by Peter Tonkin
‘Yes, Captain.’ Luc didn’t know what else to say.
‘And in the meantime this man Richard Mariner is trying to keep us afloat with a dozen or so balloons. While they tow us God knows where across the North Atlantic! It’s laughable. A sick joke. And just a lot more hot bloody air, if you ask me! And God alone knows what good it will do if another bulkhead fails like the one in the crew’s quarters.’
‘Yes, Captain.’
As chance would have it, Robin appeared part way through this section of the tirade. She ran lightly and silently up the companionway and into the command area just in time to note the bitterly stressed captain indulging in one of the most human of failings. Transferring his anger and disappointment from those friends and family who had let him down to the stranger who was trying to help. She was for once alone, having been back down to check the bulkhead door into the crew’s flooded quarters again while Li was looking in on Hunter - following her orders - to assess whether that all-too useful young officer might be in a position to lend a hand again. So to speak.
Robin said nothing when she heard Mark deriding Richard’s attempts to keep them all afloat, but when Mark caught the steely glint in her normally lambent grey eye, he abruptly changed his tone and his focus. From frustrated complaint about their situation, he snapped into practical plans on how to improve it.
‘Right, Lieutenant Pellier. That’s our next focus. Go down to engineering and talk to the chief. It’ll be faster and more efficient than calling him here then sending him back again. I want a plan drawn up to strengthen every bulkhead that has any water at all behind it. I want power back up to fifty per cent by the next watch to the pumps if nothing else, and if that can’t be done I want a detailed report as to why it can’t be done. And I want Psycho Bob found and put out of action. Permanently. Is that clear?’
‘I’ll get right on it at once, Captain.’ Luc saluted - for the first time in a while - and included the startling blonde woman in his gesture. She was every inch a captain, after all. Then he turned smartly away and almost marched out of the control area, going through the list of orders in his head like a schoolboy preparing for a test. He got right on the last order a damn sight sooner than he planned to, however, and in a far more personal way.
The door out of the command area heading aft into the corridor towards engineering was like the door into the heads - ordinary dark mahogany veneer over a honeycomb of cardboard cells, like any door in any British council house built in the last thirty years or so. It looked solid enough but was about as substantial as brown paper. Luc pulled it decisively open, stepped through, turned to close it carefully, and turned back to proceed down the corridor. In the moment that it took to close the door Psycho Bob appeared, like some kind of madman’s magic trick. Luc didn’t even have time to blink, let alone gasp, gape or call out, before the slight figure in the filthy overall was flying towards him waving cook’s cleaver in one hand and Leif Hunter’s SIG- Sauer in the other. Luc never registered which weapon was in which hand but the truth of the matter made all the difference in the end.
Paolo had the SIG-Sauer in his right hand. But because he had been using it as a torch, this was as much of its function as he understood now; and all he really registered about it was the weight. He was not even holding it by the grip. He hit the strange officer in the head with it therefore and knocked him sideways across the corridor to bounce off the wall and spin back against the door which rattled in its frame. He did not go down, however, so Paolo hit him again with the solid weight in his right hand. Spraying blood, the man slammed back so heavily that the door cracked, but still he stayed erect. More in frustration than anything else, Paolo swung the cleaver in his left hand, ready to strike out with it, feeling nothing more than another club-like weight, unaware that the blood-crusted blade was uppermost.
And the door opened.
The reeling man in front of Paolo rolled away, collapsing backward and inward. And there, immediately behind the falling man, stepping forward indeed to stand protectively over him, was one of the creatures that had been calling to Paolo all along. He never doubted that it was an angel. The glittering curls, tumbling to frame the still, perfect oval of the face. The smoky eyes, now blue, now grey. The long straight nose, full mouth and determined, slightly dimpled chin.
His hands fell listlessly to his sides. He gasped and half smiled. ‘Mi angelo,’ he said in his first language, Italian.
The face floating before him almost smiled. It seemed to have come straight from the frescoes, galleries and stained-glass windows of his Tuscan Catholic childhood. It could have been by da Vinci, Correggio, Raphael or Michelangelo. And it was almost the last thing Paolo saw.
