Night Of Error

by Desmond Bagley

  There was one other faint hope, the possibility of the pall of black smoke being seen and investigated. But we knew only too well how few ships there were in this locality. None of them would be very fast – and as soon as any sensible skipper came near enough to see what was happening the chances were that he would keep well clear. Every track of thought seemed to lead to a dead end.

  I crawled into the wheelhouse again and took up the loudhailer.

  'Ramirez!'

  'I hear you.'

  'Our man's going forward now. In the open. He has a bag of tools with him. No shooting!'

  'No shooting,' he agreed. 'I have told my men.'

  I watched through the window as Jim walked to the foremast, a satchel slung round his shoulder. He climbed the mast steadily. Almost all our crew were watching from various hidden vantage points, several with rifles or pistols handy. Jim reached the yardarm, paused, then swung the satchel in front of him and put his hand inside. He'd have to clip his way through some of the tangle first. On board Sirena there was no one in sight; like us, they were staying in cover.

  There was a sudden lurch of the two ships as an eddy caught us. I was braced and swaying with the movement, hoping to God that Jim had a firm handhold and that he wouldn't drop a grenade. Suddenly from Sirena's wheelhouse came a babel of voices, and a second later Hadley came running on deck, into full view. He was laughing, and he carried a sub-machine-gun. Swiftly he raised it and fired a burst at the foremast.

  Jim toppled from the yardarm, falling with limbs awry to slam with a dull thud across the starboard bulkhead. If the bullets hadn't killed him, then that fall would surely have done so.

  There was an angry roar from Esmerelda and guns began firing. Hadley stepped back into the shadow, still laughing, and sprayed the rest of the magazine across our decks. Splinters flew on deck at the madman's feet but he seemed to dance away from the bullets and vanished into cover.

  Hadley's blast had shattered the rest of the wheelhouse windows. I catapulted myself out of there towards Geordie and Campbell. Geordie was speechless with rage and grief. Campbell was snarling. 'The goddam maniac!'

  'I'll have his guts,' Geordie said stiffly.

  The firing from our crew died away and I saw faces staring, stunned by the horror of what they'd seen. Two men broke cover to go and collect Jim's body. No one shot at them. Slowly I followed the others below for a council, and found Clare waiting for us in the passageway, white-faced and rigid. She came and clung to me and I held her tightly, and for a moment the only reality seemed to be my love for her.

  'Dear God, Mike – Pop – what happened up there?'

  'Jim's been killed,' Campbell said shortly.

  They've got a raving maniac over there,' I told her. 'Hadley – he's lost all control.'

  'I'll kill him,' said Geordie.

  'Geordie, wait! This isn't a war and you're not some bloodyminded general who doesn't care how many men he loses to the cause. We've lost Danny and Jim – and Rex – and other men are wounded. We haven't a hope of getting aboard Sirena – we'd be massacred.'

  'Hell, what other way is there?' he asked, still spoiling for a fight. There was a growl of approval from most of our crew. I felt as they did, but I had to stop them.

  'Look. Hadley's run mad and there's no knowing what he'll do next. But I'll bet those Spaniards over there are even more scared of him than we are. I think Ramirez will have him dealt with, for their own safety.'

  Geordie's face was still shuttered and frozen. He wasn't going to listen. Then Campbell said, 'Don't forget we're drifting now. You slipped the anchor.'

  And that brought Geordie fully to his senses. He frowned, and it was an expression of worry that was far healthier for all of us than his glare of bitter hatred. 'Christ, yes! We could drift right into that thing. We've got to get the foremast right out of its housing, clear the shrouds, the lot. Dump it all overboard. It'll hamper Sirena if she tries to give chase. Taffy – Nick' His voice rose in command.

  The men gathered round, grasping their weapons and waiting for him to order them into battle. Instead he began to give firm orders for freeing Esmerelda, and they recognized the urgency and sense in his voice. The fighting craze began to leave them all.

  I turned to Clare. 'Are you all right?' I asked quietly.

  'Better now, darling.'

  But even now there wasn't time for more than that one quick moment of comfort. 'Where are Paula and Mark?' I asked her.

