by Wilbur Smith
He is a mean, joyless, constipated son of a bitch - and probably the
best radio man afloat.
Captain/ said the Trog, in a reedy petulant voice. Nick did not ponder
the fact that the Trog recognized him instantly as the new Master. The
air of command on some men is unmistakable. Captain, I have an "all
ships signify .
Nick felt the heat at the base of his spine, and the electric prickle on
the back of his neck. It is not sufficient merely to be on the break
line when the big wave peaks, it is also necessary to recognize your
wave from the hundred others that sweep by.
Coordinates? he snapped, as he strode down the passageway to the radio
room.
1 7 2 1 6 south 3 2 1 2 west.
Nick felt the jump in his chest and the heat mount up along his spine,
The high latitudes down there in the vast nd lonely wastes. There was
something sinister and menacing in the mere figures. What ship could be
down there?
The longitudinal coordinates fitted neatly in the chart that Nick
carried in his mind, like a war chart in a military operations room. She
was south and west of the Cape of Good Hope - down deep, beyond Gough
and Bouvet Island, in the Weddell Sea.
He followed the Trog into the radio room. On this bright, sunny and
windy morning, the room was dark and gloomy as a cave, the thick green
blinds drawn across the ports; the only source of light was the glowing
dials of the banked communication equipment, the most sophisticated
equipment that all the wealth of Christy Marine could pack into her, a
hundred thousand dollars'worth of electronic magic, but the stink of
cheap cigars was overpowering.
Beyond the radio room was the operator's cabin, the bunk unmade, a tray
of soiled dishes on the deck beside it.
The Trog hopped up into the swivel seat, and elbowed aside a brass
shell-casing that acted as an ashtray and spilled grey flakes of ash and
a couple of cold wet -chewed cigar butts on to the desk.
Like a wizened gnome, the Trog tended his dials; there as a cacophony of
static and electronic trash blurred with the sharp howl of morse.
The copy? Nick asked, and the Trog pushed a pad at him. Nick read off
quickly.
CTM.Z. 0603 GMT. 72 16 S. 320 12 W. All ships in a position to
render assistance, please signify. CTM.Z.
He did not need to consult the R. T. Handbook to recognize that
call-sign CTMZ'
With an effort of will he controlled the pressure that caught him in the
chest like a giant fist. It was as though he had lived this moment
before. It was too neat. He forced himself to distrust his instinct,
forced himself to think with his head and not his guts.
Beyond him he heard his officers voices on the navigation bridge, quiet
voices - but charged with tension.
They were up from the saloon already.
Christ! he thought savagely. How do they know? So quickly? It was as
though the ship itself had come awake beneath his feet and trembled with
anticipation.
The door from the bridge slid aside and David Allen stood in the opening
with a copy of Lloyd's Register in his hands.
CTMZ, sir, is the call sign of the Golden Adventurer.
Twenty-two thousand tons, registered Bermuda 1975.
Owners Christy Marine.
Thank you, Number One, Nick nodded. Nicholas knew her well; he
personally had ordered her construction before the collapse of the great
liner traffic. Nick had planned to use her on the Europe-to-Australia
run.
Her finished cost had come in at sixty-two million dollars, and she was
a beautiful and graceful ship under her tall light alloy superstructure.
Her accommodation was luxurious, in the same class as the France or the
United States, but she had been one of Nick's few miscalculations.
When the feasability of operation on the planned run had shown up
prohibitive in the face of rising costs and diminishing trade, Nick had
switched her usage. It was this type of flexible and intuitive planning
and improvisation that had built Christy Marine into the goliath she was
now.
Nick had innovated the idea of adventure cruises - and changed the
ship's name to Golden Adventurer. Now she carried rich passengers to
the wild and exotic corners of the globe, from the Galapagos Islands to
the Amazon, from the remote Pacific islands to the Antarctic, in search
of the unusual.
She carried guest lecturers with her, experts on the environments and
ecology of the areas she was to visit, and she was equipped to take her
passengers ashore to study the monoliths of Easter Island or to watch
the mating displays of the wandering albatross on the Falkland Islands.
She was probably one of the very few cruise liners that was still
profitable, and now she stood in need of assistance.
Nicholas turned back from the Trog. Has she been transmitting prior to
this signify request?
She's been sending in company code since midnight.
Her traffic was so heavy that I was watching her.
The green glow of the sets gave the little man a bilious cast, and made
his teeth black, so that he looked like an actor from a horror movie.
You recorded? Nick demanded, and the Trog switched on the automatic
playback of his tape monitors, recapitulating every message the
distressed ship had sent or received since the previous midnight. The
jumbled blocks of code poured into the room, and the paper strip printed
out with the clatter of its keys.
