The Norwegian whaler was leaking blood.
It was late in the day, the sun sinking into a chill haze and the wind slowly rising. The Schwabenland rolled uneasily in the growing swell, Hart feeling slightly ill as he stood at the rail and studied the carcass being towed behind the Aurora Australis. The whale's body had been pumped full of compressed air to keep it afloat and its tail rose and fell in the swells with a doleful wave, leaving a trail of scarlet. Jansen had struck at the pod. Now a boat was fastening a flag to the beast and the Norwegian was cutting the whale loose to drift for later recovery. His ship began to leave a broader wake as it accelerated, aiming for the survivors. Aiming toward Greta Heinz.
Hart had gone out on deck after another frustrating encounter on the bridge. The Norwegians and Germans had arrived at the whales at almost the same time, Jansen swinging away to hunt down a stray at the edge of the pod. As the Germans slowed to a drift while considering what to do, the Norwegian's harpoon had made a crack clearly audible across the icy sea. Drexler watched unhappily, mentally calculating how far he dared push the situation.
"Are we too late?" asked Feder.
In answer, the feeding whales swam past the German ship as if instinctively seeking shelter, water roiling when they surfaced. Suddenly the Schwabenland was interposed between hunter and hunted.
"It appears not," decided Drexler. He picked up the radio. "This is the Schwabenland calling Aurora Australis. We're conducting a scientific survey of this pod of whales and your hunting is disrupting our investigation. We request that you depart immediately."
"I'm sorry, my friends," Sigvald Jansen's voice crackled back. "We got here first."
Drexler considered a moment. "These are now German territorial waters by right of exploration and formal claim," he tried.
"The hell they are. We follow the rules of the Whaling Convention and no other. Haven't you heard of freedom of the seas?" Jansen clicked off, ignoring further calls.
The Germans looked at each other. "Greta, do you know what kind of biological study you want to conduct here?" Heiden asked.
"To sample for krill and observe the whales' behavior from the motor launch. Can some sailors get me close?"
"I think so."
Hart had come back up from the galley, uneasy at the idea of putting Greta out on the sea. "Let's think about this," he cautioned again. "You're going to put her out there in an open boat with this Sigvald Jansen firing his harpoon gun?"
"Only to establish that we're doing legitimate scientific research," Drexler said, a note of scorn in his voice. "There's no danger, Hart, if that's what has aroused your famed prudence. We're simply establishing our legitimate claim to this pod."
"I'm worried about her, not us. She's the one at risk."
"It's all right, Owen," Greta assured. "The whales are shy."
"That whaler isn't. What if we have a confrontation?"
"Then we'll win and the fish eaters will go home," Drexler said. He turned to Greta. "Don't listen to Hart. These whalers won't come near you or your whales. I suspect that with us on the scene they'll content themselves with their one kill and go back to their factory ship. If not, we'll warn them off with the Schwabenland. Our ship is twice their size."
"I still think this is a needless confrontation," the pilot insisted.
"And I think you were hired to provide technical advice, not opinions," Drexler retorted. He turned again to the biologist. "Greta? This is your decision."
She watched the whales, her face becoming determined. "I want to go. This is the kind of observation I came to Antarctica to make. I just don't want a fight."
"The whole point of this is to avoid future fights, by making clear our position."
"Greta, there's no need for this," Hart tried.
"We've been pinned to the coast, conducting your aerial exploration, Owen," she replied. "You've had your chance and this is mine." She turned to Drexler. "I'll go fetch my nets."
Hart unhappily watched her go. "Your bravado could put that woman in danger."
"Only if your timidity prevents my protecting her from that danger. Why don't you stay off the bridge if our course disturbs you?"
Now she and the launch were a speck following the ephemeral blowhole mist. And Sigvald Jansen, far from being satisfied with one whale, was pointing on the same course.
The Schwabenland began to pick up speed too, circling some icebergs as it tried to maintain a barrier. Hart found himself alone on deck. The mountaineering troops were staying out of sight and the crew was busy driving the ship. He was uneasy at the nearness of the icebergs, carved into baroque castles by sun and wind. Some were sharpened to points, others undercut by caves, still more constructed of arches and buttresses. In the growing overcast they looked opaque and dull, rocking on the sea with nodding menace.
Fritz came to the rail with a thermos and Hart scented coffee. "I see we've made a detour," the German said.
"More like a wrong turn." Hart accepted a cup. "Drexler wants to claim whales as well as a continent, so we're chasing fish. And if Norwegians are anything like Alaskans, all hell is going to break loose when we try to interpose the Schwabenland between Sigvald Jansen and his whales."
"Serve him right." It was unclear who Fritz meant.
