Wilbur Smith's Smashing Thrillers (79 page)

Nicholas felt icy despair clutch and squeeze his guts.
The ship was moving differently under him, he could feel her now in
mortal distress; that same gust which had torn away the radar mast had
done other damage.

He knew what that damage was, and the thought of it made him want to
vomit, but he had to be sure. He had to be absolutely certain, and he
began to hand himself along the foul-weather rail towards the elevator
doors.

Across the bridge the others were watching him intently, but even from
twenty feet it was impossible to make himself heard above the clamorous
assault of the storm.

One of the seamen seemed suddenly to guess his intention, He left the
chart-table and groped his way along the bulkhead towards Nicholas.

‘
Good man!
’
Nicholas grabbed his arm to steady him, and they fell forward
into the elevator as Golden Dawn began another of those ponderous
wallowing rolls and the deck fell out from under their feet.

The ride down in the elevator car slammed them back and forth across the
little coffin-like box, and even here in the depths of the ship they had
to shout to hear each other.

‘
The tow cable,
’
Nicholas yelled in the man's ear.
‘
Check the tow cable.
’
From the elevator they went carefully aft along the central passageway,
and when they reached the double storm doors, Nicholas tried to push the
inner door open, but the pressure of the wind held it closed.

‘
Help me,
’
he shouted at the seaman, and they threw their combined weight
against it. The instant that they forced the jamb open a crack, the
vacuum of pressure was released and the wind took the three-inch
mahogany doors and ripped them effortlessly from their hinges, and
whisked them away, as though they were a pair of playing cards and
Nicholas and the seaman were exposed in the open doorway.

The wind flung itself upon them, and hurled them to the deck, smothering
them in the icy deluge of water that ripped at their faces as abrasively
as ground glass.

Nicholas rolled down the deck and crashed into the stern rail with such
jarring force that he thought his lungs had been crushed, and the wind
pinned him there, and blinded and smothered him with salt water.

He lay there helpless as a new-born infant, and near him he heard the
seaman screaming thinly. The sound steeled him, and Nicholas slowly
dragged himself to his knees, desperately clutching at the rail to
resist the wind.

Still the man screamed and Nicholas began to creep forward on his hands
and knees. It was impossible to stand in that wind and he could move
only with support from the rail.

Six feet ahead of him, the extreme limit of his vision, the railing had
been torn away, a long section of it dangling over the ship's side, and
to this was clinging the seaman.
His weight driven by the wind must have hit the rail with sufficient
force to tear it loose, and now he was hanging on with one arm hooked
through the railing and the other arm twisted from a shattered shoulder
and waving a crazy salute as the wind whipped it about. When he looked
up at Nicholas his mouth had been smashed in. It looked as though he had
half chewed a mouthful of black currants, and the jagged stumps of his
broken front teeth were bright red with the juice.

On his belly, Nicholas reached for him, and as he did so, the wind came
again, unbelievably it was stronger still, and it took the damaged
railing with the man still upon it and tore it bodily away. They
disappeared instantly in the blinding white-out of the storm, and
Nicholas felt himself hurled forward towards the edge. He clung with
all his strength to the remaining section of the rail, and felt it
buckle and begin to give.

On his knees still he clawed himself away from that fatal beckoning gap,
towards the stern, and the wind struck him full in the face, blinding
and choking him. Sightlessly, he dragged himself on until one
outstretched arm struck the cold cast iron of the port stern bollard,
and he flung both arms about it like a lover, choking and retching from
the salt water that the wind had forced through his nose and mouth and
down his throat.

Still blind, he felt for the woven steel of Warlock's main tow-wire. He
found it and he could not span it with his fist but he felt the quick
lift of his hopes
.

The cable was still secured. He had catted and
prevented it with a dozen nylon strops, and it was still holding. He
crawled forward, dragging himself along the tow-cable, and immediately
he realized that his relief had been premature.

There was no tension in the cable and when he reached the edge of the
deck it dangled straight down. It was not stretched out into the
whiteness, to where he had hoped Warlock was still holding them like a
great sea anchor.

He knew then that what he had dreaded had happened.
The storm had been too powerful, it had snapped the steel cable like a
thread of cotton, and Golden Dawn
was loose, without control, and this
wild and savage wind was blowing her down swiftly on to the land
.

Nicholas felt suddenly exhausted to his bones. He lay flat on the deck,
closed his eyes and clung weakly to the severed cable. The wind wanted
to hurl him over the side, it ballooned his o
i
lskins and ripped at his
face. It would be so easy to open his fingers and to let go - and it
took all his resolve to resist the impulse.

