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He was fiddling with the ruler again. ‘I don’t think there is much point,’ he said slowly. ‘The man is not quite right there, you know.’ He tapped his forehead. ‘Provided he causes no trouble, I shall do nothing. I suggest you try and persuade him to stay on board at Bovaagen Hval. His word was law there before the war. There is no knowing how it will affect him, seeing the place again now when he is — nothing.’

That queer way of his of emphasising words out of all proportion to their value. Now when he is — nothing. Nothing to Jorgensen was a man who had no power over other men. Power was what he loved more than anything. Power over men, possibly women, too. The sleek smoothness of the man! Even in borrowed clothes he achieved a sort of bourgeois respectability. And yet behind it all was this violent delight in power. It was there in his eyes, in the quick, down-drawn frown of his thick eyebrows. But never exposed, never revealed. The iron claw in the velvet gloves. I’d seen it all my life. This man belonged to the ranks of the controllers of the machine of grab.

I suddenly saw that he was watching me as though he knew what was in my mind. He smiled. ‘You could make a lot of money out of this, Gansert,’ he said, ‘if you played your cards right.’

He got up and paused at the chartroom door with his hand on my shoulder. ‘You’ve been in this game long enough to know what a scramble for new minerals means. And you’re your own master. Think it over.’

‘What’s he mean by that?’ Curtis asked as the Norwegian went for’ard.

I looked at him then and realised that as a regular army officer he was mentally incapable of thinking of himself in terms of a single unit. He was part of a team and as such never stepped outside the safe confines of the organisation. ‘It means I’ve indirectly been offered a very large amount of money — if I deliver the goods.’

He looked surprised. ‘Bribery — eh?’

‘Well, shall we say, inducement,’ I amended. I suddenly had an impish desire to shake his indifference. ‘Any idea of the money involved in this metal business if it’s big enough, as this may be?’

‘None whatever, old boy,’ he answered without interest.

I said, ‘It could mean a few millions for somebody who handled it right.’

He laughed. ‘It’s no good talking to me about millions. My pay is about fifteen hundred a year. Oh, I realise that you really meant millions. But I just wouldn’t know what to do with that sort of money if I had it. Nor would you,’ he added. ‘Here you are with a fine boat, the freedom of the seas and a reasonable amount of money. A few millions would just complicate your life.’

‘It depends on what you want,’ I said. ‘At the moment this is the life I want — just sailing. But once you’ve known the thrill of opening up a mine — well, it gets you. It isn’t the money. It’s the sheer excitement of handling the thing. I did it once, out in Canada, where I struck lucky in nickel. It’s the sense of power, the fun of seeing problems coming at you from every direction and mastering them.’

He nodded. ‘Yes, I can understand that,’ he said slowly. Then he frowned. ‘What puzzles me,’ he went on, ‘is how Farnell was able to produce samples of ore. I can understand that a good metal diviner can locate a seam. But to produce samples — I should have thought that would have required machinery.’

It was a good point. ‘That puzzled me at first,’ I said.

‘I can only suggest that the ore itself had been uncovered by ice erosion. His samples may even have been found in the rubble at the foot of a glacier.’

‘I see,’ he said. ‘But it still seems to me that you and Jorgensen are placing too much reliance on discoveries that arc quite unproved.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘No, I don’t think so. Farnell was in a class by himself. Before dispatching samples he would have taken into account the geological nature of the ground as well as his own divining results. He won’t have slipped up on anything. Jorgensen knows that. If we combined, he and I could clean up a lot of money.’

He looked at me with a lift of his eyebrows. ‘You don’t mean to say you’re going to accept his offer?’

‘No,’ I said, laughing. ‘But the choice is not as clear cut as it would be in your case. I don’t owe allegiance to anyone. I’m my own master.’

‘What will you do, then?’

‘Oh, I’ll play the hand in my own way — if my cards are good enough.’ I got up and went out on deck. I’d let my thoughts run away with me. I stood by the rail and looked out across the darkening sea towards Norway. Go west, young man. Well, I’d been west and found nickel. Now I was looking east and wondering whether this cold, snow-clad country might not be the land of opportunity. Farnell had had that urge. He’d let nothing stand in his way — he’d stolen and deserted and fought because of the call of the minerals there under the mountains. The same urge was in me — the same thrill of excitement. And I had something more than Farnell — I had the ability to organise and develop the mineral when I found it.