The Bomb Ship

by Peter Tonkin

  Their conversation wandered, as it often did, over the concerns which were closest to their hearts: conservation and animal welfare. It had come as a pleasant surprise to her to discover that the scientist shared so many of her attitudes of mind. They had both donated much time and money to protect the world’s dwindling populations of various endangered species. But, given that they were afloat in one of the great traditional hunting grounds, it was perhaps inevitable that their discussion should turn most urgently on the protection of whales. She explained how much of her income from The Leper Ship was being given to Greenpeace and how she was planning a book called The Whaling Ship as soon as she had finished writing up her current work, The Sister Ships: the unexpectedly exciting tale of this voyage so far.

  Henri had never struck her as a boastful man but now he smiled and a fleeting look of superiority came and went across his face. He folded a delicate wing of paratha and dipped it in dali ratha. All through the main course, he told her of a long fight he had pursued across the southern ocean as a crewman on an anti-whaling vessel chasing a Russian factory ship and her fleet of lethal whalers. It was a tale guaranteed to appeal to her, full of hair’s-breadth escapes and dangerous encounters. They had harried the Russian fleet, forcing themselves between the harpoons and the humpbacks. When they failed to spoil the aim or arrived too late to interfere, they filmed what was going on, and she remembered having seen the films that he’d shot. He rolled back his sleeve to show her the scar left by a harpoon which had come too close. ‘But if you really want to see something impressive,’ he joked, ‘come to my cabin later and I’ll show you what I lost to the frostbite.’

  And so, in fact, she did. It was the atmosphere, the food, the story and the magnetism of the man, combined with the worm of jealousy sown in her trusting breast by Jamie Curtis’s poisonous words about her Nico and his blonde-haired grey-eyed captain: mistress and mate. Henri had a bottle of bourbon in his cabin and he poured them both a glass. They sat on armchairs about a metre apart and watched each other speculatively. ‘So, what’s this about frostbite?’ she asked, in a tense attempt at levity.

  Henri gave a bark of laughter and slipped off his left boot and sock. The little toe was missing its top joint. ‘Lost to the cause,’ he said. ‘I’m a Goddamned hero.’

  It was the first time she had heard him swear. And it suddenly occurred to her that she did not really know this man all that well. But when she looked up at him, his face was so full of wry, self-deprecating amusement that her thoughts turned again to how attractive he was.

  ‘I’ve never met anyone who would die to save the whales before,’ she said.

  ‘Die?’ he laughed. ‘Hell, I’d kill to save the whales.’

  When he stood, the powerful fluidity of the movement seemed to make him seem even taller. Still with one shoe off, he took a step and stooped. Rock solid, even on the pitching deck, he stood above her, silently daring her to tell him to stop. When she remained silent, he suddenly swooped. As though she were a child, he lifted her, and the amusement remained in the laugh lines at the corners of his eyes as he held her, feet dangling, her lips level with his. The palms of his hands cradled her ribs, fingers across her shoulder bones reaching towards her spine. His thumbs rose towards her collar bones and the heels of his hands closed gently into the softness of her breasts. She could feel her heart beating importunately against the steady pulses in his wrists. It was not only his grip which made it so difficult for her to breathe. He smelt of Bourbon and coriander and there was a little blue devil in the back of his eyes which laughed and danced and told her this would be fun.

  But then there was something more within those merry depths and the lines on his handsome face were no longer a smile but a frown. As easily as he had swept her up, he put her down. ‘No,’ he said. ‘This isn’t right.’

  She said nothing. Truth to tell, she felt cheapened by his assumption of moral authority. Who was he to tell her what was right or not?

  ‘Look,’ he said quietly, revealing a hesitant side to himself she hadn’t seen before. ‘I don’t know about you, but I think this has got a lot to do with being far away from the folk we really love and drinking a little too much beer. I think it would be just dandy to go to bed with a woman like you ... No, hell, to go to bed with you, Ann, but it wouldn’t be right for me. I’m in a relationship right now, you see, and it’s the best thing that ever happened to me. Does that sound corny? Yes, I guess it does. But it’s true.’

