Hungry as the Sea

warning, it dies away, often merely for an hour or two, but occasionally

- very occasionally - for days or weeks at a time.

Far to the south and east of this devil's spawning ground, the Golden

Dawn ploughed massively on through the sweltering air and silken calm of

the doldrums, northwards across the equator, changing course every few

hours to maintain the great circle track that would carry her well clear

of that glittering shield of islands that the Caribbean carries, like an

armoured knight, on its shoulder.

The treacherous channels and passages through the islands were not for a

vessel of Golden Dawn's immense bulk, deep draught and limited

manoeuvrability. She was to go high above the Tropic of Cancer, and

just south of the island of Bermuda she would make her westings and

enter the wider and safer waters of the Florida Straits above Grand

Bahamas. On this course, she would be constricted by narrow and shallow

seaways for only a few hundred miles before she was out into the open

waters of the Gulf of Mexico again.

But while she ran on northwards, out of the area of equatorial calm, she

should have come out at last into the et cool airs of the trades, but

she did not. Day after day, the calm persisted, and stifling still air

pressed down on the ship. It did not in any way slow or affect her

passage, but her Master remarked to Duncan Alexander: Another corker

today, by the looks of it. When he received no reply from his brooding,

silent Chairman, he retired discreetly, leaving Duncan alone on the open

wing of the bridge, with only the breeze of the ship's passage ruffling

his thick coppery hair.

However, the calm was not merely local. It extended westwards in a

wide, hot belt across the thousand islands and the basin of shallow sea

they enclosed.

The calm lay heavily on the oily waters, and the sun beat down on the

enclosing land-masses, Every hour the air heated and sucked up the

evaporating waters; a fat bubble like a swelling blister began to rise,

the first movement of air in many days. It was not a big bubble, only a

hundred miles across, but as it rose, the rotation of the earth's

surface began to twist the rising air, spinning it like a top, so that

the satellite cameras, hundreds of miles above, recorded a creamy little

spiral wisp like the decorative icing flower on a wedding cake.

The cameras relayed the picture through many channels, until at last it

reached the desk of the senior forecaster of the hurricane watch at the

meteorological headquarters at Miami in southern Florida.

Looks like a ripe one/ he grunted to his assistant, recognizing that all

the favourable conditions for the formation of a revolving tropical

storm were present. We'll ask Airforce for a fly-through.

At forty-five thousand feet the pilot of the US Airforce B5.2 saw the

rising dome of the storm from two hundred miles away. It had grown

enormously in only six hours.

As the warm saturated air was forced upwards, so the icy cold of the

upper troposphere condensed the water vapour into thick puffed-up silver

clouds. They boiled upwards, roiling and swirling upon themselves.

Already the dome of cloud and ferociously turbulent air was higher than

the aircraft.

Under it, a partial vacuum was formed, and the surrounding surface air

tried to move in to fill it. But it was compelled into an

anti-clockwise track around the centre by the mysterious forces of the

earth's rotation. Compelled to travel the long route, the velocity of

the air mass accelerated ferociously, and the entire system became more

unstable, more dangerous by the hour, turning aster, perpetuating itself

by creating greater wind velocities and steeper pressure gradients.

The cloud at the top of the enormous rising dome reached an altitude

where the temperature was thirty degrees below freezing and the droplets

of rain turned to crystals of ice and were smeared away by upper-level

jet-streams. Long beautiful patterns of cirrus against the high blue

sky were blown hundreds of miles ahead of the storm to serve as its

heralds.

The US Airforce B52 hit the first clear-air turbulence one hundred and

fifty miles from the storm's centre. It was as though an invisible

predator had seized the fuselage and shaken it until the wings were

almost torn from their roots, and in one surge, the aircraft was flung

five thousand feet straight upwards.

Very severe turbulence/ the pilot reported, We have vertical wind speeds

of three hundred miles an hour plus. The senior forecaster in Miami

picked up the telephone and called the computer programmer on the floor

above him. Ask Charlie for a hurricane code-name. And a minute later

the programmer called him back.

Charlie says to call the bitch Lorna. Six hundred miles south-west of

Miami the storm began to move forward, slowly at first but every hour

gathering power, spiralling upon itself at unbelievable velocities, its

high dome swelling upwards now through fifty thousand feet and still

climbing. The centre of the storm opened like a flower, the calm eye

extended upwards in a vertical tunnel with smooth walls of solid cloud

rising to the very summit of the dome, now sixty thousand feet above the

surface of the wind-tortured sea.

The entire mass began to move faster, back towards the east, in a

directly contrary direction to the usual track of the gentle trade

winds. Spinning and roaring upon itself, devouring everything in its

path, the she-devil called Lorna launched itself across the Caribbean

Sea.

Nicholas Berg turned his head to look down upon the impressive skyline

of Miami Beach. The rampart of tall elegant hotel buildings followed

the curve of the beach into the north, and behind it lay the ugly

sprawled tangle of urban development and snarled highways.

The Eastern Airlines direct flight from Bermuda turned on to its base

leg and then on to final approach, losing height over the beach and

Biscayne Bay, Nicholas felt uncomfortable, the nagging of guilt and

uncertainty. His guilt was of two kinds. He felt guilty that he had

deserted his post at the moment when he was likely to be desperately

needed.

Ocean Salvage's two vessels were out there somewhere in the Atlantic,

Warlock running hard up the length of the Atlantic in a desperate

attempt to catch up with Golden Dawn, while Jules Levoisin in Sea Witch

was now approaching the eastern seaboard of America where he would

refuel before going on to his assignment as standby tug on the

exploration field in the Gulf of Mexico. At any moment, the Master of

either vessel might urgently need to have his instructions.

Then there was Golden Dawn. She had rounded the Cape of Good Hope

almost three weeks ago. Since then, even Bernard Wackie had been unable

to fix her position.

She had not been reported by other craft, and any communications she had

made with Christy Main must have been by satellite telex, for she had

maintained strict silence on the radio channels. However, she must

rapidly be nearing the most critical part of her voyage when she turned

west and began her approach to the continental shelf of North America

and the passage of the islands into the Gulf - Peter Berg was on board

that monster, and Nicholas felt the chill of guilt. His place was at

the centre, in the control room of Bach Wackie on the top floor of the

Bank of Bermuda building in Hamilton town. His post was there where he

could assess changing conditions and issue instant commands to

coordinate his salvage tugs.

Now he had deserted his post, and even though he had made arrangements

to maintain contact with Bernard Wackie, still it would take him hours,

perhaps even days, to get back to where he was needed, if there was an

emergency.

But then there was Samantha. His instincts warned him that every day,

every hour he delayed in going to her would reduce his chances of having

her again.

There was more guilt there, the guilt of betrayal. It was no help to

tell himself that he had made no marriage vows to Samantha Silver, that

his night of weakness with Chantelle had been forced upon him in

circumstances almost impossible to resist, that any other man in his

position would have done the same, and that in the end the episode had

been a catharsis and a release that had left him free for ever of

Chantelle.

To Samantha, it had been betrayal, and he knew that much was destroyed

by it. He felt terrible aching guilt, not for the act sexual

intercourse without love is fleeting and insignificant - but for the

betrayal and for the damage he had wrought.

Now he was uncertain, uncertain as to just how much he had destroyed,

how much was left for him to build upon. All that he was certain of was

that he needed her, more than he had needed anything in his life. She

was still the promise of eternal youth and of the new life towards which

he was groping so uncertainly. If love was needing, then he loved

Samantha Silver with something close to desperation.

She had told him she would not be there when he came.

He had to hope now that she had lied, he felt physically sick at the

thought that she meant it.

He had only a single Louis Vuitton overnight valise as cabin luggage so

he passed swiftly through customs, and as he went into the telephone

booths, he checked his watch. It was after six o'clock, she'd be home

by now.

He had dialled the first four digits of her number before he checked

himself.

What the hell am I phoning for? he asked himself grimly. To tell her

I'm here, so she can have a flying start when she runs for the bushes?

There is nothing so doomed as a timid lover. He dropped the receiver

back on its cradle, and went for the Hertz desk at the terminal doors.

What's the smallest you've got? he asked.

A Cougar/ the pretty blonde in the yellow uniform told him. In America,

small is a relative term. He was just lucky she hadn't offered him a

Sherman tank, The brightly painted Chevy van was in the lean-to shelter

under the spread branches of the ficus tree, and he parked the Cougar's

nose almost touching its tail-gate.

There was no way she could escape now, unless she went out through the

far wall of the shed. Knowing her, that was always a possibility, he

grinned mirthlessly.

He knocked once on the screen door of the kitchen and went straight in.

There was a coffee pot beside the range, and he touched it as he passed.

It was still warm.

He went through into the living room, and called Samantha! The bedroom

door was ajar. He pushed it open. There was a suit of denims, and some

pale transparent wisps of underwear thrown carelessly over the patchwork

quilt.

The shack was deserted, he went down the steps of the front stoop and

straight on to the beach. The tide had swept the sand smooth, and her

prints were the only ones. She had dropped her towel above the

high-watermark but he had to shade his eyes against the ruddy glare of

the lowering sun before he could make out her bobbing head - five

hundred yards out.

He sat down beside her towel in the fluffy dry sand and lit a cheroot.

He waited, while the sun settled in a wild, fiery flood of light, and he

lost the shape of her head against the darkening sea. She was half a

mile out now, but he felt no urgency, and the darkness was almost

complete when she rose suddenly, waist-deep from the edge of the gentle

surf, waded ashore and came up the beach, twisting the rope of her hair

over one shoulder to wring the water from it.

Nicholas felt his heart flop over and he flicked the cheroot away and

stood up. She halted abruptly, like a startled forest animal, and stood

completely still, staring uncertainly at the tall, dark figure before

her. She was so young and slim and smooth and beautiful.

What do you want? she faltered.

You/ he said.

Why? Are you starting a harem? Her voice hardened and she

straightened; he could not see the expression of her eyes, but her

shoulders took on a stubborn set.

He stepped for-ward and she was rigid in his arms and her lips hard and

tightly unresponsive under his.

Sam, there are things I'll never be able to explain, I don't even

understand them myself, but what I do know very clearly is that I love

you, that without you my life is going to be flat and plain goddamned

miserable There was no relaxation of the rigid muscles. Her hands were

still held stiffly at her sides and her body felt cold and wet and

unyielding.

Samantha, I wish I were perfect - I'm not. But all I am sure of is that

I can't make it without you. I couldn't take it again. I couldn't live

through this again/ she said tightly.

I need you. I am certain of that/ he insisted.

You'd better be, you son of a bitch. You cheat on me one time more and

you won't have anything left to cheat with - I'll take it off clean, at

the roots. Then she was clinging to him. Oh God, Nicholas, how I hated

you, and how I missed you - and how long you took to come back/ and her

lips were soft and tasted of the sea.

He picked her up and carried her up through the soft sand. He didn't

trust himself to speak, it would be so easy to say the wrong thing now.

Nicholas, I've been sitting here waiting for your call., Bernard

Wackie's voice was sharp and alert, the tension barely contained. How

soon can you get yourself back here? What is it?

It is starting to pop. I've got to hand it to you, baby, you've got a

nose for it. You smelled this coming., Come on, Bernie! Nicholas

snapped.

This call is going through three open exchanges, Bernie told him.

"You want chapter and verse, or did nobody ever tell you that it's a

tough game you are in? There is a lot of competition cluttering up the

scene. The cheese-heads have one lying handy. Probably Wittezee or one

of the other big Dutch tugs, Nicholas thought swiftly. They could be

streaming a towing wire within a couple of days, And the Yanks are

pretty hot numbers, McCormick has one stationed in the Hudson River.

"All right, Nick cut through the relish with which Bernie was detailing

the threat of hovering competition.

There is a direct flight at seven tomorrow morning - if I can't make

that, I'll connect with the British Airways flight from Nassau at noon

tomorrow. Meet me/ Nick ordered.

You shouldn't have gone running off/ said Bernard Wackie, showing

amazing hindsight. Before he could deliver any more pearls of wisdom,

Nicholas hung up on him.

Samantha was sitting up in the centre of the bed. She was stark naked,

but she hugged her knees to her chest with both arms, and under the

gorgeous tangle of her hair her face was desolate as that of a lost

child and her green eyes haunted.

You're going again/ she said softly. You only just came, and now you're

going again. Oh God, Nicholas, loving you is the toughest job I've ever

had in my life. I don't think I have got the muscle for it. He reached

for her quickly and she clung to him, pressing her face into the thick

pad of coarse dark hair that covered his chest.

I have to go - I think it's Golden Dawn, he said, and she listened

quietly while he told it to her, Only when he finished speaking did she

begin to ask the questions which kept them talking quietly, locked in

each other's arms in the old brass bed, until long after midnight.

She insisted on cooking his breakfast for him, even though it was still

dark outside and she was more than half asleep, hanging on to the range

for support and turning up the early morning radio show so that the

music might shake her awake.

Good morning, early birds, this is W.W.O.K. with another lovely day

ahead of you. A predicted 8 S at Fort Lauderdale and the coast, and 80

inland with a 10% chance of rain. We've got a report on hurricane Lorna

for you also. She's dipping away south, towards the lesser Antilles -

so we can all relax, folks - relax and listen to Elton John. I love

Elton John/ Samantha said sleepily. Don't you?

Who's he? Nicholas asked.

There! I knew right away we had a lot in common. She blinked at him

owlishly. Did you kiss me good morning?

I forget. Come here/ he instructed. You're not going to forget this

one. Then, a few minutes later, Nicholas, you'll miss your plane. Not

if I cut breakfast. It would have been a grotty breakfast anyway. She

was coming awake fast now.

She gave him the last kiss through the open window of the Cougar.

"You've got an hour - you'll just about make He started the engine and

still she held on to the sill.

Nicholas, one day we will be together - I mean all the time, like we

planned? You and me doing our own thing, our own way? We will, won't

we? It's a promise. Hurry back/ she said, and he gunned the Cougar up

the sandy driveway without looking back.

There were eight of them crowded into Tom Parker's office.

Although there was only seating for three, the others found perches

against the tiered shelves with their rows of biological specimens in

bottles of formaldehyde or on the piles of reference books and white

papers that were stacked against the walls.

Samantha sat on the corner of Tom's desk, swinging her long denim-clad

legs, and answered the questions that were fired at her.

How do you know she will take the passage of the Florida Straits? It's

an educated guess. She's just too big and clumsy to thread the needle

of the islands. Samantha's replies were quick.

"Nicholas is betting on it. I'll go along with that then, Tom grunted.

The Straits are a hundred miles wide I know what you're going to say/

Samantha smiled, and turned to one of the other girls.

"Sally-Anne will answer that one. You all know my brother is in the

Coast Guard - all traffic through the Straits reports to Fort

Lauderdale/ she explained. And the coastguard aircraft patrol out as

far as Grand Bahama. We'll have a fix on her immediately she enters the

Straits - we've got the whole U.S. Coast Guard rooting for us.

They argued and discussed for ten minutes more, before Tom Parker

slapped an open palm on the desk in front of him and they subsided

reluctantly into silence.

Okay/ he said. Do I understand the proposal to be that this chapter of

Green-Peace intercepts the tanker carrying cad-rich crudes before it

enters American territorial waters and attempts to delay or divert the

ship? That's exactly it/ Samantha nodded, and looked about her for

support. They were all nodding and murmuring agreement.

What are we trying to achieve? Do we truly believe that we will be able

to hold up the delivery of toxic crudes to the refinery at Galveston?

Let's define our objectives, Tom insisted.

In order for evil men to triumph it is necessary only that good men do

nothing. We are doing something. Bullshit, Sam/ Tom growled.

"Let's cut down on the rhetoric - it's one of the things that does us

more harm than good. You talk like a nut and you discredit yourself

before you have begun. All right/ Samantha grinned. We are publicizing

the dangers, and our opposition to them. Okay/ Tom nodded. That's

better. What are our other objectives? They discussed that for twenty

minutes more, and then Tom Parker took over again.

Fine, now how do we get out there in the Straits to confront this vessel

- do we put on our water-wings and swim? Even Samantha looked sheepish

now. She glanced around for support, but the others were studying their

fingernails or gazing with sudden fascination out of the windows.

