Wilbur Smith's Smashing Thrillers Page 13

  Nick's voice had a jagged edge to it as he told David Allen, ‘Let's do this fast and right, Number One.’

  Warlock nuzzled Adventurer's stern, the big black Yokoharna fenders gentling her touch, and on her fore-deck the winch whined shrilly, the lines squealing in their blocks and from the open salvage hatch the four-ton alternator swung out. It was mounted on a sledge for easy handling.

  The diesel tanks were charged and the big motor primed and ready to start. It rose swiftly, dangling from the tall gantry, and a dozen men synchronized their efforts, in those critical moments when it hung out over Warlock's bows. A nasty freaky little swell lifted the tug and pushed her across, for the dangling burden was already putting a slight list on her, and it would have crashed into the steel side of the liner, had not Nick thrown the screws into reverse thrust and given her a burst of power to hold her off.

  The instant the swell subsided, he closed down and slid the pitch to fine forward, pressing the cushioned bows lightly back against Adventurer's side.

  ‘He's good!’ David Allen watched Nicholas work. ‘He's better than old Mac ever was.’ Mackintosh, Warlock's previous skipper, had been careful and experienced, but Nicholas Berg handled the ship with the flair and intuitive touch that even Mac's vast experience could never have matched.

  David Allen pushed the thought aside and signalled the winch man. The huge dangling machine dropped with the control of a roosting seagull on to the liner's deck. Baker's crew leapt on it immediately, releasing the winch cable and throwing out the tackle, to drag it away on its sledge.

  Warlock drew off, and when Baker's crew was ready, she went in to drop another burden, this time one of the high-speed centrifugal pumps which would augment Golden Adventurer's own machinery - if Baker could get that functioning. It went up out of Warlock's forward hold, followed ten minutes later by its twin.

  ‘Both pumps secured.’ Baker's voice had a spark of jubilation in it, but at that moment a shadow passed over the ship, as though a vulture wheeled above on wide-spread pinions, and as Nick glanced up he saw the men on the fore-deck lift their heads also.

  It was a single cloud seeming no bigger than a man's fist, a thousand or fifteen hundred feet above them, but it had momentarily obscured the lowering sun, before scuttling on furtively down the peaks of Cape Alarm.

  ‘There is still much to do,’ Nick thought, and he opened the bridge door and stepped out on to the exposed wing. There was no movement of air, and the cold seemed less intense although a glance at the glass confirmed that there were thirty degrees still of frost. No wind here, but high up it was beginning.

  ‘Number One,’ Nick snapped into the microphone. What's going on down there - do you think this is your daddy's yacht?’

  And David Allen's team leapt to the task of closing down the forward hatch, and then tramped back to the double salvage holds on the long stern quarter.

  ‘I am transferring command to the stern bridge.’ Nick told his deck officers and hurried back through the accommodation area to the second enclosed bridge, where every control and navigational aid was duplicated, a unique feature of salvage-tug construction where so much of the work took place on the afterdeck.

  This time from the aft gantries, they lifted the loaded pallets of salvage gear on to the liner's deck, another eight tons of equipment went aboard Golden Adventurer. Then they pulled away and David Allen battened down again. When he came on to the bridge stamping and slapping his own shoulders, red-cheeked and gasping from the cold, Nick told him immediately .

  ‘Take command, David, I'm going on board.’ Nick could not bring himself to wait out the uncertain period while Beauty Baker put power and pumps into action.

  Anything mechanical was Baker's responsibility, as seamanship was strictly Nick's, but it could take many hours yet, and Nick could not remain idle that long.

  From high on the forward gantry, Nick looked out across that satiny ominous sea. It was a little after midnight now and the sun was half down behind the mountains, a two dimensional disc of metal heated to furious crimson. The sea was sombre purple and the ice-bergs were sparks of brighter cherry red. From this height he could see that the surface- of the sea was crenellated, a small regular swell spreading across it like ripples across a pond, from some disturbance far out beyond the horizon.

  Nick could feel the fresh movement of Warlock's hull as she rode this swell, and suddenly a puff of wind hit Nick in the face like the flit of a bat's wing, and the metallic sheen of the sea was scoured by a cat's-paw of wind that scratched at the surface as it passed.

