Flood Tide

Dirk Pitt 14 - Flood Tide

December 10, 1948 Unknown Waters

THE WAVES TURNED VICIOUS AND WORSENED WITH EVERY rush of wind. The calm weather of the morning transformed from Dr. Jekyll into a vehement Mr. Hyde by late evening. Whitecaps on the crests of towering waves were lashed into sheets of spray. The violent water and black clouds merged under the onslaught of a driving snowstorm. It was impossible to tell where water ended and sky began. As the passenger liner Princess Dou Wan fought through waves that rose like mountains before spilling over the ship, the men on board were unaware of the imminent disaster that was only minutes away. The crazed waters were driven by northeast and northwest gales that simultaneously caused ferocious currents to smash against the ship from two sides. Winds soon reached a hundred miles an hour with waves that crested at thirty feet or more. Caught in the maelstrom, the Princess Dou Wan had no place to hide. Her bow pitched and drove under waves that swept over her open decks and flowed aft and then forward when her stern rose, throwing her wildly spinning propellers free of the water. Struck from all directions, she rolled thirty degrees, her starboard rail along the promenade deck disappearing in a torrent of water. Slowly, too slowly, she sluggishly righted herself and plunged on, steaming through the worst storm in recent history.

Freezing and unable to see through the blinding snowstorm, Second Mate Li Po, who stood watch, ducked back inside the wheelhouse and slammed the door. In all his days of sailing the China Sea, he had never seen swirling snow in the middle of a violent storm. Po did not think the gods were fair to hurl such devastating winds at the Princess after a voyage halfway around the world with less than two hundred miles to go before reaching port. In the past sixteen hours, she had only made forty miles.

Except for Captain Leigh Hunt and his chief engineer down below in the engine room, the entire crew were Nationalist Chinese. An old salt with twelve years in the Royal Navy and eighteen as an officer for three different shipping-company fleets, Hunt had served fifteen of those years as captain. As a boy he went fishing with his father out of Bridlington, a small city on the east coast of England, before shipping out as an ordinary seaman on a freighter to South Africa. A thin man with graying hair and sad, vacant eyes, he was deeply pessimistic about his ship's ability to weather the storm.

Two days earlier, one of the crewmen had called his attention to a crack in the starboard outer hull aft of the single smoke-stack. He would have given a month's pay to inspect the crack now that his ship was enduring incredible stress. He reluctantly brushed the thought aside. It would have been suicide to attempt an inspection under hundred-mile-an-hour winds and the raging water that spilled across the decks. He felt in his bones the Princess was in mortal danger, and accepted the fact that her fate was out of his hands.

Hunt stared into the blanket of snow that pelted the wheel-house windows and spoke to his second mate without turning. "How bad is the ice, Mr. Po?

Building rapidly, Captain.“ ”Do you believe we're in danger of capsizing?“ Li Po shook his head slowly. ”Not yet, sir, but by morning the load on the superstructure and decks could prove critical if we take on a heavy list."

Hunt thought for a moment, then spoke to the helmsman. “Slay on course, Mr. Tsung. Keep our bow into the wind and waves.”

“Aye, sir,” the Chinese helmsman replied, feet braced wide apart, hands tightly gripping the brass wheel.

Hunt's thoughts returned to the crack in the hull. He couldn't remember when the Princess Dou Wan had a proper marine inspection in dry dock. Strangely, the crew's uneasiness about leaks, badly rusted hull plates, and weakened and missing rivets was totally lacking. They appeared to ignore the corrosion and the constantly running bilge pumps that strained to carry off the heavy leakage during the voyage. If the Princess had an Achilles' heel, it was her tired and worn hull. A ship that sails the oceans is considered old after twenty years. She had traveled hundreds of thousands of miles scathed by rough seas and typhoons during her thirty-five years since leaving the shipyards. It was little short of a miracle that she was still afloat.

