Wilbur Smith's Smashing Thrillers

by Wilbur Smith

  ‘At least he is still thinking.’ Nicholas watched above the Captain's head, the sounding showed sixty-eight fathoms.

  Randle straightened slowly, began to turn, and the wind struck again.

  Nicholas felt the blow in his stomach, it was a solid thing like a mountain in avalanche, a deafening boom of sound and the forward bridge window above the control console broke inwards.

  It burst in a glittering explosion of glass shards that engulfed the figure of Captain Randle standing directly before it. In a fleeting moment of horror, Nicholas saw his head half severed from his shoulders by a guillotine of flying glass, then he crumpled to the deck and instantly the bright pulsing hose of his blood was diluted to spreading pale pink in the torrent of wind and blown water that poured in through the opening, and smothered the navigation bridge.

  Charts and books were ripped from their shelves and fluttered like trapped birds as the wind blustered and swirled in the confines of glass and steel.

  Nicholas reached the Captain's body, protecting his own face with an arm crooked across it, but there was nothing he could do for him. He left Randle lying on the deck and shouted to the others.

  ‘Keep clear of the windows.’

  He gathered them in the rear of the bridge, against the bulkhead where stood the Decca and navigational systems. The four of them kept close together, as though they gained comfort from the close proximity of other humans, but the wind did not relent.

  It poured in through the shattered window and raged about the bridge, tearing at their clothing and filling the air with a fine mist of water, flooding the deck ankle deep so that it sloshed and ran as the tanker rolled almost to her beam ends.

  Randle's limp and sodden body slid back and forth in the wash and roll, until Nicholas left the dubious security of the after bulkhead, half -lifted the corpse under the arms, and dragged it into the radio room and wedged it into the radio operator's bunk. Swift blood stained the crisply ironed sheets, and Nicholas threw a fold of the blanket over Randle and staggered back into the bridge.

  Still the wind rose, and now Nicholas felt himself numbed by the force and persistence of it.

  Some loose material, perhaps a sheet of aluminium from the superstructure, or a length of piping ripped from the tank deck below, smashed into the tip of the bridge like a cannonball and then flipped away into the storm, leaving a jagged rent which the wind exploited, tearing and worrying at it, enlarging the opening, so that the plating flapped and hammered and a solid deluge of rain poured in through it.

  Nicholas realized that the ship's superstructure was beginning to go; like a gigantic vulture, soon the wind would begin stripping the carcass down to its bones.

  He knew he should get the survivors down nearer the water line, so that when they were forced to commit themselves to the sea, they could do so quickly. But his brain was numbed by the tumult, and he stood stolidly. It needed all his remaining strength merely to brace himself against the tearing wind and the ship's anguished motion.

  In the days of sail, the crew would tie themselves to the main mast, when they reached this stage of despair.

  Dully, he registered that the depth of water under the ship was now only fifty-seven fathoms, and the barometer was reading 955 millibars. Nicholas had never heard of a reading that low; surely it could not go lower, they must be almost at the centre of the revolving hurricane.

  With an effort, he lifted his arm and read the time. It was still only ten o'clock in the morning, they had been in the hurricane for only two and a half hours.

  A great burning light struck through the torn roof, a light that blinded them with its intensity, and Nicholas threw up his hands to protect his eyes. He could not understand what was happening, He thought his hearing had gone, for suddenly the terrible tumult of the wind was muted, fading away.

  Then he understood. ‘The eye,’ he croaked, we are into the eye,’ and his voice resounded strangely in his own ears. He stumbled to the front of the bridge.

  Although the Golden Dawn still rolled ponderously, describing an arc of almost forty degrees from side to side, she was free of the unbearable weight of the wind and brilliant sunshine poured down upon her. It beamed down like the dazzling arc lamps of a stage set, out of the throat of a dark funnel of dense racing swirling cloud.

  The cloud lay to the very surface of the sea, and encompassed the full sweep of the horizon in an unbroken wall. Only directly overhead was it open, and the sky was an angry unnatural purple, set with the glaring, merciless eye of the sun.

  The sea was still wild and confused, leaping into peaks and troughs and covered with a thick frothy mattress of spindrift, whipped into a custard by the wild winds. But already the sea was subsiding in the total calm of the eye and Golden Dawn was rolling less viciously.