Robin stood astride Luc Pellier and tried to stare the madman down. The movement down the corridor that she could just see over his shoulder told her she wouldn’t have to hold him long. But then if he started swinging that wicked-looking cleaver, she thought, she wouldn’t be able to hold him back at all. But the moment of confrontation lingered. The stranger gaped at her. His hands dropped to his sides. He almost smiled, as though he recognized her - more than that, recognized her as an old and dear friend. ‘My angel,’ he whispered in Italian. Though it didn’t begin to occur to Robin that he meant it literally.
Then there was a crisp sound, halfway between a smack and a crunch. The stranger’s eyes rolled up and his knees buckled. He went down like a demolished chimney to reveal Leading Seaman Li behind him lifting a nasty-looking adjustable spanner for a second blow. ‘No!’ she said. ‘He’s out cold. That’s enough.’ She swung round to face the captain. ‘Right, Captain. First order obeyed. We’ll get the chief on task next and we’ll deliver these two to the infirmary on the way. I’ll organize a secure place to hold our Italian guest and sort out some way of restraining him safely when he wakes after his head’s been checked and tended. Then we’ll see what we can do to get this boat back up on to the surface and our people out into the fresh air.’
Twenty-Three
Storm
During the next twenty hours, things aboard both vessels seemed to improve little by little as Sissy resumed Quebec's tow towards the rendezvous with MARLANT’s ships at Cape Farewell. Their situation seemed almost idyllic in many respects as Sissy's massive motors turned the four shafts that made her propellers thrash the gently heaving water and moved the whole floating circus forward at three, then five, then seven knots.
And while she did so, little by little, Gus the winchmaster and his team tightened the Yokohama line and eased the tow bar nearer to Sissy's stem. Even in the early hours when Gus was forced to slacken off the main tow rope, he slackened the Yokohama line more slowly - and that in turn simply allowed the submarine’s hull to fall back harder against the lines on the Yokohama fenders themselves. And this, perversely, had the effect of hastening the approach of that magic moment when all the forces balanced then reversed - and inch by inch Quebec began to surface once again.
And in Quebec herself things seemed to be getting better. The atmosphere lightened the instant the scuttlebutt got round that Psycho Bob was safely under lock and key. Once Robin had overseen that and - ever the humanitarian - had made sure that her strange Italian was as safe from the crew as they were from him, she took over the job of shoring up all the bulkheads. Whether they seemed to be at risk or not, every door or wall that contained water aboard was bolstered by buttresses made of wood or metal, solid or pipework, whatever the chief could supply.
And when the chief could supply no more, the ingenious and widely experienced Robin, living up to the reputation of a Mr Hood who shared her name, led her equally cheerfully ingenious team in search of things to cannibalize, reuse or simply steal. Wooden doorways vanished from their frames and appeared squashed flat against steel, spreading the load of broken bunk-legs, wedged in place with everything from substantial volumes purloined from the library to thicker chopping boards borrowed from the galley.
Now that the danger was over, kitchen e
quipment began to be returned - and the food improved as a consequence. The chief’s tools also magically reappeared in engineering and, apparently also as a consequence, half power was restored to the pumps by the end of the first watch after Mark’s gruff order - and to everything else within the next.
The two vessels proceeded busily through a ridge of high pressure that calmed the air and flattened the sea from Cape Race to Cape Wrath across the North Atlantic, and seemed to linger with its centre on Cape Farewell. A calm afternoon gave on to a balmy evening, which was followed by a cool, still night. In the early evening, the sea steamed lazily, but by the change of watches at 20:00 when the second dog watch became the first night watch, the steam was gone. No one really noticed this, except for Richard himself.
Richard stood out on Sissy’s afterdeck, watching the three lines of the tow ropes. Under the brightness of the tug’s big arc lights, the Yokohama fenders crowded against the sub like a pod of pilot whales living up to their name and guiding the stricken vessel home. Their backs were black and gleaming and they heaved in easy interaction between the gentle tug of the towlines and the easy swell of the sea, each with a little bow wave at its jaws. Further back, the fin also had a bow wave, its simple white smile twisting out of shape occasionally as the wakes of the fenders played with it.