Launched in 1913 as the Lanai by shipbuilders Harland and Wolff for Singapore Pacific Steamship Lines, her tonnage grossed out at 10,758. Her overall length was 497 feet from straight-up-and-down stem to champagne glass-shaped stern with a sixty-foot beam. Her triple-expansion steam engines put out five thousand horsepower and turned twin screws. In her prime she could cut the waves at a respectable seventeen knots. She went into service between Singapore and Honolulu until 1931, when she was sold to the Canton Lines and renamed Princess Dou Wan. After a refit, she was employed running passengers and cargo throughout Southeast Asian ports.

During World War II, she was taken over and fitted out by the Australian government as a troop transport. Heavily damaged after surviving attacks by Japanese aircraft during convoy duty, she was returned to the Canton Lines after the war and served briefly on short runs from Shanghai to Hong Kong, until the spring of 1948, when she was to be sold to the scrappers in Singapore.

Her accommodations were designed to carry fifty-five first-class passengers, eighty-five second-class, and 370 third-class. Normally she carried a crew of 190, but on what was to be her final voyage, she was manned by only thirty-eight.

Hunt thought of his ancient command as a tiny island on a turbulent sea engulfed in a drama without an audience. His attitude was fatalistic. He was ready for the beach and the Princess was ready for the scrap yard. Hunt felt compassion for his battle-scarred ship as she wrestled with the full brunt of the storm. She twisted and groaned when inundated by the titanic waves, but she always broke free and punched her bow into the next one. Hunt's only consolation was that her worn-out engines never missed a beat.

Down in the engine room the creaking and groaning of the hull were uncommonly clamorous. Rust danced and flaked off the bulkheads as water began to rise through the walkway gratings. Rivets holding the steel plates were shearing off. They popped out of the plates and shot through the air like missiles. Usually, the crew was apathetic. It was a common occurrence on ships built before the days of welding. But there was one man who was touched by the tentacles of fear.

Chief Engineer Ian “Hong Kong” Gallagher was an ox-shouldered, red-faced, hard-drinking, heavily mustached Irish-man who knew a ship in the throes of breaking up when he saw and heard one. Yet fear was pushed from his mind as he calmly turned his thoughts to survival.

An orphan at the age of eleven, lan Gallagher ran away from the slums of Belfast and went to sea as a cabin boy. Nurturing a natural talent for maintaining steam engines, he became a wiper and then a third assistant engineer. By the time he was twenty-seven, he had his papers as chief engineer and served on tramp freighters plying the waters between the islands of the South Pacific. The name Hong Kong was given to him after he fought an epic battle in one of the port city's saloons against eight Chinese dockworkers who tried to roll him. When he turned thirty, he signed on board the Princess Dou Wan in the summer of 1945.

Grim-faced, Gallagher turned to his second engineer, Chu Wen. “Get topside, put on a life vest and be ready to abandon ship when the captain gives the order.”

The Chinese engineer pulled the stub of a cigar from his mouth and stared at Gallagher appraisingly. “You think we're going down?”

“I know we're going down,” Gallagher replied firmly. “This old rust bucket won't last another hour.” “Did you tell the captain?”

“He'd have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to figure it out himself.”

“You coming?” asked Chu Wen.

“I'll be right behind you,” answered Gallagher.

Chu Wen wiped his oily hands on a rag, nodded at the chief engineer and made his way up a ladder to a hatch leading to the upper decks.

Gallagher took one final look at his beloved engines, certain they would soon be lying in the deep. He stiffened as an unusually loud screech echoed throughout the hull. The aged Princess Dou Wan was tormented by metal fatigue, a scourge suffered by aircraft as well as ships. Extremely difficult to distinguish in calm waters, it only becomes evident in a vessel pounded by vicious seas. Even when new, the Princess would have been hard-pressed to bear up under the onslaught of the waves that pounded her hull with a force of twenty thousand pounds per square inch.

Gallagher's heart froze when he saw a crack appear in a bulkhead that spread downward and then sideways across the hull plates. Starting on the port side, it widened as it progressed to starboard. He snatched up the ship's phone and rang the bridge.

Li Po answered. “Bridge.”

“Put the captain on!” Gallagher snapped.

A second's pause, and then, “This is the captain.”

