Wilbur Smith's Smashing Thrillers

by Wilbur Smith

  On the keyboard he typed the function code that would set the machine in navigational mode, co - ordinating the transmissions she was receiving from the circling satellite stations high above the earth. From these were calculated Warlock's exact position over the earth's surface, accurate to within twenty-five yards.

  Nick entered the ship's position and the computer compared this with the plot that Nick had requested four hours previously. It printed out quickly the distance run and the ship's speed made good. Nick frowned angrily and swung round to watch the helmsman.

  In this fiercely running cross sea, a good man could hold Warlock on course more efficiently than any automatic steering device. He could anticipate each trough and crest and prevent the ship paying off across the direction of the swells, and then kicking back violently as she went over, wasting critical time and distance.

  Nick watched the helmsman work, judging each sea as it came aboard, checking the ship's heading on the big repeating compass above the man's head. After ten minutes, Nick realized that there was no wastage; Warlock was making as good a course as was possible in these conditions.

  The engine telegraph was pulled back to her maximum safe power-setting, the course was good and yet Warlock was not delivering those few extra knots of speed that Nick Berg had relied on when he had made the critical decision to race La Mouette for the prize.

  Nick had relied on twenty-eight knots against the Frenchman's eighteen, and he was not getting it. Involuntarily, he glanced out to the west as Warlock came up on the top of the next crest. Through the streaming windows, from which the spinning wipers cleared circular areas of clean glass, Nick looked out across a wilderness of black water, forbidding and cold and devoid of other human presence.

  Abruptly Nick crossed to the RT microphone.

  ‘ Engine Room confirm we are top of the green. ’

  'Top of the green, it is, Skipper. ’

  The Chief's casual tones floated in above the crash of the next sea coming aboard.

  ‘ Top of the green ’ was the maximum safe power-setting recommended by the manufacturers for those gigantic Mirrlees diesels. It was a far higher setting than top economical power, and they were burning fuel at a prodigious rate. Nick was pushing her as high as he could without going into the red, danger area above eighty per cent of full power, which at prolonged running might permanently damage her engines.

  Nick turned away to his seat, and wedged himself into it. He groped for his cheroot case, and then checked himself, the lighter in his hand. His tongue and mouth felt furred over and dry. He had smoked without a break every waking minute since leaving Cape Town, and God knows he had slept little enough since then. He ran his tongue around his mouth with distaste before he returned the cheroot to his case, and crouched in his seat staring ahead, trying to work out why Warlock was running slow.

  Suddenly he straightened and considered a possibility that brought a metallic green gleam of anger into Nick's eyes.

  He slid out of his seat, nodded to the Third Officer who had the deck and ducked through the doorway in the back of the bridge into his day cabin. It was a ploy. He didn't want his visit below decks announced, and from his own suite he darted into the companionway.

  The engine control room was as modern and gleaming as Warlock's navigation bridge. It was completely enclosed with double glass to cut down the thunder of her engines. The control console was banked below the windows, and all the ship's functions were displayed in green and red digital figures.

  The view beyond the windows into the main engine room was impressive, even for Nick who had designed and supervised each foot of the layout.

  The two Mirrlees diesel engines filled the white-painted cavern with only walking space between, each as long as four Cadillac Eldorados parked bumper to bumper and as deep as if another four Cadillacs had been piled on top of them.

  The thirty-six cylinders of each block were crowned with a moving forest of valve stems and con-rod ends, each enormous powerhouse capable of pouring out eleven thousand usable horsepower.

  it was only custom that made it necessary for any visitor, including the Master, to announce his arrival in the engine room to the Chief Engineer. Ignoring custom, Nick slipped quietly through the glass sliding doors, out of the hot burned-oil stench of the engine room into the cooler and sweeter conditioned air of the control room.

  Vin Baker was deep in conversation with one of his electricians, both of them kneeling before the open doors of one of the tall grey steel cabinets which housed a teeming mass of coloured cables and transistor switches. Nick had reached the control console before the Chief Engineer uncoiled his lanky body from the floor and spun round to face him.

