Ice Brothers (33 page)

“So we understood. This was yesterday, not much more than twenty-four hours ago. God, it seems like years! The visibility was fine,” the exec continued in an oddly detached voice. “We can't blame low visibility. We were just about six miles offshore and were planning to make our turn when it happened. We hit a growler, but nobody saw it until it bobbed up astern. We sure heard it, though. It took out both our starboard screws and one of our rudders. The damn thing wasn't much bigger than a small whale. The radar never picked it up and neither did the sonar. It wasn't deep enough for the sonar or high enough for the radar, I guess. Just a little cake of ice, so low and so much the color of the water that nobody saw it.”

“We've almost hit more than one of them,” Paul said.

“I never saw one like that before, ice so blue it was almost black, and so hard that our screws didn't even smash it. Anyway, it took our starboard screws and starboard rudder. We limped in here to anchor and see if we could make repairs, or wait for a tow. We let go the hook in twenty fathoms and the chart gave us good water for a mile all around. There wasn't any wind at all and the sky was clear, except for a gray overcast. We were enough inside that point to get shelter if the wind blew into the fjord, and with those mountains all around, it looked safe as a lake. The water was like a mirror when I turned in.”

“But all of a sudden the wind hit you like an express train,” Paul said.

“Did it hit you too?”

“Not here. We were too far out, but I've seen it. They call it a foehn wind. It just happens near shore.” Paul blushed inwardly over his instant expertise, thanks to Mowrey.

“Jesus, I couldn't believe it. With our starboard screws out, we couldn't maneuver worth a damn. It wasn't exactly dark, but so much water was flying that we couldn't see anything. The anchor dragged even when we gave it all the chain we had. We dropped more anchors and they all dragged. The wind was circular—a regular tornado. While we were steaming to try to take the strain off the anchors, it suddenly twisted us right around and we got the chain fouled in our port screws. That frosted it. The wind just blew us ashore sideways and there wasn't a damn thing we could do.”

“I can understand that.”

“All the screws and rudders are gone now. We're holed aft. She has a double bottom and it's hard to tell exactly how much damage has been done, but she's wedged so firmly in the rocks that the tide doesn't affect us a damn bit. Low tide almost gave us a chance to inspect her bottom, but it didn't drop enough for that. It must have been about halftide when we hit, but that damn wind had flooded this side of the fjord.

“I never even read about anything like it, this foehn wind. We must have been thrown up on some kind of a rock shelf. On our stern we've got eight feet of water on our port side, about twenty-five feet on our starboard side right now. As you go forward, it gets deeper on both sides. I figure the after half of the ship is hard aground. If it were a smooth shelf, you might jolt her off, but I have an idea there's nothing smooth about it. It could be just an accumulation of big boulders that have fallen from those cliffs up there.”

“Seems likely.”

“To be honest, I don't think we have a chance in hell of getting her off, not even if we had a dozen deep sea tugs, but for the record, we have to try.”

“Yes, sir. My captain wants me to talk to your skipper about taking responsibility and other details. May I see him?”

The executive officer looked embarrassed. “To tell the truth, our skipper is taking this kind of hard. As you can guess, he had a rough night. He's just turned in and I hate to wake him up.”

“I can understand that, but who's going to be in charge of the towing operation?”

“Us of course. I've got a big wire cable all ready on the forecastle. You can run a light line out with your boat and winch the big cable to your ship.”

“Do you have any anchors out?”

“The starboard chain parted when it fouled our screw, and believe it or not, our winch jammed. Everything went wrong at the same time. The men are already rousting in what's left of the chain.”

“My skipper wants me to tell him in some detail about the damage.”

“Come on, and I'll take you on an inspection tour.”

Paul couldn't believe the luxury and the formality of this brand new destroyer. Below decks there was nothing to indicate that she was on the rocks. Probably permanently. Soft music was playing from concealed speakers in almost every compartment. “The Blue Danube” was followed by “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.” The bulkheads were painted in soft pastel colors. At a soda fountain in a corner of the enlisted men's mess, a half dozen men were all faultlessly dressed, and there wasn't an unshined shoe anywhere. Paul had never before seen so much military etiquette. Unless enlisted men were eating or working, they snapped to attention whenever an officer passed. Apparently no one shouted aboard this ship. All the voices were low and respectful.