Well/ Samantha began, and then hesitated. We thought - Go on/ Tom

encouraged her. Of course, you weren't thinking of using University

property, were you? There is actually a law in this country against

taking other people's ships - it's called piracy.

As a matter of fact -'Samantha gave a helpless shrug.

And as a senior and highly respected member of the faculty, you would

not expect me to be party to a criminal act. They were all silent,

watching Samantha, for she was their leader, but for once she was at a

loss.

On the other hand, if a party of graduate researchers put in a

requisition, through the proper channels, I would be quite happy to

authorize an extended field expedition across the Straits to Grand

Bahama on board the Dicky.

Tom, you're a darling/ said Samantha.

That's a hell of a way to speak to your Professor/ said Tom, and scowled

happily at her.

They came in on the British Airways flight from Heathrow yesterday

afternoon. Three of them, here is a list of the names, Bernard Wackie

slid a notepad across the desk, and Nicholas glanced at it quickly.

Charles Gras - I know him, he's Chief Engineer at Construction Navale

Atlantique/ Nicholas explained.

Right/ Bernard nodded. He gave his occupation and employer to

Immigration. Isn't that privileged information? Bernard grinned. I

keep my ear to the ground, and then he was deadly serious again. All

right, so these three engineers have a small suitcase each and a crate

in the hold t at weighs three hundred and fifty kilos, and it's marked

Industrial Machinery . Don't stop now, Nicholas encouraged him.

And there is an S6iN Sikorsky helicopter sitting waiting for them on the

tarmac. The helicopter has been chartered direct from London by Christy

Marine of Leadenhall Street. The three engineers and the case of

machinery are shuttled aboard the Sikorsky so fast that it looks like a

conjuring trick, and she takes off and egg-beats for the south.

"Did the Sikorsky pilot file a flight-plan? Sure did. Servicing

shipping, course 196 magnetic. ETA to be reported. What's the range of

the 6iN - 500 nautical miles? Not bad/ Bernard conceded.

'533 for the standard, but this model has long-range tanks, she's good

for 75o. But that's one way, not the return journey. The helicopter

hasn't returned to Bermuda yet. She could refuel aboard - or, if they

aren't carrying av-gas, she could stay on until final destination/

Nicholas said. What else have you got? You want more? Bernard looked

aghast. Doesn't anything ever satisfy you? Did you monitor the

communications between Bermuda Control, the chopper, and the ship she

was servicing? Nix/ Bernard shook his head. There was a box-up. He

looked shamefaced. It happens to the best of us. Spare me the details.

Can you get information from Bermuda Control of the time the chopper

closed her flight-plan? Jesus, Nicholas, you know better than that.

It's an offence to listen in on the aviation frequencies, let alone ask

them. Nicholas jumped up, and crossed swiftly to the perspex plot. He

brooded over it, leaning on clenched fists, his expression smouldering

as he studied the large-scale map.

What does all this mean to you, Nicholas? Bernard came to stand beside

him.

It means that a vessel at sea, belonging to the Christy Marine fleet,

has requested its head office to send machinery spares and specialist

personnel by the fastest possible means, without regard to expense. Have

you figured the air freight on a package Of 3 5o, kilos? Nicholas

straightened up and groped for the crocodile-skin cheroot case.

It means that the vessel is broken down or in imminent danger of

breakdown somewhere in an area south-west of Bermuda, within an arc of

four hundred and fifty miles probably much closer, otherwise she would

have requested service from the Bahamas, and it's highly unlikely they

would have operated the chopper at extreme range. Right/Bernard agreed.

Nicholas lit his cheroot and they were both silent a moment.

A hell of a small needle in a bloody big haystack/ said Bernard.

you let me worry about that, Nicholas murmured, still without taking his

eyes from the plot.

That's what you are paid for, Bernard agreed amiably.

it's Golden Dawn, isn't it? Has Christy Marine got any other vessels in

the area? Not as far as I know. Then that was a bloody stupid

question. Take it easy, Nicholas. I'm sorry. Nicholas touched his

arm. My boy's on that pig, He took a deep draw on the cheroot, held it

a moment, and then slowly exhaled. His voice was calm and businesslike,

as he went on: What's our weather and Wind at 060 and knots. Cloud

three eighths stratocumulus at four thousand feet.

Long-range projection, no change. Steady trade winds again/ Nicholas

nodded. Thank God for all small mercies. There is a hurricane warning

out, as you know, but on its present position and track, it will blow

itself out to sea a thousand miles south of Grand Bahama.

"Good , Nicholas nodded again. Please ask both Warlock and Sea Witch to

report their positions, course, speed and fuel-conditions. Bernard had

the two telex flimsies for him within twenty minutes.

Warlock has made a good run of it/ Nicholas murmured, as the position of

the tug was marked on the plot.

She crossed the equator three days ago, said Bernard.

And Sea Witch will reach Charleston late tomorrow, Nicholas observed.

Are any of the opposition inside us? Bernard shook his head. McCormick

has one in New York and Wittezee is halfway back to Rotterdam., We are

in good shape/ Nicholas decided, as he balanced the triangles of

relative speeds and distances between the vessels.

Is there another chopper available on the island to get me out to

Warlock? I No/ Bernard shook his head. The 6iN is the only one based

on Bermuda. Can you arrange bunkering for Warlock, I mean immediate

bunkering - here in Hamilton? We can have her tanks filled an hour

after she comes in. Nicholas paused and then made the decision. Please

telex David Allen on Warlock, TO MASTER WARLOCK FROM BERG IMMEDIATE AND

URGENT NEW SPEED TOP OF THE GREEN NEW COURSE HAMILTON HARBOUR BERMUDA

ISLAND DIRECT REPORT EXPECTED TIME OF ARRIVAL ENDS.

You're going to run, then? Bernard asked. You are going to run with

both your ships? Yes, Nicholas nodded. I'm running with everything

I've got. Golden Dawn wallowed with the dead heavy weight of one

million tons of crude oil. Her motion was that of a waterlogged hulk.

Broadside to the set of the swells, her tank decks were almost awash.

The low seas broke against her starboard rail and the occasional crest

flopped over and spread like pretty patches of white lace-work over the

green plastic-coated decks.

She had been drifting powerlessly for four days now.

The main bearing of the single propeller shaft had begun to run hot

forty-eight hours after crossing the equator, and the Chief Engineer had

asked for shut-down to inspect the bearing and effect any repairs.

Duncan Alexander had forbidden any shut-down, over-riding the good

judgement of both his Master and Chief Engineer, and had only grudgingly

agreed to a reduction in the ship's speed.

He ordered the Chief Engineer to trace any fault and to effect what

repairs he could, while under reduced power.

Within four hours, the Chief had traced the damaged and leaking gland in

the pump that force-lubricated the bearing, but even the running under

reduced power setting had done significant damage to the main bearing,

and now there was noticeable vibration, jarring even Golden Dawn's

massive hull.

I have to get the pump stripped down or we'll burn her clear out, the

Chief faced up to Duncan Alexander at last.

Then you'll have to shut down and not just a couple of hours either, It

will take two days to fit new bearing shells at sea. The Chief was pale

and his lips trembled, for he knew of this man's reputation. The

engineer knew that he discarded those who crossed him, and he had the

reputation of a special vindictiveness to hound a man until he was

broken. The Chief was afraid, but his concern for the ship was just

strong enough.

Duncan Alexander changed direction. What was the cause of the pump

failure in the first place? Why wasn't it noticed earlier? It looks

like a case of negligence to me. Stung at last, the Chief blurted out,

If there had been a back-up pump on this ship, we could have switched to

secondary system and done proper maintenance. Duncan Alexander flushed

and turned away. The modifications he had personally ordered to Golden

DaWn's design had excluded most of the duplicated back-up systems;

anything that kept down the cost of construction had been ordered.

How long do you need? He stopped in the centre of the owner's stateroom

and glared at his engineer, Four hours/the Scot replied promptly.

You've got exactly four hours, he said grimly. if you haven't finished

by then you will live to regret it. I swear that to you.

While the engineer stopped his engines, stripped, repaired and

reassembled the lubrication pump, Duncan was on the bridge with the

Master, We've lost time, too much time, he said. I want that made up.

It will mean pushing over best economic speed/ Captain Randle warned

carefully.

Captain Randle, the value of our cargo is 85 dollars a ton. We have on

board one million tons. I want the time made up. Duncan brushed his

objection aside. We have a deadline to meet in Galveston roads. This

ship, this whole concept of carrying crude is on trial, Captain. I

don't have to keep reminding you of that. The hell with the costs, I

want to meet the deadline. Yes, Mr. Alexander/ Randle nodded. We'll

make up the time. Three and a half hours later, the Chief Engineer came

up to the bridge.

Well? Duncan turned on him fiercely as he stepped out of the elevator.

The pump is repaired, but What is it, man? I've got a feeling.

We ran her too long. I've got a nasty feeling about that bearing. It

wouldn't be clever to run her over 5o% of power, not until it's been

taken down and inspected I'm ordering revolutions for 25 knots, Randle

told him uneasily.

I wouldn't do that, man, the Chief shook his head mournfully.

Your station is in the engine room/ Duncan dismissed him brusquely,

nodded to Randle to order resumption of sailing, and went out to his

customary place on the open wing of the bridge. He looked back over the

high round stern as the white turbulence of the great propeller boiled

out from under the counter and then settled in a long slick wake that

soon reached back to the horizon. Duncan stood out in the wind until

after dark, and when he went below, Chantelle was waiting for him. She

stood up from the long couch under the forward windows of the stateroom.

We are under way again. Yes/he said. It's going to be all right. The

engine control was switched to automatic at nine o'clock local time that

night. The engine room personnel went up to dinner, and to bed, all

except the Chief Engineer. He lingered for another two hours shaking

his head and mumbling bitterly over the massive bearing assembly in the

long narrow shaft tunnel. Every few minutes, he laid his hand on the

massive casting, feeling for the heat and vibration that would warn of

structural damage.

At eleven o'clock, he spat on the steadily revolving propeller shaft. It

was thick as an oak trunk and polished brilliant silver in the stark

white lights of the tunnel.

He pushed himself up stiffly from his crouch beside the bearing.

In the control room, he checked again that all the ship's systems were

on automatic, and that all circuits were functioning and repeating on

the big control board, then he stepped into the elevator and went up.

Thirty-five minutes later, one of the tiny transistors in the board blew

with a pop like a champagne cork and a puff of grey smoke.

There was nobody in the control room to hear or see it. The system was

not duplicated, there was no back-up to switch itself in automatically,

so that when the temperature of the bearing began to rise again, there

was no impulse carried to the alarm system, no automatic shutdown of

power.

The massive shaft spun on while the over-heated bearing closed its grip

upon the area of rough metal, damaged by the previous prolonged running,

A fine sliver of metal lifted from the polished surface of the spinning

shaft, and curled like a silver hair spring, was caught up and smeared

into the bearing. The whole assembly began to glow a sullen cherry red

and then the oxide paint that was daubed on the outer surfaces of the

bearing began to blister and blacken. Still the tremendous power of the

engine forced the shaft around.

What oil was still being fed between the glowing surfaces of the

spinning shaft and the shells of the bearing turned instantly thin as

water in the heat, then reached its flash point and burst into flame and

ran in little fiery rivulets down the heavy casting of the main bearing,

flashing the blistered paint-work alight. The shaft tunnel filled with

thick billows of stinking chemical-tainted smoke, and only then did the

fire sensors come to life and their alarms repeated on the navigation

bridge and in the quarters of Master, First Officer and Chief Engineer.

But the great engine was still pounding along at 70% of power, and the

shaft still turned in the disintegrating bearing, smearing heat-softened

metal, buckling and distorting under unbearable strains.

The Chief Engineer was the first to reach the central console in the

engine control room, and without orders from the bridge he began

emergency shut-down of all systems.

It was another hour before the team under the direction of the First

Officer had the fire in the shaft tunnel under control. They used

carbon dioxide gas to smother the burning paint and oil, for cold water

on the heated metal would have aggravated the damage done by heat

distortion and buckling.

The metal of the main bearing casting was still so hot when the Chief

Engineer began opening it up, that it scorched the thick leather and

asbestos gloves worn by his team.

The bearing shells had disintegrated, and the shaft itself was brutally

scored and pitted. If there was distortion, the Chief knew it would not

be detected by eye. However, even a buckling of one ten thousandth of

an inch would be critical.

He cursed softly as he worked, nuking the obscenities sound like a

lullaby; he cursed the manufacturers of the lubricating pump, the men

who had installed and tested it, the damaged gland and the lack of a

back-up system, but mostly he cursed the stubbornness and intractability

of the Chairman of Christy Marine whose ill-advised judgement had turned

this functionally beautiful machinery into blackened smoking twisted

metal.

It was mid-morning by the time the Chief had the spare bearing shells

brought up from stores and unpacked from their wood shavings in the

wooden cases; but it was only when they came to fit them that they

realized that the cases had been incorrectly stencilled. The

half-shells that they contained were obsolete non-metric types, and they

were five millimetres undersized for Golden Dawn's shaft that tiny

variation in size made them utterly useless.

It was only then that Duncan Alexander's steely urbane control began to

crack; he raged about the bridge for twenty minutes making no effort to

think his way out of the predicament, but abusing Randle and his

engineer in wild and extravagant terms. His rage had a paralysing

affect on all Golden Dawn's officers and they stood white-faced and

silently guilty.

Peter Berg had sensed the excitement and slipped up unobtrusively to

watch. He was fascinated by his stepfather's rage. He had never seen a

display like it before, and at one stage he hoped that Duncan

Alexander's eyeballs might actually burst like over-ripe grapes; he held

his breath in anticipation, and felt cheated when it did not happen.

At last, Duncan stopped and ran both hands through his thick waving

hair; two spikes of hair stood up like devil's horns. He was still

panting but he had recovered partial control.

Now sir, what do you propose? he demanded of Randle, and in the silence

Peter Berg piped up.

You could have new shells sent from Bermuda - it's only three hundred

miles away. We checked it this morning., How did you get in here?

Duncan swung round. Get back to your mother, Peter scampered, appalled

at his own indiscretion, and only when he left the bridge did the Chief

speak.

We could have spares flown out from London to Bermuda There must be a

boat -'Randle cut in swiftly.

Or an aircraft to drop it to us Or a helicopter Get Christy Main on the

telex/ snapped Duncan Alexander.

it was good to have a deck under his feet again, Nicholas exulted.

He felt himself coming fully alive again.

I'm a sea-creature/ he grinned to himself. And I keep forgetting it. He

looked back to the low silhouette of the Bermuda islands, the receding

arms of Hamilton Harbour and the flecking of the multi-coloured

buildings amongst the cedar trees, and then returned his attention to

the spread charts on the navigation table before him.

Warlock was still at cautionary speed Even though the the channel was

wide and clearly buoyed, yet the coral reef on each hand was sharp and

hungry, and David Allen's full attention was on the business of conning

Warlock out into the open sea. But as they passed the 100, fathom line,

he gave the order to his deck officer, Full away at 0900, hours, pilot,

and hurried across to join Nicholas.

I didn't have much of a chance to welcome you on board, sir. Thank you,

David. It's good to be back. Nicholas looked up and smiled at him.

Will you bring her round on to 240 magnetic and increase to 80% power?

Quickly David repeated his order to the helm and then shifted from one

foot to the other, beginning to flush under the salt-water tan.

Mr. Berg, my officers are driving me mad. They've been plaguing me

since we left Cape Town, - are we running on a job - or is this a

pleasure cruise? Nicholas laughed aloud then. He felt the excitement

of the hunt, a good hot scent in the nostrils, and the prospect of a fat

prize. Now he had Warlock under him, his concern for Peter's safety had

abated. Whatever happened now, he could get there very fast. No, he

felt good, very good.

We're hunting, David/ he told him. Nothing certain yet, -he paused, and

then relented, Get Beauty Baker up to my cabin, tell Angel to send up a

big pot of coffee and a mess of sandwiches - I missed breakfast - and

while we eating, I'll fill both of you in. Beauty Baker accepted one of

Nicholas cheroots.

