A Ravel of Waters

by Geoffrey Jenkins

  There was another long silence. Jetwind's hull was starting to creak. I averted my eyes from Brockton'saccusing stare to the ship's speed repeater. The needle was nudging twenty knots. 'Albatros?’ Brockton prompted.

  I didn't reply directly. 'Did the pilot say what conditions were like?'

  'Yeah, like I said, I know every word Werner said: "The whole ocean's like a vast Shivering Liz pudding made of icebergs — it's all steaming with mist and fog."' Still I stalled. 'Shivering Liz?'

  'It's a Navy phrase,' Brockton explained, still searching my face. 'Sort of gelatine pudding.'

  'That's not a bad description,' I conceded. 'That's the way it was, Paul. All Shivering Liz.' 'I didn't ask about weather conditions,' he said.

  'I saw the plane go in,' I answered. He gave a satisfied little sigh. 'Yet the weather and sea conditions are important to my story, Paul. It was like a dream, like the sort of hallucination you keep quizzing me about. I thought I was hallucinating. There couldn't be a plane, not there, I told myself at the time. It was thousands of miles from anywhere. There was ice all around. Mist. The sea was steaming. I couldn't distinguish what was ice and what was perhaps dream.'

  'Bill Werner's Orion wasn't downed by a dream,' he retorted.

  For a moment I relived that morning on the edge of sanity — that morning of the Shivering Liz ocean.

  'The Orion was starting to circle — he must have spotted Albatros. Then a vapour trail sprang up out of the sea, from somewhere amongst the bergs. I remember how the missile's vapour trail ducked and weaved and then homed in on the plane. It hit a starboard inboard engine.'

  Brockton nodded and repeated from the tape,' "Captain! Captain! There! Starboard! Coming up out of the sea!"' Hammering the point home, he asked, 'And then?' 'There was nothing.' 'Nothing? You must have seen the plane crash.' 'As I said before, I thought I was hallucinating. The plane, the missile — everything — was swallowed up by the mist and the bergs. I saw nothing, heard nothing.'

  'You must have heard the noise of the crash or the explosion of the missile.'

  'I repeat, there was no sound. The gale must have blown it away.' 'You didn't search for survivors?' 'You don't put a yacht about in that kind of sea to look for a figment of your imagination.' 'Albatros kept going?'

  'I was clear of the thick ice by afternoon. At the time I thought it was my mind which had begun to clear. Yes, I kept going — hard.'

  Tideman interrupted, with a curious intonation in his question. 'Where did all this take place, Peter?'

  'I don't know. I hadn't had a position sight for days because of the storm. Night and day merged. I managed to obtain a radio fix from Gough a couple of days after the incident.'

  Brockton persisted. 'Why didn't you report the Orion affair?'

  'To whom? How did I know whose plane it was when I didn't even know whether I'd seen one? Imagine if I had radioed a report like that. The isolation has sent him round the bend, they'd have said. Rightly, under the circumstances.'

  Brockton jumped up. 'If only you had! We would have picked up the message on Tristan — we were monitoring every wavelength! We could have nailed the bastard who did it! Now it's too late! Where did that missile come from, Peter?’

  'Everything was shadowy and insubstantial,' I replied. 'I'm still not sure whether I saw it happen or not.'

  'It happened all right,' Brockton retorted. 'That lost Orion and her crew were not a shadow.'

  'Why,' I asked, 'if the Orion was in fact shot down by a Red missile, should there be any Russian naval interest in those waters — the area Jetwind is now heading for? It's utterly and totally unfrequented. The last ship recorded before Albatros was a British survey vessel which visited the South Sandwich Islands sixteen years earlier. And the South Sandwich group is a hell of a way south from where the Orion crashed’

  Brockton's reaction surprised me. He rounded on Tideman. There was steel in his voice. 'John, you've done a hell of a lot of close listening. You haven't spoken much. I said earlier, a man could die for what he has heard in this cabin today. I don't buy your Royal Navy Adventure School story. The Royal Navy doesn't send its officers and men on pleasure cruises on yachts round the world just for them to catch a suntan. By your own admission, you've been three times round the Horn. You've also got some tough cookies here with you in Jetwind. You're not aboard Jetwind simply in order to sky-shoot your reputation as a sailor. What's the name of your game?'

