Path of the Storm

by Douglas Reeman

  The freighter had seemed to stagger as an extra powerful gust caught her high superstructure, and without a second’s warning she began to pay off sideways towards the other ship.

  Maddox had gripped the rail, his sore eyes trying to gauge her speed, to estimate the rate of drift. But all he could see was the towering stem, the frantic hand-waving Chinese and the vessel’s twin anchors looming above the swaying Hibiscus like two malevolent eyes.

  Maddox had torn his eyes away. ‘All engines ahead full! Right standard rudder!’ He hardly recognised his own voice.

  Kroner shouted, ‘Christ, she’ll cut us in two!’

  The Hibiscus stubbornly refused to swing, although the engines thrashed and shook the bridge as the revolutions mounted. Kroner yelled: ‘Slip the tow! For Jesus’ sake slip!’ His face was white like an old man’s, his eyes fixed on the towering freighter as it bore down on them.

  Maddox licked his parched lips. ‘Bring your rudder hard right!’ He no longer knew what he was doing. He just had to get away.

  The Hibiscus yawed violently and staggered. Men yelled and cursed as the deck tilted so that some skidded towards the boiling water, gripping and scratching for handholds as the ship went over and stayed over.

  ‘Slip the tow!’ Maddox was pressed against the rail by two of the signalmen, held transfixed as the maddened freighter lifted her shadow over the bridge itself. There was a muffled clang and the Hibiscus rolled back on to even keel, still swinging in response to the full rudder. But the freighter seemed to take on a new lease of life. Almost skittishly she swung clear, hampered by the great dangling weight of her anchor cable, yet once more free to move as the mood took her.

  Regan had panted up the bridge ladder as Maddox dazedly brought the ship back on course. ‘What were you trying to do, for Christ’s sake?’ He peered round the bridge as if surprised to find it still intact. ‘You nearly scuppered my lot down aft!’

  Maddox said thickly: ‘Shut your yap! I had to do it! She’d have mashed us!’

  Darkness had soon followed, and as one cup of hot coffee followed another Maddox and Regan stood side by side watching the dim shadow like an adversary. It had drawn them together, but little else.

  Regan said wearily: ‘We’ll wait till dawn, eh? What d’you think?’

  Maddox nodded. ‘God, that tug’ll never make contact after this lot. There’ll be merry hell to pay!’

  Carkosi, a radioman, shambled through the darkness. Finding the exec he reported, ‘She’s sendin’ an S O S sir!’ He shrugged, as if contemptuous of such stupidity.

  Maddox gripped his jacket to stop his hands from shaking. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, sir, as far as I can make out her master is askin’ for help. He gives his position as accurately as he can, which puts him less than a hundred miles south-east of the Chinese mainland.’

  Maddox heard Regan’s quick intake of breath. ‘Christ, no wonder he’s in a panic. If the Reds come out to take a look it’ll be curtains for those poor refugee bastards!’

  Kroner interrupted quickly, ‘He’s fifty miles out, the stupid bastard!’

  Maddox rubbed his chin. ‘Right or wrong, he’ll bring the whole pack down on our heads!’ He thought rapidly. ‘I’ll ask instructions. Yes, I’ll send a despatch and inform the fleet of our position. That should clinch it.’

  He jumped as Regan’s hand fastened on his wrist. ‘Forget it! They’ll eat you alive if you start doing that. We’ve got to hang on here and take that maniac in tow at first light. Flash that idiot and tell him to stop signalling.’

  Maddox said, ‘And if he refuses?’

  ‘Tell him I’ll blow his friggin’ radio shack straight into the drink!’ Regan grinned in the darkness as the lamp began to stammer once more. ‘I will too!’

  Maddox stepped shakily from the gratings. Regan was taking over. But he was right, of course. The admiral would have little time for anyone aboard if he was asked for help before anything actually happened. He listened to the faint buzz of morse and static from the radio room and wondered if the Dutchman had heeded Regan’s tough message.

  Carkosi reappeared, his jaw moving steadily on a wad of gum. ‘She’s piped down, sir.’

  ‘Good.’ Maddox took a deep breath. Right along the line he had fouled it up. There was a little time left. He would have to make sure he made full use of it.

  In a strained voice he said, ‘Stand by to commence towing at first light.’

