A Grue Of Ice by Geoffrey Jenkins

Author:Geoffrey Jenkins [Jenkins, Geoffrey]
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2009-11-17T15:00:00+00:00

and striated, notched and grained, by the wind and the ice. The whaleboat swept in to within a cable's length of the shore. A long swell boomed past while Sailhardy held her in check, coming round in a broad reconnoitring circle. I saw the flat tabletop rock when the backwash recoiled from the cliff. I

started to say so, but Sailhardy had also spotted it.

" We're going in—now!" he called. The curious modulation in his voice made it clear above the thunder of the waves against the cliffs.

He flicked a glance over his shoulder and selected his roller. He dropped to a sitting position by the tiller. He swung the stern into the comber, plumed with white ice and blowing spindrift. Half-way to the flat rock, I whipped the sail off her. She scarcely lost way, the thrust of the swell was so great. Sailhardy gestured to me with his left hand:

he was about to lay her broadside on her port beam. One

moment we were in deep water, the next against the cliff. The rock lay exposed.

" Jump!" shouted Sailhardy. " Jump! Out! Out! Out!

Don't let her side touch, for God's sake!"

I was first out over the bow. Almost at the same moment, Sailhardy leapt over the stern. Our heavy boots scrabbled

for purchase on the rock as we held her, and the other three sprang clear. Without pausing, Sailhardy and I lifted the

boat bodily out of the water and staggered over the broken

rocks to the cliff face, out of the reach of the sea.

The beach on which we found ourselves was not much bigger than a tennis court. It was easy to see we had come

to the one and only landing-place, for where the rock formed a natural corner, out of direct reach of the sea and the wind, a flagstaff had been driven into the face of the cliff, so that it projected at an angle. The flag and the rope had long since gone, and the block at the top was rusted black. Under it

was a weathered inscription in Norwegian and English:

"Captain Harald Horntvedt, master of the Norvegia, formally took possession of Bouvet Island in the name of

Norway on this first day of December, 1927, and at this spot hoisted the flag of that country in due assertion of Norway's claim and sovereignty."

Upton read it and laughed. He seemed nearest the way I

had known him first. " The bastards!" he said without rancour. " They got here first, all right, and the British Government a year later waived all claims to Bouvet. But," 156

he added, and his voice was hard, " no one said anything about Thompson Island."

My objective at the moment was to try and find the depot hut. From the water-marks high above our heads, it was plain that the beach became submerged in a gale.

Sailhardy spotted the piece of board first. It had been fastened with iron spikes into the cliff on the left, or northern edge of the beach, where a headland jutted into the sea.

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