North Cape

Larkin hung exhausted and freezing as the: ship straightened and lifted more easily into the next wave, now chasing water to the crest. Water was no longer breaking over her bow in a steady stream, but came instead in fitful spurts. Larkin felt two hands go under his arms and he was lifted to his feet. The forward portion of.the bridge on which he stood was now in the lee of the wind as the storm pounded in from directly astern. Half supported, he stumbled across the deck and into the heat and glare of the bridge. After the intense cold, the 72° temperature of the interior was almost intolerable. He slumped into the seat and Folsom pulled off his helmet and boots. It was Bridges who had come out onto the deck for him, and now he stripped off his mask and gloves and fetched a cup of hot coffee. Larkin gulped it down as fast as the scalding liquid would allow.

Folsom walked easily across the bridge to where Larkin was seated clutching his coffee. He stopped and grinned down at the captain. "Aren't you the iron sailor," he chuckled in a low voice. Larkin smiled back.

'I thought I was before I went out there. Now I'm not so sure'

Folsom bent to read the dials on the strain gauges. "Well, at least that's one worry gone. At this rate we could keep on for the next ten years."

"Good. In that case, I'm going below for some sleep. Call me in two hours."

"I'll call you when we hit the rendezvous point, not before." Larkin glanced up, startled.

"Not before I said."

The captain stood up, trying valiantly to square his shoulders. "That is mutiny, I think, Mr. Folsom," he said in mock anger.

"Yeah, I know. Now get below, before I call a marine to escort you." Folsom watched fondly as Larkin went below to his quarters, then he turned and went back to the plotting table. He studied the map and the course he had laid out to the rendezvous point for a long while, then he went to stand before the screen. He reached down and flicked on the searchlights and swiveled them around to scan the sea on both sides of the bow. Clean circles of light were cut into the mountainous waves by the two million candlepower lights, which picked green out of the freezing Arctic waters and gleamed off white crests now blowing in the same direction as the RFK. He concentrated on the motion of the ship under his feet and found that she was moving in a rhythmic dance in time to the roll of the waves under her keel. Darkness had fallen in all of its intensity. The frozen air glistened with a million scattered stars, the very crispness of their light indicating the depth of the cold. Low on the southern horizon was the storm bank, spun out from the leading edge of the storm. Folsom knew that the seas would be at their worst in that area. But they could run on into the sheltering lee of the Soviet coast, safe in the knowledge that no Russian ship or aircraft could put out to look for them, nor would submarines be cruising near enough to the storm-wracked surface to spot them electronically. By the time the storm abated enough for the Russian Navy to resume regular patrols, they should be putting into the Glyde, their intermediate base before sailing for Newport Naval Base, Rhode Island.