Have you ever thought others have got an easier life? Well life is not always like that and we should not really make comments
like that unless we can put ourselves into other people’s shoes.And when we do we might find out that their life is even tougher than ours – as this story will tell you.
Otakar Batlicka has been running around offices the whole week before he received permission to take part in the passage of ‘Ice men’. He did not manage to get it and his friend Rudolf was
warning him that they were sailing away at six’o clock in the morning. He would miss it and lose steersman’s place on Julia.
Otakar is not taking any notice of a friendly warning and is rushing into the south part of port Tromso. Icemen are running along the jetty; six guard ships are lying anchor by the jetty, all under steam. Slim lines of the keels are revealing that they can develop a big speed. They do not have names, only numbers.
The
captain on deck of 5B was not very interested in Otakar, he said he would sail at his own risk.
The sirens started to shriek and in a moment the earth is disappearing from view. They have been sailing for 3 hours when spotting the first glacier.
In the shine of the northern sun a mountain of ice is glittering which is forming a white island on the quiet surface.
They have got it already recorded as ‘calf’, its name is Hubert. Commander is explaining to Otakar the jargon of the guard’s ships of the northern sea. Those quite small icebergs of the size of a 4 storey house are called calves. Those a bit larger, say about the size of a block of flats are called ‘cows’ and an iceberg as big as a town is called a ‘bull’.
Since their last guard Hubert covered 120 miles to the west. It is aiming exactly into the line of postal steamers. What you are seeing on top of the surface is not even one tenth of the iceberg’s mass. They must keep measuring constantly the depth. Perhaps part of it is already below them.
An aeroplane appears on the horizon. The pilot is flying on to the ship. Otakar is observing that the bomb department is full. But they are not exactly bombs, it would be too expensive and ineffective.
The aeroplane was circling the iceberg and in a relatively low height it opened up the bomb department. First, second and then third bomb separated from the fuselage.
The bombs, however, are not exploding. They are falling on to the iceberg, they are shattering and flooding its walls with a sharp red colour. They are marking the icebergs with a red shining colour. That will last a fortnight.
It is getting dark. They are patrolling along the whole width of the Northern Sea right down to the Golf stream where the danger comes to an end. The icebergs will melt there but here in the North on top of the Swedish and Norwegian shores new ones are continuously growing.
The ship has received a radiogram that a ship is sailing into their section. Its locators are not working properly. They have to sail there, they must…
A dazzling cone of a searchlight has intersected the darkness. A red warning sign is shining like a huge star on the front pole and is coming on and off by itself in regular intervals. A shaking white cone of a searchlight has rested in one place. It is circling gently as if it was touching some object.
“There is! North-North-West.” The guards on duty are calling. The signalling bell is giving orders to the telegrapher. Signals of a morse code are blinking from deck B5.
The ship in front of them is advancing at full sail into the dangerous sector.
The commander is horrified. If they do not recover in 10 minutes they will sink. Guard’s ship B5 is feverishly shaking with the turns of the propeller. Finally the ship has noticed them and is replying with light signals. They understood the warning. They are changing course.
The captain ran to the guards and is shouting into a megaphone.
“Are you blind or snoring or what? Captain, in the next port you must fire the manwho was on duty! This confusion will cost you your captain’s patent. My goodness, keep to the right and you will get on the horn of the ‘bull’.” Afterwards the captain belched out many more words which were even ruder.
It is a foggy morning when Tromso appears on the horizon. Otakar is looking at his watch: 7.19 am. Rudolf Bogan was right. Julia sailed away even with Otakar’s clothes and his sailor’s documents. He was lucky, nevertheless. Commander Urquist accepts him immediately on board of B5.
It is strange how people’s feelings change quickly. While the first sail in the shoes of a tourist-observer seemed incredibly adventurous and heroic, daily wanderings in the North Sea seem very uninteresting. The life of ‘iceman’ is nothing but hard work.