Had Duncan. Alexander changed the Christy Marine code? Nick wondered.
It would be the natural procedure, completely logical to any operations
man. You lose a man who has the code, you change immediately. It was
that simple. Duncan had lost Nick Berg, he should change. But Duncan
was not an operations man. He was a figures and paper man, he thought
in numbers, not in steel and salt water.
If Duncan had changed, they would never break it. Not even with the
Decca. Nick had devised the basis of the code. It was a projection
that expressed the alphabet as a mathematical function based on a random
six-figure master, changing the value of each letter on a progression
that was impossible to monitor.
Nick hurried out of the stinking gloom of the radio room with the
print-out in his hands.
The navigation bridge of Warlock was gleaming chrome and glass, as
bright and functional as a modern surgical theatre, or a futuristic
kitchen layout.
The primary control console stretched the full width of the bridge,
beneath the huge armoured windows. The oldfashioned wheel was replaced
by a single steel lever, and the remote control could be carried out on
to the wings of the bridge on its long extension cable, like the remote
on a television set, so that the helmsman could con the ship from any
position he chose.
Illuminated digital displays informed the master instantly of every
condition of his ship: speed across the bottom at bows and stern, speed
through the water at bows and stern, wind direction and strength,
t
ogether with all the other technical information of function and
mulffunction. Nick had built the ship with Christy money, and stinted
not at all.
The rear of the bridge was the navigational area, and the chart-table
divided it neatly with its overhead racks containing the 106 big blue
volumes of the Global Pilot and as many other volumes of maritime
publications.
Below the table were the multiple drawers, wide and flat to contain the
spread Admiralty charts that covered every corner of navigable water on
the globe.
Against the rear bulkhead stood the battery of electronic navigational
aids, like a row of fruit machines in a Vegas gambling hall.
Nick switched the big Decca Satellite Navaid into its computer mode and
the display lights flashed and faded and relit in scarlet.
He fed it the six-figure control, numbers governed by the moon phase and
date of dispatch. The computer digested this instantaneously, and Nick
gave it the last arithmetical proportion known to him. The Decca was
ready to decode and Nick gave it the block of garbled transmission - and
waited for it to throw back gibberish at him. Duncan must have altered
the code. He stared at the printout.
Christy Marine from Master of Adventurer. 2216 GMT.
72 16 S. 32 05 W. Underwater ice damage sustained Midships starboard.
Precautionary shutdown mains.
Auxiliary generators activated during damage survey.
Stand by.
So Duncan had let the code stand then. Nick groped for the croc-skin
case of cheroots, and his hand was steady and firm as he held the flame
to the top of the thin black tube.
He felt the intense desire to shout aloud, but instead, he drew the
fragrant smoke into his lungs.
Plotted/ said David Allen from behind him. Already on the spread chart
of the Antarctic he had marked in the reported position. The
transformation was complete, the First Officer had become a grimly
competent professional.
There remained no trace of the high-coloured undergraduate.
Nick glanced at the plot, saw the dotted ice line far above the
Adventurer's position, saw the outline of the forbidding continent of
Antarctica groping for the ship with merciless fingers of ice and rock.
The Decca printed out the reply:
Master of Adventurer from Christy Marine. 22.22 GMT.
Standing by.
The next message from the recording tape was flagged nearly two hours
later, but was printed out almost continuously from the Trog's
recording.
Christy Marine from Master of Adventurer. 0005 GMT.
72 18 S - 32 05 W. Water contained. Restarted mains.
New course CAPE TOWN direct. Speed 8 knots. Stand by.
Dave Allen worked swiftly with parallel rulers and protractor.
While she was without power she drifted thirty-four nautical miles,
south-southeast - there is a hell of a wind or big current setting down
there/ he said, and the other deck officers were silent and strained.
Although none of them would dare crowd the Master at the Decca, yet in
order of seniority they had taken up vantage points around the bridge
best suited to follow the drama of a great ship in distress.
The next message ran straight out from the computer, despite the fact
that it had been dispatched many hours later.
Christy Marine from Master of Adventurer. 0546 GMT.
72 16 S. 32 12 W. Explosion in flooded area. Emergency shutdown all.
Water gaining. Request your clearance to issue all ships signify.
Standing by.
Master of Adventurer from Christy Marine. 0547 GMT.
You are cleared to issue signify. Break. Break. Break.
You are expressly forbidden to contract tow or salvage without reference
Christy Marine. Acknowledge.
Duncan was not even putting in the old chestnut, except in the event of
danger to human life.