  He pulled the draw-suing of the hood of his anorak up more tightly under his chin and stepped out on to the open boarding-ladder, like a steeplejack, walking upright and balancing lightly seventy feet above Warlock's slowly rolling fore-deck.

  He jumped down on to Golden Adventurer's steeply canted, ice-glazed deck and saluted Warlock's bridge far below in a gesture of dismissal.

  ‘I tried to warn you, dearie,’ said Angel gently, as she entered the steamy galley, for with a single glance he was aware of Samantha's crestfallen air. ‘He tore you up, didn't he?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ She lifted her chin, and the smile was too bright and too quick. ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘You can separate that bowl of eggs,’ Angel told her, and stooped again over twenty pounds of red beef, with his sleeves rolled to the elbows about his thick and hairy arms, clutching a butcher's knife in a fist like that of Rocky Marciano.

  They worked in silence for five minutes, before Samantha spoke again.

  ‘I only tried to thank him -,’ And again there was a grey mist in her eyes.

  ‘He's a lower-deck pig,’ Angel agreed.

  ‘He is not,’ Samantha came in hotly. ‘He's not a pig.’

  ‘Well, then, he's a selfish, heartless bastard - with jumped-up ideas.’

  ‘How can you say that?’ Samantha's eyes flashed now. ‘He is not selfish - he went into the water to get me!’

  Then she saw the smile on Angel's lips and the mocking quizzical expression in his eyes, and she stopped in confusion and concentrated on cracking the egg shells and slopping the contents into the mixing basin.

  ‘He's old enough to be your father,’ Angel needled her, and now she was really angry; a ruddy flush under the smooth gloss of her skin made the freckles shine like gold dust.

  ‘You talk the most awful crap, Angel.’

  ‘God, dearie, where did you learn that language?’

  ‘Well, you're making me mad.’ She broke an egg with such force that it exploded down the front of her pants. ‘Oh, shit!’ she said, and stared at him defiantly. Angel tossed her a dish-cloth, she wiped herself violently and they went on working again.

  ‘How old is he?’ she demanded at last. ‘A hundred and fifty?’

  ‘He's thirty-eight,’ Angel thought for a moment, ‘or thirty-nine.’

  ‘Well, smart arse,’ she said tartly, ‘the ideal age is half the man's age, plus seven.’

  ‘You aren't twenty-six, dearie!’ Angel said gently.

  ‘I will be in two years’ time!’ she told him.

  ‘You really want him badly, hey? A fever of lust and desire?’

  ‘That's nonsense, Angel, and you know it. I just happen to owe him a rather large debt - he saved my life, - but as for wanting him, ha!’ She dismissed the idea with a snort of disdain and a toss of her head.

  ‘I'm glad,’ Angel nodded. ‘He's not a very nice person, you can see by those ferrety eyes of his -.’

  ‘He has beautiful eyes -,’ she flared at him, and then stopped abruptly, saw the cunning in his grin, faltered and then collapsed weakly on the bench beside him, with a cracked egg in one hand.

  ‘Oh, Angel, you are a horrible man and I hate you. How can you make fun of me now?’ He saw how close she was to tears, and became brisk and businesslike.

  ‘First of all, you better know something about him,’ and he began to tell her, giving her a waspish biograph
y of Nicholas Berg, embellished by a vivid imagination and a wicked sense of humour, together with a quasi-feminine love of gossip, to which Samantha listened avidly, making an occasional exclamation of surprise.

  ‘His wife ran away with another man, she could be out of her mind, don't you think?’

  ‘Dearie, a change is like two weeks at the seaside.’

  Or asking a question. ‘He owns this ship, actually owns it? Not just Master?’

  ‘He owns this ship, and its sister, and the company. They used to call him the Golden Prince. He's a high flyer, dearie, didn't you recognize it?’

  ‘I didn't.’

  ‘Of course you did. You're too much woman not to. There is no more powerful aphrodisiac than success and power, nothing like the clink of gold to get a girl's hormones revving up, is there?’

