Wilbur Smith's Smashing Thrillers (80 page)

It burst in a glittering explosion of glass shards that engulfed the
figure of Captain Randle standing directly before it. In a fleeting
moment of horror, Nicholas saw his head half severed from his shoulders
by a guillotine of flying glass, then he crumpled to the deck and
instantly the bright pulsing hose of his blood was diluted to spreading
pale pink in the torrent of wind and blown water that poured in through
the opening, and smothered the navigation bridge.

Charts and books were ripped from their shelves and fluttered like
trapped birds as the wind blustered and swirled in the confines of glass
and steel.

Nicholas reached the Captain's body, protecting his own face with an arm
crooked across it, but there was nothing he could do for him. He left
Randle lying on the deck and shouted to the others.

‘
Keep clear of the windows.
’

He gathered them in the rear of the bridge,
against the bulkhead where stood the Decca and navigational systems.
The four of them kept close together, as though they gained comfort from
the close proximity of other humans, but the wind did not relent.

It poured in through the shattered window and raged about the bridge,
tearing at their clothing and filling the air with a fine mist of water,
flooding the deck ankle deep so that it sloshed and ran as the tanker
rolled almost to her beam ends.

Randle's limp and sodden body slid back and forth in the wash and roll,
until Nicholas left the dubious security of the after bulkhead, half
-lifted the corpse under the arms, and dragged it into the radio room
and wedged it into the radio operator's bunk. Swift blood stained the
crisply ironed sheets, and Nicholas threw a fold of the blanket over
Randle and staggered back into the bridge.

Still the wind rose, and now Nicholas felt himself numbed by the force
and persistence of it.

Some loose material, perhaps a sheet of aluminium from the
superstructure, or a length of piping ripped from the tank deck below,
smashed into the tip of the bridge like
a cannon
ball and then flipped
away into the storm, leaving a jagged rent which the wind exploited,
tearing and worrying at it, enlarging the opening, so that the plating
flapped and hammered and a solid deluge of rain poured in through it.

Nicholas realized that the ship's superstructure was beginning to go;
like a gigantic vulture, soon the win
d
would begin stripping the carcass
down to its bones.

He knew he should get the survivors down nearer the water line, so that
when they were forced to commit themselves to the sea, they could do so
quickly. But his brain was numbed by the tumult, and he stood stolidly.
It needed all his remaining strength merely to brace himself against the
tearing wind and the ship's anguished motion.

In the days of sail, the crew would tie themselves to the main mast,
when they reached this stage of despair.

Dully, he registered that the depth of water under the ship was now only
fifty-seven fathoms,
and the barometer was reading 95
5 millibars.
Nicholas had never heard of a reading that low; surely it could not go
lower, they must be almost at the centre of the revolving hurricane.

With an effort, he lifted his arm and read the time. It was still only
ten o'clock in the morning, they had been in the hurricane for only two
and a half hours.

A great burning light struck through the torn roof, a light that blinded
them with its intensity, and Nicholas threw up his hands to protect his
eyes. He could not understand what was happening, He thought his
hearing had gone, for suddenly the terrible tumult of the wind was
muted, fading away.

Then he understood.
‘
The eye,
’
he croaked, we are into the eye
,’
and his
voice resounded strangely in his own ears.
He stumbled to the front of the bridge.

Although the Golden Dawn still rolled ponderously, describing an arc of
almost forty degrees from side to side, she was free of the unbearable
weight of the wind and brilliant sunshine poured down upon her. It
beamed down like the dazzling arc lamps of a stage set, out of the
throat of a dark funnel of dense racing swirling cloud.

The cloud lay to the very surface of the sea, and encompassed the full
sweep of the horizon in an unbroken wall.
Only directly overhead was it open, and the sky was an angry unnatural
purple, set with the glaring, merciless eye of the sun.

The sea was still wild and confused, leaping into peaks and troughs and
covered with a thick frothy mattress of spindrift, whipped into a
custard by the wild winds. But already the sea was subsiding in the
total calm of the eye and Golden Dawn was rolling less viciously.

Nicholas turned his head stiffly to watch the receding wall of racing
cloud. How long would it take for the eye to pass over them, he
wondered.

Not very long, he was sure of that, half an hour perhaps an hour at the
most - and then the storm would be on them again, with its renewed fury
every bit as sudden as its passing. But this time, the wind would come
from exactly the opposite direction as they crossed the hub and went
into the far side of the revolving wall of cloud.

Nicholas jerked his eyes away from that racing, heaven
-
high bank of
cloud, and looked down on to the tank deck.
He saw at a single glance that Golden Dawn had already sustained mortal
damage. The forward port pod tank was half torn from its hydraulic
coupling, holding only by the
bows
and lying at almost twenty
degrees
from the line of
the other three tanks. The entire tank deck was twisted
like the limb of an arthritic giant, it rolled and pitched out of
sequence with the rest of the hull.

