Hungry as the Sea (11 page)

Christy Marine had been desperately trying to avoid a no cure no pay contract. They had been trying to wheedle Levoisin into a daily hire and bonus contract, since this would limit the total cost of the operation, but they had been met by a Gallic acquisitiveness — right up to the moment when it became clear that
Golden Adventurer
had gone aground.

When that happened, the roles were completely reversed. Jules Levoisin, with a note of panic in his transmission, had immediately withdrawn his offer to go Lloyd’s Open Form. For now the cure was far from certain, and the Adventurer might already be a total wreck, beaten to death on the rocks of Cape Alarm, in which case there would be no pay.

Now Levoisin was desperately eager to strike a daily hire contract, including the ran from South America and the ferrying of survivors back to civilization. He was offering his services at $10,000 a day, plus a bonus of 2½% of any salved value of the vessel. They were fair terms, for Jules Levoisin had given up the shining dream of millions and he had returned to reality.

However, Christy Marine, who had previously been offering a princely sum for daily hire, had just as rapidly with drawn that offer.

“We will accept Lloyd’s Open Form, including ferrying of survivors,” they declared on Channel 16.

“Conditions on site have changed,” Jules Levoisin sent back, and the Trog got another good fix on him.

“We are head-reaching on him handsomely,” he announced with satisfaction, blinking his pink eyes rapidly while Nick marked the new relative positions on the chart.

The bridge of 
Warlock
 was once again crowded with every officer who had an excuse to be there. They were all in their working thick blue boiler suits and heavy sea boots, bulked up with jerseys and balaclava helmets, and they watched the plot with total fascination, arguing quietly among themselves.

David Allen came in carrying a bundle of clothing. “I’ve working rig for you, sir. I borrowed it from the Chief Engineer. You are about the same size.”

“Does the Chief know?” Nick asked.

“Not exactly, I just borrowed it from his cabin.”

“Well done, David,” Nick chuckled. “Please put it in my day cabin.” He felt himself warming more and more to the younger Captain.

“Sir,” the Trog sang out suddenly. I’m getting another transmission. It’s only strength one, and it’s on 121.5 Mega Hertz.

“Oh, shit!” David Allen paused in the entrance to the captain’s day cabin.” Oh, shit!” he repeated, and his expression was stricken. “It’s that bloody missing life-raft.”

“Relative bearing!” snapped Nick angrily.

“She bears 2800 relative and 045 magnetic,” the Trog answered instantly, and Nick felt his anger flare again. The life-raft was somewhere out on their port beam, eighty degrees off their direct course to the
Golden Adventurer
.

The consternation on the bridge was carried in a babble of voices, that Nick silenced with a single black glance and they stared at the plot in dismayed hush. The position of each of the tugs was flagged with a coloured pin and there was another, a red flag, for the position of the
Golden Adventurer
. It was so close ahead of them now, and their lead over
La Mouette
so slender, that one of the younger officers could not remain silent.

“If we go to the raft, we’ll be handing it to the bloody frog on a plate.”

The words ended the restraint and they began to argue again, but in soft controlled tones. Nick Berg did not look up at them, but remained bowed over the chart, with his fist on the table-top bunched so fiercely that the knuckles were ivory white.

“Christ, they have probably all had it by now. We’d be throwing it all away for a bunch of frozen stiffs. There is no telling how far off course they are, those sets have a range of a hundred miles.
La Mouette
will waltz away with it. We could pick them up later - after we put a line on
Golden Adventurer
.”

Nick straightened slowly and took the cheroot out of his mouth. He looked across at David Allen and spoke levelly, without change of expression. “Number One, will you please instruct your junior officers in the rule of the sea.”

David Allen was silent for a moment, then he answered softly “the preservation of human life at sea takes precedent over all other considerations.”

“Very well, Mr. Allen,” Nick nodded. “Alter 80 to port and maintain a homing course on the emergency transmission.” He turned away to his cabin. He could control his anger until he was alone, and then he turned and crashed his fist into the panel above his desk.

Out on the navigation bridge behind him nobody spoke nor moved for fully thirty seconds, then the Third Officer protested weakly. “But we are so close!”

