Strike of the Shark

by Bear Grylls

  Beck gazed blankly down the corridor while he thought about it. Then he realized that he was looking at the door that he had gone through earlier in the day – the one labelled: CREW ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT. It was ajar. He walked slowly towards it and put his head through.

  ‘Hello? Anyone here?’

  Light spilled from the crew mess into the passage, and beyond it he could see that the other cabin doors were also open.

  ‘Hello?’

  The crew mess hadn’t changed, except that the uneaten burgers on the table were gone. He went to the cabin next to it and knocked softly on the door. ‘Anyone?’

  He pushed the door open. The cabin had the same layout as his and Steven’s. The bed was empty, the bedclothes rumpled.

  The next cabin was the same. And the one after that. This was getting weird.

  Beck stopped and thought again.

  There were five cabins that had obviously been used. And there were five crew members, plus Captain Farrell, on board. The captain probably had his own cabin somewhere else, so everyone else should sleep down here. Even if some of the crew were awake to keep the ship running, the rest should have been asleep, preparing to take their watch later.

  So where was everyone? This was like the Mary Celeste. Except that there had been no explosion.

  Part of Beck’s mind told him there was a perfectly logical explanation for all this. He didn’t know much about ships. If he did, maybe it would all make sense.

  Maybe they were all busy working on the problem – gathered together fixing the electronics in the hold. So he should go back to his cabin and try to sleep.

  However, he also knew that there was no way he would sleep until he had worked this out. He had to know.

  If there was anyone around, then surely they had to be on the bridge. The ship was under power – someone had to be steering it. He set off at a quick trot.

  Two minutes later he was staring at a completely empty bridge.

  The screens were dead – the mainframe was still down. Radar and navigation systems were still out. No one was about, but the wheel twitched eerily from time to time as if an invisible helmsman was at the controls. Beck peered at the instrument panel next to it. A switch marked AUTO was lit up. The Sea Cloud was on auto-pilot.

  But where was everyone?

  CHAPTER 15

  There was only one more person Beck could think of to ask, and that was the captain. Assuming he hadn’t vanished with the rest of his crew. Where would Farrell’s cabin be?

  He guessed it would be nearby so that the captain could be called in an emergency. He hurried along the passage, looking at the doors on his left and right, and very soon found the one marked CAPTAIN. He knocked, first quietly, then harder.

  The door suddenly opened, and Farrell was staring down at him. He was wearing an old vest and rumpled sweatpants and had obviously got straight out of bed.

  ‘Beck? What is it?’

  For a moment Beck wanted to hug him – it was so good to hear another human voice. He wasn’t the only person on the ship!

  ‘Everyone’s disappeared and there’s no one on the bridge,’ he said. Then he braced himself. If there was a good explanation for this, something only sailors understood, then now would be the time he learned it. Farrell would chew him out for waking him up in the middle of the night and that would be that.

  But the captain just scratched his head and screwed up his face in puzzlement. ‘What do you mean there’s no one on the bridge? Of course there’s someone.’

  Beck just shook his head. Farrell grabbed a T-shirt and pushed past him, striding back to the bridge. He stopped in the entrance and stared in disbelief at the scene. Then he erupted.

  ‘What in tarnation’s name do they think they’re doing? Under way with no one at the helm? I knew I shouldn’t have agreed to take them on.’ He caught Beck’s questioning look. ‘They were already signed up to the ship when I took over as captain, and the owner persuaded me to keep them . . .. Amateurs! I bet they’re all fast asleep in their cabins—’

  ‘Uh, no,’ Beck corrected him. ‘Their cabins are all empty too. I looked.’

  Farrell’s mouth dropped open, then tightened into an angry line. He hurried to the helmsman’s position and studied the dials by the wheel.

  ‘So who would bother starting the engines if the systems are still out . . .?’ His eyes widened. ‘We’re at full speed!’ He pulled at the throttle. It wouldn’t budge. He tried again, this time with both hands. Beck hurried over to help him, but even with their combined strength the small lever wouldn’t move.

