by Wilbur Smith
On the bridge, Captain Randle was standing grim-faced at the helm, and Duncan Alexander snapped accusingly at him.
‘You've cut it damned fine.’ A single glance at the digital print-out of the depth gauge on the tanker's control console bore him out. They had thirty-eight fathoms of water under them now, and the Golden Dawn’s swollen belly sagged down twenty fathoms below the surface. They were going down very swiftly before the easterly gale winds. It was damned fine, Nicholas had to agree, but he showed no alarm or agitation as he crossed to Randle's side and unhooked the hand microphone.
‘David,’ he asked quietly, ‘are you ready to haul us off?’
‘Ready, sir,’ David Allen's voice came from the speaker above his head.
‘I'm going to give you full port rudder to help your turn across the wind,’ said Nicholas, and then nodded to Randle. ‘Full port rudder.’
‘Forty degrees of port rudder on,’ Randle reported.
They felt the tiny shock as the tow-cable came up taut, and carefully Warlock began the delicate task of turning the huge ship across the rising gusting wind and then dragging her out tail first into the deeper water of the channel where she would have her best chance of riding out the hurricane.
It was clear now that Golden Dawn lay directly in the track of Lorna, and the storm unleashed its true nature upon them. Out there upon the sane and rational world, the sun was rising, but here there was no dawn, for there was no horizon and no sky. There was only madness and wind and water, and all three elements were so intermingled as to form one substance.
An hour - which seemed like a lifetime - ago, the wind had ripped away the anemometer and the weather-recording equipment on top of the navigation bridge, so Nicholas had no way of judging the wind's strength and direction.
Out beyond the bridge windows, the wind took the top off the sea; it took it off in thick sheets of salt water and lifted them over the navigation bridge in a shrieking white curtain that cut off visibility at the glass of the windows.
The tank deck had disappeared in the racing white emulsion of wind and water, even the railing of the bridge wings six feet from the windows was invisible.
The entire superstructure groaned and popped and whimpered under the assault of the wind, the pressed aluminium bulkheads bulging and distorting the very deck flexing and juddering at the solid weight of the storm.
Through the saturated, racing, swirling air, a leaden and ominous grey light filtered, and every few minutes the electrical impulses generated within the sixty-thousand foot-high mountain of racing, spinning air released themselves in shattering cannonades of thunder and sudden brilliance of eye-searing white lightning.
There was no visual contact with Warlock. The massive electrical disturbance of the storm and the clutter of high seas and almost solid cloud and turbulence had reduced the radar range to a few miles, and even then was unreliable.
Radio contact with the tug was drowned with buzzing squealing static. It was possible to understand only odd disconnected words from David Allen.
Nicholas was powerless, caged in the groaning, vibrating box of the navigation bridge, blinded and deafened by the unleashed powers of the heavens. There was nothing any of them could do.
Randle had locked the ultra-tanker's helm amidships, and now he stood with Duncan and the three seamen by the chart-table, all of them clinging to it for support, all their faces pale and set as though carved from chalk.
Only Nicholas moved restlessly about the bridge; from the stern windows where he peered down vainly, trying to get a glimpse of either the tow-cable and its spring, or of the tug's looming shape through the racing white storm, then he came forward carefully, using the foul-weather rail to steady himself against the huge ship's wild and unpredictable motion, and he stood before the control console, studying the display of lights that monitored the pod tanks and the ship's navigational and mechanical functions.
None of the petroleum tanks had lost any crude oil and in all of them the nature of the inert gas was constant, there had been no ingress of air to them; they were all still intact then, One of the reasons that Nicholas had taken the tanker in tow stern first was so that the navigation tower might break the worst of wind and sea, and the fragile bloated tanks would receive some protection from it.
