Time of the Great Freeze (16 page)

Jim realized with a pang of sadness that the time of parting from Kennart had come. The fair-haired man stood alone on the shore, watching quietly. He had traveled with them a week; he had risked his life to guide them, and he had become one of them, for all his difference of background. He had been a friend, and friends were not easily come by in this frigid world.

"I wish you could come with us," Jim said.

"So, too, do I," Kennart replied. "But tasks await me. I have people who depend on me. I can go no farther."

"Is there any way we can thank you?"

Kennart smiled. "Not with gifts, Jim. You are still my guest, and I will take no gift of you. Except perhaps for the secret of hurling a huge man like a toy. Can you tell me how it is done?"

"It takes long training," Jim said with a laugh and a shake of the head. "I could teach you, yes-as fast as you could teach me how to cross the ice in safety."

"I understand," the other said. "Well, then. We come to the parting. I wish you fair voyage. And if ever you pass this way again, I bid you search us out."

"We will do that," Jim promised.

Kennart said good-by to each man in turn, while the seafarers hoisted their anchors. Jim clambered aboard the ship; Carl and Roy followed him. No one remained on shore, now, but Kennart, alone against a field of white.

The ship put out for sea. Jim remained at the rail a long time, staring at the dwindling figure on the shelf of ice. And then, at last, Kennart was lost to sight, and Jim turned away, silently wishing the brave Jersey a safe journey home.

After a day aboard ship, Jim decided that he very much preferred sledding over thin ice. Every pulse, every heave of the sea translated itself directly into a rolling motion underfoot. The crewmen, raised from childhood to this way of life, moved about with confidence and ease, smirking at the six unhappy landlubbers who clung grimly to support.

The ship was a floating village, Jim soon found. Down below were women and children, busy at tasks of their own. With so many dozens of people crammed aboard the vessel, privacy was unknown; no one had more than a couple of square feet to himself. The six passengers had been installed right on deck, near the stern; cold sea spray washed over them constantly, until they pitched their tents in self-defense.

It was not a comfortable journey. But the New York men had not asked for comfort, merely for a way across the open water. That, they were getting. The vessel slipped speedily through the sea, sailors working in shifts through day and night to make the most of the strong wind out of the west. Time blurred. There was nothing for the passengers to do aboard ship, since they could not speak a word to any of the seafarers, had no duties, and were too seasick most of the time to read or play time-passing games with one another. On, on, endlessly eastward they moved, the sea growing now choppy, now calm. Floating islands of ice drifted past. In places the ice floes were thick and numerous, and it seemed as though they might be approaching the far shore; but then the water cleared again, and nothing but open water stretched before them.

It developed that the seafarers' chief had been serious about wanting to learn the secrets of Jim's wrestling mastery. On a day of calm sea, he called for a demonstration, indicating by signs that Jim should teach them his art. Jim was amused to see that the chief himself did not come forward to take part in the demonstration. He sent in his stead a brawny young giant who towered half a head over Jim. Jim heard the chief saying something to his men, and it was easy enough to guess what it was: "I wish to watch and see how he does it," the chief was probably declaring, to conceal his unwillingness to have a second humiliation at Jim's hands.

Everyone who could be spared from duty gathered round to watch. Even some of the women peeped up from below decks. Jim's new adversary was no older than Jim, and just as fast on his feet, and twice as strong. But his only idea of wrestling was to lock his arms around his opponent and hug him to death. Again and again, the big fellow charged Jim, only to wind up slamming back-first into the hard deck. Bloody but unbowed, he picked himself up and tried again, and again, and again. He never seemed to catch on. Always, when he charged, there was an arm jutting on that could be caught, and deftly twisted, and used as a lever to send him flying. He didn't seem to understand that Jim was capitalizing on his momentum-that the harder he charged, the harder he was going to get slammed.

