by Peter Tonkin
When Richard finished speaking to Biddy, he hit Robin’s number on the off-chance. ‘Stranger things have happened at sea,’ he said to himself. But the connection went straight to her messaging service. He dialled Nic. The same thing happened. He tried Liberty, thinking, third time lucky. But again with no result. So he put his phone away, put the headphones back on and started through the recording once again, eyes closed, concentration absolute.
He did not hear Major Guerrero come into the radio room. The major saw how fiercely he was concentrating and, uncharacteristically, hesitated to disturb him. Instead, the major leaned back against the doorjamb and rehearsed what he had come here to say, concerned that Richard – who had done nothing but try and help the National Guard so far – would be upset, perhaps angry, at the news he was bringing. After a while, Richard threw himself back in the chair, putting the whole structure at some risk of coming apart. His face dark with thought and worry, he pulled the headphones off his ears and threw them on to the table with enough force to send them skittering across the surface and into the radio with a considerable bang. ‘Shit!’ he said.
‘Captain Mariner,’ said Guerrero. ‘Excuse me, but I have some news.’
‘Oh. Sorry, Major. I didn’t know you were there. What can I do for you?’
‘I’ve just had new orders, sir, and as they affect you and Sulu Queen I thought I’d better alert you at once.’
‘I see. Carry on.’ What the major could see of Richard’s expression looked almost dangerous. Since assuming command, thought the major fleetingly, Captain Mariner seemed to have become even more decisive and dynamic, growing into his concept of the role.
The major cleared his throat. ‘As you probably know, sir, our President has promised el Presidente that we will offer all the help we can to Mexico – it looks as though the ARkStorm predicted for California will actually hit there instead. Is already hitting there, in fact.’
‘Yes, I was aware of that. I flew through some of it coming back up here.’
‘Of course. Well, my command and my supplies have been designated as a part of that help. We are geared up and ready to go.’
‘Very good. What is supposed to happen next, then?’
‘The current idea is that we unload the containers, put them on trucks and drive them down. A team has already been dispatched to Baja California Norte and another one is heading into Baja California Sur, though they’re having bad trouble with the roads.’
‘Bridges washing away all along highway one.’ Richard nodded. ‘I saw it.’
‘Quite, sir. Well, the mainland behind the Baja hasn’t been hit too hard as yet, but apparently USGS and NOAA predict that when the storm arrives south of the final section of the Baja at Cabo San Lucas and comes over the mainland there without the Baja to protect it – especially as it will go straight up against the Sierra Madre coastal mountains – the states of Sinola, Nayarit and Jalisco will be in trouble. The plan is to drive a convoy down through Mexicali, Hermosillo, down to the coast road through Los Mochis and Culiacan, then into Mazatlan, Tepic, Puerto Banderas and Guardalajara.’
‘I see. You have enough trucks to do this?’
‘Well …’
‘When you didn’t have enough to get the containers out of the docks?’
‘I understand the regular army will be helping, sir.’
‘I see. So, how are we going to get your containers off my ship and on to the army’s trucks, if and when they appear?’
‘Apparently I’m to request that you move to another berth – one with a functioning crane, as soon as one can be liberated. Though effecting repairs to this one has apparently been moved up the list of dockside priorities—’
‘I have to observe, Major, that those two things were precisely what Captain Sin was trying to arrange when he had his stroke. Apparently brought on by the authorities’ refusal to admit that either one was possible.’
‘I know, sir. As with you and the bridges on the Baja, I was here myself and saw what happened.’ The major’s tone was frosty. He, too, was beginning to run out of patience.
‘Let me shine a cold light of reason on to these proposals, Major,’ said Richard, swinging the chair round fully to face the major squarely as he counted off the points on his fingers. ‘First, it will take time to liberate a berth or repair the crane – Captain Sin proved that. Then it will still take a good while to unload your containers, especially as I can’t see the army coming up with the better part of a hundred trucks with drivers anytime soon – even if they try to commandeer them from local freight haulage companies and deal with the lawsuits later. Then I think you will find that the rundown to Guadalajara will be a long, slow and dangerous process, unless you take a regiment of sappers with Bailey bridges to get you across all the arroyos where the original ones are history.’