  She nodded towards the saloon. They're still in there. He's not too seriously hurt. He was sitting in a chair the last time I looked in. But he won't give us any trouble, Mike. I've never seen him so subdued.'

  There are all the signs that Falcon will get rougher soon. I want you to get both of them up on deck – it'll be safer than staying below. And stay with your father, Clare. Keep them all together.' I kissed her and then she went into the saloon without a word.

  Geordie and the men had gone up on deck and I followed. On board Sirena there was frantic activity as men wrenched and struggled with equipment at the base of the foremast. A similar scene was being enacted on our ship. There was no shooting, and of Hadley there was no sign. With any luck they had killed him themselves. I had a brief glimpse of our motor launch, still attached and dancing wildly astern, of the litter strewn on deck, of Jim's body being passed below. I started to go forward and make myself useful.

  And then Falcon blew.

  There was a mighty roar as thousands of tons of water exploded into superheated steam. A bright flickering glare shone on us and the sunlight was dimmed as a pillar of steam ascended into the sky.

  The first wave reached us in less than fifteen seconds. As I staggered, grabbing for support, I saw it racing down towards Esmerelda, silhouetted against the raging furnace. It was a monstrous wave, rearing mast high, creamed with dirty grey spume and coming with the speed of an express train.

  I crouched on the open deck, trying to flatten myself into the planking.

  The wave broke against Esmerelda. She heaved convulsively and ground against Sirena. There was a rending crash and I thought that both ships must have been stove in. A flood of near scalding water washed over the deck, and I writhed as I felt it in the stab wound in my side.

  Then the wave was past us and the ships dipped in the afterwash, creaking and groaning in every timber. There were four more huge waves, but none as high as the first. I staggered to my feet, feeling the ships' curious writhing motion on the water.

  The waves had done what we had failed to do. Sirena was dipping and bobbing in the water about fifty yards away from us. Esmerelda was free, and she had no foremast at all. It had been plucked out by the roots.

  But every time Sirena rolled there was a crash which sent a shudder through her. I stumbled to the side and looked down into the water. Our foremast hung there, still tethered to Sirena's mast by a cat's cradle of lines and spars. As I watched a surge of water sent it slamming against her hull like a battering ram and she shivered from stem to stern. She wouldn't stand much more of that treatment.

  I fell over a body lying in the scuppers. Nick lay there with blood oozing from a wound in his forehead, but as I turned him over he groaned and stirred and opened his eyes. He must have had a constitution like an ox because, in spite of the massive contusion, he began to struggle to his feet at once.

  I shouted, 'Let's look for the others!' and he nodded. We turned and then stood frozen in amazement as we caught a glimpse of Falcon.

  There was land back there. Land that glowed a dull red shot with fiery gold streaks and which surrounded the pit of Hell itself – a vast incandescent crater which spewed forth red hot cinders and streams of lava. Falcon was building an island once more.

  The sea fought the new land but the land was winning. Nothing could stop the outpouring of that huge gaping red mouth, but the sea did its best, pitting water against fire, and the result was an inferno of noise. There was a great ear-splitting hiss as though all the engines of the world w
ere letting off steam together, and under that a rumbling bass from the depths of the chasm.

  Great gouts of fire leapt up from the crater, half hidden behind the red mist, and the water boiled as it encountered from the blazing heat of the new Fonua Fo'ou. There was the sound of surf pounding along a reef, but such surf as none of us had ever seen before. Mighty columns of tephra, all the pent-up material that Falcon could fling into the air from its huge maw, seethed and erupted in spasms, hurling ash, magma and boulders high into the sky. A hazy brown cloud of fragmentary pumice hung over all, obscuring the sun.

  Esmerelda was pitching as helplessly as Sirena. Black figures moved on both decks, outlined against the red glow of Falcon, and I felt a great leap of relief. For a moment it had seemed that Nick and I were the only two creatures alive. I hoped to God that Clare was safe.

  Nick's eyes were glazed, not in fear but in awe. He was tougher and far better trained for danger than I, but I had one great advantage. I knew what was happening across the water, and my knowledge helped steady me. I shook him roughly and consciousness crept back into his face. He breathed deeply and then led the way across the littered deck.

