The Bomb Ship

by Peter Tonkin

  But the middle section where so many helpless people were sitting or lying was in immediate danger of collapse. Clearly, it was imperative to get people up to the safer section as soon as possible. Richard looked around for Dan Williams but could see no sign of the big Canadian.

  ‘Jeffrey!’ called Richard, putting as much force into his voice as he could, and the Secretary of State jerked awake as though he were on the foredeck of one of Richard’s ships. ‘You’ve got to lead the people up off here,’ said Richard urgently. ‘It’s going to collapse.’

  The wooden sections heaved as he spoke and Sir Jeffrey was on his feet at once, his familiar, distinguished profile pulling the gaze of even the most dazed people nearby, in spite of the fact that his hair had gone, just as though it had been a wig blown off by the blast. He had no idea that he was all but naked from the nape of his neck to the backs of his heels.

  ‘UP!’ cried the politician as forcefully as his friend, and people around them began to respond.

  The first ripple of reaction was encouraged by Ann Cable and her video cameraman. While he filmed, she began to direct the survivors up the safer slopes. ‘Richard,’ she called as she worked just above him, ‘Nurse Janet got the twins clear. They’re fine.’

  It came as a shock to him to realise how little he had thought about them, how utterly he had been concerned with Robin. And even as he thought this, he felt her stir. He looked down and found her looking up at him, her grey eyes clear and unclouded. ‘Can you stand?’ he asked.

  ‘I think so. Richard! The children.’

  ‘Safe and sound with Nurse Janet. Now I want you to get up there beside Ann.’

  She was still shocked or she might have argued, but he was using his quarterdeck voice which brooked no disobedience, much as she had used hers this morning when she had ordered him to put her down. She got up with his hand solicitously at her elbow and stood, wavering for a second.

  She thought it was simple dizziness which made it so hard to stand. She thought the roaring in her ears was faintness. She stepped up onto the solid third section of the grandstand and just as she did so, the weakened section collapsed onto the ruins of the other sections, twenty feet below.

  Sir Jeffrey was a half-step behind her and Richard was still pulling himself to his feet. Both men went down with the wreckage, falling into a wilderness of twisted girders and shattered planking.

  Robin stepped forward unsteadily. She took another step and found herself at Ann Cable’s side. She felt a little disorientated and the overwhelming roaring in her ears didn’t help matters. The blast must have affected her hearing, she supposed, for she could see that the American was saying something quite urgently but she couldn’t hear a word. She looked over her shoulder to ask Richard if he could hear what Ann was saying but Richard wasn’t there. The whole section of the grandstand she had just stepped off had simply disappeared. And so had Jeffrey and Richard.

  Reality and horror hit her together. The dreamlike state of shock which had cocooned her since the explosion fell away. It was as though she had been hit in the stomach. Hard.

  When she went down on her knees, Ann Cable reached for her, thinking she had fallen and was going to faint. But no. Robin was a full ship’s captain and had faced many an emergency almost as stunning as this. She didn’t hesitate, recriminate or ask questions. She was in action, recognising the situation and moving to remedy it at once. Her knees hit the wood at the edge of the firm section and she craned over the precipice, looking down to see if she could make out where Richard might be lying. The gusty rain proved a blessing at last: there was no dust to obscure her vision and soon her sharp eyes made out the pale star of Richard’s left hand, easily recognisable to her because of the battered old steel Rolex which never left its wrist. The hand was protruding from beneath a square section of wooden planking and lying on another. Dull steel members like broken bones stood out all around it. Of Sir Jeffrey there was no sign at all. And Robin suddenly realised that she hadn’t seen Dan Williams either since she woke up.

  A movement at her side made her look up. Ann Cable had moved back to allow a young army lieutenant a view of things. ‘That’s a hell of a mess,’ he said, his voice awed.

  ‘And the Secretary of State is underneath it,’ Ann supplied.

  Robin’s mouth fixed in a pale straight line.

  ‘That’s what, ten feet?’ said the lieutenant, though it was by no means clear who he was talking to.

