Krafft's Anomaly Notes

Chapter 80

Seaman took the cable without knowing where it was, and adjusted the sail under the command of the boatswain.

The people on the deck were replaced one by one last night, and a new group of people replaced those who spent the night on the deck. Finally, the first officer came out of the cabin with a hutch and took over the command of the ship.

The bosun, who was tired all night, did not go down to rest immediately, and grabbed the first mate to explain something at the stern.

"Huh?" The latter made a nonchalant questioning voice, not taking it seriously.

Maybe the bosun also felt that he was making a fuss out of a molehill, so he shook his head and left, and went down to ask the slacker who was still hiding in the cabin to blow the cold air.Now that he's done reporting the only minor disturbance worth mentioning, he's done his job.

After setting off overnight and half a day later, most of the work has been done.The cargo is in place, and the sail with the correct angle is full, but not fully unfolded. When sailing on the ice sea, you must carefully control the speed, otherwise it will not be very pleasant to hit a piece of ice that is not too big or too small.

This ship is not in a hurry, what they are loading is not some time-sensitive cargo, and the ore and fur will not rot because they are ten days and a half months late.

Seeing that the weather was fine and the wind direction was stable, the sailors who were free got the permission of the chief mate to gather in groups of three or five to rest on the deck.

Usually, the deck may need to be scrubbed, but before sailing out of the frozen sea, the water on the deck will not dry naturally, but will turn into a slippery layer of thin ice, thus avoiding a troublesome daily work.

Seaman was no exception. He found a few familiar sailors and wanted to take a gamble when his hands were itchy.However, these late gamblers expressed that they had no interest for the time being, and continued to devote themselves to the discussion of a new topic, even leaving their common hobbies aside.

In gossip, two words are repeatedly mentioned "last night" and "iceberg".

If those large ice floes that are not as tall as the ship are included in the category of icebergs, then it is not surprising that these things are in the ice sea, and I really can't think of anything to care about.

"Isn't there icebergs everywhere, it's worth making such a fuss?"

The people next to him hurriedly covered his mouth and looked towards the first mate, but the manager acting as the interim captain did not notice this side.

Such a nervous reaction made him interested.There are not many rules on the ship except for sailing, which is dictated by the captain.As long as you don't question him face to face, sometimes no one cares about scolding the captain behind his back. Such a taboo is nothing more than ghostly content that is easy to shake people's hearts.

Like late-night ghost stories, the bosun's overreaction is because it's easy to spread, and the scarier it is, the more people want to hear it.Finding a place in the small circle to get in, Seaman approached the crowd of heads and lowered his voice to join the discussion.

"What kind of iceberg is it? The person who went down told you?"

After wandering at sea for a long time, the sailors have more or less the potential of bards.The companion covering his mouth clung to his ears with a mysterious expression, and in a voice not much louder than the ice in the wind, revealed what they were discussing word by word:
"A 'real' iceberg."

The word "true" is particularly heavy, Seaman was taken aback for a moment, and then understood the meaning of the words.

Looking up at the surrounding sea, there are many white ice floes floating in the water waves, and the largest piece in the distance is no bigger than two people hugging each other.It is really strange that a piece of ice floe that is qualified to be called a "mountain" has emerged from these small people.

I have been with this boat for four or five years, and Seaman can guarantee that no one has ever seen a real iceberg.As far as he knows, no one on the other ships heading to the ice field has seen it. If there is, it should have become a topic of conversation in the tavern and spread everywhere in the industry.

But he still didn't understand: "Why does the bosun look like this because of an iceberg?"

The small circle quieted down, and several sailors who had been discussing hotly just now suddenly kept silent, and Seaman was so frightened that he looked back and found that the first officer was still resting where he was, and no one with status approached silently.

"Scared me to death, I thought I was going to be fined to wipe the deck again. If they think it's okay now." He punched his chest a few times, making an exaggerated panic.The companions looked at each other a few times, but no one was amused by him, as if they were communicating who would answer.

"Huh? I think you are even more strange. It's not the captain himself who gave the order, so you can be afraid of him as a boatswain? I thought I was chatting with some iceland rabbits."

"Tsk, look at you. It's not that we don't want to say it, it's because that guy didn't make it clear."

"Yes, that person couldn't tell, so he rushed us up to change shifts." Someone echoed, and it sounded like the shift changers on the lower deck didn't have time to say too much.

They explained to each other and assured that they were not afraid of the bosun, and at last they gave Seaman a very perfunctory reason, saying that they had heard someone from the previous shift say on the way up:
【Some people say it doesn't look like an iceberg】

Seeing that this topic could not be discussed, everyone consciously opened it up, discussing whether they could fish in troubled waters when they went back, and boasted in the tavern that they saw the unprecedented iceberg together.

