Strike of the Shark

by Bear Grylls

  Some might call that superstitious. Beck didn’t, because it worked. He was still alive. But he wondered if that was what Steven meant.

  ‘Why . . .?’

  ‘Well, what do you know about the Bermuda Triangle?’

  Beck supposed he knew what everyone else did. Bermuda was about a thousand kilometres northeast of Florida; a thousand kilometres south of that was Puerto Rico. The Bermuda Triangle was the area between those three places. It was a zone where ships and aircraft were said to have disappeared in mysterious circumstances.

  He had heard all kinds of explanations: aliens, gravitational anomalies, black holes, Atlantis. Beck didn’t know what he believed about the disappearances. But he was pretty sure it wasn’t any of those that had caused them.

  ‘I’ve heard of it,’ he said cautiously.

  Steven’s face grew grave and he leaned closer. He dropped his voice as if he was sharing a great secret.

  ‘Well, I should warn you that we’ll be sailing right into the middle of it.’

  CHAPTER 7

  For a moment none of them spoke. And then Beck said, very distinctly: ‘Ha, ha.’

  He could recognize a wind-up when he heard it.

  Steven burst out laughing. The serious mood he had been trying to produce burst like a bubble.

  The captain patted Beck on the shoulder. ‘Smart guy, Beck. You’re not stupid.’ He gave Steven a sideways look that suggested the Bermuda Triangle joke wasn’t as funny as the Englishman thought it was.

  Beck wasn’t sure what to make of Steven trying to take him in with legends of the Bermuda Triangle. But there was something more serious on his mind – a question about the sea that he wanted an answer to.

  ‘I was wondering – isn’t it the hurricane season? Is this the best time to go sailing out into the Atlantic?’

  Farrell looked impressed. He clearly thought it was a good question.

  ‘Son, I know all about the dangers of storms at sea. I lost my last ship in a typhoon and there is no way I would play fast and loose with a ship’s safety. Not for one second.’ His voice was suddenly solemn, and this time it wasn’t a wind-up. For a moment he looked like he was talking about a close relative who had died. The loss of his ship must have been a blow. ‘But I can assure you, Beck, we have the most modern, up-to-date weather tracking systems on board. The thing about hurricanes is that you can see them coming, and we can move out of the way quickly before any storm hits us. In fact it’s quite normal for travel itineraries to be changed at the last minute to accommodate storms.’

  He fell silent for a couple of moments, obviously still thinking about his lost ship. Beck and Steven weren’t quite sure what to say. Then Farrell pulled himself out of his reverie with a visible effort, and gave them his professional captain’s smile again.

  ‘I should be on the bridge. I’ll leave you to make yourselves comfortable.’

  ‘No mini-bar,’ Steven said. He pulled open the cupboard beneath the bunk. ‘No trouser press.’ He injected a little wobble into his voice to make it sound like this was just one step short of the worst thing ever. ‘Beck, this is squalor.’

  Beck looked around the cabin, which didn’t take long. He guessed it was very different to the ones that first-class paying passengers would get. If he held out both arms, his fingertips just brushed the walls on either side. There was a single bunk, and a chair, and a fold-down table. One corner was taken up with an en suite bathroom that basically held a shower cubicle. The cabin was on the starboard – or right – side of the ship, so the porthole looked out over the docks. It wasn’t exactly a stirring seascape.

  Beck thought he was getting the hang of how Steven’s mind worked. He could tell his friend really didn’t think much of the accommodation, but was trying not to show it: he was hamming it up to make it sound like it was worse than it was.

  ‘I dunno,’ he mused. ‘I slept in an orang-utan nest once. This is pretty swish.’

  Steven laughed. ‘OK, OK. Look, I need to find Abby to touch base. Can you look after yourself?’ He paused as Beck was drawing breath to answer. ‘No, forget I said that – stupid question!’

  And then Beck was on his own.

  He had a whole ship to explore, and it was mostly empty. There were at least two decks below him – places where passengers would never go but where all the ship’s secrets would be. The engines, the power room, the electrics – the hidden heart of the vessel. Exploring all that would be cool.