  Regan rubbed his hands in the darkness. ‘If we drift much nearer the mainland we’ll be able to walk across to that bucket!’

  * * *

  ‘Dawn comin’ up, sir. Mister Regan’s respects an’ would you come to the bridge?’

  Maddox groaned and rolled dully out of the charthouse bunk. There was a stale taste in his mouth, and he had the impression that it was less than minutes since he had fallen asleep.

  The upper bridge was already bathed in an eerie orange half-glow as he staggered to the gratings where Regan was watching the crippled freighter with levelled glasses.

  Regan said flatly, ‘It’ll be clear enough soon.’

  Maddox took a mug of coffee and drained it without speaking. The sea looked brightly angry in the strange light, and even the old ship ahead glowed with a fresh, copper-coloured light. It was still blowing but the waves were less violent, and the crests only broke with occasional power, as if they too were newly awakened.

  Regan rubbed his stubbled chin. ‘We ought to make another turn around her and try to drift a line across. If only we were in shallow water we could both drop the hook and pass a line over at leisure.’

  Maddox stifled his irritation, and watched the masthead turning in a wide circle as the slow-moving Hibiscus rolled painfully in each trough. ‘Hell, the weather looks weird. I’ve not seen a sky like it before!’

  Regan grinned as Kroner staggered drunkenly on to the bridge, rubbing his eyes and yawning hugely. ‘’Morning, Don!’ Regan eyed him with an unpitying smile. ‘Got over your little batch of nerves yet?’

  Kroner scowled. ‘You can talk!’

  ‘Tell the master we’re going to start towing operations in fifteen minutes.’ Maddox shook himself and turned towards one of the bridge signalmen, who like the others was clinging to a support to stop his body from being knocked stupid in the steady, gyrating motion.

  The signalman said sharply: ‘There’s a ship fine on the port bow, sir! You can see her just below the freighter’s stack!’

  Maddox swore and fumbled with his glasses. The lenses swept across the rusty sides of the other ship, and then he caught his breath as he saw a thin, wafer-like shadow just below the horizon line. It was still merged with the night sky, lost in a welter of spray and fast cloud, but a ship nevertheless. Even as he watched, his numbed mind tearing between the possibilities of calling up the fleet or putting Hibiscus between the freighter and the newcomer, he saw the big, ice-blue projector begin to flash, as if from the sea itself.

  There was absolute silence on the open bridge as the signalman said, ‘Her Majesty’s destroyer Bosworth, sir!’ He went on reading as another man filled in the message pad.

  Regan laughed shortly. ‘A Limey, for God’s sake! Must be out of Hong Kong.’

  Maddox snatched the completed pad and read the scrawled pencil very slowly. He said at length: ‘The Bosworth has a navy tug in company. She’s closing in to give us assistance.’

  Regan grunted, ‘Sticking his goddamned nose in more likely!’

  As the angry bronze sunlight spilled over the horizon it held the converging ships like scale models and lit up the creaming bow-wave of the big destroyer to give an added impression of power. The British ship was a radar picket destroyer, its trim outline marred and disfigured by the giant mass of revolving radar frames, yet with easy grace it swung in a full circle and then reduced speed to run parallel with the Hibiscus, which rocked suddenly in the disturbance thrown up by the destroyer’s screws.

  Maddox noticed that the British
ship had placed herself between the freighter and the Hibiscus, and as he watched he saw a tall, immaculate, white-uniformed figure with a cap heavy in gold leaf climb on to her bridge screen, and heard the squeak of the loud-hailer. The destroyer’s captain had a crisp, authoritative voice, and Maddox was vaguely reminded of Burgess.

  ‘Good morning, Hibiscus!’ He sounded cheerful and refreshed, and Maddox imagined that the British officers had probably just completed an excellent breakfast. He tried not to think of the picture his own ship must present. Her decks littered with wires and ropes, her dungareed and unshaven crew lounging wearily, too tired even to look at the glittering newcomer.

  The metallic voice continued: ‘Heard the S O S and decided to look in on your problem, old boy.’ A pause. ‘There’s just one thing …’

  Regan swore. ‘Here it comes!’

  ‘This freighter is on our lists as being concerned with the smuggling of illicit refugees from the Crown Colony. My tug will take her in tow, if you have no objections?’

