AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Norway is out, obviously,” Bell said. He thought for a moment, and added, “I’d say Aberdeen, Scotland. We’ll find transport to England and sail back to the States from Southampton.”
“Right,” Fyrie said, and again addressed his crew. “After a quick stop in Aberdeen, we steam for Reykjavik and the loving arms of our families.”
“Or in your case, Arn,” a crewmate called, “any girl that’ll have ya.”
Bell gave the crew ten minutes to get into position. He needed to coordinate adding the thermite to the boiler with Ivar because once the reaction kicked in, the steam pressure would build rapidly. He carefully scraped some of the wax from the paper on one spot on the heavy bundle of chemicals. It would take just a few moments for the hot water in the system to dissolve through the unprotected paper. Once that happened, the thermite would ignite, and no force on earth could quench its searing chemical heart.
The Icelander stood by atop a separate ladder next to Bell over an open inspection port that had been unbolted from the tank. In his gnarled hands was a heavy wrench and a fist full of bolts for the platter-sized hatch.
“Ready?” Bell asked, and the man nodded.
The waxed paper bundle was just small enough to fit through the opening, and Bell made sure it didn’t rip on its way into the tank, because any spilled powder would ignite while still pouring from his hands. If such an accident occurred, he and Ivar would be cooked down to nothing but charred bones. The package hit the water with a weighty splash. Bell jammed the hatch back in place, and Ivar started hand-threading bolts into position. Bell took a couple of bolts from him so Ivar could start to tighten the bolts that much quicker. The last one was on and being wrenched down when from inside the tank came a hollow whoosh, like a zephyr caught in a tube. The thermite had lit.
Bell and Ivarsson scrambled down their ladders. The engineer went to check on the forest of pipes, gauges, levers, and valves that would convert the mounting pressure of superheated steam into mechanical energy sufficient enough to move the ship. Ivar watched the needle of one master gauge as it wound through the numbers until it quivered at the red “Do Not Exceed” mark and then arced past it. He plucked the battered fisherman’s cap from his nearly bald head and ceremoniously covered the dial. “Tell the captain we need to go.”
“Right.” Bell headed for the bridge three decks up.
Fyrie himself was at the helm, watching as two crewmen cast off the main lines and jumped aboard. There wasn’t a light on the bridge except for a faint glow around the main compass bolted to the deck on a chest-high liquid-stabilized mount. Out on the ship’s prow, silhouetted against the background lights of Sandefjord, stood the man called Arn. The harpoon cannon next to him looked like something dreamed up by science-fiction author Jules Verne or H. G. Wells.
“Ivar says to get going,” Bell said as soon as he entered the bridge. “He’s covered up one of the pressure gauges.”
Fyrie’s eyes flicked over for just a moment. “He does that a lot. Not to worry. The Hvalur Batur is a tough ship.” His hand reached for the engine telegraph and he ratcheted it back and then forward to quarter speed. At the stern, a single screw propeller linked to the whaler’s triple-expansion steam engine came to life for the first time in months. Fyrie worked wheel and throttle to edge the ship away from the dock as smoothly as possible.
Bell stole a glance at the guard shack. The lights were off and no smoke came from the chimney. He imagined the inebriated guard was asleep on the floor, curled around his now cooling stove like an overtired kitten.
Up ahead, a barge had drifted ever so slightly away from the pier. It was fifty feet long and almost twenty wide. Its cargo was mounded up over the gunwales and covered by thick tarpaulins. One of Fyrie’s men stood near its bow holding a lantern.
Already, the Hvalur Batur was picking up speed. Atop the platform on the whaling ship’s prow, Arn Björnsson manhandled the big harpoon cannon into position by pointing its barb-tipped projectile across the barge’s center. Satisfied with his aim, he cycled the trigger. The sound came like a brief thunderclap and any whaler in town who heard it would immediately recognize the sound, but it was one o’clock in the morning and Sandefjord slept on. The harpoon blasted from the cannon and sliced through the tarp to bury itself into the mountain of coal Captain Fyrie had been forced to unload—ironically, as a precaution against his escape—when his ship had been impounded.
The crewman on the barge—Bell recalled his name was Magnus—rushed to tie off the thick wire the harpoon had carried across to him in order to secure the scow to the whaling ship.
So confident was he in his crew, Fyrie didn’t slow at all or even pay particular attention. He adjusted the helm to get them out of the harbor as quickly as possible. He would take a moment to check to see if more lights were popping on around the town, but so far it didn’t appear that their escape had been detected. He chuckled.
Bell was watching astern, concerned as there became less and less slack in the towline, and he said, “Care to share?”
“I think when it comes time to explain how we pulled this off, they might just have to say magic, like you suggested.”
Bell grew concerned. The Hvalur Batur was up to six or seven knots and the fully laden barge was barely drifting. The shock of the line coming taut could easily snap the wire and ruin the escape before they’d even made it. “Ah, Captain,” he called a little nervously.
Fyrie followed Bell’s gaze and grinned knowingly. “A bull blue whale weighs a hundred tons. If we make a mistake with the harpoon, he’s got enough power to capsize this ship. Which is why—”
The cable running from a special hardpoint at the base of the harpoon gun to the barge bobbing in the whaler’s wake went taut, not with a jerk but with an elongated series of starts and stops that slowly transferred energy to the line itself. Just like that, the barge was up to speed and following behind the ship like a dog on a leash. There should have been a horrendous crash and yet there hadn’t even been a mild jolt.
“—under the prow is a room with a series of springs and pulleys that absorb and dissipate the energy of a charging whale or, in this case, the deadweight of our coal supply.”
Bell was impressed. “By doing it this way, you saved ten or fifteen minutes of fumbling around getting into position to take the barge under tow.”
The captain said, “I thought it worth the risk of firing the harpoon inside the harbor.”
Just then, Ivar popped onto the bridge. He’d recovered his cap and had it pressed down around his ears. “Just so you know, steam pressure’s holding nicely. We should get a half hour out of her at this speed, no problem. Neat trick, Mr. Bell. I salute you. That’s the good. The bad is, we need coal soon.”
“We’ll load what we can tonight from the barge and head across the strait for Skagen. We can fill our bunkers there and head north for Russia. It’s a delay of maybe fifteen hours, but we don’t have a choice. We simply don’t have the manpower to load that much coal ourselves.”
“And how long to get to Novaya Zemlya?”
“That will depend on the weather. If we get lucky, we will be ther
e two or three days before your deadline, Mr. Bell. If we’re not, we could find ourselves icebound until June.”