  On Sirena a ship's boat dangled from one davit. Clearly some of the crew had tried to get away, but those terrible waves would have made nothing of their chances. One of the falls had parted and the men must all have been tipped into the sea.

  As we made our way forward, incongruously, it began to snow. The flakes came drifting from the sky, featherlike, to settle everywhere. I brushed one from my shoulder; it was a flake of ash. The air was becoming poisonous with fumes, the increased stink of sulphur and the worse stench of sulphuretted hydrogen. I looked at the sea. It was bubbling like a mud pool. Great fat bubbles were coming up from the sea-bed and breaking on the surface, adding a dangerous smoke to the haze of steam. I realised with sick horror that we were not drifting closer to the source of the eruption- it was expanding under the sea, coming to meet us.* 3*

  There was a shattering roar from Falcon as a second vent opened, only a few hundred yards away from the two ships. The waves this time weren't as massive as before; this was a smaller vent. We clung to handholds during the first swamping rush of hot steamy water and then emerged gasping into the foetid air. Nick was nursing one arm and my rib-cage was alive with pain, but we'd survived. Figures struggled to their feet on our foredeck, and I recognised Ian's bulk among them, and then Geordie.

  Sirena lurched and wallowed in the turmoil of the sea. Then she began to spin as Esmerelda had done when we first reached Falcon. The eddy that caught her moved on and after a few turns she steadied up again, still dragging the wreckage of our mast.

  A plume of water suddenly shot up from the sea not ten feet to starboard and drops of warm gritty water fell on my head. Another waterspout shot up a little further out, and then another. It was for all the world as if we were under shell-fire.

  The whole angry sea was pock-marked as though by a mighty rain. It was a welter of spouting water as rocks from Falcon's second vent, hurled high in the air, fell vertically and straddled the two ships. Smoke wreathed about us and steam coiled every where.

  The falling tephra didn't straddle for long. There was a crash from midships. Splinters of wood leapt into the air to mix with the hail of ash and burning magma. As we stumbled forward we found a ragged hole on the galley roof and a huge glowing ember beginning to eat its way through the deck planking inside. Already small flames were starting to flicker and gnaw at the woodwork.

  'Fire, by God!' Nick said. 'How the hell do we cope with this?'

  The answer was dramatic and swift. With a booming roar another vast wave engulfed us. We emerged miraculously still intact to find the embryo fire completely doused at the cost of a drenched and sodden galley.

  At last we managed to join some of the others. By clinging to anything stable enough we were able to steady ourselves. Of cuts and bruises there were plenty, but everyone was on their feet again. Except Geordie who'd vanished. I caught someone's arm.

  'Geordie – he was here. What's happened to him?'

  'Gone to try and start the engine,' Taffy bellowed in my ear.

  A moment later there was a steady rhythmic throb underfoot as our engine started, and the sound gave me a wild surge of hope.

  A warm rain, condensing steam mixed with the slippery and treacherous ash, was falling all around us. The acrid stench was still heavy in my nostrils and the banshee sounds of the ships' timbers mingled with the high-pitched whistlings and rumbling from Falcon's new orifice, threatening to pierce our eardrums. A fresh rain of tephra assailed us. Three or four larger flaming rocks crashed down on Sirena's deck, a couple on ours. Sirena was almost level with us and her rails were lined with men. Several of them jumped, some into the sea itself, some trying to reach our decks.

  'Bring lines!' Ian yelled, and I pounded after him to the strip's side as he and Nick began throwing them over the rails.

  One man battling in the water seized a trailing end and Ian and Shorty dragged him on board. Nick threw another line out. Esmerelda was buffetted by a sudden wave and his feet slid across the ash-strewn deck. He cannoned into me and we both crashed down against the railing.

  All the breath was knocked out of my body and for a moment I blacked out. Then I started to struggle to my feet, in time to see Nick about to topple clean over the ship's side into that raging sea. I got him in a tackle around his knees and wrestled to keep him on deck, but the slippery footing and his own weight were proving too much for me. He seemed to be unconscious.

  Then another wave poured down across both of us, tipping Esmerelda the other way and doing what I couldn't manage, forcing Nick's body back inboard. We slid away from the railings together, half submerged in the gritty water that cascaded down over the deck.

