Wilbur Smith's Smashing Thrillers (27 page)

‘
The world has to use fossil fuels, and we sailors have to transport
them
,’
he said at last.

‘
But not at such appalling risks, not with an eye only to the profits.
Not in the same greedy thoughtless grabbing petty way as man wiped out
the whale, not at the cost of turnin
g the sea into a stinking feste
ring
cesspool.
’

‘
There are unscrup
u
lous owners!
’
he agreed, and she cut
across him a
n
grily.

‘
Sailing under flags of convenience, without control, ships built to
dangerous standards,
equipped with a single boiler-‘
she reeled out the
charges and he was silent.

‘
Then they waived the winter load-line for rounding the Cape of Good Hope
in the southern winter, to enable them to carry that extra fifty
thousand tons
o
f crude. The Agulhas Bank, the most dangerous w
in
ter sea
in the world, and they send overloaded tankers into it.
’

‘T
hat was
criminal
,’
he agreed.

‘
Yet you were Chairman of Christy Marine, you had a representative on the
Board of Control.
’
She saw that she had made a mistake. His expression
was suddenly ferocious. His anger seemed to crackle like electricity in
the ruby gloom of the bridge. She felt an unaccountable flutter of real
fear. She had forgotten what kind of man he was.

But he turned away and made a slow circuit of the bridge, elaborately
checking each of the gauges and instruments, and then he paused at the
far wing and lit a cheroot. She ached to offer some token of
reconciliation, but instinctively she knew not to do so. He was not the
kind of man who respected compromise or retreat.

He came back to her at last, and the glow of the cheroot lit his
features so that she could see the anger had passed.

‘
Christy Marine seems like another existence to me now
,’
he said softly,
and she could sense the deep pain of unhealed wounds.
‘
Forgive me, your
reference to it took me off balance. I did not realize that you know of
my past history.
’

‘
Everybody on board knows.
’

‘
Of course
,’
he nodded, and
drew deeply on the cheroot before he spoke.
‘
When I ran Christy Marine, I
insisted on the highest standards of safety and seamanship for every one
of our vessels. We opposed the Cape winter
-
line decision, and none of my
tankers loaded to their summer-line on the Good Hope passage. None of
my tankers made do with only one boiler, the design and engineering of
every Christy Marine vessel was of the same standard as that ship
there
,’
he pointed back at Golden Adventurer,
’
or this one here!
’
and he
stamped once on the deck.

‘
Even the Golden Dawn?
’
she asked softly, braving his anger again - but
he merely nodded.

‘
Golden Dawn
,’
he repeated softly.
’
It sounds such an absurdly
presumptuous name, doesn't it? But I really thought of her as that,
when I conceived her. The first million-ton tanker, with every
refinement and safety feature that man has so far tested and proved.
From inert gas scrubbers to independently articulated main tanks, not
one boiler but four, just like one of the old White Star liners - she
was really to be the golden dawn of crude oil transportation.
’

‘
However, I am no longer Chairman of Christy Marine, and I am no longer
in control of Golden Dawn, neither her design nor her construction.
’
His
voice was hollow, and in the dim light his eyes seemed shrunken into
their cavities like those of a skull.
‘
Nor yet am I in control of her
operation.
’

I
t was all turning out so badly; she did not want to argue
with him, nor make him unhappy. However, she had stirred memories and
regrets within him, and she wished vainly that she had not disturbed him
so. Her instinct warned her she should leave him now.

‘
Goodnight, Doctor Silver
,’
he nodded noncommittally at her sudden plea of
tiredness.

‘My
name is Sam!
’
she told him, wishing that she could comfort him in
some way, any way,
‘
or Samantha, if you prefer it.
’

‘
I do prefer it,
’
he
said, without smiling.
‘
Goodnight, Samantha.

‘
She was angry with both
herself and him, angry that the good feeling between them had been
destroyed, so she flashed at him:

‘
You really are old-fashioned, aren't
you?
’
and hurried from the bridge.

The following evening she almost did not go up to him, for she was
ashamed of those parting words, for having pointed up their age
difference so offensively. She knew he was aware of their differences,
without being reminded. She had done herself harm, and she did not want
to face him again.

