Harry began to take humidity and visibility readings before Bob even thought to ask for them. She sucked air through her teeth in a very unladylike hiss of disgust as the figures revealed that a thick fog was forming over their target. Suddenly Bob called out “What on earth…”
Ann spun round and automatically stepped across the bridge to his side. The whole of the clearview was suddenly aglitter. A dully luminous wall was rearing up out of the dead darkness ahead of them with just enough intensity to make the water droplets suddenly dewing the glass gleam like fireflies as the blast of New England’s passage hosed them away. The wall of vapour pounced down, and had the men on the bridge been relying on their eyes they would have slowed in confusion and disorientation. But Harry’s instruments registered the thickest pea-souper merely as a set of airborne humidity figures beside the readings from equipment which could see far beyond the capability of any man — and indeed of most animals.
Harry predicted for Bob how much thicker the fog would become as they crossed the last few miles, but assured him that she and Dix could still see perfectly well. Nevertheless, he ordered the engine room to engage the slow-down sequence.
The fog was glowing because of the intensity of the moonlight beaming down on top of it, coupled with the luminosity of the phosphorescent surface beneath. As they neared the stricken Calcutta, however, the ghostly silver of the restless billows changed its colour. Mere human eyes began to take over from the machines which had guided New England so far. Dead ahead, and sweeping closer with disorientating rapidity even though the ship had slowed to a mere twenty knots, a terrifyingly vivid beacon could be seen. Such was the power of the blaze that the whole area nearby seemed to be illuminated by it. As they came within a mile of the stricken vessel, with Harry and John Dix reading off the ranges like a gun layer and his echo, the veil of the mist was suddenly plucked away.
Such was the intensity of the yacht’s fire that the fog itself had been burned away. It was still there, like the storm wall round the eye of a hurricane, hesitating out at the edge of the shadows, glimmering weirdly in the light of the fire. In and out under the fog walls ran the low corrugations of the sea. The slopes of the waves facing the boat were red with reflection and their backs shone like glowing green glass. Rising and falling in a spotlight of white light from the full moon directly overhead lay Calcutta, still brightly ablaze. Her weather deck and upper works were a maze of red and yellow. Her masts, hung with rags of flame, stood skeletally until they were lost in the dead black plume of smoke which joined her like a birth cord to the spaces between the stars.
“Where are they? Can they see us?” asked Bob with quiet intensity. Such was the power of the spectacle before him he simply could not imagine that anyone could still be alive on that hell ship.
“All aft,” answered O’Reilley. “They’re in the sail locker, they say. She’s well alight fore and going down by the head, but they’ve a few moments’ grace.”
Bob hesitated for an instant longer. Ann looked away from him, and O’Reilley’s words took vivid life before her eyes. The bow section of the yacht seemed to be trying — and failing — to contain half a dozen flame throwers. Gouts of flame burst upwards, streams of flame gathered themselves into rivers and gushed through molten hawseholes to flood the burning sea. And as she burned, she was sinking, the sleek bright prow forced down into the steaming, bubbling water. The pressure of the sea geysering upwards within her sent more flames bursting upwards like mortars.
“Make ready two of the portside lifeboats,” Bob ordered. “Automatic launch. We’ll pick them up at the engineering deck door.”
Ann would have given much to see the side of the ship down on the cargo deck levels swing open by themselves and the lifeboats come out automatically, as though being launched by ghosts, but she knew better than to ask.
Overseen by Second Officer Walker and watched by Alan Miles, the boats were pulled along to the engineering deck door by the four GP seamen destined to go aboard them. Bob would command one of the boats and Dix the other. It was perhaps unusual to have both senior officers at risk at once — the shades of Stevenson and Cohen proved that — but they were the two best qualified first aiders and they needed to be there right from the word go. As O’Reilley had been unable to discover from the shocked and disorientated distress caller how many were actually aboard, they would take no more than two men each, one to steer the powerful diesels, the other to secure the boats while the two officers helped the survivors aboard. Again, Ann would have given anything to have gone but she knew it was out of the question. She had no expertise or medical training. Her presence would only mean one less seat for a survivor who, if left, could all too easily die with the blazing wreck.
Senator and Mrs Charleston were both in the ship’s infirmary, quietly and efficiently preparing to receive casualties, readying beds and bandages, making certain the ship’s supply of Flamzine, plastic bags and distilled water were to hand. Ann knew she should be down there with them, but she did not want to risk missing any of the action. She could not stop herself from hurrying down to Bob’s side, prey to a wide range of emotions, still making mental notes of everything he said and did in case New England was destined to join Napoli on the bestseller lists. Bob accepted her presence but made no allowances for it. “When we launch, pull back a little, Mr Stubbs,” he was saying into his radio as he made his way swiftly to the lifeboats.
“Yes, Captain.”
“Walker will wait down here with the rest of the non-watch seamen and engineers to help the wounded aboard.”
“Yes, sir.”