  Chapter 18

  Tideman reached into a pocket and threw on the desk what looked like a metal-cased slide-rule.

  'As you say, Paul, men could die for what they heard in this cabin today.'

  He leaned forward and fiddled with the instrument. The brass casing snapped open on a spring. A steel blade nearly the length of a man's hand shot out. Tideman clinched the brass casing between his fingers. Now it doubled as a handle for a hellish weapon. He smiled at me, a microwave smile that had no warmth in it. 'Like your plane crash, it makes no sound,' he said.

  He addressed Brockton. 'Sound, or the lack of sound, is the name of my game. A yacht makes no sound. It hasn't any engines to be picked up by a sonar buoy, or by any other electronic marvel you drop from an Orion. Even with every latest listening gadget you can't hear a yacht off Cape Horn from under the water.' Brockton said, 'I think I get it.' 'I don't,' I interjected sharply.

  Tideman gestured at Brockton. 'We're in the same game. Our approach is different. Paul uses the latest sophisticated electronic techniques; I use man's oldest friend, the sail.' 'Tracking… what?'

  'My function is to monitor the passage of Red submarines rounding Cape Horn via the Drake passage,' he replied levelly. 'The Royal Navy yachts I've sailed there have been a cover. Sonar buoys are planted in advance by R.N. ships — you remember HMS Endurance, which sheep-dogged the passage of the Whitbread Round the World yachts in those waters? It was given out that she was there in case the yachts ran into trouble. It was a bluff. Endurance and three other Navy ships belong — officially — to the British Antarctic Survey. So they have a legitimate purpose in hanging round the Drake Passage and Cape Horn. Their true function, however, is to plant secret sonar buoys which detect Red subs negotiating the Horn and relay their movements to monitoring instruments aboard Services yachts such as mine. The yacht is the perfect vehicle for the job — silent, immune from counter-detection by Red subs' underwater listening devices. Every one of the boats I have commanded has had enough secret equipment on board to make a Russian spy's mouth water. I and four sailor-paratroopers are a top secret team.' He toyed with the dagger. 'I intend to see we remain top secret.'

  'I got to hand it to you, John,' said Brockton slowly. 'It's an approach we never thought about. We're comrades-in-arms, I guess.' He reached out and shook Tideman's hand. Tideman seemed slightly embarrassed by the gesture. 'The term comrades-in-arms implies an enemy,' I said. 'What you're doing seems rather less hostile-watch-dogs.' 'Never!' retorted Brockton. 'The Reds think in terms of sea denial, we in the West in terms of sea control. The Red aim is to build a naval infra-structure round the entire world — and they're busy doing it.'

  I must have looked sceptical, for he asserted, 'Let's take a look at the Drake Passage to start with. Got a chart handy?'

  I indicated one on my desk. He spread it out. It was on a small scale, showing the top of South America, Cape Horn, the ocean southward to Antarctica, and the Southern Ocean as far as the Cape of Good Hope.

  Brockton laid his hand across the sector south of Cape Horn.

  'The Drake Passage is five hundred nautical miles wide,' he said, picking his words. 'It's what we call in terms of global naval strategy a "choke point". Narrow, easily controlled access points in the oceans — such as the Strait of Hormuz leading from the Persian Gulf to the Indian Ocean, or the Gulf of Aden and the Horn of Africa, or again the Straits of Malacca at Singapore, or the Cape of Good Hope…' 'All of them now Red dominated,' broke in Brockton. 'Hardly the Cape,' I said.

  'No?' went on Brockton. 'Six
ty per cent of the West's oil flows round the Cape. What did the United States do when the Red threat was directed towards it? Gave its tacit blessing to Marxist regimes in Angola and Mozambique with their naval and air bases able to dominate the sea-way, one of the world's most important feed routes. Pah! It makes me want to throw up!'

  He looked indeed as if he wanted to throw up. But he resumed, 'The Reds gain their naval objectives by establishing puppet regimes in states adjoining strategic choke points. The way is then open for their naval squadrons — and make no mistake, there are one hell of a lot of them — to block these routes. The West is then forced to its knees and is subject to political blackmail. It's a technique they've perfected. I don't have to tell you the sorry story of each one of these global choke points — you know it already. The last one that still remains undominated is — the Drake Passage. It's a free-for-all submarine alley for American, British and Soviet nuclear-armed subs. Yet it's in mortal danger of going the way of those other choke points.'