‘That’s as may be, sir, but we can’t just leave these people to whatever this ARkStorm is going to throw at them.’
‘I agree, Major. And, therefore, I have a counter-proposal for you to put to your commanders. Bring as many more people aboard here as you think you will need. Leave your containers where they are and let me take Sulu Queen south to Puerto Banderas. I can guarantee to have you there in forty-eight to fifty-five hours from the moment of departure.’
‘You’d be willing to do that?’
‘Major, I’d be keen to do it. My wife and business partner are down there and they may be in serious trouble. When you arrived just now I was within a whisker of cutting my shorelines and heading south.’
The major paused, thinking rapidly. Richard watched him narrowly, trying to assess whether his words would be enough motivation to make the officer put a strong case to his superiors. Because, if push came to shove, Richard really had no intention of taking Sulu Queen from one dock to another in the hope that the army and the National Guard could get their act together. But he was wary of getting confrontational before there was any real need to do so. Besides, he had grown to like and respect the major. And, to be fair, he had put a good case to him – and had little doubt that he would pass it on up the chain of command pretty smartly. ‘Well, I guess it would save a shedload of time, sir,’ agreed Guerrero at last. ‘As long as we can get the containers ashore when we get down there.’ He straightened decisively. ‘I’ll put it to my superiors.’
‘Put it to them quickly, Major, or you may find I’ve stolen a march on you.’
While the major went off to contact his superiors, Richard went first to Antoine Prudhomme. The pair of them talked through what Richard was planning to do – and its legal and financial consequences. ‘You think I should draw up some kind of contract?’ asked Antoine.
‘With the army and the National Guard? I wouldn’t have thought so. See what the legal eagles at head office think, then alert me and we’ll take it from there. But the bottom line is that I’m taking Sulu Queen south as soon as I can. It’s been too long since I’ve had direct contact with Robin or Nic. I feel in my bones – in my water, as the Irish say – that there’s something wrong. I want to get down there as fast as I can. But I need to be sure that it’s all legal and above board in terms of contract and insurance.’
‘I see that, Richard. But I have to say I think you’re looking on the dark side. Why make sure your insurance is OK if you think nothing will go wrong?’
‘Sod’s law, Antoine. The absolute certainty that if cover is not in place then something will go wrong …’
‘OK. I take your point. I’ll get straight on it.’
After his brief chat with Antoine, Richard went out on to the poop deck aft of the bridge house. The poop was level and fully decked – not open for container use like the foredeck. The metal decking was painted with green non-slip and marked with a white circle that had a huge capital ‘H’ at its centre. He had hardly had time to appreciate that the clouds were at last beginning to break up and there was the promise of a rose-red sunset in an hour or so when the Bell 429 dropped out of the last of the ov
ercast and settled on to the ‘H’ close in front of him. He thrust his hands deep into his pockets and waited. A moment later, Biddy had climbed out of it and run across to his side.
‘I’m all fuelled up and ready to do some searching if you need any – and if the weather permits. You heard from Maxima or Katapult8?’
Richard just shook his head.
‘What about Sulu Queen? We good to go?’ she asked.
‘Yes, I think we are,’ he answered. ‘Maybe even before the end of the watch. The major’s just dotting a few i’s and crossing a few t’s. And so is Antoine Prudhomme of Southey-Bell, my local shipping agents. Hopefully we’re off with the tide at the end of the watch.’
‘Great,’ she said, with only a trace of disquiet in her voice.
‘Yes.’ He nodded, agreeing with her unspoken concern. ‘It’ll be worse than it was coming up along the Baja. Maybe a lot worse. But if it gets too rough then you’ll be staying safely aboard. In the meantime, I think we’d better get the Bell lashed down tighter than she’s ever been lashed before.’
