Geoffrey Jenkins: Southtrap

It showed Prince Edward as one of a handful of remote uninhabited islands of the Sub-Antarctic, tiny specks in the vastness of the wildest ocean in the world. The area into which Quest was due to venture was roughly a triangle with equal legs measuring 2300 kilometres, having Cape Town as the starting-point, Prince Edward as the south-eastern terminal, and Bouvet Island as the southernmost terminal. This is a wind desert without a history. It has never known the keels of battle fleets and if it had the sound of guns would have been puny beside its own thundering. It is colder than outer space; there are no stars because they are hidden by its ceaseless storm-wracks.

I scanned the area on the chart for any annotation, any clue, which Captain Prestrud might have left to indicate Dina's Island.

There was nothing.

I stood there staring at the great blanks between the pin-points of islands. The West Wind Drift, it is called. Into these hostile seas the Quest would launch the drifter buoy with its sensitive instruments which would automatically relay via the orbiting satellite the hitherto unknown facts about currents, temperature, wind and drift. The stratosphere balloon would supplement its readings. It would be the first time man had attempted to put an electronic girdle round the Southern Ocean. The method to be used would be similar to the one which had succeeded in the frozen wastes of outer space — the automatic instrumented probe.

I had had personal acquaintance with these waters; I knew more about them than anything Captain Prestrud's chart showed. I paged through some manuals which complemented the chart — the Admiralty's Antarctic Pilot, the American Manual of Ice Seamanship, and the US Navy's Marine Climatic Atlas. For anyone like myself who had actually stuck out a Southern Ocean blow they made nice safe academic reading. They contained no reference to Dina's Island.

I decided, categorically, that Dina's Island did not exist.

My attention strayed from the chart and books to the chartroom itself. It was a warm, friendly, dark-panelled place, more like a library than a chartroom. I had to carry out my search, but I felt as if I were intruding into someone else's home. Captain Prestrud had chosen the Quest for more than just her sea-going qualities. A Thor ship has that something extra. And Quest had it — the chartroom was an example. She was small — only 5000 tons — beautifully proportioned, with a fine raked bow. Despite nearly a quarter of a century at sea, her 5600 horse-power Sulzer engines were still in splendid shape. I did not intend to drive her, but I might need their full 15.5 knots where we were bound. The original excellent passenger accommodation had been for twelve in two double and eight single cabins. Cabins for the extra eighteen who were booked on the cruise had been added aft in the former No. 3 'tween decks.

I began to put the chart away. As I did so, my eye was caught by some writing underneath the folio and serial numbers to be found on all charts. It was neatly printed in Indian ink.

It read: Teddy. Atlantis-Pinguin-Sibirien. January 14th 1941.

Pinguin — that was Kruder's raider! The name was still fresh in my mind. Why should it crop up again here? I stared at the other names. They meant as little to me as Dina's Island. The chart was an old one. For close-approach work to Prince Edward I'd been using a newer one, but if it was a typical day I wouldn't see the island until it was under Quest's bows.

My train of speculation was broken by a knock at the door.

'Come in!'

It was McKinley, Quest's second officer. One of my reasons for wanting to get South was to see a 50-knotter blow McKinley's hair-style to rags. Had Captain Prestrud taken him on merely to squire the lady passengers?

He said in a bored voice, There's a rough type here says he wants to see you.'

'McKinley,' I said. This isn't the Royal Navy, but you'll address me as sir in future. Understood?'

His limpid eyes flickered more with amusement than anger.

'Understood — sir.'

'Have you got that searchlight rigged for'ard in the bows?'

I'd saved my skin before at night among the growlers and bergy bits — those chunks of ice smaller than an iceberg which break away from the parent berg and litter the sea — by spotting with a seachlight. Growlers float low in the water. Radar is helpless. In a storm, which happens often, whitetops look just like growlers anyway. I wasn't happy about the Quest not being ice-strengthened. I'd never used a ship before in the Southern Ocean that wasn't. I felt unprotected — like an Antarctican in underpants.

'Well — you see, I was side-tracked by some problems with the forepeak tank so I…' He exercised his winning smile.

'Listen, McKinley,' I said emphatically. 'When I give an order, I mean it to be carried out. Not some time or never but now. We're headed for dangerous waters. A man's life — the ship's life — can depend on everyone being on the alert. Understood?'

He got my message, this time.

'Aye, aye, sir.'

Then get the bloody thing rigged. Now.' I snapped. 'And send Mr Wegger in.'

'Mister Wegger?' he asked.

'You may be in for a surprise soon,' I retorted as he left.

Wegger had certainly willed himself on to Quest, and I would have preferred some elbow-room in choosing a new officer. But we sailed tomorrow. The McKinleys might have their place entertaining passengers but the sort of man I wanted out there where the ice was, was Wegger's type.

He came in, looking as if he were trapped with steel wire, and asked right away, 'How is Captain Prestrud, sir?'

'He's bad. They're operating now. Skull fracture.'

'What chance has he got, sir?'

I shrugged for reply.

Wegger made a gesture of enquiry which took in the chart which I had still not put away, and the ship at large. He must have heard me giving orders to McKinley.

I answered his unspoken question. 'Quest sails tomorrow. I've taken over.'

He gave a smile, if you could call it that. It was more a self-satisfied twitch of the lips.

'I'm glad, sir.'

'How do you mean, you're glad?'

'I mean, I'm glad Quest will be sailing after all, and I'd rather see you in command than anyone else. I know a sailor when I see one.'

Oddly enough, I felt that he wasn't trying to flatter me. It was a sizing-up, as if he were gauging the odds.

I had a sudden thought. 'What do you know about Dina's Island?'

His face and eyes remained blank. But the cords knotted in his neck as if he were trying to raise the anchor from the seabed all on his own.

'Never heard of it,' he said.

'Nor have I.'

He picked his next words. 'Then what makes you ask, sir?'

All of a sudden there was about him that intensity which I had noticed earlier in the day, as if the pressure inside him were mounting to bursting-point.

'Captain Prestrud mentioned it.'

I could see Wegger was holding something back. His next words were too casual. It was this that decided me to tell him nothing more of what Captain Prestrud had said.

'What did he say?'

'It doesn't matter,' I replied. 'There is no Dina's Island. He probably didn't know what he was saying.'

If he was as bad as you say, that's probably it.'

Wegger ought really to have been asking me about the job, not concerning himself with Captain Prestrud. I hadn't got to the bottom of this, but it didn't make me any less keen to have a first-class officer aboard.

I asked, 'What do you know about Prince Edward Island?'

I've been there.'

'When?'

I couldn't read his eyes.

'Years ago. Not recently.'

'I was there only a couple of weeks ago,' I said. 'It's the Quest's first port of call — if by any stretch of the imagination you could call it a port.'