  Nicholas turned his head stiffly to watch the receding wall of racing cloud. How long would it take for the eye to pass over them, he wondered.

  Not very long, he was sure of that, half an hour perhaps an hour at the most - and then the storm would be on them again, with its renewed fury every bit as sudden as its passing. But this time, the wind would come from exactly the opposite direction as they crossed the hub and went into the far side of the revolving wall of cloud.

  Nicholas jerked his eyes away from that racing, heaven-high bank of cloud, and looked down on to the tank deck. He saw at a single glance that Golden Dawn had already sustained mortal damage. The forward port pod tank was half torn from its hydraulic coupling, holding only by the bows and lying at almost twenty degrees from the line of the other three tanks. The entire tank deck was twisted like the limb of an arthritic giant, it rolled and pitched out of sequence with the rest of the hull.

  Golden Dawn's back was broken, It had broken where Duncan had weakened the hull to save steel. Only the buoyancy of the crude petroleum in her four tanks was holding her together now. Nicholas expected to see the dark, glistening ooze of slick leaking from her; he could not believe that not one of the four tanks had ruptured and he glanced at the electronic cargo monitor. Loads and gas contents of all tanks were still normal. They had been freakishly lucky so far, but when they went into the far side of the hurricane he knew that Golden Dawn's weakened spine would give completely, and when that happened it must pinch and tear the thin skins of the pod tanks.

  He made a decision then, forcing his mind to work, not certain how good a decision it was but determined to act on it.

  ‘Duncan,’ he called to him across the swamped and battered bridge. 'I'm sending you and the others off on one of the life-rafts. This will be your only chance to launch one. I'll stay on board to fire the cargo when the storm hits again.’

  ‘The storm has passed.’ Suddenly Duncan was screaming at him like a madman. ‘The ship is safe now. You're going to destroy my ship, - you're deliberately trying to break me.’ He was lunging across the heaving bridge. ‘It's deliberate, you know I've won now. It's the only way can stop me now.’ He swung a clumsy round-arm blow. Nicholas ducked under it and caught Duncan around the chest.

  ‘Listen to me,’ he shouted, trying to calm him. ‘This is only the eye!’

  ‘You'd do anything to stop me. You swore you would stop me –‘

  'Help me,’ Nicholas called to the two seamen, and they grabbed Duncan's arms. He bucked and fought like a madman, screaming wildly at Nicholas, his face contorted and swollen with rage, sodden hair flopping into his eyes. ‘You'd do anything to destroy me, to destroy my ship-‘

  ‘Take him down to the raft deck,’ Nicholas ordered the two seamen. He knew he could not reason with Duncan now, and he turned away and stiffened suddenly.

  ‘Wait!’ he stopped them leaving the bridge.

  Nicholas felt the terrible burden of weariness and despair slip from his shoulders, felt new strength rippling through his body, recharging his courage and his resolution for a mile away, from behind that receding wall of dreadful grey cloud, Sea Witch burst abruptly into the sunlight, tearing bravely along with the w
ater bursting over her bows and flying back as high as her bridgework, running without regard to the hazard of sea and storm.

  ‘Jules,’ Nicholas whispered.

  Jules was driving her like only a tugman can drive a ship, racing to beat the far wall of the storm.

  Nicholas felt his throat constricting and suddenly the scalding tears of relief and thankfulness half-blinded him - for a mile out on Sea Witch's port side, and barely a cable-length astern of her, Warlock came crashing out of the storm bank, running every bit as hard as her sister ship.

  ‘David,’ Nicholas spoke aloud. ‘You too, David.’ He realized only then that they must have been in radar contact with him through those wild tempestuous hours of storm passage, hovering there, holding station on Golden Dawn's crippled bulk and waiting for their first opportunity .

  Above the wail and crackle of static from the overhead loud-speaker boomed Jules Levoisin's voice. He was close enough and in the clear eye the interference allowed a readable radio contact.

  ‘Golden Dawn, this is Sea Witch. Come in, Golden Dawn.’ Nicholas reached the radio bench and snatched up the microphone.

