The Snow Tiger / Night of Error (65 page)

‘Not quite, Clare,’ he said mildly. ‘There’s your cut – another five, I think. And I have ideas concerning the remaining fifteen. For centuries people like me have been taking metals out of the earth and putting nothing back. We’ve been greedy – the whole of mankind has been greedy. As I said the other day, we’ve been raping this planet.’ His voice grew in intensity. ‘Now we’ve got hold of something different and we mustn’t spoil it, like we’ve spoiled everything else that we’ve laid our greedy hands on. I’m keeping five per cent for myself, sure – but the other ten will go into an independent, non-profit making organization which will push my ideas a little further. We have to find a way to take that stuff out of the sea without disturbing the environment more than we can help, and to put something back – somewhere – by way of recompense.’

‘There’s one way that I can think of immediately,’ I said. ‘There are phosphorite nodules as well. You can make good fertilizer out of them, but so far no one has thought of a way of dredging them commercially. We could get them up with the rest, and you could be doing agriculture a bit of good.’

‘That’s what I mean,’ Campbell exclaimed. ‘You’ve gone to the heart of it – research is what’s needed.’ His eyes crinkled. ‘How would you like to head up a new foundation?’

‘Good grief! I wouldn’t know where to start. I’m a field man, not an administrator. You want someone like old Jarvis.’

‘You wouldn’t be an administrator – I wouldn’t waste your time on that. I can hire managers, but you’d be in charge of research.’

‘Then nothing would stop me taking it on,’ I said, dazzled.

‘That’s my boy.’ He lifted the bottle and inspected it critically. ‘Nearly the last of the scotch. Never mind, we can get some more in Suva.’

I was below when I heard the engine start, so I strolled on deck to find Geordie at the wheel. It was a calm evening without a breath of wind, and there was no sound except the throb of the engine which drove
Esmerelda
over the placid sea. ‘It’s lucky you kept some fuel back,’ I commented, looking at a steadying sail hanging limply.

‘Got a few gallons up my sleeve. I always save a little more than I let anyone know. Mike, what’s the depth of water at Fonua Fo’ou?’

‘I don’t know, Geordie. It varies from year to year. The
Pilot
gives the latest depth in 1949 as about fifty-four feet, with no sign of the island at all, but it was there in 1941 – though there seemed to have been less of it than there was reported in 1939. A shoal at the northern end had vanished in those couple of years.’

He wasn’t happy with this. ‘We’ll have to go very canny then.’

‘We’ve been around shoals before, Geordie. And we know exactly where this one ought to be – so what’s the problem?’

‘I don’t like this.’

‘You don’t like what?’

‘This weather.’

I looked across at the setting sun and then to the east. The sky was cloudless and everything was peaceful. ‘What’s wrong with it?’

‘I dunno,’ he said. ‘I’ve just got a feeling. I don’t like that yellow tinge on the horizon northwards. Maybe there’s a storm coming up.’

‘How’s the barometer?’ I asked.

‘Still normal – nothing wrong there. Maybe I’m being a bit old-womanish.’

He called Taffy to him and handed over the wheel. ‘Keep a bloody close watch on that echo sounder, Taff,’ he said.
‘By my reckoning, we should be nearly there – we’ve been running long enough. Ian, set a watch out. If there’s nothing before dark we’ll circle back and come up again in the morning.’

He was more twitchy than I’d ever known him, and I couldn’t quite tell why. Certainly it didn’t appear to have anything to do with a possible chase by
Sirena
– we’d seen nothing and had no reason to suppose that she would find us. She’d scarcely be waiting at Falcon Island as if it were a handy street corner, I thought. And while my weather sense was not nearly as acute as Geordie’s I had had my share of storms, and could see nothing in the sky or on the sea’s surface to excite alarm. I didn’t push him, and finally turned in to leave him pacing uneasily in the darkness, turning
Esmerelda
back on her track for a loop during the night hours.

