Even as I got out the words, I knew it was too late. I had halted Jetwind; she could never gain enough way in time to evade the next shot.
The cutting-out boat broke clear of the fleet. What the torpedo didn't do, the boarding party would finish. The light of the searchlights was reflecting off their weapons. Kay's fingers bit into my arm. 'Look’'
The pinnace's sparkle of orange flame in the heart of the fleet was insignificant compared to the tumultuous spectacle of Trolltunga. Molot exploded.
One moment there were ships and men, living things, moving, plotting, aiming; the next they all stood still in death in front of our eyes. The world of Molot gave a single hideous orgasmic jerk and then stopped like a movie freeze. Everything pulsed in blinding relief for one explosive moment. Then the flames reached up into the overcast.
I had sense enough to remember the danger of Jetwind’s sail plan being exposed to a whirlwind blast of concussion. I scarcely recognized my own voice. 'Get the sails off her! Furl everything!'
The Shockwave passed like a wind out of hell. It arrived moments before the minor tidal wave Trolltunga threw up. I thought it would roll the masts out of the ship before I dared risk setting a couple of steadying top-gallants.
The burning fuel on the water drew a merciful curtain of thick black smoke over what was happening to the trapped ships. As Jetwind edged past the blazing holocaust to the escape route there was a brighter stab from amongst the blackness, and we saw Catherine wheels of exploding ammunition cartwheeling high into the air. Jetwind’s crew on deck heard screams from the men of Group Condor from deep inside the flames, they told me later, but on the enclosed bridge we were shut off from them.
'Course nor'east’ I ordered Tideman. 'Follow the iceberg channel.'
His face was grim and withdrawn; he operated the console switches like an automaton.
Kay came and hid her face against my chest. She did not speak; her dry sobs said everything.
Then the fuel-oil smut on the bridge windscreen cleared, and the wind came clean and fresh. Jetwind was free.
Chapter 30
'Captain on the bridge!'
The harsh voice of the intercom rasped through the gathering taking place in the crew's day-room, which was situated over the stern. The summons was from the substitute radio operator, one of Tideman's men named Greg. Jim Yell had been left temporarily in command on the bridge; everyone else who could be spared from their duties was attending the get-together. Both Kay and Tideman were present; the self-appointed master of ceremonies was Sir James Hathaway.
It was the morning after the Molot break-out. There was enough flying overcast down-horizon astern to blot out the last traces of the pall of smoke over the secret bass. Jetwind was making a fair fifteen knots in the racing seas. I was pushing her hard, carrying everything I could, but Jetwind wasn't at her best. The missing mast which had catapulted me clear had created an imbalance in the sail plan aerodynamics. It had also affected the steering: she needed watching all the time to prevent a maverick sheer when a bigger-than-usual wave boiled under her counter. Jetwind wasn't at her best, nor was I.
A bitter, self-reproaching reaction had set in once Jetwind had skated clear of the last of the shoal-marker icebergs and the flaring pyre had dimmed astern to a glowing pink and, finally, to a sooty blackness indistinguishable from storm wrack. The clearing-up of Grohman's corpse and those of the two guards had been the final straw. The rest of the gang had surrendered. I could not help thinking, eyeing Grohman's contorted face, that perhaps he had died easily compared to the hundreds of others I had sent to a fiery, diabolical end with my own hands. In war, my action would have been justified, but this was peace — of a kind. Those who might have escaped the fire would have been mortified by the ice. I could not decide which was worse. I, I alone, was responsible.
Kay tried to talk me out of my mood; even her warmth and love were not enough. The reality was like coming back to earth after a high: I could not share the smiling euphoria of everyone on board.
I had reminded Tideman when he, too, had come to my rescue that the Molot death-or-glory break-out might have saved our skins and secured the Falklands flank of the Drake Passage — but who would ever know, or believe, the implications? Neither Argentina nor Russia would admit that Group Condor had ever existed. Who but Grand Admiral Sergei Gorshkov, head of the Soviet Fleet, and his staff would be aware of the loss of two warships and two fleet auxiliaries? Molot had been a victory as secret as the wild wastes where it had taken place.