  And so he set off. There were little maps of the decks at every corridor junction to guide him. They showed all the stairways going between decks, and it was easy to find the nearest one. It was just towards the stern. He set off to find it.

  Very soon his way was blocked by a door across the passage. It was marked: CREW ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT. Well, Beck reckoned, he was crew . . . sort of. And so he stepped through.

  On the other side everything was just plain shabby. No effort had been made to smarten it up. Paint peeled off metal walls and it was lit by bare light bulbs. Beck passed an open metal door with a sign above it: CREW MESS. He peered in. It looked like a sparsely furnished lounge. On the table, a number of polystyrene cartons with half-eaten burgers showed that the crew of six was around somewhere. Beck supposed they were all busy getting the ship ready for departure.

  He looked further down the passage. The doors on either side were all firmly shut and he didn’t want to poke his head into any private rooms. He kept going past them and soon found what he was after – the top of the stairs that led down to the next deck and the engines. It was sealed off by a heavy metal door labelled: AUTHORIZED PERSONS ONLY. Beck could convince himself that he was crew, but he couldn’t quite come up with a reason for being authorized. There was nobody about, so he thought he would give it a go anyway, and tugged at the handle.

  ‘Hey! Kid! Out of it!’

  CHAPTER 8

  The voice behind Beck made him jump. A crewman was striding down the passage. This one was the opposite of Captain Farrell. Farrell was clean shaven and smart in his white uniform. This guy had two days of stubble and wore a grimy set of engineer’s overalls. He came up and thumped a hand against the sign on the door.

  ‘Can’t you read?’ He had an accent Beck couldn’t place. He must have learned English from someone with an American accent.

  ‘I thought—’ Beck began. He’d meant to make a joke of it. He was going to add, ‘I am authorized – I’m crew too!’ but the man interrupted.

  ‘Yeah? Think harder, kid.’

  The man pulled open the door. Beck caught a brief glimpse of a metal ladder leading down. He made one last try at conversation and found he couldn’t think of anything to say.

  ‘So, um, everything ready?’ he managed.

  ‘We sail when we sail. And don’t let me find you down here again. This deck is off limits.’ The man pulled the door closed behind him.

  Beck pulled a face. Charming. OK, maybe the guy was a bit stressed at having to run the ship on a skeleton crew. And he wouldn’t want a gawking teenager hanging around, any more than Beck enjoyed having ignorant tourists with him in the wild.

  So, he wouldn’t be exploring the ship’s hidden depths. He looked back the way he had come. Suddenly the ship was a lot less interesting. Out in the wild, you never knew what was round the next corner. Here, thanks to those little maps, he knew exactly what there was. He remembered his first thought when Steven described the cruise to him, back in his dressing room at the TV studios. Ships were artificial. They weren’t natural things.

  He took another look at the nearest map. It didn’t just show the ladders. Up on B-deck – which was to say, the main deck, where the lifeboats were – he was interested to see a couple of large squares labelled CINEMA and SWIMMING POOL. That would be worth exploring. He could maybe do a few lengths, see if the cinema was showing anything – for the crew, even if there weren’t any guests yet. There was also DINING ROOM (always worth knowing) and LECTURE HALL.

  That last
bit reminded him why he was here – to talk to people about survival. OK, maybe he should start acting like a survivor. What should a good survivor do? Well, first, before he even needed to start surviving, he should explore his environment so that if disaster struck, he knew what he was doing.

  On a ship, any kind of trouble means you head for the lifeboats. Beck remembered hearing that one reason so many passengers died on the Titanic – apart from the fact that there weren’t enough lifeboats for everyone – was that the third-class passengers, deep down inside the ship, had got lost trying to make their way up to the boat deck. There was no danger of that here. On the maps, coloured arrows came up from every deck to guide people to the lifeboats at the stern. There were also coloured squares showing the locations of the lifejackets. Beck decided to test the system by deliberately going for a complicated route.

  Al liked to say, ‘There’s no protection against stupidity.’ It didn’t matter how clearly labelled the maps were – in a crowd, especially when people were frightened and close to panic, there would always be some who got it wrong. They would turn left when they should turn right, or go back to their cabins for something they didn’t need. And so whenever the map told Beck to go one way, he went the other.

