Talbot was conscious of the increased vibration beneath his feet. Harrison had increased speed and was edging a little to the east. Talbot didn't even give it a second thought: his faith in his senior quartermaster was complete.
'Sorry, Doctor, but I have more important things for you to do.' He pointed to the east. 'Look under the trail of smoke to the plane's left.'
'I see it. I should have seen it before. Somebody sinking, for a fiver.'
'Indeed. Something called the Delos, a private yacht, I should imagine, and, as you say, sinking. Explosion and on fire. Pretty heavily on fire, too, I would think. Burns, injuries.'
'We live in troubled times,' Grierson said. Grierson, in fact, lived a singularly carefree and untroubled existence but Talbot thought it was hardly the time to point this out to him.
'The plane's silent, sir,' Cousteau said. 'The engines have been shut off.'
'Survivors, you think? I'm afraid not. The explosion may have destroyed the controls in which case, I imagine, the engines shut off automatically.'
'Disintegrate or dive?' Grierson said. 'Daft question. We'll know all too soon.'
Van Gelder joined them. 'I make it eighty fathoms here, sir. Sonar says seventy. They're probably right. Doesn't matter, it's shallowing anyway.'
Talbot nodded and said nothing. Nobody said anything, nobody felt like saying anything. The plane, or the source of the dense column of smoke, was now less than a hundred feet above the water. Suddenly, the source of the smoke and flame dipped and then was abruptly extinguished. Even then they failed to catch a glimpse of the plane, it had been immediately engulfed in a fifty-foot-high curtain of water and spray. There was no sound of impact and certainly no disintegration for when the water and the spray cleared away there was only the empty sea and curiously small waves, little more than ripples, radiating outwards from the point of impact.
Talbot touched Cousteau on the arm. 'Your cue, Henri. How's the whaler's radio?'
'Tested yesterday, sir. Okay.'
'If you find anything, anybody, let us know. I have a feeling you won't need that radio. When we stop, lower away then keep circling around. We should be back in half an hour or so.' Cousteau left and Talbot turned to Van Gelder. 'When we stop, tell sonar I want the exact depth.'
Five minutes later the whaler was in the water and moving away from the side of Ae. Ariadne. Talbot rang for full power and headed east.
Van Gelder hung up a phone. 'Thirty fathoms, sonar says. Give or take a fathom.'
'Thanks. Doctor?'
'Hundred and eighty feet,' Grierson said. 'I don't even have to rub my chin over that one. The answer is no. Even if anyone could escape from the fuselage - which I think would be impossible in the first place - they'd die soon after surfacing. Diver's bends. Burst lungs. They wouldn't know that they'd have to breathe out all the way up. A trained, fit submariner, possibly with breathing apparatus, might do it. There would be no fit, trained submariners aboard that plane. Question's academic, anyway. I agree with you, Captain. The only men aboard that plane are dead men.'
Talbot nodded and reached for a phone.
'Myers? Signal to General Carson. Unidentified four-engined plane crashed in sea two miles south of Cape Akrotiri, Thera Island. 1415 hours. Impossible to determine whether military or civilian. First located altitude 43,000 feet. Apparent cause internal explosion. No further details available at present. No NATO planes reported in vicinity. Have you any information? Sylvester. Send Code B.'
'Wilco, sir. Where do I send it?'
'Rome. Wherever he is he'll have it two minutes later.'
Grierson said: 'Well, yes, if anyone knows he should.' Carson was the C-in-C Southern European NATO. He lifted his binoculars and looked at the vertical column of smoke, now no more than four miles to the east. 'A yacht, as you say, and making quite a bonfire. If there's anyone still aboard, they're going to be very warm indeed. Are you going alongside, Captain?'
'Alongside.' Talbot looked at Denholm. 'What's your estimate of the value of the electronic gear we have aboard?'
'Twenty million. Maybe twenty-five. A lot, anyway.'
'There's your answer, Doctor. That thing's gone bang once already. It can go bang once again. I am not going alongside. You are. In the launch. That's expendable. The Ariadne's not.'
'Well, thank you very much. And what intrepid soul -- '
'I'm sure Number One here will be delighted to ferry you across.'
'Ah. Number One, have your men wear overalls, gloves and flash-masks. Injuries from burning diesel can be very unpleasant indeed. And you. I go to prepare myself for self-immolation.'
'And don't forget your lifebelts.'
Grierson didn't deign to answer.
They had halved the remaining distance to the burning yacht when Talbot got through to the radio-room again.
'Message dispatched?'
'Dispatched and acknowledged.'
'Anything more from the Delos?'
'Nothing.'
'Delos,' Denholm said. 'That's about eighty miles north of here. Alas, the Cyclades will never be the same for me again.' Denholm sighed. Electronics specialist or not, he regarded himself primarily as a classicist and, indeed, he was totally fluent in reading and writing both Latin and Greek. He was deeply immersed in their ancient cultures as the considerable library in his cabin bore testimony. He was also much given to quotations and he quoted now.