  They all looked at Maddox. The British captain was no fool. What could Maddox say? Hibiscus was not an official escort. She had merely been attempting to take a disabled ship in tow. What the Nationalists were doing on the side to ensure a flow of new blood to Taiwan was none of their concern. He bit his lip and looked helplessly at Regan’s uncompromising features. ‘What do you think?’

  Before he could answer the loud-hailer added, ‘Of course, I could stand by until your people decide to take over the tow.’

  Regan said sharply, ‘Tell him to go to hell!’

  Maddox forced himself to say, ‘Give me the mike!’ The set buzzed to life in his hand and he felt the Bosworth’s captain staring at him across the surging mass of trapped water between them.

  ‘The freighter is from Payenhau. Lost her screw yesterday and we tried to take her in tow.’

  ‘I see. Bad luck.’ The voice sounded noncommital. ‘Still, it’s not really your problem, is it? Hong Kong is the nearest port, and I do have a tug right here.’ As if to back him up a siren hooted dismally, and Maddox saw a bobbing mast appear briefly above the freighter’s swaying hull.

  The doctor had arrived on the bridge, his eyes red-rimmed but alert. ‘You can’t let them take over from you, Bob! Those poor devils will be thrown back into Red China. The British haven’t got room for all of them in Hong Kong!’

  Maddox gritted his teeth. Into the speaker he said flatly: ‘Very well, Captain. She’s all yours!’

  He watched unhappily as a smart launch shot from the destroyer’s hidden side and curtsied towards the freighter. The Britisher had been very confident. The launch must have been ready to slip from the start. The packed Chinese on the crippled ship’s maindeck were not slow to understand their change of fate. The agony and suspense, the privations and sufferings had all been in vain. There was a great sigh, ‘Aiya!’ which seemed to represent all the misery of refugees everywhere.

  The destroyer fell away, her guns swinging to cover the small boarding party. In spite of the choppy sea the tug was already fumbling around the bigger ship’s stem, and Maddox could see the professional ease with which the British salvage crew were getting to work.

  Regan said between his tight lips: ‘You fool! You stupid, gutless fool!’

  Maddox swung on him. ‘What d’you know about it? What did you expect me to do under the circumstances?’ He controlled his voice with a real effort, aware that some of the bridge party were watching him. ‘The British might have got here first and the question of towing would not have arisen!’

  Regan sneered, the truce was over. ‘Well they didn’t, and it did!’

  Kroner watched the freighter begin to turn obediently on its new halter. ‘Poor bastards.’

  Maddox flared up, unable to stop himself. ‘Poor bastards? I like that! Yesterday you were squealing like a stuck pig for me to cut the tow, you couldn’t stop yourself from going popeyed when you thought your precious skin was in danger! Now it’s over you want to be noble, play the big hero! Well, not me! I take the responsibility and that’s all there is to it!’

  A signalman shouted excitedly, ‘One of the Chinks has jumped for it, sir!’

  Spellbound they watched the frantic, desperate strokes of the man who had appeared below the freighter’s counter. Every so often the sleek head was hidden by the waves, then he would appear once more, swimming more strongly than before towards the Hibiscus.

  The destroyer’s launch idled clear of the ship’s side and gathered way, a man already in the bows with a boathook.

  Some of the American seamen had forgotten their weariness and were yelling encouragement. ‘Swim up! Come on. Tarzan!’

  The swimmer reached the Hibiscus’s side, and Maddox saw his wide-eyed, streaming face as he peered up at the ship’s flat side and at the curling Stars and Stripes which blew gaily from the gaff.

  Chief Tasker bellowed: ‘Get a heaving line! Give him a hand there!’

  But Maddox said tightly: ‘Hold it! He’s not our concern!’

  The man seemed to realise that even this sacrifice had been in vain. He paddled clear of the side, his eyes still on the flag, as the destroyer’s launch swept towards him. Then with a sob he lifted his arms and vanished. The launch turned in a slow circle, then one of its crew semaphored back to the parent ship. Maddox noticed that one of the British sailors was sitting in the boat’s cockpit rolling a cigarette. To them it was just routine.

  The doctor stayed looking over the heads of the silent men on deck. ‘He was looking at the flag,’ he said at length.

  Maddox walked hotly towards the chartroom. ‘Send a despatch, Mister Kroner. We’re returning to Payenhau. Give them our E.T.A.’