  ‘OK . . .’ Farrell was breathing heavily. ‘You stay up here. I’m going to go down and shut off the engines manually. We can’t run blind at top speed – it’s suicide. Once we’ve stopped, we should be near enough to the main shipping lanes that we can fire off flares to signal for help. I need to fix our position, if I can . . .’

  Beck peered out of the window and up at the stars. ‘We’re heading due east,’ he said, ‘if that helps.’

  Farrell looked doubtful. ‘We can’t be. Once we got past the Bahamas we were heading northeast.’

  ‘See for yourself,’ Beck invited.

  The captain looked out of the window, as Beck had just done. Beck assumed that as a sailor he too knew how to find his way by the stars.

  Beck had looked for the Plough – the giant saucepan shape of stars in the sky. You found the two stars at the end and joined them with an imaginary line. Then you extended that line upwards, right to the top of the sky. The next star you came to was Polaris, also called the North Star. It got that name because it was always in the north. All the stars in the sky would revolve around it but the North Star never moved. Wherever it was, that way was north.

  At the moment it was square on the Sea Cloud’s port – the left – side. If that way was north, then the ship had to be heading due east.

  ‘Right,’ said Farrell after a moment. ‘Right.’

  Beck tried to put himself in the captain’s shoes. His crew had vanished and his ship was heading at full speed on completely the wrong course into the middle of the Atlantic. Beck could see that Farrell was about to explode with anger and frustration and, yes, fear for their safety. That ‘Right’ conveyed everything he was feeling in one explosive syllable.

  Farrell turned towards the door. ‘I still need to get to the engines. You find the emergency locker, get the flares—’

  Beck felt more than heard the explosion. It was a muffled crump that shook the ship. Half a second later the vessel lurched as if it had just hit something or run into a massive wave. Farrell was catapulted into him, and they fell to the deck together in a tangle. Beck felt as if all the air had been knocked out of his lungs. The captain slowly picked himself up, dazed and shaking his head. Beck lay there and gasped for breath once, twice, until he felt oxygen flowing back into him.

  Farrell took a step towards Beck, leaning down to help him up, and almost fell again. Beck pushed himself into a sitting position. He was leaning over to one side. When he tried to straighten up, he found that he was still leaning.

  The whole deck was tilted. The ship’s frame shuddered, and from somewhere in its depths came a long, slow metallic groan.

  Farrell grabbed his hand and yanked him to his feet. ‘We’re sinking.’

  CHAPTER 16

  The ship lurched again. Farrell clutched at the wheel to hold himself steady.

  ‘Engines have stopped,’ he said between breaths, looking at the dials. ‘Water must have reached them.’ His face was ashen.

  Beck’s mind raced with what they needed to do. Find Abby, James, Steven, get them all to safety . . .

  ‘We were going at full speed, Beck. With a hole in the hull, water coming through would tear us apart.

  ‘It buys us a little time,’ Farrell added, ‘but not much. If the engine room is flooded already, it’s worse than I thought. And it means the watertight doors aren’t working.’

  As Beck was about to w
onder out loud what had happened, another long, rattling groan echoed through the ship, and his heart pounded as he felt the deck tilt beneath him again.

  Farrell opened a flap in the main instrument panel and smashed his fist down on the red button beneath it. Beck winced as a shrill, whooping alarm sounded all over the ship.

  ‘Just in case there’s anyone on board who’s in any doubt,’ the captain said grimly. ‘We’re abandoning ship. That’ll get everyone to the boats, wherever they’re hiding. Open that locker over there, get the flares.’

  He jerked a thumb at the locker at the rear of the bridge. Beck hurried over, staggering against the tilt of the deck, and pulled open the doors. There was a space inside that was clearly marked FLARES.

  It was empty.

  Meanwhile Farrell had sat down at the communications console, pulling the headphones on.

  ‘Mayday, mayday, mayday, this is . . . Hello?’ He turned a dial and started again. ‘It’s still out!’ He must have assumed that since the ship was running again, the electronics were back up.