“Sir, we've got a hell of a crack in the engine room, and it's getting worse by the minute.”

Hunt was stunned. He had hoped against hope that they could make port before the damage turned critical. “Are we taking on water?”

“The pumps are fighting a losing battle.”

“Thank you, Mr. Gallagher. Can you keep the engines turning until we reach land?”

“What time frame do you have in mind?”

“Another hour should put us in calmer waters.”

“Doubtful,” said Gallagher. “I give her ten minutes, no more.”

“Thank you, Chief,” Hunt said heavily. “You'd better leave the engine room while you still can.”

Hunt wearily replaced the receiver, turned and looked out the aft wheelhouse windows. The ship had taken on a noticeable list and was rolling heavily. Two of her boats had already been smashed and swept overboard. Making for the nearest shore and running the ship safely aground was now out of the question. To reach the smoother waters, he would have to make a turn to starboard. The Princess would never survive if she was caught broadside in the maddened waves. She could easily be plunged into a trough without any hope of getting out. Whatever the circumstance, breaking up or the ice building on her superstructure and capsizing her, the ship was doomed.

His mind briefly traveled back sixty days in time and ten thousand miles in distance to the dock on the Yangtze River at Shanghai, where the furnishings from the Princess Dou Wan's staterooms were being stripped in preparation for her final voyage to the scrap yard in Singapore. The departure had been interrupted when General Kung Hui of the Nationalist Chinese Army arrived on the dock in a Packard limousine and ordered Captain Hunt to converse with him inside the car.

“Please excuse my intrusion, Captain, but I am acting under the personal directive of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek.” General Kung Hui, skin and hands as smooth and white as a sheet of paper, sat fastidious and immaculate in a tailored uniform that showed no sign of a crease. He took up the entire rear seat in the passengers' compartment as he spoke, while Captain Hunt was forced to sit uncomfortably twisted sideways on a jump seat. “You are hearby ordered to place your ship and crew in a state of readiness for a long voyage.”

“I believe there has been a mistake,” said Hunt. “The Princess is not in a state of readiness for an extended cruise. She is about to depart with barely enough men, fuel and supplies to make the scrap yard in Singapore.”

“You can forget about Singapore,” said Hui with an airy wave of one hand. “Ample fuel and food will be provided along with twenty men from our Nationalist Navy. Once your cargo is on board...” Hui paused to insert a cigarette in a long holder and light it. “... I should say in about ten days, you will be given your sailing orders.”

“I must clear this with my company directors,” argued Hunt. “The directors of Canton Lines have been notified the Princess Dou Wan will be temporarily appropriated by the government.”

“They agreed to it?”

Hui nodded. “Considering they were generously offered payment in gold by the generalissimo, they were most happy to cooperate.”

“After we reach our, or should I say, your destination, what then?”

“Once the cargo is safely delivered ashore, you may continue on to Singapore.”

“May I ask where we're bound for?”

“You may not.”

“And the cargo?”

“Secrecy will dominate the entire mission. From this minute on, you and your crew will remain on board your ship. No one steps ashore. You will have no contact with friends or family. My men will guard the ship day and night to guarantee strict security.”

“I see,” said Hunt, but obviously he didn't. He could not recall seeing such shifty eyes.

“As we speak,” Hui continued, “all your communications equipment is being either removed or destroyed.”

Hunt was stunned. “Surely you can't expect me to attempt a voyage at sea without a radio. What if we encounter difficulties and have to send out a call for assistance?”

Hui idly held up his cigarette holder and studied it. “I foresee no difficulties.”

“You are an optimist, General,” said Hunt slowly. “The Princess is a tired ship far beyond her prime. She is ill-prepared to cope with heavy seas and violent storms.”

“I cannot impress upon you the importance and great rewards if this mission is carried out successfully. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek will generously compensate you and your crew in gold after you successfully reach port.”

Hunt stared out the window of the limousine at the rusting hull of his ship. “A fortune in gold won't do me much good when I'm lying on the bottom of the sea.”

