Sixteen hundred miles south of Cape Town towards the South Pole, and slightly to the east of the Greenwich meridian, lies an island. It is about five miles long and slightly over four across. It is the only point of land between Cape Town and the ice continent. There are no other islands, no other land. Bouvet, rivalling Tristan's claim to be the loneliest inhabited island in the world, is the loneliest uninhabited island. Men have not succeeded in landing more than half a dozen times on Bouvet. It lies deeper into the heart of the Roaring Forties than ordinary ships ever go; even the daring clipper captains of the past would seldom venture into such high gale-lashed, ice-strewn latitudes. A Wetherby ship had been there before Napoleon died on St. Helena. I had seen Bouvet once, from the deck of a fighting ship in action; the waters of Bouvet had brought me glory in sinking the Meteor, one of the war's deadliest armed raiders.

" Bouvet," I said slowly to Sailhardy. "We'd • cleared H.M.S. Scott for action. I was on the bridge, of course. You couldn't see what I could. The Meteor was getting our range-quick. She was good, that raider. Kohler's gunnery officer was in a class by himself. From the bridge we could just see Bouvet in sight behind the raider. Every eye was on her. I took one last look round before opening fire. We'd dodged round a big icefield to the south. We all heard Meteor's guns open up. It wasn't guns, Sailhardy. In time, Meteor' s guns were way ahead of the fall of shot."

Sailhardy stared. " What are you saying, Bruce?"

" It was the thunder of ice breaking up," I replied. " Not guns. Everyone aboard H.M.S. Scott was so intent on the raider that they didn't notice the time lag. I did. I also saw."

" You saw what, Bruce?"

" I saw a great spurt of fragments as the ice started to break up. Like the day it broke up in Deception harbour. The day you told me about The Albatross' Foot."