“Where is my
Oberfunkmeister? Ah, there
you are. Get a message to
the whaling station, right away.
I want the Pinguin readied for sea by the time we arrive, and they’re to
get steam up on the trawler too.
Matrosenfeldwebel, get everyone into the tubes. Don’t forget the frauleins in the
canteen, and make sure you bring my radio officer with you when he’s done. Oh, and find the ship’s
cat.” Otto von Luckner
turned to Harold, “If you would come with me gentlemen, please.”
The
Kapitänleutnant led the trawler officers across the ravished concourse towards a set
of check-in desks labeled Walfang-Hafen, gathering trawlermen as they went. Kriegsmariners
were already lining up neatly, and slightly less tidy groups of New Swabians in
lab coats or boiler suits were gathering near the sliding doors to the
pneumatic tubes. The
Kronstadt shore detail, led by Dark Flo, appeared from behind a pile of
rubble, they laughing and joking, she sporting a puffy, almost closed eye. She was limping and the left sleeve
of her shinobi shozoko was torn away to
reveal an angry graze on her elbow and purple bruising to the shoulder.
“Thanks
to one of your overzealous fishermen. Took a swing at me from behind, with a barstool. Can’t tell a ninja from a
submariner.”
Bamse,
as was his wont, had rounded up the last of the stragglers. With the company assembled the
tube doors opened and embarkation began.
“Once
you reach the whaling station get your people aboard your trawler and be ready
for the off.” Von Luckner was
cradling Fotzenkatze, the lithe tabby mascot of the now crippled submarine
Seeadler. “I will be along
soon as I know everyone is safe.”
The bow and
ruptured freshwater tank of the Ancaster had been repaired in their absence,
the boiler was nearly up to pressure and springs taken in so that only
shortened bow and stern lines held her to the quay. The crew stood, alert, at their stations. Harold stood by the bridge
window, his hand placed lightly on the highly polished new telegraph, its dials
disconcertingly labeled in German.
Billy Tate held the spokes of the enormous ship’s wheel, awaiting
instructions. An Aldis lamp
on the wing of the Pinguin’s bridge began to flash morse at high speed. Easter Smurthwait and the
Ancaster’s sparks eyed the twinkling light, then each other, and shrugged. Yes, the trawler did have a radio
officer. Sparky, a lad
hailing from the Midlands, had spent the entire adventure locked in his radio
room trying unsuccessfully to contact Wick Radio, blissfully unaware and, as
usual, totally forgotten.
“’Spect
he’s telling us to get going,” said Easter to his skipper.
“OK. Cast off fore and aft.” He rang ‘Halbe Kraft Voraus’ on the engine room
telegraph, “I hope that means what I think it does,” and Ancaster’s single
screw began to churn the water into a fury beneath her stern. She moved slowly away from the
quay, picked up speed, was steered deftly around the breakwater by the third
hand, and belching black smoke from her Woodbine funnel, the trawler proceeded
out to sea.
On
the bridge of the Pinguin Otto von Luckner turned to his Signalsmaat, “Are you
certain you sent Follow us… in English?
Ficken!” He rang down
to the engine room and the mighty diesels thumped into action. He sprinted to the wing of the
bridge and shouted, “Abwerfen der Liegeplatz-Seile. Cast off fore and aft.” Back in the wheelhouse he addressed his helmsman,
“Follow that boat.”
With her thundering pistons
producing nearly eight thousand horse power and her twin screws rapidly accelerating
her up to seventeen knots it did not take the Pinguin long to outstrip
Ancaster. Von Luckner was on
the VHF radio to Harold.
“Follow
us, captain. Best
speed. We want as much open
water as possible between us and Antarctica when whatever it is happens.”
Easter
had been looking astern, “I think it’s happening now, skipper. You’ll want to see this.”
Even
at the distance of two miles they could see the ice plateau on the continent
behind them begin to dome.
The hump rose slowly at first and then burst in an explosion of rock and
ice fragments. There was an incandescent
flash. When vision returned
a hemisphere of boiling atmosphere was visible, expanding at an incredible rate. A rumble grew to a roar and to a
screaming shriek that paralysed the onlookers. The pressure wave tore fittings from the deck and
cracked window glass. The accompanying
tsunami, however, passed them unnoticed. In the open sea, travelling at 500 miles per hour it
barely raised the fleeing vessels a foot or two. As it approached the shoaling seabed around the
southern tip of America it would pile up into a destructive wall of vindictive
ocean, but out here it was benign.
Back on the Antarctic mainland snow clouds gathered above ground zero
and lightening bolts flashed across the sky. The trawlermen watched as powdered snow billowed and
swirled; and out of the turmoil rose a vast, polished metal cylinder, its
mirror surface reflecting the chaos that surrounded it. The Andromeda Machine climbed
serenely through the storm into the quiet sky above, performed a leisurely
pirouette and accelerated away.
Within moments all was calm.
“Well,
that was different,” said Easter to no one in particular.
A tinny voice crackled from the bridge loud speaker, Kapitänleutnant Otto Graf von Luckner was back on the VHF.
“We
will be heading for the Rio de la Plata in the
Pinguin, but are more than willing to escort you across the South Atlantic,
captain. It will give us
chance to compare notes and discuss the recent events.
I expect you will be wanting
to proceed to the Ärmelkanal, your
English Channel. We may well
catch you up on our way to the Baltic. It rather depends on how long we
loiter in Montevideo.”
A
wandering albatross tucked in behind the stern of the Lord Ancaster, skimming
low over the restless swell of the Southern Ocean. Sunlight glistened off the heaving rollers and dolphins
played in the bow-waves of the two vessels as they pointed their prows towards
the New World.
