat that he had to put in to find a quiet spot for engine repairs, or that they were receiving more radio signals which needed investigation. For such deceptions the cooperation of the entire crew would be needed, however, and that he would not get in a port where the men were not allowed ashore. From reports of the crew of the whaleboat, the men had learned that Paul had met a Danish woman, and though neither he nor Nathan had said anything about it, they had accurately guessed why he had disappeared for three hours. If he brought the ship back to Angmagssalik without orders, their genial envy would turn to scorn, with even the possibility of official complaints from a few when they got back to the base. And although those could be handled, there was a certain code which even men like Mowrey would not break. Commanding officers were not supposed to run Coast Guard cutters like yachts, stopping at any port where a woman was available.

Shortly before they reached the latitude of Angmagssalik, the wind let up, shifted to the east and brought in heavy fog. The ice pack slowly began to close with the shore, and the
Arluk
took to twisting slowly through the bergs in search of sea room. Nathan was becoming skillful at this and was better than anyone else at interpreting the glowing masses on the radar screen. Paul spent much of his time in his bunk, trying not to think of Brit, who was now only about twenty miles away, but the strong delicate hands with which she had held his head while she kissed him were impossible to forget. Unrequited love—that was a funny old-fashioned phrase, but he felt he had suffered that all his life before meeting Brit. Maybe not unrequited love, but unrequited passion, a sense of that had eaten at him during most of his nights with Sylvia. He didn't blame his wife or tried not to, but there had been so many wasted nights, and without Brit, he might have died feeling that there was something badly the matter with him.

It was a pleasure to dream of going back to Brit after the war. He could find a pilot who could fly him in a PBY into Angmagssalik. They would anchor the seaplane off the end of the wharf and Brit would come out to meet him in the launch. The first thing he'd do when he got ashore was tell off old Swanson, tell him never to go near the girl again. Then they'd fix up the little ketch enough to sail her to Newfoundland for a complete refit. After that the world, the South Sea islands, where the wind was always warm and there was no ice outside of a highball glass.

As he thought about it, the dream began to appear like a practical plan, except maybe it would be better just to fly Brit out of Angmagssalik and buy a better vessel in Newfoundland or Nova Scotia. Maybe he could get enough money together to build a boat especially for world voyaging. In Paul's mind the design for such a vessel was quite clear. A yawl would be faster than a ketch on the wind and Brit would be good at helping him with the big mainsail. Why did he have to keep imagining Sylvia in tears? She would have her house in Wellesley, after all, and it wouldn't take her long to find a man who really wanted to become her father's helper in the banking business. No, Sylvia would not weep long, and after years of misery in Greenland, Brit would deserve a voyage to the South Seas with a man she loved. By that time he would deserve a few good years.… What route would they follow to the South Seas? The Panama Canal, the Galapagos, Cocoa Island and finally Tahiti—he had read a dozen accounts of small boats that had taken that route. They would rig twin head-sails that would make it unnecessary to touch the tiller in the tradewinds—Paul was so lost in his dream that it was hard for him to come back to reality when Nathan called from the bridge, “Skipper, you better come here.” Nathan did not shout, but there was a tone in his voice that jerked Paul from his fantasy and caused him nearly to leap from his bunk. Fog made only a small circle of gray water visible, and it was already getting dark. Nathan was peering into the hood of the radar set.

“I think we got something here,” he said softly. “Whatever it is, it's big and it's moving.”

“How far away?”

“Twenty-three miles, bearing two five one degrees. He's only about two miles off the edge of the ice pack. It looks like he's following it north, on a course of about zero four five degrees.”

“How fast?”

“I can't tell yet. Maybe about eight knots.”

“Let me see.”

At first Paul was confused by the glowing masses on the screen which were reflected from the ice pack. Then he saw one small but bright blob that was crawling slowly like a luminescent bug across the glass so close to the ice pack that it seemed to be touching it. Automatically Paul went to the wing of the bridge to see it, but the fog was so thick that even the guns on the bow were only vague outlines.

“Skipper, if we both maintain course and speed, he's going to be about fifteen miles away when he's abeam of us.”

“Do you think he's picking up our radar?”

“I can't tell.”

“Can you tell whether he's got radar?”

“I've got Sparks working on it. He hasn't picked up anything yet.”

“Stop the engine,” Paul said, remembering his plan to remain hidden as long as possible. “If we stay here, how close will he pass us?”

“About fifteen miles, if he holds his course. Shall I report this to GreenPat?”

That obviously was the ship's first duty, to spot enemy ships and report them. Still, in this fog aircraft could do nothing, and the radio could warn the Germans, if that's what it was, even if Nathan was smart enough to avoid direction finders.

“What are your chances of getting through to GreenPat without having him pick you up?”

“Maybe fifty-fifty.”

“Hold it for a while. Maybe it's not a Kraut, maybe it's one of our own cutters.”

“They'd tell us if one of ours was headed up here.”

“They're supposed to, but there could be a screw-up. Look, you better report it to GreenPat. That's doing it by the book.”

“How am I going to explain that we have a radar contact when we're not supposed to have a radar?”

“Tell him how we got it. This is no time to play games.”

Nathan went to the wardroom to write the message. Word of a radar contact had quickly spread throughout the ship, and men were crowding into the pilothouse.

“Clear the bridge,” Paul said. “There's nothing within twenty miles of us.”

It must be a trawler or an icebreaker or it wouldn't be so close to the ice pack, Paul thought. Maybe six- or even eight-inch guns. But its job was sending weather reports or supplying shore stations, and it would probably rather run than fight. Once it knew it had been detected, it would probably try to escape in this fog before aircraft could find it. Probably the skipper of that ship would try to sink the trawler that had discovered him only if that wouldn't take him far out of his way. The Germans weren't crazy enough to risk air attack for revenge. Were they …?”

