Hungry as the Sea Page 4

  him naked and sick and tired again.

  I am not ready yet, he thought; and then realized that it was probably

  the first time in his adult life he had ever said that to himself. He

  had always been ready, good and ready, for anything. But not now, not

  this time.

  Suddenly Nicholas Berg was afraid, as he had never been before. He was

  empty, he realized, there was nothing in him, no strength, no

  confidence, no resolve. The depth of his defeat by Duncan Alexander,

  the despair of his rejection by the woman he loved, had broken him. He

  felt his fear turn to terror, knowing that his wave had come, and would

  sweep by him now, for he did not have the strength to ride it.

  Some deep instinct warned him that it would be the last wave, there

  would be nothing after it. The choice was go now, or never go again.

  And he knew he could not go, he

  27 could not go against Jules Levoisin, he could not challenge the old

  master. He could not go - he could not reject the certainty of the Esso

  tow, he did not have the nerve now to risk all that he had left on a

  single throw. He had just lost a big one, he couldn't go at risk again.

  The risk was too great, he was not ready for it, he did not have the

  strength for it.

  He wanted to go to his cabin and throw himself on his bunk and sleep -

  and sleep. He felt his knees buckling with the great weight of his

  despair, and he hungered for the oblivion of sleep.

  He turned back into the bridge, out of the wind. He was broken,

  defeated, he had given up. As he went towards the sanctuary of his day

  cabin, he passed the long command console and stopped involuntarily.

  His officers watched him in a tense, electric silence.

  His right hand went out and touched the engine telegraph, sliding the

  pointer from off to stand by'.

  Engine Room/he heard a voice speak in calm and level tones, so it could

  not be his own. Start main engines, said the voice.

  Seemingly from a great distance he watched the faces of his deck

  officers bloom with unholy joy, like old-time pirates savouring the

  prospect of a prize.

  The strange voice went on, echoing oddly in his ears, 'Number One, ask

  the Harbour Master for permission to clear harbour immediately - and,

  Pilot, course to steer for the last reported position of Golden

  Adventurer, please.

  From the corner of his eye, he saw David Allen punch the Third Officer

  lightly but gleefully on the shoulder before he hurried to the radio

  telephone.

  Nicholas Berg felt suddenly the urge to vomit. So he stood very still

  and erect at the navigation console and fought back the waves of nausea

  that swept over him, while his officers bustled to their sea-going

  stations.

  28 Bridge. This is the Chief Engineer/ said a disembodied voice from

  the speaker above Nick's head. Main engines running. A pause and then

  that word of special Aussie approbation. Beauty! - but the Chief

  pronounced it in three distinct syllables, Be-yew-dy!'

  Warlock's wide-flared bows were designed to cleave and push the waters

  open ahead of her and in those waters below latitude 40 she ran like an

  old bull otter, slick and wet and fast for the south.

  Uninterrupted by any land-mass, the cycle of great atmospheric

  depressions swept endlessly across those cold open seas, and the wave

  patterns built up into a succession of marching mountain ranges.

  Warlock was taking them on her starboard shoulder, bursting through each

  crest in a white explosion that leapt from her bows like a torpedo

  strike, the water coming aboard green and clear over her high fore-dec,

  and sweeping her from stern to stern as she twisted and broke out,

  dropping sheer into the valley that opened ahead of her.

  Her twin ferro-bronze propellers broke clear of the surface, the

  slamming vibration instantly controlled by the sophisticated

  variable-pitch gear, until she swooped forward and the propellers bit

  deeply again, the thrust of the twin Mirrlees diesels hurtling her

  towards the slope of the next swell.

  Each time it seemed that she could not rise in time to meet the cliff of

  water that bore down on her. The water was black under the grey sunless

  sky. Nick had lived through typhoon and Caribbean hurricane, but had

  never seen water as menacing and cruel as this. It glittered like the

  molten slag that pours down the dump of an iron foundry and cools to the

  same iridescent blackness.

  29 In the deep valleys between the crests, the wind was blanketed so

  they fell into an unnatural stillness, an eerie silence that only

  enhanced the menace of that towering slope of water.

  In the trough, Warlock heeled and threw her head up, climbing the slope

  in a gut-swooping lift, that buckled the knees of the watch. As she

  went up, so the angle of her bridge tilted back, and that sombre

  cheerless sky filled the forward bridge windows with a vista of low

  scudding cloud.

  The wind tore at the crest of the wave ahead of her, ripping it away

  like white cotton from the burst seams of a black mattress, splattering

  custard-thick spume against the armoured glass. Then Warlock put her

  sharp steel nose deeply into it. Gouging a fat wedge of racing green

  over her head twisting violently at the jarring impact, dropping

  sideways over the crest, and breaking out to fall free and repeat the

  cycle again.

