reaction, and he happened to be among the off-watch members.
“What is all this, Mike?” Ian Lewis asked.
“Yes, what are we poking about here for?” I glanced at Geordie, caught
his eye and nodded very slightly. “All right, chaps, we’re looking for
something a bit offbeat here.” They were inteqt, and I knew I was
right to share this with them.
“Ever hear of Minerva?” I asked.
It brought no reaction but murmurings and headshakes from all but
one.
Kane raised his head sharply. “Recife de Minerve!” he said in a
barbarous French accent. Everyone turned to look at him now. “Are you
looking for that? My word, I wish us all luck then.” He chuckled,
enjoying his moment of superiority.
“What is it?” I told them briefly what we were after, and its
tantalising history.
“What’s the idea anyhow?” Danny Williams wanted to know.
I said, “Well, this is an oceanological expedition and chaps like me
are always interested in mysteries – that’s how we make our living.
The waters round a newly-forming island are fascinating, you know.”
They accepted this, though I did hear Danny saying softly to his
nearest companion, “I’ve always thought there was something crazy about
these scientific types, and this isn’t making me change my mind.”
Presently everyone fell silent, if a little more alert to the night sea
around them, and it was then that Kane came over to join me, dropping
his voice very slightly to address me alone.
“Er – this got anything to do with your brother, Mr Trevelyan?” he
asked as though idly.
I was wary. “Why do you ask?” “Well, he was in the same line of
business, wasn’t he? And he died not very far from here. Wasn’t he
looking for something with another bloke?” I looked into the darkness
towards the north-east where the Tuamotus lay a hundred miles on the
other side of the invisible horizon. “Yes, he died near here, but I
don’t think that he had anything to do with this. I’m not the boss,
you know. This is Mr Campbell’s party.” Kane chuckled derisively.
“Looking for Minerva! That’s like looking for a nigger in a coal-black
cellar – the little man who wasn’t there.” He stayed on for a bit but,
getting nothing more from me, he moved away and I could hear him
chuckle again in the darkness. I realised that my fists had been
clenched at my sides.
Next day we were up before the sun, waiting to take a sight and hoping
there would be no clouds. Taking a dawn sight is tricky and a bit
uncertain, but we had to know if possible how far we had drifted during
the night, or the search would be futile.
I was with Geordie, holding the stopwatch, as I told him about Kane’s
query. “Becoming inquisitive, isn’t he?” he commented.
“I don’t know, it was a natural question.” “I’m not sorry you told the
lads, by the way. Otherwise they’d be getting edgy. If you were on
board a ship that suddenly started to go in circles in the middle of
the Pacific you’d like to know why, wouldn’t you? But I wonder about
Kane – he tied it up with Mark pretty fast.” “He tied it up in a
natural way. Damn him, he makes a good . case for himself as an
innocent, doesn’t he?” I heard the bitterness in my voice and was glad
to be distracted. “Ah, here’s the sun.” Geordie shot the sun and then
said, “Well, let’s find out where we are.” We went into the chartroom
and he worked out our position which he then transferred to the
chart.
“We’ve drifted about seven miles in the night. There’s a set of just
over half a knot to the south-east. Right, now that we know where we
are we can figure out where we’re going.” We started on the search.
Geordie had the man up the foremast relieved every hour because the
glare from the sea could cause eyestrain. He stationed another man in
the bows with strict instructions to keep a watch dead ahead – he
didn’t want Minerva to find us. That might be catastrophic.
The day was a dead loss. It had its excitements as when Minerva was
sighted only to turn out to be dolphins playing over the waves, to the
delight of Clare and the other landsmen. Otherwise there was
nothing.
We hove-to again and waited out another night.
And the next day was largely a repetition. The last leg of the search
took us directly over both reported positions, and we were anxious
about it because the wind had veered northerly and the waves were
confused, showing white caps. In the evening we held a conference in
the chart room.
“What do you think?” asked Campbell. He was at his most brusque and
edgy.
“We could have missed it in the last three or four hours.
Those white horses didn’t make things any easier.” Campbell thumped
the table. ‘ en we do it again. Not all of it – the last bit.” He
was very dogged about it.
Geordie looked at me. “Tell me something; when you find Minerva what
are you going to do with her?” “Damn it, that’s a silly question,” I
said, then immediately had second thoughts as I saw what he was getting
at.
“We’re probably within five miles of Minerva right now.
You said that the conditions that created our prize nodules were local,
in your estimation. What exactly did you mean by “local”?” “I won’t
know until I find it. It could be an area of ten square miles or it
could be fifty thousand.” “I think you should drop your dredge around
here and see what you can find. We could be right on top of your
“locality”.” I felt very foolish. In the mixture of anticipation and
boredom that had gone into our two-day search so far I had actually
forgotten what we were really here for – and I’d made plans for action
earlier in the trip. “You’re right, Geordie.
We’ve wasted some time and it’s my fault. Of course we can dredge and
keep a lookout for Minerva at the same time.” Campbell and Clare
cheered up visibly. The prospect of doing something other than cruise
gently back and forwards was enticing, and I wondered how long it would
be before their fresh interest waned once again.
I didn’t have any hopes of a great find.
So I started to get the winch ready for operations. The seas were
hoppy and flecked with white and Esmerelda was lurching a bit as the
dredge went over the side. As we’d done the drills before things went
fairly smoothly, though I’d had to take the Camp bells aside with a
strong suggestion that they should not appear too eager – to the others
this was to be a standard research procedure. The recording echometer
was registering a little under 15,000 feet.
We dredged two sites that day and five the next. On two occasions
operations were interrupted when something was sighted that looked very
much like a coral reef, lying some twenty feet under the water, but on
both occasions this turned out to be masses of a greenish algae
floating on the surface, and we had our share of false alarms when fish
shoals were seen. I was kept very busy in the lab analysing the stuff
we had brought up, which often included volcanic particles amongst the
other material – this pleased me as it bore out some of the theories I
was turning over in my mind. We recovered many nodules but test
results were poor and disappointing to the others, if not to me. I
hadn’t expected anything.
I showed a sheaf of papers to Campbell at breakfast, away from the
crew. “Just the stuff you might expect from round here. High
manganese, low cobalt. In fact the cobalt is lower than usual – only
.2 percent.” Geordie said, “We’ve only been dredging west of where we
think Minerva is – how about a stab at the eastern side?” I agreed and
he said, “Right, we’ll go there today.” There wasn’t much point in
pulling the winch down and making sail for such a short trip so we
motored across the few miles, starting immediately after breakfast.
The sea was calm again with just the trade wind swells and no
whitecaps, which would make the search easier.
It was Ian Lewis’s watch and he had given me a spell at the wheel.
I wasn’t much of a practical seaman and I wanted to learn while I
could, during periods of calm weather, under the watchful eyes of Ian
or Geordie.
Clare was sitting talking to me – “Isn’t this the life,” she said.
“I had flying fish for breakfast this morning. Taffy saved them for me
– I think he’s falling for me.”
“Your dad isn’t enjoying it,” I observed “Poor Pop, he’s so