The blue peter Author:Morley Roberts Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ill THE OVERCROWDED ICEBERG There was a deal of ice about, and it came streaming south, in all kinds of shapes, right into the track of ships. There were f... more »lat-topped bergs and ice-fields, and there were all kinds of pinnacled danger-traps which were obviously ready to turn turtle and load up any unwary steamer with more ice than she would ever require to make cocktails with. That year ice was reported in great quantities as far south as latitude 40, and there is every reason to believe that there was more ice run into than was ever reported by one unlucky liner and five tramps which were posted at Lloyd's as ' Missing.' The Western Ocean is no-peace-at- any-price body of water, and it tries those who sail it as high as any sea in the world, but when the Arctic turns itself loose and empties its refrigerator into the ocean fairway it becomeswhat seamen call ' a holy terror.' For ice brings fog, and fog is the real sea-devil, worse than any wind that blows. It was a remarkable thing in such circumstances that Captain Harry Sharpness Spink of Glo'ster preserved his equanimity. As Ward, the mate of the Swan of Avon, said, he wasn't likely to preserve the Swan. " Dry up, Ward," said his commanding officer, " be so good as to dry up. When I require your advice to run the Swan I'll let you know, but in the meantime any uncalled-for jaw on that or any other subject will make me very cross." " Do you think you can like me since you went to see that swab at the Foreign Office ? " asked Ward, as he edged towards Spink. " Don't you savvy, Spink, that I'm just as able as I was before to pick you up and sling you off of this bridge on to the main-deck ? " " That's as may be," said Spink, " and I don't deny by any means that you are a truculent and insubordinate beast. That's why ...« less