Living Silver 



Denmark Straits. It was just the right time of the year to fish there. 

 The ice was as northerly as it would ever be and they might even 

 be able to press into the Arctic Circle, though there would be a 

 lot of bergs about and a danger of being surrounded by them. *Do 

 you understand Icelandic, by the way?' Jan confessed that he 

 didn't. 'Danish?' 'A little.' 'Good. We've got to keep receiv- 

 ing every weather forecast we can get, and most of them are either 

 in Danish or Icelandic. When I'm off the bridge for a few minutes 

 I like to leave somebody up there who can understand one lan- 

 guage or the other. 



'The trouble is that these damned bergs are first-rate wind- 

 gatherers, and whole convoys of them are apt to get behind you 

 while the main masses are bearing down ahead. You get the ship 

 going easily forward on what looks like a nice quiet patch of the 

 sea. And so it is. But a couple of hours later its just a little island 

 of water in the middle of an ocean of crunching bergs. The noise 

 of these things is hellishly frightening for the first few trips. I 

 don't suppose you've come across them. The Aberdeen trawlers 

 steer well clear though the Hull boats do occasionally get involved. 

 Anyhow, I'm just warning you in case we do run into the stuff. 

 Don't be alarmed. It sounds much more dangerous than it is. 

 They growl worse than they bite -provided we find out just where 

 they're going to be, that is. I know the currents in that part, so 

 all we need to keep tags on is the wind. From that I can usually 

 calculate how the ice will move - usually but not always. Still, 

 the Honoris been sailing up there for ten years and she's never been 

 scratched by a berg or a groaner. They've never even chased us 

 away from our gear, and that's the most likely accident. So there's 

 no need to wony. Just keep your ears open for any startling 

 changes in wind force or direction.' 



As it happened, they saw a little ice. Ten miles to the east of 

 them when they were working in the Denmark Straits they wat- 

 ched the bergs moving south. But the wind kept up from the 

 west at force 6, a little under a gale, dutifully nudging the big 

 green masses away from the Greenland side. Radcliffe was con- 



224 



