The grinding of the ice against the hull came more often. Soon it was a continuous scrape, and, labouring in the bilge, Crimm could hear the cracking of floes as the boat rose and fell with the swell, and the prow came down heavy on the ice.

Ayto called, ‘Rest your oars. You might want to take a look, Crimm.’

Crimm straightened up from the bilge and walked the couple of paces to the rail. The floes were colliding with each other now, rising up over each other, pushing up ridges of crushed material that quickly refroze. It was a landscape of ridges and mountains, forming before his eyes. There were still leads, open stretches of water, dark stripes between the floes, but further out icebergs towered, floating hills of ice.

‘We’ve seen this before,’ Ayto said. ‘Further north.’

‘Yes. But never this far south.’

‘No, and not at this time of year. The prow won’t crack stuff as thick as this.’

‘We mustn’t get stuck.’ Crimm glanced around. ‘There are still some decent leads. We can follow that one, to the west, and then maybe there’s a route to the south.’

Ayto squinted and nodded. ‘We can try it. If not that way, another will probably open up.’

‘You call directions, and I’ll take a turn at the oar.’

‘All right. Tell them to go easy. We don’t want any snapped oars.’

So Crimm worked his oar with the rest, cautious, breaking his pull at any sense of solid resistance, any sound of scraping on the ice. Ayto stood at the prow, staring out, calling directions, and the men worked or rested their oars accordingly.

‘Hold it.’ Ayto held his hand up.

The men shipped their oars. The boat came to a halt quickly, with a grinding of ice. Crimm got up and joined Ayto at the prow. The lead ahead was still open, but it was narrowing visibly as he watched.

‘We can’t get any further,’ Ayto said. ‘Sorry. It closed up too fast. I was hoping to make a break for it to that one—’ he pointed to a wider lane further away, ‘—but it just closed in.’

‘Maybe we can go back the way we came.’ They both retreated to the stern to see. The men at the oars sat slumped, still weary from the storm – frost-covered, their clothes, their beards, even their eyebrows. The air was truly, bitterly cold now, Crimm realised, the exercise had kept him warmed against it, even though the sun was still high in a misty sky, even though this was still summer.

When they got to the stern they saw the lead behind the boat was closing up too.

Ayto said, ‘I’m sorry, Cousin, I fouled up, getting us lost in this maze.’

‘There was probably never a way through anyhow.’

‘So what now?’