Wilbur Smith's Smashing Thrillers (77 page)

The sweeping arm lit a swirling mass of sea clutter, and the strange
ghost echoes thrown up by electrical discharges within the approaching
storm. The outline of the Florida mainland and of the nearest islands
of the Grand Bahamas bank were firm and immediately recognizable. They
reminded Nicholas yet again of how little sea-room there was in which to
manoeuver his tugs and their monstrous prize.

Then, in the trash of false echo and sea clutter, his trained eye picked
out a harder echo on the extreme limits of the set's range. He watched
it carefully for half a dozen revolutions of the radar's sweep, and each
time it was constant and clearer.

‘
Radar contact,
’
he said.
‘
Tell Golden Dawn we are in contact, range
sixty-five nautical miles.
‘
Tell them we will take on tow before
midnight.
’
And then, under his breath, the old sailor's qualifications,
‘
God willing and weather permitting.
’

The lights on Warlock's bridge had
been rheostatted down to a dull rose glow to protect the night vision of
her officers, and the four of them stared out to where they knew the
tanker lay.

Her image on the radar was bright and firm, lying within the two mile
ring of the screen, but from the bridge she was invisible.

In the two hours since first contact, the barometer had gone through its
brief peak as the trough passed, and then fallen steeply.

From 100
5
it had crashed to
990
and was still plummeting, and the
weather coming in from the east was blustering and squalling. The wind
mourned about them on a forever rising note, and torrential rain
obscured all vision outside an arc of a few hundred yards. Even
Warlock's twin searchlights, set seventy feet above the main deck on the
summit of the fire-control gantry, could not pierce those solid white
curtains of rain.

Nicholas groped like a blind man through the rain fog, using pitch and
power to close carefully with Golden Dawn, giving his orders to the helm
in a cool impersonal tone which belied the pale set of his features and
the alert brightness of his eyes as he reached the swirling bank of
rain.

Abruptly another squall struck Warlock. With a demented shriek, it
heeled the big tug sharply and shredded the curtains of rain, ripping
them open so that for a moment Nicholas saw Golden Dawn.

She was exactly where he had expected her to be, but the wind had caught
the tanker's high navigation bridge like the mainsail of a tall ship,
and she was going swiftly astern.

All her deck and port lights were burning, and she carried the twin red
riding lights at her stubby masthead that identified a vessel drifting
out of control. The following sea driven on by the rising wind piled on
to her tank decks, smothering them with white foam and spray, so that
the ship looked like a submerged coral reef.

‘
Half ahead both
,’
Nicholas told the helmsman.
‘
Steer for her starboard
side.
’
He closed quickly with the tanker, staying in visual contact now;
even when the rain mists closed down again, they could make out the
ghostly shape of her and the glow of her riding lights.

David Allen was looking at him expectantly and Nicholas asked, 'What
bottom?
’
without taking his eyes from the stricken ship.

‘
One hundred sixteen fathoms and shelving fast.
’
They were being blown
quickly out of the main channel, on to the shallow ledge of the Florida
littoral.

‘
I'm going to tow her out stern first,
’
said Nicholas, and immediately
David saw the wisdom of it. Nobody would be able to get up into her
bows to secure a tow-line, the seas were breaking over them and sweeping
them with ten and fifteen feet of green water.

‘
I'll go aft -'
David began, but Nicholas stopped him.

‘
No, David. I want you here - because I'm going on board Golden Dawn!
’

‘
Sir,
’
David wanted to tell him that it was dangerous to delay passing the
towing cable - with that lee shore waiting.

‘
This will be our last chance to get passengers off her before the full
hurricane hits us,
’
said Nicholas, and David saw that it was futile to
protest. Nicholas Berg was going to fetch his son.

From the height of Golden Dawn's towering navigation bridge, they could
look directly down on to the main deck of the tug as she came alongside.

Peter Berg stood beside his mother, almost as tall as she was. He wore
a full life-jacket and a corduroy cap pulled down over his ears.

‘
It will be all right,
’
he comforted Chantelle.
‘
Dad is here.
It will be
just fine now.
’
And he took her hand protectively.

Warlock staggered and reeled in the grip of wind as she came up into the
tanker's lee, rain blew over her like dense white smoke and every few
minutes she put her nose down and threw a thick green slice of sea water
back along her decks.

In comparison to the tug's wild action, Golden Dawn wallowed heavily,
held down by the oppressive weight of a million tons of crude oil, and
the seas beat upon her with increasing fury, as if affronted by her
indifference. Warlock edged in closer and still closer.

Duncan Alexander came through from the communications room at the rear
of the bridge. He balanced easily against Golden Dawn's ponderous
motion but his face was swollen and flushed with anger.

‘
Berg is coming on board
,’
he burst out.
‘
He's wasting valuable time. I
warned him that we must get out into deeper water.
’

Peter Berg
interrupted suddenly and pointed down at Warlock,
‘Look’
he cried.

Until that moment, the night and the storm had hidden the small huddle of human shapes in the tug’s high forward tower. They wore wet, glistening oilskins and their life-jackets gave them a swollen pregnant look. They were lowering the boarding gantry into the horizontal position.