The morning brought more of the same weather – or lack of it. It was calm, quiet and peaceful as we gathered on deck to watch for any telltale breakers while Geordie brought the ship gently back to her last night’s position, and then motored slowly ahead. Presently he throttled the engine back to less than three knots. The echo sounder showed a hundred fathoms. Campbell and the girls joined us on deck and their voices were unnaturally loud in the hush of morning.

Geordie said quietly, ‘The bottom’s coming up. Only fifty fathoms.’ He throttled back the engine still further.

Clare said, ‘Is this Falcon Island?’

‘Dead ahead. But you won’t see anything though,’ I told her. ‘Just another bit of sea.’

‘Twenty fathoms,’ called Jim at the echo sounder. Geordie had taken the wheel again and repeated the call, then cursed suddenly. ‘What the hell’s going on?’

‘What’s the matter?’

‘I can’t keep the old girl on course.’

I looked across the sea path to the rising sun. The sea had a black, oily look and seemed as calm as ever, but then I noticed small eddies and ripples here and there – in an otherwise motionless seascape it was a strange and disturbing sight. They weren’t large but I saw several of them. I felt
Esmerelda
moving under me, and she seemed to be travelling sideways instead of forwards. Something else nagged at my senses but I couldn’t quite identify it.

Geordie had got control again, apparently. As Jim called out, ‘Ten fathoms’ he put the engine out of gear and as we glided to a rocking stop his hand was on the reverse gear, ready to send it home. Jim was calling steadily, ‘Nine fathoms … eight … seven …’ At six and a half Geordie touched the engine into reverse and the sounder came back up to hover at seven fathoms. Geordie said, ‘This is it. As far as I’ll go.’ He looked and sounded bothered.

‘Is Bill ready?’

Diving in six fathoms – thirty-six feet – was going to be no problem to Bill, who was already kitted up in a wet suit and aqualung, and was dipping his mask into a bucket of sea water someone had hauled up on deck. He already had his orders and they were of the simplest. He was to take down a couple of sample bags and bring me back a little of anything he could see – I didn’t expect nodules, but the cinder and shell-laden bottom material would be fascinating to me. I had expected him to take someone else down with him in the accepted buddy system, but he was scathing about it and said he preferred to dive alone.

‘When you want a buddy most is on the surface,’ he told me, overturning most of my accepted belief at a stroke. ‘You get disorientated pretty fast down there, even in clear water like this, and half the time you’re not in sight of one another.’

So we’d put the smaller dinghy into the water and it was from there that Bill would launch himself into the sea. ‘It
won’t take long,’ he’d promised Geordie, and I felt sure that we could be away in an hour or so.

As he prepared to climb down into the dinghy he paused, sniffing the air, and commented, ‘Someone hasn’t washed their socks lately.’

That was the thing that was niggling at my mind, and recognition brought a stronger sense of unease. There was a heavy, sulphurous smell in the air. Geordie and I looked at each other and he said, ‘Sulphur, Mike?’

‘Well, this is a known volcanic region,’ I said. ‘I suppose it’s always a bit niffy here.’

Ian spoke, pointing out to the horizon. ‘You can almost see it in the air, skipper.’ The sky low down was brightening into the dawn but there was a strange yellow tinge to it.

Bill was in the dinghy now, with Jim and Rex Larkin to row it a few yards off from
Esmerelda.
He sat on the thwart, gave the traditional thumbs-up sign as he made a final adjustment to his mask, and toppled backwards into the sea. For a few moments we could see his body sinking away from the dinghy. He had just disappeared when Geordie said hoarsely, ‘Bill – stop him! Don’t let him dive!’

It was too late. Several heads turned to stare at Geordie, who had suddenly gone ashen and was wrestling with the wheel, and at the same moment there was a babble of talk from the men at the bows and railings.

‘For God’s sake, we’re spinning!’ Geordie said, and I saw then what he meant.

Esmerelda
was boxing the compass! Her bows swept slowly over the horizon as she twirled in a complete circle, not very fast, but with a suggestion of power in the colossal eddy that had her in its grip. And at the same time I saw a rising column of mist, darkening even as it rose, that appeared as if by magic out of the sea half a mile or so away from us. There were shouts of alarm from people, and I clung to a staunchion to steady myself as we spun about.