  Tideman added gravely, 'The Drake Passage, is not a straight logistics problem, Peter. It's greatly bedevilled and complicated by political factors.' 'You mean Argentina?'

  'Argentina is up to the neck,' he answered. 'You must get the overall picture clear. The Drake Passage is dominated geographically to the northeast by the British-owned Falklands Islands, and to the south by the South Shetland Islands, which are also British, as you know. I want you to visualize the Drake Passage problem from the point of view of deep-diving nuclear subs…'

  'Hold it for a moment, John,' Brockton broke in, 'I'm going to get something for you two to see. If I don't come back within three minutes come and look for me with that dagger of yours, John. It's as top secret as all that.'

  He jumped up and was gone. Neither Tideman nor I knew how to handle the awkward silence which followed.

  Jetwind gave me the opportunity to shift to neutral ground, so to speak. The ship gave a heavy jar as the bow slammed into a wave; the sea crashed along the deck. Both of us glanced automatically at the speed log.

  'Twenty knots,' said Tideman. 'I've never had her so fast as this before.'

  'She must be starting to steer like a bitch,' I replied. 'I hope the wheel will hold her. She's putting her head down deep. She won't achieve her true maximum this way.'

  'During the wind-tunnel tests I asked for staysails between the masts just for the sake of the steering,' he said. 'The experts all opposed the idea, Aerodynamically inefficient, they maintained. I agree with that, but it isn't the complete answer in relation to ship handling.' 'Did Kay agree too?'

  'I think she went along with the majority because she couldn't argue against the scientific line-up without having the practical knowledge herself.'

  'What this ship needs now is some sailoring know-how…' Then Brockton reappeared.

  I had never seen a chart like the one he smoothed out for us to examine. It was made of tissue-thin paper with a kind of silvered backing.

  It didn't need the superscription 'Zone SS 2 Top Secret' to tell me what it was all about. Undersea channels, depths, underwater mountain ranges and ocean bottom contours were all demarcated. Here and there a small cross in purple ink showed the location of an underwater electronic beacon. It was a nuclear submarine chart of the Drake Passage.

  Both men craned over my shoulder; Brockton was breathing heavily.

  He traced a clearly marked channel which negotiated a maze of underwater mountain peaks. 'This is the route American subs use,' he explained. 'As you see, it runs zigzag through the centre section of the Drake Passage. It's roughly one thousand fathoms or two thousand metres deep. It finally emerges here — near South Georgia in the east. That's the sort of route the Reds aim to seal.'

  Tideman added, 'The immediate Cape Horn area is no bet for the deep-diving subs — it's too shallow, only a hundred fathoms in places. They have to stay well south to negotiate the passage, beyond Diego Ramirez Island.' I said, 'Accordingly, that's the route your yachts took,' 'Aye,' he agreed. 'That was the route.'

  Brockton pointed again, this time to a shallow area near the Falklands. 'This is the Burdwood Bank. It is ninety nautical miles south of the Falklands. Logistically, it's of great importance. It completely blocks the northeastern approaches to the Drake Passage as far as nuclear subs are concerned.' 'Why?' 'The Bank is so shallow,' Brockton replied. 'Its depth ranges from a mere forty-six to a hundred and forty-five metres'. It would be straight suicide for a nuclear sub to. attempt it — we've got the whole area, two hundred miles long and fifty wide, taped with electronic sensors.'

  'It seems to me that, tactically speaking, the West holds all the aces’ I said. 'The entire area can be air and sea patrolled from the Falklands, or from the islands on the southern and eastern flanks.'

  'I wish it were as simple as that,' answered Tideman. 'You forget that the land mass of South America at its southern tip belongs to two countries — Argentina and Chile. These two have carried on a border dispute for over a century. It flared up recently over the ownership of three tiny islands claimed by Chile which bar the eastern or Atlantic entrance to the Beagle Channel, one of the main waterways through th^ mass of islands near Cape Horn.'

  'Tiny little islands like that can't be of any value to anyone, strategically or politically,' I objected.

  'You don't know these Latin types, Peter,' said Brockton. 'They'd fight to their last drop of blood over a sombrero if that were an emotive issue.'

