A Ravel of Waters

Tideman and I had our attention focused on the chart; we did not see what caused Kay to utter a further gasp of amazement.

Some freak of cold air interacting with warm vapour drew aside the mist curtain for a moment.

A single monster iceberg stretched from horizon to horizon. It blocked our entire view of the ocean to port as far as the eye could reach. It had the characteristic tabular shape of the Antarctic iceberg, but I had never seen anything to approach it in size. It towered some five hundred metres out of the water. Although this giant was the centre-piece, the rest of the panorama was equally breathtaking. Groups of smaller bergs, giants in themselves but puny by comparison with the monster, scattered the ocean ahead and on both sides of Jetwind3 now moving under reduced sail. The barrier of ice was already having a taming effect on the swells at the approaches to the bases.

Grohman said, 'It is the biggest iceberg ever seen in the Southern Ocean.' 'Trolltunga!' I exclaimed. 'Yes, Trolltunga,' he repeated.

Kay stared at the great berg as if mesmerized and shivered. I remembered her premonition of evil when she first heard the name Trolltunga.

'You're seeing Trolltunga only in old age,' Grohman continued, repeating what I had already heard from Brockton. 'It was first spotted by an American satellite in the Weddell Sea as long as fifteen years ago. Now, it is only about half its original dimension. Trolltunga has taken all those years to drift north from the main Antarctic ice shelf and it has lost size as it passed gradually into warmer seas. Now, as you can see, it is fast.' 'Fast?' exclaimed Tideman. 'What do you mean – fast?'

'The nearest comparison to Alolot I can make is the Burdwood Bank off the Malvinas – your Falklands,' he answered. 'There, every season, are gigantic accumulatdons of icebergs which have grounded in the shallow water after breaking free of the Antarctic pack. Don't forget, Molot's present position is still within the limits of drifting pack-ice. Trolltunga has rested stationary here for years. It forms the entire southwestern barrier of the base.'

It prompted the question which had been in my mind ever since the day in Albatros I had imagined I was suffering from hallucinations.

'How is the fog formed? The icebergs themselves are not enough to generate it.'

'I told you, Molot is a seamount,' said Grohman. 'It is a section of a highly unstable ocean-floor volcanic pattern which stretches southwestwards from the vicinity of Gough towards the Horn. You remember that some years ago Tristan da Cunha was almost destroyed by a volcanic eruption. Molot has the same characteristics, except that its volcanic crater lies just below the sea's surface. We have established that it is alive, but it is not active in the sense that it is liable to blow up at any moment. The underwater volcanic action in contact with the cold sea surrounding the icebergs causes the fog.'

'You keep saying we – do you belong to the Soviet Navy?' I ventured.

While he had been explaining the physical features of Molot Grohman's earlier hectoring, paranoid attitude towards us had abated. Now my question seemed to fuel it afresh. 'I am a patriot, an Argentinian,' he snapped. 'I am going to recapture the Malvinas – the Falklands – for Argentina.' 'That's a tall order,' I observed.

'You think so?' he sneered. 'Listen. For years I have led Group Condor, which began purely as a patriotic society. Under my leadership it became a para-military body, then finally a military strike force. But alone we could not mount an attack against the Malvinas. So we grouped ourselves with the super-power most likely to help us – the Soviet. From Molot here I will lead my assault force against the Malvinas.' A warning bell rang at the back of my mind. 'Why are you telling us all this, Grohman? It is top secret information’

I didn't like the way he laughed. 'Why shouldn't you know? You will never live to tell. That goes for Tideman as well. As for the woman, I think Kyyiv is about as security-safe as Siberia.'

I decided to play further on his deep-seated mania in order to elicit more information. 'How does Jetwind come into all this?'

'There was the danger that on her run from Montevideo to the Cape she would divert and discover Molot.' 'So that is why you murdered Captain Mortensen?'

Tideman added, 'Anyway, the Great Circle course from Montevideo passes hundreds of miles away from here.'

Grohman's eyes went from Tideman to me. They were merciless. 'You are only tiny pawns in a big game. So was Mortensen. His life didn't count for a damn beside the big issues. There was a danger that he might go south into the Molot area to look for better winds. I was planted aboard Jetwind in the first place – a long time ago, when she was building – to hold a watching brief, just in case. It proved to be a very wise precaution.'