THIRTY-ONE
Richard’s cynical thoughts about the ability of the army and the National Guard to get coordinated proved unfounded, though it was at the beginning of the last dog watch rather than at the end of the first that the trucks started pulling up beside Sulu Queen. And, in the pink light beneath a rose-red sunset, the trucks deposited squads of soldiers. Male and female. Regular and National Guard. They came at the double up the gangway, with their kitbags on their shoulders and the unfortunate Mr Cheng began trying to accommodate them all.
‘Any more supplies to come with all the new personnel?’ Richard asked Guerrero as they watched from the bridge.
‘No. They carry what they need for themselves in the way of rations and so forth. They go into their target areas self-sufficient. There’s no use going somewhere where the basics are in short supply and then start asking for food and water. What they need to help other people is all in my containers.’
‘Still,’ said Richard, ‘we’ll work out a rota for the showers, heads and dining areas – unless they’re happy to eat their rations in their bunks.’
‘They will be if they’re ordered to,’ said Guerrero.
‘I suppose so. But there’s no need if we can exercise a little forethought. Things will get pretty bad even before we get to Puerto Banderas if the forecasts are anything to go by. Let’s let them at least start out in as comfortable a way as possible.’
‘I’ll get someone right on that.’ Guerrero crossed to the back of the bridge, heading for the lift and the companionways back there.
‘And I’ll come round on inspection before the end of the watch,’ Richard called after him, causing him to pause in the doorway, half-turned to listen. ‘Just to see how they’re settling in before we actually set sail.’
‘Right. Captain’s inspection at nineteen thirty. I’ll warn them.’
After Guerrero vanished, Richard looked across at Biddy, who was the only other person on the bridge except for the second officer, who looked even younger than Cheng. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’ve put you in the owner’s suite. I’ve moved into the captain’s cabin, double-bunking with Antoine, who seems to be set on accompanying us. You have en-suite facilities all to yourself.’
‘On the other hand,’ she said, ‘I guess I could make contact with some of the other girls and share my good fortune around a bit.’ Then she too was gone.
Richard crossed to the bridge communications console and opened a channel to the engine control room. ‘Time to start warming up the engines,’ he ordered. ‘I’ll want to move out by the end of the watch. That will put us at the top of the tide and give us a good, fast start.’ Then he walked through to the radio room and made contact with the harbourmaster to bring him up to date with Sulu Queen’s new schedule and to organize a pilot.
During the next hour, Richard checked the Bell was lashed down as tightly as possible. He had a quick chat with Antoine, who had put all the problems involved in Richard’s proposed plan of action to the legal team at Southey-Bell and was in hourly expectation of enlightenment. ‘Don’t forget to remind them that I only want one set of answers from them and those are Fine, Captain Mariner, full steam ahead,’ he observed, only half jokingly. He went round Guerrero’s augmented command, which seemed to be equally split between engineers and medics, men and women. He approved Guerrero’s competent arrangements for their comfort, smoothing over any friction he sensed between the soldiers and the crew, who were now more than a little overwhelmed. He visited the galley and put the cook’s mind at rest about having to feed a complement that had mushroomed from less than forty to more than eighty. Then he used the cook’s glow of relief to warn him that the deep-fat fryer would need to be cooled and stowed after tonight, and that the big wok would only be used for modest stir-frying and steaming from tomorrow, when they could expect to start catching up with the bad weather again. He did not use the opportunity to grab a bite to eat himself because he was too busy – something he mildly regretted later. However, his abstemiousness meant that he was able to check on the engine control room and on the engine room itself before he was called up to greet the pilot but not the group of officials from the port authority, customs and immigration, homeland security and so forth, who needed to check and stamp his paperwork. Far fewer going out, he thought with some relief, than there had been on the way in, according to poor old Captain Sin.
