Wilbur Smith's Smashing Thrillers

by Wilbur Smith

  ‘You want more?’ Bernard looked aghast. ‘Doesn't anything ever satisfy you?’

  ‘Did you monitor the communications between Bermuda Control, the chopper, and the ship she was servicing?’

  ‘Nix,’ Bernard shook his head. ‘There was a box-up.’ He looked shamefaced. ‘It happens to the best of us.’

  ‘Spare me the details. Can you get information from Bermuda Control of the time the chopper closed her flight-plan?’

  ‘Jesus, Nicholas, you know better than that. It's an offence to listen in on the aviation frequencies, let alone ask them.’

  Nicholas jumped up, and crossed swiftly to the perspex plot. He brooded over it, leaning on clenched fists, his expression smouldering as he studied the large-scale map.

  ‘What does all this mean to you, Nicholas?’ Bernard came to stand beside him.

  ‘It means that a vessel at sea, belonging to the Christy Marine fleet, has requested its head office to send machinery spares and specialist personnel by the fastest possible means, without regard to expense. Have you figured the air freight on a package Of 350 kilos?’

  Nicholas straightened up and groped for the crocodile-skin cheroot case.

  ‘It means that the vessel is broken down or in imminent danger of breakdown somewhere in an area south-west of Bermuda, within an arc of four hundred and fifty miles probably much closer, otherwise she would have requested service from the Bahamas, and it's highly unlikely they would have operated the chopper at extreme range.’

  ‘Right,’ Bernard agreed. Nicholas lit his cheroot and they were both silent a moment.

  ‘A hell of a small needle in a bloody big haystack,’ said Bernard.

  ‘You let me worry about that,’ Nicholas murmured, still without taking his eyes from the plot.

  ‘That's what you are paid for,’ Bernard agreed amiably. ‘It's Golden Dawn, isn't it?’

  ‘Has Christy Marine got any other vessels in the area?’

  ‘Not as far as I know.’

  ‘Then that was a bloody stupid question.’

  ‘Take it easy, Nicholas.’

  ‘I'm sorry.’ Nicholas touched his arm. ‘My boy's on that pig,’ He took a deep draw on the cheroot, held it a moment, and then slowly exhaled. His voice was calm and businesslike, as he went on:

  ‘What's our weather?’

  ‘Wind at 060o and 15 knots. Cloud three eighths stratocumulus at four thousand feet. Long-range projection, no change.’

  ‘Steady trade winds again,’ Nicholas nodded. ‘Thank God for all small mercies.’

  ‘There is a hurricane warning out, as you know, but on its present position and track, it will blow itself out to sea a thousand miles south of Grand Bahama.’

  ‘Good ,’ Nicholas nodded again. ‘Please ask both Warlock and Sea Witch to report their positions, course, speed and fuel-conditions.’

  Bernard had the two telex flimsies for him within twenty minutes.

  ‘Warlock has made a good run of it,’ Nicholas murmured, as the position of the tug was marked on the plot.

  ‘She crossed the equator three days ago,’ said Bernard.

  ‘And Sea Witch will reach Charleston late tomorrow,’ Nicholas observed. ‘Are any of the opposition inside us?’

  Bernard shook his head. ‘McCormick has one in New York and Wittezee is halfway back to Rotterdam.’

  ‘We are in good shape,’ Nicholas decided, as he balanced the triangles of relative speeds and distances between the vessels.

  ‘Is there another chopper available on the island to get me out to Warlock?’

  ‘No,’ Bernard shook his head. ‘The 61N is the only one based on Bermuda.’

  ‘Can you arrange bunkering for Warlock, I mean immediate bunkering - here in Hamilton?’

  ‘We can have her tanks filled an hour after she comes in.’

  Nicholas paused and then made the decision. ‘Please telex David Allen on Warlock, TO MASTER WARLOCK FROM BERG IMMEDIATE AND URGENT NEW SPEED TOP OF THE GREEN NEW COURSE HAMILTON HARBOUR BERMUDA ISLAND DIRECT REPORT EXPECTED TIME OF ARRIVAL ENDS.

  ‘You're going to run, then?’ Bernard asked. ‘You are going to run with both your ships?’

  ‘Yes,’ Nicholas nodded. ‘I'm running with everything I've got.