"Meanwhile the only woman in a thousand miles is out there in an open boat, thanks to our crazy political liaison."
"Is he so crazy? Now the woman requires rescue."
Hart looked at the sailor sourly. "So this idiocy is a mating game?"
"Simply human nature at its baldest, Owen."
"Jesus." The pilot let the coffee steam play across his face. "Drexler's version is that Germany is just trying to get its rights back."
"Germany's just trying to get its balls back. Especially one German. You know, Owen, you shouldn't have embarrassed him in the plane. Not in front of Greta."
"He had it coming. If he wasn't so arrogant- like this little stunt here- he wouldn't get embarrassed."
Fritz gave Hart a long look. "Everyone, everywhere, trying to get their balls back. Right? There you have all of human history."
Hart laughed, even at himself. "Male history!"
Fritz shook his head. "Human history."
At first Jansen appeared to be turning away, either to leave or chase another whale at the periphery of the pod. Then, as if thinking better of it, he swung again and began throwing up an arcing bow wave as his whaler cut through glassy swells, a Norwegian sailor at the bow bracing himself against the shoulder struts of the harpoon. He was heading right for the heart of the pod. Straight for the motor launch with Greta.
"My God," said Feder on the bridge. "He's making for the woman."
"He thinks we'll back down and flee," Heiden assessed.
"A foolish assumption," said Drexler. "I'll be damned if I'm going to let him come close to Greta." He bent to the intercom that was connected to the engine room. "Full speed ahead! Full speed! We're going to push those arrogant sons of bitches all the way back to Norway!"
"Jurgen, you're going to risk collision?"
"No." The voice was cold. "He risked collision. And now he's going to be forced to turn away."
The final German surge sent an excited shudder through every rivet of the ship. Hart had gone to the bow to watch and the full powering of the engines made the deck tremble beneath his feet. Black smoke boiled out of the Schwabenland's stack, and Greta and the sailors in the motor launch were steering hurriedly out of the way. Yet the charging whalers seemed oblivious to the approaching German seaplane tender.
Hart glanced back upward at the bridge. He could see Drexler up there against the glass, grimly determined, his eyes reflecting the mental calculation of his navigation. Heiden was less visible in the shadows, watching from his chair. Across the water, Greta's motor launch was abandoning the whales.
The pilot looked ahead again. One ship or the other would give way. Would have to. Norwegian sailors began appearing at the rails of their whaler, waving the Germans off or shaking their fists. Yet the Schwabenland didn't waver, thrusting forward like a Roman ram. Closer and closer the whaler loomed, the Norwegians becoming more and more distinct, their features distorted by anger or fear, the harpoonist looking anxiously first at a targeted whale and then at the racing research ship more than a hundred feet longer than his own vessel. The water separating the two shrank to a lake, a pond, a moat. Hart could see the streaks of rust on the Aurora Australis, a deck gutter stained with blood. "Jesussss…" He seized the deck's anchor chain for support.
Jansen finally swerved.
It was too late to avoid a collision but the blow was more glancing. The whaler swelled to fill everything Hart could see and then there was a great echoing boom and a howl of metal as the two hulls hit and ground against each other. Despite his grip the pilot was knocked sprawling back over the anchor chain. The growling screech went on and on, the bow of the whaler slithering along the side of the bigger research ship, the Norwegians being bulldozed off course. Then they were past, the Aurora Australis out of speed and bobbing in their wake, the harpoonist apparently knocked from his perch.
There were howls of triumph on the German bridge. The Schwabenland began to circle back to pick up Greta, who was waving frantically. The whaler appeared to be backing off.
Hart ran angrily up the outside ladder to the bridge.
Drexler was occupied on the radio but he glanced up at the American with irritation. The sound of Jansen's curses were crackling over the speaker, his voice a rage. "Fucking krauts!" the Norwegian roared. "Look what you've done to my ship, you Nazi bastards!" The Germans instinctively turned to see. The whaler's bow was slightly crumpled and its side hull was bruised, the plates showing a ripple in the dull light. Discoloration from the scraping ranged from bare metal to red undercoating to the Schwabenland's own green hull paint.
"That was insane!" Hart shouted.
"Silence!" barked Heiden, in no mood for criticism. His Prussian features could have been carved out of stone, his voice forged in the cold of the polar plateau.
"But Captain, for God's sake- "
"Enough!"
Jansen was still apoplectic on the radio. "You sausage-headed lunatics!" he roared. "You'll pay for that, pay every damned pfennig, and Oslo will make sure your bosses have your hide! In twenty years at sea, that was the most outrageous, dangerous, arrogant- "
Drexler cut him off. "It was your bow that struck our side, Captain," he snapped. "A commercial vessel interfering with the mission of a scientific research ship, trying to force its way into our sample pod of whales- "
"A violation of every rule of safe navigation- "
"We will file a diplomatic complaint about your whaling in German territorial waters, offshore from a clear German claim you'd already been informed of- "
"Fuck you with a horse's dick." The radio went dead.
