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.''It wouldn't work - she's moving too fast.Now, lower us -and for Pete's sake watch that float when you send it down.'The whole operation was diabolically tricky.The launch - with Beaumont, Langer and Grayson inside it - had to be winched down over the side of a moving vessel and then held there until the float joined them.The only thing working in their favour was the calmness of the sea.They hit the water with a heavy slap and then held on to the cables while they looked up.The float was already on its way down to them.While still on deck Langer had given DaSilva a little warning.'Technically, if the float hits the side of the hull on its way down nothing will happen.' He had paused and smiled without humour.'And heaven is full of demolition experts playing harps who said the same sort of thing.'The airborne mine came down to them with a terrible slowness, suspended from ropes gripped by seamen high above them.Langer watched its descent with his hand gripped tightly round the winch cable.They only had to unbalance it, to let it slant downwards, and securely as the gelignite was lashed something devastating could happen.Then somebody let a rope slip.The large missile suspended above their heads canted at an angle and Langer drew in his breath with a hiss of fury and fear.'They'll do Papanin's job for him,' he muttered.The angled float swayed, bumped with a heavy thud against the ship's hull, a thud heavy enough to dislodge its cargo.Beaumont glanced towards the stern, suppressing his impatience; now the Revolution had changed course and she was heading fast for the open channel which would take her to starboard of the Elroy.For Christ's sake hurry it up! His prayer was answered - with unnerving speed.The float dropped and kept on dropping, coming down on their heads.It jerked to a halt three feet above them, still canted at its dangerously unstable angle, then it was lowered more gently.Langer activated the clocks - the only clocks aboard which hadn't been put out of action because they hadn't been working when the ghost berg struck.The float was put over the stern, attached by ropes to the launch.Beaumont started the engine, took over the wheel, shouted up to DaSilva, the winch cables were released and they moved away from the Elroy at speed, dragging the float behind them.'I think we're too late,' Langer shouted, looking back at the Russian ship.Beaumont opened the throttle wide and the launch roared across the calm sea, heading direct for the ghost berg, following a course at right-angles to the receding Elroy, to the oncoming Revolution.The mist was parting now, drawing back to expose the towering wall of ice they were speeding towards.The berg reared up like the edge of some great continent, seemed even bigger than when they had moved across its treacherous surface behind the cliff wall.As they came closer to the section of the cliff they hadn't seen earlier Beaumont saw that it was hollowed out at the base, arched into caves which disappeared inside the cliff, For the first time he realized how the ocean reached the lake they had found on the far side of the cliff; there were subterranean channels leading into the lake, channels under the arched caves.He took his decision almost without thinking.'We're going in closer - we'll let the float go at the edge of the iceshelf,' he shouted.'We'll never get back to the Elroy.' There was alarm in Grayson's shout.'We'll never catch her up again.''We'll have to chance that.I'm going to get the float inside one of those channels - then it may detonate on the far side of the berg.'Beaumont's plan was simple, a very long shot indeed.The ghost berg was on the verge of collapse, should have collapsed when it first struck the bay where the Elroy was marooned; even more it should have collapsed when it wrenched itself free from the other berg.But it was still intact and every hour it drifted brought it closer to final dissolution.It could be that the detonation of a large quantity of gelignite close to the ice would trigger off the catastrophe.Or it could no more than tickle the berg, blowing up a few pounds of ice.And yet there were recorded cases where the unguarded shout of an Eskimo in his kayak had shattered one of these monsters, had brought it down into the ocean, falling like a mountain.Beaumont's plan - his faint hope - was to bring down the ghost berg ahead of the Revolution, filling the channel with minor bergs which would stop the Russian ship.It was a very long shot indeed.'We are gaining on them! When the time comes I will take the wheel myself.' Papanin growled.He was staring through the clear-vision panel, watching the distant silhouette of the Elroy pass through a mist trail.'You will take charge of the telegraph, control the speed,' he told Kramer.'There will be no room for manoeuvre,' Tuchevsky protested.Unlike the Siberian he was constantly switching his gaze from port to starboard and back again.And he was impressed by the enormous size of the great berg to starboard coming up, but he had no suspicion of its fragility as he stared at the towering wall.'A launch has left the American vessel,' he said suddenly.'It is crossing the channel ahead of us.''Don't worry about that! Increase speed.' 'It is dangerous - we are going too close to that berg.' 'Full power!' Papanin shouted at Kramer.'Full power.'The cliff rose vertically above their heads as the launch nosed its way through ice floes close to the shelf where the ocean lapped the base of the ghost berg [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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