  It made no difference. Whatever he thought of the state of the ship, the safety system was up to date. Every time he went the wrong way, he still found another map at the next corner, showing him the right route to take. Eventually he decided that even the thickest tourist on the planet would understand the system.

  He let the maps guide him up to B-deck, where he emerged in a kind of lobby. He was halfway down a dingy corridor lit by panels in the ceiling – though towards the bow, one of them was flickering like it was about to die. He looked towards the stern. Some of the panels there didn’t work at all. And underfoot, that same hideous, grubby carpet. Someone somewhere really did have a funny idea of what ‘luxury’ meant.

  On either side of the lobby, port and starboard, a pair of glass doors led outside. One of the panes on the starboard doors was cracked. Beck rolled his eyes at one more example of the ship’s state, and pushed it open.

  Whoomph. He had forgotten just how humid and hot it was outside. The moment he left the ship’s air-conditioned interior Beck felt like the whole of Florida had just slapped him in the face. He ducked back inside the lobby and crossed to the doors on the port side. He went outside again, but this time at least there was shade. The ship’s superstructure cast a shadow he could walk in. That was another rule for survival that he would mention in his talks – try and stay in the shade. It keeps you cool, you don’t sweat as much and you don’t waste energy.

  Once he was outside on the main deck, finding the lifeboats was easy. He remembered them hanging at the stern, so he wandered down. They hung in pairs above the deck from heavy steel davits, two on either side of the vessel, each about five metres long. They had sturdy fibreglass hulls, and canvas covers had been fastened over them to keep the weather out. Loops of rope hung along the sides for floating survivors to cling to. He reached up to touch the keel of the nearest lifeboat. White paint flaked off on his fingertips. He pulled a face and dusted his fingers off on his trousers.

  The controls for the davits were in a sealed box that was welded to the deck rail. It had a clear plastic cover. Operating the controls would be a crew member’s job, but Beck was still in survival mode and thought he should know how to do it himself. He squinted through the plastic and found that the controls were labelled with self-explanatory diagrams. It was easy to work out the sequence that would make the davits swing out over the sea, then lower the boat to deck level so that people could get in, and then the rest of the way down to the water.

  Beck decided to leave it there – he wasn’t actually going to launch a lifeboat just to break the boredom. Tempting though it was . . .

  CHAPTER 9

  Beck walked on, all the way to the very stern of the ship, and peered over the rail. Once the ship was moving, the water down there would be churned up and foaming, but now it was still and oily. He turned back and noticed a staircase that led up to the very top deck – the open sun deck, where the passengers could lounge and sunbathe. He was about to head up when a familiar voice broke into his thoughts. The voice was raised and irritated.

  Beck peered round the corner of the superstructure to look down the starboard side of the ship. Steven was in heated conversation with another crew member. This one looked a little more senior than the engineer Beck had met. He was dressed like Captain Farrell but with only a single gold stripe on each shoulder.

  ‘But if I’m head of entertainment, I need to get a proper idea of all the facilities on board!’ Steven exclaimed. ‘The sound system . . . the layout – it’s ridiculous to keep all the areas locked!’

  ‘And I’m telling you, sir, it’s orders.’ This guy’s accent was pure New York. ‘We open the ship up when the passengers come aboard. Not before.’

  ‘But . . .’ Steven waved his hands helplessly. Beck had walked in on a conversation that was clearly going around in circles.

  ‘Sir, if you want to argue, take it up with Miss Blake.’ The man touched his cap in an ironic salute and disappeared inside the ship, leaving a fuming Steven behind.

  Steven noticed Beck lurking. ‘Can you believe it?’ he burst out. ‘They won’t even let me do my job! I need to get an idea . . .’ He trailed off and the usual self-mocking smile came back. ‘I know, you heard me say it, right? But honestly! What is going on? I’d ask Abby, if she’d only answer her wretched phone . . . You haven’t seen her, have you?’

  ‘Afraid not.’ Beck jerked his head at the stairs. ‘I was about to go up to the top deck, though.’