  Nick was wedged into the canvas Master's seat in the corner of the

  bridge. He swayed like a camel-driver to the thrust of the sea and

  smoked his black cheroots quietly, his head turning every few minutes to

  the west, as though he expected at any moment to see the black ugly hull

  of La Mouette come up on top o t e next swell. But he . -mew she was a

  thousand miles away still, racing down the far leg of the triangle which

  had at its apex the stricken liner.

  If she is running/ Nick thought, and knew that there was no doubt. La

  Mouette was running as frantically as was Warlock - and as silently.

  Jules Levoisin had taught Nick the trick of silence. He would not use

  his radio until he had the liner on his radar scan. Then he would come

  through in clear, I will be in a position to put a line aboard you in

  two hours. Do you accept "Lloyd's Open Form"?

  The Master of the distressed vessel, having believed himself abandoned

  without succour, would over-react to the promise of salvation, and when

  La Mouette came bustling

  30 up over the horizon, flying all her bunting and with every light

  blazing in as theatrical a display as Jules could put up, the relieved

  Master would probably leap at the offer of 'Lloyd's Open Form - a

  decision that would surely be regretted by the ship's owners in the cold

  and unemotional precincts of an Arbitration court.

  When Nick had supervised the design of Warlock, he had insisted that she

  look good as well as being able to perform. The master of a disabled

  ship was usually a man in a highly emotional state. Mere physical

  appearance might sway him in the choice between two salvage tugs coming

  up on him. Warlock looked magnif
icent; even in this cold and cheerless

  ocean, she looked like a warship.

  The trick would be to show her to the master of Golden Adventurer before

  he struck a bargain with La Mouette.

  Nick could no longer sit inactive in his canvas seat. He judged the

  next towering swell and, with half a dozen quick strides, crossed the

  bridge deck in those fleeting moments as Warlock steadied in the trough.

  He grabbed the chrome handrail above the Decca computer.

  On the keyboard he typed the function code that would set the machine in

  navigational mode, coordinating the transmissions she was receiving from

  the circling satellite stations high above the earth. From these were

  calculated Warlock's exact position over the earth's surface, accurate

  to within twenty-five yards.

  Nick entered the ship's position and the computer compared this with the

  plot that Nick had requested four hours previously. It printed out

  quickly the distance run and the ship's speed made good. Nick frowned

  angrily and swung round to watch the helmsman.

  In this fiercely running cross sea, a good man could hold Warlock on

  course more efficiently than any automatic steering device. He could

  anticipate each trough and crest and prevent the ship paying off across

  the direction of the

  3I swells, and then kicking back violently as she went over, wasting

  critical time and distance.

  Nick watched the helmsman work, judging each sea as it came aboard,

  checking the ship's heading on the big repeating compass above the man's

  head. After ten minutes, Nick realized that there was no wastage;

  Warlock was making as good a course as was possible in these conditions.

  The engine telegraph was pulled back to her maximum safe power-setting,

  the course was good and yet Warlock was not delivering those few extra

  knots of speed that Nick Berg had relied on when he had made the

  critical decision to race La Mouette for the prize.

  Nick had relied on twenty-eight knots against the Frenchman's eighteen,

  and he was not getting it. Involuntarily, he glanced out to the west as

  Warlock came up on the top of the next crest. Through the streaming

  windows, from which the spinning wipers cleared circular areas of clean

  glass, Nick looked out across a wilderness of black water, forbidding

  and cold and devoid of other human presence.

  Abruptly Nick crossed to the R/T microphone.

  "Engine Room confirm we are top of the green. 'Top of the green, it is,

  Skipper.

  The Chief's casual tones floated in above the crash of the next sea

  coming aboard.

  Top of the green'was the maximum safe power-setting recommended by the

  manufacturers for those gigantic Mirrlees diesels. It was a far higher

  setting than top economical power, and they were burning fuel at a

  prodigious rate. Nick was pushing her as high as he could without going

  into the red, danger area above eighty percent of full power, which at

  prolonged running might permanently damage her engines.

  Nick turned away to his seat, and wedged himself into it. He groped for

  his cheroot case, and then checked him

  32 self, the lighter in his hand. His tongue and mouth felt furred over

  and dry. He a( smo d without a break every waking minute since leaving

  Cape Town, and God knows he had slept little enough since then. He ran

  his tongue around his mouth with distaste before he returned the cheroot

  to his case, and crouched in his seat staring ahead, trying to work out

  why Warlock was running slow.

  Suddenly he straightened and considered a possibility that brought a

  metallic green gleam of anger into Nick's eyes.

  He slid out of his seat, nodded to the Third Officer who had the deck

  and ducked through the doorway in the back of the bridge into his day

  cabin. It was a ploy. He didn't want his visit below decks announced,

  and from his own suite he darted into the companionway.

  The engine control room was as modern and gleaming as Warlock's

  navigation bridge. It was completely enclosed with double glass to cut

  down the thunder of her engines.

