Hungry as the Sea (57 page)

He tried to claw himself upright, but the little fishing boat was pitching and cavorting with such abandon that he was thrown flat again. There was another tearing impact as the vessel was dragged down the tanker’s side, and then flung free to roll her tails under and bob like a cork in the mill race of the huge ship’s wake.

Now, at last, he was able to pull himself to his feet, and doubled over, clutching his injured ribs, he peered dazedly through the wheelhouse glass.

Half a mile away, the tanker was lazily turning up into the wind, and there was no propeller wash from under her counter. Hank staggered to the doorway, and looked out, The deck was still awash, but the water they had taken on was pouring out through the scuppers. The railing was smashed, most of it dangling overboard and the planking was splintered and torn, the ripped timber as white as bone in the sunlight.

Behind him, Samantha came crawling up the ladder from the engine room. There was a purple swelling in the centre of her forehead, she was soaking wet and her hands were filthy with black grease. He saw a livid red burn across the back of one hand as she lifted it to brush tumbled blonde hair out of her face.

“Are you all right, Sam?”

“Water’s pouring in,” she said. “I don’t know how long the pump can hold it.”

“Did you fix the motor?” he asked.

Samantha nodded. “I held the throttle open,” she said, and then with feeling, “but I’ll be damned to hell if I’ll do it again. Somebody else can go down there, I’ve had my turn.”

“Show me how,” Hank said, “and you can take the wheel. The sooner we get back to Key Biscayne, the happier I’ll be.”

Samantha peered across at the receding bulk of
Golden Dawn
. “My God!” she shook her head with wonder. “My God! We were lucky!”

Chapter 52

“Mackerel skies and mares’ tails, Make tall ships carry short sails.” Nicholas Berg recited the old sailor’s doggerel to himself, shading his eyes with one hand as he looked upwards. The cloud was beautiful as fine lacework; very high against the tall blue of the heavens it spread swiftly in those long filmy scrolls.

Nicholas could see the patterns developing and expanding as he watched, and that was a measure of the speed with which the high winds were blowing. That cloud was at least thirty thousand feet high, and below it the air was clear and crisp – only out on the western horizon the billowing silver and the blue thunderheads were rising, generated by the land-mass of Florida whose low silhouette was still below their horizon.

They had been in the main current of the Gulf Stream for six hours now. It was easy to recognize this characteristic scend of the sea, the short steep swells marching close together, the particular brilliance of these waters that had been first warmed in the shallow tropical basin of the caribbean, the increased bulk flooding through into the Gulf of Mexico and there heated further, swelling in volume until they formed a hillock of water which at last rushed out through this narrow drainhole of the Florida Straits, swinging north and east in a wide benevolent wash, tempering the climate of all countries whose shores it touched and warming the fishing grounds of the North Atlantic.

In the middle of this stream, somewhere directly ahead of
Warlock’s
thrusting bows, the
Golden Dawn
was struggling southwards, directly opposed to the current which would clip eighty miles a day off her speed, and driving directly into the face of one of the most evil and dangerous storms that nature could summon.

Nicholas found himself brooding again on the mentality of anybody who would do that; again he glanced upwards at the harbingers of the storm, those delicate wisps of lacey cloud. Nicholas had sailed through a hurricane once, twenty years ago, as a junior officer on one of Christy Marine’s small grain carriers, and he shuddered now at the memory of it.

Duncan Alexander was a desperate man even to contemplate that risk, a man gambling everything on one fall of the dice. Nicholas could understand the forces that drove him, for he had been driven himself  – but he hated him now for the chances he was taking. Duncan Alexander was risking Nicholas’ son, and he was risking the life of an ocean and of the millions of people whose existence was tied to that ocean. Duncan Alexander was gambling with stakes that were not his to place at hazard.

Nicholas wanted one thing only now, and that was to get alongside
Golden Dawn
and take off his son. He would do that, even if it meant boarding her like a buccaneer, In the Master’s suite, there was a locked and sealed arms cupboard with two riot guns, automatic 12 gauge shotguns and six Walther PK-38 Pistols.
Warlock
had been equipped for every possible emergency in any ocean of the world, and those emergencies could include piracy or mutiny aboard a vessel under salvage. Now Nicholas was fully prepared to take an armed party on board
Golden Dawn
, and to take his chances in any court of law afterwards.

