by Wilbur Smith
Peter asked me to give you his love. He has got his junior team
colours. I'm so proud. Nicholas thrust his hands deep into his jacket
pockets and slumped down resignedly against the soft leather seat.
I am delighted to hear it, he said.
And they were silent then until the chauffeur checked the Rolls at the
toll barrier to pay before accelerating out on to the ramp of the St
Nazaire bridge. The great span of the bridge rose in a regal curve,
three hundred feet above the waters of the Loire River, The river was
almost three miles wide here, and from the highest point of the bridge
there was an aerial view over the dockyards of the town.
There were half a dozen vessels building along the banks of the broad
muddy river, a mighty forest of steel scaffolding, tall gantries and
half-assembled hulls, but all of it insignificant under the mountainous
bulk of Golden Dawn. Without her pod tanks, she had an incomplete
gutted appearance, as though the Eiffel Tower had toppled over and
somebody had built a modernistic apartment block at one end.
It seemed impossible that such a structure was capable of floating.
God, she was ugly, Nick thought.
They are still working on her/ he said. One of the gantries was moving
ponderously along the length of the ship like an arthritic dinosaur, and
at fifty paces the brilliant blue electric fires of the welding torches
flickered; while upon the grotesquely riven hull crawled human figures
reduced to antlike insignificance by the sheer size of the vessel.
They are still working, he repeated it as an accusation.
Nicholas, nothing in this life is simple Did you spell it out for
Duncan? except for people like you. You didn't confront Duncan, did
you? he accused bitterly, It's easy for you to be strong. It's one of
the things that first attracted me. And Nicholas almost laughed aloud.
It was ludicrous to talk of strength, after his many displays of
weakness with this very woman.
Did you call Duncan's cards? he insisted, but she put him off with a
smile.
Let's wait until we have a glass of wine Now/ he snapped. Tell me right
now. Chantelle, I haven't time for games. Yes, I spoke to him, she
nodded. I called him down to Cap Ferrat, and I accused him - of what
You suspected. He denied it? if he denies it, I now have further proof
No, Nicholas. He didn't deny a thing. He told me that I knew only the
half of it. Her voice rose sharply, and suddenly it all spilled out in
a torrent of tortured words. Her composure was eroded swiftly away as
she relived the enormity of her predicament.
He's gambled with my fortune, Nicholas. He's risked the family share of
Christy Marine, the Trust shares, my shares, it's all at risk. And he
gloated as he told me, he truly gloried in his betrayal. We've got him
now. Nicholas had straightened slowly in his seat as he listened.
His voice was grimly satisfied and he nodded. That's it. We will stop
the Golden Dawn, like that -the hammered his bunched fist into the palm
of the other hand with a sharp crack. We will get an urgent order
before the courts. Nicholas stopped suddenly and stared at her.
Chantelle was shaking her head slowly from side to side. Her eyes
slowly filled, making them huge and glistening, a single tear spilled
over the lid and clung in the thick dark lashes like a drop of morning
dew.
The Rolls had stopped now outside the tiny bistro. It was on the river
front, with a view across the water to the dockyards. To the west the
river debauched into the open sea and in the east the beautiful arch of
the bridge across the pale blue spring sky.
The chauffeur held open the door and Chantelle was gone with her swift
birdlike grace, leaving Nicholas no choice but to follow her.
The proprietor came through from his kitchen and fussed over Chantelle,
seating her at the window and lingering to discuss the menu.
Oh, let's drink the Muscadet, Nicholas. She had always had the most
amazing powers of recovery, and now the tears were gone and she was
brittle and gay and beautiful, smiling at him over the rim of her glass.
The sunlight through the leaded window panes danced in the cool golden
wine and rippled on the smoky dark fall of her hair.
Here's to us, Nicholas darling. We are the last of the great.
It was a toast from long ago, from the other life, and it irritated him
now but he drank it silently and then set down the glass.
Chantelle, when and how are you going to stop Duncan? Don't spoil the
meal, darling. In about thirty seconds I'm going to start becoming very
angry., She studied him for a moment, and saw that it was true.
All right then/ she agreed reluctantly.
When are you going to stop him? I'm not, darling. He stared at her.
What did you say? he asked quietly.
I'm going to do everything in my power to help him launch and sail the
Golden Dawn. You don't understand, Chantelle. You're talking about
risking a million tons of the most deadly poison Don't be silly, Nicky.
Keep that heroic talk for the newspapers. I don't care if Duncan dumps
a million tons of cadmium in the water supply of greater London just as
long as he pulls the Trust and me out of the fire. There is still time
to make the modifications to Golden Dawn.