“Then we will rest together for eternity.” General Hui smiled without humor. “I will be coming along as your passenger.”

Captain Hunt recalled the frantic activity that quickly erupted around the Princess. Fuel oil was pumped until the tanks were filled. The ship's cook was astounded by the quality and quantity of the food carried aboard and stored in the galley. A constant stream of trucks soon began arriving, stopping beneath the huge cranes on the dock. Their cargo of large wooden crates was then lifted onto the ship and stowed in the holds, which were soon filled to capacity.

The stream of trucks seemed unending. Crates small enough to be carried by one or two men were stowed in the empty passenger cabins, vacant passageways and every available compartment below decks. Every square foot of space was crammed to the overhead decks. The final six truckloads were lashed down on the promenade decks once strolled by the passengers. General Hui had been the last to board, along with a small cadre of heavily armed officers. His luggage consisted of ten steamer trunks and thirty cases of expensive wines and cognacs.

All for nothing, Hunt thought. Beaten in the homestretch by Mother Nature. The secrecy, the intricate deception, had been for nothing. From the time they left the Yangtze, the Princess sailed silent and alone. Without communications equipment, radio calls from other passing ships went unanswered.

The captain stared down at the recently installed radar, but its sweep showed no other ship within fifty miles of the Princess. Unable to send a distress signal, there could be no rescue. He looked up as General Hui stepped unsteadily into the wheel-house, face deathly white, a soiled handkerchief held to his lips.

“Seasick, General?” said Hunt tauntingly.

“This damned storm,” Hui murmured. “Will it never end?”

“We were prophetic, you and I.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Resting together on the bottom for all eternity. It won't be long now.”

Gallagher rushed topside and ran, clutching the handrail for support while sliding his hand along it down the passageway to his cabin. He was neither frantic nor confused but calm and composed. He knew exactly what he must do. He always kept the door locked because of what was inside, but did not waste time fumbling for the key. He kicked the door open, smashing it against the stop.

A woman with long blond hair, wearing a silk robe, lay stretched on the bed reading a magazine. She looked up startled from the sudden intrusion as a small dachshund jumped to its feet beside her and began barking. The woman's body was long and beautifully proportioned. Her complexion was smooth and flawless with high cheekbones, her eyes the vivid blue of a late-morning sky. If she stood, the top of her head would have come up to Gallagher's chin. She swung her legs to the deck gracefully and sat there on the edge of the bed.

“Come on, Katie.” His hand on her wrist, he jerked her to her feet. “We've precious little time.”

“Are we coming into port?” she asked in confusion.

“No, darlin'. The ship is about to sink.”

Her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh God!” she gasped.

Gallagher was jerking open closet doors, tearing out drawers and throwing clothes at her over his shoulders. “Put on every piece of clothing you can get into, every pair of pants you've got and every pair of my socks you can slide over your feet. Dress in layers, thinner garb on the inside, heavier on the outside, and be quick about it. This old tub is heading for the bottom any minute.”

The woman looked as if she was about to protest, then silently and quickly threw off the robe and began pulling on her underwear. She moved rapidly and purposely, wiggling first into her slacks and then Gallagher's pants. Five knit sweaters went on over three blouses. She felt fortunate indeed that she had packed a full suitcase for her rendezvous with her fiance. When she could wear no more, Gallagher helped stuff her into one of his working jumpsuits. A pair of his boots went over her silk hose and several pairs of his socks.

The little dachshund darted between their legs, leaping up and down, ears flapping in excitement. He had been a gift from Gallagher along with an emerald engagement ring when he had proposed marriage. The dog wore a red leather collar with a gold dragon charm that swung wildly across his little chest.

“Fritz!” she scolded him. “Lie on the bed and be still.”

Katrina Garin was a strong-minded woman who did not require detailed instructions. She was twelve years old when her British father, who was master of an interisland freighter, was lost at sea. Raised by her mother's White Russian family, she went to work at Canton Lines as a clerk and worked her way up to the director's executive secretary. The same age as Gallagher, she had met him at the steamship offices when he was called in to report on the conditions of the Princess Dou Wan's engines, and she became attracted to him. Though she would have preferred a man with a touch of style and sophistication, his rough manners and jovial disposition reminded her of her father.

