AMONG THE ICEBERGS
After the discovery of the opium, Captain Hardwick took his sailors
back to the _Iroquois_, along with the confiscated drug, leaving the
custom inspectors aboard the _Orient_, to search the sealed cargo
holds at the pier. Off Staten Island the _Iroquois_ dropped behind
the freighter and was soon swinging once more at her anchor.
For some time she lay there undisturbed. The seas were calm and no
emergency calls came to the little cutter. Henry was delighted at
that, for Willie had returned, and the two boys and Roy now were
able to see each other frequently. At any of his four-hour periods
off duty Henry was free to slip over to Manhattan, and so cordial
was the feeling now existing among the wireless men on the
_Iroquois_, that either Jimmy Belford or the chief electrician was
willing enough to work overtime on occasion to give Henry a bit more
freedom. They knew well enough that he would gladly reciprocate when
need arose. Many a night now saw the three boys from Central City
happy together in the snug wireless cabin of the _Lycoming_. It was,
indeed, a great joy to them to be so near one another.
Winter came, and with it winter cruising. For periods of a week or
ten days the _Iroquois_ and her sister cutters cruised on the open
sea, some patrolling along the shores to prevent the landing of
alcoholic drink, some standing off dangerous coasts, to be on hand
should vessels become endangered. No unusual storms arose that
winter, but all the time it was boisterous out on the ocean, for the
winds never ceased, and the sea was in perpetual turmoil.
Christmas found Henry thus at sea. For him it was a memorable
Christmas, too, because it was the first one he had ever spent away
from home. He felt a bit blue about it, but fought down the touch of
homesickness that came to him. Perhaps the sea helped him to do
that. On this particular day the ocean was tremendously rough. The
cutter had worked far to the northward, and all day long had pitched
about as Henry had never seen her pitch before. The cooks had
prepared a goodly Christmas dinner, but it could not be served at
the table. Instead it was passed out in chunks, to be eaten from one
hand, while with the other hand each man clung to anything that
offered support. The sea was so rough one could hardly stand without
a prop.
It was a foretaste of what was to come in the following spring, when
the _Iroquois_ went to the Grand Banks, on ice patrol. When the
great ice fields of the frozen north disintegrate, and huge icebergs
float south, passing through the steamer lanes, and so endangering
steamship traffic, it was part of the work of the Coast Guard to
protect shipping from these menacing mountains of ice. One _Titanic_
disaster was enough for the world.
When it came time for the _Iroquois_ to relieve the _Oneida_ in the
ice fields, the ship was made ready and the long voyage begun. At
Halifax the cutter touched to refill her water tanks and renew her
stores. Then she headed northeast into the region of fog and storm
and tremendous moving mountains of ice.
As long as he lives, Henry will never forget that journey through
the tossing, fog-shrouded sea. For days on end the sun had not
shone. No stars were visible at night. The dull gray sea and the
dull gray clouds, with the thick shrouded mists, lent a leaden tone
to life which was like nothing Henry had ever known. Onward, league
after league, day after day, the little cutter rolled and pitched,
tossed by a sea the like of which Henry had never imagined.
Only by dead reckoning could the commander tell where he was. He had
so recently left Halifax that he could not be so very far astray in
his calculations. But the _Oneida_ had not been able to take a sight
for three weeks, so it was not surprising, therefore, that when she
gave her position to the _Iroquois_ by wireless, and the _Iroquois_
proceeded to the given spot, no cutter was to be seen. When Captain
Hardwick found that the _Oneida_ was not at the given position, he
wired: “_Iroquois_ is at the meeting point named. Will await you.”
And at once the _Oneida_ flashed back the reply: “There is some
mistake. We are at the position named. Will await you.”
What a puzzle this situation would have been in the days before the
radio compass was invented, and what a game of blind man’s buff
those two little cutters would have played among the fogs and mists
and icebergs of the Grand Banks. But now Captain Hardwick simply
telegraphed the _Oneida_ to remain at anchor and give him a compass
bearing. Soon Mr. Sharp came out of the compass shack and told the
commander which way to go. That was all there was to it. A few hours
later the two ships lay side by side. The _Oneida_, unable to see
the sun for so long, was a great distance from the position she
thought she occupied.
As Henry was to learn, there was great reason why a ship should
float far and wide in this region of moving mountains of ice. The
Grand Banks, formed by the deposit of sediment carried north by the
Gulf Stream, are enormous eminences in the bottom of the sea, like
huge mountain plateaus rising in a vast valley. These banks rise
upward to within two hundred feet of the ocean’s surface, while the
bed of the sea around them is thousands of feet deep. Naturally
these great banks of sand deflect the sea currents. The Gulf Stream
itself bends farther to the east. There are currents and cross
currents, and wind and sea are often terrible beyond description.