  Golden Dawn wallowed with the dead heavy weight of one million tons of crude oil. Her motion was that of a waterlogged hulk. Broadside to the set of the swells, her tank decks were almost awash. The low seas broke against her starboard rail and the occasional crest flopped over and spread like pretty patches of white lace-work over the green plastic-coated decks.

  She had been drifting powerlessly for four days now.

  The main bearing of the single propeller shaft had begun to run hot forty-eight hours after crossing the equator, and the Chief Engineer had asked for shut-down to inspect the bearing and effect any repairs. Duncan Alexander had forbidden any shut-down, over-riding the good judgement of both his Master and Chief Engineer, and had only grudgingly agreed to a reduction in the ship's speed.

  He ordered the Chief Engineer to trace any fault and to effect what repairs he could, while under reduced power.

  Within four hours, the Chief had traced the damaged and leaking gland in the pump that force-lubricated the bearing, but even the running under reduced power setting had done significant damage to the main bearing, and now there was noticeable vibration, jarring even Golden Dawn's massive hull.

  ‘I have to get the pump stripped down or we'll burn her clear out,’ the Chief faced up to Duncan Alexander at last. ‘Then you'll have to shut down and not just a couple of hours either, It will take two days to fit new bearing shells at sea.’ The Chief was pale and his lips trembled, for he knew of this man's reputation. The engineer knew that he discarded those who crossed him, and he had the reputation of a special vindictiveness to hound a man until he was broken. The Chief was afraid, but his concern for the ship was just strong enough.

  Duncan Alexander changed direction. ‘What was the cause of the pump failure in the first place? Why wasn't it noticed earlier? It looks like a case of negligence to me.’

  Stung at last, the Chief blurted out, ‘If there had been a back-up pump on this ship, we could have switched to secondary system and done proper maintenance.’ Duncan Alexander flushed and turned away. The modifications he had personally ordered to Golden Dawn's design had excluded most of the duplicated back-up systems; anything that kept down the cost of construction had been ordered.

  ‘How long do you need?’ He stopped in the centre of the owner's stateroom and glared at his engineer.

  ‘Four hours,’ the Scot replied promptly.

  ‘You've got exactly four hours,’ he said grimly. ‘if you haven't finished by then you will live to regret it. I swear that to you.’

  While the engineer stopped his engines, stripped, repaired and reassembled the lubrication pump, Duncan was on the bridge with the Master, ‘We've lost time, too much time,’ he said. ‘I want that made up.’

  ‘It will mean pushing over best economic speed,’ Captain Randle warned carefully.

  ‘Captain Randle, the value of our cargo is 85 dollars a ton. We have on board one million tons. I want the time made up.’ Duncan brushed his objection aside. ‘We have a deadline to meet in Galveston roads. This ship, this whole concept of carrying crude is on trial, Captain. I don't have to keep reminding you of that. The hell with the costs, I want to meet the deadline.’

  ‘Yes, Mr. Alexander,’ Randle nodded. ‘We'll make up the time.’

  Three and a half hours later, the Chief Engineer came up to the bridge.

  ‘Well?’ Duncan turned on him fiercely as he stepped out of the elevator.

  ‘The pump is repaired, but –‘

  ‘What is it, man?’

  ‘I've got a feeling. We ran her too long. I've got a nasty feeling about that bearing. It wouldn't be clever to run her over 50% of power, not until it's been taken down and inspected.’

  ‘I'm ordering revolutions for 25
knots,’ Randle told him uneasily.

  ‘I wouldn't do that, man,’ the Chief shook his head mournfully.

  ‘Your station is in the engine room,’ Duncan dismissed him brusquely, nodded to Randle to order resumption of sailing, and went out to his customary place on the open wing of the bridge. He looked back over the high round stern as the white turbulence of the great propeller boiled out from under the counter and then settled in a long slick wake that soon reached back to the horizon. Duncan stood out in the wind until after dark, and when he went below, Chantelle was waiting for him. She stood up from the long couch under the forward windows of the stateroom.

  ‘We are under way again.’

  ‘Yes,’he said. ‘It's going to be all right.’

  The engine control was switched to automatic at nine o'clock local time that night. The engine room personnel went up to dinner, and to bed, all except the Chief Engineer. He lingered for another two hours shaking his head and mumbling bitterly over the massive bearing assembly in the long narrow shaft tunnel. Every few minutes, he laid his hand on the massive casting, feeling for the heat and vibration that would warn of structural damage.