  ‘Ten feet down to the top of the pile and another ten to the ground,’ said Robin. ‘It’ll take the rescue team down there a long time to work their way up.’

  ‘Especially as I think some of them were underneath when the whole lot went down,’ Ann added.

  ‘Well, I suppose we’ll have to send some people down from up here,’ mused the lieutenant. ‘Shouldn’t be too difficult to climb down the scaffolding here. Have to be careful where one stands at the bottom, of course.’

  ‘If I were you,’ said Robin quietly, ‘I’d get some ropes and some stretchers up here, then you can lift anyone who can be moved.’

  ‘Good idea, ma’am.’ The lieutenant sounded distracted. He was looking around as though surprised to find himself without his men up here. Apart from Robin, Ann and her cameraman, the stands were empty at last. ‘Rope,’ he said to himself, clearly thinking aloud.

  ‘The bunting,’ snapped Robin. ‘All those pretty little flags are tied to metres of the stuff.’

  ‘Right-ho.’ His young face cleared. ‘Better go and get it organised.’ He got up to go, but turned back. ‘You ladies need any help?’

  ‘No,’ said Robin. ‘Just get the stretchers up here PDQ.’

  As the lieutenant hurried off, Robin sat on one hip, swung her legs out and let them dangle over the edge. She was in her stockings — what was left of them; the blast had removed her shoes. Now she rocked forward and took hold of the hem of her skirt. A brief, furious jerk broke the stitches at the seam and another tore the skirt wide almost to the waist. She swung round until her foot reached the first strut down. Automatically, Ann reached out to steady her. Robin looked up at the American woman. ‘You game?’

  Ann shrugged. ‘Sure.’ She kicked off her own shoes and rolled up the cuffs of her jeans to stop them catching. Swinging down beside Robin, she looked up at her cameraman. ‘You’d better get some damn good pictures of this, you useless son of a bitch,’ she growled.

  ‘Pictures and every word you say, boss,’ he answered. ‘Just don’t expect me to come down there after you.’

  It was an easy climb. The cross-pieces made an effective ladder and each woman was well over five feet tall so that they only had to negotiate some four feet down to the top of the pile. Robin hesitated as soon as her foot touched wood and swung round to try and see what to do first. The new angle made it difficult to see Richard’s hand but she had taken a bearing on a couple of spectacularly marked uprights and even from here she knew where he must be lying. The piece of planking on top of him was unexpectedly large, however, and for the first time it occurred to her that he might in fact be seriously injured, perhaps even dead.

  The thought threatened to incapacitate her and so she thrust it fiercely away, filling her mind instead with plans for the removal of the wood. But it was difficult to see what they could do from their current position. They needed rope and preferably some muscles up there beside the cameraman. Where was that bloody lieutenant? She stretched out her leg like a ballet dancer and stepped down beyond the edge of the planking onto the jumble of struts beneath it. She tested the first strut gingerly and it held her weight. As slowly as an actor performing an improvisation exercise, she detached herself from the makeshift ladder and began to work her way from one strut to the next round the edge. Ann saw what she was doing and began to reflect the move on the far side.

  They were crouching side by side at the outer edge of the platform on either side of the jumble of struts with Robin gently searching for a pulse on Richard’s cold wrist bes
ide the Rolex’s steel strap when the lieutenant returned. ‘I say!’ he called in genuine surprise and shock. ‘What are you ladies doing down there? It’s extremely dangerous, you know!’

  Robin really didn’t have the patience for this. ‘Have you brought some help and some rope?’ she snapped.

  ‘Well, yes, but —’

  ‘I want the end of a strong piece down here at once. Clear?’

  ‘Well, certainly, but —’

  ‘Now, Lieutenant! Jump to it!’

  ‘Sergeant McAdam!’ called the lieutenant, and he handed over to the NCO with every evidence of relief.