My slough of despond bit keenest over Seascan. I reproached myself for failing to make the rendezvous when the spy satellite would be at nadir — overhead — to prove beyond all doubt that Jetwind was invisible to infra-red and micro-wave surveillance. The rendezvous was still an impossible near half-day's sail away at Jetwind’s maximum speed. Perhaps the way I was flogging the guts out of the ship now was symptomatic of my sense of failure, because I knew in my heart that unless Jetwind's protective secret were sealed and delivered by actual observation test, there would never be another ship of her kind built. No Cape Horn Patrol. No commercial fleet either. After what he had been through Sir James would, I felt certain, be only too glad never to set eyes on a sailing ship again.
For these reasons, I had stalled off signalling Thomsen in detail about the happenings. I had merely despatched a cryptic message saying the ship was safe and on her way to Gough. For the rest, how much or how little should I tell him? If officialdom got word of Jetwind's exploits, the questions would become intolerable. What, too, should I do with the bodies of Arno, Brockton, Grohman and the two guards? Bury them at sea on the basis that their secrets would remain safe until the sea gave up her dead, or continue to convey them to the Cape in the sick-bay where now they all lay shrouded? I dodged the question by telling myself that Jetwind could not afford the time to stop for a mass sea burial because, by some extreme of luck, there was still an outside chance that Jetwind might make the Seascan rendezvous, and while that chance existed I meant to keep her going. In my heart, however, I knew she never would.
I had been so withdrawn from the general life of the ship that I missed the preparations which must have preceded the ceremony I was now confronted with. The fact that it was in the crew's day-room meant that Tideman had not organized it. Less than twenty minutes previously I had been astonished on the bridge to have been handed a written invitation by one of Tideman's paratroopers — one of the men who had finally disarmed the last of the Group Condors.
The invitation read: ‘Sir James Hathaway and the officers and crew of Jetwind request your presence without fail at a function in the crew's day-room, to be held at 10.30 sharp.'
I had been more astonished still at the sight which had greeted me on arrival. The day-room was a kind of recreation room above the afterpeak adjoining the crew's mess. Big portholes gave a splendid sight of Jetwind's creaming wake. Beneath them a table had been arranged. Its centre-piece was Robbie Lund's old ship's bell. Presiding like a chairman at a board meeting was Sir James, flanked by Kay and Tideman. There was a burst of applause as I entered; it was led by a smiling Sir James, who came forward and conducted me to a seat next to Kay. If my mood had not been so black, I would have realized that I had never seen her look so lovely.
Perhaps Sir James had got to the top because he was something of a showman as well as a business-man. He reached for the bell, which had been hastily mounted between two wooden blocks, and struck it with the clapper.
At that moment, as if on cue, the bitch-box came alive. 'Captain on the bridge!'
However, Sir James was not to be put off. He gestured me back into my seat as I rose to go.
'This is more important — the bridge can do without you for a couple of minutes’
There was a burst of applause from the men. My reaction said, the blood is on my hands, not yours.
Sir James resumed his showman's attitude. 'Gentlemen — and Kay Fenton’ They were in the mood to laugh, and they laughe
d at his singling out Kay. There is no need to tell you why we are gathered here, but for the record I want to say that all of us — yes, each one of us — owes our being here at all to the super-human courage and personal effort of Captain Rainier. That means, in fact, our lives’
I couldn't handle it. I wanted to excuse myself, get away from the grins and acclaim.
Sir James silenced his audience with another stroke on the bell.
'This bell hung for many years on a windjammer wreck near Cape Horn’ he said. 'It is a relic of the days of sail when Cape Horn was one of the great ocean routes of the-world. From the time it ceased to be until Jetwind took the water, the sailing ship was a thing of the past’ I speculated what might be coming.
'You all know that this voyage was to have been the acid test of whether the sailing ship was to make a come-back in the twentieth century, whether it could become a viable economic proposition when bunker fuel has made power-ship operation a highly questionable one.'
Sir James wasn't the man to lose his captive audience in their adulatory mood by giving them a lecture on ship economics.