Still smoking cheap/ he observed, and sniffed at the four-dollar cheroot

sourly, but there was a twinkle of pleasure behind the smeared lenses of

his spectacles. Then, unable to contain himself, he actually grinned.

Skipper tells me we are hunting, is that right? This is the picture -

Nicholas began to spell it out to them in detail, and while he talked,

he thought with comfortable self-indulgence, I must be getting old and

soft I didn't always talk so much. Both men listened in silence, and

only when he finished did the two of them begin bombarding him with the

perceptive penetrating questions he had expected.

Sounds like a generator armature/ Beauty Baker guessed, as he puzzled

the contents of the wooden case that had been flown out to Golden Dawn.

I cannot believe that Golden Dawn doesn't carry a full set of mechanical

spares. While Baker was fully preoccupied with the mechanics of the

situation, David Allen concentrated on the problems of seamanship. What

was the range of the helicopter? Has it returned to base yet? With her

draught, she must be heading for the Florida Straits. Our best bet

would be to shape a course for Matanilla Reef at the mouth of the

Straits. There was a peremptory knock on the door of the guest cabin,

and the Trog stuck his grey wrinkled tortoise head through. He glanced

at Nicholas, but did not greet him.

Captain, Miami is broadcasting a new hurricane alert.

"Lorna" has kicked northwards, they're predicting a track of north

north-west and a speed over the ground of twenty knots. He closed the

door and they stared at each other in silence for a moment.

Nicholas spoke at last.

It is never one single mistake that causes disaster/ he said. It is

always a series of contributory errors, most of them of small

consequence in themselves - but when taken with a little bad luck -he

was silent a moment and then, softly, Hurricane Lorna could just be that

bit of bad luck. He stood up and took one turn around the small guest

cabin, feeling caged and wishing for the space of the Master's suite

which was now David Allen's. He turned back and suddenly he realized

Beauty Baker and David Allen, that they were hoping for disaster. They

were like two old sea wolves with the scent of the prey in their

nostrils. He felt his anger rising coldly against them, they were

wishing disaster on his son.

just one thing I didn't tell you/ he said. My son is on Golden Dawn.

The immense revolving storm that was code-named Lorna was nearing full

development. Her crest was reared high above the freezing levels so she

wore a splendid mane of frosted white ice particles that streamed out

three hundred miles ahead of her on the jet stream of the upper

troposphere.

From one side to the other, she now measured one hundred and fifty miles

across, and the power unleashed within her was of unmeasurable savagery.

The winds that blew around her centre tore the surface off the sea and

bore it aloft at speeds in excess of one hundred and fifty miles an

hour, generating precipitation that was as far beyond rain as death is

beyond life. Water filled the dense cloud-banks so that there was no

clear line between sea and air.

It seemed now that madness fed upon madness, and like a blinded and

berserk monster, she blundered across the confined waters of the

Caribbean, ripping the trees and buildings, even the very earth from the

tiny islands which stood in her path.

But there were still forces controlling what seemed uncontrollable,

dictating what seemed to be random, for, as she spun upon a spinning

globe, the storm showed the primary trait of gyroscopic inertia, a

rigidity in space that was constant as long as no outside force was

applied, Obeying this natural law, the entire system moved steadily

eastwards at constant speed and altitude above the surface of the earth,

until her northern edge touched the land-mass of the long ridge of land

that forms the greater Antilles.

Immediately another gyroscopic law came into force, the law of

precession. When a deflecting force is applied to the rim of a spinning

gyro, the gyro moves not away from, but directly towards that force.

Hurricane Lorna felt the land, and, like a maddened bull at the flirt of

the matador's cape, she turned and charged towards it, crossing the

narrow high strips of Haiti in an orgy of destruction and terror until

she burst out of the narrow channel of the Windward Passage into the

open beyond.

Yet still she kept on spinning and moving. Now, barely three hundred

miles ahead of her, across those shallow reefs and banks prophetically

named Hurricane Flats after the thousands of other such storms that had

followed the same route during the memory of man, lay the deeper waters

of the Florida Straits and the miinI and of the continental United

States of America.

At twenty miles an hour, the whole incredible heaven-high mass of crazed

wind and churning clouds trundled north-westwards.

Duncan Alexander stood under the bogus Degas ballet dancers in the

owner's stateroom. He balanced easily on the balls of his feet and his

hands were clasped lightly behind his back, but his brow was heavily

furrowed with worry and his eyes darkly underscored with plum-coloured

swollen bags of sleeplessness.

Seated on the long couch and on the imitation Louis Quatorze chairs

flanking the fireplace, were the senior officers of Golden Dawn - her

Captain, Mate and Chief Engineer, and in the leather -studded

wing-backed chair as, the engineer from across the wide cabin sat

Charles Gr Atlantique. It seemed as though he had chosen his seat to

keep himself aloof from the owner and officers of the crippled

ultra-tanker.

He spoke now in heavily accented English, falling back on the occasional

French word which Duncan translated quickly, The four men listened to

him with complete attention, never taking their eyes from the sharp pale

Parisian features and the foxy bright eyes.

My men will have completed the re-assembly of the main bearing by noon

today. To the best of my ability, I have examined and tested the main

shaft. I can find no evidence of structural damage, but I must

emphasize that this does not mean that no damage exists. At the very

best, the repairs must be considered to be temporary. He paused and

they waited, while he turned deliberately to Captain Randle. I must

urge you to seek proper repair in the nearest port open to you, and to

proceed there at the lowest speed which will enable you efficiently to

work the ship.

Randle twisted uncomfortably in his seat, and glanced across at Duncan.

The Frenchman saw the exchange and a little steel came into his voice.

If there is structural distortion in the main shaft, operation at speeds

higher than this may result in permanent and irreversible damage and

complete breakdown. I must make this point most forcibly. Duncan

intervened smoothly. We are fully burdened and drawing twenty fathoms

of water. There are no safe harbours on the eastern seaboard of

America, that is even supposing that we could get permission to enter

territorial waters with engine trouble. The Americans aren't likely to

welcome us. Our nearest safe anchorage is Galveston roads, on the Texas

coast of the Gulf of Mexico - and then only after the tugs have taken

off our pod tanks outside the 100 --fathom line. The tanker's First

Officer was a young man, probably not over thirty years of age, but he

had so far conducted himself impeccably in the emergencies the ship had

encountered. He had a firm jaw and a clear level eye, and he had been

the first into the smoke-filled shaft tunnel.

With respect, sir/ and they all turned their heads towards him, 'Miami

has broadcast a revised hurricane alert that includes the Straits and

southern Florida. We would be on a reciprocal course to the hurricane

track, a directly converging course. Even at fifteen knots, we would be

through the Straits and into the Gulf with twenty-four hours to spare,

Duncan stated, and looked to Randle for confirmation.

At the present speed of the storm's advance - yes/ Randle qualified

carefully. But conditions may change with respect, sir. Our The Mate

persisted. Again, nearest safe anchorage is the lee of Bermuda Island

Do you have any idea of the value of this cargo? Duncan rasped. No, you

do not. Well, I will inform you. It is $85,000,000.. The interest on

that amount is in the region of $20,000 a day. His voice rose a note,

again that wild note to it. 'Bermuda does not have the facilities to

effect major repairs The door from the private accommodation opened

silently and Chantelle Alexander stepped into the stateroom.

She wore no jewellery, a plain pearl silk blouse and a simple dark

woollen skirt, but her skin had been gilded by the sun and she had

lightly touched her dark eyes with a make-up that emphasized their size

and shape. Her beauty silenced them all and she was fully aware of it

as she crossed to stand beside Duncan.

It is necessary that this ship and her cargo proceed directly to

Galveston/ she said softly.

Chantelle -'Duncan began, and she silenced him with a brusque gesture of

one hand.

There is no question about the destination and the route that is to be

taken. Charles Gras looked to Captain Randle, waiting for him to assert

the authority vested in him by law. But when the young Captain remained

silent, the Frenchman smiled sardonically and shrugged a world-weary

dismissal of further interest. Then I must ask that arrangements be

made for my two assistants and myself to leave this ship immediately we

have completed the temporary repairs. Again Gras emphasized the word

temporary'.

Duncan nodded. If we resume our sailing when you anticipate, and even

taking into consideration the low fuel of the helicopter, we will be

within easy range condition of the east coast of Florida by dawn

tomorrow., Chantelle had not taken her eyes from the Golden Dawn's

officers during this exchange, and now she went on in the same quiet

voice.

I am quite prepared to accept the resignation of any of the officers of

this ship who wish to join that flight., Duncan opened his mouth to make

some protest at her assumption of his authority, but she turned to him

with a small lift of the chin, and something in her expression and the

set of her head upon her shoulders reminded him forcibly of old Arthur

Christy. There was the same toughness and resilience there/ the same

granite determination; strange that he had not noticed it before.

Perhaps I have never looked before, he thought. Chantelle recognized

the moment of his capitulation, and calmly she turned back to face

Golden Dawn's officers.

One by one, they dropped their eyes from hers; Randle was the first to

stand up.

If you will excuse me, Mrs. Alexander, I must make preparations to get

under way again., Charles Gras paused and looked back at her, and he

smiled again, as only a Frenchman smiles at a pretty woman.

Magnifique! he murmured, and lifted one hand in a graceful salute of

admiration before he stepped out of the stateroom.

When Chantelle and Duncan were alone together, she turned to him slowly,

and she let the contempt show in her expression.

Any time you feel you have not got the guts for it, let me know, will

you? Chantelle! You have got us into this, me and Christy Marine. Now

you'll get us out of it, even if it kills you. Her lips compressed into

a thinner line and her eyes slitted vindictively.

And it would be nice if it did, she said softly.

The pilot of the Beech-craft Baron, pulled back the throttles to 2.2 of

boost on both engines, and slid the propellers into fully fine pitch,

simultaneously beginning a gentle descending turn towards the

extraordinary-looking vessel that came up swiftly out of the low early

morning haze that spilled over from the islands.

The same haze had blotted the low silhouette of the Florida coast from

the western horizon, and even the pale green water and shaded reefs of

little Bahamas Bank were washed pale by the haze, and partially obscured

by the ittent layer of stratocumulus cloud at four thousand interm feet.

The Baron pilot selected 20 of flap to give the aircraft a nose down

attitude which would afford a better forward vision, and continued his

descent down through the cloud.

It burst in a brief grey puff across the windshield before they were out

into sunlight again.

What do you make of her? he asked his copilot.

She's a big baby! the copilot tried to steady his binoculars. 'Can't

read her name. The enormously wide low bows were pushing up a fat

sparkling pillow of churning water, and the green decks seemed to reach

back almost to the limits of visibility before rising sheer into the

stern quarters.

Son of a gun/ the pilot shook his head. She looks like the

vehicle-assembly building on Cape Kennedy. She does too/ agreed his

copilot. The same square unlovely bulk of that enormous structure was

repeated in smaller scale by the navigation bridge of the big ship.

"I'll give her a call on 16. The copilot lowered his binoculars and

thumbed the microphone as he lifted it to his lips. South-bound bulk

carrier, this is Coast Guard November Charlie One five Niner overhead.

Do you read me? There was the expected delay; even in confined and

heavily trafficked waters, these big bastards kept a sloppy watch and

the spotter fumed silently.

Coast Guard One five Niner, this is Golden Dawn.

Reading you five by five - Going up to 22. Two hundred miles away the

Trog knocked over the shell-casing, spilling damp and stinking cigar

butts over the deck, in his haste to change frequency to channel 22 as

the operator on board Golden Dawn had stipulated, at the same time

switching in both the tape recorder and the radio direction-finder

equipment.

High up in Warlock's fire-control tower, the big metal ring of the

direction-finding aerial turned slowly, lining up on the transmissions

that boomed so clearly across the ether, repeating the relative bearing

on the dial of the instrument on the Trog's cluttered bench.

Good morning to you, Golden Dawn, the lilting Southern twang of the

coastguard navigator came back. I would be mightily obliged for your

port of registry and your cargo manifest. This ship is registered

Venezuela. The Trog dexterously made the fine tuning, scribbled the

bearing on his pad, ripped off the page and darted into Warlock's

navigation bridge.

Golden Dawn is sending in clear/ he squeaked with an expression of

malicious glee.

Call the Captain/ snapped the deck officer, and then as an afterthought,

and ask Mr. Berg to come to the bridge. The conversation between

coastguard and ultra-tanker was still going on when Nicholas burst into

the radio room, belting his dressing-gown.

Thank you for your courtesy, sir/ the coastguard navigator was using

extravagant Southern gallantry, fully aware that Golden Dawn was outside

United States territorial waters, and officially beyond his government's

jurisdiction. I would appreciate your port of final destination. We

are enroute Galveston for full discharge of cargo. 'Thank you again,

sir. And are you apprised of the hurricane alert in force at this time?

Affirmative. From Warlock's bridge, David Allen appeared in the

door-way, his face set and flushed.

She must be under way again/ he said, his disappointment so plain that

it angered Nicholas yet again. She is into the channel already. 'I'd be

obliged if you would immediately put this ship on a course to enter the

Straits and close with her as soon as is possible, Nicholas snapped, and

David Allen blinked at him once then disappeared on to his bridge,

calling for the change in course and increase in speed as he went.

Over the loudspeaker, the coastguard was being politely persistent.

Are you further apprised, sir, of the up-date on that hurricane alert

predicting storm passage of the main navigable channel at 1200 hours

local time tomorrow? Affirmative. Golden Dawn's replies had become

curt.

May I further trouble you, sir, in view of your sensitive cargo and the

special weather conditions, for your expected time of arrival abeam of

the Dry Tortugas Bank marine beacon and when you anticipate clearing the

channel and shaping a northerly course away from the predicted hurricane

track? Stand-by. There was a brief hum of static while the operator

consulted the deck officer and then the Golden Dawn came back, Our ETA

Dry Tortugas Bank beacon is 0 1 3 0 tomorrow. There was a long pause now

as the coastguard consulted his headquarters ashore on one of the closed

frequencies, and then: I am requested respectfully, but officially, to

bring to your attention that very heavy weather is expected ahead of the

storm centre and that your present ETA Dry Tortugas Bank leaves you very

fine margins of safety, sir. Thank you, coastguard One five Niner. Your

transmission will be entered in the ship's log. This is Golden Dawn

over and out. The coastguard's frustration was evident, clearly he

would have loved to order the tanker to reverse her course.

We will be following your progress with interest, Golden Dawn. Bon

voyage, this is coastguard One five Niner over and out. Charles Gras

held his blue beret on with one hand, while with the other he lugged his

suitcase. He ran doubled up, instinctively avoiding the ear-numbing

clatter of the helicopter's rotor.

He threw his suitcase through the open fuselage door and then hesitated,

turned and scampered back to where the ship's Chief Engineer stood at

the edge of the white painted helipad target on Golden Dawn's tank deck.

Charles grabbed the Engineer's upper arm and leaned close to shout in

his ear.

Remember, my friend, treat her like a baby, like a tender virgin - if

you have to increase speed, do so gently - very gently. The Engineer

nodded., his sparse sandy hair fluttering in the down-draught.

Good luck/ shouted the Frenchman. Bonne chance! He slapped the man's

shoulder. I hope you don't need it! He darted back and scrambled up

into the fuselage of the Sikorsky, and his face appeared in one of the

portholes. He waved once, and then the big ungainly machine rose slowly

into the air, hovered for a moment and then banked low over the water,

setting off in its characteristic away nose-down attitude for the

mainland, still hidden by haze and distance.

Dr. Samantha Silver, dressed in thigh-high rubber waders and with her

sleeves rolled up above the elbows, staggered under the weight of two

ten-gallon plastic buckets of clams as she climbed the back steps of the

laboratory building.

Sam! down the length of the long passageway, Sally-Anne screamed at

her. We were going to leave without you! What is it? Sam dumped the

buckets with relief, slopping salt water down the steps.

Johnny called - the anti-pollution patrol bespoke Golden Dawn an hour

ago.