  The control console was banked below the windows, and all the ship's

  functions were displayed in green and red digital figures.

  The view beyond the windows into the main engine room was impressive,

  even for Nick who had designed and supervised each foot of the layout.

  The two Mirrlees diesel engines filled the white-painted cavern with

  only walking space between, each as long as four Cadillac Eldorados

  parked bumper to bumper and as deep as if another four Cadillacs had

  been piled on top of them.

  The thirty-six cylinders of each block were crowned with a moving forest

  of valve stems and con-rod ends, each enormous powerhouse capable of

  pouring out eleven thousand usable horsepower.

  it was only custom that made it necessary for any visitor, including the

  Master, to announce his arrival in the engine room to the Chief

  Engineer. Ignoring custom, Nick slipped quietly through the glass

  sliding doors, out of the hot burned-oil stench of the engine room into

  the cooler and sweeter conditioned air of the control room.

  Vin Baker was deep in conversation with one of his electricians, both of

  them kneeling before the open doors of one of the tall grey steel

  cabinets which housed a teeming mass of coloured cables and transistor

  switches. Nick had reached the control console before the Chief

  Engineer uncoiled his lanky body from the floor and spun round to face

  him.

  When Nick was very angry, his lips compressed in a single thin white

  line, the thick dark eyebrows seemed to meet above the snapping green

  eyes and large slightly beaked nose.

  You pulled the over-ride on me/ he accused in a flat, passionless voice

  that did not betray his fury. You're governing her out at seventy

  percent of power. That's top of the green in my book, Vin Baker told

  him.

  I'm not running my engines at eighty percent in this sea.

  She'll shake the guts out of herself. He paused and the stern was flung

  up violently as Warlock crashed over the top of another sea. The

  control room shuddered with the vibration of the screws breaking out of

  the surface, spinning wildly in the air before they could bite again.

  Listen to her, man. You want me to pour on more of it?

  She's built to take it. Nothing's built to run that hard, and live in

  this sea. I want the over-ride out/ said Nick flatly, indicating the

  chrome handle and pointer with which the engineer could cancel the power

  settings asked for by the bridge. I don't care when you do it - just as

  long as it's any time within the next five seconds., You get out of my

  engine room - and go play with your toys. 'All right/ Nick nodded, I'll

  do it myself. And he reached for the over-ride gear.

  You take your hands off my engines/howled Vin Baker, and picked up the

  iron locking handle off the deck. You touch my engines and I'll break

  your teeth out of your head, you ice-cold Pommy bastard. Even in his own

  anger, Nick blinked at the epithet, When he thought about the blazing

  passions and
emotions that seethed within him, he nearly laughed aloud.

  Ice cold, he thought, so that's how he sees me.

  You stupid Bundaberg-swilling galah he said quietly, as he reached for

  the over-ride. I don't really care if I have to kill you first, but we

  are going to eighty percent! It was Vin Baker's turn to blink behind

  his smeared glasses, he had not expected to be insulted in the

  colloquial. He dropped the heavy steel handle to the deck. It fell

  with a clang.

  I don't need it/he announced, and tucked his spectacles into his back

  pocket and hoisted his trousers with both elbows. It will be more fun

  to take you to pieces by hand.

  It was only then that Nick realized how tall the engineer was. His arms

  were ridged with the lean wiry taut muscle of hard physical labour. His

  fists, as he balled them, were lumpy with scar tissue across the

  knuckles and the size of a pair of nine-pound hammers. He went down

  into a fighter's crouch, and rode the plunging deck with an easy flexing

  of the long powerful legs.

  As Nicholas touched the chrome over-ride handle, the first punch came

  from the level of Baker's knees, but it came so fast that Nick only just

  had time to sway away from it. It whistled up past his jaw and scraped

  the skin from the outside corner of his eye, but he counter-punched

  instinctively, swaying back and slamming it in under the armpit, feeling

  the blow land so solidly that his teeth jarred in his own head. The

  Chief's breath hissed, but he swung left-handed and a bony fist crushed

  the pad of muscle on the point of Nick's shoulder, bounced off and

  caught him high on the temple.

  Even though it was a glancing blow, it felt as though a door had slammed

  in Nick's head, and resounding darkness closed behind his eyes.

  He fell forward into a clinch to ride the darkness, grabbing the lean

  hard body and smothering it in a bear hug as he tried to clear the

  singing darkness in his head.

  He felt the Chief shift his weight, and was shocked at the power in that

  wiry frame, it took all his own strength to hold him. Suddenly and

  clearly he knew what was going to happen next. There were little white

  ridges of scar tissue half hidden by the widow's peak of flopping sandy

  hair on the Chief's forehead. Those scars from previous conflicts

  warned Nick.

  Vin Baker reared back, like a cobra flaring for the strike, and then