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.'They're about forty miles south of us - the six Soviet trawlers,' Schmidt had said, pointing to his chart.'Spread out across our path like a screen.Quinn found them - before the black frost caught us he took his machine south to the limit of his fuel - and he thought he had a glimpse of a much bigger ship just about here.''Less than thirty miles away.The Revolution?''Could be.The fog down there closed in just as he spotted her.He thought he saw a big radar dome - the equipment she uses for tracking our satellites.We'll just have to make sure there's no collision when we're passing them.'Beaumont eased himself to a more comfortable position in the bunk.McNeill, the ship's doctor, had told him in a voice of some wonderment that he was still in one piece.'Your clothes and that canvas buffered you.The fact that you swung free from the mast without striking it helped - but you'll be here till we hit Quebec.'Beaumont didn't think so: he'd be up soon now.His torso was badly bruised, felt twice its normal size, which meant it felt very large indeed, but soon now.As he settled himself he winced.Well, maybe in a few hours.As he stared at the opposite wall without seeing it he thought about the short tune he had spent with Papanin in the hut on Target-5-He was remembering the Siberian's huge, shaven head, the very wide mouth, the almost Mongolian bone structure.A ruthless man.And now there were at least seven Soviet vessels in front of the Elroy which was carrying Gorov - and the Catherine charts.Reaching behind him, he fumbled in the pocket of his parka and took out the core tube.He weighed it in his hand - the entire Soviet underwater system, and Papanin knew where it was.'We'll just have to make sure there's no collision.' Schmidt had said, and Schmidt had been thinking of an accident.Beaumont was thinking of something quite different as he returned the core to his parka pocket, pulled the blankets up under his chin, and stared into the distance, trying to see the future.Then, without realizing it, he fell asleep.The Elroy had increased speed dangerously, was ploughing forward at half speed, her bows plunging deep inside a trough as a wave crashed over the port rail and submerged it.When the bows lifted again half the wave crest was attached to them, frozen solid to the rail which was now six inches thick with ice.'We'll have to take a chance,' Schmidt had decided ten minutes earlier.'We'll have to increase speed in the hope that we take her out of the black frost.''She'll go over.' DaSilva had stopped speaking when Schmidt looked at him, understanding the glance: they were going over anyway, so what was the difference? And every possible factor was deteriorating.The wind had increased to thirty-five-knot strength, was howling like a banshee among the ice-clogged rigging, hurling spume inboard, spume which froze in mid-air so it landed on the backs of the stooped men on deck like lead shot.They were losing the whole battle for survival on every front - and they knew it.The ice still piled up faster than they could get rid of it, was now solid to rail height on the port side.The rising wind was turning the sea they had to plough through into a churning cauldron of forty-foot waves, great green combers which came rolling above them, half as high as the remnant of the mast which was also canted to port.The giant combers inundated the deck frequently, swirled waist-high round men clinging to the icy lifelines, submerging the ice they were struggling to shift overboard.And frequently it brought with it floating spars of ice which crashed into the bulkheads with lethal force, such force that one spar shattered into pieces before the sea retreated.They lost one man in this way - hanging on to a lifeline he was pinned to the bulkhead, the whole of his middle crushed in by a heavy spar which came at him like a torpedo.It worried the men that they hadn't saved the body, but privately DaSilva thought it a blessing - the mangled corpse would later have had to be buried ceremonially.As Schmidt had said, they had to take a chance.So they went up to half power.'I think we ought to clear the decks,' DaSilva said fifteen minutes later.'Why?'Schmidt joined him at the port window and saw why.The port rail was submerged again and looking down from the bridge it was an extraordinary, terrifying spectacle.Only the top half of men waist-deep in water showed.The rail was gone, the mountain of ice had vanished, it was as though the bridge was floating by itself.Frozen spume bombarded the window and Schmidt had to move to find a still-uncovered patch he could peer down through.Schmidt went back to keep watch on the bows.'Keep them at work,' he ordered.'They can't work, for God's sake! How can they - waist-deep in sea?''Are they waist-deep now ?''No, not at the moment, but they will be when the next wave comes.''Keep them at work.'Deep down inside himself DaSilva knew that Schmidt was right.Every pound of ice they could lever overboard between inundations gave the ship a little longer to float, to live, to move forward to what might be safety, or a kind of safety.They had to get clear of the black frost or die.So for sixteen hours they changed the work teams at even more frequent intervals, gave the men time to go below to dry out and warm up before they froze to death, and then after a short break they toiled up again, to start all over again, to get rid of a pitifully small amount of ice, to face the cold and the wind and the sea and the danger of ice spars flattening them against the bulkhead walls
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