The icebreaker

She was huge, a sleek black behemoth sprinkled with patches of pure white, the Icebreaker. A 200 foot boat built to smash apart the ice of the coldest oceans and clear a path for others.

At the moment though; she was still, still and silent. Save for the sounds of the men inside and on top of her. She was dying. A leak in one side of her, an iceberg which had been too massive even for her to smash had been the cause. There was no help within a weeks range, her engine was flooded, her power was gone and she was sinking.

The men knew fear. They were in the middle of nowhere, nothing but the deep blue sea and floating ice for hundreds of kilometers, and it was cold, colder than a human can survive without protection. Which was something they no longer had, the first mate wasn’t sure how long the boat would stay up, maybe a day, maybe less.

He could see the fear and the suspicion starting to spread throughout the crew, the Captain had gone to his cabin, for what the first mate wasn’t sure but he knew that things were starting to turn ugly out here. Everyone knew that any help would be a long time coming. No guarantees of a quick rescue, no guarantees about anything but the cold. The men were waiting, expectant, willing him to do something to save them. But he knew the truth, only half enough lifeboats for the men here and he didn’t’ know how long the ones in the boats would survive without warmth anyway. At least half of them were going to die in less than a day, maybe all of them in not too much longer.

Angry mutters began to sound out among the gathering mob of crew, shouts started to ring out, cries for him to do something, to fix the damn boat or to launch the life rafts, for him to do something damn it! He just told them to be calm, to wait for the Captain; everything was going to be alright. The lie twisted in his mouth but he said it anyway, to do else wise would start a riot. If they heard the truth from his lips, that not everyone here was going to make it, they would panic; turn on each other in fear. He thought it might be to late anyway. The men weren’t stupid, they could count and they’d all been on boats like this before, they knew the company had done them over, skimped on safety measures and now they were the ones who would pay the price.

That was when the Captain came out, striding from the aft of the ship. Black fedora pulled low over his face to protect him from the wind and a pistol in each hand. The men stilled, their angry mutters turned to sullen stars and frightened faces. Fear and resentment not so much of the guns, but of what they signified. The captain fired a shot in the air. Then he made his announcement. They would draw lots, half the men would take to the sea in the lifeboats, and the other half would stay on the ship and “wait” for rescue.

The captain announced that he was choosing to stay with his ship; he would be waiting for rescue right here with her. And any who wanted to volunteer to stay with him on the Icebreaker would be welcome.
Silently he added. 'Our last day will be together, I will go down with my ship'.