32

Viola got on famously with Plogg and Welko, the sons of Log a Log. As night began setting over the deep, the small crew wrapped an old sailcloth around themselves and sat in a circle with Clecky’s little fire at the center to keep out the intensifying cold.

The lanky hare sang a song to keep their spirits up.

Clecky helped himself to a piece of toasted cheese. “I’d take a bow, but I don’t want to rock the jolly old boat, wot?”

Grath nodded in mock admiration. “Yore far too modest for words, matey.”

The hare nodded agreement as he gobbled the cheese down. “Hmm, shy an’ retirin’ too, though it’s more a bally virtue than a fault to a chap like me, y’know.”

Grath snatched the last piece of cheese before Clecky could lay paw to it. “Well said, matey, yore just the shy retirin’ type we’ve been lookin’ for to keep first watch. Wake me in an hour’s time.”

The little craft with its outriggers sailed through the night towards the fogbank with Clecky’s mutterings echoing faintly across the still waters.

“Hmph! Good job I’m polite an’ withdrawn too, not like these otter types, brash common wallahs. Still, what can one expect of a creature with funny little ears an’ a tail like a bally plank.”

The night was pitch black and wreathed in thick damp fog when Grath shook Martin to take third watch. “Come on, matey, time for yore watch. Here’s a beaker of oat’n’barley water I heated up on the fire. Wake Plogg for his watch when you’ve done yores.”

Martin thanked the otter and moved up into the bow of the longboat. Crouching, he snuggled into his cloak, sipping gratefully at the hot drink as he kept watch. However, it was only the damp bitter cold that kept him awake. All that was visible, even to the keenest eye, was a solid wall of whitish gray fog. How long he crouched there Martin did not know. Strange shapes loomed up out of the mists, only to vaporize and vanish. Martin knew they were all from his imagination; one after another the specters appeared before his wearying eyes: dragons, great fish, corsair galleys, at one point he actually thought he saw Redwall Abbey. Shaking himself and rubbing his eyes, he tried hard to stay awake and keep a sense of normality in a world of wraithlike apparitions, swirling and roiling like patterns in watery milk. He watched as a towering mountain of ice loomed large directly in front of the longboat. Another trick his mind was playing on him, he thought, blinking furiously . . . Or was it?

Crrrrunch!

Suddenly the Warriormouse was wrenched to his senses by the danger.

“All paws for’ard!” Martin yelled.

Freezing icy seawater poured into the longboat; it sizzled and hissed as it drowned Clecky’s small fire. Grath grabbed Viola as she dived towards the bow to join Clecky and the two shrews. There was a tearing, rending noise followed by an agonized scream, which was cut short in a whoosh of water. Grath scrambled back along the cracking planks of the disintegrating longboat to investigate. She was immediately back, yelling, “Overboard, everybeast abandon the boat!”

Leaping over the side into the freezing water, they were amazed to find that it was no more than a thin stream. They found themselves standing paw-deep on top of solid ice. Only Grath could explain the phenomenon.

“Where I come from on the far north coast, we heard tales of this from seals and sea otters. This is a floating mountain of ice, I think they called it an iceberg. From what I can see, our craft ran into a deep crack in the shallow edge of this iceberg. It crushed both the shrewboat outriggers—we jumped overboard as it struck the longboat. Bladeribb the searat didn’t stand a chance.”

Viola shuddered at the thought of the searat’s fate. “Crushed to death by an ice mountain. What a dreadful way to die.”

Grath put aside her bow and quiver, nodding grimly. “Don’t feel sorrow for that ’un, missie, his passin’ was quick an’ easy. Not like the innocent creatures he slew for no reason. Right, wot’s the next move, Martin?”

The Warriormouse adjusted the sword belt across his shoulders. “We’d best go and see if we can salvage anything from the wreckage. Plogg and Welko, you stay here with Viola, it should be light soon. Grath, Clecky, come with me.”