Unfortunately the time for fun is always short, they soon wear out the joy of the rare novelty, and the wind changes.

The first mate found that the wind force had decreased and the wind direction had changed, so he called the sailors to get up and adjust the sail, spread the sail to a larger area, and turn the angle.

So everyone got up to fix the sails and turn the capstan.When Seaman and his companions pulled the mainsail together, there was a loud noise from the stern.

"A group of thieves and tricksters." He stepped up his efforts, intending to complete the task faster and go to the stern of the boat to join in the fun.

By the time he had fixed the new position of the sail, the commotion behind had caught everyone's attention.Seaman and the others came to the stern of the ship following the first officer who had just confirmed the course, and aggressively pushed aside the people leaning on the side of the ship, and made room for the first officer and them to see clearly.

Facing the direction pointed by the crowd, Seaman squinted his eyes, looking at the far horizon.At the end of the field of vision that meets the clear sky with few clouds, there is a small unharmonious gap in the straight line.

Even with the eyesight of the sailors present, they couldn't see what it was. Anyway, the general outline didn't look like another sailing ship, and it was speculated that the size was far larger than the largest ship they knew, perhaps higher than the top of the mast.

"What is it?" The first mate leaned out most of his body while supporting the side of the boat with both hands.After the arrival of the Norse, the brig was firmly established as the largest object on the ice sea, and nothing could shake it.

No one answered him. At this moment, the sailors were all attracted by the thing that appeared on the horizon, estimated its size with rough intuition, and guessed that it might be something.

In the silence, Seaman heard someone mutter a word in the crowd, and the voice was quickly torn away by the sea breeze, but due to the unusual silence, most people still inevitably heard it.

"iceberg?"

iceberg?Seaman was sure the first mate had heard the word too.The first mate turned around and waved away the onlookers, using his majesty to drive them back to their posts. The witnesses left tacitly. No one knew how many people connected that thing with what happened last night.

Before leaving, Seaman looked back at the sea surface, where there might be a sea level gap of a big iceberg, a small breakpoint was gnawed out by a ray of hazy sky light by an irregular object.

Seeing the big iceberg in the rumors did not give them a sense of curiosity and satisfaction, and the excitement they imagined did not exist. It just gave birth to doubts about understanding the ice sea.

You must know that the shortest person on this ship is more than three years, and the captain has at least spent nearly one-third of his current life in the sea covered by ice floes, and he thinks he knows it well.

Yet today's events gave their foolish confidence a slap in the face.There has never been a record of such a huge thing floating on the surface of the sea without shelter.

A sense of strangeness welled up in his heart, and Seaman realized that he was actually in a field he didn't understand at all, taking narrow routes and humble knowledge as the whole picture.

He got back to his post, and there was really nothing to do, the mate ordered them to spread the sails all the way and off deck.

Everyone just squatted in place, tightened their necklines, talked about old topics that had been talked about for a long time, and made comments on the taverns they frequented in Wendeng Port.

Nobody talks about icebergs anymore.

Seaman spent an unpleasant day on the deck, and when he returned to the cabin in the evening, he looked in that direction for the last time.

The sun's sinking disc glows bright red, rendering the sky, the water, and the thick clouds.Of course, there is also the sea level line, as if the part of the ball submerged in the water dissolves and blurs along this line, which strengthens the sense of existence of the boundary and makes it more prominent.

In a warm light band, it is the only distinct foreign object, and the red light clearly outlines the outline of its dark side.This time Seaman could see much more clearly. The appearance of a mountain was small at the top and large at the bottom, with irregular edges.

Under the setting sun, the covered ice and snow coated it with a layer of golden red frame, which is the same as the snow mountain in winter, contrasting the gloomy and gloomy side of the backlight.

The footsteps of the next group of people came from the cabin, calling back Seaman who was in a daze. The people blocked by him on the deck behind him did not urge them, their eyes reflected the red of the setting sun, and they were looking in the same direction as he had just now.

"Don't look at it, it's just a bigger piece of ice. Isn't there enough ice?" He grabbed his companion who had just woken up from a dream, and pulled him down, but failed.

"No, that's not right." The companion looked over his head, the mainsail was tightened by the wind, and the icy wind that became stronger at night was still pushing the ship forward, and everything on the deck was normal.

After a short delay, the sky darkened again, half of his face was in the shadow, and the other half was flushed red by the afterglow.His face, which had been frozen by the icy wind for many years, no longer changed color for the turbulent waves, but now it was covered with panic that did not match the status of an old seaman.

"When will we have full sail?"

Seaman recalled the time when the chief mate left today, "About noon?"

"When did we see it?"

The references in the question were not modified in any way, and Seaman knew what he was talking about and remembered the time. These words were more like looking for him to review under self-doubt.

"It's morning too, earlier."

"Then how can we still see it?"

(End of this chapter)