She's in the Straits, she was abeam Matanilla reef when they spotted her

and she will be abeam of Biscayne Key before we can get out there, if we

don't leave now. I'm coming. Sam hefted her heavy buckets, and broke

into a rubber-kneed trot. I'll meet you down on the wharf did you call

the TV studio? There's a camera team on the way/ Sally-Anne yelled back

as she ran for the front doors. Hurry, Sam - fast as you like! Samantha

dumped the clams into one of her tanks, switched on the oxygen and as

soon as it began to bubble to the surface, she turned and raced from the

laboratory and out of the front doors.

Golden Dawn's deck officer stopped beside the radarscope, glanced down

at it idly, then stooped with more attention and took a bearing on the

little glowing pinpoint of green light that showed up clearly inside the

ten-mile circle of the sweep.

He grunted, straightened, and walked quickly to the front of the bridge.

Slowly, he scanned the green windchopped sea ahead of the tanker's

ponderous bows.

Fishing boat/ he said to the helmsman. But they are under way. He had

seen the tiny flash of a bow wave. And they are right in the main

navigational channel - they must have seen us by now, they are making a

turn to pass us to starboard. He dropped the binoculars and let them

dangle against his chest. Oh thank you. He took the cup of cocoa from

the steward, and sipped it with relish as he turned away to the

chart-table.

One of the tanker's junior officers came out of the radio room at the

back of the bridge.

Still no score" he said, and only injury time left now/ and they fell

into a concerned discussion of the World Cup soccer match being played

under floodhghts at Wembley Stadium on the other side of the Atlantic.

If it's a draw then it means that France is in the There was an excited

shout from the radio room, and the junior officer ran to the door and

then turned back with an excited grin. England has scored! The deck

officer chuckled happily. That will wrap it up. Then with a start of

guilt he turned back to his duties, and had another start, this time of

surprise, when he glanced into the radarscope.

What the hell are they playing atV he exclaimed irritably, and hurried

forward to scan the sea ahead.

The fishing boat had continued its turn and was now bows on.

Damn them. We'll give them a buzz. He reached up for the handle of the

foghorn and blew three long blasts, that echoed out mournfully across

the shallow greenish water of the Straits. There was a general movement

among the officers to get a better view ahead through the forward bridge

windows.

They must be half asleep out there. The deck officer thought quickly

about calling the Captain to the bridge, If it came to manoeuvering the

ship in these confined waters, he flinched from the responsibility. Even

at this reduced speed, it would take Golden Dawn half an hour and seven

nautical miles to come to a stop; a turn in either direction would swing

through a wide arc of many miles before the ship was able to make a go

change, of course - God, then there was the effect of the wind against

the enormously exposed area of the towering stern quarters, and the full

bore of the Gulf Stream driving out of the narrows of the Straits. The

problems of manoeuvering the vessel struck a chill of panic into the

officer - and the fishing boat was on collision course, the range

closing swiftly under the combined speeds of both vessels. He reached

for the call button of the intercom that connected the bridge directly

to the Captain's quarters on the deck below, but at that moment Captain

Randle came bounding up the private staircase from his day cabin.

What is it? he demanded. What was that blast on the horn? 'Small

vessel holding on to collision course, sir. The officer's relief was

evident, and Randle seized the handle of the foghorn and hung on to it.

God, what's wrong with them? The deck is crowded/ exclaimed one of the

officers without lowering his binoculars. Looks as though they have a

movie camera team on the top deck. Randle judged the closing range

anxiously; already the small fishing vessel was too close for the Golden

Dawnto stop in time.

Thank God/ somebody exclaimed. They are turning away. They are

streaming some sort of banner. Can anybody read that? They are

heaving-to/ the deck officer yelled suddenly.

They are heaving-to right under our bows., Samantha Silver had not

expected the tanker to be so big.

From directly ahead, her bows seemed to fill the horizon from one side

to the other, and the bow wave she threw up ahead of her creamed and

curved like the set of the long wave at Cape St Francis when the surf

was up.

Beyond the bows, the massive tower of her navigation bridge stood so

tall it looked like the skyline of The Miami Beach, one of those massive

hotel buildings seen from close inshore.

It made her feel distinctly uneasy to be directly under that on-rushing

steel avalanche.

Do you think they have seen us? Sally-Anne asked beside her, and when

Samantha heard her own unease echoed by the pretty girl beside her, it

steeled her.

Of course they have/ she announced stoutly so that everyone in the small

wheelhouse could hear her. That's why they blew their siren. We'll

turn aside at the last minute. They aren't slowing down, Hank Petersen,

the helmsman, pointed out huskily, and Samantha wished that Tom Parker

had been on board with them. However, Tom was up in Washington again,

and they had taken the Dicky to sea with a scratch crew, and without Tom

Parker's written authorization. What do you want to do, Sam? And they

all looked at her.

I know a thing that size can't stop, but at least we're going to make

them slow down.

Are the TV boys getting some stuff? Samantha asked, to delay the moment

of decision. Go up, Sally-Anne, and check them. Then to the others,

You-all get the banner ready, we'll let them get a good look at that.

Listen, Sam. Hank Petersen's tanned intelligent face was strained. He

was a tunny expert, and was not accustomed to handling the vessel except

in calm and uncluttered waters. I don't like this, we're getting much

too close. That thing could churn us right under, and not even notice

the bump. I want to turn away now. His voice was almost drowned by the

sudden sky-crashing blast of the tanker's fog-horns.

Son of a gun, Sam, I don't like playing chicken-chicken with somebody

that size. Don't worry, we'll get out of their way at the last moment.

All rightV Samantha decided. Turn go to port, Hank. Let's show them the

signs, I'm going to help them on deck. The wind tore at the thin white

canvas banner as they tried to run it out along the side of the

deckhouse, and the little vessel was rolling uncomfortably while the TV

producer was shouting confused stage directions at them from the top of

the wheelhouse.

Bitterly Samantha wished there was somebody to take commands somebody

like Nicholas Berg - and the banner tried to wrap itself around her

head.

The Dicky was coming around fast now, and Samantha shot a glance at the

oncoming tanker and felt the shock of it strike in the pit of her

stomach like the blow of a fist. It was huge, and very close - much too

close, even she realized that.

At last she managed to get a turn of the thin line that secured the

banner around the stern rail - but the light canvas had twisted so that

only one word of the slogan was readable. POISONER', it accused in

scarlet, crudely painted letters followed by a grinning skull and

crossed bones.

Samantha dived across the deck and struggled with the flapping canvas;

above her head the producer was shout excitedly; two of the others were

trying to help her; Sally-Anne was screaming 'Go back! Go back! and

waving both arms at the great tanker. You poison our oceans! Everything

was becoming confused and out of control, the Dicky swung ahead into the

wind and pitched steeply, the person next to her lost his footing and

knocked painfully into Samantha, and at that moment she felt the change

of the engine beat.

Tricky Dicky's diesel had been bellowing furiously as Hank opened the

throttle to its stop, using full power to bring the little vessel around

from under the menace of those steel bows.

The smoking splutter of the exhaust pipe that rose vertically up the

side of the deckhouse, had made all speech difficult - but now it died

away, and suddenly there was only the sound of the wind.

Even their own raised voices were silenced, and they froze, staring out

at Golden Dawn as she bore down on them without the slightest check in

her majestic approach.

Samantha was the first one to recover, She ran across the plunging deck

to the wheelhouse.

Hank Petersen was down on his knees beside the bulkhead, struggling

ineffectually with the conduit that housed the controls to the engine

room on the deck below.

Why have you stopped? Samantha yelled at him, and he looked up at her

as though he were mortally wounded.

It's the throttle linkage/ he said. It's snapped again., Can't you fix

it? and the question was a mockery. A mile away, Golden Dawn came down

on them - silent, menacing, unstoppable.

For ten seconds Randle stood rigid, both hands gripping the foul weather

rail below the sill of the bridge windows His face was set, pale and

finely drawn , as he watched the stern of the wallowing fishing boat for

the renewed churning of its prop.

He knew that he could not turn nor stop his ship in time to avoid

collision, unless the small vessel got under way immediately, and took

evasive action by going out to starboard under full power.

Damn them to hell/ he thought bitterly, they were in gross default. He

had all the law and the custom of the sea behind him; a collision would

cause very little damage to Golden Dawn, perhaps she would lose a little

paint, at most a slightly buckled plate in the reinforced bows - and

they had asked for it He had no doubts about the object of this crazy,

irresponsible seamanship. There had been controversy before the Golden

Dawn sailed. He had read the objections and seen the nut-case

environmentalists on television. The scarletpainted banner with the

ridiculously melodramatic jolly Roger made it clear that this was a

boatload of nutters attempting to prevent Golden Dawn entering American

waters.

He felt his anger boiling up fiercely, These people always made him

furious - if they had their way, there would be no tanker trade, and now

they were deliberately threatening him, placing him in a position which

might prejudice his own career. He already had the task of taking his

ship through the Straits ahead of the hurricane. Every moment was vital

- and now there was this.

He would be happy to maintain course and speed, and to run them down.

They were flaunting themselves, challenging him to do it - and, by God,

they deserved it, However, he was a seaman, with a seaman's deep concern

for human life at sea. It would go against all his instincts not to

make an effort to avoid collision, no matter how futile that effort

would be. Then beside him one of his officers triggered him.

There are women on board her - look at that! Those are women! That was

enough. Without waiting for confirmation, Randle snapped at the

helmsman beside him.

Full port rudder! And with two swift paces he had reached the engine

room telegraph. It rang shrilly as he pulled back the chromed handle to

Full Astern'.

Almost immediately, the changed beat came up through the soles of his

feet, as the great engine seven decks below the bridge thundered

suddenly under all emergency power, and the direction of the spinning

main propeller shaft was abruptly reversed.

Randle spun back to face ahead. For almost five minutes, the bows held

steady on the horizon without making any answer to the full application

of the rudder. The inertia of a million tons of crude oil, the immense

drag of the hull through water and the press of wind and current held

her on course, and although the single ferro-bronze propeller bit deeply

into the green waters, there was not the slightest diminution of the

tanker's speed.

Randle kept his hand on the engine telegraph, pulling back on the silver

handle with all his strength, as though this might arrest the great

ship's forward way through the water.

Turn! he whispered to the ship, and he stared at the fishing boat that

still lay, rolling wildly, directly in Golden Dawn's path. He noticed

irrelevantly that the tiny human figures along the rear rail were waving

frantically, and that the banner with its scarlet denunciation had torn

loose at one end and was now whipping and twisting like a Tibetan prayer

flag over the heads of the crew.

Turn, Randle whispered, and he saw the first response of the hull; the

angle between the bows and the fishing boat altered, it was a noticeable

change, but slowly accelerating and a quick glance at the control

console showed a small check in the ship's forward speed.

Turn, damn it, turn. Randle held the engine telegraph locked at full

astern, and felt the sudden influence of the Gulf Stream current on the

ship as she began to come across the direction of flow.

Ahead, the fishing boat was almost about to disappear from sight behind

Golden Dawn's high blunt bows.

He had been holding the ship at full astern for almost seven minutes

now, and suddenly Randle felt a change in Golden Dawn, something he had

never experienced before.

There was harsh, tearing, pounding vibration coming up through the deck.

He realized just how severe that vibration must be, when Golden Dawn's

monumental hull began to shake violently - but he could not release his

grip on the engine telegraph, not with that helpless vessel lying in his

track.

Then suddenly, miraculously, all vibration in the deck under his feet

ceased altogether. There was only the calm press of the hull through

the water, no longer the feel of the engine's thrust, a sensation much

more alarming to a mariner than the vibration which had preceded it, and

simultaneously, a fiery rash of red warning lights bloomed on the ship's

main control console, and the strident screech of the full emergency

audio-alarm deafened them all.

Only then did Captain Randle push the engine telegraph to stop'. He

stood staring ahead as the tiny fishing boat disappeared from view,

hidden by the angle from the navigation bridge which was a mile behind

the bows.

One of the officers reached across and hit the cut-out on the

audio-alarm. In the sudden silence every officer stood frozen, waiting

for the impact of collision.

Golden Dawn's Chief Engineer paced slowly along the engine-room control

console, never taking his eyes from the electronic displays which

monitored all the ship's mechanical and electrical functions.

When he reached the alarm aboard, he stopped and frowned at it angrily.

The failure of the single transistor, a few dollars worth of equipment,

had been the cause of such brutal damage to his beloved machinery. He

leaned across and pressed the test button, checking out each alarm

circuit, yet, while he was doing it, recognizing the fact that it was

too late. He was nursing the ship along, with God alone knew what

undiscovered damage to engine and main shaft only kept in check by this

reduced power setting - but there was a hurricane down there below the

southern horizon, and the Chief could only guess at what emergency his

machinery might have to meet in the. next few days.

It made him nervous and edgy to think about it. He searched in his back

pocket, found a sticky mint humbug, carefully picked off the little

pieces of lint and fluff before tucking it into his cheek like a

squirrel with a nut, sucking noisily upon it as he resumed his restless

prowling up and down the control console.

His on-duty stokers and the oilers watched him surreptitiously. When the

old man was in a mood, it was best not to attract attention.

Dickson! the Chief said suddenly. Get your lid on. We are going down

the shaft tunnel again. The oiler sighed, exchanged a resigned glance

with one of his mates and clapped his hard-hat on his head. He and the

Chief had been down the tunnel an hour previously. It was an

uncomfortable, noisy and dirty journey.

The oiler closed the watertight doors into the shaft tunnel behind them,

screwing down the clamps firmly under the Chief's frosty scrutiny, and

then both men stooped in the confined headroom and started off along the

brightly lit pale grey painted tunnel.

The spinning shaft in its deep bed generated a highpitched whine that

seemed to resonate in the steel box of the tunnel, as though it was the

body of a violin. Surprisingly, the noise was more pronounced at this

low speed setting, it seemed to bore into the teeth at the back of the

oiler's jaw like a dentist's drill.

The Chief did not seem to be affected. He paused beside the main

bearing for almost ten minutes, testing it with the palm of his hand,

feeling for heat or vibration. His expression was morose, and he

worried the mint humbug in his cheek and shook his head with foreboding

We are going on up the tunnel.

When he reached the main gland, he squatted down suddenly and peered at

it closely. With a deliberate fle of his jaw he crushed the remains of

the humbug between his teeth, and his eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

There was a thin trickle of seawater oozing through the gland and

running down into the bilges. The Chief touched it with his finger.

Something had shifted, some balance was disturbed, the seal of the gland

was no longer watertight - such a small sign, a few gallons of seawater,

could be the first warning of major structural damage.

The Chief shuffled around, still hunched down beside the shaft bed, and

he lowered his face until it was only inches from the spinning steel

main shaft. He closed one eye, and cocked his head, trying once again

to decide if the faint blurring of the shaft's outline was real or

merely his over-active imagination, whether what he was seeing was

distortion or his own fears.

Suddenly, startlingly, the shaft slammed into stillness.

The deceleration was so abrupt that the Chief could actually see the

torque transferred into the shaft bed, and the metal walls creaked and

popped with the strain.

He rocked back on to his heels, and almost instantly the shaft began to

spin again, but this time in reverse thrust.

The whine built up swiftly into a rising shriek. They were Pulling

emergency power from the bridge, and it was madness, suicidal madness.

The Chief seized the oiler by the shoulder and shouted into his ear, Get

back to control - find out what the hell they are doing on the bridge.

The oiler scrambled away down the tunnel; it would take him ten minutes

to negotiate the long narrow passage, open the watertight doors and

reach the control room and as long again to return.

The Chief considered going after him, but somehow he could not leave the

shaft now. He lowered his head again, and now he could clearly see the

flickering outline of the shaft. It wasn't imagination at all, there

was a little ghost of movement. He clamped his hands over his ears to

cut out the painful shriek of the spinning metal, but there was a new

note to it, the squeal of bare metal on metal and before his eyes he saw

the ghost outline along the edge of the shaft growing, the flutter of

machinery out of balance, and the metal deck under his feet began to

quiver.

God! They are going to blow the whole thing! he shouted, and jumped up

from his crouch. Now the deck was juddering and shaking under his feet.

He started back along the shaft, but the entire tunnel was agitating so

violently that he had to grab the metal bulkhead to steady himself, and

he reeled drunkenly, thrown about like a captive insect in a cruel

child's box.

Ahead of him, he saw the huge metal casting of the main bearing twisting

and shaking, and the vibration chattered his teeth in his clenched jaw

and drove up his spine like a jack hammer.

