The Cape pigeons, in splendid white resilience, made for the haven of Tristan da Cunha. Sailhardy unhooked the triangle of foresail forward of the mast, as if to emphasise the danger he feared.

I could not take his forebodings seriously. It was all too peaceful. I was to learn-soon-how much of my ice-lore I had lost.

" I'm a scientist," I replied easily. " I've got a posh title to prove it-holder of the Royal Society's Travelling Studentship in Oceanography and Limnology. You do the sailing."

He caught my mood, and grinned back. " I remember I was nearly sick with fright when you took me aboard H.M.S.

Scott from Tristan during the war. Naval captains were God to me."

" Who ever told you to address me as professor-captain that day?" I laughed.

" One of the midshipmen," he said. " He told me the captain had been a professor of science in peace-time before commanding the ship." He grinned at his own discomfiture. " So you had to be professor-captain."

" I wasn't a professor," I said. " Never have been. I'd merely made special studies in oceanography. I was too young anyway to be a professor."

" You were twenty-seven then," he said, " that makes you fortytwo now."

I remembered his hesitation a few minutes before about my Christian name. " I'll bet that the day you walked on to my bridge you never thought you would be calling me Bruce," I said.

" Bruce." He paused a moment, and then went on: " You would have remained Captain Wetherby to me all my life if it hadn't been for what you said that day you came back to Tristan after the war. That's twelve years ago now. We

Tristan islanders live a hard life. We live off the sea, except for a couple of acres of potato patches and some apple trees, and maybe a hundred cattle and sheep. You had the world at your feet after the war. You'd had a brilliant war-time career, and a brilliant university career before that. I remember how you stepped off the freighter out in the roadstead. Mine was the first boat there. I didn't know you were coming. ' Captain Wetherby!' I said. I'll never forget your reply. ' No, Sailhardy. This is Bruce. Captain Wetherby went down with the raider. I've come back to the things I want Sailhardy, Tristan, the Southern Ocean.' "