  ‘She’d never know,’ temporised Ann, thinking — distantly — of Nico, but carried away with desire.

  ‘I guess not, but I’d know. Don’t get me wrong, though. This isn’t some kind of nineties man angst thing with me — Gee, but it’s hard to be sensitive if you’ve got balls, if you see what I mean. No. It’s just that I’m in love. Totally. Completely. Utterly. Madly. And not with you. And no matter how you look at it, that has to carry some weight.’

  She stood there, looking up into his reasonable, gentle, concerned, sensitive face and she thought what he had said was just about the sexiest thing she had ever heard. She really hoped Nico would have the strength to say something similar in the same circumstances. In the meantime, there was a little devil burning in her loins which said with irresistible force that any man this good deserved every sexual pleasure she could possibly afford him.

  At first she thought the crashing coming from the cabin next door was a result of the storm. But it went on after the tossing waves of the squall had stopped. Long enough to bring a frown between those delicately curved eyebrows of his.

  ‘That’s the Wide Boy’s cabin,’ he said, more to himself than to her. ‘There shouldn’t be anyone in there.’

  ‘Henri ...’ She sounded, in her own ears, as though she had just run a marathon.

  Disregarding her entirely, he opened the door of his cabin. She had no choice but to follow when he went out.

  Together they stole out into the corridor and along to the next door, which was standing wide as though it had been torn open with desperate force. The lights were on, so this was hardly some secret burglary. Nevertheless, they went in side by side as though expecting something nefarious to be going on. The cabin was an utter wreck. Hardly anything remained whole. The bed was strewn over the floor and the contents of Reynolds’ wardrobe and clothing drawers lay on top of it. As they entered, the late third officer’s bedside cabinet joined the mess, torn bodily off the wall. A washbag spilled out of it, only to be caught up at once by white, shaking hands.

  ‘It’s in here, it has to be,’ said Captain Black, though it was by no means clear who he was talking to. The washbag burst open, shaving equipment falling hither and yon. ‘He promised,’ screamed the captain in scarcely sane frustration. ‘He swore.’

  He swung round to face them, the movement of his head spraying spittle from his thin white lips into Ann’s astonished face. ‘Enough for the whole voyage. Enough to keep me going! HE SWORE!’

  And on the last word he flung himself at Henri like a wild man. The big scientist, more by instinct than design, drove his fist into his assailant’s face. There was a sharp crack and the captain flew back into a heap on top of Reynolds’ possessions. The force of the blow rolled him backwards to smack his right temple against the low side of the bunk. He rebounded forward and then lay there, still as death. With the welt across his forehead rapidly darkening and blood seeping from the sag of his jaw, he would not have made a pretty picture even had he been dressed as punctiliously as usual. But, in a crumpled shirt, half buttoned, with the sleeves rolled to expose pale, pocked arms, and crumpled uniform trousers which had all too obviously been slept in, the corpse-like captain looked almost as untidy as the dead drug dealer’s things.

  A voice from the doorway screamed, ‘Captain! What’ll we do? Oh sweet Jesus, what’ll we do?’

  The erstwhile would-be lovers swung round to see the terrified, indecisive face of Yasser Timmins, first officer and acting master of the good ship Atropos, hover
ing in the doorway. ‘What the fuck are we going to do now?’ he asked again.

  *

  ‘You’ll have to go across, Captain,’ said Nico quietly.

  ‘There’s nothing else for it. Two full crews, but no competent deck officers left. You’re the only person who can sort it out.’

  ‘I think you’re right,’ said Robin. ‘All of our people are aboard her. I can’t risk anything going wrong.’

  ‘Anything else going wrong,’ amended Nico.

  She gave a bark of laughter at his unregenerate superstition and it never entered her mind that only a fortnight ago she, too, had been expecting the worst in every situation she faced. Now that the danger was so massive and so immediate, she was back to her old self: cool and confident. ‘No sense hanging about. The weather’s getting worse. I won’t be able to go soon.’

  ‘It’ll have to be the lifeboat.’

  ‘I know. And I’ll have to take the three musketeers, I’m afraid. There’s no way I can do it on my own.’

