Page:The Wireless Operator with the U.S. Coast Guard.djvu/298

 The party made its way to windward of the berg, where the mines were suspended from the float, so that they hung about eight feet below the surface of the water. ‘The sail on the float was spread, and while the wind drove it toward the berg, the sailors pulled in the opposite direction. But the matter was not so simple as it seemed. The backlash of the sea kept the raft from reaching the great mass of ice, and, instead of hitting it, it floated to one side and on toward the open sea.

Lieutenant Hill caught the raft, and now an attempt was made to tow it across the face of the berg with a buoyed line, the tow rope being kept up at intervals with life preservers. But all about the base of the berg, like detritus at the bottom of a precipice, were great quantities of slush ice, little growlers, and the like, so that the mine could not be dragged against the main berg.

Then an effort was made to drive spikes into the side of the ice, so that the mines could be hung to them. It was dangerous business, standing up in a tossing little boat, with a possibility of being pitched out and crushed between it and the berg, but the sailors made the attempt without mishap—and without success. All efforts to drive anything into the ice were futile. It broke under the hammer blows, and no nail could be forced into it.