A GLORIOUS PANORAMA
“One more iceberg bit the dust!” exclaimed Jimmy, in a melodramatic
tone.
“Rather wet dust,” returned Herb, with a grin. “But look at the big
chunks of ice floating about. There must be a thousand of those baby
bergs.”
“They’re too small to do any damage,” remarked Bob. “They’ll soon
melt; and, anyway, if a vessel touched them she’d nose them aside.”
“Johnson was telling me the other day that the fishing smacks tow in
some of those small chunks, and so lay in their summer ice supply,”
remarked Jimmy.
“At any rate, that makes them of some use in the world,” affirmed
Herb.
“How are you feeling now, Joe?” asked Bob, turning to his chum.
“I’m all right,” answered Joe. “But I never want to have such a
close call as I had on that berg. If you hadn’t got to me just as
you did, I’d have gone up with the berg.”
“It surely was a case of touch and go,” replied Bob. “Gee, but my
heart stood still for a moment when I missed you and thought of that
TNT!”
The _Meteor_ sped on her course, and soon had made her way out of
the welter of ice fragments that strewed the sea. Several times in
the course of the next few hours, they sighted other bergs, but none
that was nearly so large as the one they had destroyed. The
positions of these smaller ice mountains were carefully noted, and
their locations wirelessed to all vessels that might be within the
zone of danger.
“But that only gives the positions at the time they’re discovered,”
remarked Jimmy, with a slightly puzzled air. “They’re getting away
from that location all the time.”
“True enough,” explained Bob. “But they’re moving at the rate of
about seven-tenths of a mile an hour. Given the direction of the
drift, the vessel that is warned can figure just where that special
berg will be with every hour that passes.”
The incident had served to engross their minds for the time being,
but now their thoughts returned with a doubled intensity to those at
home.
“No news yet,” groaned Joe, after a fruitless errand to the wireless
room.
“Let’s hope that in this case no news is good news,” replied Bob,
with a greater display of confidence than he really felt.
“If only our folks’ lives are safe!” muttered Jimmy.
There was silence for a few minutes, each busy with his own troubled
thoughts.
“The operator says that he’s heard nothing yet of Mr. Strong having
been picked up,” was the further bad news that Joe gave them.
“If he’s lost, that means that your watch is lost too,” Jimmy
observed to Bob.
“I’d rather lose any other thing that I own than that watch,” said
Bob, mournfully. “It was a beauty. But, after all, I’d gladly give
that to know that Mr. Strong was safe.”
At about three o’clock in the afternoon the _Meteor_ hove to, about
half a mile away from a small iceberg.
“Wonder what’s up now,” remarked Joe, as he noted the slowing down
of the engines. “Going to make a visit to that berg, I wonder?”
“No sign of lowering boats,” responded Bob. “They’re swinging out a
big boom at right angles to the ship.”
“And the boom has ladders that reach down to the water,” chimed in
Herb. “What kind of a Chinese puzzle is this, anyway?”
The boys’ bewilderment was increased as they noted that a large
number of the crew were stripping off their clothes.
“By ginger, they’re going in swimming!” exclaimed Bob.
“Swimming in sight of an iceberg!” ejaculated Joe. “Why, they must
be crazy!”
“I’ve heard of fellows going into the surf on the first of January,”
put in Herb. “But I’ve always put them down as plain nuts. Look,
there go some of them now!”
Several of the sailors had gone out on the boom, which was so broad
that it afforded sufficiently safe footing.
Even as Herb spoke, one of them poised himself with uplifted hands,
and then, straight as an arrow, dived into the blue depths below.
His companions followed his example, and presently a score or more
were frolicking around like so many dolphins and enjoying themselves
to the utmost.
“Come on in, the water’s fine!” they shouted to some of their more
hesitant companions on the boom.
“Well, that beats me!” exclaimed Herb. “I’ve always heard that
sailors were a hardy bunch, but this is the limit. The water must be
freezing!”
“Not a bit of it,” said a voice beside them, and they looked up to
see Ensign Porter. “I think you’d enjoy it if you went in
yourselves. That is, assuming you can swim.”
“We can swim, all right,” replied Bob. “But we’ve been used to doing
our swimming in the summer.”
“This is summer, isn’t it?” replied the ensign, with a quizzical
smile.
“Of course,” assented Jimmy. “But there aren’t icebergs where we go
in. I should think these fellows would freeze to death.”