The "demonstration" lasted half an hour. Jim displayed his whole repertoire, the arm locks and back locks and flips and twists and parries. By the time the chief finally broke it up, Jim had worked up a hearty sweat but hadn't been hurt at all, and his victim was sullenly nursing an assortment of bruises and bone jars that he'd feel for a week.

Later, Jim saw some of the sailors practicing judo holds on each other. It was a comic sight. They were trying to be agile, trying hard to imitate Jim's use of leverage and momentum, but they just didn't have the knack. Somehow they invariably ended up gripping each other's wrists and swinging round and round in a wild, clumsy, foolish-looking dance.

"No," Jim told them. "You've got to get your
body
behind it. Like this. Imagine that you're a whip, and you're cracking like a pistol shot…"

Of course, they were unable to understand what he was telling them. He pantomimed it for them, and they smiled and nodded and went at it again, but as before they grabbed wrists and swung violently until it seemed both combatants would go flying off into the sea.

"Don't let it discourage you," Jim told them. "I looked just as silly, at first. It takes years of practice."

While Jim tried in vain to teach the sailors judo, Ted Callison was busy with the radio. He and Jim's father huddled for long hours over the set, trying to pick up London. They made contact, finally, and let the Londoners know that they were still in for a visit. London seemed surprised that the New York party had been able to travel so far in safety. Only two casualties out of eight, in several weeks of journeying, and the hardest part of the trip behind them…

"They're going to send a party out to meet us," Dr. Barnes reported. "We're going to try to make rendezvous with them somewhere on the European ice shelf."

That ice shelf grew daily nearer. There were delays, twice, when schools of dolphins came near the ship, and the seafarers put down boats of harpooners to take the prizes. Jim watched in awe as the sleek creatures sped by, and was equally impressed with the skill of the muscular harpooners. He thought of Chet, and how he would have loved to see the dolphins. Those nights, they fed on fresh meat.

Then came a day of storm at sea, and a thick band of cloud descended, fogging them in. Cold rain pelted down, and lightning flashed in the heavens, and the muffled boom of thunder rolled across the waters. The ship tossed wildly, while sailors ran to and fro and the six passengers kept to their deckside tents. It seemed as though they could never survive the fury of the storm, as though they were fated to end at the bottom of the icy sea after having come so far. Great slaps of drifting ice pounded at the hull like the hammers of giants, and the ship veered perilously, high waves crashing across the bow and sending cold water sluicing over the deck.

Toward midnight the storm relented. Almost miraculously, the fog cleared, and the rain tinned to snow, and the sea calmed. Overhead gleamed the moon, haloed by a cloud. White, fluffy flakes drifted down, glittering like tinsel in the night, and lost themselves in the sea. It was a scene of pure magic, as tranquil and delicate as the storm had been violent and tempestuous. Chilled and wet through, teeth chattering, Jim stood by the rail a long moment, looking moonward.

Day slid into day, and one day there was the flash of wings; the sound of mocking laughter on high, and gulls swept past and out to sea, soaring splendidly on the wind. Excitement spurred the passengers. Jim followed the birds with the field glasses until they were lost to view.

"We're nearing shore," Ted declared. "
We
must be. The crewmen are all pointing at the birds."

"Look at them!" Jim cried. "Look at them soar!"

Ted nodded. As always, his blunt, high-cheekboned face displayed little emotion. "They're pretty, aren't they?" he said in a matter-of-fact voice.

"They're marvelous," Jim said. "Look! Here come some more!"

Another flight of gulls sliced past, cresting the ship only feet from the sailtops, filling the air with their wild screeching. They, too, sped past, swirling downward to the water to harvest their lunch. Then they were gone.

Jim turned. The sailors, those fierce, red-bearded men, had gathered together on the foredeck, and stood with bowed heads while their captain intoned a series of short lines of verse. Even in the harsh seafarer language, the words sounded oddly beautiful. The ceremony lasted perhaps five minutes, and ended when a young crewman came forward carrying a slab of dried meat.

The captain hurled it into the sea. Then the assembly broke up. Its meaning was obvious: the sailors had been giving thanks for a safe crossing, and were making a gratitude offering to the god of the waters.

