Seaman took the cable without knowing what was going on and adjusted the sail under the command of the boatswain.
Last night, the people on the deck were replaced one by one, and a new group of people replaced those who spent the night on the deck. Finally, the first mate came out of the cabin with Hatcher in his arms and took over the command of the ship.
The boatswain, who had worked hard all night, did not go down to rest immediately, but held the first mate at the stern to explain something.
"Huh?" The latter made a nonchalant questioning sound without taking it seriously.
Maybe the boatswain also felt that he was making a fuss, so he shook his head and left, and went down to call the lazy guy who was still hiding in the cabin to come up and blow the cold air. Now that he had reported the only minor disturbance worth mentioning, he had fulfilled his duty.
Half a day after setting off overnight, most of the work has been completed. The cargo has been returned, and the sails with the correct angle are fully swollen, but not fully deployed. When sailing on the ice, you must carefully control the speed, otherwise you will hit a small ice floe.
Not very comfortable.
This ship is not in a hurry. They are not loading some time-sensitive cargo. The ores and furs will not rot because they are ten days and a half late.
Seeing that the weather was clear and the wind was stable, the idle sailors got permission from the chief mate to gather in a group of three or five to rest on the deck.
Normally, the deck may need to be scrubbed, but before sailing out of the ice sea, the water on the deck will not dry naturally, but will turn into a thin layer of slippery ice, thus eliminating a troublesome daily task.
Seaman was no exception. He approached a few familiar sailors and wanted to take some time to gamble. However, these gamblers who came late actually expressed no interest for the time being and continued to invest in the discussion of a new topic.
Hobbies were thrown aside.
In the gossip, two words were mentioned repeatedly: "last night" and "iceberg".
If those large ice floes that are no taller than a ship are also included in the category of icebergs, then this thing is not surprising in the ice sea, and I really can’t think of anything to worry about.
"Aren't icebergs everywhere? Are they worth making such a fuss about?"
The person next to him quickly covered his mouth and looked towards the first mate. The temporary manager who acted as captain did not notice this.
Such a nervous reaction piqued his interest. Apart from the fact that the captain has the final say on navigation, there are not many rules on the ship. As long as you don't question him face to face, sometimes no one cares about scolding the captain behind his back. There are such taboos, it's just a matter of talking.
Ghostly content that can easily shake people's minds.
Just like the late-night ghost story, the Bosun's overreaction was because it spread easily, and the scarier it was, the more people wanted to hear it. Finding a seat in the small circle, Seaman got closer to the huddled heads and lowered his voice.
Join the discussion.
"What kind of iceberg is it? Did the people who went down there tell you?"
After wandering on the sea for a long time, the sailors have somewhat developed the potential of troubadours. The companion who covered his mouth moved to his ear with a mysterious expression and spoke word by word in a voice that was not much louder than ice chips in the wind.
Here’s what they discussed:
"A 'real' iceberg."
The word "really" was very emphatic. Seaman was stunned for a moment, and then he understood the meaning.
Looking up at the surrounding sea, I saw many white ice floes floating in the water waves. The largest one in the distance was no bigger than two people hugging each other. Among these small people, there was an ice floe that qualified to be called a "mountain". Indeed,
Strange.
Having been with this ship for four or five years, Seaman can guarantee that no one has ever seen a real iceberg. As far as he knows, no one has seen it on other ships going to the ice sheet. If there had been, it would have been turned into a tavern.
The talk spread everywhere in the industry.
But he still didn't understand: "Then why is the bosun like this, just because of an iceberg?"
The small circle fell silent, and several sailors who had been having a heated discussion just now suddenly became silent. Frightened, Seaman looked back and found that the first mate was still resting in the same place, and no one with any status was approaching silently.
"It scared me to death. I thought I was going to be punished to wipe the deck again. If they think it's okay now." He hit his chest a few times, making an exaggerated look of fright. The companions looked at each other a few times, but they didn't.
People were amused by him, as if they were communicating who would answer.
"Huh? I think it's even weirder for you. It's not the captain himself who gave the order. How can you be afraid of him as a boatswain? I thought I was chatting with some ice rabbits."
"Tsk, look at you like this. It's not that we don't want to say it, it's because that guy didn't make it clear either."
"Yes, that person couldn't explain clearly, so he rushed us up to change the shift." Someone agreed, and it sounded like the person changing the shift on the lower deck didn't have time to say much.
They explained to each other and promised that they were not afraid of the boatswain. Finally, they used a very perfunctory reason to excuse Seaman, saying that they heard someone from the previous shift say this on the way up:
[Some people say it doesn’t look like an iceberg]
Seeing that this topic could no longer be discussed, everyone took it upon themselves to discuss it and discuss whether they could fish in troubled waters when they went back and brag about seeing the unprecedented iceberg together in the tavern.
Unfortunately, the fun time is always short, they quickly consume the fun brought by the rare new things, and the wind also changes.
