by Wilbur Smith
We'll have to shear the cable and stand out to sea. David Allen's voice
was pitched too high and too loud, even for the tumult of the wind and
the storm.
There were men on board Golden Adventurer, Baker and sixteen others,
Nick thought swiftly, and even her twin anchors could not be trusted to
hold in this.
Nick clung to the rail and peered out into the storm.
Frozen spray and sleet and impacted snow drove on the wind, coming in
with the force of buckshot fired at point blank range, cracking into the
armoured glass of the bridge and building up in thick clots and lumps
that defeated the efforts of the spinning clear vision panels.
He looked across a thousand yards and the hull of the liner was just
visible, a denser area in the howling, swirling, white wilderness.
Baker? he asked into the hand microphone. What is your position? The
wind's got her, she's slewing. The starboard anchor is dragging. And
then, while Nick thought swiftly, You'll not be able to take us off in
this. It was a flat statement, an acceptance of the fact that the
destinies of Baker and his sixteen men were inexorably linked to that of
the doomed ship.
No/ Nick agreed. We won't be able to get you off. To approach the
stricken ship was certain disaster for all of them.
Shear the cable and stand off/ Baker advised. We'll try to get ashore
as she breaks up. Then, with a hangman's chuckle, he went on, 'Just
don't forget to come and fetch us when the weather moderates - that is
if there is anybody to fetch., Abruptly Nick's anger came to the surface
through the layers of fatigue, anger at the knowledge that all he had
risked and suffered was now to be in vain, that he was to lose Golden
Adventurer, and probably with her sixteen men, one of whom had become a
friend.
Are you ready to heave on the anchor winches? he asked. We are going
to pull the bitch off. Jesus! said Baker. She's still half flooded We
will have a lash at it, cobber/ said Nick quietly.
The steering-gear is locked, you won't be able to control her. You'll
lose Warlock as well as - but Nicholas cut Baker short.
Listen, you stupid Queensland sheep-shagger, get on to those winches. As
he said it, Golden Adventurer disappeared, her bulk blotted out
completely by the solid, white curtains of the Engine room/ Nick spoke
crisply to the Second Engineer. Disengage the override, and give me
direct control of both power and pitch. Control transferred to bridge,
sir/ the Engineer confirmed, and Nick touched the shining
stainless-steel levers with fingers as sensitive as those of a concert
pianist.
Warlock's response was instantaneous. She pivoted, shrugging aside a
green slithering burst of water which came in over her shoulder and
thundered down the side of her superstructure.
Anchor winches manned. Beauty Baker's tone was almost casual.
Stand by, said Nick, and felt his way through that white inferno. It
was impossible to maintain visual reference, the entire world was white
and swirling, even the surface of the sea was gone in torn streamers of
white; the very pull of gravity, that should have defined even a simple
up or down, was confused by the violent pitch and roll of the deck.
Nick felt his exhausted brain begin to lurch dizzily in the first
attacks of vertigo. Swiftly he switched his attention to the big
compass and the heading indicator.
David/ he said, take the wheel. He wanted somebody swift and bright at
the helm now.
Warlock plunged suddenly, so viciously that Nick's bruised ribs were
brought in brutal contact with the edge of the control console. He
grunted involuntarily with the pain. Warlock was feeling her cable, she
had come up hard.
Starboard ten/ said Nick to David, bringing her bows up into that
hideous wind.
Chief/ he spoke into the microphone, his voice still ragged with the
pain in his chest. Haul starboard winch, full power. Full power
starboard. Nick slid pitch control to fully fine, and then slowly
nudged open the throttles, bringing in twenty-two thousand horse-power.
Held by her tail, driven by the great wind, and tortured by the sea,
lashed by her own enormous propellers, Warlock went berserk. She
corkscrewed and porpoised to her very limits, every frame in her hull
shook with the vibration of all her screws as her propellers burst out
of the surface and spun wildly in the air.
Nick had to clench his jaws as the vibration threatened to crack his
teeth, and when he glanced across at the forward and lateral
speed-indicators, he saw that David Allen's face was icy white and set
like that of a corpse.
Warlock was slewing down on the wind, describing a slow left-hand circle
at the limit of the cable as the engine torque and the wind took her
around.
Starboard twenty/ Nick snapped, correcting the turn, and despite the
rigour of his features, David Allen's response was instantaneous.
Twenty degrees of starboard wheel on, sir!
Nick saw the lateral drift stop on the ground speedindicator, and then
with a wild lurch of elation he saw the forward speed-indicator flicked
into green. Its electronic digital read out, changing swiftly - they
were moving forward at 150 feet a minute.
We are moving her/ Nick cried aloud, and he snatched up the microphone.
Full power both winches. Still full and holding, answered Baker
immediately.