'The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece!'
Where burning Sappho loved and sung, Where grew the arts of war and peace,
Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung, Eternal summer -- '
'Your point is taken, Lieutenant,' Talbot said. 'We'll cry tomorrow. In the meantime, let us address ourselves to the problem of those poor souls on the fo'c's'le. I count five of them.'
'So do I.' Denholm lowered his glasses. 'What's all the frantic waving for? Surely to God they can't imagine we haven't seen them?'
'They've seen us all right. Relief, Lieutenant. Expectation of rescue. But there's more to it than that. A certain urgency in their waving. A primitive form of semaphoring. What
they're saying is "get us the hell out of here and be quick about it".'
'Maybe they're expecting another explosion?'
'Could be that. Harrison, I want to come to a stop on their starboard beam. At, you understand, a prudent distance.'
'A hundred yards, sir?'
'Fine.'
The Delos was - or had been - a rather splendid yacht. A streamlined eighty-footer, it was obvious that it had been, until very, very recently, a dazzling white. Now, because of a combination of smoke and diesel oil, it was mainly black. A rather elaborate superstructure consisted of a bridge, saloon, a dining-room and what may or may not have been a galley. The still dense smoke and flames rising six feet above the poop deck indicated the source of the fire - almost certainly the engine-room. Just aft of the fire a small motorboat was still secured to its davits: it wasn't difficult to guess that either the explosion or the fire had rendered it inoperable.
Talbot said: 'Rather odd, don't you think, Lieutenant?'
'Odd?' Denholm said carefully.
'Yes. You can see that the flames are dying away. One would have thought that would reduce the danger of further explosion.' Talbot moved out on the port wing. 'And you will have observed that the water level is almost up to the deck.'
'I can see she's sinking.'
'Indeed. If you were aboard a vessel that was either going to go up or drag you down when it sank, what would your natural reaction be?'
'To be elsewhere, sir. But I can see that their motorboat has been damaged.'
'Agreed. But a craft that size would carry alternative life-saving equipment. If not a Carley float, then certainly an inflatable rubber dinghy. And any prudent owner would carry a sufficiency of lifebelts and life-jackets for the passengers and crew. I can even see two lifebelts in front of the bridge. But they haven't done the obvious thing and abandoned ship. I wonder why.'
'When we've rescued those distressed mariners and brought them aboard, you, Jimmy, will have forgotten how to speak Greek.'
'But I will not have forgotten how to listen in Greek?'
'Precisely.'
'Commander Talbot, you have a devious and suspicious mind.'
'It goes with the job, Jimmy. It goes with the job.'
Harrison brought the Ariadne to a stop off the starboard beam of the Delos at the agreed hundred yards distance. Van Gelder was away at once and was very quickly alongside the fo'c's'le of the Delos. Two boat-hooks around the guard-rail stanchions held them in position. As the launch and the bows of the sinking yacht were now almost level it took only a few seconds to transfer the six survivors -- another had joined the group of five that Talbot had seen - aboard the launch. They were, indeed, a sorry and sadly bedraggled lot, so covered in diesel and smoke that it was quite impossible to discriminate among them on the basis of age, sex or nationality.
Van Gelder said: 'Any of you here speak English?'
'We all do.' The speaker was short and stocky and that was all that could be said of him in the way of description. 'Some of us just a little. But enough.' The voice was heavily accented but readily understood. Van Gelder looked at Grierson.
'Any of you injured, any of you burnt?' Grierson said. All shook their heads or mumbled a negative. 'Nothing here for me, Number One. Hot showers, detergents, soap. Not to mention a change of clothing.'
'Who's in charge here?' Van Gelder asked.
'I am.' It was the same man.
'Anybody left aboard?'
'Three men, I'm afraid. They won't be coming with us.'
'You mean they're dead?' The man nodded. I'll check.'
'No, no!' His oil-soaked hand gripped Van Gelder's arm. 'It is too dangerous, far too dangerous. I forbid it.'
'You forbid me nothing.' When Van Gelder wasn't smiling, which wasn't often, he could assume a very discouraging expression indeed. The man withdrew his hand. 'Where are those men?'
'In the passageway between the engine-room and the stateroom aft. We got them out after the explosion but before the fire began.'
'Riley.' This to a Leading Seaman. 'Come aboard with me. If you think the yacht's going, give me a call.' He picked up a torch and was about to board the Delos when a hand holding a pair of goggles reached out and stopped him. Van Gelder smiled. 'Thank you, Doctor. I hadn't thought of that.'
