Ghosts of the Pacific Read Online Free Page B
Author: Philip Roy
saw it coming and ducked. Seaweed
went up in the air with a burst of feathers. The force of impact threw me backwards and I banged my mouth against
the periscope, putting a tooth through my lip. I rushed to
the controls, shut off the engine, checked to see that the
crew was okay and climbed the portal to take a look. In the
freezing rain I couldnât see anything. But it had to be there.
And I wanted to see it so I turned the engine back on, swung
around and went back slowly. Sure enough, there it was,
floating a couple of inches beneath the surface like a sea
mine. What a menace!
We continued sailing but I reduced our speed to ten
knots, climbed the portal and tried to see growlers through
the freezing rain. That was pretty much impossible. We hit
another one about fifteen minutes later and I never even saw
it until it scraped along the starboard side. It wasnât a direct
hit but it threw me sideways against the hatch. I heard commotion inside.
âYou okay, Hollie?â
He appeared at the bottom of the ladder and looked up.
Yup, he was okay. I knew that Seaweed would be. Seagulls
have lightning-fast reflexes. They might look clumsy but
theyâre not.
So, I dropped our speed to eight knots. That was so slow
I could barely stand it, but I couldnât keep running into
growlers. We struck three more before entering the Foxe
Channel, but those hits werenât so bad. Ziegfried was right:
dropping our speed reduced the force of impact a lot. Still,
I hated hitting them, even the small ones. It was like getting
hit in the head with a snowball. This was the first time I seriously considered turning around and going back. It was
going to take forever to sail through the passage like this.
The thought of speeding through the warmer waters of the
Caribbean was so appealing. But I had to remember Shebaâs
warning: if I went south they would take my sub away from
me. Rats. I had to keep going. To ignore Shebaâs prediction
would be to invite disaster.
In the Foxe Channel there were bigger chunks of ice. They
were called bergy bits. They stuck out of the water like miniature icebergs and showed up on radar most of the time,
though not always. But the freezing rain finally stopped and
the sun began to shine. That was a huge improvement. Now
I could see again. There was ice everywhere! Some of it
showed on radar and some didnât. I had to watch all the time
and that was exhausting! The more tired I was, the more Ineeded to sleep, which slowed us down even more. A bigger
ship would have just pushed all of this ice out of the way.
The sun grew brighter until it became blinding. It made
the ice sparkle like jewels. That was very pretty, but too
bright to stare at. I had to put on sunglasses. I wished I had
some for Hollie too. Whenever he was in the portal his eyes
squinted into thin slits as he sniffed at the air. And sometimes he turned away, dropped his head onto my arm and
shut his eyes.
At some point we crossed the Arctic Circle. I didnât know
when exactly, but it sits at 66.5622 degrees latitude, and we
passed that somewhere in our second week. Nothing
changed much. But now we had to get out of the sub because
we were going stir-crazy from being stuck inside so long.
I decided to head for Prince Charles Island since we were
passing close by. My Arctic guidebook said that the island
was about the size of Anticosti Island but was uninhabited.
It had lots of birds. I wondered if it had lots of polar bears.
Probably.
The island was flat and grey, yet it reminded me a little of
North Africa, which we had seen the year before. That was
weird because North Africa was hot and had gold-coloured
sand and red mountains, and the Mediterranean Sea was
light green and blue, and you could see through it. Prince
Charles Island had a tiny bit of green mixed in with a whole
bunch of grey. As we sailed closer I saw a light sprinkling of
snow too. But there were no mountains or sand, and the seawas almost
went up in the air with a burst of feathers. The force of impact threw me backwards and I banged my mouth against
the periscope, putting a tooth through my lip. I rushed to
the controls, shut off the engine, checked to see that the
crew was okay and climbed the portal to take a look. In the
freezing rain I couldnât see anything. But it had to be there.
And I wanted to see it so I turned the engine back on, swung
around and went back slowly. Sure enough, there it was,
floating a couple of inches beneath the surface like a sea
mine. What a menace!
We continued sailing but I reduced our speed to ten
knots, climbed the portal and tried to see growlers through
the freezing rain. That was pretty much impossible. We hit
another one about fifteen minutes later and I never even saw
it until it scraped along the starboard side. It wasnât a direct
hit but it threw me sideways against the hatch. I heard commotion inside.
âYou okay, Hollie?â
He appeared at the bottom of the ladder and looked up.
Yup, he was okay. I knew that Seaweed would be. Seagulls
have lightning-fast reflexes. They might look clumsy but
theyâre not.
So, I dropped our speed to eight knots. That was so slow
I could barely stand it, but I couldnât keep running into
growlers. We struck three more before entering the Foxe
Channel, but those hits werenât so bad. Ziegfried was right:
dropping our speed reduced the force of impact a lot. Still,
I hated hitting them, even the small ones. It was like getting
hit in the head with a snowball. This was the first time I seriously considered turning around and going back. It was
going to take forever to sail through the passage like this.
The thought of speeding through the warmer waters of the
Caribbean was so appealing. But I had to remember Shebaâs
warning: if I went south they would take my sub away from
me. Rats. I had to keep going. To ignore Shebaâs prediction
would be to invite disaster.
In the Foxe Channel there were bigger chunks of ice. They
were called bergy bits. They stuck out of the water like miniature icebergs and showed up on radar most of the time,
though not always. But the freezing rain finally stopped and
the sun began to shine. That was a huge improvement. Now
I could see again. There was ice everywhere! Some of it
showed on radar and some didnât. I had to watch all the time
and that was exhausting! The more tired I was, the more Ineeded to sleep, which slowed us down even more. A bigger
ship would have just pushed all of this ice out of the way.
The sun grew brighter until it became blinding. It made
the ice sparkle like jewels. That was very pretty, but too
bright to stare at. I had to put on sunglasses. I wished I had
some for Hollie too. Whenever he was in the portal his eyes
squinted into thin slits as he sniffed at the air. And sometimes he turned away, dropped his head onto my arm and
shut his eyes.
At some point we crossed the Arctic Circle. I didnât know
when exactly, but it sits at 66.5622 degrees latitude, and we
passed that somewhere in our second week. Nothing
changed much. But now we had to get out of the sub because
we were going stir-crazy from being stuck inside so long.
I decided to head for Prince Charles Island since we were
passing close by. My Arctic guidebook said that the island
was about the size of Anticosti Island but was uninhabited.
It had lots of birds. I wondered if it had lots of polar bears.
Probably.
The island was flat and grey, yet it reminded me a little of
North Africa, which we had seen the year before. That was
weird because North Africa was hot and had gold-coloured
sand and red mountains, and the Mediterranean Sea was
light green and blue, and you could see through it. Prince
Charles Island had a tiny bit of green mixed in with a whole
bunch of grey. As we sailed closer I saw a light sprinkling of
snow too. But there were no mountains or sand, and the seawas almost