Yet desperately he wished for a momentary sight of the tank deck, merely to reassure himself. There could be malfunction in the pump control instruments, the storm could have clawed one of the pod tanks open, and even now Golden Dawn could be bleeding her poison into the sea. But there was no view of the tank decks through the storm, and Nick stooped to the radarscope. The screen glowed and danced and flickered with ghost images and trash - he wasn't too certain if even Warlock's image was constant, the range seemed to be opening, as though the tow-line had parted. He straightened up and stood balanced on the balls of his feet, reassuring himself by the feel of the deck that Golden Dawn was still under tow. He could feel by the way she resisted the wind and the sea that the tow was still good.
Yet there was no means of telling their position. The satellite navigational system was completely blanketed, the radio waves were distorted and diverted by tens of thousands of feet of electrical storm, and the same forces were blanketing the marine radio beacons on the American mainland.
The only indication was the ship's electronic log which gave Nicholas the speed of the ship's hull through the water and the speed across the sea bottom, and the depth finder which recorded the water under her keel.
For the first two hours of the tow, Warlock had been able to pull the ship back towards the main channel at three and a half knots, and slowly the water had become deeper until they had i 5o fathoms under them.
Then as the wind velocity increased, the windage of Golden Dawn’s superstructure had acted as a vast mainsail and the storm had taken control. Now, despite all the power in Warlock's big twin propellers, both tug and tanker were being pushed once more back towards the 100-fathom line and the American mainland.
‘Where is Sea Witch?’ Nicholas wondered, as he stared helplessly at the gauges. They were going towards the shore at a little over two knots, and the bottom was shelving steeply. Sea Witch might be the ace that took the trick, if she could reach them through these murderous seas and savage winds, and if she could find them in this wilderness of mad air and water.
Again, Nicholas groped his way to the communications room, and still clinging to the bulkhead with one hand he thumbed the microphone.
‘Sea Witch. Sea Witch. This is Warlock. Calling Sea Witch.’
He listened then, trying to tune out the snarl and crackle of static, crouching over the set. Faintly he thought he heard a human voice, a scratchy whisper through the interference and he called again and listened, and called again. There was the voice again, but so indistinct he could not make out a single word.
Above his head, there was a tearing screech of rending metal. Nicholas dropped the microphone and staggered through on to the bridge. There was another deafening banging and hammering and all of them stood staring up at the metal roof of the bridge. It sagged and shook, there was one more crash and then with a scraping, dragging rush, a confused tangle of metal and wire and cable tumbled over the forward edge of the bridge and flapped and swung wildly in the wind.
It took a moment for Nicholas to realize what it was.
‘The radar antennae!’ he shouted. He recognized the elongated dish of the aerial, dangling on a thick coil of cable, then the wind tore that loose also, and the entire mass of equipment flapped away like a giant bat and was instantly lost in the teeming white curtains of the storm.
With two quick paces, he reached the radarscope, and one glance was enough. The screen was black and dead. They had lost their eyes now, and, unbelievably, the sound of the storm was rising again.
It boomed against the square box of the bridge, and the men within it cowered from its fury.
Then abruptly, Duncan was screaming something at Nicholas, and point
ing up at the master display of the control console. Nicholas, still hanging on to the radarscope, roused himself with an effort and looked up at the display. The speed across the ground had changed drastically. It was now almost eight knots, and the depth was ninety-two fathoms.
Nicholas felt icy despair clutch and squeeze his guts. The ship was moving differently under him, he could feel her now in mortal distress; that same gust which had torn away the radar mast had done other damage.
He knew what that damage was, and the thought of it made him want to vomit, but he had to be sure. He had to be absolutely certain, and he began to hand himself along the foul-weather rail towards the elevator doors.
Across the bridge the others were watching him intently, but even from twenty feet it was impossible to make himself heard above the clamorous assault of the storm.
One of the seamen seemed suddenly to guess his intention, He left the chart-table and groped his way along the bulkhead towards Nicholas.