Slowly, as painfully as a crippled insect, he dragged himself back
through the open, shattered doorway into the central passageway of the
stern quarters - but still the wind followed him. it roared down the
passageway, driving in tor
r
ents of rain and salt water that flooded the
deck and forced Nicholas to cling for support like a drunkard.

After the open storm, the car of the elevator seemed silent and tranquil
as the inner sanctum of a cathedral. He looked at himself in the wall
mirror, and saw that his eyes were scoured red and painful-looking by
salt and wind, and his cheeks and lips looked raw and bruised, as though
the skin had been rasped away. He touched his face and there was no
feeling in his nose nor in his lips. The elevator doors slid open and
he reeled out on to the navigation bridge. The group of men at the
chart-table seemed not to have moved, but their heads turned to him.

Nicholas reached the table and clung to it. They were silent, watching
his face.

‘
I lost a man!
’
he said, and his voice was hoarse and roughened by salt
and weariness.
‘
He went overboard. The wind got him.
’
Still none of them
moved nor spoke, and Nicholas coughed, his lungs ached from the water he
had breathed.
W
hen the spasm passed, he went on.

‘
The tow-cable has parted. We are loose - and Warlock will never be
able to re-establish tow. Not in this.
’

A
ll their heads turned now to
the forward bridge windows, to that impenetrable racing whiteness beyond
the glass, that was lit internally with its glowing bursts of lightning.

Nicholas broke the spell that held them all. He reached up to the
signal locker above the chart-table and brought down a cardboard packet
of distress flares. He broke open the seals and spilled the flares on
to the table. They looked like sticks of dynamite, cylinders of heavily
varnished waterproof paper. The flares could be lit, and would spurt
out crimson flames, even if immersed in water, once the self -igniter
tab at one end was pulled.

Nicholas stuffed half a dozen of the flares into the inner pockets of
his oilskins.

‘
Listen!
’
he had to shout, even though they were only feet away.
‘
We are
going to be aground within two hours.
This ship is going to start breaking up immediately we strike.
’

He
paused and studied their faces; Duncan was the only one who did not seem
to understand. He had picked up a handful of the signal flares from the
table and he was looking inquiringly at Nicholas.

‘
I will give you the word; as soon as we reach the twenty
-
fathom line and
she touches bottom, you will go over the side. We will try and get a
raft away. There is a chance you could be carried ashore.
’

He paused
again, and he could see that Randle and his two seamen realized clearly
just how remote that chance was.

‘
I will give you twenty minutes to get clear. By then, the pod tanks
will have begun breaking up -'He didn't want this to sound melodramatic
and he searched for some way to make it sound less theatrical, but could
think of none.

‘
Once the first tank ruptures, I will ignite the escaping crude with a
signal flare.
’

‘
Christ!
’
Randle mouthed the blasphemy, and the storm
censored it on his lips. Then he raised his voice.
‘
A million tons of
crude. It will fireball, man.
’

‘
Better than a million-ton slick down the
Gulf Stream
,’
Nicholas told him wearily.

‘
None of us will
have a chance. A million tons. I
t
w
ill go up like an
atom bomb.
’
Randle was white-faced and shaking now.
‘
You can't do it
!’

‘
Think of a better way
,’
said Nicholas and left the table to stagger
across to the radio room. They watched him go, and then Duncan looked
down at the signal flares in his hand for a moment before thrusting them
into the pocket of his
jacket.

In the radio room, Nicholas called
quickly into the microphone.
‘
Come in, Sea Witch - Sea
W
itch, this is
Golden Dawn.
’
And only the static howled in reply.

‘W
arlock, Come in, Warlock. This is Golden Dawn.
’
Something else went in
the wind, they heard it tear loose, and the whole superstructure shook
and trembled.

The ship was beginning to break up, it had not been designed to
withstand winds like this.
Through the open radio room door, Nicholas could see the control console
display. There were seventy-one fathoms of water under the ship, and
the wind was punching her, flogging her on towards the shore.

‘
Come in, Sea Witch
,’
Nicholas called with quiet desperation.
‘
This is
Golden Dawn. Do you read me?
’

The wind charged the ship, crashing into
it like a monster, and she groaned and reeled from the blow.

‘
Come in,
Warlock.
’

Randle lurched across to the forward windows, and clinging to
the rail he bowed over the gauges that monitored the condition of the
ship's cargo. Checking for tank damage
.

‘
At least he is still thinking.
’
Nicholas watched above the Captain's head, the sounding showed
sixty-eight fathoms.

Randle straightened slowly, began to turn, and the wind struck again.

Nicholas felt the blow in his stomach, it was a solid thing like a
mountain in avalanche, a de
afe
ning boom of sound and the forward bridge
window above the control console broke inwards.