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“Captain,” Bell said urgently, “turn us toward them”

“What? Why?”

“Just do it!”

Fyrie swung the wheel, and the whaling ship drove her shoulder into the sea and she came about far sharper than she ever had in her career She heeled over hard, forcing thecrashing to the deck below came up the stairway

An instant later, the French fired a third ti exactly where the wheelhouse would have been had Bell not shouted a warning More ice cascaded down into the sea

“Their turret doesn’t swivel,” Bell said “They have to ai the entire ship”

“Hoe take advantage of that?” Fyrie asked, turning his ship once again so he could duck around the back of the berg and take refuge a ice islands

“For one thing, don’t let hi unpredictably Zig when he zags”

Arn bellowed up the stairwell, “Captain, we need to vent the mechanical room”

“One o out and open the fairlead plug It twists a quarter turn into position, and it’s secured to the ship with a chain Take gloves because it’s going to be hot Same with the deck Out and back as fast as you can”

“On it,” Bell replied He found gloves on a shelf above soi

ng parkas He pulled on the thickest pair, and a hooded anorak, before sliding open the bridge wing door

The te, but it was the wind rushing across the deck that numbed Bell’s face and made his eyes strea fro the raised catwalk connecting the bridge to the pulpit, where the harpoon cannon stood eh the soles of his boots He saw the round plug used to cover the hole that the wire the harpoon was attached to, on its deadly arc, rise from within the ship

The plug had expanded due to the extre hith It finally loosened, and the pressure of overheated air down belo the plug upward like a cha the seat of his pants forced him back to his feet in a comical bit of acrobatics

From the hole spewed a solid column of black smoke, followed by dense white steaan to cool the metal machinery with the two-inch hose In the pristine Arctic air, the smoke was a dark stain