Bear Island by Alistair MacLean

Author:Alistair MacLean
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: Action & Adventure
ISBN: 9780007289219
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 1971-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

The north-west corner of the Sor-hamna bight, where the Morning Rose had finally come to rest, was just under three miles due north-east, as the crow flies, from the most southerly tip of Bear Island. The Sor-hamna itself, U-shaped and open to the south, was just over a thousand yards in width on its east-west axis and close on a mile in length from north to south. The eastern arm of the harbour was discontinuous, beginning with a small peninsula perhaps three hundred yards in length, followed by a two hundred-yard gap of water interspersed with small islands of various sizes then by the much larger island of Makehl, very narrow from east to west, stretching almost half a mile to its most southerly point of Kapp Roalkvam. The land to the north and east was lowlying, that to the west, or true island side, rising fairly steeply from a shallow escarpment but nowhere higher than a small hill about 400 feet high about halfway down the side of the bight. Here were none of the towering precipices of the Hambergfjell or Bird Fell ranges to the south: but, on the other hand, here the entire land was covered in snow, deep on the north-facing slopes and their valleys where the pale low summer sun and the scouring winds had passed them by.

The Sor-hamna was not only the best, it was virtually the only reasonable anchorage in Bear Island. When the wind blew from the west it offered perfect protection for vessels sheltering there, and for a northerly wind it was only slightly less good. From an easterly wind, dependent upon its strength and precise direction, it afforded a reasonable amount of cover—the gap between Kapp Heer and Makehl was the deciding factor here and, when the wind stood in this quarter and if the worst came to the worst, a vessel could always up anchor and shelter under the lee of Makehl Island: but when the wind blew from the south a vessel was wide open to everything the Barents Sea cared to throw at it.

And this was why the degree of unloading activity aboard the Morning Rose was increasing from the merely hectic to the nearly panic- stricken. Even as we had approached the Sor-hamna the wind, which had been slowly veering the past thirty-six hours, now began rapidly to increase its speed of movement round the compass at disconcerting speed so that by the time we had made fast it was blowing directly from the east. It was now a few degrees south of east, and strengthening, and the Morning Rose was beginning to feel its effects: it only had to increase another few knots or veer another few degrees and the trawler’s position would become untenable.

At anchor, the Morning Rose could comfortably have ridden out the threatened blow, but the trouble was that the Morning Rose was not at anchor. She was tied up alongside a crumbling limestone jetty—neither iron nor wooden structures would have

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