Warlock was racing into the chop of the Gulf Stream and scattering the spray like startled white doves, but she was running too slowly for Nicholas and he turned away impatiently and strode into the navigation bridge.

David Allen looked up at him, a small frown of preoccupation marring the smooth boyish features. “Wind is moderating and veering westerly,” he said, and Nicholas remembered another line of doggerel:
When the wind moves against the sun trust her not for back she’ll run.

He did not recite it, however, he merely nodded and said: “We are running into the extreme influence of Lorna. The wind will back again as we move closer to the centre.”

Nicholas went on to the radio room and the Trog looked up at him. It was not necessary for Nicholas to ask, the Trog shook his head. Since that long exchange with the coastguard patrol early that morning,
Golden Dawn
had kept her silence.

Nicholas crossed to the radarscope and studied the circular field for a few minutes; this usually busy seaway was peculiarly empty. There were some small craft crossing the main channel, probably fishing boats or pleasure craft scuttling for protection from the coming storm. All across the islands and on the mainland of Florida the elaborate precautions against the hurricane assault would be coming into force.

Since the highway had been laid down on the spur of little islands that formed the Florida Keys, more than three hundred thousand people had crowded in there, in the process transforming those wild lovely islands into the Taj Mahal of ticky-tacky. If the hurricane struck there, the loss of life and property would be enormous, it was probably the most vulnerable spot on a long exposed coastline. For a few minutes, Nicholas tried to imagine the chaos that would result if a million tons of toxic crude oil was driven ashore on a littoral already ravaged by hurricane winds. It baulked his imagination, and he left the radar and moved to the front of the bridge. He stood staring down the narrow throat of water at a horizon that concealed all the terrors and desperate alarms that his imagination could conjure up.

The door to the radio shack was open and the bridge was quiet, so that they all heard it clearly; they could even catch the hiss of breath as the speaker paused between each sentence, and the urgency of his tone was not covered by the slight distortion of the VHF carrier beam.

“Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! This is the bulk oil carrier
Golden Dawn
. Our position is 79 50’West 25 43’ North. Before Nicholas reached the chart-table, he knew she was still a hundred miles ahead of them, and, as he pored over the table, he saw his estimate confirmed, “We have lost our propeller with main shaft failure and we are drifting out of control.” Nicholas head flinched as though he had been hit in the face. He could imagine no more dangerous condition and position for a ship of that size - and Peter was on board.

“This is
Golden Dawn
calling the United States Coast Guard service or any ship in a position to afford assistance –” Nicholas reached the radio shack with three long strides, and the Trog handed him the microphone and nodded.

“
Golden Dawn
this is the salvage tug Warlock. I will be in a position to render assistance within four hours. Damn the rule of silence, Peter was on board her. “Tell Alexander I am offering Lloyd’s Open Form and I want immediate acceptance.” He dropped the microphone and stormed back on to the bridge, his voice clipped and harsh as he caught David Allen’s arm. “Interception course and push her through the gate,” he ordered grimly. “Tell Beauty Baker to open all the taps.” He dropped David’s arm and spun back to the radio room.

“Telex Levoisin on Sea Witch. I want him to give me a time to reach
Golden Dawn
at his best possible speed,” and he wondered briefly if even the two tugs would be able to control the crippled and powerless
Golden Dawn
in the winds of a hurricane.

Jules replied almost immediately. He had bunkered at Charleston, and cleared harbour six hours previously. He was running hard now and he gave a time to
Golden Dawn’s
position for noon the next day, which was also the forecast time of passage of the Straits for hurricane Lorna, according to the meteorological up-date they had got from Miami two hours before.

Nicholas thought as he read the telex and turned to David Allen. “David, there is no precedent for this that I know of but with my son on board
Golden Dawn
. I just have to assume command of this ship, on a temporary basis, of course.”

“I’d be honoured to act as your First officer again, sir,” David told him quietly, and Nicholas could see he meant it.