  ‘The flares have gone,’ Beck reported.

  He and Farrell looked at each other and Beck knew they were coming to the same conclusion.

  The failure of the mainframe could have been a simple fault. The disappearance of the crew could have been because they were just busy elsewhere. The explosion could have been an accident. But flares don’t go missing on their own. Add it all together and it was very, very hard to believe that it was all coincidence.

  This was sabotage. Someone wanted the ship to sink without any rescue coming.

  ‘Get to the boats,’ Farrell said curtly. ‘You wait there while I try and find the others – if they haven’t reached them already. Go to the port side. At this angle we’ll never launch the starboard ones.’

  Their feet pounded on the stairs that took them down to the main deck. The whooping alarm continued to pierce Beck’s eardrums. The ship’s lights made the deck as clear as day, but they swamped the light of the stars and the moon so that the night beyond was just a black void. Beck had the horrible sensation that the ship was slowly being consumed by darkness.

  It was a countdown until it slipped away altogether.

  The deck was getting harder to walk on, and they had to sidle their way towards the stern. Beck peered over the rail and swallowed when he saw how close the sea was getting. He had wondered about going back to his cabin to get his stuff. Seeing the sea so close put that idea firmly out of his head. A wave broke against the side of the ship and washed against his feet.

  Every cell in Beck’s body was screaming at him to get off this sinking ship. This wasn’t his usual environment. His survival skills couldn’t help him if four thousand tons of ship decided to sink with him still on board. But still, he didn’t want to leave if he could still be useful. He could help look for the others. He could save lives. And he wanted – he badly wanted – to spoil the game of whoever had set this up in the first place.

  A door ahead was hanging open, partly blocking the deck. As they dodged round it, out of the corner of his eye Beck glimpsed something inside, and skidded to a halt.

  ‘Beck, come on!’

  ‘No! Here!’ Beck ducked inside the door and Farrell had to follow him. He was drawing breath to speak when he saw what Beck had spotted.

  Steven lay on his front in the corridor. His arms were flung above his head. He was still in his jeans and leather jacket – it didn’t look like he had ever gone to bed. He was out cold . . . or dead.

  CHAPTER 17

  There was a large contusion on Steven’s forehead and his hair was matted with fresh blood. Beck felt it, warm and sticky, under his fingers. He felt for a pulse in Steven’s neck, and breathed a huge sigh of relief. It was weak and slow, but it was there.

  ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘Maybe he fell over when the ship blew?’ Beck said. He remembered his own tumble.

  ‘We’ll hold the enquiry later, son. Come on.’

  Together they hoisted Steven up so that he had an arm over each of their shoulders. Then it was back out onto the listing deck. The slope was so acute that they almost skidded straight over the rail and into the water. As they stumbled towards the stern, the lifeboats came into view. Beck’s heart seemed to stop for a moment when he saw the first set of davits hanging over the rails. They were empty: the lifeboat was gone.

  But the second one was still there. It had already been swung out and lowered to deck level, so that people could step in. And that was exactly what James and Abby were doing.

  James was in the lifeboat, holding his hand out to his mother. He saw them and his face lit up. ‘Hey, Mum! Look!’

  He hopped quickly out of the boat again and came towards them. His eyes went wide when he saw the state Steven was in. ‘What happened?’

  ‘We thought everyone had gone!’ Abby hurried up behind him. ‘That terrible noise woke us up, and the ship was leaning over . . . We just pulled on our clothes and headed for the boats.’ They were dressed as they had been the last time Beck saw them. James was in shorts and T-shirt, Abby in her zebra suit. ‘But the boats had all gone, except this one,’ she shouted.

  ‘Well, help us get Steven in and then we’re all going. Boys, get in,’ Farrell added.

  James and Beck stood in the boat and let the other two pass Steven to them. There were benches at the bow, at the stern and in the middle. The ship was tilted so steeply now that the boat hung some distance away from the deck. Beck had to reach out across the gap to take hold of Steven’s head and shoulders.

