Word: tuggings
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...Tug Fork of the Big Sandy River, once navigable, now has a single abstract function: Kentucky lies on one side, West Virginia on the other. Splayed out from both banks are noiseless hollows and stubbly, once-farmed bottoms, all in the shadow of Appalachian mountains, which rise dark and gorgeous in every direction. But to the businessmen who brought the railroad through around 1900, wooded slopes and crags were incidental: the capitalists came to burrow and cart away endless tons of coal, which they're still doing today. The Tug Fork Valley, boosters chime, is THE HEART...
Simultaneously, local operatives in the Southeast China port of Swatow, the city near the planned landing, made hundreds of area photographs and closely monitored local Chinese security forces. The plan, completed last December, called for a sturdy tug to tow a partly submersible barge loaded with 232 one-ton blocks, each packed with 48 waterproof boxes containing 90 Bibles...
...specially chosen 20-member international crew began to practice dry runs on secluded Mindoro Island in the Philippines. A special 100-ft. barge was built, and, for $480,000, the tug Michael was bought in Singapore. Finally, the assault party sailed for Hong Kong to pick up its illicit cargo. At the last moment, a planned Easter Sunday landing at Swatow was scrubbed by Van der Bijl because of concern that Chinese authorities might be alerted to the plan. Two months later, the crew sent a cryptic message to agents in Swatow: "We are going to have a dinner party...
More threatening than the shallow Arctic waters is the ice; it can punch holes in sturdy tugs and treat barges like pincushions. The passing floes can make a landsman as giddy as a child finding shapes hi clouds. He sees ironing boards and beached seaplanes and dolphin tails and animals that guard the doors of ancient Egyptian tombs. But to the Cavalier's crew, there is nothing fanciful about these floating hulks. The ice is fragile from the summer, and if the tug sails too close, its wake can make the bergs crack or explode. Depending on the density...
Most of the tug crews will wait anxiously for the now-empty barges to be rehitched so that they can set sail for Seattle. But for Kardonsky, the most experienced skipper in the fleet, a more savage task remains. The Cavalier has to tow one last load of equipment to Prudhoe Bay. The tug will return to Wainwright, hook up with a bargeload of pipes from Japan and once more swing east. Feeling the menacing bite of the chill September air, the crew will be praying harder than usual that the Arctic not mistake Kardonsky's nerve for defiance...