They met frequently in the following weeks and slept together, mostly in his cabin aboard ship. It was the added thrill of sneaking on board and making love under the noses of the captain and crew that she found especially exciting. Katie had been trapped on board when General Hui surrounded the ship and dock with a small army of security guards. Unable to go ashore despite pleas by Gallagher and an angry Captain Hunt when he was informed of her presence, General Hui insisted she remain on board for the duration of the voyage. Since leaving Shanghai, she had rarely stepped from the cabin; her only companion when Gallagher was on duty in the engine room was the little dog that she had taught tricks to pass the long hours at sea.

Gallagher hurriedly inserted their papers, passports and valuables in a waterproof oilcloth pouch. He threw on a heavy sailor's peacoat and looked at her through blue eyes clouded with concern. “You ready?”

She held up her arms and looked down at the bulky mass of clothing. “I'll never get a life jacket over all this,” she said, a tremor in her voice. “Without one I'll sink like a stone in the water.”

“Have you forgotten? General Hui gave orders that all Me jackets be thrown overboard four weeks ago.”

“We'll get away in the lifeboats then.”

“The boats that haven't already been bashed to pieces can never be launched in these waters.”

She looked at him steadily. “We're going to die, aren't we? If we don't drown, we'll freeze to death.”

He pulled a stocking cap down over her blond hair and ears. “Warm head makes for warm feet.” Then he gently tilted her face upward between his massive hands and kissed her. “Darlin', didn't they ever tell you that Irishmen never drown?” Taking Katie by the hand, Gallagher dragged her roughly into the passageway and headed up a companionway to the deck above.

Forgotten in the bedlam, Fritz the dachshund stretched out obediently on the bed, believing his mistress would soon return, bewilderment in his brown eyes.

Those of the crew off duty who weren't sitting around playing dominoes or telling stories of other storms they survived were sleeping in their berths, oblivious to the ship about to break up around them. The cook and his galley help were leaning up after dinner and serving coffee to those who lingered. Despite the battering from the storm, the crew was happy at the prospect of reaching port. Although their destination had been held from them, they knew their exact position within thirty miles.

There was no complacency in the wheelhouse. Hunt stared aft through the snow flurries, barely distinguishing the deck lights trailing toward the stern. In horrified fascination he watched as the stern appeared to rise on an angle downward amidships. Over the howl of the wind through the superstructure, he could hear the hull shrieking as it ground itself to pieces. He reached out and punched the emergency bell that rang the general alarm throughout the ship.

Hui knocked Hunt's hand away from the emergency bell button. “We cannot abandon ship.” He spoke in a shocked whisper.

Hunt stared at him in disgust. “Die like a man, General.” “I must not be allowed to die. I vowed to see the cargo safely deposited in port.”

“This ship is breaking in two,” said Hunt. “Nothing can save you and your precious cargo.” “Then our position must be fixed so it can be salvaged.” “Fixed for whom? The lifeboats have been crushed and swept away. You demanded all life vests be cast overboard. You destroyed the ship's radio. We can't send out a Mayday call. You covered our tracks too well. We're not even supposed to be hi these waters. Our location is unknown to the rest of the world. All Chiang Kai-shek will ever learn is that the Princess Dou Wan vanished with all hands six thousand miles south of here. You planned well, General, too well.” “No!” Hui gasped. “This cannot happen!” Hunt actually found himself amused at the look of rage and helplessness on the face of Hui. The shifty look in the dark eyes was gone.

The general could not bring himself to accept the inevitable. He tore open the door to the bridge wing and ran out into the storm gone berserk. He could see the ship twisting in its death throes. The stern was swinging on a pronounced angle to starboard now. Steam was erupting from the tear in the hull. He stood and watched in shock as the stern separated from the rest of the ship in a protest of the grinding and tearing sound of metal being ripped apart. Then all the lights aboard ship j blinked out and he could see no more of the stern.