“They don’t seem to be shivering,” remarked the ensign. “As a matter
of fact, I’ll wager that you’ve often been in water that was colder
than this.”
“Show us what you’ve got up your sleeve,” urged Bob. “You’re just
kidding us along.”
“It’s simple enough,” was the smiling reply. “The _Meteor_ has
picked out a warm strip of water for her men to bathe in. At the
present moment, she’s lying right across it. The water temperature
is twenty-two degrees colder at one end of the boat than it is at
the other. At the bow it’s thirty-four, at the stern it’s
fifty-six.”
“It doesn’t seem possible,” ejaculated Bob.
“A good many things are possible in this part of the world,” replied
the ensign. “That’s what forms one of the fascinating features of
our work. You see, the boundary line between the cold Labrador
Current and the Gulf Stream is very sharply defined, and we’re just
astride it at this moment.”
“But how do you pick it out?” asked Joe, in wonderment. “I can
recognize boundaries on land, all right; but how you can see them in
the water is beyond me.”
“Matter of practice,” was the reply. “We can tell by the color of
the water and the ‘rips’ between the two currents. If you’ll look
closely, you’ll be able to see a decided difference between the
color of the water at the stern and the water at the bow.”
“I can see it now,” declared Joe, after a moment’s close scrutiny.
“But I’d never have noticed it if you hadn’t called our attention to
it.”
Bob looked enviously at the men sporting around in evident enjoyment
in the water.
“I’ve a good mind to take a crack at it,” he said suddenly. “What do
you say, fellows? Are you game?”
“I never take a dare,” replied Joe.
“Count me in,” said Herb.
“I’m with you,” chimed in Jimmy.
They sought and got permission from Lieutenant Mayhew, who just then
was the officer of the deck, and hurried to their cabin, where they
slipped on the bathing trunks that they had packed in their
suitcases when they started on their trip. In a short time they were
ready and made for the deck.
“Last one in is a Chinaman,” sang out Bob, as he raced for the boom.
All sought to avoid the stigma, but Jimmy, with his short legs, was
at a disadvantage and proved to be the Chinaman. At that, he was so
slightly behind the others that the splash of the four bodies as
they went down was almost simultaneous.
Despite the ensign’s assurances, they had not felt quite sure as to
the temperature of the water, but as they rose after their immersion
and shook the water from their eyes, they were agreeably surprised
to find that there was none of the heart-gripping cold they had half
anticipated.
“Why, the water’s as warm as milk!” sputtered Joe, with a little
exaggeration, as he struck out.
“Like milk that’s been standing in the refrigerator for a while,”
corrected Herb. “But it isn’t so bad, at that. I’ve found it colder
sometimes in an early morning swim at Ocean Point.”
They were overjoyed beyond measure to find themselves at a pastime
that they had mentally relinquished for the rest of that year, and
they made the most of it. Again and again, they climbed up the
ladder and dived from the boom. They were all good swimmers, and
their skill in that respect earned them the respect of the sailors.
The men at first had been inclined to grin at the “land-lubbers,”
but they were soon forced to admit that there was little they could
teach them when it came to swimming.
It was with reluctance that, a little later on, they obeyed the
order given from the deck that the sport must end for the present,
and they promised themselves that they would avail themselves of
every opportunity of the kind that might offer in the future.
They were immensely exhilarated and refreshed by the swim and the
rub-down that followed it, and that night at the table they showed
the steward a quartette of appetites that made that functionary’s
eyes bulge with wonder and admiration. Jimmy especially was at the
top of his form, and made a clean sweep of everything within his
reach.
When at last they had finished and come on deck, the horizon was
aflame with glory of the aurora borealis. The beauty of it made them
catch their breaths. They had seen very rarely that wonderful
phenomenon, and never in such magnificence as it was now revealing
under the northern skies.
All the colors of the rainbow were there, but shining with a
splendor and radiance beyond all words. Great bands of many colored
light shot out like a gigantic fan until the sky seemed to be
blazing with millions of jeweled shafts. And these kept shifting,
deepening, advancing, retreating, each combination of rarer
loveliness than the one that preceded it until it seemed that Nature
herself, the supreme artist, could do no more.
Awed into silence by the spectacle, the boys watched it spellbound.
They were aroused at last by a voice behind them.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” said Johnson, the wireless operator, taking a
seat beside them.
“Beyond anything I’ve ever seen,” answered Bob.
“There’s just one thing I have against it,” continued Johnson.
“What’s that?” asked Joe, in surprise.
“It’s put my wireless out of commission!”