  McAdam squatted on the edge of the wooden platform. He was a square, solid man who wore an air of worldly-wise cynicism as inevitably as he wore his regulation straight beret. Robin recognised the type at once and relief swept over her. ‘What do you have in mind, ma’am?’ asked the sergeant.

  ‘Look, Sergeant, I’m a ship’s captain. I haven’t the papers on me at the moment but I do assure you I know what I am doing. Get me some rope down here. I want to tie these struts together so you can raise them a little. They cross at this point and I’m sure they make a rough “A” frame under the wood. Lift the top of the “A” and the whole lot should come up.’

  The sergeant watched her calculatingly for an instant and then he gave a minuscule nod. Just as she had recognised a rock-solid NCO, so — by some near miracle, given the state of her appearance — he had recognised an utterly competent officer. ‘Aye, Captain. I think we can manage that for you. Corporal! Over here ...’

  The rope came down a moment later and Robin’s strong, capable hands lashed the heavy woven polyester cable into a safe, tight knot. ‘Move back,’ she advised Ann Cable quietly. Then, ‘Lift, please, Sergeant,’ she called.

  The rope seemed to stretch under the strain and then the struts stirred. There was a tearing wrench and then a kind of grating roar as the great square of planking began to lift. As soon as there was room, Robin wriggled forward and underneath. It was dark, but there was no need for her to see anything at first as she followed the muscular line of Richard’s arm until she felt the barrel of his chest and — tears flooded her eyes most unexpectedly — she felt the ribs rise convulsively as her beloved husband breathed.

  Light and Ann Cable followed her in almost at once and the women were soon able to make out the figures of both the men lying side by side, their bodies all but lost among the jumble of metal struts. ‘Richard’s breathing,’ called Robin. ‘Can you check Jeffrey?’

  ‘There’s no pulse here,’ the American whispered after a moment. There was a brief silence, then, ‘No. I’m sorry. This guy’s dead and gone.’

  As Ann spoke, the “A” frame came upright above them and the great square of wood fell back with an incredible roar to sit firmly against the ladder of struts the women had climbed down.

  The dull Ulster daylight revealed the pile of jumbled metal lying across the late Secretary’s flattened torso and the twisted wreckage of Richard Mariner’s legs.

  Robin’s cry of agonised distress echoed among the screams of the panicked sea gulls, across the grey reaches of Belfast Lough where the sister ships Atropos and Clotho rode side by side on the sullen swell. The blank stare of their shattered bridge windows gave clear testimony to the blast damage from the terrorist bomb. The structural damage done to one set of bows was far less easy to detect.

  CHAPTER THREE - Day One

  Wednesday, 19 May 16:00

  The A595 trunk road running down from the reprocessing plant at Sellafield to the new dock at Seascale nearby on the coast was full of chanting people. The hard core of protesters who had been around the nuclear facility for the last few weeks had been supplemented by more brought out by the bright spring weather. Had Richard not been driving the big Range Rover Discovery, they would never have got through. Even so, he had to keep in the lowest forward gear and ease through the tight-packed bodies with a gentle insistence. His face was familiar to the crowd but few of them could actually have put a name to it, even though it was a scant three months since it had been in all the newspapers and on television screens across the country, twisted with agony and anger.

  It was lined with discomfort now — the effort of keeping the big green vehicle moving at such a sluggish pace was playing havoc with his slowly-mending knee joints. His face was also lined with unaccustomed frustration: the interview with the shipping manager at the British Nuclear Fuels plant had not been at all satisfactory. With the constant demonstrations going on outside Sellafield and around the dock, the shipping in of waste for reprocessing had been slowed to a trickle. There had been no chance of meeting the date for delivery of Clotho’s first cargo for some time and now they had reluctantly agreed that she would have to sail unladen: she was expected in Sept Isles soon. Atropos would be setting out on her reciprocal course from Canada later that day. The whole system would only function properly if the ships worked to the agreed schedules, whether they sailed with a cargo or not. Heritage Mariner were reluctant to keep footing the bills to have a brand new ship sitting idly off the Cumbrian coast, even manned with the smallest of harbour watches and a very necessary security team, and British Nuclear Fuels as part charterer for the voyage were not happy to pay full rates for an unladen crossing. But the death of Dan Williams had thrown the Canadian side of the deal into confusion too: the people in Sept Isles insisted that all they could do under the circumstances was stick to the agreed schedules and wait to see what happened. They had all come to an agreement, therefore, each reluctantly making the best of a bad job.

