The Ice Limit

Make it good, Glinn murmured.

'South Georgia, we were attacked without warning by a Chilean warship in international waters. Shells struck our engine room, forecastle, and maindeck. We have lost headway and steerage. We are DIW, repeat, Delta India Whiskey.'

'Good Lord. Are you still under attack?'

'The destroyer struck an iceberg and sank thirty minutes ago.'

'This is extraordinary. Why...?'

This was not a proper question to ask during an emergency distress call. But again, this was a most unusual emergency. 'We have no idea why. The Chilean captain seems to have been acting alone, without orders.'

'Did you identify the warship?'

'The Almirante Ramirez, Emiliano Vallenar, CO.'

'Are you taking in water?'

'Nothing our bilge pumps can't handle.'

'Are you in imminent danger?'

'Yes. Our cargo could shift at any moment and the ship might founder.'

'Rolvaag, please stand by.'

There was a sixty-second silence.

'Rolvaag, we fully appreciate your situation. We have SAR assets standing by here and at the Falklands. But we cannot, I repeat, we cannot undertake a search and rescue until the storm abates to Force 10 or less. Do you have satellite communications?'

'No. Most of our electronics are down.'

'We will advise your government of your status. Is there anything else we can do?'

'Just a tow, as soon as possible. Before we end up on the Bransfield reefs.'

There was a whisper of static. Then the voice returned. 'Good luck, Rolvaag. God bless.'

'Thank you, South Georgia.'

Britton replaced the transmitter, leaned on the console, and stared out into the night.

Rolvaag,

6:40 P.M.

AS THE Rolvaag drifted out of the lee of the ice island, the wind caught it and shoved it brutally back into the storm. The wind gathered force, and in moments they were soaked again with freezing spray. Sally Britton could feel that the ship, with no headway left, was completely at the mercy of the storm. It was a repulsive, helpless feeling.

The storm began to strengthen with a clockwork regularity. Britton watched it build, minute by minute, until it reached an intensity she barely believed possible. The moon had fallen behind thick clouds, and nothing could be seen beyond the bridge. The storm was there, inside the bridge, all around them: in the lashings of spray, in the bits of razorsharp ice whipping through, in the smell of death at sea crowding in. But it was the sound that unnerved her most: a continuous dull roar that seemed to come from all directions at once. The temperature on the bridge was nineteen degrees Fahrenheit and she could feel ice building in her hair.

She continued to receive regular reports of their status, but found herself issuing few orders. Without power or steerage there was little she could do but wait. The feeling of helplessness was nigh unbearable. Based on the motion of the ship, she estimated significant wave heights at well over one hundred feet, and they were moving as powerfully as a freight train. These were the waves that circled the globe, pushed by the winds, never hitting shore, building, ever building. These were the waves of the Screaming Sixties, the biggest seas on earth. Only the sheer size of the Rolvaag was saving it now. As the ship rose on each wave, the winds climbed to a gibbering wail. At the peak of the wave the whole superstructure would vibrate and hum, as if the winds were attempting to decapitate the ship. Then there would be a shudder, and the ship would heel, slowly, achingly. The wave-by-wave battle was recorded by the inclinometer: ten, twenty, twenty-five degrees. As the angle became critical, all eyes stared at this normally insignificant instrument. Then the crest of the wave would pass and Britton would wait for the ship to recover: the most terrible moment of all. But each time the ship did recover, first imperceptibly, then more quickly, gradually righting into an equally unnerving overcorrection, as its great inertia caused it to lean momentarily against the wave. It would slide into the next trough, shielded by the surrounding mountains of water, into an eerie stillness almost more frightening than the storm above. The process would repeat again, and again, in an endless, cruel cadence. Throughout all this, there was nothing she — or any of them — could do.

Britton turned on the forward superstructure spotlights to check the Rolvaag's maindeck. Most of the containers and several davits had been torn from their moorings and swept overboard, but the mechanical door and the tank hatches were solid. The vessel was still taking in water from the shell hole near the king posts, but the bilge pumps were compensating. The Rolvaag was a well-built, seaworthy vessel; it would be weathering the storm nicely — were it not for the monstrous weight in her belly.

By seven, the storm had reached Force 15, with gusts up to one hundred knots. When the ship topped a wave, the force of the wind coming through the bridge threatened to suck them out into the darkness. No storm could keep up this kind of violence for long. Soon, Britton hoped, it would begin to break. It had to.

She kept checking the surface scopes, irrationally, looking for a contact that might indicate a rescue. But they were streaked with grass, giving mostly sea return. At the crest of each wave, they cleared long enough to show a growler field — small bergs — about eight miles ahead. Between the ship and the growler field lay a single ice island, smaller than those they had passed but several miles long nevertheless. As the ship was pushed deeper into the ice, the waves would mitigate; but, of course, then there would be more ice to deal with.

The GPS, at least, was steady and clear. They were about one hundred and fifty miles northwest of the South Shetland Islands, an uninhabited row of fanglike mountains sticking up from the Antarctic seas, surrounded by reefs and ripping currents. Beyond lay the Bransfield Strait, and, beyond that, pack ice and the brutal coast of Antarctica. As they drew closer to the coast, the seas would drop but the currents would get worse. One hundred and fifty miles... if South Georgia could launch a rescue at 6 A.M.... It all depended on that thing down in the hold.

She thought of asking Glinn for a progress report. But then she realized she did not want a report. Glinn had been as silent as she, and she wondered just what was going through his mind. She, at least, could read the movement of the ship. For the others it must be simple, sheer terror.

The ship rolled; a frightening roll. But as the roll approached the apex, she felt an odd hitch, a catch, to it. At the same time, Glinn raised his radio to his ear, listening intently. He saw her look.

'It's Garza,' he said. 'I can't hear him over the storm.'

She turned to Howell. 'Patch him through. Maximum gain.'

Suddenly Garza's voice boomed through the bridge. 'Eli!' he was calling. The amplification gave the panic in his voice a ragged, desperate edge. In the background, Britton could hear the groan and screech of tortured metal.

'Here.'

'We're losing the primary crosspieces!'

'Stick with it.'

Britton wondered at Glinn's calm, steady voice.

The ship began to heel again.

'Eli, the whole thing's unraveling faster than we can keep up with —' The ship heeled farther, and another scream of metal drowned out Garza's voice.

'Manuel,' said Glinn. 'Rochefort knew what he was doing when he designed that web. It's much stronger than you think. Take it one step at a time.'

Still the ship slanted.

'Eli, the rock — It's moving! I can't —' The radio went dead.

The ship paused, shuddered throughout its frame, then slowly began to right itself. Britton felt that little hitch