Douglas Preston - The Ice Limit

Glinn spoke up. "I'm sorry, Rachel, but there are no spiritous liquors allowed on board the ship."

Amira looked at Glinn. "Spiritous liquors?" she repeated with a brief laugh. "This is new, Eli. Have you joined the Christian Women's Temperance League?"

Glinn continued smoothly. "The captain allows one glass of wine, taken before or with dinner. No hard liquor on the ship."

It was as if a lightbulb came on over Amira's head. The joking look was replaced by a sudden flush. Her eyes darted toward the captain, then away again. "Oh," she said.

Following Amira's glance, McFarlane noticed that Britton's face had turned slightly pale under her tan.

Glinn was still looking at Amira, whose blush continued to deepen. "I think you'll find the quality of the Bordeaux makes up for the restriction."

Amira remained silent, embarrassment clear on her face. Britton took the bottle and filled glasses for everyone at the table except herself. Whatever the mystery was, McFarlane thought, it had passed. As a steward slipped a plate of consommé in front of him, he made a mental note to ask Amira about it later.

The noise of conversation at the nearest tables rose once again, filling a brief and awkward silence. At the nearest table, Manuel Garza was buttering a slab of bread with his beefy paw and roaring at a joke.

"What's it like to handle a ship this big?" McFarlane asked. It was not simply a polite question to fill the silence: something about Britton intrigued him. He wanted to see what lay under that lovely, perfect surface.

Britton took a spoonful of consommé. "In some ways, these new tankers practically pilot themselves. I keep the crew running smoothly and act as troubleshooter. These ships don't like shallow water, they don't like to turn, and they don't like surprises." She lowered her spoon. "My job is to make sure we don't encounter any."

"Doesn't it go against the grain, commanding—well — an old rust bucket?"

Britton's response was measured. "Certain things are habitual at sea. The ship won't remain this way forever. I intend to have every spare hand working cleanup detail on the voyage home."

She turned toward Glinn. "Speaking of that, I'd like to ask you a favor. This expedition of ours is rather... unusual. The crew have been talking about it."

Glinn nodded. "Of course. Tomorrow, if you'll gather them together, I'll speak to them."

Britton nodded in approval. The steward returned, deftly replacing their plates with fresh ones. The fragrant smell of curry and tamarind rose from the table. McFarlane dug into the vindaloo, realizing a second or two later that it was probably the most fiery dish he had ever eaten.

"My, my, that's fine," muttered Brambell.

"How many times have you been around the Horn?" McFarlane asked, taking a large swig of water. He could feel the sweat popping out on his brow.

"Five," said Britton. "But those voyages were always at the height of the southern summer, when we were less likely to encounter bad weather."

Something in her tone made McFarlane uneasy. "But a vessel this big and powerful has nothing to fear from a storm, does it?"

Britton smiled distantly. "The Cape Horn region is like no place else on earth. Force 15 gales are commonplace. You've heard of the famed williwaws, no doubt?"

McFarlane nodded.

"Well, there's another wind far more deadly, although less well known. The locals call it a panteonero, a `cemetery wind.' It can blow at over a hundred knots for several days without letup. It gets its name from the fact that it blows mariners right into their graves."

"But surely even the strongest wind couldn't affect the Rolvaag ?" McFarlane asked.

"As long as we have steerage, we're fine, of course. But cemetery winds have pushed unwary or helpless ships down into the Screaming Sixties. That's what we call the stretch of open ocean between South America and Antarctica. For a mariner, it's the worst place on earth. Gigantic waves build up, and it's the only place where both waves and wind can circle the globe together without striking land. The waves just get bigger and bigger — up to two hundred feet high."

"Jesus," said McFarlane. "Ever taken a boat down there?" Britton shook her head. "No," she said. "I never have, and I never will." She paused for a moment. Then she folded her napkin and gazed across the table at him. "Have you ever heard of a Captain Honeycutt?"

McFarlane thought a moment. "English mariner?"

Britton nodded. "He set off from London in 1607 with four ships, bound for the Pacific. Thirty years before, Drake had rounded the Horn, but had lost five of his six ships in the process. Honeycutt was determined to prove that the trip could be made without losing a single vessel. They hit weather as they approached the Strait of Le Maire. The crew pleaded with Honeycutt to turn back. He insisted on pushing on. As they rounded the Horn, a terrible gale blew up. A giant breaking wave — the Chileans call them tigres — sank two of the ships in less than a minute. The other two were dismasted. For several days the hulks drifted south, borne along by the raging gale, past the Ice Limit."

"The Ice Limit?"

"That's where the waters of the southern oceans meet the subfreezing waters surrounding Antarctica. Oceanographers call it the Antarctic Convergence. It's where the ice begins. At any rate, in the night, Honeycutt's ships were dashed against the side of an ice island."

"Like the Titanic ," Amira said quietly. They were the first words she had spoken for several minutes.

The captain looked at her. "Not an iceberg. An ice island. The berg that wrecked the Titanic was an ice cube compared to what you get below the Limit. The one that crushed Honeycutt's ships probably measured twenty miles by forty."

"Did you say forty miles? " McFarlane asked.

"Much larger ones have been reported, bigger than some states. They're visible from space. Giant plates broken off the Antarctic ice shelves."

"Jesus."

"Of the hundred-odd souls still alive, perhaps thirty managed to crawl up onto the ice island. They gathered some wreckage that had washed up, and built a small fire. Over the next two days, half of them died of exposure. They had to keep shifting the fire, because it kept sinking into the ice. They began to hallucinate. Some claimed a huge shrouded creature with silky white hair and red teeth carried away members of the crew."

"Goodness gracious," said Brambell, arrested in the vigorous act of eating, "that's straight out of Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym."

Britton paused to look at him. "That's exactly right," she said. "In fact, it's where Poe got the idea. The creature, it was said, ate their ears, toes, fingers, and knees, leaving the rest of the body parts scattered about the ice."

As he listened, McFarlane realized that conversation at the closest tables had fallen away.

"Over the next two weeks, the sailors died, one by one. Soon their numbers had been reduced to ten by starvation. The survivors took the only option left."

Amira made a face and put down her fork with a clatter. "I think I know what's coming."

"Yes. They were forced to eat what sailors euphemistically call `long pig.' Their own dead companions."

"Charming," Brambell said. "I understand it's better than pork, if cooked properly. Pass the lamb, please."

"Perhaps a week later, one of the survivors spotted the remains of a vessel approaching them, bobbing in the heavy seas. It was the stern of one of their own ships that had broken in two during the storm. The men began to argue. Honeycutt and some others wanted to take their chances on the wreck. But it was lying low in the water, and most did not have the stomach to take to the seas on it. In the end only Honeycutt, his quartermaster, and one common seaman braved the swim. The quartermaster died of the cold before he could clamber aboard the hulk. But Honeycutt and the seaman made it. Their last view of the massive ice island came that evening, as it turned southward in the swells, heading slowly for Antarctica and oblivion. As it faded into the mists, they thought they saw a shrouded creature, tearing apart the survivors.