Chapter SeventeenGREENLAND SEA
JUNE – JULY 1914
The bear, unable to make much resistance, opened his mouth however, sufficiently wide to swallow the man, and bellowed like thunder.
'Capture of a Polar Bear,' Banffshire Journal, 25th May 1852.
'And then there were ten,' Pratt seemed calmer now, as if he were resigned to his doom. He stared at the waves that stretched quietly to infinity. 'I knew Sooty for twelve years,' he said, 'and the bosun for eight. Good men. We won't get many more of their quality.'
'Perhaps not.' I was still sobered by the completeness of their death. In these latitudes there was no point in searching for their bodies; the sea had reached out and plucked them as easily as a man picking a raspberry from a cane. It had been their time and that was that.
'It was t