‘Good man!’ Nicholas grabbed his arm to steady him, and they fell forward into the elevator as Golden Dawn began another of those ponderous wallowing rolls and the deck fell out from under their feet.
The ride down in the elevator car slammed them back and forth across the little coffin-like box, and even here in the depths of the ship they had to shout to hear each other.
‘The tow cable,’ Nicholas yelled in the man's ear. ‘Check the tow cable.’ From the elevator they went carefully aft along the central passageway, and when they reached the double storm doors, Nicholas tried to push the inner door open, but the pressure of the wind held it closed.
‘Help me,’ he shouted at the seaman, and they threw their combined weight against it. The instant that they forced the jamb open a crack, the vacuum of pressure was released and the wind took the three-inch mahogany doors and ripped them effortlessly from their hinges, and whisked them away, as though they were a pair of playing cards and Nicholas and the seaman were exposed in the open doorway.
The wind flung itself upon them, and hurled them to the deck, smothering them in the icy deluge of water that ripped at their faces as abrasively as ground glass.
Nicholas rolled down the deck and crashed into the stern rail with such jarring force that he thought his lungs had been crushed, and the wind pinned him there, and blinded and smothered him with salt water.
He lay there helpless as a new-born infant, and near him he heard the seaman screaming thinly. The sound steeled him, and Nicholas slowly dragged himself to his knees, desperately clutching at the rail to resist the wind.
Still the man screamed and Nicholas began to creep forward on his hands and knees. It was impossible to stand in that wind and he could move only with support from the rail.
Six feet ahead of him, the extreme limit of his vision, the railing had been torn away, a long section of it dangling over the ship's side, and to this was clinging the seaman. His weight driven by the wind must have hit the rail with sufficient force to tear it loose, and now he was hanging on with one arm hooked through the railing and the other arm twisted from a shattered shoulder and waving a crazy salute as the wind whipped it about. When he looked up at Nicholas his mouth had been smashed in. It looked as though he had half chewed a mouthful of black currants, and the jagged stumps of his broken front teeth were bright red with the juice.
On his belly, Nicholas reached for him, and as he did so, the wind came again, unbelievably it was stronger still, and it took the damaged railing with the man still upon it and tore it bodily away. They disappeared instantly in the blinding white-out of the storm, and Nicholas felt himself hurled forward towards the edge. He clung with all his strength to the remaining section of the rail, and felt it buckle and begin to give.
On his knees still he clawed himself away from that fatal beckoning gap, towards the stern, and the wind struck him full in the face, blinding and choking him. Sightlessly, he dragged himself on until one outstretched arm struck the cold cast iron of the port stern bollard, and he flung both arms about it like a lover, choking and retching from the salt water that the wind had forced through his nose and mouth and down his throat.
Still blind, he felt for the woven steel of Warlock's main tow-wire. He found it and he could not span it with his fist but he felt the quick lift of his hopes.
The cable was still secured. He had catted and prevented it with a dozen nylon strops, and it was still holding. He crawled forward, dragging himself along the tow-cable, and immediately he realized that his relief had been premature.
There was no tension in the cable and when he reached the edge of the deck it dangled straight down. It was not stretched out into the whiteness, to where he had hoped Warlock was still holding them like a great sea anchor.
He knew then that what he had dreaded had happened. The storm had been too powerful, it had snapped the steel cable like a thread of cotton, and Golden Dawn was loose, without control, and this wild and savage wind was blowing her down swiftly on to the land.
Nicholas felt suddenly exhausted to his bones. He lay flat on the deck, closed his eyes and clung weakly to the severed cable. The wind wanted to hurl him over the side, it ballooned his oilskins and ripped at his face. It would be so easy to open his fingers and to let go - and it took all his resolve to resist the impulse.
Slowly, as painfully as a crippled insect, he dragged himself back through the open, shattered doorway into the central passageway of the stern quarters - but still the wind followed him. it roared down the passageway, driving in torrents of rain and salt water that flooded the deck and forced Nicholas to cling for support like a drunkard.
