" Then why…"

I shrugged. " Who would believe a story like that? Strain of going into action, they say. Putting my hobby-horse to the front. I couldn't prove it, any more than I can prove the presence of The Albatross' Foot round Tristan. I couldn't even suggest it scientifically. That is, not until a year ago." " What do you mean?" he breathed.

" You know my story," I said briefly. " When the war was done, I brought H.M.S. Scott back to Tristan to take home the radio station men. I was demobbed. I did everything to get back to Tristan. The first freighter back was two years later-1948. I was aboard. You know. I spent that year with you searching for The Albatross' Foot. I spent every penny I had. You know the result-nil. I went back to the

Scott Polar Research Institute at Cambridge. Three years ago they sent me to South Africa to act as liaison officer to the expeditions going South. A shore job, but at least there was no land between me and the Antarctic."

Sailhardy grinned. " Except Bouvet."

" Except Bouvet. I used to listen endlessly to the radio talk of the whalers down south. Then a year ago a short message from a Norwegian catcher to her factory ship told me what I wanted to hear."

" What did she say?" he asked.

" Her name was Kos 47," I said. " She was about two hundred miles south of Bouvet. She said: I have never seen anything like this. The ice is breaking up as far as the eye can see. It's exploding before our eyes.' I had waited all the years since the Meteor sank, for something like that, Sailhardy."

" Did the factory ship realise its significance?" Sailhardy asked excitedly.

" I thought it wise to suppress her reply to the skipper of Kos 47 when I flew back to London to try and persuade the Royal Society to give me the chance of investigating The