"No, there isn't. You don't understand, darling. Duncan has put us so
deeply into it that a delay of a few days even would bring us down. He
has stripped the cupboard bare, Nicky. There no money for
modifications, no time for anything, except to get Golden Dawn under
way., There is always a way and a means. Yes, and the way is to fill
Golden Dawn's pod tanks with crude. He's frightened you by Yes/ she
agreed, I am frightened. I have never been so frightened in my life,
Nicky. I could lose everything - I am terrified. I could lose it all.
She shivered with the horror of it. I would kill myself if that
happened. I am still going to stop Duncan. No, Nicky. Please leave
it, for my sake - for Peter's sake, it's Peter's inheritance that we are
talking about. Let Golden Dawn make one voyage, just one voyage and I
will be safe, It's the risk to an ocean, to God alone knows how many
human lives, we are talking about.
Don't shout, Nicky. People are looking. Let them look. I'm going to
stop that monster, No, Nicholas. Without me, you cannot do a thing. You
best believe it. Darling, I promise you, after her first voyage we will
sell Golden Dawn. We'll be safe then, and I can rid myself of Duncan.
It will be you and I again, Nicky. A few short weeks, that's all. It
took all his self-control to prevent his anger showing.
He clenched his fists on the starched white tablecloth, but his voice
was cool and even.
Just one more question, Chantelle. When did you phone Samantha Silver?
She looked puzzled for a moment as though she was trying to put a face
to a name. Samantha, oh, your little friend, Why should I want to
telephone her? And then her expression changed.
"Oh, Nicky, you don't really believe I'd do that? You don't really
believe I would te
ll anybody about it, about that wonderful. - Now she
was stricken, again those huge eyes brimmed and she reached across and
stroked the fine black hairs on the back of Nicholas big square hand.
"You don't think that of me! I'm not that much of a bitch, I don't have
to cheat to get the things I want. I don't have to inflict unnecessary
hurt on people. No/ Nicholas agreed quietly. You'd not murder more
than a million or poison more than a single ocean at a time, would you?
He pushed back his chair.
Sit down, Nicky. Eat your lobster. Suddenly I'm not hungry. He
stripped two one-hundred-franc notes from his money clip and dropped
them beside his plate.
I forbid you to leave/she hissed angrily. You are humiliating me,
Nicholas. I'll send your car back, he said, and walked out into the
sunlight. He found with surprise that he was trembling, and that his
jaws were clenched so tightly that his teeth ached.
The wind turned during the night, and the morning was cold with drifts
of low, grey, fast-flying cloud that threatened rain. Nicholas pulled
up his collar against the wind and the tails of his coat flogged about
his legs, for he was exposed on the highest point of the arched bridge
of St Nazaire.
Thousands of others had braved the wind, and the guardrail was lined two
and three deep, all the way across the curve of the northern span. The
traffic had backed up and half a dozen gendarmes were trying to get it
moving again; their whistles shrilled plaintively. Faintly the sound of
a band floated up to them, rising and falling in volume as the wind
caught it, and even with the naked eye Nicholas could make out the
wreaths of gaily coloured bunting which fluttered on the high cumbersome
stern tower of Golden Dawn, He glanced at his wristwatch, and saw it was
a few minutes before noon. A helicopter clattered noisily under the
grey belly of cloud, and hovered about the yards of Construction Navale
Atlantique on the gleaming silver coin of its rotor.
Nicholas lifted the binoculars and the eyepieces were painfully cold
against his skin. Through the lens, he could almost make out individual
features among the small gathering on the rostrum under the tanker's
stern.
The platform was decorated with a tricolor and a Union Jack, and as he
watched the band fell silent and lowered their instruments.
Speech time, Nicholas murmured, and now he could make out Duncan
Alexander, his bared head catching one of the fleeting rays of sun, a
glimmer of coppery gold as he looked up at the towering stern of Golden
Dawn.
His bulk almost obscured the tiny feminine figure beside him.
Chantelle wore that particular shade of malachite green which she so
dearly loved. There was confused activity around Chantelle, half a
dozen gentlemen assisting in the ceremony she had performed so very
often.
Chantelle had broken the champagne on almost all of Christy Marine's
fleet; the first time had been when she was Arthur Christy's
fourteen-year-old darling - it was another of the company's many
traditions.
Nicholas blinked, believing for an instant that his eyes had tricked
him, for it seemed that the very earth had changed its shape and was
moving.
Then he saw that the great hull of Golden Dawn had begun to slide
forward. The band burst into the Marseillaisel, the heroic strains
watered down by wind and distance, while Golden Dawn gathered momentum.
it was an incredible, even a stirring sight, and despite himself,
Nicholas felt the goose-bumps rise upon his fore-arms and the hair lift
on the back of his neck. He was a sailor, and he was watching the
birthing of the mightiest vessel ever built.
She was grotesque, monstrous, but she was part of him.
