Krafft's Notes on Anomalies

Seaman took the cable without knowing what was going on 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 mate came out of the cabin with Hatcher in his arms and took over the command of the ship.

The boatswain, who had worked hard all night, did not go down to rest immediately. He held the first mate at the stern of the ship and told him something.

"Huh?" The latter made a nonchalant questioning sound without taking it seriously.

Maybe the boatswain also felt that he was making a fuss, so he shook his head and left, and went down to call the lazy guy who was still hiding in the cabin to come up and blow the cold air. Now that he had reported the only minor disturbance worth mentioning, he had done his duty.

After setting off overnight and hiking for half a day, most of the work has been completed. The cargo is back in place, and the sails with the correct angle are full, but not fully deployed. When sailing on the ice sea, you must carefully control the speed, otherwise it will be uncomfortable to hit a medium-sized ice floe.

This ship is not in a hurry. They are not loading some time-sensitive cargo. The ore and fur will not rot because it is ten days and a half late.

Seeing that the weather was clear and the wind direction was stable, the idle sailors got permission from the first mate, and three or five of them gathered together to rest on the deck.

Normally, you may need to scrub the deck, but before sailing out of the ice sea, the water on the deck will not dry naturally, but will turn into a thin layer of slippery ice, thus eliminating a troublesome daily task.

Seaman was no exception. He found a few familiar sailors and wanted to take the time to gamble. However, these gamblers who came up late actually expressed no interest for the time being and continued to engage in discussions on a new topic, leaving even their common hobbies aside.

In the gossip, two words were mentioned repeatedly: "last night" and "iceberg".

If those large ice floes that are no taller than a ship are also included in the category of icebergs, then this thing is not surprising in the ice sea. I really can’t think of anything to worry about.

"Aren't icebergs everywhere? Are they worth making such a fuss about?"

The person next to him quickly covered his mouth and looked towards the first mate. The temporary manager who acted as captain did not notice this.

Such a nervous reaction actually piqued his interest. There are not many rules on the ship except for the captain's instructions on navigation. As long as you don't question him face to face, sometimes no one will care if you curse the captain behind his back. What can be so taboo is nothing more than ghostly content that can easily shake people's minds.

Like late-night ghost stories, Bosun's overreaction is because it spreads easily, and the scarier it is, the more people want to hear it. Finding a seat in the small circle and getting into it, Seaman approached the huddled heads and lowered his voice to join in the discussion.

"What kind of iceberg is it? Did the people who went down tell you about it?"

After wandering on the sea for a long time, the sailors have somewhat developed the potential of troubadours. The companion who covered his mouth moved to his ear with a mysterious look on his face, and in a voice not much louder than ice chips in the wind, he revealed what they were discussing word for word:

"A 'real' iceberg."

The word "really" was very emphatic. Seaman was stunned for a moment, and then he understood the meaning.

Looking up at the surrounding sea, I saw many white ice floes floating in the water waves. The largest one in the distance was no bigger than two people hugging each other. There is an ice floe that can be called a "mountain" among these little ones, which is indeed strange.

Having been with this ship for four or five years, Seaman can guarantee that no one has ever seen a real iceberg. As far as he knew, no one had seen it on other ships heading to the ice field. If it had, it would have become a topic of conversation in the tavern and spread throughout the industry.

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

The small circle fell silent, and several sailors who had been having a heated discussion suddenly fell silent. Frightened, Seaman looked back and found that the first mate was still resting in the same place, and no one with status was approaching silently.

"It scared me to death. I thought I would be punished to wipe the deck again. If they think it's okay now." He hammered his chest a few times, showing an exaggerated look of shock. The companions looked at each other a few times, no one was amused by him, as if they were communicating who would answer.

"Huh? I think you are even stranger. It's not the captain himself who gave the order. How can you be afraid of him as a bosun? I thought I was chatting with some ice rabbits."

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

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

They explained to each other and promised that they were not afraid of the boatswain. Finally, they used a very perfunctory reason to excuse Seaman, saying that they heard it from someone on the previous shift on the way up:

[Some people say it doesn’t look like an iceberg]

Seeing that this topic could no longer be discussed, everyone took it upon themselves to discuss whether they could fish in troubled waters when they went back and brag about seeing the unprecedented iceberg together in the tavern.