  ‘You’re welcome to them. They’d only make me feel inadequate. I’ll be all right with Sullivan, Biggs and Jamie, if he’ll stay. And the engineers, of course.’

  ‘Okay. Look on the bright side — there’ll be twice as many sandwiches for you.’

  ‘Be still, my beating heart.’

  It took her scant minutes to prepare. She had no intention of wasting time by packing a bag. She would take what she was wearing and what would fit in her pockets. Sam, Joe and Errol took an equally unsentimental view of their possessions. The increasing savagery of the squall gusts focused their minds wonderfully. They took the forward starboard lifeboat, tethered on a long line. Once it was in the water and released from its falls, Rupert Biggs and Jamie Curtis walked down the deck, holding the line, until they could pay it out from the wreck of the forecastle by the creaking, straining windlass and let the bobbing boat ride back through the darkness towards Atropos.

  While all this was going on, Nico was in contact with the crippled ship, alerting them that the lifeboat was on its way. Hogg and Henri LeFever prepared to get the lifeboat aboard as soon as it came alongside, and there were willing hands in plenty when Clotho’s crew heard who was aboard.

  The exchange was made safely and Robin was on Atropos’s bridge long before the full fury of the north-westerly struck.

  *

  ‘There were some really strange noises down there, though,’ persisted Jamie.

  Nico nodded. ‘Rupert, what do you think? Worth checking?’

  Biggs shrugged. ‘What could we do?’

  ‘Warn the captain, of course.’

  A squall raved against the bridge windows. Biggs crossed to his satellite weather equipment and pressed a button. A weather map printed itself out and rolled onto the desk. It was a diagram based on what the weather satellite immediately above them could see. He held the black and white paper up for Nico to see.

  Nico took it from him. ‘Another nasty little depression whipping through. If it wedges against that Greenland high pressure ridge like the last one, it’ll just get worse and worse. But if it takes the southern track, it’ll be here today, and gone tomorrow. In any case, if we’re going to have a look at the bow and the cable, then now is the best time to do it.’ He consulted the paper for a second or two more. ‘Well, not so much the best as the least worst. It’s going to get rougher very soon indeed. And while you’re down there,’ he added innocently, ‘you might as well check in the number one hold.’

  *

  ‘This is all your fault, you little moron,’ grumbled Biggs all the way along the pitching, soaking deck.

  ‘But there is a strange noise.’

  ‘Strange noise. Look at you, been at sea for ten minutes and you know it all already.’

  ‘Look, Rupert, do you want me to go down into the hold instead?’

  ‘Don’t be an idiot. And it’s Lieutenant Biggs to you. Or Number Three.’

  ‘But if Niccolo is acting captain now, doesn’t that make you Number Two?’

  ‘Yes, you’re right. I suppose it does. Number Two.’

  ‘When I was a kid,’ said Jamie, apparently apropos of nothing, ‘my parents had this kind of code so I could tell them if I needed to use the bathroom. When we were in public, you know? Number One was code for pee.’ He slowed and unhitched his safety clip, to put himself beyond Biggs’s reach. ‘And Number Two was crap!’ he yelled at the top of his voice.

  Biggs’s reaction was muted. The wind was almost strong enough to knock them both off their feet out here and the blustery rain was making the deck slippery. Biggs was no fool; this was not the time or place to give the young cadet the thumping he deserved. ‘Clip back on,’ he barked, and Jamie was wise enough to obey. Then the two of them stood side by side in the stormy darkness and listened. ‘Damned if you weren’t right,’ said Biggs at last. ‘I’ll be buggered if that isn’t a funny sound.’ He put his walkie-talkie to his lips. ‘Can we have some light down here, please, Number One?’

  Clotho swooped and staggered. Even this way round, the bow still took a powerful thumping from the sea. The lights came on and dazzled them. So bright were they that Atropos was lit by them, though they cast no illumination on the sky or sea. They checked the windlass and the buckled bow. They checked the forward radio mast which stood dangerously close to the damaged area. But there was nothing to be seen. ‘Right,’ said Biggs at last. ‘I’ll go down into the hold for a look-see. Give me a hand with the hatch, would you?’