  At eleven o'clock, he spat on the steadily revolving propeller shaft. It was thick as an oak trunk and polished brilliant silver in the stark white lights of the tunnel. He pushed himself up stiffly from his crouch beside the bearing.

  In the control room, he checked again that all the ship's systems were on automatic, and that all circuits were functioning and repeating on the big control board, then he stepped into the elevator and went up.

  Thirty-five minutes later, one of the tiny transistors in the board blew with a pop like a champagne cork and a puff of grey smoke. There was nobody in the control room to hear or see it. The system was not duplicated, there was no back-up to switch itself in automatically, so that when the temperature of the bearing began to rise again, there was no impulse carried to the alarm system, no automatic shutdown of power.

  The massive shaft spun on while the over-heated bearing closed its grip upon the area of rough metal, damaged by the previous prolonged running, A fine sliver of metal lifted from the polished surface of the spinning shaft, and curled like a silver hair spring, was caught up and smeared into the bearing. The whole assembly began to glow a sullen cherry red and then the oxide paint that was daubed on the outer surfaces of the bearing began to blister and blacken. Still the tremendous power of the engine forced the shaft around.

  What oil was still being fed between the glowing surfaces of the spinning shaft and the shells of the bearing turned instantly thin as water in the heat, then reached its flash point and burst into flame and ran in little fiery rivulets down the heavy casting of the main bearing, flashing the blistered paint-work alight. The shaft tunnel filled with thick billows of stinking chemical-tainted smoke, and only then did the fire sensors come to life and their alarms repeated on the navigation bridge and in the quarters of Master, First Officer and Chief Engineer.

  But the great engine was still pounding along at 70% of power, and the shaft still turned in the disintegrating bearing, smearing heat-softened metal, buckling and distorting under unbearable strains.

  The Chief Engineer was the first to reach the central console in the engine control room, and without orders from the bridge he began emergency shut-down of all systems.

  It was another hour before the team under the direction of the First Officer had the fire in the shaft tunnel under control. They used carbon dioxide gas to smother the burning paint and oil, for cold water on the heated metal would have aggravated the damage done by heat distortion and buckling.

  The metal of the main bearing casting was still so hot when the Chief Engineer began opening it up, that it scorched the thick leather and asbestos gloves worn by his team.

  The bearing shells had disintegrated, and the shaft itself was brutally scored and pitted. If there was distortion, the Chief knew it would not be detected by eye. However, even a buckling of one ten thousandth of an inch would be critical.

  He cursed softly as he worked, nuking the obscenities sound like a lullaby; he cursed the manufacturers of the lubricating pump, the men who had installed and tested it, the damaged gland and the lack of a back-up system, but mostly he cursed the stubbornness and intractability of the Chairman of Christy Marine whose ill-advised judgement had turned this functionally beautiful machinery into blackened smoking twisted metal.

  It was mid-morning by the time the Chief had the spare bearing shells brought up from stores and unpacked from their wood shavings in the wooden cases; but it was only when they came to fit them that they realized that the cases had been incorrectly stencilled. The half-shells that they contained were obsolete non-metric types, and they were five millimetres undersized for Golden Dawn's shaft that tiny variation in size made them utterly useless.

  It was only then that Duncan Alexander's steely urbane control began to crack; he raged about the bridge for twenty minutes making no effort to think his way out of the predicament, but abusing Randle and his engineer in wild and extravagant terms. His rage had a paralysing effect on all Golden Dawn's officers and they stood white-faced and silently guilty.

  Peter Berg had sensed the excitement and slipped up unobtrusively to watch. He was fascinated by his stepfather's rage. He had never seen a display like it before, and at one stage he hoped that Duncan Alexander's eyeballs might actually burst like over-ripe grapes; he held his breath in anticipation, and felt cheated when it did not happen.

  At last, Duncan stopped and ran both hands through his thick waving hair; two spikes of hair stood up like devil's horns. He was still panting but he had recovered partial control.

  ‘Now sir, what do you propose?’ he demanded of Randle, and in the silence Peter Berg piped up.

  ‘You could have new shells sent from Bermuda - it's only three hundred miles away. We checked it this morning.’

  ‘How did you get in here?’ Duncan swung round. ‘Get back to your mother.’ Peter scampered, appalled at his own indiscretion, and only when he left the bridge did the Chief speak.

