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.It was a tactic he had experimented with - which had succeeded - when he had led the Exodus into Smith Sound three years before.But not at full power.He talked Schmidt in this time, guided the ship's onrush, taking it towards a precise point on the port side of the ice.Below him there was a significant development: Schmidt had ordered the deck cleared of men prior to the coming impact.Grayson had gone up to the bridge, was leaning out of a window, staring up at the tiny figure he could hardly see poised on the crosstree.Full power.If it had been possible he would have countermanded Schmidt's order.At the masthead Beaumont was staring to port, laden down by his outer clothes which were like a steel canopy, solid with the crystals.He issued one last instruction.'If you feel her going through, Schmidt, keep her going.' The vessel surged forward, the engine throbs echoed in Beaumont's brain, he clasped his arms tightly round the canvas-wrapped mast, he took a deep breath, the vessel hit.The Elroy's bows slammed into the ice on the port side, hitting the barrier at an angle, a glancing blow.They bounded off the barrier, swung at an angle, rammed forward with terrible momentum into the starboard ice.Beaumont had used the icebreaker like a gigantic billiard ball, cannoning the bows off one side so they would strike the opposite side close to the zig-zag.Above the throb of the beating engines came a different sound, a grinding smash which travelled through the ship, which stunned the crew below.But the effect at sea-level was nothing compared to what happened at the masthead.The mast began to vibrate like a tuning fork, whipping back and forth as though about to rip itself out of the ship, whipping Beaumont back and forth, whipping like a flexible cane instead of an eighty-foot-high mast.The ordeal was appalling, well-nigh unendurable, and Beaumont became disorientated as the whipping went on - back and forth at incredible speed.He felt his strength, his mind, going.He felt as though his teeth were being shaken out of his head, his head loosened from his body, his whole body structure coming apart.He opened his eyes, his hands still locked round the mast, and everything was blurred.He couldn't make out whether they were stopped or still moving forward.He looked down, saw a huge crack, a crack which was almost a lead, and flopped against the mast he felt the cold mike against his chin.He spoke without realizing it, spoke like a man repeating a rote.'Keep her moving, Schmidt.keep her moving.' There was a salty taste in his mouth, blood, an agonizing pain across his shoulder blades.He wondered whether his back was broken.'Keep her moving, SchmidtSchmidt kept her moving.From the moment they struck the starboard ice, from the second he felt the penetration, Schmidt kept her moving.The scarred bows battered, heaved, forced their way forward, thrust aside huge slabs of ice, up-ended them, bull-dozed them, bit deeper and deeper, went on and on and on, smashing through the barrier which was at last giving way.Below decks the chief engineer stared at his gauges, unable to drag his gaze away from the needles quivering well above danger point.If Schmidt wasn't careful the boilers would blow.Schmidt wasn't careful, he maintained full power.And the vessel responded, wouldn't stop, was mounting its bows on top of the ice, riding up on it, breaking it down with sheer weight and power.From the masthead, barely conscious, Beaumont began to grasp what was happening, saw the ice parting, the crack widening to a lead, the lead spreading back and back, and he knew they were going through all the way.Then he lost consciousness, relaxed his hand-grip, slipped from the crosstree, and like a man hanging he hung there, suspended by the chest-strap, his body swaying like a pendulum.It was Borzoli, the burly seaman who had shoved a bucket in Beaumont's way, who went up to get him.Grayson had one foot on the icy ladder when Borzoli pushed him aside with an oath, 'You're too small for this job, friend.' And probably the seaman was the only man aboard who could have attempted it; a couple of inches shorter than Beaumont, he was built like a wine cask.He clawed his way up the swaying mast, went up and up while the icebreaker continued driving through the ice.'Christ, he must be dead.' Langer stood beside Grayson, holding on to the ladder to keep himself upright as they stared up in horror at the body swinging eighty feet above them in the night.Like a man hung from a yardarm two hundred years ago, Beaumont swung backwards and forwards, swung free of the mast as he pivoted in space.'That strap won't hold his weight much longer,' Grayson murmured.Borzoli was smaller now, was moving up at an incredible pace, and Grayson had his heart in his mouth for both men - for Beaumont whom he expected to see spin off the crosstree at any second, for Borzoli who had only to make one mistake to bring himself crashing down sixty feet - or was it seventy? - he was close to the crosstree now.Hardly daring to believe the evidence of his own eyes he saw the tiny climbing figure stop.Grayson looked away, not able to watch any more, and then the vessel lurched with a terrible violence and he lost his grip on the ladder, went hurtling across the icy deck to crash against a bulkhead.He lay there for some time, the wind knocked out of him, trying to get his breath back as Langer bent over to make sure he was all right.That terrible impact had, of course, knocked both men above them off the ship; they were now lying somewhere on the pack, dead.'Get me up, Horst
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