Golden Dawn's back was broken, It had broken where Duncan had weakened
the hull to save steel. Only the buoyancy of the crude petroleum in her
four tan
ks was holding her together now. Nicholas
expected to see the dark,
glistening ooze of slick leaking from her; he could not believe that not
one of the four tanks had ruptured and he glanced at
the electronic cargo
monitor.
Loads and
gas contents of all tanks were still normal. They
had been freakishly lucky so far, but when they went into the far side
of the hurricane he knew that Golden Dawn's weakened spine would give
completely, and when that happened it must pinch and tear the thin skins
of the pod tanks.

He made a decision then, forcing his mind to work,
not certain how good a decision it was but determined to act on it.

‘
Duncan
,’
he called to him across the swamped and battered bridge. 'I'm
sending you and the others off on one of the life-rafts. This will be
your only chance to launch one. I'll stay on board to fire the cargo
when the storm hits again.
’

‘
The storm has passed.
’
Suddenly Duncan was screaming at him like a
madman.
‘
The ship is safe now. You're going to destroy my ship, - you're
deliberately trying to break me.
’
He was lunging across the heaving
bridge. ‘
It's deliberate, you know I've won now. It's the only way can
stop me now.
’ H
e swung a clumsy round
-
arm blow. Nicholas ducked under it
and caught Duncan around the chest.

‘
Listen to me
,’
he shouted, trying to calm him.
‘
This is only the eye!
’

‘
You'd do anything to stop me. You swore you would stop me
–‘

'Help
me
,’
Nicholas called to the two seamen, and they grabbed Duncan's arms. He
bucked and fought like a madman, screaming wildly at Nicholas, his face
contorted and swollen with rage, sodden hair flopping into his eyes.
‘Y
ou'd do anything to destroy me, to destroy my ship
-‘

‘
Take him down to the
raft deck
,’
Nicholas ordered the two seamen. He knew he could not reason
with Duncan now, and he turned away and stiffened suddenly.

‘
Wait
!’
he stopped them leaving the bridge.

Nicholas felt the terrible burden of weariness and despair slip from his
shoulders, felt new strength rippling through his body, recharging his
courage and his resolution for a mile away, from behind that receding
wall of dreadful grey cloud, Sea Witch burst abruptly into the sunlight,
tearing bravely along with the water bursting over her bows and flying
back as high as her bridgework, running without regard to the hazard of
sea and storm.

‘
Jules,
’
Nicholas whispered.

Jules was driving her like only a tugman can drive a ship, racing to
beat the far wall of the storm.

Nicholas felt his throat constricting and suddenly the scalding tears of
relief and thankfulness half-blinded him - for a mile out on Sea Witch's
port side, and barely a cable-length astern of her, Warlock came
crashing out of the storm bank, running every bit as hard as her sister
ship.

‘
David,
’
Nicholas spoke aloud.
‘
You too, David.
’
He realized only then
that they must have been in radar contact with him through those wild
tempestuous hours of storm passage, hovering there, holding station on
Golden Dawn's crippled bulk and waiting for their first opportunity .

Above the wail and crackle of static from the overhead loud-speaker
boomed Jules Levoisin's voice. He was close enough and in the clear eye
the interference allowed a readable radio contact.

‘
Golden Dawn, this is Sea Witch. Come in, Golden Dawn.
’
Nicholas reached
the radio bench and snatched up the microphone.

‘
Jules.
’
He did not waste a moment in greeting or congratulations.
‘
We are going to take the tanks off her, and let the hull go. Do you
understand?
’

‘
I understand to take off the tanks,
’
Jules responded
immediately.

Nicholas
’
brain was crisp
and clear again, he could see just how it must be done.
‘
Warlock takes off the port tanks first - in
tandem.

I
n tandem, the two tanks would be strung like beads on a
string, they had been designed to tow that way.

‘
Then you will take off the starboard side
-‘

‘Y
ou must save the hull.
’
Duncan
still fought the two seamen who held him.
‘
Goddamn you, Berg. I'll not
let you destroy me.
’
Nicholas ignored his ravings until he had finished
giving his orders to the two tug masters. Then he dropped the
microphone and grabbed Duncan by the shoulders. Nicholas seemed to be
possessed suddenly by supernatural strength, and he shook him as though
he were a child. He shook him so his head snapped back and forth and
his teeth rattled in his head.

‘
You bloody idiot,
’
he shouted in Duncan's face.
‘
Don't you understand the
storm will resume again in minutes?
’
He jerked Duncan's body out of the
grip of the two seamen and dragged him bodily to the windows overlooking
the tank deck.