" I nearly let you down the very first time we entered Deception harbour," he said quietly. " Do you remember Neptune's Bellows?"

" I still get the heebie-jeebies when I think of it," I grinned. " Thank God I brought you on the bridge."

" Neptune's Bellows is just about right," said Sailhardy, " the way the wind rips through the gap."

" It caught old H.M.S. Scott's bows," I filled in. " Dear Heaven! The way her bows whipped in towards those rocks!"

I could still see the way Sailhardy had taken hold of the situation as the flagship teetered on the edge of destruction in the narrow gap which leads into the deeper anchorage-the flooded volcanic crater-beyond.

" It was that afternoon," I said slowly, " that you told me about The Albatross' Foot."

Deception harbour had been full of bergy bits of ice. They had come in crabwise through Neptune's Bellows and started to freeze together in the inner anchorage. It seemed quite clear to me. what would happen: my small force was about to be frozen solid in the harbour. As I had seen it, it would have remained bottled up there for the next six months, unable to move, while the U-boats and raiders sneaked past in the Drake Passage. Destroyers and frigates are not sturdy ships like whale catchers; the ice would have damaged them severely. There were no installations or dockyards to repair them. As the harbour started to freeze, I had climbed the cliff entrance and had been appalled at the gigantic phalanx of solid ice moving through the strait between Deception and the mainland. Some of it was turning aside from the main body into Deception harbour. If enough did-it would have meant death to my whole task force.