  Regan called after him, ‘I wonder what that poor bastard was thinking just then?’

  Maddox slammed the door and tugged the chart from its folder. When the signalman had reported the other ship he had imagined for a moment that it was a Red Chinese warship. The thought had chilled him in the same way as the baying crowd on the pier when Pirelli had opened fire. But now he wished it had been an enemy. Anything was better than the humiliation of defeat which he now felt.

  Soon the Hibiscus had the sea to herself. But some of the tired seamen still looked around as if they expected to see the fated refugee ship, or even the swimmer who had looked in vain at their flag.

  11

  Conflict

  AS THE DARK clouds momentarily parted across the moon’s path the slab-sided islet glowed white and silver and seemed to change shape as Gunnar levered himself upwards in the dinghy to get a better view of it. It was a bleak, hostile place, and now that he was committed to his sketchy plan Gunnar could well imagine Inglis’s men dying there.

  The clouds blotted out the moon once again as Tsung, the Osprey’s massive deckhand, tugged easily at the oars and sent the small craft leaping beneath an overhanging rock. Already lost in the darkness of the uneasy water astern, the Osprey seemed far away, and Gunnar checked the automatic at his waist as if to reassure himself. What did he expect to find here anyway?

  It had been an uneventful trip so far, with only the fishing boat’s steady diesel to break the silence. Near the northern side of the main island the weather had taken a change for the worse, and the gathering cloud banks had been broken into long, angry streamers in the freshening wind, so that the full moon laid them bare in its cold eye for mere seconds and then allowed them to be plunged into impenetrable darkness. Lea Burgess certainly knew her ship, he thought. Skilfully she had steered the heavy boat around unseen clumps of rock, and had allowed for the sudden and vicious tide races with the coolness of a navy coxswain.

  The boat ground on to some shingle, and with remarkable agility Tsung leapt ashore and guided it on to firmer sand.

  Gunnar said: ‘Well, come on, Pip. This is where we use our legs.’ To the big Chinese he added: ‘You get back to the Osprey. I’ll flash my torch when I want you.’

  They waited until Tsung had manoeuvred clear of the
beach, then Gunnar said: ‘Don’t want him hanging around. He might fall asleep and allow the dinghy to go adrift.’

  It sounded unconvincing although Pip said nothing. Gunnar knew that his real reason was for the girl’s sake. Competent or not, he disliked the idea of her being alone at anchor but for the wizened Chinese engineer, who would be next to useless in an emergency.

  Pip slung his rifle and said, ‘Where first, sir?’

  ‘According to my calculations we’re just a few yards from the beach where my boys were ambushed. We’ll climb up to the top of the cliff and see what it’s like.’

  They climbed in silence, occasionally dislodging stones or pausing to get their bearings. Gunnar pulled himself over the lip of the cliff and began to walk purposefully towards the centre of a small depression. It must have been here that the man with the grenade had hidden. Probably the same sort of man who had so neatly tried to dispose of him too.

  Pip said thoughtfully, ‘It’s like solid rock.’

  That meant that anyone would have great difficulty in hiding anything in such a grim place. Gunnar poked amongst some stones and loose boulders. They were encrusted with sand and blown grit, undisturbed for a century.

  Together they began to walk down the smooth, open slope towards the other end of the islet. Eventually Gunnar said, ‘There are steep rock faces along the other two sides, so if anyone wanted to land here it would have to be over there, beyond that pinnacle.’

  They paused, and Gunnar squinted thoughtfully at the strangely shaped rock which glinted in the moonlight like the petrified steeple of some forgotten church. He knew from his chart and what he had gleaned from his survey teams that below it lay a small, sheltered cove, not much bigger than the one in which Inglis had met his fate.

  Suddenly Gunnar wished he had not been so impetuous. If anyone was on the islet, his automatic and the ensign’s rifle would be a poor match for anything really serious.

  They reached the pinnacle and stared down at a small, darkly shadowed cove. The sea noises were quieter, and Gunnar guessed that it was well sheltered from wind and weather. But it was empty, and as bare and bleak as the rest of the islet. Suddenly weary, Gunnar scrambled down a slippery slope of loose stones, conscious of the throbbing bruise on his back and the feeling of disappointment.