The immaculate lieutenant commander took Paul to the engineroom, where he stood surrounded by gleaming metal and white bulkheads which no smear of oil or grease defaced. The engineer, another lieutenant commander in a natty uniform, showed him a framed diagram of the ship about four feet long which had been inked in many colors. Pointing to various sections with a manicured finger, he described the wounds of the dying ship in detail.

“Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” ended on a high note and “Stardust” began.

After Paul had gathered all the information he could he went on deck and waited for his whaleboat, which was completing its soundings. A crew had taken the coverings off double five-inch guns, and was polishing them. They were beautiful pieces of lethal machinery which looked capable of blasting any German icebreaker out of the sea. Except they were stuck here.

As soon as Paul glanced at the sketch which Boats had prepared to show the depth of water around the destroyer, he knew that the sleek ship had had it. Apparently the gale and the surging seas had picked the destroyer up and dropped her not only on a granite shelf, but in the midst of a whole nest of rocky shoals. He showed the clipboard to the executive officer.

“We sent our boats out for soundings and they came back with just about the same results,” he said. “Our skipper feels there's a chance of snaking us out along this route.” He traced a channel with his forefinger which looked obviously too narrow and too crooked. With a rather embarrassed smile he added, “I guess we should give it the college try, anyway. For the record …”

“Yes, sir.”

“We've notified navy salvage in Boston. They're pretty busy these days but if they could get some salvage tugs up here and maybe some devices to float her higher … The skipper is afraid we may not have much time. If we got another gale, or if a shift of wind brought the ice floe in here, there might not be much left to salvage. So he hopes you'll give it everything you've got.”

“We'll try,” Paul said, and saluted both the executive officer and the quarterdeck before descending the ladder to his boat. They towed a long light line to the trawler for pulling out the cable.

Mowrey was waiting for Paul on the bridge of the
Arluk
. He apparently was trying his best to pull himself together, and was drinking coffee with no odor of booze. Still, his hand shook as he held the clipboard with Boats's sketch and he seemed to have difficulty concentrating on the details of the operation which Paul gave to him.

“Well, I'd say we have about one chance in a hundred of doing any good, but let's get going,” he finally said. “Tell Farmer I want a bridle rigged for the tow cable. Use our heaviest hawsers. And take those depth charges off the racks on the stern. Stow them in the hold.”

The deck force worked energetically, and if one was not convinced that the whole exercise was hopeless, as Paul was, it all started out as highly efficient. Mowrey became his old self as he shouted instructions from the wing of the bridge and actually seemed to be enjoying the activity.

It took more than two hours to get everything ready for the towing to begin. Gradually the trawler took a strain. The heavy steel cable rose from the sea and became an arc connecting the two ships. Slowly Mowrey increased the revolution of the big screw and the arc became a straight line. The heavy manila bridle stretched and water was squeezed from it. Farmer yelled at three seamen who were standing on the fantail watching it.

“Get back, you crazy bastards!” he yelled. “That thing can break anytime.”

Never before had Paul heard the old fisherman use anything approaching profanity. His warning was timely, because the bridle soon did break at the point where it had been attached to the cable. The heavy manila snapped back like a giant rubber band, and any men standing near it would have been cut in half.

Mowrey cursed the manufacturers of the manila line and ordered chain to be rigged. All day it went on. The men were remarkably willing as they rigged heavy chain with bleeding hands, and you had to admire Mowrey's refusal to give up even when the trawler had strained against the cable for hours without the slightest success.

“We're going to get her,” Mowrey croaked, wearily sitting on one of the ready boxes. “If we keep taking a strain on her, something's got to give sooner or later.”