The hare jumped from the ledge onto the water-covered ice shelf. Immediately he slipped, falling flat on his tail. “Tchah! I say, you chaps, this’s all a bit much, no boat, no grub, no fire and now a blinkin’ wet behind, wot!”

Grath slid across the ice, using her tail as a rudder. Reaching the edge, she called out happily, “Ahoy, there’s the logboat with the supplies in it! Come an’ lend a paw, mates!”

The shrew craft was floating just a short distance from where they stood, practically undamaged. Having the longest reach of the three, Clecky took Martin’s sword and, while they held him teetering on the edge of the ice floe, he leaned out and jabbed at the logboat, using the sword like a harpoon. There was a soft thunk as the sharp steel tip bit into wood. The hare drew the narrow craft slowly and carefully in, then Grath leaned out and grabbed the stern firmly.

“Got it! What a stroke of luck. This logboat must have snapped off and shot backward into the sea instead of being crushed. Here, Martin, hold on to my tail while I pull her up onto the ice.”

With a mighty heave the powerful otter lifted the stern clear of the water and slid the logboat up onto the ice. Martin sharpened a broken spar into a pointed stake, then dug a hole in the ice with his swordpoint. Clecky held the stake steady as Grath drove it tightly into the hole. They made the logboat fast to the stake by its headrope, then climbed aboard to take stock of the supplies.

Gradually the grayish fog changed to soft white with the advent of dawn. The silence was total; even the voices of the small crew sounded muffled and subdued by the heavy, all-pervading mist curtain. Using a canvas sail, the friends had rigged a tent from for’ard to aft on the logboat. Now, relatively snug, they sat watching Clecky. The hare had gathered wood from the wreckage, splitting it to find the driest pieces. Using a flint, he struck a spark against Martin’s sword blade onto a heap of splinters and torn sacking scraps from the supply wrappings.

A faint glow, accompanied by a wisp of smoke, had the hungry hare chortling happily. “Ohohoho, I say, pals, never mind the dangers an’ flippin’ perils besettin’ us, who’s for a good hot scoff, wot wot?”

Everybeast in the crew contributed their cooking skills, to make what for cold and famished creatures was an epic feast. Martin and Viola chopped carrots, mushrooms and any vegetables they could find among the packs; Clecky and Grath boiled water in an iron pot, adding herbs, dried watershrimp and hotroot. Plogg and Welko toasted shrewbread and warmed some damson wine.

Soon they were tucking into tasty bowls of soup, followed by hot shrewbread spread with cherry preserve and small beakers of damson wine, warm from the fire.

Welko patted his stomach. “Eat up, mates, there’s nought like good vittles to keep yore spirits high!”

“Aye, make the best of it,” Plogg responded, a little gloomily, “there’s little enough left. Over half our supplies were lost along with that searat in the other logboat. Dunno where the next good meal’s comin’ from.”

Viola leaned across and dabbed some cherry preserve onto the pessimistic shrew’s nose. “Thank you for those few cheery words, sir, you little fat misery! Aren’t you glad t’be alive?”

Welko tugged his brother’s ear heartily. “C’mon, smile, you sulky liddle toad, smile!”

Plogg pulled a long face, at which Martin burst out laughing. “If only your father could see you now. I vote, as captain of this craft, that if Plogg doesn’t start smiling and singing straightaway, we toss him into the water and let him turn into an ice lump!”

There was a loud cry of agreement. Grath seized the shrew by his belt, winking at Clecky. “Good idea. I ain’t sittin’ in the same boat as a shrew with a gob on ’im like a flattened ferret!”

Immediately Plogg grinned from ear to ear and broke into song.

Plogg’s song was greeted by laughter and cheers, merriment that would have soon ceased had the friends known that keen dark eyes, scores of them, were watching through the mists as heavy damp forms slid wet and silent towards the little logboat lying on the broad watery ice ledge.