The reason was too apparent. Christy Marine underwrote most of its own
bottoms through another of its subsidiaries. The London and European
Insurance and Finance Company, The self-insurance scheme had been the
brain-child of Alexander Duncan himself when first he arrived at Christy
Marine. Nick Berg had opposed the scheme bitterly, and now he might
live to see his reasoning being justified.
Are we going to signify? David Allen asked quietly.
Radio silence/snapped Nick irritably, and began to pace the bridge, the
crack of his heels muted by the cork coating on the deck.
Is this my wave? Nick demanded of himself, applying the old rule he had
set for himself long ago, the rule of deliberate thought first, action
after.
The Golden Adventurer was drifting in the ice-fields two thousand and
more miles south of Cape Town, five days and nights of hard running for
the Warlock. If he made the go decision, by the time he reached her,
she might have effected repairs and restarted, she might be under her
own command again. Again, even if she was still helpless, Warlock might
reach her to find another salvage tug had beaten her to the scene. So
now it was time to call the roll.
He stopped his pacing at the door to the radio room and spoke quietly to
the Trog.
Open the telex line and send to Bach Wackie in Bermuda quote call the
roll unquote.
As he turned away, Nick was satisfied with his own forethought in
installing the satellite telex system which enabled him to communicate
with his agent in Bermuda, or with any other selected telex station,
without his message being broadcast over the open frequencies and
monitored by a competitor or any other interested party.
His signals were bounced through the high stratosphere where they could
not be intercepted.
While he waited, Nicholas worried. The decision to go would mean
abandoning the Esso oil-rig tow. The tow fee had been a vital
consideration in his cash flow situation.
Two hundred and twenty thousand sterling, without which he could not
meet the quarterly interest payment due in sixty days time - unless,
unless ... He juggled figures in his head, but the magnitude of the
risk involved was growing momentarily more apparent - and the figures
did not add up. He needed the Esso tow. God, how badly he neededit!
Bach Wackie are replying/ called the Trog above the chatter of the telex
receiver, and Nick spun on his heel.
He had appointed Bach Wackie as the agents for Ocean Salvage because of
their proven record of quick and aggressive efficiency. He glanced at
his Rolex Oyster and calculated that it was about two o'clock in the
morning local time in Bermuda, and yet his request for information on
the disposition of all his major competitors was now being answered
within minutes of receipt.
For Master Warlock from Bach Wackie latest reported positions. fohn
Ross dry dock Durban. Woltema Wolteraad Esso tow Torres Straits to
Alaska Shelf That took care of the two giant Safmarine tugs; half of the
top opposition was out of the race.
Wittezee Shell exploration tow Galveston to North Sea.
Grootezee lying Brest That was the two Dutchmen out of
it. The names
and positions of the other big salvage tugs, each of them a direct and
dire threat to Warlock, ran swiftly from the telex and Nicholas chewed
his cheroot ragged as he watched, his eyes slitted against the
spiralling blue smoke, feeling the relief rise in him as each report put
another of his competitors in some distant waters, far beyond range of
the stricken ship.
La Mouette/ Nick's hands balled into fists as the name sprang on to the
white paper sheet, La Mouette discharged Brazgas tow Golfo San Jorge on
I4th reported enroute Buenos Aires.
Nick grunted like a boxer taking a low blow, and turned away from the
machine. He walked out on to the open wing of the bridge and the wind
tore at his hair and clothing.
La Mouette, the sea-gull, a fanciful name for that black squat hull, the
old-fashioned high box of superstructure, the traditional single stack;
Nick could see it clearly when he closed his eyes.
There was no doubt in his mind at all. Jules Levoisin was already
running hard for the south, running like a hunting dog with the scent
hot in its nostrils.
Jules had discharged in the southern Atlantic three days ago. He would
certainly have hunkered at Cornodoro. Nick knew how Jules mind worked,
he was never happy unless his bunkers were bulging.
Nick flicked the stub of his cigar away, and it was whisked far out into
the harbour by the wind.
He knew that La Mouette had refitted and installed new engines eighteen
months before. With a nostalgic twinge, he had read a snippet in
Lloyd's List. But even nine thousand horsepower couldn't push that
tubby hull at better than eighteen knots, Nick was certain of that. Yet
even with Warlock's superior speed, La Mouette was better placed by a
thousand miles. There was no room for complacency. And what if La
Mouette had set out to double Cape Horn instead of driving north up the
Atlantic? If that had happened, and with Jules Levoisin's luck it might
just have happened, then La Mouette was a long way inside him already.
Anybody else but Jules Levoisin, he thought, why did it have to be him?
And oh God, why now? Why now when I am so vulnerable - emotionally,
physically and financially vulnerable. Oh God, why did it come now?
He felt the false sense of cheer and well-being, with which he had
buoyed himself that morning, fall away from him like a cloak, leaving