I stared straight ahead at the radar.
I heard Scott take a deep breath, then he resumed in a more reasonable tone, ‘That will go a few hundred, or even thousand miles when the conditions are right. But, assuming that the microphone still works and we can talk to anyone at all, I can't call for help just because this guy is tracking us - whatever we suspect.’ there was a heavy pause for emphasis, ‘He has to do something before we can justify calling another boat, especially commercial shipping, off course to help us. What do you say to them now? Would you steam a couple of hundred miles to check out these guys following us? It's like walking down a street and thinking the guy behind you might be going to mug you. When do you scream help?’
‘But surely by the time they have..?’ I started to say.
‘Yeah, that's the problem.’ Scott shrugged, unwillingly granting me the point, ‘So alright, if it's this Janac bloke we do have a case for calling ships off course since we know he's trouble. But if it's not him we might be giving ourselves up by broadcasting. The Australian authorities or your buddy Janac could just as easily pick up our transmissions and our relayed position, which we would have to give to get help. And they may be out there looking for us if Duval called them. Which we can't discount,’ he glanced upwards to where Duval was on deck, ‘whatever he says. The second problem is, that if we have an ordinary pirate out there and we start calling for help, he may figure we're weak and come right on in. At the moment the only thing stopping him might be that he doesn't know who we are or how much of a fight we could put up.’ Scott paused, ‘There's a hell of a lot of ifs and buts. But the biggest one comes down to, is it Janac?’
‘Well, he's your problem, what do you reckon?’ said Scott harshly, staring at me.
I hesitated, wiped my hand across my mouth nervously, then said, ‘Give it more time, see what he does. There's too big a downside to screaming for help at the moment.’ I paused, ‘But we should maybe try and check out that microphone, or swap it with the other one.’ I added, pointing at the working VHF microphone.
Scott nodded, ‘Yeah, that's right, can you get onto that Ben?’
‘They're not compatible; we've had the problem before. But I can try and fix it, although electronics isn't exactly my field.’
‘Do your best. We'll keep a listening watch on the SSB and the VHF on the emergency channels, if we hear any chat let me know. It would be worth making contact. It would be good to find someone close we can hook up with for company. The problem is, there aren't too many cruising boats in this part of the world, especially at this time of year.’
‘Why?’ I asked the obvious question.
‘Well, it's the hurricane season for one thing, and the pirates have something of a reputation.’
‘This may sound dumb, but what are we doing here?’
Scott smiled, ‘We don't have any choice for one thing. The boat has to go to Hong Kong and it isn't going to fly there. But hurricanes aren't too much of a problem, we have the best weather forecasting equipment you can buy on board.’ he gestured at the bank of screens, printers and radios, ‘As for the pirates, I guess it's like riding the subway in New York. You think it'll never happen to you, and you can't stop going out because of the possibility.’
‘You can take a cab.’ I said.
Scott grimaced, ‘Not if you can't afford one.’ he replied.
The time ticked on, and Duval, despite his reservations, kept making the course changes right on cue. The second thirty minutes was about due when Scott reappeared once more.
‘Same deal?’ he said.
I just nodded, he could see for himself, the green blip was right there.
‘You ever fired one of these?’ he asked.
I looked round. He was holding a pump action shotgun.
‘No.’ I said, swallowing heavily, ‘But I've done some clay pigeon shooting with the ordinary sort.’
‘Good, it's the same principle, put the cartridges in here,’ he spilt a handful on the nav table, then loaded a couple, ‘and this,’ there was the ominous schung-schung sound as he worked the action two-handed, ‘puts one in the breech. Ok?’
I nodded again and he handed me the gun. I took it wordlessly and dropped it in beside me. My mouth was completely dry and I was sweating enough to soak my shirt. But I shuddered.
On the dot of ten Ben poked his head round the corner and said, ‘Any change?’
I shook my head as I turned to look at him. He was every bit as grim and serious as Scott. The rifle was held loosely at his side. I wondered what Duval was thinking now.