“O’Reilley, alert all nearby ships and the nearest coastguard authority what we’re doing and tell them to stand by with help or advice when we find out what the casualty list is.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Nearest coastguards will be Bantry, Scilly and Brest, Captain,” added Harry’s clear voice.
“Tell them to have helicopters on standby. Chief, can our jet fuel service helicopters if need be?”
“I guess…”
“Professor Miles?”
There was a surprised shuffle as Walker passed Miles the handset. “Yes, Captain?”
“Is the foredeck stressed to take the weight of a helicopter, say a Sea King?”
“I’ve no idea how much a Sea King weighs but I’m sure it is, yes.”
“OK.”
They rounded a corner and went down a passage that ended in a large doorway opening out onto a section of ocean at whose heart sat the blazing yacht. Past the doorway swung a pair of lines and a rope ladder. With no hesitation, Bob stepped past Walker and Miles who were standing back against the corridor wall and slipped his foot onto the nearest rung. He caught hold of the ladder and swung himself out as though this was some natural extension of walking. Ann stopped, but not before Professor Miles reached out a restraining hand.
Bob’s dark blue gaze swept over her and the corners of his eyes crinkled. Almost, but not quite, a wink. Then he was gone down into the lifeboat bobbing on the water below.
Side by side the pair of lifeboats sped across the gleaming circle of water. Bob knelt in the sharp bow of his, straining to see past the blazing prow of the sinking yacht to the aft sail locker where the whole crew were stowed. As he peered forward, wishing that his eyes were as sharp as Harry’s machines, he talked in clipped phrases into his handset.
Bob’s boat went first down the flame-spewing, downward angling side of the yacht. He looked at his watch, wondering how much longer she could possibly stay afloat. It was, he noticed, midnight.
The after section of the yacht was well up out of the water and he had to stand to his full six feet two and reach until his shoulder cracked before he was able to catch at the foot of a deck stanchion. “Ahoy, Calcutta!” he bellowed.
No reply. They must know we’re here, he thought. He bellowed again.
“Pull back,” he ordered the helmsman. “I’m going aboard.”
There was a spa
ce where the tilt of the stern was scaleable and which the flames had not yet reached. Onto this Bob leaped, and then, crouching, he sprinted across the angled, slippery deck towards the raised hatch aft where the sail locker and the surviving crew must be. A shadow loomed, cooling his back as it fell across him, and he jumped.
“Dix! Any sign?” He tore his throat on the question but Dix showed no sign of hearing. Instead he gestured to the open hatch and the pair of them ran towards it. Like sprinters in a dead heat they arrived at the opening side by side. Bob grasped at the open trap door and looked down.
Leaned over, looked down and froze.
Ann went dutifully to the sickbay after Bob had gone. She found, suddenly, that she had to be busy with something physical. Her mind was full of that last near-wink and the manner in which it had seemed to twist her heart and clench her womb. But sorting medicines was nowhere near enough to cure her restlessness, especially as all she seemed to be doing was disturbing stuff already better prepared by the patient Mrs Charleston. After ten minutes she went up onto the bridge again, in the faint hope that Harry’s machines would give her some of the information she thirsted to know. But Harry’s computers for once had nothing to say. Even the radio monitor screens were blank. There was nothing between New England, Calcutta and the lifeboats except dead, dark air.
“I can see them,” called Stubbs suddenly. “They’re on their way back now.”
“Do they look all right?”
“Yes. Wait, I’ll get the night glasses. Oh bugger! Sorry. Forgot they were laser focused. Wait, I’ll just open the…There. Yup. There’s the captain. There’s Mr Dix. Everything seems fine. They’ve got quite a few people with them. Four in Dix’s boat and five — no, six, in the captain’s. No wounded, I don’t think, though I can see something bundled in the bilge there. Probably just kit. Yes. That’s just kit…”
This last observation was addressed to Harry Newbold alone; Ann had gone down to see them come aboard.
Harry sat in a brown study, staring at her monitors. Her face settled into an indulgent smile. The girls — she thought of the machines as her girls — had done well tonight. New England had saved ten yachtsmen from a fiery or a watery death, by the sound of things, and she couldn’t possibly have done it without her girls.
But then she froze, as her captain had done when he looked down into Calcutta’s sail locker. And for the same reason. Reflected, mirror-like, in the monitor screen beside her was a square figure dressed in battle fatigues and a balaclava. It was standing silently in the doorway and it was pointing a strange, skeletal handgun at the frozen figure of Stubbs.
As though in a dream, Harry turned and the war-like figure swam into her vision for real. As she turned, she rose. She stepped out into the main bridge area under the gaze of clear blue eyes framed in black knitted material. The gun did not move. Instead a black-gloved left hand rose in a terrifyingly controlled motion to tear the balaclava up and reveal a spiked glitter of short blonde hair. Harry Newbold gasped as though a fist had been driven hard into the pit of her soft belly.
And thus it was that Angela Van Der Piet, known as Pitman, came aboard New England.
And she did not come alone.