Disbelievingly he saw the huge silver shaft beginning to rise and buckle

in its bed, the bearing tearing loose from its mountings.

Shut down! he screamed. For God's sake, shut down! but his voice was

lost in the shriek and scream of tortured metal and machinery that was

tearing itself to pieces in a suicidal frenzy.

The main bearing exploded, and the shaft slammed it into the bulkhead,

tearing steel plate like paper.

The shaft itself began to snake and whip. The Chief cowered back,

pressing his back to the bulkhead and covering his ears to protect them

from the unbearable volume of noise.

A sliver of heated steel flew from the bearing and struck him in the

face, laying open his upper lip to the bone, crushing his nose and

snapping off his front teeth at the level of his gums.

He toppled forward, and the whipping, kicking shaft seized him like a

mindless predator and tore his body to pieces, pounding him and crushing

him in the shaft bed and splattering him against the pale metal walls.

The main shaft snapped like a rotten twig at the point where it had been

heated and weakened. The unbalanced weight of the revolving propeller

ripped the stump out

46o through the after seal, as though it were a tooth plucked from a

rotting jaw.

The sea rushed in through the opening, flooding the tunnel instantly

until it slammed into the watertight doors - and the huge glistening

bronze propeller, with the stump of the main shaft still attached, the

whole unit weighing one hundred and fifty tons, plummeted downwards

through four hundred fathoms to embed itself deeply in the soft mud of

the sea bottom.

Freed of the intolerable goad of her damaged shaft, Golden Dawn was

suddenly silent and her decks still and steady as she trundled on,

slowly losing way as the water dragged at her hull.

Samantha had one awful moment of sickening guilt. She saw clearly that

she was responsible for the deadly danger into which she had led these

people, and she stared out over the boat's side at the Golden Dawn.

The tanker was coming on without any check in her speed; perhaps she had

turned a few degrees, for her bows were no longer pointed directly at

them, but her speed was constant.

She was achingly aware of her inexperience, of her helplessness in this

alien situation. She tried to think, to force herself out of this

frozen despondency.

Life-jackets! she thought, and yelled to Sally-Anne out on the deck,

The life-jackets are in the lockers behind the wheelhouse. Their faces

turned to her, suddenly stricken. Up to this moment it had all been a

glorious romp, the old fun-game of challenging the money-grabbers,

prodding the establishment, but now suddenly it was mortal danger.

Move! Samantha shrieked at them, and there was a rush back along the

deck.

Think! Samantha shook her head, as though to clear it.

Think! she urged herself fiercely. She could hear the tanker now, the

silken rustling sound of the water under its hull, the sough of the bow

wave curling upon itself.

The Dicky's throttle linkage had broken before, when they had been off

Key West a year ago. It had broken between the bridge and the engine,

and Samantha had watched Tom Parker fiddling with the engine, holding

the lantern for him to see in the gloomy confines of the smelly little

engine room. She had not been certain how he did it, but she remembered

that he had controlled the revolutions of the engine by hand - something

on the side of the engine block, below the big bowl of the air filter.

Samantha turned and dived down the vertical ladder into the engine room.

The diesel was running, burbling away quietly at idling speed, not

generating sufficient power to move the little vessel through the water.

She tripped and sprawled on the greasy deck, and pulled herself up,

crying out with pain as her hand touched the red-hot manifold of the

engine exhaust.

On the far side of the engine block, she groped desperately under the

air filter, pushing and tugging at anything her fingers touched. She

found a coil spring, and dropped to her knees to examine it.

She tried not to think of the huge steel hull bearing down on them, of

being down in this tiny box that stank of diesel and exhaust fumes and

old bilges. She tried not to think of not having a life-jacket, or that

the tanker could tramp the little vessel deep down under the surface and

crush her like a matchbox.

Instead, she traced the little coil spring to where it was pinned into a

flat upright lever. Desperately she pushed the lever against the

tension of the spring - and instantly the diesel engine bellowed

deafeningly in her ears, startling her so that she flinched and lost the

lever. The diesel's beat died away into the bumbling idle and she

wasted seconds while she found the lever again and pushed it hard

against its stops once more. The engine roared, and she felt the ship

picking up speed under her. She began to pray incoherently.

She could not hear the words in the engine noise, and she was not sure

she was making sense, but she held the throttle open, and kept on

praying.

She did not hear the screams from the deck above her.

She did not know how close the Golden Dawn was, she did not know if Hank

Petersen was still in the wheelhouse conning the little vessel out of

the path of the onrushing tanker - but she held the throttle open and

prayed.

The impact when it came was shattering, the crash and crackle of timbers

breaking, the rending lurch and the roll of the deck giving to the

tearing force of it.

Samantha was hurled against the hot steel of the engine, her forehead

striking with such a force that her vision starred into blinding white

light; she dropped backwards, her body loose and relaxed, darkness

ringing in her ears, and lay huddled on the deck.

She did not know how long she was unconscious, but it could not have

been for more than a few seconds; the spray of icy cold water on her

face roused her and she pulled herself up on to her knees.

In the glare of the single bare electric globe in the deck above her,

Samantha saw the spurts of water jets through the starting planking of

the bulkhead beside her.

Her shirt and denim pants were soaked, salt water half blinded her, and

her head felt as though the skull were cracked and someone was forcing

the sharp end of a bradawl between her Dimly she was aware that the

diesel engine was idling noisily, and that the deck was sloshing with

water as the boat rolled wildly in some powerful turbulence. She

wondered if the whole vessel had been trodden under the tanker.

Then she realized it must be the wake of the giant hull which was

throwing them about so mercilessly, but they were still afloat.

She began to crawl down the plunging deck. She knew where the bilge

pump was, that was one thing Tom had taught all of them - and she

crawled on grimly towards it.

Hank Petersen ducked out of the wheelhouse, flapping his arms wildly as

he struggled into the life-jacket. He was not certain of the best

action to take, whether to jump over the side and begin swimming away

from the tanker's slightly angled course, or to stay on board and take

his chances with the collision which was now only seconds away.

Around him, the others were in the grip of the same indecision; they

were huddled silently at the rail staring up at the mountain of smooth

rounded steel that seemed to blot out half the sky, only the TV

cameraman on the wheelhouse roof, a true fanatic oblivious of all

danger, kept his camera running. His exclamations of delight and the

burr of the camera motor blended with the rushing sibilance of Golden

Dawn's bow wave. It was fifteen feet hig that wave, and it sounded like

wild fire in dry grass.

Suddenly the exhaust of the diesel engine above Hank's head bellowed

harshly, and then subsided into a soft burbling idle again. He looked up

at it uncomprehendingly, now it roared again, fiercely , and the deck

lurched beneath him. From the stern he heard the boil of water driven

by the propeller, and the Dicky shrugged off her lethargy and lifted her

bows to the short steep swell of the Gulf Stream.

A moment longer Hank stood frozen, and then he dived back into the

wheelhouse and spun the spokes of the wheel through his fingers,

sheering off sharply, but still staring out through the side glass.

The Golden Dawn's bows filled his whole vision now, but the smaller

vessel was scooting frantically out to one side, and the tanker's bows

were swinging malestically in the opposite direction.

A few seconds more and they would be clear, but the bow wave caught them

and Hank was flung across the wheelhouse. He felt something break in

his chest, and heard the snap of bone as he hit, then immediately

afterwards there was the crackling rending tearing impact as the two

hulls came together and he was thrown back the other way, sprawling

wildly across the deck.

He tried to claw himself upright, but the little fishing boat was

pitching and cavorting with such abandon that he was thrown flat again.

There was another tearing impact as the vessel was dragged down the

tanker's side, and then flung free to roll her tails under and bob like

a cork in the mill race of the huge ship's wake.

Now, at last, he was able to pull himself to his feet, and doubled over,

clutching his injured ribs, he peered dazedly through the wheelhouse

glass.

Half a mile away, the tanker was lazily turning up into the wind, and

there was no propeller wash from under her counter. Hank staggered to

the doorway, and looked out, The deck was still awash, but the water

they had taken on was pouring out through the scuppers. The railing was

smashed, most of it dangling overboard and the planking was splintered

and torn, the ripped timber as white as bone in the sunlight.

Behind him, Samantha came crawling up the ladder from the engine room.

There was a purple swelling in the centre of her forehead, she was

soaking wet and her hands were filthy with black grease. He saw a livid

red burn across the back of one hand as she lifted it to brush tumbled

blonde hair out of her face.

Are you all right, Sam? Water's pouring in/ she said. I don't know how

long the pump can hold it. Did you fix the motor? he asked.

Samantha nodded. I held the throttle open/ she said, and then with

feeling, but I'll be damned to hell if I'll do it again. Somebody else

can go down there, I've had my turn. Show me how/ Hank said, and you

can take the wheel.

The sooner we get back to Key Biscayne, the happier I'll be. Samantha

peered across at the receding bulk of Golden Dawn.

My God! she shook her head with wonder. My God!

We were lucky!

. . .

Mackerel skies and mares'tails, Make tall ships carry short sails.

Nicholas Berg recited the old sailor's doggerel to himself, shading his

eyes with one hand as he looked upwards.

The cloud was beautiful as fine lacework; very high against the tall

blue of the heavens it spread swiftly in those long filmy scrolls.

Nicholas could see the patterns developing and expanding as he watched,

and that was a measure of the speed with which the high winds were

blowing. That cloud was at least thirty thousand feet high, and below

it the air was clear and crisp - only out on the western horizon the

billowing silver and the blue thunderheads were rising, generated by the

land-mass of Florida whose low silhouette was still below their horizon.

They had been in the main current of the Gulf Stream for six hours now.

It was easy to recognize this characteristic scend of the sea, the short

steep swells marching close together, the particular brilliance of these

waters that had been first warmed in the shallow tropical basin of the

Caribbean, the increased bulk flooding through into the Gulf of Mexico

and there heated further, swelling in volume until they formed a hillock

of water which at last rushed out through this narrow drainhole of the

Florida Straits, swinging north and east in a wide benevolent wash,

tempering the climate of all countries whose shores it touched and

warming the fishing grounds of the North Atlantic.

In the middle of this stream, somewhere directly ahead of Warlock's

thrusting bows, the Golden Dawn was struggling southwards, directly

opposed to the current which would clip eighty miles a day off her

speed, and driving directly into the face of one of the most evil and

dangerous storms that nature could summon.

Nicholas found himself brooding again on the mentality of anybody who

would do that; again he glanced upwards at the harbingers of the storm,

those delicate wisps of lacey cloud.

Nicholas had sailed through a hurricane once, twenty years ago, as a

junior officer on one of Christy Marine's small grain carriers, and he

shuddered now at the memory of it.

Duncan Alexander was a desperate man even to contemplate that risk, a

man gambling everything on one fall of the dice. Nicholas could

understand the forces that drove him, for he had been driven himself -

but he hated him now for the chances he was taking, Duncan Alexander was

risking Nicholas son, and he was risking the life of an ocean and of the

millions of people whose existence was tied to that ocean. Duncan

Alexander was gambling with stakes that were not his to place at hazard.

Nicholas wanted one thing only now, and that was to get alongside Golden

Dawn and take off his son. He would do that, even if it meant boarding

her like a buccaneer, In the Master's suite, there was a locked and

sealed arms cupboard with two riot guns, automatic 12 gauge shotguns and

six Walther PK-38 Pistols. Warlock had been equipped for every possible

emergency in any ocean of the world, and those emergencies could include

piracy or mutiny aboard a vessel under salvage. Now Nicholas was fully

prepared to take an armed party on board Golden Dawn, and to take his

chances in any court of law afterwards.

Warlock was racing into the chop of the Gulf Stre and scattering the

spray like startled white doves, but she was running too slowly for

Nicholas and he turned away impatiently and strode into the navigation

bridge.

David Allen looked up at him, a small frown of preoccupation marring the

smooth boyish features.

Wind is moderating and veering westerly/ he said, and Nicholas

remembered another line of doggerel: When the wind moves against the sun

Trust her not for back she'll run. He did not recite it, however, he

merely nodded and said: We are running into the extreme influence of

Lorna.

The wind will back again as we move closer to the centre. Nicholas went

on to the radio room and the Trog looked up at him. It was not

necessary for Nicholas to ask, the Trog shook his head. Since that long

exchange with the coastguard patrol early that morning, Golden Dawn had

kept her silence.

Nicholas crossed to the radarscope and studied the circular field for a

few minutes; this usually busy seaway was peculiarly empty. There were

some small craft crossing the main channel, probably fishing boats or

pleasure craft scuttling for protection from the coming storm. All

across the islands and on the mainland of Florida the elaborate

precautions against the hurricane assault would be coming into force.

Since the highway had been laid down on the spur of little islands that

formed the Florida Keys, more than three hundred thousand people had

crowded in there, in the process transforming those wild lovely islands

into the Tai Mahal of ticky-tacky. If the hurricane struck there, the

loss of life and property would be enormous, it was probably the most

vulnerable spot on a long exposed coastline. For a few minutes,

Nicholas tried to imagine the chaos that would result if a million tons

of toxic crude oil was driven ashore on a littoral already ravaged by

hurricane winds. It baulked his imagination, and he left the radar and

moved to the front of the bridge. He stood staring down the narrow

throat of water at a horizon that concealed all the terrors and

desperate alarms that his imagination could conjure up.

The door to the radio shack was open and the bridge was quiet, so that

they all heard it clearly; they could even catch the hiss of breath as

the speaker paused between each sentence, and the urgency of his tone

was not covered by the slight distortion of the VHF carrier beam.

Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! This is the bulk oil carrier Golden Dawn. Our

position is 79 50'WeSt 2 5 43'North. Before Nicholas reached the

chart-table, he knew she was still a hundred miles ahead of them, and,

as he pored over the table, he saw his estimate confirmed, 'We have lost

our propeller with main shaft failure and we are drifting out of

control. Nicholas head flinched as though he had been hit in the face.

He could imagine no more dangerous condition and position for a ship of

that size - and Peter was on board.

,This is Golden Dawn calling the United States Coast Guard service or

any ship in a position to afford assistance - Nicholas reached the radio

shack with three long strides, and the Trog handed him the microphone

and nodded.

Golden Dawn this is the salvage tug Warlock. I will be in a position to

render assistance within four hours Damn the rule of silence, Peter was

on board her.

,- Tell Alexander I am offering Lloyd's Open Form and I want immediate

acceptance. He dropped the microphone and stormed back on to the

bridge, his voice clipped and harsh as he caught David Allen's arm.

Interception course and push her through the gate/ he ordered grimly.

Tell Beauty Baker to open all the taps. He dropped David's arm and spun

back to the radio room.

Telex Levoisin on Sea Witch. I want him to give me a time to reach

Golden Dawn at his best possible speed/ and he wondered briefly if even

the two tugs would be able to control the crippled and powerless Golden

Dawn in the winds of a hurricane.

Jules replied almost immediately. He had hunkered at Charleston, and

cleared harbour six hours previously. He was running hard now and he

gave a time to Golden Dawn's position for noon the next day, which was

also the forecast time of passage of the Straits for hurricane Lorna,

according to the meteorological up-date they had got from Miami two

hours before, Nicholas thought as he read the telex and turned to David

Allen.

David, there is no precedent for this that I know of but with my son on

board Golden Dawn I just have to assume command of this ship, on a

temporary basis, of course. I'd be honoured to act as your First

Officer again, sir/ David told him quietly, and Nicholas could see he

meant it.

If there is a good salvage, the Master's share will still be yours,

Nicholas promised him, and thanked him with a touch on the arm. Would

you check out the preparations to put a line aboard the tanker? David

turned to leave the bridge, but Nicholas stopped him. 'By the time we

get there, we will have the kind of wind you have only dreamed about in

your worst nightmares - just keep that in mind. 'Telex, screeched the

Trog. Golden Dawn is replying to our offer. Nicholas strode across to

the radio room, and read the first few lines of message as it printed

out.

OFFER CONTRACT OF DAILY HIRE FOR TOWAGE THIS VESSEL FROM PRESENT

POSITION TO GALVESTON ROADS The bastard/ Nicholas snarled. He's playing

his fancy games with me, in the teeth of a hurricane and with my boy

aboard. Furiously he punched his fist into the palm of his other hand.