  'The reason why those three little Chilean islands are so important is a question of principle,' Tideman explained. 'Argentina claims them according to the principle that she has the traditional right of access to the Atlantic Ocean. Chile equally claims right of access to the Pacific. Chile maintains a small naval base in the Beagle Channel at Puerto Williams — on one of the disputed islands.'

  I burst out laughing. 'Puerto Williams! A naval base! What a joke! I staged south to Cape Horn in Albatros past Puerto Williams — it's a tin-pot little anchorage with a couple of houses!'

  'That makes no difference,' Tideman said. 'It is the principle Argentina and Chile are disputing. The same thing applies to the Falklands. Argentina is strongly anti-British, as you no doubt gathered,' he went on with a slight smile. 'That white card business is one of the pin-pricks to keep the political pot boiling.'

  'In addition,' said Brockton, sketching a large sector on the map, 'Argentina lays claim to all this vast area from the South Sandwich Islands in the Atlantic in the east through to the Pacific side of the Drake Passage — plus all the islands along its southern flank!'

  Think of those claims in terms of nuclear sub logistics and maybe something starts to stink’ said Brockton. 'Complete control of the Drake Passage’ I suggested.

  'Exactly’ said Tideman. 'Plus the Falklands themselves with an airfield which could be expanded to take heavy maritime reconnaissance planes. You get the picture, Peter. Also, as you know, Argentina has proclaimed a two-hundred-mile territorial limit round all the islands she claims. That makes — in their terms — the Drake Passage Argentinian waters. Add to that the entire sea-passage you flew over between the South American mainland and the Falklands.'

  'They can't be serious’ I said. 'It's surely nothing more than a lot of flag-waving.'

  'It's a great deal more than that, Peter’ said Tideman. 'Some years ago a party of Argentinian patriots who styled themselves Group Condor staged a token invasion of the Falklands after hijacking a plane and forcing it to crash-land at Stanley. The incident was finally smoothed over diplomatically but it's left a nasty aftertaste.'

  Brockton laughed. 'Just wait and see what you've stirred up by mucking about with their Almirante Storni, Peter.' 'Just an unfortunate accident.' 'You tell Argentina that’ he replied wryly.

  'What Washington is deeply concerned about is that the Russians may attempt to instal a pro-Red Argentinian puppet regime in the Falklands. Then, with the cooperation of Argentina, a "friendly" Soviet Navy would effectively seal the Drake Passage.
The last major link in their global choke point chain would then be complete. The United States and Britain would then have been totally out-manoeuvred.'

  'There's a price tag to everything’ I replied. 'What is it in this case?'

  'The price of Argentinian cooperation would be support by Russia for her claims to the Falklands-Cape Horn area as well as for her claims against Chile in the same region — backing for the principle of sole access to the South Atlantic by Argentina.'

  'You've mentioned only Argentina’1 said. 'What about the attitude of Chile?'

  'From the Upited States' point of view, Chile seems safe enough,' answered Brockton. 'The reactionary regime there is unlikely to cooperate with the Reds. There are no naval or air bases of any significance on Chile's western Pacific coast — it's too wild and rugged southwards — which could counter closure of the Drake Passage by the Soviet Navy.'

  I eyed both men. 'Since we're putting our cards on the table, let me ask you both something. Paul, why were you so keen to travel aboard Jetwind?’

  He hesitated a fraction of a second. 'I had to know exactly what you saw when the Orion went in.'

  'That doesn't mean you had to make the run from the Falklands to the Cape.'

  'True,' he answered. 'But as I said before, a crack team from Naval Securities Group Activities was specially moved from the Azores to Tristan because of a build-up of Red signals emanating from the Southern Ocean. We lost out over the Orion's deep probe. There are no ships at all in these waters, no aircraft routes. Jetwind is a once-only chance that something might turn up.' 'Why should it?'

  'Your route stakes us right across the area we're interested in.'

  'You weren't to know that when you first came aboard Albatros. You didn't even know then that I had been given command of Jetwind.'

  He seemed a little taken aback by my cross-questioning. 'All I had to go on was that last sighting by the Orion of a yacht whose description fitted Albatros. I played it by ear from there.' 'What do you hope to learn still?' 'Who knows?'