“If there is a good salvage, the Master’s share will still be yours,” Nicholas promised him, and thanked him with a touch on the arm. “Would you check out the preparations to put a line aboard the tanker?” David turned to leave the bridge, but Nicholas stopped him. “By the time we get there, we will have the kind of wind you have only dreamed about in your worst nightmares – just keep that in mind.”

“Telex,” screeched the trog.
Golden Dawn
is replying to our offer. Nicholas strode across to the radio room, and read the first few lines of message as it printed out.

OFFER CONTRACT OF DAILY HIRE FOR TOWAGE THIS VESSEL FROM PRESENT POSITION TO GALVESTON ROADS

The bastard, Nicholas snarled. He’s playing his fancy games with me, in the teeth of a hurricane and with my boy aboard. Furiously he punched his fist into the palm of his other hand.

“Right!” he snapped. “We’ll play just as rough! Get me the Director of the U. S. Coast Guard at the Fort Lauderdale Headquarters – get him on the emergency coastguard frequency and I will talk to him in clear.”

The Trog’s face lit with malicious glee and he made the contact, “Colonel Ramsden, Nicholas said, “This is the Master of Warlock. I’m the only salvage vessel that can reach
Golden Dawn
before passage of Lorna, and I’m probably the only tug on the eastern seaboard of America with 22,000 horsepower. Unless the
Golden Dawn’s
Master accepts Lloyd’s Open Form within the next sixty minutes, I shall be obliged to see to the safety of my vessel and crew by running for the nearest anchorage – and you’re going to have a million tons of highly toxic crude oil drifting out of control into your territorial waters, in hurricane conditions.”

The coast Guard Director had a deep measured voice, and the calm tones of a man upon whom the mantle of authority was a familiar garment. “Stand by, Warlock, I am going to contact
Golden Dawn
direct on Channel 16.

Nicholas signalled the Trog to turn up the volume on Channel 16 and they listened to Rarnsden speaking directly to Duncan Alexander.

“In the event your vessel enters United States territorial waters without control or without an attendant tug capable of exerting that control, I shall be obliged under the powers vested in me to seize your vessel and take such steps to prevent pollution of our waters as I see fit. I have to warn you that those steps may include destruction of your cargo.”

Ten minutes later the Trog copied a telex from Duncan Alexander personal to Nicholas Berg accepting Lloyd’s Open Form and requesting him to exercise all dispatch in taking
Golden Dawn
in tow.

“I estimate we will be drifting over the 100-fathom line and entering U.S. territorial waters within two hours,” the message ended.

While Nicholas read it, standing out on the protected wing of
Warlock’s
bridge, the wind suddenly fluttered the paper in his hand and flattened his cotton shirt against his chest. He looked up quickly and saw the wind was backing violently into the east, and beginning to claw the tops of the Gulf Stream swells. The setting sun was bleeding copiously across the high veils of cirrus cloud which now covered the sky from horizon to horizon. 

There was nothing more that Nicholas could do now. Warlock was running as hard as she could, and all her crew were quietly going about their preparations to pass a wire and take on tow. All he could do was wait, but that was always the hardest part.

Darkness came swiftly but with the last of the light, Nicholas could just make out a dark and mountainous shape beginning to hump up above the southern horizon like an impatient monster. He stared at it with awful fascination, until mercifully the night hid Lorna’s dreadful face.

The wind chopped the Gulf Stream up into quick confused seas, and it did not blow steadily, but flogged them with squally gusts and rain that crackled against the bridge windows with startling suddenness. The night was utterly black, there were no stars, no source of light whatsoever, and
Warlock
lurched and heeled to the patternless seas.

“Barometer’s rising sharply,” David Allen called suddenly. “It’s jumped three millibars – back to 1050.”

“The trough,” said Nicholas grimly. It was a classic hurricane formation, that narrow girdle of higher pressure that demarcated the outer fringe of the great revolving spiral of tormented air. We are going into it now. And as he spoke the darkness lifted, the heavens began to burn like a bed of hot coals, and the sea shone with a sullen ruddy luminosity as though the doors of a furnace had been thrown wide.