  ‘Jules.’ He did not waste a moment in greeting or congratulations. ‘We are going to take the tanks off her, and let the hull go. Do you understand?’

  ‘I understand to take off the tanks,’ Jules responded immediately.

  Nicholas’ brain was crisp and clear again, he could see just how it must be done. ‘Warlock takes off the port tanks first - in tandem.

  In tandem, the two tanks would be strung like beads on a string, they had been designed to tow that way.

  ‘Then you will take off the starboard side-‘

  ‘You must save the hull.’ Duncan still fought the two seamen who held him. ‘Goddamn you, Berg. I'll not let you destroy me.’ Nicholas ignored his ravings until he had finished giving his orders to the two tug masters. Then he dropped the microphone and grabbed Duncan by the shoulders. Nicholas seemed to be possessed suddenly by supernatural strength, and he shook him as though he were a child. He shook him so his head snapped back and forth and his teeth rattled in his head.

  ‘You bloody idiot,’ he shouted in Duncan's face. ‘Don't you understand the storm will resume again in minutes?’ He jerked Duncan's body out of the grip of the two seamen and dragged him bodily to the windows overlooking the tank deck.

  ‘Can't you see this monster you have built is finished, finished! There is no propeller, her back is broken, the superstructure will go minutes after the wind hits again.’

  He dragged Duncan round to face him, their eyes were inches apart.

  ‘It's over, Duncan. We will be lucky to get away with our lives. We'll be luckier still to save the cargo.’

  ‘But don't you understand - we've got to save the hull - without it-‘

  Duncan started to struggle, he was a powerful man, and quickly he was rousing himself, within minutes he would be dangerous - and there was no time, already Warlock was swinging up into her position on Golden Dawn's port beam for tank transfer.

  ‘I'll not let you take off –‘ Duncan wrenched himself out of Nicholas grip, there was a mad fanatic light in his eyes.

  Nicholas swivelled; coming up on to his toes and swinging from the shoulders he aimed for the point of Duncan's jaw, just below the ear and the thick sodden wedge of Duncan's red-gold sideburns. But Duncan rolled his head with the punch, and the blow glanced off his temple, and Golden Dawn rolled back the other way as Nicholas was unbalanced.

  He fell back against the control console, and Duncan drove at him, two running paces like a quarter-back taking a field goal, and he kicked right-legged for Nicholas' lower body.

  ‘I'll kill you, Berg,’ he screamed, and Nicholas had only time to roll sideways and lift his leg scissoring it to protect his crotch. Duncan's kick caught him in the upper thigh. An explosion of white pain shot up into his belly and numbed his leg to the thigh, but he used the control console and his good leg to launch himself into a counterpunch, hooking with his right again, under the ribs - and the wind went out of Duncan's lungs with a whoosh as he doubled. Nicholas transferred weight smoothly and swung his left fist up into Duncan's face. It sounded like a watermelon dropped on a concrete floor, and Duncan was hurled backwards against the bulkhead, pinned there for a moment by the ship's roll. Nicholas followed him, hobbling painfully on the injured leg, and he hit him twice more. Left and right, short, hard, hissing blows that cracked his skull backwards against the bulkhead, and brought quick bright rosettes of blood from his lips and nostrils.

  As his legs buckled, Nicholas caught him by the throat with his left hand and held him upright, searching his eyes for further resistance, ready to hit again, but there was no fight left in him.

  Nicholas let him go, and went to the signal locker. He snatched three of the small walkie-talkie radios from the radio shelves and handed one to each of the two seamen.

  ‘You know the pod tank undocking procedures for a tandem tow?’ he asked.

  We've practised it,’ one of them replied.

  ‘Let's go,’ said Nicholas.

  It was a job that was scheduled for a dozen men, and there were three of them. Duncan was of no use to them, and Nicholas left him in the pump control room on the lowest deck of Golden Dawn's stern quarter, after he had closed down the inert gas pumps, sealed the gas vents, and armed the hydraulic releases of the pod tanks for undocking.

  They worked sometimes neck-deep in the bursts of green, frothing water that poured over the ultra-tanker's fore-deck. They took on board and secured Warlock's main cable, unlocked the hydraulic clamps that held the forward pod tank attached to the hull and, as David Allen eased it clear of the crippled hull, they turned and lumbered back along the twisted and wind-torn catwalk, handicapped by the heavy sea-boots and oilskins and the confused seas that still swamped the tank-deck every few minutes.