‘Nothing. Is that radio working?’ I said.
‘I've pulled it apart, there were some broken connections which I've tried to solder back on. I've no idea if it works though.’
‘Maybe we should try it?’
‘You heard what Scott said, we could just give ourselves away to the cops or Janac. We don't figure they'll do anything till they've sized us up in the daylight. We don't want to provoke an early attack by using the radio.’ Ben hefted up the rifle. ‘It may not come to using this, but we should make it clear to them that we aren't to be messed with lightly. But as I say, I think they'll wait till it's light to have a look at us.’
‘Unless they already have.’ I replied.
‘How do you mean?’
‘At the island, they started tracking us almost as soon as we were past it. Maybe they were watching us from the shore. We would never have seen them in the vegetation. Simple enough to jump on a boat hidden in one of the bays and then chase us up here.’
‘Maybe... I'll take over, I'm on for the next four hours.’
I heaved myself out from behind the chart table and scrambled up the companionway. Emerging on deck the wind had freshened a little. I glanced at the speedo, we were charging along at a healthy ten, eleven knots. Scott and Duval stood by the wheel, deep in conversation. And Duval looked anything but sceptical. I clambered up the pitched deck, grabbing the runner winch for support, and planted myself beside Scott. He turned to me and said, ‘Is Ben by the radar?’
I nodded an affirmative, then said, ‘I don't understand why they're waiting. They could have been watching us from the island. They might have already checked us out.’
Scott looked at me sombrely.
Duval murmured his agreement from the wheel, steering with a concentration and intensity I had not seen in him before.
‘You think we can out-run them?’ I asked.
‘That's what we were just talking about. We've come off the zig-zag pattern and headed up a bit. This is about as fast as we can go without setting a kite.’ he eased himself over to the hatch. ‘Any change?’ he shouted down. I couldn't hear the reply, but it was clear enough from his expression that there wasn't. I stared out into the dark to where the unknown boat must be.
There was silence for a while, Duval steering, Scott standing and staring out to leeward, hands in his pockets, deep in thought. He balanced himself easily against the motion. I wedged myself between the runner winch and the guard rail. The only light came from the phosphorescent wash rushing past to leeward. All our own navigation lights were now out. It was clear what he was thinking: Janac, pirates or just some innocent fishing or cruising boat?
‘Why is he playing this game, why doesn't he just get on with it?’ Scott finally asked, of no one in particular.
It was that moment that it hit me with a certainty that was as solid as it was frightening. It was part of the game. Janac's game. That's why he was holding off. He was telling me it was him out there. I stared dumbly into the blackness. Trying to deal with the realisation.
Scott may have sensed something. He turned towards me and glared. I glanced across at Duval. And Scott followed my gaze. Then he said, slowly, ‘It's Janac isn't it Duval?’
‘How many times do I have to say it, goddamit, I didn't call anyone!’ Duval snapped back.
There was a heavy silence as Scott considered us both. ‘Well, the bastard's locked onto us good and pro
per. And he's not going away.’ he said with a grim finality. Then he relapsed back into his meditation, staring out to leeward.
Eventually I said, ‘What about setting a spinnaker?’
‘A kite? Five up on a Maxi boat?’ Scott sucked his teeth. ‘It would be difficult, not impossible in this breeze, but difficult and risky. We could band it up like a cruising chute. But if it went wrong we would be real slow for a while. The other problem is that we'd have to come off another thirty degrees to set it. We'd be sailing right at them, making it easy for them to close the distance. For all we know they could be flat out trying to keep up. Heading towards them might encourage them to have a go now. No, I'd rather wait on the spinnaker till we know for sure that we need more pace and definite evasive action, and the kite will take us away from them. We'd look pretty stupid pulling the rig out trying to get a spinnaker up.’
He paused for a moment, then looked at Duval and did something I had never seen him do before - check with him, ‘You ok with that Pete?’