  When Nick was very angry, his lips compressed in a single thin white line, the thick dark eyebrows seemed to meet above the snapping green eyes and large slightly beaked nose.

  ‘ You pulled the over-ride on me ,’ he accused in a flat, passionless voice that did not betray his fury. ‘ You're governing her out at seventy per cent of power. ’

  ‘ That's top of the green in my book, ’ Vin Baker told him. ‘ I'm not running my engines at eighty per cent in this sea. She'll shake the guts out of herself. ’ He paused and the stern was flung up violently as Warlock crashed over the top of another sea. The control room shuddered with the vibration of the screws breaking out of the surface, spinning wildly in the air before they could bite again.

  ‘ Listen to her, man. You want me to pour on more of it? ’

  ‘ She's built to take it. ’

  ‘ Nothing's built to run that hard, and live in this sea. ’

  ‘ I want the over-ride out ,’ said Nick flatly, indicating the chrome handle and pointer with which the engineer could cancel the power settings asked for by the bridge. ‘ I don't care when you do it - just as long as it's any time within the next five seconds. ’

  ‘ You get out of my engine room - and go play with your toys. ’

  ‘ All right ,’ Nick nodded, I'll do it myself. And he reached for the over-ride gear.

  ‘ You take your hands off my engines ,’ howled Vin Baker, and picked up the iron locking handle off the deck. ‘ You touch my engines and I'll break your teeth out of your head, you ice-cold Pommy bastard. ’ Even in his own anger, Nick blinked at the epithet, When he thought about the blazing passions and emotions that seethed within him, he nearly laughed aloud. Ice cold, he thought, so that's how he sees me.

  ‘ You stupid Bundaberg-swilling galah ’ he said quietly, as he reached for the over-ride. ‘ I don't really care if I have to kill you first, but we are going to eighty per cent! ’ It was Vin Baker's turn to blink behind his smeared glasses, he had not expected to be insulted in the colloquial. He dropped the heavy steel handle to the deck. It fell with a clang.

  ‘ I don't need it ,’ he announced, and tucked his spectacles into his back pocket and hoisted his trousers with both elbows. ‘ It will be more fun to take you to pieces by hand. ’

  It was only then that Nick realized how tall the engineer was. His arms were ridged with the lean wiry taut muscle of hard physical labour. His fists, as he balled them, were lumpy with scar tissue across the knuckles and the size of a pair of nine-pound hammers. He went down into a fighter's crouch, and rode the plunging deck with an easy flexing of the long powerful legs.

  As Nicholas touched the chrome over-ride handle, the first punch came from the level of Baker's knees, but it came so fast that Nick only just had time to sway away from it. It whistled up past his jaw and scraped the skin from the outside corner of his eye, but he counter-punched instinctively, swaying back and slamming it in under the armpit, feeling the blow land so solidly that his teeth jarred in his own head. The Chief's breath hissed, but he swung left-handed and a bony fist crushed the pad of muscle on the point of Nick's shoulder, bounced off and caught him high on the temple.

  Even though it was a glancing blow, it felt as though a door had slammed in Nick's head, and resounding darkness closed behind his eye
s. He fell forward into a clinch to ride the darkness, grabbing the lean hard body and smothering it in a bear hug as he tried to clear the singing darkness in his head.

  He felt the Chief shift his weight, and was shocked at the power in that wiry frame, it took all his own strength to hold him. Suddenly and clearly he knew what was going to happen next. There were little white ridges of scar tissue half hidden by the widow's peak of flopping sandy hair on the Chief's forehead. Those scars from previous conflicts warned Nick.

  Vin Baker reared back, like a cobra flaring for the strike, and then flung his head forward; it was the classic butt aimed for Nick's face and, had it landed squarely, it would have crushed in his nose and broken his teeth off level to the gums - but Nick anticipated, and dropped his own chin, tucking it down hard so that their foreheads met with a crack like a breaking oak branch.

  The impact broke Nick's grip, and both of them reeled apart across the heaving deck, Vin Baker howling like a moon-sick dog and clutching his own head.

  ‘ Fight fair, you Pommy bastard! ’ he howled in outrage, and he came up short against the steel cabinets that lined the far side of the control room. The astonished electrician dived for cover under the control console, scattering tools across the deck.

