They could not see it, but they pictured the anchor thumping a few lengths into the berg then dropping into its body; a strange conflict of heat, it melting and sinking into the ice, but battled, with the deep cold closing round it, refreezing, setting it inside solidly.

The berg gave a distraught boom, a strangled sound of grief that echoed over the water.

‘She’s a beauty,’ said the harpooner.

‘A beauty. All the way blue.’

~

They attached the tow lines to the tugs and the RIBs were winched up in the davits, throwing a shadow on the flat water as they hung like things caught in the talons of a bird.

The main line went to the stronger boat that would take the berg eventually all the way to the dock.

For the first stage of the journey, the two smaller tugs would flank the main tug, adjusting as necessary to keep the iceberg stable as it melted somewhat with manoeuvre and the friction of saltwater.

As they secured the tow lines, the men looked up to the wheelhouse of the main tug; and when they were all aboard the main tug to eat before setting south, they looked at the wheelhouse.

Eventually, the captain came out. He’d checked the sonograph, and made calculations, and by now brokered the ice.

‘She’s one hundred and ten. That’s six hundred and thirty-four barrels. Good leading edge, so there won’t be overmuch friction; she shouldn’t waist too much. She’s a funny shape, but she’ll hold.’

‘Like your wife,’ one of the men muttered, to muffled delight.

‘We had two bids. The gallon price was higher south of Dogger. But we’ll lose more in the water and she’ll likely end up fetching the same. So we’re best going short. We also had an offer to park it. How do you feel about that?’

The crew heckled, with mixed accents, unanimously, at the idea. Blunt in their opinions about letting the thing melt to keep prices up.

‘Then we’ll take her into Redcar. With the melt, means you’ll only have to go as far as Sumburgh maybe. This’ll take her from there. We’re promised a calm sea.’

~

The thick smell of oil and grease came up from the dismantled outboards that lay in pieces about the deck.

The pieces lay like artefacts; the crew’s care of them akin to the careful homage of archaeologists.

They scraped away corrosion and the salt, with affection close to love.

Treated the motors as things that were amongst the last of their kind.

‘There’s no bomb big enough to blow a berg that big,’ said the big Icelander.

‘They blow themselves easy enough,’ to laughter.

‘Like someone I know . . .’ retort.

‘Well. Why would you want to, really?’ asked the strange Moroccan.

‘To blow up the city!’ They were used to the harpooner making statements like this now.