The first mate noticed that the wind had become weaker and the wind direction had changed, so he called the sailors to get up and adjust the sails, spread the sails over a larger area, and turn the sails at an angle.
So everyone got up to fix the sail ropes and turn the winch. When Seaman and his companions worked together to pull the main sail to turn, a noise sounded from the stern of the ship.
"A group of sneaky people." He increased his efforts, intending to complete the task faster and go to the stern of the ship to join in the fun.
By the time he fixed the new position of the sail, the noise behind him had attracted everyone's attention. Ximan and others followed the first mate who had just confirmed the course to the stern of the ship. They pretended to be intimidating and pushed aside the people leaning on the edge of the ship to make way for one person.
Enough for the first mate and them all to see clearly.
Facing the direction pointed by the crowd, Seaman squinted his eyes and looked at the distant sea level. At the end of his field of vision that connected with the clear sky with few clouds, there was a small and unharmonious gap in the straight line.
The sailors present couldn't see clearly what it was. Anyway, the general outline didn't look like another sailboat. It was speculated that the size was far larger than the largest ship they knew, and it might be higher than the top of the mast.
"What the hell?" The first mate held the edge of the ship with both hands and leaned out with most of his body. After the arrival of the Northmen, the brig firmly occupied the position of the largest object on the ice, and nothing could shake it.
No one answered him. At this time, the sailors were all focused on the thing that appeared on the horizon. They used rough intuition to estimate its size and guess what it might be.
In the silence, Seaman heard someone in the crowd whisper a word. The sound was quickly carried away by the sea breeze, but due to the unusual silence, most people still inevitably heard it.
"iceberg?"
Iceberg? Seaman was sure that the first mate also heard this word. The first mate turned around and dismissed the onlookers, using his dignity to drive them back to their posts. The witnesses left tacitly. No one knows how many people took that
Connect things with what happened last night.
Before leaving, Seaman looked back at the sea. There was a gap in the horizon that might have been a big iceberg, and a small breakpoint in the hazy skylight was gnawed by irregular objects.
Seeing the rumored big iceberg did not give them the satisfaction of curiosity, and the excitement they imagined was not there. It only gave them doubts about understanding the ice sea.
You must know that the shortest person who has stayed on this ship has been more than three years, and the captain has spent at least one-third of his current life in the sea filled with ice floes, and thinks he knows it well.
However, what happened today gave their foolish confidence a resounding slap. Such a huge thing was floating on the unobstructed sea, and it had never been recorded before.
A vague feeling of strangeness came to mind, and Seaman realized that he was actually in a field he didn't understand at all, and he regarded narrow routes and humble knowledge as the whole picture.
He returned to his post. There was actually nothing to do. The first mate ordered them to fully unfurl the sail and leave the deck.
Everyone just squatted on the spot, tightened their collars, and talked about old topics that had been lost for a long time. They dug out the pubs they often went to in Wendeng Port and made comments. The grilled fish they always disliked was their common memory of that place.
No one talks about icebergs anymore.
Seaman spent an unpleasant day on the deck. When he returned to the cabin in the evening, he looked at that direction for the last time.
The sun's sinking disc breathes bright red color, rendering the sky, the water surface, and the thick clouds. Of course, there is also the sea level. It is as if the part of the ball submerged in the water dissolves and blurs on this line, strengthening the sense of existence of the boundary.
, also makes it more prominent.
It was the only and distinct foreign object in a warm-toned light band. The red light clearly outlined the outline of its dark side. This time, Seaman could see it much more clearly. It looked like a mountain, with small top and big bottom, and irregular edges.
.
Under the setting sun, the covered ice and snow gave it a golden-red border, just like the snow-capped mountains in winter, reflecting the gloom and darkness on the backlit side.
The footsteps of the next group of people came from the cabin, calling back Seaman who was in a daze. The people behind him blocked on the deck did not rush him, their eyes reflected the red of the setting sun, and they were looking in the same direction as he just now.
"Don't look at it. It's just a bigger piece of ice. Isn't there enough ice that we usually see?" He grabbed his companion who had just woken up from a dream and pulled him down, but he couldn't pull him.
"No, that's not quite right." The companion looked overhead. The mainsail, which was filled with wind, tightened the sail rope. The ice wind that became stronger at night still pushed the ship forward. Everything on the deck was normal.
After just a moment of delay, the sky became a little darker again. Half of his face was in shadow, and the other half was flushed red by the afterglow. His face, which had been frozen hard by years of ice wind, no longer changed its color due to the stormy waves.
He was filled with panic that was not befitting his status as an old sailor.
“When did we fill the sails?”
Seaman recalled for a while the time the first mate left today, "About noon?"
"When did we see it?"
There was no modification to the reference in the question, and Seaman knew what he was talking about and remembered the time. It was more like he was asking him for review under self-doubt.