  ‘That's unfair, Angel. I didn't know a thing about him. I didn't know he was rich and famous. I don't give a damn for money-‘

  ‘Ho! Ho?’ Angel shook his curls and the diamond studs flashed in his ears. But he saw her anger flare again. ‘All right, dearie, I'm teasing. But what really attracts you is his strength and air of purpose. The way other men obey, and follow and fear him. The air of command, of power and with it, success.’

  ‘I didn't-‘

  ‘Oh, be honest with yourself, love. It was not the fact he saved your life, it wasn't his beautiful eyes nor the lump in his jeans-‘

  ‘You're crude, Angel.’

  You're bright and beautiful, and you just can't help yourself. You're like a nubile little gazelle, all skittish and ready, and you have just spotted the herd bull. You can't help yourself, dearie, you're just a woman.’

  ‘What am I going to do, Angel?’

  ‘We'll make a plan, love, but one thing is certain, you're not going to trail around behind him, dressed like an escapee from a junk shop, breathing adoration and hero-worship. He's doing a job. He doesn't need to trip over you every time he turns. Play hard to get.’

  Samantha thought about it for a moment.’ Angel, I don't want to play it that hard that I never get around to being got - if you follow me.

  Beauty Baker had the work in hand well organized and going ahead as fast as even Nick, in his overwhelming impatience, could expect.

  The alternator had been manhandled through the double doors into the superstructure on B deck, and it had been secured against a steel bulkhead and lashed down.

  ‘As soon as I have power, we'll drill the deck and bolt her down,’ he explained to Nick.

  ‘Have you got the lines in?’

  ‘I'll by-pass the main junction box on C deck, and I will select from the temporary box-‘

  ‘But you've identified the fore-deck winch circuit, and the pumps?’

  ‘Jesus, sport, why don't you go sail your little boat and leave me to do my work?’

  On the upper deck one of Baker's gangs was already at work with the gas welding equipment. They were opening access to the ventilation shaft of the main engine room. The gas cutter hissed viciously and red sparks showered from the steel plate of the tall dummy smoke stack. The stack was merely to give the Golden Adventurer the traditional rakish lines, and now the welder cut the last few inches of steel plating. It fell away into the deep, dark cavern, leaving a roughly square opening six feet by six feet which gave direct access into the half-flooded engine room fifty feet below.

  Despite Baker's advice, Nick took command here, directing the rigging of the winch blocks and steel wire cable that would enable a cable to be taken down into the flooded engine room and out again through that long, viciously fanged gash in the ship's side. When he looked at his Rolex Oyster again, almost an hour had passed. The sun had gone and a luminous green sky filled with the marvellous pyrotechnics of the Aurora Australis turned the night eerie and mysterious.

  ‘All right, bosun, that's all we can do now. Bring your team up to the bows.’

  As they hurried forward along the open fore-deck, the wind caught them, a single shrieking gust that had them reeling and. staggering and grabbing for support, then it was past and the wind settled down to nag and whine and pry at their clothing as Nick directed the work at the two huge anchor winches; but he heard the rising sea starting to push and stir the pack-ice, making it growl and whisper menacingly.

  They catted the twin sea-anchors and with two men working over Adventurer's side they secured collars of heavy chain to the crown of each anchor. Warlock would now be able to drag those anchors out, letting them bump along the - bottom, but in the opposite direction to that in which they had been designed to drag, so that the pointed flukes would not be able to dig in and hold.

  Then, when the anchors were out to the full reach of their own chains, Warlock would drop them, the flukes would dig in and hold. This was the ground-tackle which might resist the efforts of even a force twelve wind to throw Golden Adventurer further ashore.

  When Baker had power on the ship, the anchor winches would be used to kedge Golden Adventurer off the bank. Nick placed much reliance on these enormously powerful winches to assist Warlock's own engines, for even as they worked, he could feel through the soles of his feet how heavily grounded the liner was.

  It was a tense and heavy labour, for they were working with enormous weights of dead-weight steel chain and shackles. The securing shackle, which held the chain collar on the anchor crown, alone weighed three hundred pounds and had to be manhandled by six men using complicated tackle.