No matter that others had bastardized and perverted his grand design -
still the original design was his and he found himself gripping the
binoculars with hands that shook.
He watched the massive wooden-wedged arresters kick out from under that
great sliding mass of steel as they served to control her stern-first
rush down the ways. Steel cable whipped and snaked upon itself like the
Medusa's hair, and Golden Dawn's stern struck the water.
The brown muddy water of the estuary opened before her, cleaved by the
irresistible rush and weight, and the hull drove deep, opening
white-capped rollers that spread out across the channel and broke upon
the shores with a dull roar that carried clearly to where Nicholas
stood.
The crowd that lined the bridge was cheering wildly.
Beside him, a mother held her infant up to watch, both of them screaming
with glee.
While Golden Dawn's bows were still on the dockyard's ways her stern was
thrusting irresistibly a mile out into the river; forced down by the
raised bows it must now be almost touching the muddy bottom for the wave
was breaking around her stern quarters.
God, she was huge! Nicholas shook his head in wonder.
If only he had been able to build her the right way, what a ship she
would have been. What a magnificent concept!
Now her bows left the end of the slips, and the waters burst about her,
seething and leaping into swirling vortices.
Her stern started to rise, gathering speed as her own buoyancy caught
her, and she burst out like a great whale rising to blow. The waters
spilled from her, creaming and cascading through the steelwork of her
open decks, boiling madly in the cavernous openings that would hold the
pod tanks when she was fully loaded.
Now she came up short on the hundreds of retaining cables that prevented
her from driving clear across the river and throw - herself ashore on
the far bank.
She fought against this restraint, as though having felt the water she
was now eager to run. She rolled and dipped and swung with a ponderous
majesty that kept the crowds along the bridge cheering wildly. Then
slowly she settled and floated quietly, seeming to fill the Loire River
from bank to bank and to reach as high as the soaring spans of the
bridge itself.
The four attendant harbour tugs moved in quickly to assist the ship to
turn its prodigious length and to line up for the roads and the open
sea.
They butted and backed, working as a highly skilled team, and slowly
they coaxed Golden Dawn around. Her sideways motion left a mile-wide
sweep of disturbed water across the estuary. Then suddenly there was a
tremendous boil under her counter, and Nicholas saw the bronze flash of
her single screw sweeping slowly through the brown water. Faster and
still faster it turned, and despite himself Nicholas thrilled to see her
come alive. A ripple formed under her bows, and almost imperceptibly
she began to creep forward, overcoming the vast inertia of her weight,
gathering steerage way, under command at last.
The harbour tugs fell back respectfully, and as the mighty bows lined up
with the open sea she drove forward determinedly.
Silver spouts of steam from the sirens of the tugs shot high, and
/>
moments later, the booming bellow of their salute crashed against the
skies.
The crowds had dispersed and Nicholas stood alone in the wind on the
high bridge and watched the structured steel towers of Golden Dawn s
hull blending with the grey and misted horizon. He watched her turn,
coming around on to her great circle course that would carry her six
thousand miles southward to Good Hope, and even at this distance he
sensed her change in mood as she steadied and her single screw began to
push her up to top economic speed.
Nicholas checked his watch and murmured the age-old Master's command
that commenced every voyage.
Full away at 1700 hours, he said, and turned to trudge back along the
bridge to where he had left the hired Renault.
It was after six o'clock and the site was empty by the time Nicholas got
back to Sea Witch. He threw himself into a chair and lit a cheroot
while he thumbed quickly through his address book. He found what he
wanted, dialled the direct London code, and then the number.
Good afternoon. This is the Sunday Times. May I help you? Is Mr.
Herbstein available? Nicholas asked.
Hold on, please. While he waited, Nicholas checked his address book for
his next most likely contact, should the journalist be climbing the
Himalayas or visiting a guerrilla training camp in Central Africa,
either of which were highly likely - but within seconds he heard his
voice.
Denis/he said. This is Nicholas Berg, how are you? I've got a hell of
a story for you. Nicholas tried to bear the indignity of it with
stoicism, but the thick coating of pancake make-up seemed to clog the
pores of his skin and he moved restlessly in the make-up chair.
Please keep still, sir! the make-up girl snapped irritably; there was a
line of unfortunates awaiting her ministrations along the bench at the
back of the narrow room. One of them was Duncan Alexander and he caught
Nicholas eye in the mirror and raised an eyebrow in a mocking salute.
In the chair beside him, the anchorman of The Today and Tomorrow Show
lolled graciously; he was tall and elegant with dyed and permanently
waved hair, a carnation in his button-hole, a high camp manner and an
ostentatiously liberal image.
I've given you the first slot. If it gets interesting, I'll run you
four minutes forty seconds, otherwise I'll cut it off at two.