Icebergs float with seven-eighths of their bulk submerged, so no
large bergs can ever cross the Grand Banks; they are too deep for
the shallow waters there. But in the deeper parts of the sea they
stream southward from the polar ice fields in droves, scattering in
every direction with wind and current. Some go with the Labrador
current. Coming south, some swing up again and go northeast. Others
continue straight on down to the shipping lanes. Some get into the
Gulf Stream and are further deflected from their courses. And all
these companies of icebergs, scattered over vast areas, one little
cutter is supposed to watch and guard. Of course she cannot herd
them together and drive them away from the shipping lanes, but she
can and does drive ships away from the icebergs. She does this by
wireless.
Day after day the _Iroquois_ cruised among the bergs, charting the
position of each, noting the currents in which each floated, trying
to plot the probable course of each moving mountain of ice. And
every four hours the man at the wireless key sent flashing abroad a
detailed warning to ships, telling where each menacing berg was
located and what course it would probably take. And at night the
_Iroquois_ lay at rest, floating upon the bosom of the deep. It was
dangerous enough to run through the ice fields in the daytime, when
concealing mists made vision well-nigh impossible. To steam through
them at night would be almost suicidal.
Anxious days were these for the commander of the _Iroquois_. At any
moment his little cutter was likely to be disabled merely by the
violence of the sea. At any moment the ship might crash into some
fog-shrouded berg. Ceaseless vigilance was necessary to insure
safety.
Almost greater vigilance was required to keep track of the huge
bergs. Some of them towered two hundred feet in air, which meant
that they were many hundred feet deep. Continually they were
“calving,” or throwing off great shoulders of ice, called growlers.
Every time a berg calved, its centre of gravity was disturbed and
its contour altered. It rode at a new angle. Thus the berg that
today resembled a cathedral might tomorrow look like a storage
warehouse. Yet it was necessary, for the purpose of scientific
observation, that each southward-floating berg be definitely
identified. Oceanographers were now aboard the _Iroquois_, to study
this matter of iceberg drift, that shipping might be better
protected in future years. It was necessary that they should know
each berg they met, no matter where they encountered it. But to
recognize a berg that was continually altering its own appearance
was an accomplishment that not even the learned oceanographers
possessed. As yet, no way to identify bergs had ever been devised.
But Captain Hardwick was a resourceful man, and one day he declared
that he had solved the problem. “I’m going to paint them,” he
declared. His hearers laughed incredulously. But the captain cared
little for their amusement. He ordered some shells brought from the
magazine and some paints from the storeroom. Then, under the
captain’s personal supervision, the gunner loaded shell after shell
with paint. Bright reds and greens and blues and other startling
colors were used. When all was ready, the captain smiled with
satisfaction. “I’m going to try it out on the very next berg we
see,” he laughed.
An hour later the lookout announced that a berg was visible. It took
the cutter more than an hour to reach it, however, for it was
sixteen miles away. It was two hundred and fifty feet high, and
Henry was so astonished at this enormous mass of glittering white
ice that he could find no words to describe it, or his astonishment
either. The _Iroquois_ worked up close to the berg, a spot was
selected by the captain to aim at, high up on the broad side of the
monster, the gunner elevated and sighted one of the guns, and a
charge of paint went shooting out of a cannon’s mouth. A second
later the shell crashed against the lofty berg, and a huge crimson
stain began to spread over its side. Then the _Iroquois_ steamed
around to the other side of the berg and repeated the dose. “If that
doesn’t do the trick,” laughed the commander, “my name isn’t
Hardwick.”
They were still calling the commander by that name a week later,
however, for when the _Iroquois_ had cruised the length of her beat
and was returning, she again came upon the crimson-sided ice mass. A
cross current had brought it back close to where it had been
painted. Other bergs were tinted with other colors, and there was
something new under the sun. The wireless broadcasts now warned
vessels to look out for the berg with the green, or the red, or the
blue sides. A way had been found to brand these monsters of the
deep.
But of all his experiences in the ice fields, nothing so much
interested Henry as the destruction of a huge berg that came
wallowing down from the frozen north and went ploughing straight
along toward the tropics. Apparently neither wind nor sea nor any
other agency could turn this menacing mountain of ice aside from its
path. Down to the northern steamship lane it went, and the
_Iroquois_ went with it, warning all shipping of its presence. It
was enormous. It towered more than two hundred feet in air, and was
hundreds of feet long and huge in width. It did not break up into
growlers when it reached the warmer parts of the sea, as most of the
bergs did, but kept on, implacable, menacing, terrible.