Right! he snapped. We'll play just as rough! Get me the Director of

the U.S. Coast Guard at the Fort Lauderdale Headquarters - get him on

the emergency coastguard frequency and I will talk to him in clear. The

Trog's face lit with malicious glee and he made the contact, Colonel

Ramsden/ Nicholas said. This is the Master of Warlock. I'm the only

salvage vessel that can reach Golden Dawn before passage of Lorna, and

I'm probably the only tug on the eastern seaboard of America with 22,000

horsepower. Unless the Golden Dawn's Master accepts Lloyd's Open Form

within the next sixty minutes, I shall be obliged to see to the safety

of my vessel and crew by running for the nearest anchorage - and you're

going to have a million tons of highly toxic crude oil drifting out of

control into your territorial waters, in hurricane conditions. The

Coast Guard Director had a deep measured voice, and the calm tones of a

man upon whom the mantle of authority was a familiar garment.

Stand by, Warlock, I am going to contact Golden Dawn direct on Channel

16. Nicholas signalled the Trog to turn up the volume on Channel 16 and

they listened to Rarnsden speaking directly to Duncan Alexander.

In the event your vessel enters United States territorial waters without

control or without an attendant tug capable of exerting that control, I

shall be obliged under the powers vested in me to seize your vessel and

take such steps to prevent pollution of our waters as I see fit. I have

to warn you that those steps may include destruction of your cargo. Ten

minutes later the Trog copied a telex from Duncan Alexander personal to

Nicholas Berg accepting Lloyd's Open Form and requesting him to exercise

all dispatch in taking Golden Dawn in tow.

I estimate we will be drifting over the 100-fathom line and entering

U.S. territorial waters within two hours, the message ended.

While Nicholas read it, standing out on the protected wing of Warlock's

bridge, the wind suddenly fluttered the paper in his hand and flattened

his cotton shirt against his chest. He looked up quickly and saw the

wind was backing violently into the east, and beginning to claw the tops

of the Gulf Stream swells. The setting sun was bleeding copiously

across the high veils of cirrus cloud which now covered the sky from

horizon to horizon.

There was nothing more that Nicholas could do now.

Warlock was running as hard as she could, and all her crew were quietly

going about their preparations to pass a wire and take on tow. All he

could do was wait, but that was always the hardest part.

Darkness came swiftly but with the last of the light, Nicholas could

just make out a dark and mountainous shape beginning to hump up above

the southern horizon like an impatient monster. He stared at it with

awful fascination, until mercifully the night hid Lorna's dreadful face.

The wind chopped the Gulf Stream up into quick confused seas, and it did

not blow steadily, but flogged them with squally gusts and rain that

crackled against the bridge windows with startling suddenness.

The night was utterly black, there were no stars, no source of light

whatsoever, and Warlock lurched and heeled to the pattemless seas.

Barometer's rising sharply/ David Allen called suddenly. It's jumped

three millibars - back to 100 S. The trough/said Nicholas grimly. It

was a classic hurricane formation, that narrow girdle of higher pressure

that demarcated the outer fringe of the great revolving spiral of

tormented air. We are going into it now. And as he spoke the darkness

lifted, the heavens began to burn like a bed of hot coals, and the sea

shone with a sullen ruddy luminosity as though the doors of a furnace

had been thrown wide.

Nobody spoke on Warlock's bridge, they lifted their faces with the same

awed expressions as worshippers in a lofty cathedral and they looked up

at the skies.

Low cloud raced above them, cloud that glowed and shone with that

terrible ominous flare, Slowly the light faded and changed, turning a

paler sickly greenish hue, like the shine on putrid meat. Nicholas

spoke first.

The Devil's Beacon/he said, and he wanted to rationalize it to break the

superstitious mood that gripped them all. It was merely the rays of the

sun below the western horizon catching the cloud peaks of the storm and

reflected downwards through the weak cloud cover of the trough but

somehow he could not find the right words to denigrate that phenomenon

that was part of the mariner's lore, the malignant beacon that leads a

doomed ship on to its fate.

The weird light faded slowly away leaving the night even darker and more

foreboding than it had been before David/ Nicholas thought quickly of

something to distract his officers, have we got a radar contact yet? and

the new Mate roused himself with a visible effort and crossed to the

radarscope.

The range is very confused/ he said, his voice still subdued, and

Nicholas joined him at the screen.

The sweeping arm lit a swirling mass of sea clutter, and the strange

ghost echoes thrown up by electrical discharges within the approaching

storm. The outline of the Florida mainland and of the nearest islands

of the Grand Bahamas bank were firm and immediately recognizable. They

reminded Nicholas yet again of how little sea-room there was in which to

manoeuver his tugs and their monstrous prize.

Then, in the trash of false echo and sea clutter, his trained eye picked

out a harder echo on the extreme limits of the set's range. He watched

it carefully for half a dozen revolutions of the radar's sweep, and each

time it was constant and clearer.

Radar contact, he said. Tell Golden Dawn we are in contact, range

sixty-five nautical miles. Tell them we will take on tow before

midnight. And then, under his breath, the old sailor's qualifications,

"God willing and weather permitting. The lights on Warlock's bridge had

been rheostatted down to a dull rose glow to protect the night vision of

her officers, and the four of them stared out to where they knew the

tanker lay.

Her image on the radar was bright and firm, lying within the two mile

ring of the screen, but from the bridge she was invisible.

In the two hours since first contact, the barometer had gone through its

brief peak as the trough passed, and then fallen steeply.

From 100s it had crashed to goo and was still plummeting, and the

weather coming in from the east was blustering and squalling. The wind

mourned about them on a forever rising note, and torrential rain

obscured all vision outside an arc of a few hundred yards. Even

Warlock's twin searchlights, set seventy feet above the main deck on the

summit of the fire-control gantry, could not pierce those solid white

curtains of rain.

Nicholas groped like a blind man through the rain fog, using pitch and

power to close carefully with Golden Dawn, giving his orders to the helm

in a cool impersonal tone which belied the pale set of his features and

the alert brightness of his eyes as he reached the swirling bank of

rain.

Abruptly another squall struck Warlock. With a demented shriek, it

heeled the big tug sharply and shredded the curtains of rain, ripping

them open so that for a moment Nicholas saw Golden Dawn.

She was exactly where he had expected her to be, but the wind had caught

the tanker's high navigation bridge like the mainsail of a tall ship,

and she was going swiftly astern.

All her deck and port lights were burning, and she carried the twin red

riding lights at her stubby masthead that identified a vessel drifting

out of control. The following sea driven on by the rising wind piled on

to her tank decks, smothering them with white foam and spray, so that

the ship looked like a submerged coral reef.

Half ahead both/ Nicholas told the helmsman. Steer for her starboard

side. He closed quickly with the tanker, staying in visual contact now;

even when the rain mists closed down again, they could make out the

ghostly shape of her and the glow of her riding lights.

David Allen was looking at him expectantly and Nicholas asked, 'What

bottom? without taking his eyes from the stricken ship.

One hundred sixteen fathoms and shelving fast. They were being blown

quickly out of the main channel, on to the shallow ledge of the Florida

littoral.

I'm going to tow her out stern first, said Nicholas, and immediately

David saw the wisdom of it. Nobody would be able to get up into her

bows to secure a tow-line, the seas were breaking over them and sweeping

them with ten and fifteen feet of green water.

I'll go aft -'David began, but Nicholas stopped him.

No, David. I want you here - because I'm going on board Golden Dawn!

Sir, David wanted to tell him that it was dangerous to delay passing the

towing cable - with that lee shore waiting.

This will be our last chance to get passengers off her before the full

hurricane hits us, said Nicholas, and David saw that it was futile to

protest. Nicholas Berg was going to fetch his son.

From the height of Golden Dawn's towering navigation bridge, they could

look directly down on to the main deck of the tug as she came alongside.

Peter Berg stood beside his mother, almost as tall as she was. He wore

a full life-jacket and a corduroy cap pulled down over his ears.

It will be all right, he comforted Chantelle. Dad is here.

It will be'just fine now. And he took her hand protectively.

Warlock staggered and reeled in the grip of wind as she came up into the

tanker's lee, rain blew over her like dense white smoke and every few

minutes she put her nose down and threw a thick green slice of sea water

back along her decks.

In comparison to the tug's wild action, Golden Dawn wallowed heavily,

held down by the oppressive weight of a million tons of crude oil, and

the seas beat upon her with increasing fury, as if affronted by her

indifference. Warlock edged in closer and still closer.

Duncan Alexander came through from the communications room at the rear

of the bridge. He balanced easily against Golden Dawn's ponderous

motion but his face was swollen and flushed with anger.

Berg is coming on board/ he burst out. He's wasting valuable time. I

warned him that we must get out into deeper water. Peter Berg

interrupted suddenly and pointed down at Warlock, Look" he cried.

Nicholas checked himself, studied him for a long moment, and then smiled

mirthlessly.

Nobody ever called you a coward/ he nodded reluctantly. Other things -

but not a coward. Stay if you will, we might need an extra hand/ Then

to Peter, Come, my boy. And he led him towards the elevator.

At the quarter-deck rail, Nicholas hugged the boy, holding him in his

arms, their cheeks pressed tightly together, and drawing out the moment

while the wind cannoned and thrummed about their heads.

I love you, Dad. And I love you, Peter, more than I can ever tell you

but you must go now. He broke the embrace and lifted the child into the

deep canvas bucket of the bosun's chair, stepped back and windmilled his

right arm. Immediately, the winch party in Warlock's upperworks swung

him swiftly out into the gap between the two ships and the nylon cable

seemed as fragile and insubstantial as a spider's thread.

As the two ships rolled and dipped, so the line tightened and sagged,

one moment dropping the white canvas bucket almost to the water level

where the hungry waves snatched at it with cold green fangs, and the

next, pulling the line up so tightly that it hummed with tension,

threatening to snap and drop the child back into the sea, but at last it

reached the tug and four pairs of strong hands lifted the boy clear.

For one moment, he waved back at Nicholas and then he was hustled away,

and the empty bosun's chair was coming back.

only then did Nicholas become aware that Chantelle was clinging to his

arm and he looked down into her face.

Her eyelashes were dewed and stuck together with the flying raindrops.

Her face ran with wetness and she seemed very small and childlike under

the bulky oilskins and life-jacket. She was as beautiful as she had

ever been but her eyes were huge and darkly troubled.

Nicholas, I've always needed you/ she husked. But never as I need you

now. Her existence was being blown away on the wind, and she was

afraid. % You and this ship are all I have left. No, only the ship/ he

said brusquely, and he was amazed that the spell was broken. That soft

area of his soul which she had been able to touch so unerringly was now

armoured against her. With a sudden surge of relief, he realized he was

free of her, for ever. It was over; here in the storm, he was free at

last.

She sensed for the fear in her eyes changed to real terror.

Nicholas, you cannot desert me now. Oh Nicholas, what will become of me

without you and Christy Marine? I don't know/ he told her quietly, and

caught the bosun's chair as it came in over Golden Dawn's rail. He

lifted her as easily as he had lifted his son and placed her in the

canvas bucket.

And to tell you the truth, Chantelle, I don't really care, he said, and

stepping back, he windmilled his right arm.

The chair swooped out across the narrow water, swinging like a pendulum

in the wind. Chantelle shouted something at him but Nicholas had turned

away, and was already going aft in a lurching run to where the three

volunteers were waiting.

He saw at a glance that they were big, powerful, competent-looking men.

Quickly Nicholas checked their equipment, from the thick leather

gauntlets to the bolt cutters and jemmy bars for handling heavy cable.

You'll do, he said. We will use the bosun's tackle to bring across a

messenger from the tug - just as soon as the last man leaves this ship.

Working with men to whom the task was unfamiliar, and in rapidly

deteriorating conditions of sea and weather, it took almost another hour

before they had the main cable across from Warlock secured by its thick

nylon spring to the tanker's stern bollards - yet the time had passed so

swiftly for Nicholas that when he stood back and glanced at his watch,

he was shocked. Before this wind they must have been going down very

fast on the land. He staggered into the tanker's stern quarters, and

left a trail of sea water down the passageway to the elevators, On the

bridge, Captain Randle was standing grim-faced at the helm, and Duncan

Alexander snapped accusingly at him.

You've cut it damned fine. A single glance at the digital print-out of

the depth gauge on the tanker's control console bore him out. They had

thirty-eight fathoms of water under them now, and the GoldenDawnls

swollen belly sagged down twenty fathoms below the surface. They were

going down very swiftly before the easterly gale winds. It was damned

fine, Nicholas had to agree, but he showed no alarm or agitation as he

crossed to Randle's side and unhooked the hand microphone.

David/ he asked quietly, are you ready to haul us off? Ready, sir/

David Allen's voice came from the speaker above his head.

I'm going to give you full port rudder to help your turn across the

wind/ said Nicholas, and then nodded to Randle. Full port rudder. Forty

degrees of port rudder on/ Randle reported.

They felt the tiny shock as the tow-cable came up taut, and carefully

Warlock began the delicate task of turning the huge ship across the

rising gusting wind and then dragging her out tail first into the deeper

water of the channel where she would have her best chance of riding out

the hurricane.

It was clear now that Golden Dawn lay directly in the track of Lorna,

and the storm unleashed its true nature upon them. Out there upon the

sane and rational world, the sun was rising, but here there was no dawn,

for there was no horizon and no sky. There was only madness and wind

and water, and all three elements were so intermingled as to form one

substance.

An hour - which seemed like a lifetime - ago, the wind had ripped away

the anemonmeter and the weather-recording equipment on top of the

navigation bridge, so Nicholas had no way of judging the wind's strength

and direction.

Out beyond the bridge windows, the wind took the top off the sea; it

took it off in thick sheets of salt water and lifted them over the

navigation bridge in a shrieking white curtain that cut off visibility

at the glass of the windows.

The tank deck had disappeared in the racing white emulsion of wind and

water, even the railing of the bridge wings six feet from the windows

was invisible.

The entire superstructure groaned and popped and whimpered under the

assault of the wind, the pressed aluminium bulkheads bulging and

distorting the very deck flexing and juddering at the solid weight of

the storm.

Through the saturated, racing, swirling air, a leaden and ominous grey

light filtered, and every few minutes the electrical impulses generated

within the sixty-thousand foot-high mountain of racing, spinning air

released themselves in shattering cannonades of thunder and sudden

brilliance of eye-searing white lightning.

There was no visual contact with Warlock. The massive electrical

disturbance of the storm and the clutter of high seas and almost solid

cloud and turbulence had reduced the radar range to a few miles, and

even then was unreliable.

Radio contact with the tug was drowned with buzzing squealing static. It

was possible to understand only odd disconnected words from David Allen.

Nicholas was powerless, caged in the groaning, vibrating box of the

navigation bridge, blinded and deafened by the unleashed powers of the

heavens. There was nothing any of them could do.

Randle had locked the ultra-tanker's helm amidships, and now he stood

with Duncan and the three seamen by the chart-table, all of them

clinging to it for support, all their faces pale and set as though

carved from chalk.

Only Nicholas moved restlessly about the bridge; from the stern windows

where he peered down vainly, trying to get a glimpse of either the

tow-cable and its spring, or of the tug's looming shape through the

racing white storm, then he came forward carefully, using the

foul-weather rail to steady himself against the huge ship's wild and

unpredictable motion, and he stood before the control console, studying

the display of lights that monitored the pod tanks and the ship's

navigational and mechanical functions.

None of the petroleum tanks had lost any crude oil and in all of them

the nature of the inert gas was constant, there had been no ingress of

air to them; they were all still intact then, One of the reasons that

Nicholas had taken the tanker in tow stern first was so that the

navigation tower might break the worst of wind and sea, and the fragile

bloated tanks would receive some protection from Yet desperately he

wished for a momentary sight of the tank deck, merely to reassure

himself. There could be malfunction in the pump control instruments,

the storm could have clawed one of the pod tanks open, and even now

Golden Dawncould be bleeding her Poison into the sea. But there was no

view of the tank decks through the storm, and Nick stooped to the

radarscope. The screen glowed and danced and flickered with ghost

images and trash - he wasn't too certain if even Warlock's image was

constant, the range seemed to be opening, as though the tow-line had

parted. He straighten up and stood balanced on the balls of his feet,

reassuring himself by the feel of the deck that Golden Dawnwas still

under tow- He could feel by the way she resisted the wind and the sea

that the tow was still good.

