The floes through which Stirling guided the ship became larger and
higher. Old "grandpas" drifted by--their sides honeycombed by the action
of the water. These floes had broken from the true pack and had come
south through Smith Sound. Icebergs were to be expected, since the coast
of Greenland was filled with glaciers. Stirling peered forward and
searched the sea, momentarily expecting to glimpse a white barrier
beyond which he could not go, but none showed as the watch lengthened.
The girl appeared with a steaming can of black coffee, and also biscuits
and bread. Stirling set the can on the top of the brass binnacle hood
and munched a biscuit, eying Helen Marr with concern. Dark circles
showed upon her face, her lips had lost some of their blood, and tiny
puckers ran from the corners of her mouth.
He moved the wheel and said to her, "Please get some sleep. You look
tired, Miss Marr. I'll hold on!"
She laughed, drawing close her deerskin jacket, and reaching for the
spokes. "Let me steer?" she asked. "It isn't so bad now. I can hold the
course."
"Keep her steady, then!" said Stirling with a smile, releasing the
spokes and staring at the compass. "Steady, she is, while I go forward.
There's a lane of open water ahead somewhere. We must find it."
She nodded, stared at the binnacle, and the spokes moved slowly and in
the right direction as Stirling crossed the deck and descended to the
waist of the ship. He paused a moment at the galley house and glanced
in. Two Russians stood by the stove, cooking a mess for the engine-room
crew.
Stirling nodded and worked his way forward over the icy deck. He climbed
up the weather shrouds and out and over the cross jack, dropping into
the crow's-nest.
Floes were scattered over the waters of Lancaster Sound near where it
reached Baffin Bay. The wind had driven a mass of ice up through Prince
Regent Inlet, and its reaching fangs threatened to dash the ship ashore
on North Devon Island.
Stirling with his binoculars swept the entire horizon. The wind had
shifted a point over the hour, and now came from over the high plateau
of Baffin Land, as it circled to the magnetic north and the true west.
This would close Lancaster Sound so that no ship could drive a passage
through.
Reaching forward, Stirling rested his elbows upon the edge of the
crow's-nest and strained his eyes toward the opening which showed in the
direction of Cape Hay and Baffin Bay. It was partly choked with ice, and
a low berg loomed in the haze.
Turning, Stirling called down to Helen Marr, and the order he gave was
to put the wheel up and then steady it. The new course was more toward
the true south than the east, and was calculated to head off the
reaching arm of ice which threatened to close Lancaster Sound.
After a last glance over the wild waste of waters and snow-mantled
lands, Stirling swung out of the crow's-nest and started toward the
deck. Icicles and frozen patches of snow fell from the shrouds as the
ship swerved and steadied on the given course. Stirling saw that the
girl had avoided a floe by a skillful lift of the wheel.
This fact cheered him. He had a companion who was doing her best, a true
friend to a sailorman who had broken through to a desperate sea. He went
down the remainder of the shrouds and over the deck with his head
lowered in thought. The chance to save the ship was slight, and it would
call for all his cunning in ice work. The fangs were being bared for the
final nip. Already the floes had thickened ahead.
"I'll take the wheel," he said as he stepped to her side. "You go below
for an hour. Then I shall call you."
"Is there any danger?"
"We'll either be nipped within two hours, or we will gain the Northeast
Passage. Baffin Bay lies ahead!"
"Then I'll stay on deck!" declared the girl. "I'll stay right by your
side!"
Stirling took the wheel and set the course a point more toward the
south. He was between the alternative of striking directly toward the
swinging arm of ice which was closing the sound like a door, or seeking
a narrow passage between the giant field and the forbidding coast near
Cape Hay. He chose the latter.
The hour that followed drove the spike of fear into the Russians'
hearts. The engine-room crew, led by Slim, left the fires in order to
peer through the companion, and were forced back by the menace in
Stirling's voice.
The ship met the giant floes, backed, reeled, and drove on, threading
through the new ice and gaining open patches of water which closed
behind. Bergs drifted down upon them, but Stirling avoided the shelving
spires and worked toward the south and east.
Snow flurries blotted out all view; the wind swung from the true west to
the north, and held in its grip the icy cold of winter. It struck
through the girl's furs and chilled her body, as she walked back and
forth along the quarter-deck watching Stirling, who seemed possessed
with a Viking's rage at the elements gathered about. His one aim was to
guide the ship between the Cape and the ice field. Open water still
showed ahead of this narrow passage.
The _Pole Star_ swirled in the current and ran down the wind which was
now abeam. A leaden pall crept over the surface of the watery world, and
the ice floes ground against the skin of the ship and obstructed the
way. Stirling shaded his eyes from the snow and peered forward. The ice
had gathered upon the spokes of the wheel, and a sleet drove from aft to
forward.
Gripped by the majesty of their danger, the girl watched Stirling and
prayed for deliverance. She knew that the reaching arm had overtaken the
driving ship. It was a matter of minutes now whether they would gain the
waters of Baffin Bay or be crushed between the floes and the rocky
headland. A single screw's turn might decide the matter.
The ship staggered and swerved; a crash sounded as the sharp stem
mounted a floe. The world seemed to the girl to spin, as Stirling
reached downward, grasped the spokes, and lifted the wheel so that the
staggering ship could turn from the land. He sheered in the moment of
time, and the spars grated along the overhang of basalt.
Suddenly Stirling stiffened and rapidly twirled the wheel, leaned far
over the spokes, and watched the waters ahead of the _Pole Star_. A rift
showed through the floes, and toward this he steered. The last of the
reaching ice sprang landward, leaped the distance, and drove its teeth
toward the ship. It missed by a scant cable's length, and the crash and
reverberation as this ice was dashed upon the shore woke Helen Marr from
her prayers. She staggered to her feet, and stood swaying on the
slippery deck. Stirling had swung and was staring at her, his strong
face covered with a broad smile.
He turned the spokes by instinct as he continued to look at her. "Look,"
he said, pointing a steady finger aft. "Look, Miss Marr!"
She wheeled and looked over the taffrail of the _Pole Star_. Ice, piled
upon ice, blocked the passage through which they had come. The roar of
the great North pack was like a baffled horde held at bay. The ship
plunged on and out into open water.
"Where are we?" she asked, pressing a hand to her forehead. "Where are
we, Mr. Stirling?"
The Ice Pilot smiled, swung, steadied the wheel, and motioned over the
wild world of tossing waves. "That's Baffin Bay!" he said. "We have made
the Northeast Passage!"