Sulu Queen pulled in her fore and aft moorings, broke the shorelines that supplied direct power and communications through the dock facilities and engaged her thrusters under a clear sky with rising moon at eight p.m. The dock was open and easy to exit, so she did not require much in the way of tugging, and Richard stood beside the pilot as he guided the ship out through the main channel, past the increasing bustle of pleasure and commerce reawakening after the fear of the ARkStorm. Richard then accompanied him to the head of the companionway and watched him walk down to the platform at water level where he stepped aboard the cutter, passing out of Richard’s purview – and out of his mind. Then, even as the cutter pulled away towards the San Piedro pier, he was hurrying back to the bridge. Cheng was there, though technically it was the third officer’s watch. ‘You know the course, Mr Cheng,’ said Richard. ‘Compass heading one hundred and eighty degrees. Due south. And ask the engine room for full ahead.’
The voyage proper had no sooner started than Guerrero was on the bridge. ‘Captain,’ he said, ‘my people are all fed, watered and quartered. Our next duty is to check the contents of the containers. I have a manifest, but it would be wise to double-check. It’s twenty-one hundred hours now. If you could switch on your deck lights, we can at least get started before we bunk down.’
‘Fine,’ said Richard. ‘I can supply light and the crewmen you’ll need to get into the most accessible containers, but we’ll have to take more time to get you into the ones that are harder to reach. It looks like the weather is going to be calm until mid-morning tomorrow, so if you start now with the easy ones you can finish going through the hard-to-reach ones after breakfast. And of course, you’re right. If we’re going to do any good down there, we need to be absolutely certain of what we’re taking and what we can do most effectively with it.’
It was only when Guerrero bustled off and Richard had a moment to himself that he realized how hungry he was. He toyed with the idea of having something sent up, but decided that it would be better to let the watch officer take the responsibility, even though the third officer looked little more than a child. But the weather was calm. There was little traffic. The course was clear and unvarying. The only complication was that the deck lights were all on full while Guerrero and his command sorted through the contents of those containers that they could most easily access. He was all too well aware that he had been fussing around the bridge like an anxious parent, checking the course and heading, making sure no radio contacts had come in without his knowledge. He satisfied himself that the e
ngine settings were running at the top of the green and Sulu Queen was heading south along the south-flowing California current at speeds well in excess of her optimum – the better part of twenty-five knots, in fact; and sod the expense. ‘If you need me, I’ll be on the foredeck with Major Guerrero, then down in the canteen,’ he said.
The third officer nodded silently.
The foredeck consisted of the tops of the Chinese containers Sulu Queen had brought from Hong Kong. But it was possible to walk on it with care. And even to open and part empty the National Guard containers stacked around the outer edges – those that could be accessed easily, at any rate. Richard came down and joined the busy soldiers with a lively interest that quite overwhelmed his hunger pangs for the time being. The containers all seemed to be of the same basic design. They were specialized twenty-foot equivalent units with sides, tops and bottoms that had been corrugated for added strength. They could be opened from both ends, with pairs of doors that were twenty feet high and ten feet wide, meeting in the middle where they were locked and bolted. The stevedores working the huge cranes at Long Beach had stacked them end to end, two deep, round the outer edges of the foredeck in a kind of palisade. This arrangement reminded Richard of the battlements of a castle as he came into the middle and looked up. But it meant that only some of the lower ones could be accessed – where they hadn’t been placed so close to one another that it was impossible to open the doors. The contents of these were laid out carefully on the makeshift deck, well clear of the narrow canyons that plunged down towards the keel between the Chinese containers’ sides and ends.
As Richard walked among the soldiers, heartened and impressed by their focus and care, he began to make a mental list of his own. There were tents with inflatable skeletons, shelters of all kinds, large and small, judging from the descriptions on the packaging. Chemical latrines. Washing facilities lacking nothing but water. Containers of various sizes full of fresh water. Distillation kits to make fresh water from soiled or salty. Bundles of food in self-heating packages. Mealspec flameless food heater systems. Collapsible clinics, liberally supplied by the looks of things. Generators. Solar panels. Lamp-lights and torches. Wind-up radios. Everything that might be required to offer help at a kind of paramedic or first-aid level in a situation where the basic systems such as gas, electricity, communications, road and rail had all broken down. But the soldiers had opened less than a quarter of the containers, as Guerrero pointed out, his voice tense, when Richard finally caught up with him.