ICEBERGS FLOATED ALL around, like gigantic white beasts asleep in the water. When would they awake? In the sunlight their whiteness sparkled, dazzling the eyes. When there was a mist they emerged like the silent ghosts of sunken ships. On clear nights the moonlight slipped off them as if they were made of green glass.
For a week the Fortune Bey sailed amongst the slumbering white giants. The sailors huddled in their cabins or drank mugs of scalding tea in the galley. Only those who were needed for a job went above deck. Water froze and the air was icy. Captain Wrick began to wonder whether the time had come to sail out of the freezing seas, admitting defeat. The icebergs were enormous, they could never hope to tow them. Always there was the danger of seeing one too late in a fog, or of being thrown against one by the wind. And sooner or later there would be a storm. Then the silent, white beasts would awaken. The wind would howl and their great white bodies would pitch and shudder in the waves, crushing anything that crossed their paths.
It happened that night. A claw of ice tore at the heart of the Fortune Bey.
It began with a terrible screeching, as if the very timbers of the Bey were in agony. Captain Wrick sat bolt upright in his hammock. Bartlett and Jacques le Grand awoke with a jolt. All over the ship, sailors opened their eyes in the darkness, their stomachs knotted at the sound. They jumped up and ran out of their cabins, not even stopping to throw on their shirts, pouring up the stairs and onto the freezing deck, where they stopped, aghast, at the sight that met their eyes: a wall of ice standing in the mist not more than a mast-length from the side of the boat, and the Bey scraping across the long jagged shelf of ice that stretched underwater.
The screeching went on and on. The Bey was moving slowly. The ice scratched and tore at it. The sailors stood transfixed, as if unaware that they were freezing, as if the noise itself nailed them to the spot. Then all at once Captain Wrick’s voice was heard, calm, steady but desperate, ordering the men across. Across! Across to the other side of the ship, where their weight might help to dip the Bey and release it from the ice. Men ran, slipping and sliding over the frozen deck. Bartlett and Jacques ran as well with all the Desperation in their bodies. ‘Across! Across!’ came Captain Wrick’s voice, and now it was close to them, because he had run across as well, with every sailor that was on the ship.
Still the timbers of the Bey shrieked. Now the men could only listen and watch, waiting for the Bey to pass the iceberg and hoping they would still be afloat at the end of it. They stared at the wall of ice as the ship moved slowly along it. Every screeching of the timbers was like a knife plunging into their bellies. Some held their breath, some mumbled prayers. None dared to look away from the iceberg, as if it held them all in its power.
The screeching stopped.
Suddenly there was silence. It seemed so deep that it could scarcely be real.
The Bey pitched, rolled a little, then straightened.
Still hardly anyone dared move. What would happen now? The iceberg had disappeared into the mist from which it came. Was the ship filling with water under their feet? What was left of the timbers of the Fortune Bey? The Bey’s life did not end that night. The ship was wounded, but not killed. They found a small leak near the prow, and the carpenter repaired it. The sturdy timbers of the Fortune Bey had saved them all. But if the water had been a couple of inches shallower, or if the ice had been a tiny bit more jagged, or if the Bey had not dipped when the men moved to the side, then the entire bottom of the ship would have been left behind. This time it had survived. But if they stayed in the freezing seas, Captain Wrick knew, another of the white beasts would eventually claim it.
That morning, Captain Wrick told Bartlett and Jacques le Grand that he was turning back. He didn’t say it sadly or happily. He said it in his usual calm, steady way, just as he had told Bartlett that he would take him in the first place. Bartlett nodded. There was no point arguing. Captain Wrick had said that he would try to get an iceberg, and he had tried his best. There was no point offering him more of the Queen’s rubies and gold coins to persuade him to change his mind.
Jacques didn’t try to persuade him either. After all, if they didn’t get an iceberg, they could finally forget all about this ridiculous idea of taking a melidop to the Queen.
‘All right,’ Bartlett said to the captain. ‘But it’s still possible we’ll find an iceberg that’s the right size.’
‘I’m not going to look for any more, Bartlett. We’re turning back.’
‘No, but we could find one on the way.’
Captain Wrick smiled. ‘It’s not very likely, you know. But if we do find one, we’ll take it. I didn’t risk my ship for nothing, Bartlett. I want one as much as you.’
‘I know.’ Bartlett got up.
‘Where are you going?’ asked the captain.
‘To the crow’s nest.’
‘There’s someone there already, Bartlett. Stay here where it’s warm.’
Bartlett shook his head. There was always someone in the crow’s nest at the top of the mast, but it was a monotonous job and the lookouts did not necessarily pay as much attention as they should. For example, they could easily miss a medium-size iceberg that was far away on the horizon, where it would look no bigger than a dot.
Bartlett left the cabin. He climbed the mast. He was beginning to think he had been wrong about getting a melidrop. He thought it would require only Inventiveness, but last night they had also needed Desperation to survive. Now Bartlett had a feeling that it would require Perseverance as well.