Yet there was no means of telling their Position. The satellite

navigational system was completely blanketed the radio waves were

distorted and diverted by tens of thousands of feet of electrical storm,

and the same forces were blanketing the marine radio beacons on the

American mainland.

The only indication was the ship's electronic log which gave Nicholas

the speed of the ship's hull through the water and the speed across the

sea bottom, and the depth finder which recorded the water under her

keel.

For the first two hours of the tow, Warlock had been able to pull the

ship back towards the main channel at three and a half knots, and slowly

the water had become deeper until they had i 5o fathoms under them.

Then as the wind velocity increased, the windage of GoldenDawnls

Superstructure had acted as a vast mainsail and the storm had taken

control. Now, despite all the power in Warlock's big twin propellers,

both tug and tanker were being pushed once more back towards the

100-fathom line and the American mainland.

Where is Sea Witch? I Nicholas wondered, as he stared helplessly at the

gauges. They were going towards the shore at a little over two knots,

and the bottom was shelving steeply. Sea Witch might be the ace that

took the trick, if she could reach them through these murderous seas and

savage winds, and if she could find them in this wilderness of mad air

and water.

Again, Nicholas groped his way to the communications room, and still

clinging to the bulkhead with one hand he thumbed the microphone.

Sea Witch. Sea Witch. This is Warlock. Calling Sea Witch. He

listened then, trying to tune out the snarl and crackle of static,

crouching over the set. Faintly he thought he heard a human voice, a

scratchy whisper through the interference and he called again and

listened, and called again.

There was the voice again, but so indistinct he could not make out a

single word.

Above his head, there was a tearing screech of rending metal. Nicholas

dropped the microphone and staggered through on to the bridge.

There was another deafening banging and hammering and all of them stood

staring up at the metal roof of the bridge. It sagged and shook, there

was one more crash and then with a scraping, dragging rush, a confused

tangle of metal and wire and cable tumbled over the forward edge of the

bridge and flapped and swung wildly in the wind.

It took a moment for Nicholas to realize what it was.

The radar antennae! he shouted. He recognized the elongated dish of

the aerial, dangling on a thick coil of cable, then the wind tore that

loose also, and the entire mass of equipment flapped away like a giant

bat and was instantly lost in the teeming white curtains of the storm.

With two quick paces, he reached the radarscope, and one glance was

enough. The screen was black and dead.

They had lost their eyes now, and, unbelievably, the sound of the storm

was rising again.

It boomed against the square box of the bridge, and the men within it

cowered from its fury.

Then abruptly, Duncan was screaming something at Nicholas, and pointing

up at the master display of the control console. Nicholas, still

hanging on to the radarscope, roused himself with an effort and looked

up at the display. The speed across the ground had changed drastically.

It was now almost eight knots, and the depth was ninety-two fathoms,

Nicholas felt icy despair clutch and squeeze his guts.

The ship was moving differently under him, he could feel her now in

mortal distress; that same gust which had torn away the radar mast had

done other damage.

He knew what that damage was, and the thought of it made him want to

vomit, but he had to be sure. He had to be absolutely certain, and he

began to hand himself along the foul-weather rail towards the elevator

doors.

Across the bridge the others were watching him intently, but even from

twenty feet it was impossible to make himself heard above the clamorous

assault of the storm.

One of the seamen seemed suddenly to guess his intention, He left the

chart-table and groped his way along the bulkhead towards Nicholas.

Good man! Nicholas grabbed his arm to steady him, and they fell forward

into the elevator as Golden Dawn began another of those ponderous

wallowing rolls and the deck fell out from under their feet.

The ride down in the elevator car slammed them back and forth across the

little coffin-like box, and even here in the depths of the ship they had

to shout to hear each other.

The tow cable, Nicholas yelled in the man's ear. Check the tow cable.

From the elevator they went carefully aft along the central passageway,

and when they reached the double storm doors, Nicholas tried to push the

inner door open, but the pressure of the wind held it closed.

Help me, he shouted at the seaman, and they threw their combined weight

against it. The instant that they forced the jamb open a crack, the

vacuum of pressure was released and the wind took the three-inch

mahogany doors and ripped them effortlessly from their hinges, and

whisked them away, as though they were a pair of playing cards and

Nicholas and the seaman were exposed in the open doorway.

The wind flung itself upon them, and hurled them to the deck, smothering

them in the icy deluge of water that ripped at their faces as abrasively

as ground glass.

Nicholas rolled down the deck and crashed into the stern rail with such

jarring force that he thought his lungs had been crushed, and the wind

pinned him there, and blinded and smothered him with salt water.

He lay there helpless as a new-born infant, and near him he heard the

seaman screaming thinly. The sound steeled him, and Nicholas slowly

dragged himself to his knees, desperately clutching at the rail to

resist the wind.

Still the man screamed and Nicholas began to creep forward on his hands

and knees. It was impossible to stand in that wind and he could move

only with support from the rail.

Six feet ahead of him, the extreme limit of his vision, the railing had

been torn away, a long section of it dangling over the ship's side, and

to this was clinging the seaman.

His weight driven by the wind must have hit the rail with sufficient

force to tear it loose, and now he was hanging on with one arm hooked

through the railing and the other arm twisted from a shattered shoulder

and waving a crazy salute as the wind whipped it about. When he looked

up at Nicholas his mouth had been smashed in. It looked as though he had

half chewed a mouthful of black currants, and the jagged stumps of his

broken front teeth were bright red with the juice.

On his belly, Nicholas reached for him, and as he did so, the wind came

again, unbelievably it was stronger still, and it took the damaged

railing with the man still upon it and tore it bodily away. They

disappeared instantly in the blinding white-out of the storm, and

Nicholas felt himself hurled forward towards the edge. He clung with

all his strength to the remaining section of the rail, and felt it

buckle and begin to give.

On his knees still he clawed himself away from that fatal beckoning gap,

towards the stern, and the wind struck him full in the face, blinding

and choking him. Sightlessly, he dragged himself on until one

outstretched arm struck the cold cast iron of the port stern bollard,

and he flung both arms about it like a lover, choking and retching from

the salt water that the wind had forced through his nose and mouth and

down his throat.

Still blind, he felt for the woven steel of Warlock's main tow-wire. He

found it and he could not span it with his fist but he felt the quick

lift of his hopes, The cable was still secured. He had catted and

prevented it with a dozen nylon strops, and it was still holding. He

crawled forward, dragging himself along the tow-cable, and immediately

he realized that his relief had been premature.

There was no tension in the cable and when he reached the edge of the

deck it dangled straight down. It was not stretched out into the

whiteness, to where he had hoped Warlock was still holding them like a

great sea anchor.

He knew then that what he had dreaded had happened.

The storm had been too powerful, it had snapped the steel cable like a

thread of cotton, and Golden Dawnwas loose, without control, and this

wild and savage wind was blowing her down swiftly on to the land

Nicholas felt suddenly exhausted to his bones. He lay flat on the deck,

closed his eyes and clung weakly to the severed cable. The wind wanted

to hurl him over the side, it ballooned his ollskins and ripped at his

face. It would be so easy to open his fingers and to let go - and it

took all his resolve to resist the impulse.

Slowly, as painfully as a crippled insect, he dragged himself back

through the open, shattered doorway into the central passageway of the

stern quarters - but still the wind followed him. it roared down the

passageway, driving in torents of rain and salt water that flooded the

deck and forced Nicholas to cling for support like a drunkard.

After the open storm, the car of the elevator seemed silent and tranquil

as the inner sanctum of a cathedral. He looked at himself in the wall

mirror, and saw that his eyes were scoured red and painful-looking by

salt and wind, and his cheeks and lips looked raw and bruised, as though

the skin had been rasped away. He touched his face and there was no

feeling in his nose nor in his lips. The elevator doors slid open and

he reeled out on to the navigation bridge. The group of men at the

chart-table seemed not to have moved, but their heads turned to him.

Nicholas reached the table and clung to it. They were silent, watching

his face.

I lost a man! he said, and his voice was hoarse and roughened by salt

and weariness, He went overboard. The wind got him. Still none of them

moved nor spoke, and Nicholas coughed, his lungs ached from the water he

had breathed.

When the spasm passed, he went on.

,The tow-cable has parted. We are loose - and Warlock will never be

able to re-establish tow. Not in this. all their heads turned now to

the forward bridge windows, to that impenetrable racing whiteness beyond

the glass, that was lit internally with its glowing bursts of lightning.

Nicholas broke the spell that held them all. He reached up to the

signal locker above the chart-table and brought down a cardboard packet

of distress flares. He broke open the seals and spilled the flares on

to the table. They looked like sticks of dynamite, cylinders of heavily

varnished waterproof paper. The flares could be lit, and would spurt

out crimson flames, even if immersed in water, once the self -igniter

tab at one end was pulled.

Nicholas stuffed half a dozen of the flares into the inner pockets of

his oilskins.

Listen! he had to shout, even though they were only feet away. We are

going to be aground within two hours.

This ship is going to start breaking up immediately we strike. He

paused and studied their faces; Duncan was the only one who did not seem

to understand. He had picked up a handful of the signal flares from the

table and he was looking inquiringly at Nicholas.

I will give you the word; as soon as we reach the twentyfathom line and

she touches bottom, you will go over the side. We will try and get a

raft away. There is a chance you could be carried ashore. He paused

again, and he could see that Randle and his two seamen realized clearly

just how remote that chance was.

I will give you twenty minutes to get clear. By then, the pod tanks

will have begun breaking up -'He didn't want this to sound melodramatic

and he searched for some way to make it sound less theatrical, but could

think of none.

Once the first tank ruptures, I will ignite the escaping crude with a

signal flare. Christ! Randle mouthed the blasphemy, and the storm

censored it on his lips. Then he raised his voice. A million tons of

crude. It will fireball, man. Better than a million-ton slick down the

Gulf Stream/ Nicholas told him wearily.

None of us will have a chance. A million tons. it Will go up like an

atom bomb. Randle was white-faced and shaking now. You can't do itV

Think of a better way/ said Nicholas and left the table to stagger

across to the radio room. They watched him go, and then Duncan looked

down at the signal flares in his hand for a moment before thrusting them

into the pocket of his Jacket. In the radio room, Nicholas called

quickly into the microphone. Come in, Sea Witch - Sea witch, this is

Golden Dawn. And only the static howled in reply.

warlock, Come in, Warlock. This is Golden Dawn. Something else went in

the wind, they heard it tear loose, and the whole superstructure shook

and trembled.

The ship was beginning to break up, it had not been designed to

withstand winds like this.

Through the open radio room door, Nicholas could see the control console

display. There were seventy-one fathoms of water under the ship, and

the wind was punching her, flogging her on towards the shore.

Come in, Sea Witch/Nicholas called with quiet desperation. This is

Golden Dawn. Do you read me? The wind charged the ship, crashing into

it like a monster, and she groaned and reeled from the blow. Come in,

Warlock. Randle lurched across to the forward windows, and clinging to

the rail he bowed over the gauges that monitored the condition of the

ship's cargo. Checking for tank damage, At least he is still thinking.

Nicholas watched above the Captain's head, the sounding showed

sixty-eight fathoms.

Randle straightened slowly, began to turn, and the wind struck again.

Nicholas felt the blow in his stomach, it was a solid thing like a

mountain in avalanche, a defeaning boom of sound and the forward bridge

window above the control console broke inwards.

It burst in a glittering explosion of glass shards that engulfed the

figure of Captain Randle standing directly before it. In a fleeting

moment of horror, Nicholas saw his head half severed from his shoulders

by a guillotine of flying glass, then he crumpled to the deck and

instantly the bright pulsing hose of his blood was diluted to spreading

pale pink in the torrent of wind and blown water that poured in through

the opening, and smothered the navigation bridge.

Charts and books were ripped from their shelves and fluttered like

trapped birds as the wind blustered and swirled in the confines of glass

and steel.

Nicholas reached the Captain's body, protecting his own face with an arm

crooked across it, but there was nothing he could do for him. He left

Randle lying on the deck and shouted to the others.

Keep clear of the windows. He gathered them in the rear of the bridge,

against the bulkhead where stood the Decca and navigational systems.

The four of them kept close together, as though they gained comfort from

the close proximity of other humans, but the wind did not relent.

It poured in through the shattered window and raged about the bridge,

tearing at their clothing and filling the air with a fine mist of water,

flooding the deck ankle deep so that it sloshed and ran as the tanker

rolled almost to her beam ends.

Randle's limp and sodden body slid back and forth in the wash and roll,

until Nicholas left the dubious security of the after bulkhead, half

-lifted the corpse under the arms, and dragged it into the radio room

and wedged it into the radio operator's bunk. Swift blood stained the

crisply ironed sheets, and Nicholas threw a fold of the blanket over

Randle and staggered back into the bridge.

Still the wind rose, and now Nicholas felt himself numbed by the force

and persistence of it.

Some loose material, perhaps a sheet of aluminium from the

superstructure, or a length of piping ripped from the tank deck below,

smashed into the tip of the bridge like a cannon ball and then flipped

away into the storm, leaving a jagged rent which the wind exploited,

tearing and worrying at it, enlarging the opening, so that the plating

flapped and hammered and a solid deluge of rain poured in through it.

Nicholas realized that the ship's superstructure was beginning to go;

like a gigantic vulture, soon the win would begin stripping the carcass

down to its bones.

He knew he should get the survivors down nearer the water line, so that

when they were forced to commit themselves to the sea, they could do so

quickly. But his brain was numbed by the tumult, and he stood stolidly.

It needed all his remaining strength merely to brace himself against the

tearing wind and the ship's anguished motion.

In the days of sail, the crew would tie themselves to the main mast,

when they reached this stage of despair.

Dully, he registered that the depth of water under the ship was now only

fifty-seven fathoms, and the barometer was reading 9 5 5 millibars.

Nicholas had never heard of a reading that low; surely it could not go

lower, they must be almost at the centre of the revolving hurricane.

With an effort, he lifted his arm and read the time. It was still only

ten o'clock in the morning, they had been in the hurricane for only two

and a half hours.

A great burning light struck through the torn roof, a light that blinded

them with its intensity, and Nicholas threw up his hands to protect his

eyes. He could not understand what was happening, He thought his

hearing had gone, for suddenly the terrible tumult of the wind was

muted, fading away.

Then he understood. The eye, he croaked, we are into the eye/and his

voice resounded strangely in his own ears.

He stumbled to the front of the bridge.

Although the Golden Dawn still rolled ponderously, describing an arc of

almost forty degrees from side to side, she was free of the unbearable

weight of the wind and brilliant sunshine poured down upon her. It

beamed down like the dazzling arc lamps of a stage set, out of the

throat of a dark funnel of dense racing swirling cloud.

The cloud lay to the very surface of the sea, and encompassed the full

sweep of the horizon in an unbroken wall.

Only directly overhead was it open, and the sky was an angry unnatural

purple, set with the glaring, merciless eye of the sun.

The sea was still wild and confused, leaping into peaks and troughs and

covered with a thick frothy mattress of spindrift, whipped into a

custard by the wild winds. But already the sea was subsiding in the

total calm of the eye and Golden Dawn was rolling less viciously.

Nicholas turned his head stiffly to watch the receding wall of racing

cloud. How long would it take for the eye to pass over them, he

wondered.

Not very long, he was sure of that, half an hour perhaps an hour at the

most - and then the storm would be on them again, with its renewed fury

every bit as sudden as its passing. But this time, the wind would come

from exactly the opposite direction as they crossed the hub and went

into the far side of the revolving wall of cloud.

Nicholas jerked his eyes away from that racing, heavenhigh bank of

cloud, and looked down on to the tank deck.

He saw at a single glance that Golden Dawn had already sustained mortal

damage. The forward port pod tank was half torn from its hydraulic

coupling, holding only by the line of bows and lying at almost twenty

degrees from the other three tanks. The entire tank deck was twisted

like the limb of an arthritic giant, it rolled and pitched out of

sequence with the rest of the hull.