  By the time they had the work finished, the wind was rising force six, and wailing in the superstructure. The men were chilled and tired, and tempers were flashing.

  Nick led them back to the shelter of the main superstructure. His boots seemed to be made of lead, and his lungs pumped for the solace of cheroot smoke, and he realized irrelevantly that he had not slept now for over fifty hours since he had fished that disturbing little girl from the water. Quickly he pushed the thought of her aside, for it distracted him from his purpose, and, as he stepped over the door-sill into the liner's cold but wind-protected accommodation, he reached for his cheroot-case.

  Then he arrested the movement and blinked with surprise as suddenly garish light blazed throughout the ship deck lights and internal lights, so that instantly a festival air enveloped her and from the loudspeakers on the deck above Nicholas’ head wafted soft music as the broadcasting equipment switched itself in. It was the voice of Donna Summer, as limpid and ringing clear as fine-leaded crystal. The sound was utterly incongruous in this place and in these circumstances.

  ‘Power is on!’

  Nick let out a whoop and ran through to B deck. Beauty Baker was standing beside his roaring alternator and hugging himself with glee.

  ‘Howzat, sport?’ he demanded. Nick punched his shoulder.

  ‘Right on, Beauty.’ He wasted a few moments and a cheroot by placing one of the precious black tubes between Baker's lips and flashing his lighter. The two of them smoked for twenty seconds in close and companionable silence.

  ‘Okay!’ Nick ended it. ‘Pumps and winches.’

  ‘The two emergency portables are ready to start, and I'm on my way to check the ship's main pumps.’

  ‘The only thing left is to get the collision mat into place.’

  ‘That is your trick,’ Baker told him flatly. You're not getting me into the water again, ever. I've even given up bathing.’

  ‘Yeah, did you notice I'm standing upwind?’ Nick told him. ‘But somebody has got to go down again to pass the line.’

  ‘Why don't you send Angel?’ Baker grinned evilly. ‘Excuse me, cobber - I've got work to do.’ He inspected the cheroot. ‘After we've pulled this dog off the ground, I hope you will be able to afford decent gaspers.’ And he was gone into the depths of the liner, leaving Nick with the one task he had been avoiding even thinking about. Somebody had to go down into that engine room. He could call for volunteers, of course, but then it was another of his own rules to never ask another man to do what you are afraid to do yourself.

/>   ‘I can leave David to lay out the ground-tackle, but I can't let anybody else put the collision mat in.’ He faced it now. He would have to go down again, into the cold and darkness and mortal danger of the flooded engine room.

  The ground-tackle that David Allen had laid was holding Golden Adventurer handsomely, even in the aggravated swell which was by now pouring into the open mouth of the bay, driven on by the rising wind that was inciting it to wilder abandon.

  David had justified Nick's confidence in the seamanlike manner in which he had taken the Golden Adventurer's twin anchors out and dropped them a cable's length offshore, at a finely judged angle to give the best purchase and hold.

  Beauty Baker had installed and test-run the two big centrifugals and he had even resuscitated two of the liner's own forward pump assemblies which had been protected by the watertight bulkhead from the sea break-in. He was ready now to throw the switch on this considerable arsenal of pumps, and he had calculated that if Nick could close that gaping rent in the hull, he would be able to pump the liner's hull dry and clean in just under four hours.

  Nick was in full immersion kit again, but this time he had opted for a single bottle Drager diving-set; he was off oxygen sets for life, he decided wryly.

  Before going down, he paused on the open deck with the diving helmet under his arm. The wind must be rising seven now, he decided, for it was kicking off the tops of the waves in bursts of spray and a low scudding sky of dirty grey cloud had blotted out the rising sun and the peaks of Cape Alarm. It was a cold dark dawn, with the promise of a wilder day to follow.

  Nick took one glance across at Warlock. David Allen was holding her nicely in position, and his own team was ready, grouped around that ugly black freshly burned opening in Adventurer's stack. He lifted the helmet on to his head, and while his helpers closed the fastenings and screwed down the hose connections, he checked the radio.

  ‘Warlock, do you read me?’