  He and James laid Steven out on the deck boards. His breathing was hoarse and ragged. Beck wanted to examine him properly and see how bad that head wound was.

  ‘So you didn’t see anyone else?’ Farrell asked.

  James reached out a hand to help Abby across the gap and into the boat. ‘No. Everywhere was completely deserted.’

  The captain clambered up the tilting deck of the ship to the controls that Beck had seen earlier. The crane mechanism coughed into life and the boat was lowered down towards the sea. He hurried back and jumped in before it had gone too far.

  The lights of the Sea Cloud flickered and went out, and the crane stopped.

  Farrell cursed. ‘The power’s gone!’

  The ship lurched one more time. Another of its groans squeezed its way up from the depths, and this time Beck felt and heard something more. Sounds like large eruptions, muffled booms, came from below the water. Foam and bubbles broke the surface all around them. The waves had now reached the level of the deck, and kept going.

  The Sea Cloud was going down, and they were still attached to it.

  Farrell shouted, ‘Beck! Get to the front rope! You see that handle?’

  Beck clambered over to the bow, where the rope from the crane above was attached to a metal ring; by the ring there was a red plastic handle. ‘Got it.’

  Farrell was at the back of the boat, his hand on the second handle. ‘It’s the emergency release. James, Miss Blake, brace yourselves. Beck, count of three. One, two, three . . .’

  He and Beck pulled their handles at the same time and the boat came free of the ropes. It dropped a metre and hit the seething water with a splash and a thud.

  ‘Beck! Oars!’

  They both scrambled towards the middle seat. James passed an oar to Beck, and he manoeuvred it into the rowlock on his side. He gripped the oar with both hands, dug the blade into the water and heaved. On the other side, Farrell did the same. The boat was heavier than anything Beck had rowed before. For a moment dipping the oar into the water and pulling on it was like tugging at something stuck in concrete. But then the oars bit, and little by little the boat responded to the pull and began to move away from the ship.

  Abby suddenly pulled herself to her feet. ‘My bag! My bag’s still on board! We have to get it!’

  And then Beck remembered. He gasped, and clutched at his throat. It felt bare. His fire steel. It was still in his cabin! The one compa
nion that had been all around the world with him was going to end up at the bottom of the sea.

  ‘There’s no time, Mum!’ James shouted.

  Abby still looked as if she was about to jump back onto the sinking vessel, though it was already much too far away. But Beck knew that James was right. What was important was to get away from the ship.

  He had no choice – he had to keep rowing with the captain. Slowly the distance between boat and ship increased.

  ‘OK,’ Farrell croaked after a minute. ‘That’ll do.’

  They rested on their oars, and looked back.

  Now that the lights were gone, the night no longer seemed so dark. Beck could see the stars. It was the ship that was black now – a silhouette on the moonlit waves. Beck watched with awe as four thousand tons of steel rolled, with massive groans and gurgles, until it was completely upside down. It was the height of a five-storey building and as long as the street where he lived, but totally at the mercy of the forces of nature. He had never felt so small and insignificant.

  There goes your handbag, Beck thought silently. And my fire steel.

  For some reason that upset him even more than being shipwrecked.

  The sea continued to seethe and surge around the upside-down hull until the Sea Cloud was completely hidden by clouds of bubbles.

  After a minute they died away, and the ship was gone.

  CHAPTER 18

  For a moment there was just silence in the boat – four people too stunned by what had just happened to say anything. There was enough moonlight to make out people’s features. Beck looked from face to face.

  He expected the captain to take the lead and say something, but Farrell just sat there, gazing into the night. His jaw hung slack and his eyes stared at nothing. He had lost a ship once before. How must it feel to have it happen twice? And to know that this time it was no accident, but sabotage . . .

  James sat hugging his knees and rocking back and forth. There was very little sign of his extra year of age. If anything, he suddenly looked a whole lot younger than Beck.