Once aboard he made his way aft and descended the after companionway. There was smoke down there but not too much and with the aid of his torch he had no difficulty in locating the three missing men, all huddled shapelessly in a corner. To his right was the engine-room door, slightly buckled from the force of the explosion. Not without some difficulty, he forced the door open and at once began coughing as the foul-smelling smoke caught his throat and eyes. He pulled on the goggles but still there was nothing to see except for the red embers of a dying fire emanating from some unknown source. He pulled the door to behind him -- he was reasonably certain there was nothing for him to see in the engine-room anyway - and stooped to examine the three dead men. They were far from being a pretty sight but he forced himself to carry out as thorough an investigation as he could. He spent some quite considerable time bent over the third man - in the circumstances thirty seconds was a
long time - and when he straightened he looked both puzzled and thoughtful.
The door to the after stateroom opened easily. There was some smoke there but not so much that he required to use his goggles. The cabin was luxuriously furnished and immaculately tidy, a condition which Van Gelder very rapidly altered. He pulled a sheet from one of the beds, spread it on the floor, opened up wardrobes and drawers, scooped up armfuls of clothes -- there was no time to make any kind of selection and even if there had been he would have been unable to pick and choose, they were all women's clothing -dumped them on the sheet, tied up the four corners, lugged the bundle up the companionway and handed it over to Riley.
'Put this in the launch. I'm going to have a quick look at the for'ard cabins. I think the steps will be at the for'ard end of the saloon under the bridge.'
'I think you should hurry, sir.'
Van Gelder didn't answer. He didn't have to be told why he should hurry - the sea was already beginning to trickle over on to the upper deck. He passed into the saloon, found the companionway at once and descended to a central passage.
He switched on his torch - there was, of course, no electrical power left. There were doors on both sides and one at the end. The first door to port opened up into a food store, the corresponding door to starboard was locked. Van Gelder didn't bother with it: the Delos didn't look like the kind of craft that would lack a commodious liquor store. Behind the ochre doors lay four cabins and two bathrooms. All were empty. As he had done before, Van Gelder spread out a sheet - in the passageway, this time -- threw some more armfuls of clothes on to it, secured the corners and hurried up on deck.
The launch was no more than thirty yards away when the Delos, still on even keel, slid gently under the surface of the sea. There was nothing dramatic to mark its going - just a stream of air bubbles that became gradually smaller and ceased altogether after about twenty seconds.
Talbot was on deck when the launch brought back the six survivors. He looked in concern at the woebegone and bedraggled figures before him.
'My goodness, what a state you people are in. This the lot, Number One?'
'Those that survived, sir. Three died. Impossible to get their bodies out in time.' He indicated the figure nearest him. "This is the owner.'
'Andropulos,' the man said. 'Spyros Andropulos. You are the officer in charge?'
'Commander Talbot. My commiseration's, Mr Andropulos.'
'And my thanks, Commander. We are very deeply grateful -'
'With respect, sir, that can wait. First things first, and the very first thing is to get yourselves cleaned up immediately. Ah. And changed. A problem. Clothes. We'll find some.'
'Clothing we have,' Van Gelder said. He pointed at the two sheet-wrapped packages. 'Ladies. Gentlemen.'
'A mention in dispatches for that, Number One. You said "ladies"?'
'Two, Commander,' Andropulos said. He looked at the two people standing by him. 'My niece and her friend.'
'Ah. Well, should apologize, I suppose, but difficult to tell in the circumstances.'
'My name is Charial.' The voice was unmistakably feminine. 'Irene Charial. This is my friend Eugenia.'
'We could have met under happier circumstances. Lieutenant Denholm here will take you to my cabin. The bathroom is small but adequate. By the time you bring them back, Lieutenant, I trust they are recognizable for what they are.' He turned to a burly, dark-haired figure who, like most of the crew, wore no insignia of rank. 'Chief Petty Officer
McKenzie.' McKenzie was the senior NCO on the Ariadne.
'The four gentlemen here, Chief. You know what to do.' 'Right away, sir. If you will come with me, gentlemen.' Grierson also left and Van Gelder and Talbot were left alone. 'We can find this place again?' Van Gelder asked. 'No trouble.' Talbot looked at him speculatively and pointed towards the north-west. 'I've taken a bearing on the monastery and radar station on Mount Elias there. Sonar says that we're in eighteen fathoms. Just to make sure, we'll drop a marker buoy.'
General Carson laid down the slip of paper he had been studying and looked at the colonel seated across the table from him.
'What do you make of this, Charles?'
'Could be nothing. Could be important. Sorry, that doesn't help. I have a feeling I don't like it. It would help a bit if we had a sailor around.'
Carson smiled and pressed a button. 'Do you know if Vice-Admiral Hawkins is in the building?'
'He is, sir.' A girl's voice. 'Do you wish to speak to him or see him?'
'See him, Jean. Ask him if he would be kind enough to stop by.'
Vice-Admiral Hawkins was very young f
or one of his rank. He was short, a little overweight, more than a little rubicund as to his features and exuded an aura of cheerful bonhomie. He didn't look very bright, which he was. He was widely regarded as having one of the most brilliant minds in the Royal Navy. He took the seat to which Carson had gestured him and glanced at the message slip.
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