The central winch clattered abruptly. ‘Another fifteen centimetres in,’ called out the winch man to Gus who was over in the shadows by the port winch. ‘That’s good,’ the winchmaster growled. ‘And nothing paid out here for four hours now. We may be turning a comer here. But it’ll be a while before we can be sure.’
‘Another long night, then,’ chimed in Richard quietly.
‘Aren’t they all, at sea?’ said Gus gloomily.
Richard had never found it so. Or he hadn’t until last night, which had seemed endless, short though it had been in the end. With Robin in such danger - and so far out of contact, while still so close - minutes had really dragged for once. But he didn’t want to enter into a lengthy discussion about it, particularly as tonight didn’t promise to be much better. So he gave one of his most noncommittal grunts and turned away.
The darkness of the forecastle head was as welcoming to Richard as its loneliness and silence. Though all three things were relative and illusory, of course, he thought. It wasn’t really dark at all - there was a low, full moon that looked disturbingly close to the earth. Heaven help low coasts with the spring tides under the pull of that thing, he thought. And God help any werewolves too. He studied the face of the pale gold disc as though he could see into the dusty depths of the Sea of Tranquillity itself. But then, passing high across the uppermost curve, there like a stark black crucifix and gone in a whisper, the shape of an albatross passed.
The moon was so huge and bright that the stars behind it seemed to dim. And yet there were so many of them and they too hung so low that even had the moon been down their glittering constellations would have given light aplenty. Even the sea ahead seemed to be glowing - beyond the luminescence that Sissy’s bow wave was kicking up. Less romantically, perhaps, there was also the light from the bridge windows up behind him. Though Tom would soon be dimming them as the night watches proceeded.
And that was part of the reason why the loneliness was illusory too. For even though there was no one else on the foredeck, he was certain that the watch officer, the helmsman and probably the captain into the bargain were all watching his back as he stood hunched at the point of the rail down here.
But the silence seemed more real. Sissy’s motors were turning powerfully but slowly. The winches had settled. Dinner was over and everyone other than watch-keepers was beginning to settle for the night. The muffled ship sounds were easy enough to factor out. The bow wave was a restless tumble, but it too was muffled by the tug’s slow progress. The gulls had finished with the raucous fever of their evening feed and were mostly bobbing invisibly on the gently breathing ocean with their heads tucked underneath their wings. There was no wind. Sissy was at that point on the curvature of the earth that does not fall beneath the favoured paths of even intercontinental airlines, so there were no sound-footprints treading like distant thunder through the night. There was only, suddenly, and surprisingly close at hand, the haunting song of a whale.
And Richard realized then. The clarity of the air which had brought the moon and stars so close. The purity of the waves that no longer felt the need to steam. The coolness of the headwind - what there was of it at seven knots through a dead calm. The faintest smell of cucumbers and cheese. The high, lonely cross of the albatross passing briefly against the massive moon. The lonely song of the whale.
‘We’re in Arctic waters once again. Is she sitting higher?’ he asked Gus moments later, when he was certain the icy currents were well wrapped all around both vessels.
‘D’you know, I think she is. Though I can’t say why for definite. And it’ll be a while before we can be anything like certain, mind.’ Gus’s tone was faintly incredulous, but hopeful - almost cheerful suddenly, even in his characteristically cautious caveats.
‘Good. Great, in fact. I’ll see you later. If it’s not one thing then it’s another: I’m just popping up on to the bridge to make sure Tom has the watch officers briefed to keep a good lookout for icebergs.’
On the bridge, Richard updated Tom on their entry into the new water, though he made no comment on the way Quebec seemed to be reacting to the thicker, saltier element. For all he knew, the cold would do them a disservice by contracting the air in the fenders and stealing their buoyancy away. Calculation of the forces and counter-forces was probably beyond even Chief Jaeger’s number-crunchers. It was so far beyond anything Richard could attempt that he dismissed it out of hand. He had more important things to worry about, starting with icebergs. It was on a night like this, after all - save for a little ice-born mist - that Titanic met her doom.