Late that afternoon, the shore of Europe came into sight.

A thin line of white rimmed the horizon. Ice floes clustered, thick in the water. Occasionally some gleaming, powerful creature could be seen, gliding through the water or sunning itself on a little island of ice-a walrus, perhaps, or a seal. Sea birds were common here, wheeling and shrieking overhead. The scene was much the same as that which they had left behind the day they parted with Kennart. A wide, flat sheet of ice stretched before them.

The vessel of the seafarers came to "port," anchoring against the ice shelf itself, and the sleds were lowered from the ship. One by one, the New Yorkers disembarked. As Jim started to go down the ladder, the seafarer chieftain suddenly came up to him, reached out, took his hand.

The bearded captain's grip was bone-crushing. Jim endured it, gritting his teeth. The big man smiled, drew close to Jim, pounded him playfully on the back.

The stink of salt fish came from him, and Jim fought for breath.

"Sure," Jim said, grinning back. "I understand. You have no hard feelings."

The chief said something in his incomprehensible language.

"Thanks," Jim said. "And I hope you have a safe voyage, too, wherever you re going. But I wish you'd let go of my hand. I may need it again."

The chief said something else, and released him. Jim smiled, clapped the bulky captain stoutly on the shoulder-the good one, not the one he had dislocated-and scrambled down the ladder before the seafarer could find some other equally strenuous way to show his friendship. Jim flexed his fingers as he left the ship. Nothing broken, he thought. Only bent, a little.

When all was unloaded, the seafarers raised anchor, lifted sail. They waved, shouted raucous farewells, as their ship began to glide off, southward along the ice shore.

"They aren't such bad sorts at all," Carl said.

"Just a bit roughhewn," Jim commented. "But friendly, once you get to know them."

Dr. Barnes came over. "We're going to start out right away," he said. "Unless anyone has any objections."

"How far do you figure we are from London, Dad?" Jim asked.

The older man shook his head. "About a thousand miles, I'd guess. Just exactly how far, I can't say. Dave is going to run some readings later on in the day. One thing's certain: we're well past the halfway point."

That was good news, Jim thought. If more lay behind them than ahead, there was no reason why they could not make it the rest of the way to London.

But he felt little jubilation at the thought. For two of those who had started out from New York, the trip had long since ended. Others might yet lose their lives before London was attained. And no one could predict the welcome they would get when finally they reached their long-sought goal. Right now, however, simply the hope of getting to London was enough to spur them on through hardship and danger. But if they reached London, and were turned away? Where to then? Back across the ice and sea to New York? No, that was impossible.

Jim preferred to think little of such things. There was time to confront trouble when it came to plague them; no need to fret ahead of time.

The sleds were fully charged. The six voyagers spent a while getting accustomed to
terra firma
again, to an environment that remained steady beneath their feet, and then they were off, once again journeying toward the sunrise.

This part of the ice pack was much like that which lay between the Jersey encampment and the sea. But they had no Kennart to guide them now, and could only trust to luck that they would avoid the snares and pitfalls of the ice. There was no sign of human life here, no abandoned igloos, no traces of nomad hunters. Animal tracks in the light covering of snow above the ice told of wildlife, but no creatures appeared.

Their luck was good. The ice was sturdy here, and no perils presented themselves. Their first day on the European ice shelf was the best they had had since leaving New York; they covered more than a hundred miles, coursing eastward in the encouraging knowledge that with each passing mile they were that much farther from the sea, that much closer to the solid ice that overlay the land ahead.

Ted was in constant contact with London, now. Here, in easy radio range, the London signal came in clear and sharp. A party had left the underground city, they learned, and was heading westward to meet them. The intended rendezvous was the glacier above what once had been the emerald isle of Ireland, and the Londoners provided crisp directions for the meeting.

"It sounds as if they've been out of their city before," Ted remarked. "They seem to know their way around on the ice fields."