  On the other hand, thought Richard grimly, if many more such bargains had to be struck, then the sister ships would drag Heritage Mariner into the bankruptcy courts. But it was unfair to blame the ships for the actions of a nameless group of terrorists and a few thousand protesters. His hand jerked towards the horn yet again, only to slam painfully against the steering wheel’s rim as he overcame the automatic gesture. The people in front of them knew well enough that the Range Rover was there. Blasting the horn at them would only sour the boisterous good nature of the demonstration and with Robin beside him and the twins behind, Richard didn’t want to risk that. It wasn’t much further now.

  ‘You’d think they’d realise,’ said Robin, bitterly.

  Richard shrugged stoically. ‘There’s nothing we can do, so there’s no point in getting upset.’

  ‘But I mean to say, the proper, careful shipping and handling of the stuff is the only way forward. If they stop Clotho from sailing fully laden and disposing of the waste properly, they’re only making certain some cowboy outfit like Disposoco dump it in the sea or on some deserted Third World beach. It’s criminally shortsighted!’ Her voice rose with simple rage and he was tempted to take her in his arms — to look across towards her at the very least —but he could not do so without running the risk of killing someone in the road ahead. His heart was wrenched by the imminence of their separation and his inability to comfort her. It was so sad, he thought. The dazzling girl he had loved so much for so long seemed to have gone away for a while. The new Robin seemed to be so much less confident and cheerful. Her overpowering enthusiasm and lust for life were diminished, almost exhausted. She had started to look upon the dark side automatically, always expecting the worst, as though simply waiting for the next blow thrown at them by a bitter Fate.

  He glanced across at her, brooding silently beside him, then away right as he swung off the A595 and into the little B5344 leading down to the coast. The cottages of Gosforth village where the two roads joined had never seen so many people in the centuries of their existence, he mused. Then his mind turned back to his own concerns. They had been so lucky, he thought. He had been more than lucky to survive the loss of the Napoli with little more damage than a ruptured eardrum and a bad case of the bends. He spread his right hand and looked at his shortened middle finger, the top of it lost in the Gulf War. He had been lucky to live through that war, even though he had watched most
of it from the sidelines. Behind him, the twins were doing their best to imitate the chant of the people outside. They were lucky to have the twins. So lucky still to have the children and each other after the bomb in Belfast. Their good fortune seemed incredible to him. But at the moment Robin seemed incapable of seeing it. All the blessings Richard could think of seemed to be the opposite to her. They had talked it all through often enough for him to know her thinking perfectly well.

  Why had he got involved with Napoli at all? Why was he still involved with those sharks who had owned her? Why had he got involved in the Gulf War? It had damaged him far beyond anything she could bear. How could the twins be such a blessing (she asked this only in her darkest moods) when they had almost cost too much? How could he look at his survival in the Harland and Wolff shipyards as such a miracle when it had cost him two close friends, several respected colleagues and so much pain and grief? How could he love Clotho and Atropos so much when the sister ships stood a very good chance of destroying the great company her father, he and she had worked so hard to establish? And when Clotho was about to pull them apart again just when they needed so badly to stay together?

  Even as he thought of Clotho, the Range Rover breasted a low rise and the bay of the anchorage at Seascale opened out in front of them. The coast here was low and shelved gently out to sea. Further north, the river estuaries were so wide and shallow that the incoming tide could travel across the sands faster than a horse at full gallop and many an unwary traveller had been swept away by the terrifying inward rush. Here the bay had been artificially deepened so that the big ocean-going freighters like Clotho and Atropos could come close to the dock and load directly from the shore.