And Nick glanced back at the forward speed across the ground, 150, to 75
feet a minute, Warlock's forward . 3etus slowed, and Nick realized with
a slide of dismay that it was merely the elasticity of the nylon spring
that had given them that reading. The spring was stretching out to its
limit.
For two or three seconds, the dial recorded a zero rate of speed.
Warlock was standing still, the cable drawn out to the full limit of her
strength, then abruptly the dial flicked into vivid red; they were gong
backwards, as the nylon spring exerted pressures beyond that of the twin
diesels and the big bronze screws - Warlock was being dragged back
towards that dreadful shore.
For another five minutes, Nick kept both clenched fists on the control
levers, pressing them with all his strength to the limit of their
travel, sending the great engines shrieking, driving the needles up
around the dials, deep into the red never exceed sectors.
He felt tears of anger and frustration scalding his swollen eyelids, and
the ship shuddered and shook and screamed under him, her torment
transmitted through the soles of his feet and the palms of his hands.
Warlock was held down by cable and power, so she could not rise to meet
the -seas that came out of the whiteness. They tumbled aboard her,
piling up on each other, so she burrowed deeper and more dangerously.
For God's sake, sir/ David Allen was no longer able to contain himself.
His eyes looked huge in his bone-white face. You'll drive her clean
under. Baker/ Nick ignored his Mate, Are you gaining? No recovery
either winch, Beauty told him.
She is not moving. Nick pulled back the
stainless steel levers, the needles sank swiftly back around their
dials, and Warlock reacted gratefully, shaking herself free of the piled
waters.
You'll have to shear the tow. Baker's disembodied voice . was muted by
the clamour of the storm. We'll take our chances, sport. Beside him,
David Allen reached for the red-painted steel box that housed the shear
button. It was protected by the box from accidental usage; David Allen
opened the box and looked expectantly, almost pleadingly at Nick.
Belay that! I Nick snarled at him, and then to Baker, I'm shortening
tow. Be ready to haul again, when I am in position. David Allen stared
at him, his right hand still on the open lid of the red box.
Close that bloody thing/ Nick said, and turned to the main cable
controls. He moved the green lever to reverse, and felt the vibration
in the deck as below him in the main cable room the big drums began to
revolve, drawing the thick ice-encrusted cable up over Warlock's stern.
Fighting every inch of the way like a wild horse on a head halter,
Warlock was drawn in cautiously by her own winches , and the officers
watched in mounting horror as out of the white terror of the blizzard
emerged the mountainous ice-covered bulk of Golden Adventurer.
She was so close that the main cable no longer dipped below the surface
of the sea, but ran directly from the liner's stern to the tug's massive
fairleads on her stern quarter.
Now we can see what we are doing/ Nick told them grimly. He could see
now that much of Warlock's power had been wasted by not exerting a pull
on exactly the same plane as Golden Adventurer's keel. He had been
disoriented in the white-out of the blizzard, and had allowed Warlock to
pull at an angle. It would not happen now.
Chief/ he said. Pull, pull all, pull until she bursts her guts! And
again he slid the throttle handles fully home.
Warlock flung up against the elastic yoke, and Nick saw the water spurt
from the woven fibres and turn instantly to ice crystals as it was
whipped away on the shrieking She's not moving, sir/David cried beside
him.
No recovery either winch/ Baker confirmed almost immediately. 'She's
solid! Too much water still in her! said David, and Nick turned on him
as though to strike him to the deck.
Give me the wheel/he said, his voice cracking with his anger and
frustration.
With both engines boiling the sea to white foam, and roaring like dying
bulls, Nick swung the wheel to full port lock.
Wildly Warlock dug her shoulder in, water pouring on board her as she
rolled, instantly Nick spun the wheel to full starboard lock and she
lurched against the tow, throwing an extra ton of pressure on to it.
Even above the storm, they heard Golden Adventurer groan, the steel of
her hull protesting at the weight of water in her and the intolerable
pressure of the anchor winches and Warlock's tow cable.
The groan became a crackling hiss as the pebble bottom gave and moved
under her.
Christ, she's coming! shrieked Baker, and Nick swung her to full port
lock again, swinging Warlock into a deep trough between waves, then a
solid ridge of steaming water buried her, and Nick was not certain she
could survive that press of furious sea. It came green and slick over
the superstructure and she shuddered wearily, gone slow and unwieldy.
Then she lifted her bows and, like a spaniel, shook herself free,
becoming again quick and light.
Pull, my darling, pull/Nick pleaded with her.
With a slow reluctant rumble, Golden Adventurer's hull began to slide
over the holding, clinging bottom.
Both winches recovering/ Baker howled gleefully, and Warlock's ground
speed-indicator flicked into the green, its little angular figures
changing in twinkling electronic progression as Warlock gathered way.