  They didn’t open it all the way, just wide enough for Biggs to ascertain that Nico had switched on the hold lights and to scramble onto the first rungs of the ladder down the forward wall. Then, pausing only to clip his harness to the safety rail beside it, he was gone. Jamie could still hear that strange sound, a kind of extra wheezing creak, following every buffeting wave. It was coming from forward of the hatch cover. But when he got to the windlass, he found it was coming from further forward still. A wheezing groan with a low, vaguely familiar bass humming. But it wasn’t a metallic sound at all, although there was nothing up there except metal.

  Except for the tow rope. Of course. It was the tow rope. He swung round, ready to dash back to warn Biggs that there was something the matter with the tow rope.

  But there was a girl standing close behind him. The same girl.

  ‘Hello,’ she said.

  ‘What ... Who are you?’ he gasped, stunned by her presence, and by her proximity.

  ‘I am a stowaway,’ she said. ‘Take me to your captain, please.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said, I am a stowaway —’

  ‘Biggs! BIGGS!’ He charged forward, bellowing at the top of his voice, shoving her roughly out of his way.

  This was not at all the reaction she was expecting and it triggered a response in her which was born of the paranoia that had gripped her even before she concussed herself.

  Jamie felt his left hand being taken in an almost gentle grip, and agony lanced up his arm. He froze, up on his toes, with his arm straight, elbow up, hand twisted to point at the sky. The wind paused and he heard the strange whispering sound her big camping knife made as its carbon steel blade hissed out of its plastic sheath. The position of his arm widely separated the ribs on the left side of his chest so that when she punched the eight-inch blade into his side, it cut through his lung and sliced his heart in half. The shock of it made his dead muscles convulse as though he was winded and his ribs closed down on the blade which had killed them.

  She tugged at the handle twice, to no avail, and when she let him fall, he tumbled forward into the hold with the knife still wedged in his chest.

  Biggs was halfway up the ladder on the very edge of panic when Jamie’s body collected him and plunged the pair of them down into the five feet of restless water which should not have been there at all. Biggs was lucky. The way he fell, with Jamie somehow draped across his back, caused his head to hit the rungs with brutal force, so that he too was dead before he hit the wa
ter.

  The girl stood at the top of the hatch, looking down at the two dead men, stunned by what she had done. Instinctively, she looked around the deck, but even in the pitiless brightness, there was no one to see what she had done. Good, she thought. She still had a chance, then. Even so, there were tears on her ice-pale cheeks which did not have their origin in the terrible pain in her head.

  But then the world went mad around her and she found she had no chance after all. She was never to understand the sequence of events, but it was simple enough, and all but inevitable in the circumstances. A big wave punched at last through the wall of number one hold and the weight of the water flooding in jerked Clotho’s head downwards with terrible force. That massive downward motion caused the tow rope to part. About fifteen feet out from Clotho’s forepeak there was a weakness in the rope which had caused the sound Jamie had heard, and here the line parted. Much of it whipped back to writhe uselessly like a dying serpent down into the sea by Atropos. The rest of it chopped backwards with all the force of a helicopter blade to cut across the murderess’s slim hips. In an instant even shorter than the blink of an eye that had dispatched Jamie, she was broken and destroyed.

  It smashed her spine and splintered her pelvis. It obliterated her womb and what that womb had carried. It ruptured her kidneys and her liver and the shock of it stopped her heart even before she landed in the dark sea a hundred yards away.

  The last thing she was aware of was a sudden resurgence of the agony in her head and she never knew that what she felt was her left heel hitting the wound in the back of her skull as her broken body folded neatly in half.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN - Day Nine

  Thursday, 27 May 00:00

  ‘She’s gone!’ screamed Yasser Timmins. ‘Oh, sweet Jesus.’

  Robin stood, rigidly, willing her eyes to make out more details on Clotho as the sister ship whirled away. As chance would have it, she had been looking through Captain Black’s best binoculars at Clotho’s suddenly illuminated forepeak when the tow line parted. Because of the tilt of the ruined forecastle forward of the windlass, she had been unable to make out whether there had been anyone on the deck, but she rather feared there might have been. Why else would the deck lights have been on?