Crewmen burst from below onto decks covered in snow j and ice. Frustrated by murderous waves that had smashed the ! lifeboats, they cursed the lack of life jackets. The end came so quickly, most all were caught unprepared. This time of year the j frigid water was only thirty-four degrees, the air temperature only five degrees above zero. In panic they jumped over the side, seemingly unaware that the cold water would kill them in a matter of minutes, if not from hypothermia then from the stoppage of their hearts at the shock of having their bodies exposed to an instantaneous sixty degree drop in temperature.

The stern sank out of sight in less than four minutes. The hull amidships seemed to evaporate into nothingness, leaving a long gap between the sunken stern and the bow section forward of the smokestack. A small group of men struggled to lower the only partially damaged lifeboat, but a massive wave thundered over the forecastle and swept across the deck. Men and boat disappeared under the deluge, never to be seen again.

Holding Katie's hand in a death grip, Gallagher dragged her up a ladder and across the roof of the officers' cabins toward a life raft that was mounted aft of the wheelhouse. He was surprised to see that it was empty. Twice, they slipped on the ice coating the roof and fell. Spray flung by the gale stung their faces and blinded them. In the confusion none of the Chinese officers or crew had remembered the life raft atop the roof. Most all, including General Hui's soldiers, had headed for the remaining lifeboat or had thrown themselves into the deadly water.

“Fritz!” Katie cried in anguish. “We left Fritz in the cabin.”

“No time to return,” said Gallagher.

“We can't leave without him!”

He looked into her eyes solemnly. “You must forget Fritz. It's our lives or his.”

Katie twisted away, but Gallagher held her tightly. “Climb in, darlin', and hold on tight.” Then he pulled a knife from his boot and furiously slashed at the ropes securing the raft. Gallagher paused as he cut away the last rope and glanced through the windows of the wheelhouse. Dimly lit by the emergency lights, Captain Hunt stood calmly beside the helm, accepting his death without remorse.

Gallagher frantically waved at his captain through the windows, but Hunt did not turn. He merely shoved his hands inside the pockets of his coat and stared vacantly into the snow building around the windows.

Suddenly, a figure emerged from the bridge through the swirling blanket of white. He stumbled like a man chased by a banshee, thought Gallagher. The intruder bumped against the life raft, striking it above the knees, and tumbled inside. Only when he stared up, eyes fixed more in madness than in terror, did Gallagher recognize General Hui.

“Don't we have to cut the raft loose?” Hui shouted above the wind.

Gallagher shook his head. “I've done that chore.”

“The suction from the sinking ship will drag us under.”

“Not in this sea, General. We'll be swept clear in seconds. Now lie down on the bottom and get a good grip on the safety ropes.”

Too numb with cold to reply, Hui did as he was instructed and took his place inside the raft.

A deep rumble swelled up from below as the cold water surged over the boilers, causing them to explode. The forward section of the ship shook and vibrated, then lurched downward amidships, sending the bow rising into the cold night. The cables supporting the tall, old-fashioned smokestack snapped under the strain, and it fell with a large splash. The water reached the level of the life raft, and its buoyancy lifted it from its mounts. The last Gallagher saw of Captain Hunt, water was surging through the doors of the wheelhouse and whirling around his legs. Determined to go down with his ship, he clutched the helm and stood as firm as if he had turned to granite.

It felt to Gallagher as if they were suspended in time. Waiting for the ship to drop from under them seemed an eternity. Yet it all happened in a few seconds. Then the raft was washed free and hurled into the chaotic waters.

Cries for help came in Mandarin and Cantonese dialects that were impossible to answer. Final pleas to friends slowly faded between the monster wave crests and their troughs and into the fury of the wind. There would be no rescue. No ships were close enough to notice them vanish from radar and no call for help went out. Gallagher and Katie watched with a feeling of horror as the bow rose higher and higher, as if clawing at the stormy sky. She hung suspended for nearly a minute, her ice-shrouded upper works giving her the look of an apparition. Then she gave up and slipped under the black waters. The Princess Dou Wan was no more.

