A Grue Of Ice Read Free Page B

I spent that year with you searching for The Albatross' Foot. I spent every
    penny I had. You know the result—nil. I went back to the
    Scott Polar Research Institute at Cambridge. Three years ago they sent me to South Africa to act as liaison officer to the expeditions going South. A shore job, but at least there was no land between me and the Antarctic."
    Sailhardy grinned. " Except Bouvet."
    " Except Bouvet. I used to listen endlessly to the radio talk of the whalers down south. Then a year ago a short
    message from a Norwegian catcher to her factory ship told
    me what I wanted to hear."
    " What did she say?" he asked.
    " Her name was Kos 47," I said. " She was about two hundred miles south of Bouvet. She said: Ì have never seen anything like this. The ice is breaking up as far as the eye can see. It's exploding before our eyes.' I had waited all the years since the Meteor sank, for something like that, Sailhardy."
    " Did the factory ship realise its significance?" Sailhardy asked excitedly.
    " I thought it wise to suppress her reply to the skipper of Kos 47 when I flew back to London to try and persuade the Royal Society to give me the chance of investigating The
    Albatross' Foot," I said wryly.
    " What did she say?"
    " Finsen,' said the factory ship, if you don't lay off the bloody booze before breakfast, I'll give you a shore
    job cutting up whale's guts,' " I replied.
    He grinned. " The Royal Society wouldn't have cared
    for that."
    " It was difficult enough to persuade them that there was any substance in the story of The Albatross' Foot. It
    took a hell of a lot of talk. This scholarship runs for one year, and it's not worth much—only a thousand pounds. I'
    ve already lost two and a half months getting to Tristan.
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    I was just plain lucky that the South Africans were sending out a relief ship to the radio station."
    " But Bouvet . . ." Sailhardy demanded.
    I shrugged. " But Bouvet!" I echoed. " They wouldn't hear of it. No ships go there. It would have meant a special charter, a special expedition. Neither the Royal Society nor myself could raise tens of thousands of pounds for anything on that scale. No, • Sailhardy, even if I prove the Tristan prong of The Albatross' Foot, I can't ever hope to prove the Bouvet one."
    " You could try and collect reports from the catchers far south ..." he began rather helplessly.
    " You can imagine the reaction of tough catcher captains, can't you?" I said. " It isn't practical. My theory is simple: two great warm currents strike down towards Bouvet, one from the Atlantic side and the other from the Indian Ocean
    side of Africa, and link up in the neighbourhood of Bouvet. The Atlantic one is ours here at Tristan. That's the theory, anyway. The combined warm currents then break open the pack-ice which forms in winter between Bouvet and the Antarctic mainland. It not only breaks it up—it clears the sea for four hundred and fifty miles. It is, in fact, the whole mechanism which holds the Antarctic ice at bay. It is as important to South America, South Africa and Australia as the Gulf Stream is to the United States. It's the most exciting thing that happens in the world's oceans, the most dramatic. It is completely unknown." I tugged at the line to my net. " A hell of a lot depends on this one little net. Otherwise, it is likely to remain completely unknown."
    I started to haul in the deep-level net. It came up. Something kicked feebly. It must have been a fish, because
    it came out of the sea. It had a peculiar flat head and a protruding beak. The etiolated tail looked as if it had been put through a mangle. The underlying colour was lead, but
    near the surface the skin was a phosphorescent shocking pink. The eyes .
    !
    My exclamation brought Sailhardy over. The fish's eyes pointed in one direction only—upwards. It was horrible. It
    gazed as if in supplication. It was about eighteen inches long. I held it at arm's length and I saw that the eyes were fixed to look