But even as Richard stood there, thinking about Titanic, Sparks thrust his head into the command bridge. ‘Call for you, Captain Mariner,’ he announced. Richard went through at once, his mind still full of thoughts of disaster, trying to work out just how bad news had to be to chase him with a message this far away from civilization. But in fact the call had come hardly any distance, and wasn’t bad news after all.
‘Mariner. Over,’ he barked into the hand-held radio transceiver, feeling his stress levels and blood pressure beginning to rise.
‘Hullo, Mariner,’ came Robin’s voice, as huskily familiar and intimate as though it had just crossed a pillow to his ear. ‘I’ve stolen Mark Robertson’s handset and he’s not getting it back for the better part of this watch. Now. How’re you doing, darling? Over...’
Admiral John Julius ‘Long John’ Pike stood on the command bridge of his MARLANT flagship the Tribal-class destroyer Athabascan, looking north into the Davis Strait. Behind him on the darkened bridge the flag captain and his officers moved with quiet efficiency about their various tasks as they simulated danger and tragedy. But the admiral’s baleful attention was fixed on the watch officer, Third Lieutenant McCunn, who had called him here to discuss the weather with him.
It was night of course, but the darkness up there in the north was more than mere absence of daylight. It was absence of starlight and moonlight too. It was absence of any memory that light had ever existed - as though God had woken on the first day of Creation and said, ‘Let there be Dark.’ But the darkness there was by no means steady or consistent. Even as the admiral looked, a fork of lightning slashed down through the sky, revealing the wild whirl of clouds around it so briefly that the vision only really registered on his subconscious.
‘It’s heading south now, you say,’ he demanded of the anxious watch officer crouching over the weather monitor.
‘Yes, Admiral. It’s as tight as a hurricane and really small as depressions at these latitudes go. A thoroughly nasty piece of work. Its pressure gradients are so steep and it’s moving at such a speed that it hardly gives any warning at all. But
it’ll hit with incredible force when it arrives. The winds will top Force Eleven within twelve hours I would say, unless it finds some way to dissipate all that force.’
‘But it’ll run south, you say?’
‘South and east, Admiral. It’ll be over us within the watch then it’s off down the coast of Greenland, as near as I can predict.’
‘Heading for the cape?’
‘Cape Farewell? I’d say so. Definitely, Admiral. It won’t go anywhere near the mainland. And as you’re calculating no doubt, that’s a blessing at least. All our people at home on dry land will be safe enough in their beds unless it shifts back on to the westward track all of a sudden. But do you want to break the dead-air protocol?’
‘What, on the assumption that when some madman lets off a dirty bomb in New York, New York the weather’ll stay just fine for the occasion?’
‘I see what you mean, Admiral. Of course, Admiral. But you’ll want to warn the others? Operation Storm?’
‘On the assumption that you’re the only competent weather predictor we’ve got in the whole Atlantic Fleet? Jesus, if that’s the truth, boy, the sooner we know it the better, wouldn’t you say?’
In spite of his long chat with Robin that put many of his fears to rest; in spite of his talk with Gus which convinced the pair of them that Quebec was indeed beginning to pull herself back towards the surface, in spite of the fact that Sissy was sailing gently through calm seas on what still promised to be a prosperous voyage, Richard slept badly that night. And he greeted the dawn in a dark and uneasy mood.
On the face of it, there was no reason for Richard’s preoccupation, for everything that had promised so well last night had, if anything, improved overnight. Mark Robertson reported to Tom at 08:00 that all aboard Quebec had passed a peaceful night and he asked that his Captain Mariner’s love be sent to Tom’s Captain Mariner. Gus reported, little short of awestruck, that the Yokohama line had pulled in well all through the night - to such good effect, in fact, that the guttering which contained the main tow and the raised section it was snugged against occasionally broke the surface. By the noon watch, he calculated cheerily, they might risk a man or two on the foredeck to see what difference their weight might make. And Tom himself reported that Sissy's progress in the night had averaged nearly seven knots. If they kept this progress up, they would be able to rendezvous with Admiral Pike’s vessels at Cape Farewell before sunset. Allowing, as Mark informed them, an afternoon of detailed communication with the vessels as they approached the meeting point - for the dead-air simulation should finish at 13:00 hours on the dot.