He turned to me. 'I — and this audience — have had no time to arrange a formal presentation, but we ask you to place this old Cape Horn bell in a place of honour in Jetwind as a token of our admiration, and a symbol of the reopening of the once-great ocean route’
Neither I — nor anyone else — fathomed his meaning. He was aware of it. But he was, as I have said3 a showman. He waited long enough to let our puzzlement take root, then he drew a sheet of paper from his pocket.
He addressed me. His eyes were sparkling by contrast with the formality of his words.
'Captain Rainier, I wish to request official permission to have this signal transmitted.' Before I could respond, he went on. 'It is addressed to my ship-owner colleagues aboard the Agulhas. I qjuote the contents. "Propose immediate formation fifty-million dollar consortium for construction fleet of aerodynamic sailing ships based on design and peformance factors Jetwind. I personally am satisfied…"'
I couldn't believe my ears. I found myself on my feet. Sir James was pump-handling me; Kay and Tideman led the congratulatory queue.
The bitch-box cut in imperatively. I was startled out of the mood of the ceremony by the note in the operator's voice.
'Captain on the bridge, sir! Urgent! Radar sighting! Plane, forty-five miles, bearing red zero-zero-nine degrees, coming up fast! Heading our way, sir!'
It was there, all right. There was no mistaking the decisive blip on the big Decca radar screen when Tideman, Kay and I reached the bridge at the double. 'What do you make of it?' I asked Greg. 'She's big and she's stuffed with electronic gear.' 'How do you deduce that?'
'She started transmitting like the clappers a minute back,' he replied. 'She must have picked us up on her radar.' 'Radar?' Tideman interjected.
Greg laughed deprecatingly. 'I'd say, a lot of other sophisticated gadgets as well.' 'What is she signalling?' I demanded.
'Can't say, sir — code. All I know is that that sort of sending isn't commercial.'
I asked Tideman, 'Calling up the other dogs for the kill, do you think?' 'Greg’ asked Tideman, 'is there anything to suggest that the plane is in contact with a ship nearby?' 'A warship?' I added.
The faint green of the screen with its revolving range-finder washed across Greg's face. He concentrated a while and then said, 'She's changing course a little, sheering off.' 'Sniffing the bait?' I asked Tideman again. Kay said quietly, 'I thought we'd finished with all that.' Greg manipulated his instruments. 'There's another transmitter coming in!' 'Range?'
He listened carefully again before answering. 'It's coming a long way, that's for sure. That's all I can tell. It's in code too.' 'What's the plane's range now?' I asked.
He checked against the calibrations. 'Twenty-three nautical miles.' I had a sudden thought. 'Can you establish the altitude?' 'Low — very low. Under a hundred metres.'
'I don't like it, Peter,' Tideman said. 'If it were a long-range search plane looking for us it wouldn't cruise at such a low altitude because it'd be guzzling fuel. It would stay high until it picked up a surface contact and only then descend.'
'Unless it comes from a carrier. Perhaps that's where the code answer is coming from.' Kay formulated the fears which were in both our minds.
'Perhaps it's a plane looking for… for… Group Condor and the Red squadron.'
'It can't be that,' I replied. 'The plane would know the exact location of Molot and wouldn't need to search.' I spoke to Greg. 'What's the direction of approach of the aircraft?' 'Northnortheast, sir.'
The adrenalin which had seeped out of me after the Molot debacle was back in my veins. Maybe Jetwind hadn't won, after all. The screen with its regular blip exercised a kind of hypnotic effect. The four of us went silent. The target came closer, closer. At twelve miles, it hesitated, moved sideways. The hunter sniffing the trap further? Who was the hunter? Greg broke the silence. 'She sees us, for sure.’ 'Visually — surely not!’
'I mean, by means of whatever fancy equipment she's using. She's casing us.'
'Twelve miles — that's beyond immediate sea-to-air missile range,' murmured Tideman. 'She's playing it very carefully.' 'Any way of contacting the plane?' I asked Greg. 'If she speaks, I've got all the taps ready open.'
Silence again washed through the radar office on a background wing of electricity.
Then I was startled by a voice. It was so loud, it seemed right at my elbow.
'This is a T-3 Orion of the United States Tracking and Control Group speaking. Identify yourself. Immediately. Use this wavelength. I warn you not to try any tricks.'