After the open storm, the car of the elevator seemed silent and tranquil as the inner sanctum of a cathedral. He looked at himself in the wall mirror, and saw that his eyes were scoured red and painful-looking by salt and wind, and his cheeks and lips looked raw and bruised, as though the skin had been rasped away. He touched his face and there was no feeling in his nose nor in his lips. The elevator doors slid open and he reeled out on to the navigation bridge. The group of men at the chart-table seemed not to have moved, but their heads turned to him.
Nicholas reached the table and clung to it. They were silent, watching his face.
‘I lost a man!’ he said, and his voice was hoarse and roughened by salt and weariness. ‘He went overboard. The wind got him.’ Still none of them moved nor spoke, and Nicholas coughed, his lungs ached from the water he had breathed. When the spasm passed, he went on.
‘The tow-cable has parted. We are loose - and Warlock will never be able to re-establish tow. Not in this.’
All their heads turned now to the forward bridge windows, to that impenetrable racing whiteness beyond the glass, that was lit internally with its glowing bursts of lightning.
Nicholas broke the spell that held them all. He reached up to the signal locker above the chart-table and brought down a cardboard packet of distress flares. He broke open the seals and spilled the flares on to the table. They looked like sticks of dynamite, cylinders of heavily varnished waterproof paper. The flares could be lit, and would spurt out crimson flames, even if immersed in water, once the self -igniter tab at one end was pulled.
Nicholas stuffed half a dozen of the flares into the inner pockets of his oilskins.
‘Listen!’ he had to shout, even though they were only feet away. ‘We are going to be aground within two hours. This ship is going to start breaking up immediately we strike.’
He paused and studied their faces; Duncan was the only one who did not seem to understand. He had picked up a handful of the signal flares from the table and he was looking inquiringly at Nicholas.
‘I will give you the word; as soon as we reach the twenty-fathom line and she touches bottom, you will go over the side. We will try and get a raft away. There is a chance you could be carried ashore.’
He paused again, and he could see that Randle and his two seamen realized clearly just how remote that chance was.
‘I will give
you twenty minutes to get clear. By then, the pod tanks will have begun breaking up -'He didn't want this to sound melodramatic and he searched for some way to make it sound less theatrical, but could think of none.
‘Once the first tank ruptures, I will ignite the escaping crude with a signal flare.’
‘Christ!’ Randle mouthed the blasphemy, and the storm censored it on his lips. Then he raised his voice. ‘A million tons of crude. It will fireball, man.’
‘Better than a million-ton slick down the Gulf Stream,’ Nicholas told him wearily.
‘None of us will have a chance. A million tons. It will go up like an atom bomb.’ Randle was white-faced and shaking now. ‘You can't do it!’
‘Think of a better way,’ said Nicholas and left the table to stagger across to the radio room. They watched him go, and then Duncan looked down at the signal flares in his hand for a moment before thrusting them into the pocket of his jacket.
In the radio room, Nicholas called quickly into the microphone. ‘Come in, Sea Witch - Sea Witch, this is Golden Dawn.’ And only the static howled in reply.
‘Warlock, Come in, Warlock. This is Golden Dawn.’ Something else went in the wind, they heard it tear loose, and the whole superstructure shook and trembled.
The ship was beginning to break up, it had not been designed to withstand winds like this. Through the open radio room door, Nicholas could see the control console display. There were seventy-one fathoms of water under the ship, and the wind was punching her, flogging her on towards the shore.
‘Come in, Sea Witch,’ Nicholas called with quiet desperation. ‘This is Golden Dawn. Do you read me?’
The wind charged the ship, crashing into it like a monster, and she groaned and reeled from the blow.
‘Come in, Warlock.’
Randle lurched across to the forward windows, and clinging to the rail he bowed over the gauges that monitored the condition of the ship's cargo. Checking for tank damage.