  On the after tank, the whole laborious energy-sapping procedure had to be repeated, but here it was complicated by the chain coupling which connected the two half-mile-long pod tanks. Over the walkie-talkie Nicholas had to coordinate the efforts of his seamen to those of David Allen at the helm of Warlock.

  When at last Warlock threw on power to both of her big propellers and sheered away from the wallowing hull, she had both port pod tanks in tow. They floated just level with the surface of the sea, offering no windage for the hurricane winds that would soon be upon them again.

  Hanging on to the rail of the raised catwalk Nicholas watched for two precious minutes with an appraising professional eye. It was an incredible sight, two great shiny black whales, their backs showing only in the troughs, and the gallant little ship leading them away. They followed meekly, and Nicholas’ anxiety was lessened. He was not confident, not even satisfied, for there was still a hurricane to navigate - but there was hope now.

  ‘Sea Witch,’ he spoke into the small portable radio. ‘Are you ready to take on tow?’

  Jules Levoisin fired the rocket-line across personally. Nicholas recognized his portly but nimble figure high in the fire-control tower, and the rocket left a thin trail of snaking white smoke high against the backdrop of racing, grey hurricane clouds. Arching high over the tanker's tank-deck, the thin nylon rocket-line fell over the catwalk ten feet from where Nicholas stood.

  They worked with a kind of restrained frenzy, and Jules Levoisin brought the big graceful tug in so close beside them that glancing up Nicholas could see the flash of a gold filling in Jules' white smile of encouragement. It was only a glance that Nicholas allowed himself, and then he raised his face and looked at the storm.

  The wall of cloud was slippery and smooth and grey, like the body of a gigantic slug, and at its foot trailed a glistening white slimy line where the winds frothed the surface of the sea. It was very close now, ten miles, no more, and above them the sun had gone, cut out by the spiralling vortex of leaden cloud. Yet still that open narrow funnel of clear calm air reached right up to a dark and ominous sky.

  T
here was no hydraulic pressure on the clamps of the starboard forward pod tank. Somewhere in the twisted damaged hull the hydraulic line must have sheared. Nicholas and one of the seamen had to work the emergency release, pumping it open slowly and laboriously by hand.

  Still it would not release, the hull was distorted, the clamp jaws out of alignment.

  ‘Pull,’ Nicholas commanded Jules in desperation. ‘Pull all together.’ The storm front was five miles away, and already he could hear the deadly whisper of the wind, and a cold puff touched Nicholas uplifted face.

  The sea boiled under Sea Witch's counter, spewing out in a swift white wake as Jules brought in both engines. The tow-cable came up hard and straight; for half a minute nothing gave, nothing moved - except the wall of racing grey cloud bearing down upon them.

  Then, with a resounding metallic clang, the clamps slipped and the tank slid ponderously out of its dock in Golden Dawn's hull - and as it came free, so the hull, held together until that moment by the tank’s'bulk and buoyancy, began to collapse.

  The catwalk on which Nicholas stood began to twist and tilt so that he had to grab for a handhold, and he stood frozen in horrified fascination as he watched Golden Dawn begin the final break-up.

  The whole tank deck, now only a gutted skeleton, began to bend at its weakened centre, began to hinge like an enormous pair of nutcrackers - and caught between the jaws of the nutcracker was the starboard after pod tank. It was a nut the size of Chartres Cathedral, with a soft liquid centre, and a shell as thin as the span of a man's hand.

  Nicholas broke into a lurching, blundering run down the twisting, tilting catwalk, calling urgently into the radio as he went.

  ‘Shear!’ he shouted to the seamen almost half a mile away across that undulating plane of tortured steel. ‘Shear the tandem tow!’

  For the two starboard pod tanks were linked by the heavy chain of the tandem, and the forward tank was linked to Sea Witch by the main tow-cable. So Sea Witch and the doomed Golden Dawn were coupled inexorably, unless they could cut the two tanks apart and let Sea Witch escape with the forward tank which she had just undocked.