David Allen roused himself, and spoke angrily to the helmsman. “New course 045 magnetic.” And as 
Warlock
 heeled to the change, he flung the armful of clothing bitterly on to the chart-table and went to stand beside the Trog.

“Corrections for course to intercept?” he asked.

“Bring her on to 050V” the Trog instructed, and then cackled without mirth. “First you call him an ice-water pisser — now you squeal like a baby because he answers a Mayday.” And David Allen was silent as the 
Warlock
 turned away into the fog, every revolution of her big variable-pitch propellers carrying her directly away from her prize, and
La Mouette
‘s triumphant transmissions taunted them as the Frenchman raced across the last of the open water that separated her from Cape alarm, bargaining furiously with the owners in London.

The fog seemed so thick that it could be chopped into chunks like cheese. From the bridge it was not possible to see 
Warlock’s
 tall bows. Nick groped his way into it like a blind man in an unfamiliar room, and all around him the ice pressed closely. They were in the area of huge tabular icebergs again. The echoes of the great ice islands flared green and malevolently on the radar screen and the awful smell and taste of the ice was on every breath they drew.

“Radio Officer?” Nick asked tensely, without taking his eyes from the swirling fog curtains ahead.

“Still no contact,” the Trog answered, and Nick shuffled on his feet. The fog had mesmerized him, and he felt the shift of vertigo in his head. For a moment he had the illusion that his ship was listing heavily to one side, almost as though it were a space vehicle. He forcibly rejected the hallucination and stared fixedly ahead, tensing himself for the first green loom of ice through the fog.

“No contact for nearly an hour now,” David muttered beside him.

“Either the battery on the DF has run down, or they have snagged ice and sunk,” volunteered the Third Officer, raising his voice just enough for Nick to hear.

“Or else their transmitter is blanketed by an iceberg,” Nick finished for him, and there was silence on the bridge for another ten minutes, except for the quietly requested changes of course that kept 
Warlock
 zigzagging between the unseen but omnipresent icebergs.

“All right,” Nick made the decision at last. “We’ll have to accept that the raft has floundered and break off the search.” And there was a stir of reawakening interest and enthusiasm. “Pilot, new course to
Golden Adventurer
, please, and we’ll increase to fifty percent power. We could still beat the frog.”

Again speculation and rising hope buoyed the young officers. She could run into ice and have to reduce — They wished misfortune on
La Mouette
and her Captain, and even the ship beneath Nick’s feet seemed to regain its lightness and vibrancy as she turned back for a last desperate run for the prize.

“All right, David,” Nick spoke quietly. “One thing is certain now, we aren’t going to reach the prize ahead of Levoisin. So we are going to play our ace now —” He was about to elaborate, when the Trog’s voice squeaked with excitement.

“New contact, on 121.5” he cried, and the dismay on the bridge was a tangible thing.

“Christ!” said the Third Officer. “Why won’t they just lie down and die!”

“The transmission was blanked by that big berg north of us,” the Trog guessed. “They are close now. It won’t take long.” Just long enough to make certain we miss the prize.”

The berg was so big that it formed its own weather system about it, causing eddies and currents of both air and water, enough to stir the fog.

The fog opened like a theatre curtain, and directly ahead there was a heart-stopping vista of green and blue ice, with darker strata of glacial mud banding cliffs which disappeared into the higher layers of fog above as though reaching to the very heavens. The sea had carved majestic arches of ice and deep caverns from the foot of the cliff.

“There they are!” Nick snatched the binoculars from the canvas bin and focused on the dark specks that stood out so clearly against the backdrop of glowing ice. “No,” he grunted. Fifty emperor penguins formed a bunch on one of the flat floes, big black birds s nearly as tall as a man’s shoulder; even in the lens, they were deceptively humanoid.

Warlock
 passed them closely, and with sudden fright they dropped on to their bellies and used their stubby wings to skid themselves across the floe, and drop into the still and steaming waters below the cliff. The floe eddied and swung on the disturbance of 
Warlock’s
 passing.

Warlock
 nosed on through solid standing banks of fog and into abrupt holes of clear air where the mirages and optical illusions of antarctica’s flawed air maddened them with their inconsistencies, turning flocks of penguins into herds of elephants or bands of waving men, and placing in their path phantom rocks and bergs which disappeared again swiftly as they approached.