Unfortunately, the fun time is always short, they quickly consume the fun brought by the rare new things, and the wind also changes.

The first mate noticed that the wind had become weaker and the wind direction had changed, so he called on the sailors to adjust the sails, spread the sails over a larger area, and turn the sails at an angle.

Then everyone got up to take care of the sail ropes and turn the winch. As Seaman and his companions worked together to pull the mainsail to turn, a noise sounded from the stern of the ship.

"A bunch of sneaky people." He increased his strength, intending to complete the task faster and go to the stern of the ship to join in the fun.

By the time he had fixed the new position of the sail, the commotion behind had attracted everyone's attention. Ximan and others followed the first mate who had just confirmed the course to the stern of the ship. They pretended to be powerful and pushed aside the people leaning on the edge of the ship, leaving a position where the first mate and them could see clearly.

Facing the direction pointed by the crowd, Seaman squinted his eyes and looked at the distant horizon. At the end of the field of vision that connected with the cloudless clear sky, there was an unharmonious small gap in the straight line.

The sailors present couldn't see clearly what it was. Anyway, the general outline didn't look like another sailboat. It was speculated that the size was far larger than the largest ship they knew, and it might be higher than the mast top.

"What the hell?" The first mate held the edge of the boat with both hands and leaned out with most of his body. After the arrival of the Norse, the brig firmly held its position as the largest object on the ice sea, and nothing could shake it.

No one answered him. At this time, the sailors were all focused on the thing that appeared on the horizon. They used rough intuition to estimate its size and guess what it might be.

In the silence, Seaman heard someone in the crowd whisper a word. The sound was quickly carried 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 heard the word too. The first mate turned around and dismissed the onlookers, using his authority to drive them back to their posts. The witnesses left tacitly, and no one knew how many people connected that thing with what happened last night.

Before leaving, Seaman looked back at the sea. There was a gap in the horizon that might have been a big iceberg, and a small breakpoint in the hazy skylight was gnawed by irregular objects.

Seeing the rumored big iceberg did not give them the satisfaction of curiosity, and the excitement they imagined was not there. It only gave them doubts about understanding the ice sea.

You must know that the shortest person who has stayed on this ship has been more than three years. The captain has spent at least one-third of his current life in the sea filled with ice floes, and thinks he knows it well.

However, what happened today gave their foolish confidence a resounding slap in the face. Such a huge thing floating on the unobstructed sea has never been recorded before.

A vague feeling of strangeness came to mind, and Seaman realized that he was actually in a field he didn't understand at all, and he regarded narrow routes and humble knowledge as the whole picture.

He returned to his post, and with nothing really to do, the first mate ordered them to fully unfurl the sails and leave the deck.

Everyone just squatted on the spot, tightened their collars, and talked about old topics that had been lost for a long time. They dug out the pubs they often went to in Wendeng Port and made comments. The grilled fish that they always disliked was their common memory of that place.

No one talks about icebergs anymore.

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

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

In a warm-toned light strip, it is the only and distinct foreign object, and the red light clearly outlines the outline of its dark side. This time Ximan could see much more clearly. It looked like a mountain, with a small top and a big bottom, with irregular edges.

Under the setting sun, the covered ice and snow gave it a golden-red border, just like the snow-capped mountains in winter, reflecting the gloom and darkness on the backlit side.

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

"Don't look at it. It's just a bigger piece of ice. Isn't there enough ice that you usually see?" He grabbed his companion who had just woken up from a dream and pulled him down, but he couldn't pull him.

"No, that's not quite right." The companion looked overhead. The mainsail, which was filled with wind, tightened the sail rope. The ice wind that became stronger at night still pushed the ship forward. Everything on the deck was normal.

After just a moment of delay, the sky became a little darker again, half of his face was in shadow, and the other half was flushed red by the afterglow. The face that had been frozen hard by years of icy wind no longer changed its color due to the stormy waves, but now it was filled with panic that was not befitting the status of an old sailor.

"When did we fill the sails?"

Seaman recalled for a while the time the first mate left today, "About noon?"

"When did we see it?"

There was no modification to the reference in the question, and Seaman knew what he was talking about and remembered the time. It was more like he was asking him for review under self-doubt.

"It's morning too, earlier."

"Then how can we still see it?"