  We could have spares flown out from London to Bermuda There must be a boat–‘ Randle cut in swiftly.

  ‘Or an aircraft to drop it to us –‘

  ‘Or a helicopter –‘

  ‘Get Christy Main on the telex,’ snapped Duncan Alexander.

  It was good to have a deck under his feet again, Nicholas exulted. He felt himself coming fully alive again.

  ‘I'm a sea-creature,’ he grinned to himself. ‘And I keep forgetting it.’

  He looked back to the low silhouette of the Bermuda islands, the receding arms of Hamilton Harbour and the flecking of the multi-coloured buildings amongst the cedar trees, and then returned his attention to the spread charts on the navigation table before him.

  Warlock was still at cautionary speed. Even though the channel was wide and clearly buoyed, yet the coral reef on each hand was sharp and hungry, and David Allen's full attention was on the business of conning Warlock out into the open sea. But as they passed the 100 fathom line, he gave the order to his deck officer,

  ‘Full away at 0900, hours, pilot,’ and hurried across to join Nicholas.

  ‘I didn't have much of a chance to welcome you on board, sir.’

  ‘Thank you, David. It's good to be back.’ Nicholas looked up and smiled at him. ‘Will you bring her round on to 240° magnetic and increase to 80% power?’

  Quickly David repeated his order to the helm and then shifted from one foot to the other, beginning to flush under the salt-water tan.

  ‘Mr. Berg, my officers are driving me mad. They've been plaguing me since we left Cape Town, - are we running on a job - or is this a pleasure cruise?’

  Nicholas laughed aloud then. He felt the excitement of the hunt, a good hot scent in the nostrils, and the prospect of a fat prize. Now he had Warlock under him, his concern for Peter's safety had abated. Whatever happened now, he could get there very fast. No, he felt good,
very good.

  ‘We're hunting, David,’ he told him. ‘Nothing certain yet,’ -he paused, and then relented, ‘Get Beauty Baker up to my cabin, tell Angel to send up a big pot of coffee and a mess of sandwiches - I missed breakfast - and while we eating, I'll fill both of you in.’

  Beauty Baker accepted one of Nicholas cheroots.

  ‘Still smoking cheap,’ he observed, and sniffed at the four-dollar cheroot sourly, but there was a twinkle of pleasure behind the smeared lenses of his spectacles. Then, unable to contain himself, he actually grinned.

  ‘Skipper tells me we are hunting, is that right?’

  ‘This is the picture –‘ Nicholas began to spell it out to them in detail, and while he talked, he thought with comfortable self-indulgence, ‘I must be getting old and soft I didn't always talk so much.’

  Both men listened in silence, and only when he finished did the two of them begin bombarding him with the perceptive penetrating questions he had expected.

  ‘Sounds like a generator armature,’ Beauty Baker guessed, as he puzzled the contents of the wooden case that had been flown out to Golden Dawn. ‘I cannot believe that Golden Dawn doesn't carry a full set of mechanical spares.’

  While Baker was fully preoccupied with the mechanics of the situation, David Allen concentrated on the problems of seamanship. ‘What was the range of the helicopter? Has it returned to base yet? With her draught, she must be heading for the Florida Straits. Our best bet would be to shape a course for Matanilla Reef at the mouth of the Straits.’

  There was a peremptory knock on the door of the guest cabin, and the Trog stuck his grey wrinkled tortoise head through. He glanced at Nicholas, but did not greet him.

  ‘Captain, Miami is broadcasting a new hurricane alert. "Lorna" has kicked northwards, they're predicting a track of north north-west and a speed over the ground of twenty knots.’

  He closed the door and they stared at each other in silence for a moment.

  Nicholas spoke at last.

  ‘It is never one single mistake that causes disaster,’ he said. ‘It is always a series of contributory errors, most of them of small consequence in themselves - but when taken with a little bad luck –‘he was silent a moment and then, softly, ‘Hurricane Lorna could just be that bit of bad luck.’ He stood up and took one turn around the small guest cabin, feeling caged and wishing for the space of the Master's suite which was now David Allen's. He turned back to Beauty Baker and David Allen, and suddenly he realized that they were hoping for disaster. They were like two old sea wolves with the scent of the prey in their nostrils. He felt his anger rising coldly against them, they were wishing disaster on his son.