The Last Airship (9 page)

Tom
considered this for a moment.

“Was
there something particularly important about his last most recent deposit, do
you think?”

“Could
be. He never tells me, but he had additional security this last time, and he
told me to make certain that I arrived four days ahead of schedule, and then
left without loading any other cargo until we reached Newcastle.”

“Oh
shit!” Tom said. “The Hayward Bulk is going to the bottom. Whatever James
Reilly has stored down there. It’s going to the bottom too, where no one can
protect it in this weather.”

*

Tom
watched as Captain Ambrose’s smile distorted into a look of surprise.

“Why
in the world would he try to sink us?” The captain was serious when he
concluded, “Cyclone Petersham will do that for him soon enough.”

“How
soon do you think?” Tom asked.

“Four
hours, at most.”

“So,
that’s it then. We’re all dead men?”

“No,
there’s lifeboat ready and waiting for us to be evacuated into well before we
reach the reef. I’ve already sent a man out there to prepare it.”

That
man then came through the door, soaking wet from the harsh storm outside, his
face displaying an emotion far more painful than that of profound fatigue.

“Is
the lifeboat in order?”

“No…”

“What
do you mean, ‘no’?”

“I
mean that it’s missing.”

“Shit,
where does it normally rest?” Tom said.

“Mid
ship, on the starboard side.”

“Show
me.”

The
man looked at the captain who nodded his approval, and Tom quickly followed him
to where the lifeboat should have been.

The
crewman stopped at the spot where the large lifeboat would normally have been
secured to the deck, a spot where no wave, no matter how large, could possibly
knock it overboard. The mooring chains were all intact and the electronic winch
was hanging alongside the railing.

“This
lifeboat wasn’t inadvertently washed overboard,” the crewman said. “Someone has
intentionally scuttled it, and has murdered us all in the process.”

“Can
you see it anywhere in the distance?” Tom said.

“No.
Not that it would make much difference. It’s not as though we could possibly
retrieve it now that it’s in the water.”

The
two of them each tried to spot it with their binoculars, which proved to be
relatively useless in the storm. It was almost impossible to see much past the
deck railings, let alone try to pinpoint anything on the surface of the turbid
sea.

Tom
had good eyesight, but in this weather he struggled to locate the missing
lifeboat in the violent seas.

Then
his eyes caught sight of something.

It
was dark, and at first he dismissed it as being impossible. His eyes lost it as
the next wave crested, but he managed to spot it again.

This
time, he was able to ascertain exactly what he was seeing.

And,
what he saw reaffirmed his worst nightmare.

*

“A
submarine?” Captain Ambrose sounded more shocked than anything else.

“Yes,”
Tom replied.

“But
why would it surface here, in the middle of this cyclone?”

“It
must take guts to surface a submarine in this weather – guts or desperation.
Either way, I think it’s safe to say that our saboteur managed to successfully
escape from the Hayward Bulk.”

“But
will he still sink her?” Ambrose asked.

“He
wasn’t carrying enough equipment on board to sink her. I’m starting to wonder
if his plan was simply to stop our engineers from repairing the impeller, and in
doing so, force the Hayward Bulk on to the reef. In shallow waters, it will be
easier to retrieve whatever he was so intent on accessing.” Tom then looked at
the GPS and asked, “How are we doing time-wise?
Do you think we’ll make
it?”

Captain
Ambrose showed him on the GPS monitor just where the reef would most likely
tear open the hull of his ship. It was still 32 nautical miles away, but with
the strong easterly winds, the Hayward Bulk was drifting at a rate of a just
over 8 nautical miles per hour.

“Four
hours? That’s the best estimate that we’ve got going for us?” Tom checked his
math.

“That’s
correct.” Captain Ambrose’s face showed that he’d already accepted the fact
that he’d would be dying aboard his ship.

“How
long do you think it will take them to change the impeller?”

“Under
normal circumstances?” Ambrose laughed. “A couple of days.”

“And
given what’s at stake?”

“I
have no idea. Even skipping every safety check, I don’t see how it could be
done in under eight hours.”

“Okay,
so we need to cut our rate of drag by half.” Tom considered the question, as
though he were struggling to complete a difficult crossword puzzle. “Surely there’s
something else we can throw overboard to create a bit more drag?”

“Both
anchors have slipped, there’s very little we can do now.”

“Do
we have any more chain?” Tom knew he was being hopeful.

“Every
last piece of chain we did have, has already gone overboard.”

“Okay,
you’re the captain, Ambrose, you must have spent years trying to reduce every inch
of extra drag to please Global’s shareholders. What else might slow your ship
down?”

“Barnacles,
wind, currents…” The Captain started to list all the things which had troubled
him throughout his forty year career.

“Okay,
so can we recreate any of those things now?”

“No.”
Captain Ambrose looked at him as if he were an idiot.

“Where
is the current going?”

“Away
from the coastline, at a rate of half a knot.”

“So,
then the wind is pushing us at 7.5 knots, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Can’t
we simply reduce our exposure to the wind?” Tom smiled, as though he believed
that he’d found the solution to their problem, all by himself.

“I
don’t know if you’ve noticed this Mr. Bower, but this is a bulker –
we
hold all our cargo down below. Apart from what’s left of your little
helicopter, nothing else is on deck.”

“I
realize that. But when I was flying in, I noticed that we’re showing more than
sixty feet of freeboard. That’s a lot of exposure on the port side of the ship.
If we could somehow reduce that, wouldn’t it buy us some more time?”