“Gone,” Hui muttered, his voice unheard above the storm. “All gone.” He was staring with utter disbelief at where the ship had been.

“Huddle together for our combined body heat,” ordered Gallagher. “If we can make it until morning, we stand a chance of being picked up.”

Surrounded by the specter of death and a terrible sense of emptiness, the raft and its pitiful passengers were swallowed by the bitter-cold night and unrelenting fury of the storm.

By dawn the malignant waves were still pounding the small raft. The blackness of night had given way to a ghostly gray sky covered with dark clouds. The snow had turned to a chilling sleet. Mercifully, the wind had fallen to twenty miles an hour and the waves had dropped from thirty to ten feet. The raft was solid and sound but was an old model that lacked emergency equipment for survival. Its passengers were left with nothing but personal fortitude to keep up their spirits until rescue.

Bundled under the heavy layers of clothing, Gallagher and Katie had survived the night in fair shape. But General Hui, dressed only in his uniform and without a coat, was slowly, inexorably freezing to death. The wretched wind was cutting through his uniform like a thousand ice picks. His hair was coated with ice. Gallagher had taken off his heavy peacoat and given it to Hui, but it became obvious to Katie that the old war-horse was rapidly fading.

The raft was tossed over the crests and spun around by the brutal waves. It didn't seem possible that the frail craft could take the pounding. Yet it always recovered from the crush of the curling waves, righted herself, and steadied before facing the next onslaught. Never once did she cast her miserable passengers into the cold water.

Gallagher rose to his knees every hour and scanned the agitated waters from the top of the waves as the raft was thrown skyward before plummeting into the trough again. It was an exercise in futility. The waters were empty. During the awful night, they saw no sign of lights from another ship.

“There has to be a ship nearby,” said Katie through chattering teeth.

Gallagher shook his head. “The water is as empty as a homeless waif's piggy bank.” He didn't tell her that visibility was cut to less than fifty yards.

“I'll never forgive myself for abandoning Fritz,” Katie whispered, the tears falling down her cheeks before turning to ice.

“My fault,” Gallagher consoled her. “I should have grabbed him when we ran out of the cabin.”

“Fritz?” queried Hui.

“My little dachshund,” replied Katie.

“You lost a dog.”

Hui abruptly sat up. “You lost a dog?” he repeated. “I lost the heart and soul of my country—”

He paused and went into a coughing spasm. Misery etched his face, despair clouded his eyes. He looked like a man whose life had lost all meaning. “I have failed in my duty. I must die.”

“Don't be stupid, man,” said Gallagher. “We'll come through. Just hang in a little longer.”

Hui appeared not to hear him. He seemed to wither and give up. Katie was gazing into the general's eyes. It was as if a light behind them had suddenly switched off. They took on a glazed, unseeing look.

“I think he's dead,” Katie murmured.

Gallagher checked to be sure. “Move over against his body and use it as a shield from the wind and spray. I'll lie on the other side of you.”

It seemed ghoulish to her, but Katie found that she could hardly feel Hui's cadaver through the bulk of her clothing. The loss of her faithful little dog, the ship plunging under the black water, the insane wind and crazed waters all seemed unreal to her. She hoped that it was all a nightmare and soon she would wake up. She burrowed deeper between the two men, one alive, the other dead.

Through the rest of the day and following night the intensity of the storm had slowly abated, but they were still exposed to a murderous windchill factor. Katie could no longer feel her hands and feet. She began to slip in and out of consciousness. Fantasies ran through her mind. Oddly, she found it macabre that she might have eaten her last meal. She thought she saw a sandy beach beneath swaying palm trees. She imagined Fritz running across the sand, barking as he came toward her. She talked to Gallagher as though they were sitting at a table at a restaurant, ordering dinner. Her dead father appeared to her, dressed in his captain's uniform. He stood in the raft, looked down and smiled. He told her she would live and not to worry. Land was only a short distance away. And then he was gone.

“What time is it?” she asked hoarsely.

“Sometime late in the afternoon, I should judge,” answered Gallagher. “My watch stopped soon after we abandoned the Princess.”