Drexler smiled in triumph. "Well. That little whale hunt was cut short." He looked out toward the stern. Greta's launch was being hoisted aboard. "And perhaps we've indeed learned what brings the creatures to these icy waters." He took a breath. "I trust our damage was not too severe."
Sailors had come to report. "We lost some paint," Heiden summarized.
Greta came hurrying breathlessly into the bridge in boots and oilskins. She looked alarmed. "I thought we were simply going to warn him off!"
"I tried," Drexler said. "He ignored me."
"My God, Jurgen, I thought you were going to sink both our ships!"
"There was never any danger and no need to break off your biological investigation. Everything is fine." He swung around to the pilot. "As for you, Hart, I must remind you again that you're a hired aerial consultant, an American national, and have no say, and no right to comment, on the operation of this ship. And I told you to stay off the bridge."
But Owen wasn't listening. He was staring out the bridge's side windows at the Norwegian whaler. "He isn't giving up," he said quietly.
Indeed, the Aurora Australis had renewed its course for the receding whales, its bow wave steadily climbing again. They could recognize Jansen on the wing of his bridge, making an obscene gesture.
"Unbelievable." Drexler frowned. "Ridiculous obstinacy. Well then. Full speed ahead!"
"Jurgen, no," Greta said. "We've made our point."
The political officer ignored her and picked up the engine room intercom. "Speed, dammit! I asked for speed!"
"Jurgen, you've made your gesture- "
"Quiet!" Too late he tried to bite it back. She looked stricken. He took a breath, laboring with his emotions. "Please, Greta. It's time to establish claim to these waters and fulfill what the Reich Minister sent us down here for.
I'm not afraid of a few damned whalers. We'll have it out now, and then it will be over."
"Jurgen…" she pleaded.
"Captain, a course to intercept," he ordered. "Hart, get out."
The pilot went to the bow again, his jaw clenched. Everyone a damn fool, as Fritz had said. He didn't see the little sailor but the German pilots, Lambert and Kauffman, joined him as spectators. The ships were racing on more parallel courses this time, the Schwabenland angling toward the Norwegian whaler and the spume of the whales a gossamer lure to the surging vessels. The sky continued to darken and the horizon was shrinking. "Snow," Hart predicted to himself.
The German ship was straining to cut the Aurora Australis off. Again the gap of water narrowed between them, but more slowly this time. The harpoonist was back, Hart saw, and the side of the whaler that had sustained damage was facing away. Like a recurring nightmare, nothing seemed to have changed; the collision seemed doomed to happen all over again.
Then Jansen appeared on his bridge wing like a huge black crow, oilskins flapping in the wind. He lifted his hands in warning.
He had a gun, a rifle or shotgun.
Hart looked up at the bridge. Greta was gone. Drexler appeared calm, looking at the Norwegian with amused scorn.
The two ships came closer, the foamy black water between them like a rushing chute. They were going to collide again.
Jansen aimed.
"Get down!" Hart shouted, lunging for Kauffman. There was a rattle like hail and a boom snatched away by the wind, the noise reaching them after the pellets had. The Norwegian had fired.
Lambert had fallen on top of them, howling. "Shit! Oh, damn! Damn, damn, damn!" He'd been hit. There were bright drops of blood on the deck and the pilot's parka was pierced by several dark shotgun holes, some welling red.
Hart jerked up. The gap between the ships was widening, the Schwabenland finally swerving away. The crazy Norwegian fired another blast, this time toward the bridge. Hart couldn't see anyone up there and supposed they'd ducked. More pellets rang against the steel.
"Jesus, it hurts," Lambert groaned.
Then there was a deeper report, and then several more. The SS mountaineers had emerged with semiautomatic carbines and were firing back. Now the Norwegians were scattering, Jansen ducking into his bridge and others sprawling on deck, either from being hit or in a scramble for cover. "Christ on a crutch," Hart breathed. Drexler and Jansen had started a war.
"Help me, Owen!" It was Kauffman. The German pilot wanted to carry his injured friend below. Nodding, the American took Lambert's legs as Kauffman did his shoulders and they carried him to a hatchway. They could hear heavier bullets striking the Schwabenland: more of the Norwegians were firing back, probably with hunting rifles. The two pilots accidentally slammed Lambert's shoulder into the hatch coaming as they were dragging him through and he yelped in pain.
"For God's sake, let me walk to the infirmary, you idiots! It's not that bad unless you finish me off."