I activated the UHF microphone we used for ship-to-ship conversations. 'Sailing ship Jetwind. Captain Rainier speaking.'
'Rainier! Well I'll be goddamned to hell!' The voice lost some of its suspicious, offhand note. 'You're Rainier! The guy who's been giving us the runaround all over the Southern Ocean!' 'Are you from Naval Securities Group Activities?'
The pilot clammed up. 'What do you know about NSGA?' 'Paul Brockton was my friend.'
There was a short silence. Then the pilot answered in a different, friendly voice. 'Mine, too. Yeah, this ship's from NSGA. Put Paul on the line, will you?' 'He's aboard. But he's dead.' 'Paul — dead!' 'I killed the man who killed him, if that helps.' 'It doesn't. Paul was a regular guy.'
I was still too raw over Paul's death and the other killings to want to talk about them. Instead there were a hundred questions unanswered about the presence of the American long-distance maritime search plane. 'What are you doing in these waters?'
He replied tersely with one word. '''Jetwind. Half the world wants to know what's happened to you. So does the other half — the boys behind the scenes.' ‘What do you mean?'
'If you were Paul's friend, I guess he told you something.'
That bridged a lot of conversational gaps. 'I get you,' I replied, 'but I don't understand why you should come searching here. A position signal was sent off from Jetwind days back saying she was dismasted and in no need of assistance…'
There was a snort of derision from the pilot. 'You can't dipsy-doodle NSGA with a decoy signal, fellah. We weren't born yesterday. The Group on Tristan was on full alert…' So Paul had got enough of his secret signal away to sound the alarm before Grohman's burst had killed him! 'That kind of half-Mayday didn't decieve us. Whoever sent it was a fool. The transmission time was long enough for us to get a position fix. When we compared that with where Jetwind claimed to be, we smelt stinking fish. To NSGA, the stink was to high heaven. It wasn't you who sent that corny signal, I guess?'
'No, it wasn't me. But why the time-lag? Why didn't the Orion come sooner? You could have saved a lot of lives.' 'Lives?' he echoed.
'Lives,' I repeated. 'That part of the story will keep for the present. Why didn't you come?'
'The logistics for mounting a search take time. So do the decisions. NSGA had to be convinced. It took a few days to arrange after
Jetwind failed to respond to our signals. You're also a helluva long way from anywhere. This plane has been airborne since yesterday. I've flown all the way down the Big Pond. Thousands of miles.' 'From Lajes in the Azores?' *You were Paul's friend, so I can tell you secrets. Yes. From Lajes. Refuelled Ascension. They had to send an aenal tanker ahead specially to have the gas waiting for me. Maximum load. TACDIFIPS missions.5 'Translate, please.5 'Temporary active duty in a flying status involving operational flights.’ 'Operational?’
The pilot's reply was terse. 'This flight is operational, fellah. I'm armed with every sort of goodie in case of trouble. I'm coming in now for a visual intercept.'
'I also want to see you. I'm changing over to the bridge mike. I'll let you know when I sight you.' 'Okay.'
'Come,' I told Kay and Tideman. We went to the bridge. I opened a window in front of the wheel and took the microphone from its hook. 'There's the plane!’ exclaimed Kay.
Visibility was medium; Kay spotted the T-3 emerging from a cloud to the northeast. I imagined it approached watchfully, as if the pilot still did not wholly credit Jetwind's bona fides. I recalled his remark about the punch of 'goodies’ the Orion packed. The wires in behind-the-scenes secret counsels must have burned over Jetwind's disappearance.
The pilot exclaimed suddenly, 'I see you! Say, you're beautiful, Jetwind!' 'Don't touch me or I'll scream.'
I liked the way the pilot laughed. Then he added. 'Says you're also damaged — you're missing part of a mast.' 'I was in a fight.' 'When Paul was killed?'
'No — later. What I tell you about it, I'd like to be on the record. Can you tape this conversation?'
The pilot laughed without humour. 'This flight's operational, top secret. Everything you've said already is on the reel. You're important, Tristan as monitoring us as a back-up. Now tell me about your blow-off.' 'Blow-off?' 'That fight.'
I couldn't think where I should begin. I tried to muster the facts. I said, marking time, 'I have five dead men aboard.'
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