‘There is dad!’ Peter shouted. ‘That’s him in front.’

At the extremity of her roll, Warlock’s boarding gantry touched the railing of the tanker’s quarter-deck
, ten feet above the swamped tank deck
–
and the leading figure on the tug’s upperworks ran out lightly along the gantry, balanced for a moment high above the roaring, racing green water and then leapt across five feet of open space, caught a hand hold and then pulled himself over Golden Dawn’s rail.

Immediately the tug sheered off and fell in fifty yards off the tanker’s starboard side, half hidden in the rain mists, but holding her station steadily, despite al the wind’s and sea’s spiteful efforts to separate the two vessels.

The whole manoeuvre had been performed with an expertise which made it seem almost casual.

‘Dad’s carried a line across,’ Peter said proudly
, and Chantelle, looking down, saw that a delicate white nylon thread was being hove in by two seamen on the tanker’s quarter-deck, while from the tug’s fire-control tower a canvas bosun’s chair was being winched across.

The elevator doors slid open with a whine and Nicholas Berg strode on to the tanker’s bridge. His oilskins still ran with rainwater that splattered on to the deck at his feet.

‘Dad!’ Peter ran to meet him and Nicholas stooped and embraced him fiercely before straightening; with one arm still about his son’s shoulders, he confronted Chantelle and Duncan Elexander.

‘ I hope both of you are satisfied now,’ he said quietly, ’but I for one don’t rate our chances of saving this ship very highly, so I’m taking off everybody who is not needed on board to handle her.’

‘Your tug,’ burst out Duncan, ‘you’ve got 22,000 horse-power, and can-‘

‘There is a hurricane on its way,’ said Nicholas coldly, and he shot a out at the roaring night. ‘This is just the overture.’ He turned back to Randle. ‘How many men do you want to keep on board?’

Randle thought a moment. ‘Myself, a helmsman, and five seamen to handle the tow-lines and work the ship.’ He paused and then went on. ‘And the pump-room perso
n
nel
to control the cargo.’

‘You will act as helmsman, I will control the pump-room, and I’ll need only three seamen. Get me volunteers,’ Nicholas decided. ‘Send everyone else off.’

‘Sir,’ Randle began to protest.

‘May I remind you, Captain, that I am salvage master, my authority now supersedes yours.’ Nicholas dis not wait for a reply. ‘Chantelle,’ he picked her out, ‘take Peter down to the quarter-deck. ‘You’ll go across first.’

‘Listen here, Berg,’ Duncan could no longer contain himself, ‘I insist you pass the towing cable, This ship is in danger.’

‘Get down there with them,’ Nicholas snapped, ‘I’ll decide the procedures.’

‘Do as he says,
darling,’ Chantelle smiled up at her husband vindictively. ‘You’ve lost. Nicholas is the only winner now.’

‘Shut up, damn you,’ Duncan hissed at her.

‘Get down to the afterdeck,’ Nicholas’ voice cracked like breaking ice.

‘I’m staying on board this ship,’ said Duncan abruptly. ‘It’s my responsibility. I said I’d see it out and by Go
d
I will. I am going to be here to make sure you do your job, Berg.’

Nicholas checked himself, studied him for a long moment, and then smiled
mirthlessly.

‘
Nobody ever called you a coward
,’
he nodded reluctantly.
‘
Other things -
but not a coward. Stay if you will, we might need an extra hand
,’
Then
to Peter,
‘
Come, my boy.
’
And he led him towards the elevator.

At the quarter-deck rail, Nicholas hugged the boy, holding him in his
arms, their cheeks pressed tightly together, and drawing out the moment
while the wind cannoned and thrummed about their heads.

‘
I love you, Dad.
’

‘
And I love you, Peter, more than I can ever tell you
but you must go now.
’

He broke the embrace and lifted the child into the
deep canvas bucket of the bosun's chair, stepped back and windmilled his
right arm. Immediately, the winch party in Warlock's upperworks swung
him swiftly out into the gap between the two ships and the nylon cable
seemed as fragile and insubstantial as a spider's thread.

As the two ships rolled and dipped, so the line tightened and sagged,
one moment dropping the white canvas bucket almost to the water level
where the hungry waves snatched at it with cold green fangs, and the
next, pulling the line up so tightly that it hummed with tension,
threatening to snap and drop the child back into the sea, but at last it
reached the tug and four pairs of strong hands lifted the boy clear.
For one moment, he waved back at Nicholas and then he was hustled away,
and the empty bosun's chair was coming back.

O
nly then did Nicholas become aware that Chantelle was clinging to his
arm and he looked down into her face.
Her eyelashes were dewed and stuck together with the flying raindrops.
Her face ran with wetness and she seemed very small and childlike under
the bulky oilskins and life-jacket. She was as beautiful as she had
ever been but her eyes were huge and darkly troubled.

‘
Nicholas, I've always needed you
,’
she husked.
‘
But never as I need you
now.’

Her existence was being blown away on the wind, and she was
afraid.

‘
You and this ship are all I have left.