Through the northern steamer lane and on to the southern lane, the
huge block of ice steadily made its way. Thus it endangered ships
going both to and from European ports. But the _Iroquois_ stayed by
the giant berg and warned all ships of the danger. When it reached a
point farther south than the _Iroquois’_ own port, and still did not
disintegrate, the commander of the cutter took steps to break it up
by artificial means.
A small boat was lowered, and two mines, each containing fifty-two
pounds of TNT, were loaded aboard, with firing batteries and other
necessary equipment. Then Lieutenant Hill, with a picked crew of
oarsmen, manned the boat, towing behind it a float with a sail
attached. The party made its way to windward of the berg, where the
mines were suspended from the float, so that they hung about eight
feet below the surface of the water. The sail on the float was
spread, and while the wind drove it toward the berg, the sailors
pulled in the opposite direction. But the matter was not so simple
as it seemed. The backlash of the sea kept the raft from reaching
the great mass of ice, and, instead of hitting it, it floated to one
side and on toward the open sea.
Lieutenant Hill caught the raft, and now an attempt was made to tow
it across the face of the berg with a buoyed line, the tow rope
being kept up at intervals with life preservers. But all about the
base of the berg, like detritus at the bottom of a precipice, were
great quantities of slush ice, little growlers, and the like, so
that the mine could not be dragged against the main berg.
Then an effort was made to drive spikes into the side of the ice, so
that the mines could be hung to them. It was dangerous business,
standing up in a tossing little boat, with a possibility of being
pitched out and crushed between it and the berg, but the sailors
made the attempt without mishap—and without success. All efforts to
drive anything into the ice were futile. It broke under the hammer
blows, and no nail could be forced into it.
Next a grapnel was tried. The small boat was forced through the
slush ice at the foot of the berg until a place was found where a
little ledge in the shoulder seemed to offer a chance for a hold.
The grapnel was thrown, but it slid off into the water. Again and
again the effort was repeated. Each time it failed. The hooks of the
grapnel would not catch in the slippery ice.
The backlash of the sea constantly showered the small boat with
spray. All hands were soaked. The firing batteries became wet and
useless, and the lieutenant put back to the _Iroquois_ for fresh
ones.
“I’m going to try the grapnel again,” he called up to the commander,
after making known his need for dry batteries.
“Captain Hardwick,” said Henry, “why not shoot a line over that
berg? Then one could hang a mine on the other end of it on the far
side of the berg.”
The captain leaned over the rail of the cutter and called down to
the lieutenant: “Never mind about the grapnel. Our able third-class
radio man says to shoot a line over the berg, so bend your energies
to that. I’ll get you a shoulder gun. It’s worth trying.” He sent a
man for both the battery and the gun, and the two were passed into
the rowboat.
Back to the berg went the little craft. When it was close beside the
middle of the berg, the lieutenant put the gun to his shoulder,
while a sailor made sure that the line would run free. At a
favorable moment the lieutenant fired high over the mass of ice. The
projectile flew true, whisking the line after it. The small boat was
brought close to the base of the berg, a weight was attached to the
end of the shot-line, and then the boat rowed round the berg and
picked up the other end of the line.
The lieutenant now had something to which to attach his mines.
Together they weighed more than one hundred pounds. Carefully these
were bent to the shot-line and lowered until they rested against the
base of the ice, thirty feet below the surface of the sea. The small
boat pulled far away, and the shot was fired. The report was a
muffled roar. Immense quantities of ice came crashing down from the
titanic shoulders of the berg, with thunderous reverberations. The
sound was startling. The mountain of ice itself began to rise, the
huge bulk lifting straight up out of the water, as though a giant
hand were pushing it from beneath. Ten feet it rose, then twenty,
and yet it continued to lift. At thirty feet there was a sharp
crack, and the huge mass broke fairly in halves. Then it fell back
into the sea, throwing out an enormous wave. Each half was a third
as large as the original berg had been. The remaining third was the
broken ice that had come rattling down from the giant’s shoulders.
For the first time in history an iceberg had been destroyed by
artificial means, for within twenty-four hours the two huge chunks
of this monster had completely disintegrated. Nothing but small
growlers and slush ice encumbered the sea. TNT had been more than a
match for the ice king.