  I landed spitting and spewing up sickly-warm sea water. Hands helped me to stand up, and one of them was Clare's.

  'Mike – are you all right?'

  She was trembling and so was I.

  'I'm okay. How's Nick?' I was still panting and spluttering. But I was comfortably aware that our engine was still running, and Geordie was backing us steadily away from Sirena. Clare gave me a fierce hug and I winced.

  'Mike – you're hurt?'

  'Don't worry, it's really nothing. But go carefully with those hugs for now.'

  Campbell limped up to us, his face blackened with smoke, his clothes scorched and sodden. He and I exchanged a look over Clare's head and he smiled briefly.

  'How's Paula?' I asked him. 'And Mark?'

  'Both all right. We haven't lost anyone else,' he said grimly. 'The boys pulled two Spaniards aboard and two others jumped across.'

  Taffy was helping Nick to his feet. Apart from his arm which was obviously crippled and the abrasion on his face there seemed to be little wrong with him. Again I marvelled at his strength. Taffy said, 'We've sent all the Spaniards below and Ian's got 'em locked in our homemade brig.' I said, 'Surely they aren't a danger to us now?' 'Well, there could be trouble,' said Taffy. 'We've got' A stunning crash interrupted him. The hail of ash and magma had died down briefly, but now it started up again as a fresh pillar of smoke and steam boiled skywards from almost dead ahead of us. Our ship rocked wildly as another barrage of waves hit us. Sirena reemerged from this last assault on fire in several places. We heard men's voices faintly through the uproar.

  I'll lay odds that Geordie Wilkins must be the best seaman ever to put his hands on a wheel. With consummate skill and an astonishing use of gear and throttle he edged Esmerelda nearer and nearer to the doomed Sirena, to aid the stricken men. As we closed in we saw that one of Falcon's barrages must have sheared through the rigging and brought down the main gaff. Struggling men lay pinned to the deck. Others were trying frantically to release them, but the fires were closing in, eating their way along the deck timbers. Clare screamed, 'Look – Ramirez!' A man was staggering across the deck of Sirena, Oblivious to the cries and struggles of his crew he never took his
eyes from Esmerelda. Through the smoke as it was lit by an occasional red glare I saw that he was carrying a rifle. His torn clothing appeared scorched and blood-stained, and his face was a mask of smoke, blood and fury. He had crawled like a deadly spider from its crevice to use its poison for the last time.

  I don't know if he had given up all hope of surviving and was bent only on revenge, or if his mind had given way. I didn't believe that cold intellect, so unlike Hadley's unreasoning savagery, would break as easily as that. But there was an implacable singleminded purpose about him that was terrifying.

  He aimed the rifle across the water.) I flung myself down shielding Clare – I had no idea who he would choose for a target – and I heard the gun fire, sharp and crisp against the background bedlam. It was followed almost instantly by a terrible grinding roar, louder than anything we had heard before. We staggered to our feet in time to see Falcon play its most horrible trick.

  It was Geordie, intent on his delicate steering, who first saw the danger. I don't know if he'd even been aware of Ramirez. Esmerelda sheered off violently as he spun the wheel so that we turned in a half-arc as fast as the one in which the eddy tide-had taken us. Then he pushed the throttle in until the engine was pounding at maximum speed, to carry us away from the arena.

  Behind us I saw Sirena jar to a sudden halt and Ramirez flung across the deck. The ship rose grotesquely in the air and tipped over on her side, looking like a small sailing boat stranded by the tide. But this was no sandbank. It was a bed of writhing red-hot lava. The sea recoiled from it in a tempest of steam.

  In that last fraction of a second Ramirez rolled back down the deck, his clothes a mass of flame. He was flung straight overboard into the raging lava bed and vanished instantly. Sirena went up like a funeral pyre, before banks of smoke and steam rolled across to blot her out of our sight.* 4*

  The rain of fire from Falcon continued. In all we were hit by four of those fiery bombs. An exhausted and shell-shocked crew was kept busy dousing fires, using the hoses for the biggest, buckets for the rest, and praying that we would not run out of fuel. The hoses worked only as long as the engine continued to run. And we knew that there wasn't the slightest possibility of rigging sail.