Хэммонд Иннес - Calling the Southern Cross!

I was watching his eyes all the time as I spoke. For a moment they had a wild, almost hunted look. Then he laughed. “You can’t get away with this, Craig!” he shouted. “First you try to steal my wife, now you try to get control of the company through her!”

I called to the Hval IV men and with Kalstad and McPhee moved in to get him. I knew what he was capable of now and I was taking no more chances.

Then suddenly he turned and slithered down the ice of the ledge. I sent Kalstad and the rest after him. He had stopped at one of the packing cases that had apparently been tom open with a pick. I thought we’d mastered him without a fight. I had turned back to speak with the men when Howe gave a shout of warning. As I swung round, Bland was lifting a rifle out of the broken packing case.

Kalstad started to run toward him. Then he and the men behind him I checked suddenly. Bland had the gun cocked and leveled straight at them. He was laughing at them.

Bland was coming up the ledge now, and he was driving the Hval IV men back at the point of his gun. He was immensely pleased with himself. He bunched all the survivors together. None of us hesitated to obey. His eyes were narrowed, and his manner and the way he held the rifle made it clear that he would not hesitate to use it.

He called Vaksdal and Keller over to him. They hesitated uncertainly. Bland as the son of the chairman of the company was one thing. Bland with a gun another. But they went down to him all the same. Then he called on the rest of the men to join him. He spoke in Norwegian. They began muttering among themselves.

“He tell them it is safe only to have one leader,” Gerda translated for me. “That he is in command and that it is mutiny if they do not obey him.”

The thing had to be stopped at once. I called out to the men. And then Judie’s hands were tugging at my arm. Bland was yelling at me to shut up. He had the gun at his shoulder and was aiming straight at me.

“Keep quiet. Duncan,” Judie pleaded. “He will shoot. There is plenty of time.”

Howe, just behind me, said, “We’ve got to get his gun.”

As we hesitated, one or two of the men moved toward Bland. In an instant they would all go. If we could stop the men, isolate Bland and his two mates, then the sheer threat of our numbers would wear him down. I started forward. If I got killed — well, it was just too bad.

But just as I moved, Gerda rushed past me. She stopped, facing the men with her back to Bland, and she poured a flood of Norwegian at them. The men stopped. I heard Nordahl’s name and Hval IV mentioned repeatedly. She was telling them the truth now and the men growled angrily.

I glanced at Bland. He had lowered the gun. He was sane enough to realize that if he shot her the men would kill him. But he was coming up the slope, his face white and convulsed with rage. I called to Gerda to look out. But she kept on speaking. Bland struck her from behind, stunning her with one blow of his hand across the nape of her neck. Howe gave an inarticulate cry and ran forward. He flung himself, shrieking, on Bland, who met him with a jab of the rifle barrel in his stomach. And as Howe folded up. Bland smashed his fist into the wretched man’s face. Howe’s face looked dazed and a gush of blood shone crimson against the white of the snow. His knees gave and he was a crumpled bundle on the ice. Bland kicked at him viciously, his gun ready, waiting for the first man to break and rush at him. He grinned all the time.

I felt Judie stiffen beside me. This was the real Bland, the Bland she knew — the man who admired the Nazis and their methods. And seeing him kicking at Howe’s body, I knew that none of us would get out of the ice alive — unless we killed Bland first.

For a moment he was lost to everything but the pleasure of taking it out on Howe. And then he began talking to the men. With the gun in his hand he had complete confidence in himself. His manner was a queer mixture of the arrogance of the leader and the almost boyish excitement of the adventurer.

“He’s trying to persuade the men to desert us,” Judie said. “You must do something.”

“You talk to them,” I said. “They’re all Tönsberg men. Talk to them about your father.”

She stared at me in surprise. And then, as she saw I wouldn’t move, she stepped forward. It was hard for her. The man was her husband and she had to tell the men that he’d murdered her father. For a moment she and Bland were talking at the same time. Then the attention of the men became riveted on her. Bland hesitated and stopped speaking. His eyes shifted uneasily to Judie and back again to the men. His grip on his gun tightened as an angry murmur rose from them.

Then suddenly he shouted an order. He was calling on the men to follow him. Then they were silent. He called to them again. But no one moved. “All right!” he shouted in English. “Have it your own way then! Stay with Craig and see where it lands you!” He turned to me. “They’re your responsibility now, Craig!” He drew a line with the heel of his boot across the ice of the ledge. “You’ll camp above this line. Any mutineer that crosses it will be shot. Understand? You’ll be issued tents and stores. Once a day, at mid-day, you’ll send two men to collect rations... Bonomi.”

The little Italian started. “Yes, sir.”

“Can you cook?”

“A leetle. But lam not—”

“You’ll cook for the officers then. Go down and report to Vaksdal... The rest of you get back up the ledge. Go on. Get moving.” He made a threatening gesture with the gun. Go on! Go on!” I could almost hear the Nazi “Raus! Raus!” echoing the violence of his voice.

“What about the boats?” I asked. Bland turned to me. He had the mean look of something that’s been cornered. “The boats will remain with me. I’ll look after them for you.” He turned to Judie and said, “You’d better stay with your boy friend.”

Bland took no chances with the men. He got right on with the issuing of tents and stores. I set the men to leveling platforms for the tents and cutting into the ice wall at the back of the ledge to provide extra shelter.

As the day wore on, Judie’s attitude began to worry me. When I tried to explain to her that there was nothing I could have done, she turned away angrily. It was as though she were blaming me for what had happened. She and Gerda were given a tent to themselves. As soon as it was erected, Judie crawled into it. And that was the last I saw of her that day.

That night, after the evening meal, as I lay in my tent talking to Howe and McPhee and Kalstad, who shared it, Gerda crawled in.

“What are you going to do, Duncan?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I said.

“But you must do something.”

“Not yet,” I answered. She was sitting close to Howe and I saw that her hand was holding his. It made me think of Judie. I asked Gerda whether she was all right.

“ Ja. I think so. But she is not very happy.” She peered at me uncertainly in the half light. “It is not very nice, her position, I think. Also she feel you must do something. You make her speak to the men. She have to bare her soul in front of them all, so that they will follow you and not Bland. Now she think you must—” She stopped.

“Must what?” I asked.

“Please do not he offended, Duncan. But she feel... that you must justify the men’s faith, that you must take control. It... it is not that she do not believe in you. But you must try to understand. It is terrible for her, this position.”

“What does she expect me to do?”

“I do not know. You see, it is all a terrible muddle for her. Bland is her husband. She know he murder her father. She is in love with you, and Bland, whom you save from dying alone, now controls everything.”