‘Yeah,’ came the reply, ‘But it would be worth banding the chute ready.’
‘Right, come on Martin, you can give me a hand.’ he moved off forward, with me trailing behind.
By the time I got down below, Scott already had the spinnaker out of the bag. He had his head down, and was sorting through it. He held up a corner to the weak red glow from the bulkhead light, then started working his way along the edge of the sail. I braced myself against the companionway to watch. ‘This is the only one we've got on board. We have a rule about no spinnakers on deliveries.’ he smiled briefly to himself, ‘Some friends of mine once dropped a mast with a kite up on a delivery. Got caught in thirty five knots, hadn't got enough power on the grinders to trim it fast enough, couldn't get it down, and eventually they rolled the pole in and that was that. Bit unlucky, I've done a lot worse in the Southern Ocean and kept the stick up. But there you go, shit happens.’
I nearly said, I know, but settled for nodding.
‘Ok,’ he went on, ‘if we're going to get this up, we need to band it tightly from all three corners. It's already done a bit, but the only time we were going to use it was when it's light, in which case if you band it too hard you'll never get it open.’ He handed me the corner he had arrived at. ‘You pull this forward and I'll work down it with the wool.’
I took the big heavy stainless ring from him and pulled it and the spinnaker with me as I walked towards the bow of the boat. I was careful with my feet and kept one hand on the hull as the motion up here was even worse than back aft. Scott followed me up with the ball of wool in his hand. Slowly we worked our way down the sail, with me holding the cloth in a bunch and him tying it in place with lengths of the wool. I began to understand what we were doing. The wool would hold the spinnaker closed till it could be fully hoisted. Then we would pull on the sheets, and pop the wools, opening the kite as though we were unzipping it. I grunted as the light dawned.
‘You get it now Martin?’ said Scott, ‘the distance apart of the wool is the crucial thing. Too far apart and she'll pop before you get it up, too close and you have trouble breaking it open. We have fancy methods of doing it when we're racing, big socks that you just zip it up in, but they're all in the container on the way to Hong Kong.’
I nodded with a certain amount of admiration; he sure as hell knew what he was doing.
We spent another ten minutes on the spinnaker, tying the wools in from the three corners, until it was completely banded up. Scott then packed it back in the big, square bag, with each of the corners carefully pulled out and tied off, so that it would be hoisted the right way up and untwisted. Finally Scott was happy, and as he straightened up from the bag he said, ‘Ok Martin, you get some kip, I'll wake you for the next watch.’
I watched him turn to go aft, before I said, ‘Scott.’
He stopped, glanced over his shoulder.
I hesitated, I was committing myself, but it had to be done. ‘I think we should start trying to contact people with the SSB now. Ben thinks he might have fixed the microphone.’
He turned to look at me more carefully, before replying, ‘You think it's Janac?’
I took a deep breath. ‘I think that we should assume so.’
‘Is that the same thing?’ he was scouring my face with his eyes.
‘To all intents and purposes.’ I looked away, ‘After catching Duval on the radio this boat turns up - and the way he's hung back, like he's toying with us.’ I shook my head, ‘I have a bad feeling about it.’ that was putting it mildly, I thought.
He nodded slowly, grinding his jaw grimly, ‘I'll get Ben on to it.’ he muttered. He opened his mouth to say more, but stopped, turned and stalked away.
Chapter 24
Four hours later I was back at the radar, watching the unwavering green blip tracking us, when Scott slid in at the chart table beside me. He reached up and clicked on several switches and the screens flickered into life. I had never seen this stuff powered up before. He turned a few dials, then pulled a keyboard and mouse out from behind a board and I realised that the monitor in front of us was a computer. He started up some software, the mouse and keyboard clicking in unison. The colour screen slowly began to draw what I recognised as a weather satellite picture.
‘Where's that from?’ I said.
