Sloan Wilson - Ice Brothers

“Give them another blast from your pipe when I’ve left,” he said to Williams and returned to the boat.

In the swift current it was difficult to hold the boat still at the landing place. Swanson was eager to get ashore, but too old and fat to jump to the ice. Finally Stevens and Krater had to help Brit to carry him, almost as though they were taking him against his will. Once on the island, the old man stood up and adjusted his rumpled parka.

“Mr. Swanson, I have to say something important to you,” Paul began.

“What?” Swanson’s benign face showed no trace of suspicion, but the wind made his eyes water.

“It is my duty to persuade as many Eskimos as I can to help me fight the Germans. Will you help me?”

“No!”

“Then I am sorry to have to tell you that I am taking you prisoner. For aiding and abetting the enemy. I won’t press charges unless I have to, but I will have to keep you with the other prisoners here until we have removed all Germans from this area.”

“That is why you have bought me here?”

“Yes.”

“And you, Brit? You helped him.”

“Swan, I had to. I had no choice …” She was crying.

“Yes. There aren’t many choices anymore. I’m sure we are all doing what we have to do.”

Brit hugged him and they stood for a few seconds like the lovers they had been.

“Now what do I do?” Swanson asked Paul.

“Go into one of the huts. The men will come out when we leave.”

Paul helped Brit back into the boat and they shoved off immediately, leaving the old man standing a few yards from the edge of the ice. Then Williams blew his boatswain’s pipe. The prisoners, who no doubt had wondered what was happening, poured from the huts. They ran to the old man, surrounded him, and in a few seconds the lieutenant put an arm around his shoulders. They disappeared into the middle hut together.

“They at least will treat him kindly,” Brit said.

“Probably. If he’s not with me, he’s with them.”

“It’s all so simple for you, isn’t it?”

“It’s just simple. Do you want us to take you back to the village? I have work to do aboard my ship.”

“I don’t want to go back to the village right now. Can you take me aboard your ship? I would like to see it.”

“I … I’m afraid I don’t like that idea.”

“Why? Do you still think I might not be on your side?”

“It’s not that. The men have no women here. And a ship is just no place for a woman.”

“I sailed a boat across the Atlantic almost alone.”

“I mean a warship.”

“You’re afraid that in these clothes I might excite your men?”

“Why do you want to see the ship so much? It’s just a trawler.”

“No, as you said, it’s a warship with guns. Painted the way she is, she’s hard to see when she’s anchored out in the fjord, or even at the wharf. She looks like a ghost ship, all white and spectral. Maybe I want to know that she’s real, that she won’t just suddenly disappear, now that she’s all that stands between us and the Germans.”

Taking her aboard the ship went against Paul’s instinct, but she was insistent, he of course wanted to please her, and what harm could it really do? He had a vision of the crew all whistling at her, staring and perhaps making lewd remarks, but they would not do that when a woman actually came aboard. Like Stevens and Krater now in the whaleboat, they would probably act embarrassed and stay away.

In his guess about the conduct of the crew, Paul was right. As Brit jumped to the well deck, the men came forward thinking that she was an Eskimo, but as soon as they heard her voice, they melted away, withdrew to the forecastle, the radio shack and the engineroom, there to relish the fact of feminine presence with all kinds of speculation, but inaudible to her ears, invisible. Only Nathan came forward and with his courtly manners helped Paul to show her around the ship. She spent much time studying the big guns, touching their smooth metal almost the way she had touched Paul’s shoulders.

“They look as though they could sink a battleship.”

“Not today,” Paul retorted. “Let’s go to the wardroom. Nathan, could you ask Cookie to bring coffee and something to eat?”

Cookie did them proud. In a newly starched chef’s hat he served mushroom omelettes as well as croissants and Danish pastries fancier than anything the Danes had available.

“Do you always eat like this?” Brit asked in astonishment.

“Always,” Nathan replied. “I can’t believe it myself, but it’s true.”

“Only the Americans would be operating a fancy restaurant on a warship.”

They laughed. The visit to the Arluk appeared to be exhilarating Brit more and more. She begged to see the engineroom, and after warning the men there, Paul let her take a peek at the great diesel engine which Chief Banes kept gleaming in the bowels of the ship.

“How many horsepower is it?”

“Not much for the size of the engine,” Nathan replied. “These things are built to turn very slowly with great power at low speeds for years, not to develop a lot of horses.”

“But what is its Horsepower, compared to a car?”

“I guess that depends on what car you’re talking about,” Paul said. “This engine is rated at about six hundred horses.”

“Six hundred horses!” she exclaimed, her eyes widening. “Imagine a ship being towed by six hundred horses. Nothing could stop such power!”

In some ways she seemed as naive as the Eskimos about technical devices. She had heard about depth charges and touched those on the stern racks with the same delicacy she had bestowed on the guns. “Radar” was a word entirely unfamiliar to her ears. The equipment was supposed to be secret and Paul resisted an impulse to show it to her, but he did boast that the black box could see through night and fog.

“The old Vikings used to claim that the dragon heads on the prows of their ships could do that,” she said. “The Chinese paint eyes on the bows of theirs, but now Americans can really see through anything. Do the Germans have this?”

She touched the gray box.

“I don’t really know how much radar they have,” Paul said. “They’re supposed to be so good with technical stuff, I always assumed they had it all, but maybe not.”

“Where do you live?” she asked Paul. “I mean where is your cabin?”

Nathan said that he was needed in the radio shack as Paul led the way to his cabin. Brit stepped inside, glanced around the tiny compartment and with a smile said, “So this is the seat of power.”

“I’ve never thought of it as that.”

“Aren’t you aware of your power? Doesn’t it give you a good feeling?”

“I don’t think that many captains of these fishboats have any great awareness of power. They’d be nuts if they did …”

“Why? You have six hundred horses in your engineroom and guns enough to knock down buildings or sink ships. If you take the Germans at Supportup, you really will be in command of the whole east coast of Greenland … now that Swan’s gone …”

“I’m more aware of responsibilities than power,” Paul said, sounding pretty stuffy even to himself. He thought her smile was enigmatic and wondered if she felt the same.

“I like the style of your cabin, captain,” she continued. “No ornamentation at all, no bow to luxury. The way the Spartans must have lived and the old Norse chiefs.”

“And the fishing captains.”

She did not appear to hear him. Her eyes traveled over his narrow bunk to the sword in its brown leather case hanging over it. “How fitting,” she said. “Your only ornament a sword! Or is it an ornament? Can you kill Germans with it?”

“It’s just a ceremonial sword really. In peacetime officers lead parades with them.”