The big berg towered up fully eighty feet into the air, and from a distance its long outline resembled that of a city, with graceful church spires shooting up here and there. In the rays of the sun it gave off a bluish white reflection, and as the brilliant light was reflected back from projections and angles it seemed as though the berg were scintillating with jewels.
It was a sight to arouse the enthusiasm of a painter, and the boys were impressed by the beauty of the spectacle, even though their errand was to destroy it. A brisk breeze that covered the sea with whitecaps was blowing, but in the lee of the berg absolute calmness reigned. The air grew sensibly colder as they approached the big mountain of ice, a cold breath that seemed to carry warning and menace with it.
The Radio Boys buttoned their warm coats closer about them and rowed harder to keep warm. Their efforts and those of the rest of the crew sent the boat bounding over the water, and soon they were close enough to see details and look for a good place to land. This was not easy to find, as in most places the berg rose up steeply from the ocean, and a landing would have been impossible.
At length, however, they discovered a place where the ice ran down to the water in a long slope and where it would be fairly easy to get a foothold. The boat was rowed close to the ice, and one of the men, carrying the painter, leaped to the ice. Most of the others, including the Radio Boys, followed him, leaving only two men to manage the boat while they were away. Then the cans of TNT were carefully transferred to the ice, and under the leadership of the officer the party started a difficult climb up the steep ice slopes toward the summit.
In blowing up an iceberg, the first thing to do is reach the approximate center of the berg and then lower the TNT down some deep crevasse, such as is always to be found in ice formations. A time fuse is then attached, so set as to give the party ample time to get away from the berg before the explosion occurs.
From a distance the berg had looked as smooth as glass, but, now that they were at close quarters, the Radio Boys found that this was not the case. The surface of the berg was pitted and seamed with deep depressions, cracks, and miniature hills and valleys. At some points the ascent was so steep that steps had to be chopped in the ice before they could go farther, and at all times they had to use the utmost care in traveling on such slippery and treacherous material as ice.
“Seems to me Jimmy was the wise one, after all,” panted Herb. “If he could see us now, he’d have the laugh on us, sure.”
“It’s all in a lifetime,” said Bob. “I’ll admit, though, that I never knew an iceberg could be as hard to get over as this one is.”
“We must be pretty near our objective now, though, I should say,” added Joe.
He was not far wrong, for after a little more breath-taking climbing, stumbling, and slipping, Mr. Mayhew called a halt at the edge of a deep crevasse that, as the boys looked down, seemed to them to have no bottom.