There were no Mordavian boats on the horizon: they had fallen back, been blown off course, or been submerged in the violent storm. The Sea Witch sailed on alone, into the Sea of Murmansk, where six British boats had already disappeared.
And yet Marina’s pulse jumped with the joy of being alive. She took a deep breath of air: cold, sharp and clear. It was like breathing water from the deepest part of the sea. How foolish to think that she had caused that storm. Now, as the boat glided through flat, black water, she knew that the sea would hardly do her bidding. She was a twelve-year-old girl, not a conjuror of storms.
Her breath turned to mist. She glanced at Jones. He looked thin and pale, his black hair standing up and his clothes wet and dishevelled.
The Commander’s face was grey and drawn as he spoke. ‘One of our crew has given his life to the sea. We stand together now to remember him and hope that he is at peace.’
Brown wiped a tear from his eye. He looked embarrassed when he saw Marina notice. ‘I didn’t like Trenchard, it’s true, but no one deserves to die like that. Years and years at sea, and I’m no less afeared of a death by drowning.’
Marina asked Brown to help her open the door to the hold. The dogs had been quiet all this time and she feared the worst. But as they heard the bolts being pulled back, they set up their welcome chorus. Marina climbed down, calling each one by name. They stood up and called their names back to her. But there was one who still lay on his side. Paddy. Marina was so keen to open the cage that her fingers made a muddle of the job. The dogs jumped up and stuck their paws through the bars, making the job harder, but eventually the padlock obeyed her hands, the door swung open and the dogs spilled out. She crawled in to be next to Paddy. Still he didn’t move, didn’t thump his tail on the straw. She put her hand into his deep fur, her fingers disappearing. She felt his nose. It was warm. He had been sick.
‘Paddy,’ she breathed. ‘Oh, Paddy, what’s wrong?’ Hearing her voice, his eyes flickered and he gave a great shuddering sigh.
She sat with him for a while. The Sea Witch drifted. The engine had been damaged in the storm and she could hear the Chief Engineer banging about in the engine room. Above, the men were checking the damage to the boat. The rope was missing from the winch, but they had no need for nets and fishing for now.
She went to fetch Paddy some fresh water. As she was filling the bucket, Perkins sidled up to her.
‘Was it you?’ he said quietly, keeping an eye on the Commander and Finchin.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I saw you. On the stern. When the storm came. You wasn’t afeared. I’ve just heard that those with your blood – don’t take offence, I mean nothing by it – but those with your blood, they can call up a storm.’
‘What do you mean, my blood?’
Perkins looked troubled. ‘Nothing, miss. I meant nothing.’
A cry of alarm. ‘Ice!’ It was Brown, shouting; and again, his voice hoarse, ‘Iiiiiiiiice!’
‘Jones! Denham!’ her father barked.
Marina scrabbled out of the cage and hurried to answer her father. ‘Commander!’
She saw Brown hanging over the edge of the boat, his eyes fixed on the horizon. There, a huge castle of ice floated towards them.
‘Keep looking for icebergs,’ her father ordered. ‘Get Cook and his Mate out here, too. Perkins, take soundings. The sea will be getting shallower. I don’t want the hull ripped open by ice. And Brown, get the Chief Engineer to give us more power, so that we don’t drift towards those things. They’re more dangerous than a Mordavian destroyer. Quieter, too. Finchin, steady at the wheel. We’re still heading north, but be prepared to swing the boat to starboard.’
Could her father not feel the current, Marina wondered. Some channel of water deep beneath the hull of the Sea Witch was pulling them on. They would skirt the iceberg, just. She knew the current would not fail them. The boat was being pulled north, like a child’s toy on a piece of string. But how could she explain?
The vast white ice castle creaked in agony as it floated through the flat black water. The engine found more strength and the boat moved more swiftly away from its deadly progress.
Marina was about to return to nurse Paddy when she saw something else on the horizon. ‘Ice!’ she cried out. ‘Portside!’
‘And starboard!’ Jones yelled.
A whole range of ice. Her father leapt down the steps from the bridge and joined them on deck. ‘At last – Pechorin Island.’ His eyes glittered with excitement as he turned to take in the ice cliffs that seemed to have risen up from the sea without warning.
‘Finchin? Hold her steady until I give you the command. Don’t turn too soon.’
The little boat sailed round the edge of this ice fortress. And, like a fortress, it seemed just as impossible to enter.
‘Now!’ her father cried. ‘Portside! And be quick about it!’
The prow of the Sea Witch turned sharply, as if attempting to throw herself at the ice. But a narrow gap had appeared in the ice wall and a black path of seawater led them into the frozen interior of the island.
‘Easy! Easy!’ her father called out.
The engine stuttered as the boat was held in the water against the current. And then, painfully slowly, the Sea Witch nosed through a narrow corridor in the ice. The channel was so narrow that Marina and Jones could have put their hands out and touched the glistening blue-white battlements. Outcrops of ice hung over the deck. The winch arm caught on one of these and a huge block of ice fell into the water.
The Sea Witch now inched slowly into
