The Blue Ice

'An accident?' He laughed. 'Dahler has been sailing boats all his life. That was no accident, Mr Gansert. You heard what was said between us in the saloon just before we came on deck.'

'You were threatening to have him arrested,' I said. 'But that doesn't prove that he tried to — to involve you in an accident.'

To murder me I think you were going to say.' He shifted his grip on the wheel. 'Let us call things by their proper names,' he added. 'What Dahler did was attempted murder.' The way he said it, it sounded ugly.

'I'll go down and have a word with him,' I said, and left him sitting there at the wheel.

It seemed incredible that Dahler should have meant to kill him. And yet, sitting there at the wheel and seeing Jorgensen standing on that hatch, the means of killing was right there in his hands. He had only to turn the wheel and the gybe was bound to happen. An accident. Nobody would have been able to prove that it wasn't an accident. And there would have been no chance of picking Jorgensen up with the ship's tangle of sails and broken rigging. It was understandable if he were a novice. Only a little while before he took the wheel Curtis had almost done the same thing by accident. But if he'd been sailing boats all his life…

I pushed open the saloon door. Curtis was pulling on his jersey. Jill was in the galley sweeping up broken crockery. 'How's the shoulder?' I asked Curtis.

'All right,' he said. 'Bit stiff, that's all.'

'Dahler in his cabin?'

'Yes. He's come round. Cut lip and bruised cheekbone, that's all. What did Jorgensen want to go and hit him for? There's something funny about those two. They hate each other's guts.'

I went into Dahler's cabin. The light was on and he was sitting propped up in his bunk, dabbing at his lip, which was still bleeding. I shut the door. He turned at the sound, holding his handkerchief to his face. 'Well?' he asked. 'How much damage have I done?'

'Quite enough,' I said. 'Why did you take the wheel if you didn't know how to sail?'

'I was right beside Wright when you told him to give a hand for'ard,' he replied. 'I couldn't help. Jill Somers could. So I took Wright's place at the helm. And I do know how to sail, Mr Gansert. Unfortunately I haven't done any sailing since — since this happened.' He waved his withered arm at me. 'The ship heeled to a gust of wind and the wheel was torn out of my hand.'

'Jorgensen thinks you did it purposely,' I told him.

'I had gathered that.' He dabbed at his lip. 'Is that what you think?' His dark eyes were watching me. The cabin lights were reflected in the over-large pupils.

'I'm prepared to take your word for it,' I told him.

'I asked you, Mr Gansert, whether you thought I had done if purposely?'

I hesitated. 'I don't know,' I answered. 'He had just threatened to have you arrested. And you don't exactly conceal your hatred of him.'

'Why should I?' he answered. 'I do hate him.'

'But why?' I asked.

'Why?' His voice rose suddenly. 'Because of what he's done to me. Look at this.' He thrust the withered claw of his arm at me again. 'Jorgensen,' he snarled. 'Look at my face. Jorgensen. Before the war I was fit and happy. I had a wife and a business. I was on top of the world.' He sighed and sank back against his pillow. 'That was before the war. It seems a long time ago now. My interests were shipping. I had a fleet of coasters and four tankers that supplied Del Norske Staalselskab. Then Norway was invaded. The tankers I ordered to British ports. Some of the coasters were sunk and a few got away, but the bulk of the fleet continued to operate. And whilst Jorgensen was entertaining the German commanders in Oslo, I worked for the liberation of my country. My house at Alverstrummen was a refuge for British agents. My offices in Bergen became a clearing house for boys slipping out of the country. Then suddenly my house was raided. A British agent was captured. I was arrested and imprisoned in Bergen. That was not so bad. My wife could come and see me and I passed the time binding books. But then the Germans drafted us for forced labour. I was sent to Finse. The Germans planned to build an aerodrome on top of the Jokulen. Did you ever hear of that monumental piece of German folly?'

'Jorgensen mentioned it to me-' I began.

'Jorgensen!' he exclaimed. 'What does Jorgensen know about it? He was much too clever.'

He leaned out of his bunk and got a cigarette from his jacket pocket. I lit it for him. He took several quick puffs. His fingers shook. The man was wrought up. He was talking to steady himself. And I listened because this was the first time I'd got him talking and up there at Finse he had met George Farnell.