“How long have we been adrift?”

“A rough guess would put it about thirty-eight hours since the Princess went down.”

“We're near land,” she muttered abruptly.

“What makes you say that, darlin'?”

“My father told me.”

“He did, did he?” He smiled at her compassionately under a mustache and eyebrows caked white with ice. Icicles hanging from whatever hair was exposed, gave Gallagher the appearance of a monster risen from the depths of the South Pole in a science-fiction movie. Except for her lack of facial hair, Katie wondered if she looked the same.

“Can't you see it?”

Dreadfully stiff from the cold, Gallagher struggled to a sitting position and scanned the horizons of his restricted world. His view was blurred by the driving sleet, but he kept trying. Then he thought his eyes were deceiving him. He could just make out large boulders scattered along a shoreline. A short distance beyond, no more than fifty yards, snow blanketed trees swaying in the wind. He spotted what looked like the dark shape of a small cabin amid the trees.

His joints numb and unresponsive, Gallagher removed one boot and used it as a paddle. After a few minutes, the exertion seemed to warm his body and the effort became less arduous. “Take heart, darlin'. We'll be on dry land soon.”

The current was working parallel to the shore, and Gallagher fought to break out of its clutches. He felt as if he was struggling against a stream filled with molasses. The gap narrowed with agonizing slowness. The trees seemed so close he could reach out and shake them, but they were still a good sixty yards away.

Just when Gallagher had reached the end of his endurance and was about to collapse from exhaustion, he could feel the raft bumping against underwater boulders. He looked down at Katie. She was shivering uncontrollably from the damp and chill. She could not last much longer.

He shoved his frozen foot back inside the boot. Then, sucking in his breath, he prayed that the water would not close over his head and jumped in. It was a hazard he had to risk. Thankfully, the soles of his boots struck hard rock before the water level reached his crotch.

“Katie!” he shouted in happy delirium. “We've made it. We're on land.”

“That's nice,” Katie murmured, too paralyzed and oblivious to care.

Gallagher dragged the raft onto a shore covered with wave-smoothed rocks and pebbles. The exhausting effort took the last of his strength, and he sagged like a lifeless rag doll and dropped onto the cold, wet rocks. He never knew how long he lay there, but when he finally recovered enough to crawl up to the life raft and peer over the side, he saw that Katie's skin was blue and mottled. Fearful, he reached in and pulled her toward him. He wasn't sure whether she was alive or dead. Then he noticed a wisp of vapor coming from her nose. He felt for a pulse in her neck. It was faint and slow; her strong heart was still pumping, but death was very close to her.

He looked up at the sky. It was no longer a thick quilt of dark gray. The clouds were forming into distinct shapes and turning white. The storm was passing, and already he could sense the gusting wind diminishing to a settled breeze. He had little time. If he did not find warmth quickly, he would lose her.

Taking a deep breath, Gallagher slid his arms under Katie's body and lifted her out of the raft. Out of hatred he kicked the raft with General Hui's frozen body away from the shoreline. He watched for a few moments as the current caught the raft and began carrying it back into deep water. Then, clutching her close to his chest, he began trudging toward the cabin in the trees. The frigid air seemed suddenly warmer, and he no longer felt stiff and tired.

Three days later, the cargo ship Stephen Miller reported sighting a body in a life raft, which was later recovered. The dead man was Chinese and looked as if he had been sculpted from ice. He was never identified. The life raft, a model not in use for nearly twenty years, was marked in Chinese. Later translation indicated it came from a ship called the Princess Dou Wan.

A search was launched; bits of floating debris were spotted but never retrieved for investigation. No oil slick was discovered. No ship had been reported missing. Nowhere, on ship or ashore, had any distress signal or cry of “Mayday” been picked up. All rescue stations monitoring the standard ship-distress frequency received nothing, hearing only static from the heavy snow.

The mystery deepened when it was learned that a ship named Princess Dou Wan had been reported sunk off the coast of Chile the month before. The body found in the life raft was buried, and the strange enigma was quickly forgotten.