The emergency transmissions from the raft faded and silenced, then beeped again loudly into the silence of the bridge, and seconds later were silent again.

“God damn them,” David swore quietly and bitterly, his cheeks pink with frustration. “Where the hell are they?”

“Why don’t they put up a flare or a rocket?” And nobody answered as another white fog monster enveloped the ship, muting all sound aboard her.

“I’d like to try shaking them up with the horn, sir,” he said, as 
Warlock
 burst once more into sparkling and blinding sunlight. Nick grunted acquiescence without lowering his binoculars.

David reached up for the red-painted foghorn handle above his head, and the deep booming blast of sound the characteristic voice of an ocean-going salvage tug, reverberated through the fog, seeming to make it quiver with the volume of the sound. The echoes came crashing back off the ice cliffs of the bergs like the thunder of the skies.

Chapter 6

Samantha held the solid-fuel stove in her lap using the detachable fibreglass lid of the locker as a tray. She was heating half a pint of water in the Aluminium pannikin, balancing carefully against the wallowing motion of the raft. The blue flame of the stove lit the dim cavern of plastic and radiated a feeble glow of warmth insufficient to sustain life. They were dying already.

Gavin Stewart held his wife’s head against his chest, and bowed his own silver head over it. She had been dead for nearly two hours now, and her body had already cooled, the face peaceful and waxen.

Samantha could not bear to look across at them, she crouched over the stove and dropped a cube of beef into the water, stirring it slowly and blinking against the tears of penetrating cold. She felt thin watery mucus run down her nostrils and it required an effort to lift her arm and wipe it away on her sleeve. The beef tea was only a little above blood warmth, but she could not waste time and fuel on heating it further.

The metal pannikin passed slowly from mittened hand to numbed and clumsy hand. They slurped the warm liquid and passed it on reluctantly, though there were some who had neither the strength nor the interest to take it.

“Come on, Mrs. Goldberg,” Samantha whispered painfully. The cold seemed to have closed her throat, and the foul air under the canopy made her head ache with grinding, throbbing pain. “You must drink!” Samantha touched the woman’s face, and cut herself off. The flesh had a puttylike texture and was cooling swiftly. It took long minutes for the shock to pass, then carefully Samantha pulled the hood of the old woman’s parka down over her face. Nobody else seemed to have noticed. They were all, too far sunk into lethargy.

“Here,” whispered Samantha to the man beside her — and she pressed the pannikin into his hands, folding his stiff fingers around the metal to make certain he had hold of it.

“Drink it before it cools.” The air around her seemed to tremble suddenly with a great burst of sound, like the bellow of a dying bull, or the rumble of cannon balls across the roof of the sky. For long moments, Samantha thought her mind was playing tricks with her, and only when it came again did she raise her head.

“Oh God,” she whispered. “They’ve come. It’s going to be all right. They’ve come to save us.” She crawled to the locker, slowly and stiffly as an old woman.

“They’ve come. It’s all right, gang, it’s going to be all right,” she mumbled, and she lit the globe on her Mejacket. In its pale glow, she found the packet of phosphorus flares.

“Come on now, gang. Let’s hear it for Number 16.” She tried to rouse them as she struggled with the fastenings of the canopy. “One more cheer,” she whispered, but they were still and unresponsive, and as she fumbled her way out into the freezing fog, the tears that ran down her cheeks were not from the cold.

She looked up uncomprehendingly, it seemed that from the sky around her tumbled gigantic cascades of ice, sheer sheets of translucent menacing green ice. It took her moments to realize that the life raft had drifted in close beneath the precipitous lee of a tabular berg. She felt tiny and inconsequential beneath that ponderous mountain of brittle glassy ice.

For what seemed an eternity, she stood, with her face lifted, staring upwards. Then again the air resonated with the deep gut-shaking bellow of the siren. It filled the swirling fog-banks with solid sound that struck the cliff of ice above her and shattered into booming echoes, that bounded from wall to wall and rang through the icy caverns and crevices that split the surface of the great berg.