  Vin Baker lay for a moment gathering his lanky frame, and then, as Warlock swung hard over, rolling viciously in the cross sea, he used her momentum to hurl himself down the steeply tilting deck, dropping his head again like a battering ram to crush in Nick's ribs as he charged.

  Nick turned like a cattle man working an unruly steer. He whipped one arm round Vin Baker's neck and ran with him, holding his head down and building up speed across the full length of the control room. They reached the armoured glass wall at the far end, and the top of Vin Baker's head was the point of impact with the weight of both their bodies behind it.

  The Chief Engineer came round at the prick of the needle that Angel forced through the thick flap of open flesh on top of his head. He came round fighting drunkenly, but the cook held him down with one huge hairy arm.

  ‘ Easy, love. ’ Angel pulled the needle through the torn red weeping scalp and tied the stitch.

  ‘ Where is he, where is the bastard? ’ slurred the Chief.

  ‘ It's all over, Chiefie ’ Angel told him gently. ‘ And you are lucky he bashed you on the head - otherwise he might have hurt you. ’

  The Chief winced as Angel pulled the thread up tight and knotted another stitch.

  ‘ He tried to mess with my engines. I taught the bastard a lesson. ’

  "You've terrified him ,’ Angel agreed sweetly. ‘ Now you take a swig of this and lie still. I want you in this bunk for twelve hours - and I might come and tuck you in. ’

  ‘ I'm going back to my engines, ’ announced the Chief, and drained the medicine glass of brown spirit, then whistled at the bite of the fumes.

  Angel left him and crossed to the telephone. He spoke quickly into it, and as the Chief lumbered off the bunk, Nick Berg stepped into the cabin, and nodded to the cook.

  ‘ Thank you, Angel. ’ Angel ducked out of the cabin and left them facing each other. The Chief opened his mouth to snarl at Nick.

  ‘ Jules Levoisin in La Mouette has probably made five hundred miles on us while you have been playing prima donna ,’ said Nick quietly, and Vin Baker's mouth stayed open, although no sound came out of it.

  ‘ I built this ship to run fast and hard in just this kind of contest, and now you are trying to do all of us out of prize money! ’ Nick turned on his heel and went back up the companionway to his navigation deck. He settled into his canvas chair and fingered the big purple swelling on his forehead tenderly. His head felt as though a rope had been knotted around it and twisted up tight. He wanted to go to his cabin and take something for the pain, but he did not want to miss the call when it came.

  He lit another cheroot, and it tasted like burned tarred rope. He dropped it into the sandbox and the telephone at his shoulder rang once.

  ‘ Bridge, this is the Engine Room.

  ‘ Go ahead, Chief! ’

  ‘ We are going to eighty per cent now. ’

  Nick did not reply, but he felt the change in the engine vibration and the more powerful rush of the hull beneath him.

  ‘ Nobody told me La Mouette was running against us. No way that frog-eating bastard's going to get a line on her first ,’ announced Vin Baker grimly, and there was a silence between them. Something more had to be said.

  ‘ I bet you a pound to a pinch of kangaroo dung ,’ challenged the Chief ‘you don’t know what a galah is and that you’ve never tasted a Bundaberg rum in your life.’

  Nick found himself smiling, even through t he blinding pain in his head.

  ‘ Be-yew-dy! ’ Nick said, making three syllables of it and keeping the laughter out of his voice, as he hung up the receiver.

  Dave Allen's voice was apologetic. ‘ Sorry to wake you, sir, but the Golden Adventurer is reporting. ’

  ‘ I'm coming ,’ mumbled Nick, and swung his legs off the bunk. He had been in that black death-sleep of exhaustion, but it took him only seconds to pull back the dark curtains from his mind. It was his old training as a watch-keeping officer.

  He rubbed away the last traces of sleep, feeling the rasping black stubble of his beard under his fingers as he crossed quickly to his bathroom. He spent forty seconds in bathing his face and combing his tousled hair, and regretfully decided there was no time to shave. Another rule of his was to look good in a world which so often judged a man by his appearance.