Finally something did give. The cable jumped off the forecastle of the destroyer, and when they winched it in, creating a wild tangle on the well deck, they discovered that they had actually torn a poorly welded bollard off the deck of the warship. This evidence of the power of the trawler Mowrey apparently regarded as a triumph. Paul thought he might be content with that, but after more signals had been exchanged, Mowrey ordered the whaleboat to get a line from the destroyer and start the whole operation again.

The slower the men moved the more Mowrey bawled at them, and perhaps through some divine intervention, he soon began to lose his voice. His hoarse bark gradually subsided to a croak and finally there was no more than a breathy hissing when he moved his lips.

“Come on, skipper,” Paul said. “You better come in and warm up. The men are worn out. We can try again tomorrow.”

To Paul's surprise and relief, the old man nodded weary assent. “Anchor her,” he said. “I'm going to turn in.”

After making sure that the ship was secure for the night, Paul fell into a sound sleep. He was awakened only a short time later with the sensation of being choked. While trying to shake his shoulder, Mowrey's hand had blundered to his neck.

“Get up, goddamn it!” Mowrey was croaking thickly. “Get up!”

Paul sat up in confusion, reached up and put on the light over his bunk. Mowrey, dressed only in his long woollen underwear, was leaning over him. With his white stubble of beard, his red eyes and his swollen face, he would have looked terrible even if he had not for the first time in Paul's sight neglected to put in his false teeth.

“What's the matter?” Paul gasped.

“Get up! Got to talk to you. Important, very important!”

Because of his lack of teeth, Mowrey lisped. A lisping Mowrey!

Paul climbed out of his bunk and sat at the wardroom table, glad that he had not taken off his rumpled blue uniform. Mowrey sat across from him and picked up a glass of vile-looking orange liqueur. His eyes were wild.

“I know how to get that ship off the rocks,” he lisped.

“How?”

Mowrey's expression suddenly turned crafty. “You're such a hot shot. Can't you figure it out, Yale?”

“No, I can't.”

“Under those cliffs there's always a pile of big boulders that kind of slope down into deep water. She was just set up there on a kind of shelf.”

“Right.”

“Only her stern is really fast. There's no chance of towing her off. She's aground too hard for that, and they've lightened ship all they can. If they leave her there long, she'll be lost for sure. The first westerly will drive the ice right in here. She'll be ground to bits. So it's time for emergency procedures.”

“Like what?”

“Like something drastic.” Mowrey's rheumic eyes gleamed with satisfaction. “After all, there's nothing to lose.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I'll blow her off!”

“Blow her off?”

“With explosives. Just the right amount.”

“You'd blow her ass off and sink her right there.”

“Not if we rigged double collision mats. We could place the charges right under her bilge. We could lift her up and throw her out at the same time.”

Paul's mind was suddenly possessed by a vision of the destroyer being sort of popped to safety in one highly controlled explosion. It was beautiful, but whether it could actually work or not, he had no idea.

“There's a chance it could work,” Mowrey said. “We ought to take it. The ship is lost anyway. It would be raising the dead.”

“Of course we'd have to ask them.”

“Go do it. Now! A westerly often follows a norther. They don't have much time.”

“I'll get Nathan to get them on the blinker light.”

“No! Go talk to them. You've got to see the captain himself. Nobody else can make this decision.”

As Paul climbed into the whaleboat, his mission seemed almost reasonable, but the closer he came to the destroyer, the crazier it sounded. What was he supposed to say: “I request permission, sir, to put explosives under your bottom and blow you off the rocks”?

The lieutenant who greeted him as he boarded the destroyer said he could not take him directly to his captain and asked him to have a cup of coffee in the wardroom while he awoke the executive officer. The music had stopped, but the whole ship hummed with auxiliary machinery and it was impossible to think of her as a derelict. His coffee was drawn from the silver tureen by a white-coated black mess steward and was served in a handsome cup with a blue stripe. The cream pitcher and sugar bowl were silver and the teaspoon had a monogram which Paul couldn't decipher. Soon the executive officer appeared, as immaculate and unruffled as ever. He listened without any visible emotion as Paul described Mowrey's plan.