They all saw Golden Adventurer's stern swinging to meet the next great
ridge of water as it burst around her.
1: She was floating, and for moments Nick was paralysed by the wonder of
seeing that great and beautiful ship come to life again, become a
living, vital sea creature as she took the seas and rose to meet them.
We've done it, Christ, we've done itV howled Baker, but it was too soon
for self-congratulation. As Golden Adventurer came free of the ground
and gathered sternway under Warlock's tow, so her rudder bit and swung
her tall stern across the wind.
She swung, exposing the enormous windage of her starboard side to the
full force of the storm. It was like setting a main -sail, and the wind
took her down swiftly on the rocky headland with its sentinel columns
that guarded the entrance to the bay.
Nick's first instinct was to try and hold her off, to oppose the force
of the wind directly and he flung Warlock into the task, relying on her
great diesels and the two anchors to keep the liner from going ashore
again - but the wind toyed with them, it ripped the anchors out of the
pebble bottom and Warlock was drawn stern first through the water,
straight down on the jagged rock of the headland.
Chief, get those anchors up/ Nick snapped into the microphone. 'They'll
never hold in this. Twenty years earlier, bathing off a lonely beach in
the Seychelles, Nick had been caught out of his depth by one of those
killer currents that flow around the headlands of oceanic islands, and
it had sped him out into the open sea so that within minutes the
silhouette of the land was low and indistinct on his watery horizon. He
had fought that current, swimming directly against it, and it had nearly
killed him. Only in the last stages of exhaustion had he begun to
think, and instead of battling it, he had ridden the current, angling
slowly across it, using its impetus rather than opposing it.
The lesson he had learned that day was well remembered, and as he
watched Baker bring Golden Adventurer's dripping anchors out of the wild
water he was driving Warlock hard, bringing her around on her cable so
the wind was no longer in her teeth, but over her stern quarter.
Now the wind and Warlock's screws were no longer opposed, but Warlock
was pulling two points off the wind, as fine a course as Nick could
judge barely to clear the most seaward of the rocky sentinels; now the
liner's locked rudder was holding her steady into the wind - but
opposing Warlock's attempt to angle her away from the land.
It was a problem of simple vectors of force, that Nick tried to work out
in his head and prove in physical terms, as he delicately judged the
angle of his tow and the direction of the wind, balancing them against
the tremendous leverage of the liner's locked rudder, the rudder which
was dragging her suicidally down upon the land.
Grimly, he stared ahead to where the black rock cliffs were still hidden
in the white nothingness. They were invisible, but their presence was
recorded on the cluttered screen of the radar repeater. With both wind
and engines driving them, their speed was too high, and if Golden
Adventurer wen
t on to the cliffs like this, her hull would shatter like
a water melon hurled against a brick wall.
It was another five minutes before Nick was absolutely certain they
would not make it. They were only two miles off the cliffs now, he
glanced again at the radar screen, and they would have to drag Golden
Adventurer at least half a mile across the wind to clear the land. They
just were not going to make it.
Helplessly, Nick stood and peered into the storm, waiting for the first
glimpse of black rock through the swirling eddies of snow and frozen
spray, and he had never felt more unmanned tired and in his entire life
as he moved to the shear button ready to cut Golden Adventurer loose and
let her go to her doom.
His officers were silent and tense around him, while under his feet
Warlock shuddered and buffeted wildly, driven to her mortal limits by
the sea and her own engines, but still the land sucked at them.
Look! David Allen shouted suddenly, and Nick spun to the urgency in his
voice.
For a moment he did not understand what was happening. He knew only
that the shape of Golden Adventurer's stern was altered subtly.
The rudder/ shouted David Allen again. And Nick saw it revolving slowly
on its stock as the ship lifted on another big sea.
Almost immediately, he felt Warlock making offing from under that lee
shore, and he swung her up another point into the wind, Golden
Adventurer answering her tow with a more docile air, and still the
rudder revolved slowly.
I've got power on the emergency steering gear now! said Baker.
Rudder amidships, Nick ordered.
Amidships it is/Baker repeated, and now he was pulling her out stern
first, almost at right angles across the wind.
Through the white inferno appeared the dim snow-blurred outline of the
rock sentinels, and the sea broke upon them like the thunder of the
heavens.
God, they are close/ whispered David Allen. So close that they could
feel the backlash of the gale as it rebounded from the tall rock walls,
moderating the tremendous force that was bearing them down - moderating
just enough to allow them to slide past the three hungry rocks, and
before them lay three thousand miles of wild and tumultuous water, all
of it open sea room.
We made it. This time we really made it! said Baker, as though he did
not believe it was true, and Nick pulled back the throttle controls
