320 FOLLOW THE WHALE 



hull in never-ending succession and ever-mounting fury. His flight 

 was fortunately prevented by the manager, who came strolling up, a 

 pipe clenched between his teeth. 



"Damned bloody fools," he blurted as he peered over the rail at 

 the seething mass of some two hundred men miUing about on the 

 deck below, apparently without reason. "Who in hell's name let 

 that happen when we've only got one lousy, stove-in corvette?" 

 And he went off, mumbling to himself and cursing. 



The newsman, frightfully conscious of his ignominious position 

 aboard, which was not only that of an interloper but also that of 

 one on the greatest sufferance, said nothing but tried very hard to 

 look as if the very idea of abandoning ship could never have so much 

 as entered his mind. He remained, clinging to the rail and shivering, 

 and not entirely from the biting cold. And what he witnessed so 

 amazed him that he was quite unable to write about it for several 

 years afterwards. 



Somehow, out of the human maelstrom on the deck below a pat- 

 tern slowly began to emerge. This was dominated by a steady stream 

 of engineers converging upon the starboard rail at the point beyond 

 which the Corvette's masthead waved madly back and forth. Mean- 

 time, the confusion on the fo'ard deck had resulted at long last in 

 space being cleared for number two whale to be towed through the 

 gate. As soon as the afterdeck was thus relieved of this encum- 

 brance, everybody, including even the blubberboys, vanished, and 

 it was left clear for the engineers. 



These methodical Scots now appeared in swarms, toting all man- 

 ner of bits and pieces, like ants removing their larval packets from 

 a demolished nest. Then larger parts came sailing out on the end of 

 a web of cables and followed the stream of men and other material 

 over the side onto the bobbing Corvette. And all the time the wind 

 rose, so that the huge, floating behemoth heaved about, its oily decks 

 canting first this way and then that, and wet snow congealed to ice 

 on the windward edges of everything. 



All things that were not firmly battened down came loose and 

 careened about the deck until cornered and securely anchored down 

 by the ever-present Sheltie sailors, who somehow managed to keep 

 out of the way of the engineers, but who always seemed to be ready 

 with the necessary gear when things went wrong or some particu- 