They set him down. "Sorry, Siegfried," Kauffman said, gasping for breath. "We weren't prepared for this."
"Now I have to face that animal doctor Schmidt. Of all the luck…"
The companionway steps rang from pounding feet above and Drexler was on top of them, breathless and excited. "You two!" he shouted at Kauffman and Hart. "Get to the planes! The one with the working radio! We need to use the advantage we have; you're going to take some of my troops up with you and end this once and for all!"
"What?" Kauffman asked.
"We have some grenades, some explosives. We're going to attack from both air and sea and end this as quickly as we can, before more Germans are hurt!"
Hart groaned. "Jurgen, you're going to bomb them? For Christ's sake, let's break this off before someone gets- "
"Silence! Another word from you and I'll have you tossed overboard! If you don't want a part of this, coward, then get below!"
"I'll be damned if I'm going to bomb- "
"Fine. You're out of it. You!" He pointed at Kauffman. "Get the plane warmed up. That's an order."
Kauffman had paled. "Jurgen, Owen is right- "
"Now, dammit! They fired first. They're lunatics! Crazy men! Do you want more of your shipmates hit?"
Kauffman bit his lip, agonizing. "Is this an order?"
"On the authority of Hermann Goring and the SS!"
"I want it in writing."
"I'll carve it in stone! Now go!"
He nodded unhappily. "All right."
"Go back on the starboard side in case there's more gunfire. You'll be shielded."
"Yes, Major." He left for the plane. Drexler bounded back up to the bridge.
Hart helped Lambert walk down to the infirmary and then stood inside the ship, undecided. The Schwabenland tilted first one way, then another, swerving as it danced with the Norwegians. He was tired of being called a coward. He walked aft to where the seaplane catapults were. The propellers of Passat were beginning to spin and the Aurora Australis appeared headed for them again. Hart ran to the airplane's hatch and climbed inside. Looking down the dim fuselage he saw four of the mountaineers crouched there, sorting out hand grenades. One had a submachine gun. Everyone has gone mad, he thought. Kauffman was studying his instruments in the cockpit. "I'll co-pilot, Reinhard," the American offered grimly. "It's wrong to stick you with this lunacy alone."
The German glanced back and shook his head. "No, get out of the plane, Owen. I appreciate the gesture but better that only one of us has to live with this. With any luck, I'll end this quickly and chase them away."
"If they shoot and hit you…"
"They won't. All they've got is a few rifles. Get out."
"I'm not leaving, dammit."
"Get out now! Now! Look, they're approaching, I need to get us off! Please!"
Hart looked. The whaler was looming closer again. Gunfire crackled. For God's sake, what was Jansen doing? He hesitated just a moment longer.
"All right." To hell with it. Let the Germans have their war.
Hart dropped out of the plane's belly and a sailor slammed the hatchway shut. The engine howled and the airplane shivered, ready to go. Hart backed away toward the Boreas. Kauffman glanced outside, grinning fiercely, and gave a thumbs-up. Beyond, the American could see the looming hull of the Aurora Australis. A crewman reached to fire the catapult.
Before he could launch, there was another bang and then an explosion.
The cockpit of the Passat disintegrated, pieces of metal skittering across the stern deck of the German ship. Hart was hit with a spatter of blood. Then the whaler was swerving steeply away, leaning, a line drawn from the shattered airplane cockpit to the Norwegian's bow.
"Jesus!" The flying boat had been hit with the whaler's explosive-tipped harpoon. Now the flanges of its head were buried in the remains of the cockpit, pulling at the Dornier. Reinhard Kauffman was dead, his remains hurled at Hart and the stunned sailors. The mountaineers inside were shouting as the plane began to tip. A soldier tumbled from its belly, then another.
The Passat tore free of its catapult, one wing dipping over the Schwabenland's side. It caught for a moment, leaned precariously, and then lurched. The harpoon line snapped but the pressure had been enough. The airplane toppled into the sea with a crash.
"Men overboard!" The cry went up around the ship.
Sailors ran to fling life rings at the bobbing airplane. The Schwabenland's engines slowed and the ship began a tight turn. The two remaining mountaineers popped up in the ocean next to their airplane and swam onto its wing.
"Lifeboat! Man the lifeboat!" The craft began to be lowered. The shattered seaplane was slowly filling, the mountaineers sinking with it, the wing shining blue as it was enveloped by cold water. The lifeboat hit the water with a splash and reached the mountaineers just as the airplane sunk out from under them, still looking as if it was trying to fly as it slid into the deep. The soldiers were hauled aboard half dead from the shock of the water, ice forming on their clothes.
Then with a whoosh and cloud of white steam, a crewman released the air pressure on the port catapult. Its usefulness was over.