While she was in the shower of the guest cabin, she heard Tim Graham
come clattering down the stairs on the other side of the thin bulkhead.
She knew that Nicholas had relieved him.

‘
I'm not going up
,’
she told herself firmly, and took her time drying and
talcuming and brushing out her hair before she clambered naked and
still pink from the hot water into her bunk.

She read for half an hour, a western that Beauty Baker had lent her, and
it required all her concentration to follow the print, for her mind kept
trying to wander. At last she gave an exclamation of self-disgust,
threw back the blankets and began dressing.

His relief and pleasure, when she appeared beside him, were transparent,
and his smile was a princely welcome for her. She was suddenly very
glad she had come, and this night she effortlessly steered past all the
pitfalls.

She asked him to explain how the Lloyd's Open Form contract worked, and
she followed his explanations swiftly.

‘
If they take into consideration the danger and difficulties involved in
the salvage
,’
she mused,
’
you should be able to claim an enormous award.
’

‘
I'm going to ask for twenty per
cent of the hull value
.’

‘
What is the hull
value of Golden Adventurer?
’

And he told her.
She was silent a moment as she checked his mental arithmetic.

‘
That's six million dollars,
’
she whispered in awe.

‘
Give or take a few cents
,’
he agreed.

‘
But there isn't that much money in the world!
’
She turned and stared
back at the liner.

Duncan Alexander is going to agree with you. Nick smiled a little
grimly.

But, she shook her head,
‘W
hat would anybody do with that much money?
’

‘
I'm
asking for six - but I won't get it. I'll walk away with three or four
millions.’

‘
Still, that's too much. Nobody could spend that much not if
they tried for a lifetime.
’

‘
It's spent already. It will just about
enable me to pay off my loans, launch my other tug, and to keep Ocean
Salvage going for another few months.
’

‘
You owe three or four million
dollars?
’
She stared at him now in open wonder. I'd never sleep, not
one minute would I be able to sleep
.’

‘
Money isn't for spending
,’
he
explained.
‘
There is a limit to the amount of food you can eat, or
clothes you can wear.
Money is a game, the biggest most exciting game in town.
’

She listened
attentively to it all, happy because tonight he was gay and excited with
grand designs and further plans, and because he shared them with her.

‘
What we will do is this, we'll come down here with both tugs and catch
an iceberg.
’

She laughed.
‘
Oh, come on!
’

‘
I'm not joking,
’
he assured her,
but laughing also.
‘
We'll put tow-lines on a big berg. It may take a
week to build up tow speed, but once we get it moving nothing will stop
it.
We will guide it up into the middle forties, catch the roaring forties
and, just like the old wool clippers on the Australian passage, we will
run our castings down. He moved to the chart-table, selected a
large-scale chart of the Indian Ocean and beckoned her to join him.

‘
You're serious.
’
She stopped laughing, and stared at him again.
‘
You
really are serious, aren't you?
’

He nodded, still smiling, and traced it
out with his finger.
‘
Then we'll swing northwards, up into the Western Australian current,
letting the flow carry us north in a great circle, until we hit the
easterly monsoon and the north equatorial
current
!
’
He described the
circle, but she watched his face.
They stood very close, but still not touching and she felt herself
sti
rr
ed by the timbre of his voice, as though to the touch of fingers.
‘
We will cross the Indian Ocean to the east coast of Africa with the
current pushing all the way, just in time to catch the south-westerly
monsoon drift
-
right into the Persian Gulf
!’
He straightened up and smiled
again.

‘
A hundred billion tons of fresh water delivered right into the dr
i
est
and richest corner of the globe.
’

‘
But - but - she shook her head, it
would melt!
’

‘
From a helicopter we spray it with a reflective polyurethane skin to
lessen the effect of the sun, and we moor it in a shallow specially
prepared dock where it will cool its own surrounds. Sure, it will melt,
but not for a year or two and then we'll just go out and catch another
one and bring it in, like roping wild horses.
’

‘
How would you handle it?
’
she objected.
‘
It's too big.
’

‘
My two tugs hustle forty-four thousand
horses - we could pull in Everest, if we wanted.
’

‘
Yes, but once you get
it to the Persian Gulf?
’

‘
We cut it into manageable hunks with a laser
lance, and lift the hunks into a melting dam with an overhead crane
.’