CHAPTER IX
Richard was caught up in New England’s fate sixty hours later, like a salmon snatched out of a deep pool hooked on a lure he didn’t even know he had taken. The summons could not have come at a more difficult time. Had it not been from Sir Justin he would never have agreed to it.
He was locked in a protracted meeting with representatives of the Dover Port Authority and associated authorities with video link to their opposite numbers in France. Everyone seemed to have got cold feet again at the idea of vessels moving at very high speeds from one side of the Channel to the other. Richard knew little more about New England’s situation than what was printed in the newspapers piled with discarded work papers in his hotel bedroom, half read, scarcely thought through. The newspapers told simply of an heroic rescue attempt gone slightly askew, of New England rescuing Calcutta’s crew but breaking down as a result. He had received disappointing but not particularly alarming messages from Bob Stark and Professor Miles reporting damaged engines and proposing a return to normal sailing speed which would bring them safely up the Channel in a few days’ time. No further help was needed. No one from Calcutta was badly hurt. The small reception in Southampton would be postponed. There was a new delivery date for the cargo in Zeebrugge. No towing or aid of any kind was required. Richard had given a grim bark of laughter at that last one. Damn right they didn’t want any help. They would be liable for massive salvage bills the instant a line came aboard. No, Jet-Ship would have to proceed slowly but quietly under its own steam if it was to stay afloat — in the markets as well as in fact. And in the meantime he had troubles of his own.
Then Sir Justin phoned. Thinking it must be Robin, Richard answered on the second ring.
“Richard? Bull here. This is providential. Where are you?”
“Dover.”
“How soon can you be here?”
“Where’s here?”
“Town. There’s a man I’m extremely keen for you to meet.”
“Look, Bull, if this is a social call — ”
“It’s about New England and you need to be up here as soon as possible.”
“What on earth are you talking about, Bull?”
“Not on the open airwaves, I’m afraid, Richard. But take my word for it, there is a man here you have to meet. He’s come out of the blue a bit to me but I think you have to talk to him as soon as you possibly can. I really cannot overstress the urgency of this, Richard. It’s Prometheus II all over again, if you catch my drift.”
Richard did. And his blood ran cold. “You’ve got me, Bull. When and where?”
*
By teatime the problems in Dover were resolved for the time being, and the super-cats Hero and Lysander were at last being laded for sea. All things being equal, Richard would have been thinking of spending a couple of days up in Summersend. He had brought the Freelander down to Dover with him and, M25 allowing, he could have been up there by dinner time.
As things turned out, however, dinner time found him in a quiet corner of an exclusive private chamber in the Army and Navy Club on Pall Mall. On his right sat Bull, narrow-eyed and silent. On his left, square-shouldered and quietly intense, sat the old sailor’s contact. His name was Merrideth and he was in the SAS, apparently. He was a tall, skeletal figure who nevertheless gave an impression of vigour and explosive energy barely held in check. He was dressed in a tweed sports jacket, Cavalry twills, a white shirt and a Special Forces Club tie. He had, no doubt, a return ticket to Hereford in his pocket. He had a strange face, a mixture of youth and age, of intensity and experience. And his eyes were as grey and cold as a brackish bog puddle in the back end of bandit country. There was something about him Richard recognised immediately; something he respected and trusted.
Bull had seen the same thing and had felt the same way, the old man had explained during the brief time they were together alone before Merrideth showed up. The soldier had approached Sir Justin with the information he was about to show Richard and asked for his unofficial guidance. Which of them had mentioned Richard first, Bull could not quite recall, but the suggestion had been good — and typical of the manner in which things were still done in Intelligence and Security.
“New England is here,” said Merrideth in quiet but forceful tones, as clipped as his dark moustache. He pointed to a map of the south-westernmost section of Eire, and Richard noticed he was wearing black kid gloves. “Up at the head of Roaringwater Bay. Been there since 06:00 Zulu — that’s GMT.”
“I understand,” said Richard, stealing a “what’s going on?” glance at Bull, and getting a “wait and see” nod in reply.
“This picture of New England,” said Merrideth, pulling out a fax labelled Number 1 from under the map, “was taken at 08:00 local. The Garda were on to it quickly, but then th
ey went into wait and see mode.”
“Man I know down there’s been on the look-out for anything strange for quite a few days,” said Bull. “He’ll want to take it softly, softly, I should think.”
“Well, he found it. Standard coastguard sighting report from Mizen Head. Dated six today. That’s how we can place it so accurately. See the estimated speed? Sixty knots. Rang bells from here to heaven, that did.”
“She came in past Mizen head at sixty knots?” asked Richard, frowning.
“She’s been skipping up and down the bay a bit,” said Merrideth. “Looks like she’s been doing speed trials around the islands there.”
Number 3 was a section of the Admiralty Chart of the area. “Coastguard station at Schull sent this up,” said Merrideth. “There’s a track of his observed movements. They call this area Heaven’s Gate locally, I understand.”
“I don’t understand any of this at all,” said Richard.
“I think the next few photographs may make things clearer,” said Merrideth.
Hell Gate (Richard Mariner Series Book 9) Page 8