‘The aerial's on the back of the boat, the satellite passes overhead every couple of hours at most. This one we just picked up now.’ A couple more key presses and a grid flashed up on the screen. Scott reached over and pressed another button, I recognised our position, in latitude and longitude, on that one. He looked back at the computer monitor. The picture was now complete.
‘We need to know what the options are.’ he seemed to be thinking aloud as much as talking to me. Even so, it was good to see that the lid was still on the previous tensions. In-fighting was the last thing we needed. But I knew Scott understood that. He carried on, ‘Bit premature possibly, since we have no idea how fast they are or what their plan might be, but it's good to have the scenario in your head before any action starts. Just like a race, and since we got all this kit, we might as well use it.’
‘We're about here,’ he said, pointing to a position on the grid. ‘The cloud pattern you can see is from the weather system that's providing us with this east north easterly breeze. What we need to know is what's going to happen next.’ He gazed at the screen for a while. ‘You can see new systems developing on this thing before they appear on the weather fax. But there's little doing here.’
‘The what?’
Scott turned to his left, and reached up to a printer above his head. More buttons and lights, then he glanced at his watch. ‘That thing is a weather fax. We should get a forecast through any minute. All the big weather stations world-wide send out forecasts and information on radio signals. The machine is built to receive and print them out.’
As he spoke it clunked into life, the paper spat out the front and the print head whirred.
‘Like that.’ said Scott, ‘It'll take about ten minutes for that to finish. How's he doing?’ he nodded over towards the radar, which I had completely forgotten about. ‘Looks about the same huh? Maybe moved in a little bit.’ he paused, ‘About three and a half hours before we get any light. I wonder if he'll make a move before then?’
The question hung in the air while we sat and watched the fax churn out the picture in silence. After a couple of minutes, Scott opened the table lid and pulled out a chart. He refolded it and then smoothed it down in front of us. Once again the position was brought up on the screen, and this time plotted on the chart. I looked over his shoulder. I could see Rossel Island behind, the Louisiade Archipelago spreading out to the west of us and ahead, a small, distinct chain of outcrops called Duffen Reef. Scott tapped the pencil thoughtfully on the chart. Then said, ‘We need an edge. Something we can do that they can't. But until it's light we don't have much idea of what their capabilities are.’ The watch was checked again. Now the ruler came out and
the distance to Duffen Reef was measured. ‘Forty miles.’ he said softly, ‘We get there about sun up. It might just be dark enough...’
‘Dark enough for what?’ I asked suspiciously, as he drew a line on the chart - between the two biggest islets. It was the only part that wasn't marked as solid reef. I peered at the chart, there was a neatly drawn three in the tiny white gap signifying clear water, ‘Through there? Three what? Metres?’
‘No, fathoms, eighteen feet, plenty of water there. The biggest problem is hitting that channel accurately, with pace on. That's the idea. If it's an old shitter of a boat, which we think it is, they probably won't have this kit.’ he tapped the position indicator, ‘I doubt they would try to follow us through there in the dark. They may do it in daylight, but slowly, and even if they do, the best they can do is follow. It allows us the freedom out the other side to chose an angle, get the kite up and see how fast this baby really is when she needs to be.’
I let out a low, breathless whistle, ‘What's the kit?’ I said finally, nodding at our position flashed up on the lcd.
‘Satellite position indicator, works out where we are from a ring of satellites above the earth. At best it's accurate to maybe one to ten metres.’
‘And at worst?’
‘About a hundred. They're American satellites, they transmit a civilian and a military signal. The military one is a lot more precise, but unfortunately these sets just receive the downgraded civilian version. During the Gulf War they didn't have enough military kit for all the boys out there. So they had to give them civilian equipment, and then make the civilian signal full military accuracy to allow their own people to use it normally - we could do with that facility now, but I think this will be good enough.’
‘How wide is that channel?’
Scott smiled, ‘About a hundred metres. That's the fun bit. The only other little problem with this plan, is that the satellite chain isn't quite complete yet, and it has an unfortunate tendency to go off when you most need it.’
The Defector Page 23