“And
how do you suggest we do that?” The Captain’s approaching death loosened his
tongue and his question was laced with more than a little sarcasm. “Stop at the
next port and pick up some more cargo?”

“Can
we begin to sink her?” Tom asked in complete seriousness.

“You
want me to sink her?” The Captain responded, his lip curling as though he’d
just tasted something pungent.

The
thought was absurd, but then, failing to do anything at all meant that a lot of
people were going to die. What did they have to lose?

Tom
shrugged his shoulders, as though it was of little consequence whether or not
they all survived the next four hours.

Then,
he saw a look of realization on the Captain’s obdurate face.

“By
God, you’re right! We can flood the ship. We can knock off twenty feet of
freeboard by filling her with water without actually sinking her! It will make
us much heavier and will reduce our exposure to the wind.”

*

Tom
sat in the navigator’s chair, his feet lazily stretched out on the desk in
front. Every muscle in his body was relaxed. He could have just as easily been
sitting on his couch, watching the end of a sitcom, for all the effort he was
putting in. But instead, he was watching the outcome of a very real drama – mostly
indifferent of its outcome.

To
a casual observer, cognizant of the situation, Tom might appear to be insane, but
he was far from it. In fact, every inch of his body had been taut with stress
ever since the Maria Helena left Sydney Harbor. It was only now that he had
performed his duty and had no further assistance to offer, that he could begin
to relax.

The
outcome of the next four hours would determine his fate.

He
would certainly prefer to live. He had a lot more to do and see in this world,
but he had played his part, and performed his duty well in this maritime drama;
now it was out of his hands.

Tom
learned long ago that it’s only worth worrying about those things you have the
ability to change, and to forget about those which you have no control. With
that level of indifference, he casually watched from the bridge, as the
adventure on the Hayward Bulk was about to reach its final, dramatic
conclusion.

Captain
Ambrose flicked a number of electronic switches which opened the enormous sea-cocks
and reversed the bilge pumps. The reason for such an option on a super tanker
baffled Tom, but the Captain explained that the Hayward Bulk often flooded its
enormous bilges to maintain stability in rough seas when depleted of its cargo.

To
the right of Tom, the instrumentation in front of the Captain’s expressionless
face, showed a line which portrayed the depth of the ship’s hull below the
waterline.

Its
reading:
forty two feet.

The
line didn’t move, and after several minutes, Tom started to wonder whether or
not his idea had any possibility of succeeding.

Then.
The line moved to forty-two point five.

Once
it started to move, it kept moving. Tom thought it was similar to an altimeter
on a plane, as it slowly showed the supertanker’s descent into the ocean.

“She’s
moving,” Captain Ambrose said tentatively, with just the tiniest hint of a grin
appearing on his stubborn face.

“But
is it having any effect on our drag?” Tom asked.

The
captain looked to his left, where the Hayward Bulk’s speed could be read –
eight
point three knots. 

“She’s
slowing down, but not by much.” His grin receding.

Next
to the speedometer was a GPS monitor, displaying the local geography reaching
out toward the northeastern tip of Australia.

The
captain clicked an asterisk over the little image of a ship on the map and then
placed second asterisk on the nearest point of the eastern edge of the shallow
Great Barrier Reef. Instantly, a dotted line formed between the two points and
a note popped up –
Time to Destination: 3 hours: 35 minutes.

The
reality of the computation was clear to Tom.

“How
long will it take to fill the holding tanks to their maximum with sea water?”

“Perhaps
another hour?” The Captain seemed slightly unsure of himself. “It might take as
long as two hours, depending on how far we want to take it.”

Tom
nodded.

Both
men were professionals. Neither of them needed to have the simple math
explained in greater detail.

They
were going to die.

An
hour later, the Hayward Bulk had sunk another 20 feet into the ocean. The Time
to Destination reading was now:
3 hours: 5 minutes.

The
ship’s drift speed had decreased again, but it still wasn’t slowing down quick
enough.

Those
few hours remaining them, had disappeared quickly,
Tom noticed,
and
before he realized where the time had gone, another alarm sounded. It was a
loud warning sound, more like an electrical hum than an air horn.

“What’s
that?” Tom asked.

“That’s
the sound of our death, Mr. Bower.” Captain Ambrose spoke the words with the
fatalism of a seaman fully prepared to go down with his ship, rather than
suffer the consequences of such a failure.

“That’s
our proximity alarm. We are no more than a mile away from the reef.”

“Then
that’s it?”

“That’s
it. There is nothing more we can do, but prepare for the worst.”

Neither
man was particularly religious;
both just sat there and silently
acknowledged their imminent death.

Another
alarm rang out.

This
time, it was the engine room.

“Yes?”
The captain asked.

The
Captain’s facial expression lightened for the first time since Tom had met him
earlier that afternoon, and he then placed the handset back on the table in
front of him.

“Excellent.
Start her up. And Mr. Thomas, skip all safety procedures, there are a lot of
lives at stake here.”

The
entire ship recoiled at the vibrations from the ship’s massive engines cranking
over. It then settled down to a strong hum.

Tom
watched as Captain Ambrose pushed both throttles forward to full speed, and
locked the rudder at forty five degrees – the maximum angle at which to
efficiently turn a ship. At the front of the ship, he could hear the sound of
the electric bow thruster whining.