Almost as soon as it happened it had ceased, and
Esmerelda
was rocking tipsily, but steadying up again with the billowing steamy cloud ahead to starboard. I saw other little eddies appear and vanish on the sea’s disturbed surface, and the smell of sulphur was suddenly pungent. I heard Geordie shouting but for the moment a ringing in my ears made it sound very faint and distant, and I shook my head to clear it.

‘Ian! This is bloody dicey, but we’ve got to get an anchor down! We’ll lose the dinghy and Bill both if we start shifting.’

I heard the anchor cable rattle out of the hawse pipe almost as he spoke, tethering
Esmerelda
to the shallow bottom. I could guess how reluctant Geordie would be to sacrifice his precious mobility at that moment, but it was of course essential to keep station. The dinghy rocked heavily and I saw a line being thrown to her, presumably to keep her in contact with us.

Campbell’s body lurched into mine as we swung round the anchor cable, and Geordie called, ‘Not enough – she’ll swing into the dinghy! We’ll have to get Bill up fast!’ But he had gone down free-style, without a line, and there didn’t seem to be any way to do it. I saw that some of the crew were swinging out the motor launch, and guessed that Geordie would use it to take up the dinghy crew into a more seaworthy craft, leaving the smaller boat in tow.

‘How long will he stay down?’ I asked, staring over the side. The whole surface of the water was rippling and beginning to chop.

‘Not long at all,’ Geordie said tensely. ‘The moment he breaks surface we’ll have him up out of there. With any luck there’ll be enough disturbance down below to get him up quickly. Thank God it’s shallow – at least he won’t have a decompression problem.’

‘What’s happening?’ Campbell’s voice sounded as if he’d asked that question several times already.

I said, ‘Wait a moment – I’ll explain later.’ I was staring at the column rising from the sea as if mesmerized. There was hardly any noise but the column blackened steadily, with a white nimbus around it, almost like the smoke of an oily fire, and I knew without a doubt that if there was no underwater disturbance to bring Bill to the surface, there was another phenomenon that would work as well – the sea would be rising in temperature, not to boiling point, at least not here, but several degrees above its normal state. I knew that I was looking at the beginning of an underwater volcanic eruption, and my heart was thudding as if my chest would burst open.

Geordie guessed it too, and a ripple of awareness ran through the crew. Campbell’s mouth hung open and his hand fell away from my arm. Eyes were scanning the water near us, looking anxiously for our diver’s reappearance, and glances over our shoulders kept us in touch with the increasing activity away on the horizon.
Esmerelda
was still rocking a little roughly but there was no feeling of instability about her. Something broke surface not far from the dinghy.

‘There he is!’ called Danny, pointing.

We saw the two men still in the dinghy pulling Bill in over the thwarts, the motor launch waiting off to take her in tow back to the ship, when there was a totally unexpected interruption.

Taffy Morgan shouted, ‘Ship on the starboard beam!’

I spun round incredulously and pounded across the deck, colliding with someone on the way. Out of the smoke and steam that drifted across the sea ahead of us, half shielding her until the last possible moment, the bulk of
Sirena
came bearing down upon us.

Her yards were bare and she was pounding towards us full tilt under power. I could see figures on deck, many of them, and the lift of her bow wave as she approached.

‘Goddam it! We’re trussed up here for the slaughter,’ Campbell said in vicious unbelief.

Geordie ran up the deck. ‘Slip that flaming cable!’ he bawled.

But there wasn’t enough time.
Sirena
was on us, slewing and with her speed falling off at the last possible moment to lay alongside us with a minimum of seamanship, relying totally on surprise to aid her terrible attack. She didn’t quite make the turn and her bowsprit stabbed at us like a monstrous rapier. There was an almighty crash and
Esmerelda
shuddered violently and moved bodily sideways in the water.

I was thrown against Geordie and we both went down in a tangle of arms and legs. I scrambled to my feet, all the breath knocked out of my body, and saw hazily that
Esmerelda
’s yardarm was locked in
Sirena
’s shrouds.

Ramirez had rammed us. The chaos was indescribable.