  ‘Oh. I haven’t looked up there.’ Steven squinted. ‘Probably because if I was in her place I wouldn’t be on the sun deck, I’d be getting the ship organized . . . Come on, let’s try. So, what do you think of the Titanic – I mean, the Sea Cloud – so far?’

  ‘It’s not what I was expecting,’ Beck confessed.

  Steven cocked an eyebrow at him. ‘Oh?’

  And so Beck gave him a potted account of his impressions as they climbed the stairs. From the way Steven just nodded, and occasionally muttered, ‘Uh-huh,’ Beck took it that he agreed.

  And then they reached the sun deck and, sure enough, there was Abby Blake. At least, Beck assumed it was her. He couldn’t imagine any of the crew he had met so far lounging in a deck chair, wearing a bikini and reading a glossy magazine. She also wore a pair of dark glasses and a wide hat that shaded most of her face.

  In a deck chair next to her, a teenage boy sat staring intensely at the screen of a game. He was skinny and blond, and wore a T-shirt and brightly coloured Bermuda shorts. He glanced up at Beck and Steven, and flashed them a shy smile. He gave the woman a nudge. ‘Hey, Mum.’

  The woman lowered her magazine and a big smile appeared on her face beneath the dark glasses. ‘Steven! Darling! How lovely to see you again. And you must be the famous Beck Granger. How wonderful!’

  ‘Abby, this is absurd.’ Steven launched straight into his list of complaints. ‘They won’t let me—’

  ‘Darling, Steven, I know, I heard it all. Your voice does carry when you get agitated.’ Abby flashed him another brilliant smile, then put down her magazine and stood up. ‘It’s all right, really. I told the crew to keep everything closed up while we do some last-minute decorating and cleaning. And, Beck, I did hear what you were saying about the state of the ship and I entirely agree. It does need sprucing up. I promise you, Steven, we’ve got several days before we reach Bermuda – they’ll be able to do everything while we’re under way. You’ll just have to be patient in the meantime.’

  Steven looked like he was still fuming, but he was doing it silently now.

  ‘If you’re keeping it all closed up, how are you going to get it decorated and cleaned?’ Beck asked.

  Abby laughed. ‘Oh, so many questions! James, sweetheart, stand up and say hello t
o Beck.’

  The boy looked up from his game again, rolled his eyes, and stood up to shake hands. He was a little taller than Beck, a bit broader across the shoulders. Beck guessed he was probably in the school year above him.

  ‘Hi, Beck.’ He had the long-suffering smile of a teenager putting up with his mother.

  ‘Hi.’ Beck pointed at the game. It seemed a good way to find something they had in common. ‘What have you got there?’

  James opened his mouth to answer; Abby cut right in.

  ‘Oh, never mind that silly game. Beck, dear, you’ll never guess what I was reading.’

  And she handed Beck her magazine.

  He took it, slightly puzzled, and then his eyes fell on the cover. He groaned deep inside.

  ‘Oh . . .’

  CHAPTER 10

  ‘So, uh, when was that photo taken?’ James asked Beck.

  The two of them were at the bow, gazing down at the water that foamed as the Sea Cloud cut through it. Miami was half an hour behind them and they were heading out to sea, towards Bermuda.

  The front cover of Abby’s magazine had shown Beck, clad in warm arctic survival gear, standing on a glacier. The headline was: BOY ADVENTURER!

  ‘In a studio in London,’ Beck confessed. ‘I’m standing on fake snow and the glacier’s just a big photo in the background.’

  It had been a photoshoot for the makers of the clothes. It had earned a nice little sum for the ever-growing savings account.

  ‘Right.’ James laughed. ‘Mum’s a big fan of yours.’

  ‘Uh-huh?’

  ‘She’s read all about your adventures . . . I have to admit they sound pretty cool.’

  Beck just grunted. His adventures? He hadn’t even meant to get into half of them, and they had showed him the worst side of his fellow human beings. Some of those he had met were smugglers and criminals who cared nothing for other people, or their planet, as long as they grew rich. Most recently, in Australia, he had been betrayed by someone he trusted and he had seen an old friend murdered. Did that sound cool?