  When he went out on to the navigation bridge, he knew at once that the wind had increased its velocity. He guessed It was rising force six now, and Warlock's motion was more violent and abandoned. Beyond the warm, dimly lit capsule of the bridge, all those elements of cold water and vicious racing winds turned the black night to a howling tumult.

  The Trog was crouched over his machines, grey and wizened and sleepless. He hardly turned his head to hand Nick the message flimsy.

  ‘ Master of Golden Adventurer to Christy Marine ,’ the Decca decoded swiftly, and Nick grunted as he saw the new position report. Something had altered drastically in the liner's circumstances. ‘ Main engines still unserviceable. Current setting easterly and increasing to eight knots. Wind rising force six from north-west. Critical ice danger to the ship. What assistance can I expect? ’ There was a panicky note to that last line, and Nick saw why when he compared the liner's new position on the spread chart.

  ‘ She's going down sharply on the lee shore ,’ David muttered as he worked quickly over the chart. ‘ The current and wind are working together - they are driving her down on to the land. ’ He touched the ugly broken points of Coatsland's shoreline with the tip of one finger.

  ‘S he ,s eighty miles offshore now. At the rate she is drifting, it will take her only another ten hours before she goes aground. ’

  ‘I f she doesn't hit an iceberg first ,’ said Nick. ‘ From the Master's last message, it sounds as though they are into big ice. ’

  ‘ That's a cheerful thought ,’ agreed David, and straightened up from the chart.

  ‘ What's our time to reach her? ’

  ‘ Another forty hours, sir ,’ David hesitated and pushed the thick white-gold lock of hair off his forehead, ‘ if we can make good this speed - but we may have to reduce when we reach the ice. ’ Nick turned away to his canvas chair. He felt the need to pace back and forward, to release the pent-up forces within him. However, any movement in this heavy pounding sea was not only difficult but downright dangerous, so he groped his way to the chair and wedged himself in, staring ahead into the clamorous black night.

  He thought about the terrible predicament of the liner's Captain. His ship was at deadly risk, and the lives of his crew and passengers with it.

  How many lives? Nick cast his mind back and came up with the figures. The Golden Adventurer's full complement of officers and crew was 235, and there was accommodation for 375 passengers, a pos
sible total of over six hundred souls. If the ship was lost, Warlock would be hard put to take aboard that huge press of human life.

  ‘ Well, sir, they signed on for adventure ,’ David Allen spoke into his thoughts as though he had heard them, ‘ and they are getting their money's worth. ’ Nick glanced at him, and nodded. ‘ Most of them will be elderly. A berth on that cruise costs a fortune, and it's usually only the oldsters who have that sort of gold. If she goes aground, we are going to lose life! ’

  ‘ With respect, Captain .’ David hesitated, and blushed again for the first time since leaving port, ’ if her Captain knows that assistance is on the way, it may prevent him doing something crazy! ’ Nick was silent. The Mate was right, of course. It was cruel to leave them in the despair of believing they were alone down there in those terrible ice fields. The Adventurer's Captain could make a panic decision, one that could be averted if he knew how close succour was.

  ‘ The air temperature out there is minus five degrees, and if the wind is at thirty miles an hour, that will make it a lethal chill factor. If they take to the boats in that–‘ David was interrupted by the Trog calling from the radio room.

  ‘ The owners are replying. ’

  I t was a long message that Christy Marine were sending to their Captain. It was filled with those same hollow assurances that a surgeon gives to a cancer patient, but one paragraph had relevance for Nick:

  ‘A ll efforts being made to contact salvage tugs rep orted operating South Atlantic.’

  David Allen looked at him expectantly. It was the right humane thing to do. To tell them he was only eight hundred miles away, and closing swiftly.

  Nervous energy fizzed in Nick's blood, making him restless and angry. On an impulse he left his chair and carefully crossed the heaving deck to the starboard wing of the bridge.

  He slid open the door and stepped out into the gale. The shock of that icy air took his breath away and he gasped like a drowning man. He felt tears streaming from his eyes across his cheeks and the frozen spray struck into his face like steel darts.