Hurrying to his chart table, Paul plotted the position of the
Arluk
and that of the stranger. That put the German, if that's what he was, about seventy-five miles off shore, and only about thirty miles south of Angmagssalik. Studying the chart, he saw a fjord named Supportup-Kangerdula. The ship could easily have come from there. Brit had told him that the place was known for frequent foehn winds, and that the Eskimos had superstitions which kept them away from it. Had she been trying to warn him away from it? Whether or not she knew it, had the Germans picked it for a base simply because they were aware they would not be bothered there? Paul felt suddenly certain that the German ship had just left this strangely named place. Probably it had supplied a base there for the winter before the weather got really tough and had been waiting for this fog to cover its escape to sea.

And probably the people at Angmagssalik knew about the base only about thirty miles to the south of them. Maybe they were too afraid to tell the Americans about it, afraid of reprisals, and maybe they were active collaborators. The thought that Brit might be a traitor who'd made a fool of him cut deep, but now was not the time to worry about that.

Mr. Williams suddenly appeared with a plain-language report that Nathan had written and was now coding. It started by giving the
Arluk
's latitude and longitude. It went on to say, “We have radar contact in thick fog with unknown vessel bearing two-five-oh degrees, range twenty-three miles. Her course is about zero four five degrees, speed about eight knots. We have radar set because we took one from wreck of DD-77. Request air support as soon as weather permits and instructions.”

Paul added two sentences: “Strongly suspect enemy base is established at Supportup-Kangerdula Fjord. Suggest air reconnaissance.”

“Tell Nathan to send this with the addition,” he said handing the clipboard to Williams.

“Are we going to close with the radar contact?” Williams asked.

“I don't know yet.”

Paul wondered whether he really wanted to rush to meet a vessel that was bound to be more heavily armed. There could not be any real urgency in stopping an empty supply ship homeward bound, if he had guessed right about that, but maybe he should give it a try. Still, he'd done his main job of spotting what probably was an enemy ship and a German base. Now he should track the ship as long as he could and hope like hell for the sky to open up enough for the planes to get in their licks.

The sky gave no promise of clearing. Nathan returned to the bridge, chased Guns away from the radar set, and stared at the glowing insectlike image of the stranger, who had made no obvious change in course or speed. As he studied his chart Paul realized that the
Nanmak
had been sunk at a spot only about twenty-five miles to the south of their present position in the early summer. Maybe she had blundered onto this German while he was on his way in to build the base.

“I've got Sparks sending out the message,” Nathan said. “We're using frequencies an ordinary ship wouldn't monitor, but this guy may not be ordinary. If he picks us up, he may change course and speed.”

For five long minutes Nathan peered into the radarscope. “There, I'm afraid he picked us up, skipper. He's making a sharp left turn. He's ducking right into the ice pack. Damn it, he's going to be hard to track when he gets into that big stuff.”

“Then we better follow him,” Paul said. “Give me a course.”

“Two-five-five. He's slowing down, skipper. He's not going to be able to go very fast through that ice.”

“Ahead slow. Come right to two five five. Come up to full speed. Tell the chief to give us everything he safely can.”

“How close to him are you going to go, skipper?”

“Close enough to keep tracking him. Hell, if he has six-inch guns and radar fire control, how close can we come to him without getting hit?”

“I'd guess we'd be safe if we stay five miles from him,” Nathan said. “We haven't been able to pick up any radar signals from him yet.”

“So we'll try to ride his tail. I don't want to lose him.”

“Skipper, there's some scattered drift ice about three miles ahead. I may not be able to pick up all the growlers on this thing.”

“Post a double bow lookout and tell them to look sharp. I want to close with him before we lose him in that ice.”

It was almost completely dark now, as well as foggy. The old trawler trembled and leapt ahead as Chief Banes pushed the engine to flank speed.

“Better come right about twenty degrees,” Nathan said. “There's a fairly big berg dead ahead.”

Paul changed course. A few minutes later he thought he could hear the waves breaking against ice a few hundred yards to his left, but he could see nothing.

“You can come back on course,” Nathan said. “We're beginning to close with him now. He's down to about four knots, and he's steering a crooked course through the ice.”

“What's the range now?” Paul asked a few minutes later.

“Down to about nineteen miles. I've just lost him behind a big berg. He'll come out. I think he's trying to get back into a fjord.”

“Growler,” the bow lookout called. “Dead ahead!”

“Right full rudder.”

The trawler's bow swung. Going to the port wing of the bridge, Nathan saw a twenty-ton hunk of blue ice lying only a few inches above the black water. It was almost within spitting distance.

“Come back to course now,” he said. “Ahead half. He's not going anywhere very fast in that ice.”

The distance between the two ships diminished slower now, but they still gained a mile and a half in the next hour. When the range was down to fifteen miles, Nathan reported that the edge of the ice pack was only a mile ahead, and Paul slowed down.

“I don't see any really good leads, but the stuff isn't very close-packed on the edge,” Nathan said. “He got into it all right.”

Paul climbed to the flying bridge, where he could see a little better. There wasn't as much fog now and there was a trace of moonglow. He ducked around the end of a huge mass of ice looming ahead and twisted between two smaller bergs. He had become skilled at maneuvering his ship through ice. Damn it, I bet no Kraut can beat me at this, he thought, and rang for more speed.

“We're still gaining on him,” Nathan called a few minutes later. “He's down to about two knots now. The ice is heavier where he is.”

“Range?”

“About fifteen miles.”

Mr. Williams appeared on the flying bridge holding a clipboard under his arm as he climbed the ladder.

“Message from GreenPat, sir.”

“What's he say?”

Williams took a flashlight from his pocket.

“Jesus, don't put that thing on! Just tell me what the bastard says.”