Golden Dawn's back was broken, It had broken where Duncan had weakened

the hull to save steel. Only the buoyancy of the crude petroleum in her

four tanks was holding her together now, expected to see the dark,

glistening ooze of slick leaking from her; he could not believe that not

one of the four tanks had ruptured monitor, Loads and and he glanced at

the electronic cargo gas contents of all tanks were still normal. They

had been freakishly lucky so far, but when they went into the far side

of the hurricane he knew that Golden Dawn's weakened spine would give

completely, and when that happened it must pinch and tear the thin skins

of the pod tanks. He made a decision then, forcing his mind to work,

not certain how good a decision it was but determined to act on it.

Duncan/ he called to him across the swamped and battered bridge. 'I'm

sending you and the others off on one of the life-rafts. This will be

your only chance to launch one. I'll stay on board to fire the cargo

when the storm hits again.

The storm has passed., Suddenly Duncan was screaming at him like a

madman.

The ship is safe now. You're going to destroy my ship, - you're

deliberately trying to break me. He was lunging across the heaving

bridge - It's deliberate, you know I've won now. It's the only way can

stop me now. e swung a clumsy round arm blow. Nicholas ducked under it

and caught Duncan around the chest.

Listen to me/ he shouted, trying to calm him. This is only the eye!

You'd do anything to stop me. You swore you would stop me - 'Help

me/Nicholas called to the two seamen, and they grabbed Duncan's arms. He

bucked and fought like a madman, screaming wildly at Nicholas, his face

contorted and swollen with rage, sodden hair flopping into his eyes.

You'd do anything to destroy me, to destroy my ship Take him down to the

raft deck/ Nicholas ordered the two seamen. He knew he could not reason

with Duncan now, and he turned away and stiffened suddenly.

Wait he stopped them leaving the bridge.

Nicholas felt the terrible burden of weariness and despair slip from his

shoulders, felt new strength rippling through his body, recharging his

courage and his resolution for a mile away, from behind that receding

wall of dreadful grey cloud, Sea Witch burst abruptly into the sunlight,

tearing bravely along with the water bursting over her bows and flying

back as high as her bridgework, running without regard to the hazard of

sea and storm.

Jules, Nicholas whispered.

Jules was driving her like only a tugman can drive a ship, racing to

beat the far wall of the storm.

Nicholas felt his throat constricting and suddenly the scalding tears of

relief and thankfulness half-blinded him - for a mile out on Sea Witch's

port side, and barely a cable-length astern of her, Warlock came

crashing out of the storm bank, running every bit as hard as her sister

ship.

David, Nicholas spoke aloud. You too, David. He realized only then

that they must have been in radar contact with him through those wild

tempestuous hours of storm passage, hovering there, holding station on

Golden Dawn's crippled bulk and waiting for their first opportunity .

Above the wail and crackle of static from the overhead loud-speaker

boomed Jules Levoisin's voice. He was close enough and in the clear eye

the interference allowed a readable radio contact.

Golden Dawn, this is Sea Witch. Come in, Golden Dawn. Nicholas reached

the radio bench and snatched up the microphone.

Jules., He did not waste a moment in greeting or congratulations.

We are going to take the tanks off her, and let the hull go. Do you

understand? I understand to take off the tanks,, Jules responded

immediately. and clear again, he could see Nicholas brain was crisp

just how it must be done. Warlock takes off the port tanks first - in

tandem. in tandem, the two tanks would be strung like beads on a

string, they had been designed to tow that way.

Then you will take off the starboard side you must save the hull. Duncan

still fought the two seamen who held him. Goddamn you, Berg. I'll not

let you destroy me. Nicholas ignored his ravings until he had finished

giving his orders to the two tug masters. Then he dropped the

microphone and grabbed Duncan by the shoulders. Nicholas seemed to be

possessed suddenly by supernatural strength, and he shook him as though

he were a child. He shook him so his head snapped back and forth and

his teeth rattled in his head.

You bloody idiot, he shouted in Duncan's face. Don't you understand the

storm will resume again in minutes? He jerked Duncan's body out of the

grip of the two seamen and dragged him bodily to the windows overlooking

the tank deck.

Can't you see this monster you have built is finished, finished! There

is no propeller, her back is broken, the superstructure will go minutes

after the wind hits again. He dragged Duncan round to face him, their

eyes were inches apart.

It's over, Duncan. We will be lucky to get away with our lives. We'll

be luckier still to save the cargo., But don't you understand - we've

got to save the hull without it, Duncan started to struggle, he was a

powerful man, and quickly he was rousing himself, within minutes he

would be dangerous - and there was no time, already Warlock was swinging

up into her position on Golden Dawn's port beam for tank transfer.

I'll not let you take off - Duncan wrenched himself out of Nicholas

grip, there was a mad fanatic light in his eyes.

Nicholas swivelled; coming up on to his toes and swinging from the

shoulders he aimed for the point of Duncan's jaw, just below the ear and

the thick sodden wedge of Duncan's red-gold sideburns. But Duncan

rolled his head with the punch, and the blow glanced off his temple, and

Golden Dawn rolled back the other way as Nicholas was unbalanced.

He fell back against the control console, and Duncan drove at him, two

running paces like a quarter-back taking a field goal, and he kicked

right-legged for Nicholas'lower body.

I'll kill you, Berg/he screamed, and Nicholas had only time to roll

sideways and lift his leg scissoring it to protect his crotch. Duncan's

kick caught him in the upper thigh.

An explosion of white pain shot up into his belly and numbed his leg to

the thigh, but he used the control console and his good leg to launch

himself into a counterpunch, hooking with his right again, under the

ribs - and the wind went out of Duncan's lungs with a whoosh as he

doubled.

Nicholas transferred weight smoothly and swung his left fist up into

Duncan's face. It sounded like a watermelon dropped on a concrete

floor, and Duncan was hurled backwards against the bulkhead, pinned

there for a moment by the ship's roll. Nicholas followed him, hobling

painfully on the injured leg, and he hit him twice more.

Left and right, short, hard, hissing blows that cracked his skull

backwards against the bulkhead, and brought quick bright rosettes of

blood from his lips and nostrils. As his legs buckled, Nicholas caught

him by the throat with his left hand and held him upright, searching his

eyes for further resistance, ready to hit again, but there was no fight

left in him.

Nicholas let him go, and went to the signal locker. He snatched three

of the small walkie-talkie radios from the radio shelves and handed one

to each of the two seamen.

You know the pod tank undocking procedures for a tandem tow? he asked.

We've practised it/ one of them replied.

Let's go, said Nicholas.

It was a job that was scheduled for a dozen men, and there were three of

them. Duncan was of no use to them, and Nicholas left him in the pump

control room on the lowest deck of Golden Dawn's stern quarter, after he

had closed down the inert gas pumps, sealed the gas vents, and armed the

hydraulic releases of the pod tanks for undocking.

They worked sometimes neck-deep in the bursts of green, frothing water

that poured over the ultra-tanker's fore-dec. They took on board and

secured Warlock's main cable, unlocked the hydraulic clamps that held

the forward pod tank attached to the hull and, as David Allen eased it

clear of the crippled hull, they turned and lumbered back along the

twisted and wind-torn catwalk, handicapped by the heavy seaboots and

oilskins and the confused seas that still swamped the tank-deck every

few minutes.

On the after tank, the whole laborious energy-sapping procedure had to

be repeated, but here it was complicated by the chain coupling which

connected the two haff-milelong pod tanks. Over the walkie-talkie

Nicholas had to coordinate the efforts of his seamen to those of David

Allen at the helm of Warlock.

When at last Warlock threw on power to both of her big propellers and

sheered away from the wallowing hull, she had both port pod tanks in

tow. They floated just level with the surface of the sea, offering no

windage for the hurricane winds that would soon be upon them again.

Hanging on to the rail of the raised catwalk Nicholas watched for two

precious minutes with an appraising professional eye. It was an

incredible sight, two great shiny black whales, their backs showing only

in the troughs, and the gallant little ship leading them away. They

followed meekly, and Nicholas anxiety was lessened. He was not

confident, not even satisfied, for there was still a hurricane to

navigate - but there was hope now.

Sea Witch/ he spoke into the small portable radio. Are you ready to

take on tow? Jules Levoisin fired the rocket-line across personally.

Nicholas recognized his portly but nimble-figure high in the

fire-control tower, and the rocket left a thin trail of snaking white

smoke high against the backdrop of racing, grey hurricane clouds.

Arching high over the tanker's tankdeck, the thin nylon rocket-line fell

over the catwalk ten feet from where Nicholas stood.

They worked with a kind of restrained frenzy, and Jules Levoisin brought

the big graceful tug in so close beside them that glancing up Nicholas

could see the flash of a gold filling in Jules'white smile of

encouragement. It was only a glance that Nicholas allowed himself, and

then he raised his face and looked at the storm.

The wall of cloud was slippery and smooth and grey, like the body of a

gigantic slug, and at its foot trailed a glistening white slimy line

where the winds frothed the surface of the sea. It was very close now,

ten miles, no more, and above them the sun had gone, cut out by the

spiralling vortex of leaden cloud. Yet still that open narrow funnel of

clear calm air reached right up to a dark and ominous sky.

There was no hydraulic pressure on the clamps of the starboard forward

pod tank. Somewhere in the twisted damaged hull the hydraulic line must

have sheared. Nicholas and one of the seamen had to work the emergency

release, pumping it open slowly and laboriously by hand.

Still it would not release, the hull was distorted, the clamp jaws out

of alignment.

Pull/ Nicholas commanded Jules in desperation. Pull all together. The

storm front was five miles away, and already he could hear the deadly

whisper of the wind, and a cold puff touched Nicholas uplifted face.

The sea boiled under Sea Witch's counter, spewing out in a swift white

wake as Jules brought in both engines.

The tow-cable came up hard and straight; for half a minute nothing gave,

nothing moved - except the wall of racing grey cloud bearing down upon

them.

Then, with a resounding metallic clang, the clamps slipped and the tank

slid ponderously out of its dock in Golden Dawn's hull - and as it came

free, so the hull, held together until that moment by the tanks'bulk and

buoyancy, began to collapse.

The catwalk on which Nicholas stood began to twist and tilt so that he

had to grab for a handhold, and he stood frozen in horrified fascination

as he watched Golden Dawnbegin the final break-up.

The whole tank deck, now only a gutted skeleton, began to bend at its

weakened centre, began to hinge like an enormous pair of nutcrackers -

and caught between the jaws of the nutcracker was the starboard after

pod tank. It was a nut the size of Chartres Cathedral, with a soft

liquid centre, and a shell as thin as the span Of a man's hand.

Nicholas broke into a lurching, blundering run down the twisting,

tilting catwalk, calling urgently into the radio as he went.

Shear! he shouted to the seamen almost half a mile away across that

undulating plane of tortured steel. Shear the tandem tow!

For the two starboard pod tanks were linked by the heavy chain of the

tandem, and the forward tank was linked to Sea Witch by the main

tow-cable. So Sea Witch and the doomed Golden Dawn were coupled

inexorably, unless they could cut the two tanks apart and let Sea Witch

escape with the forward tank which she had just undocked.

The shear control was in the control box halfway back along the tank

deck, and at that moment the nearest searn -in was two hundred yards

from it.

Nicholas could see him staggering wildly back along the twisting,

juddering catwalk. Clearly he realized the danger, but his haste was

fatal, for as he jumped from the catwalk, the deck opened under him,

gaping open like the jaws of a steel monster and the seaman fell

through, waist deep, into the opening between two moving plates, then as

he squirmed feebly, the next lurch of the ship's hull closed the plates,

sliding them across each other like the blades of a pair of scissors.

The man shrieked once and a wave burst over the deck, smothering his

mutilated body in cold, green water. when it poured back over the ship

s side there was no sign of the man, the deck was washed glisteningly

clean.

Nicholas reached the same point in the deck, judged the gaping and

closing movement of the steel plate and the next rush of sea coming on

board, before he leapt across the deadly gap.

He reached the control box, and slid back the hatch, pressing himself

into the tiny steel cubicle as he unlocked the red lid that housed the

shear button. He hit the button with the heel of his hand.

The four heavy chains of the tandem tow lay between the electrodes of

the shear mechanism. With a gross surge of power from the ship's

generators and a flash of blue electric flame, the thick steel links

sheared as cleanly as cheese under the cutting wire - and, half a mile

away, Sea Witch felt the release and pounded ahead under the full thrust

of her propellers taking with her the forward starboard tank still held

on main tow.

Nicholas paused in the opening of the control cubicle, hanging on to the

sill for support and he stared down at the single remaining tank, still

caught inextricably in the tangled moving forest of Golden Dawn's

twisting, contorting hull. It was as though an invisible giant had

taken the Eiffel Tower at each end and was bending it across his knee.

Suddenly there was a sharp chemical stink in the air, and Nicholas

gagged on it. The stink of crude petroleum oil gushing from the

ruptured tank.

Nicholas! Nicholas! The radio set slung over his shoulder squawked,

and he lifted it to his lips without taking his eyes from the Golden

Dawn's terrible death throes.

Go ahead, Jules. Nicholas, I am turning to pick you up. You can't

turn, not with that tow. I will ut my bows against the starboard

quarterdeck p rail, directly under the forward wing of the bridge. Be

ready to jump aboard., Jules, you are out of your head! I have been

that way for fifty years/ Jules agreed amiably. Be ready. 'Jules, drop

your tow first, Nicholas pleaded. It would be almost impossible to

manoeuvre the Sea Witch with that monstrous dead weight hanging on her

tail. Drop tow. We can pick up again later. You teach your

grandfather to break eggs, I Jules blithely mangled the old saying,

giving it a sinister twist.

Listen Jules, the No. 4 tank has ruptured. I want you to shut down for

fire. Do you understand? Full fire shut down.

Once I am aboard, we will put a rocket into her and burn off cargo. I

hear you, Nicholas, but I wish I had not.

Nicholas left the control cubicle, jumped the gaping, chewing gap in the

decking and scrambled up the steel ladder on to the central catwalk.

Glancing over his shoulder, he could see the endlessly slippery grey

wall of racing cloud and wind; its menace was overpowering, so that for

a moment he faltered before forcing himself into running back along the

catwalk towards the tanker's stern tower half a mile ahead.

The single remaining seaman was on the catwalk a hundred yards ahead of

him, pounding determinedly back towards the pick-up point. He also had

heard Jules Levoisin's last transmission.

A quarter of a mile across the roiling, leaping waters, Jules Levoisin

was bringing Sea Witch around. At another time Nicholas would have been

impressed by the consummate skill with which the little Frenchman was

handling his ship and its burdensome tow, but now there was time and

energy for one thing only.

The air stank. The heavy fumes of crude oil burned pumping lungs, and

constricted his throat. He Nicholas coughed and gasped as he ran, the

taste and reek of it coated his tongue and seared his nostrils.

Below the catwalk, the bloated pod-tank was punctured in a hundred

places by the steel lances of the disintegrating hull, pinched and torn

by moving steel girders, and the dark red oil spurted and dribbled and

oozed from it like the blood from the carcass of a mortally wounded

poisonous dragon.

Nicholas reached the stern tower, barged in through the storm doors to

the lowest deck and reached the pump control room.

Duncan Alexander turned to him, as he entered, his face swollen and

bruised where Nicholas had beaten him.

We are abandoning now/ said Nicholas. Sea Witch is taking us off. I

hated you from that very first day/ Duncan was very calm, very

controlled, his voice even, deep and cultured.

Did you know that! There's no time for that now. Nicholas grabbed his

arm, and Duncan followed him readily into the passageway.

That's what the game is all about, isn't it, Nicholas, power and wealth

and women - that's the game we played. Nicholas was barely listening.

They were out on to the quarter-deck, standing at its starboard rail,

below the bridge, the pick-up point that Jules had stipulated. Sea

Witch was turning in, only five hundred yards out, and Nicholas had time

now to watch Jules handle his ship.

He was running out the heavy tow-cable on free spool, deliberately

letting a long bight of it form between the tug and its enormous

whalelike burden, and he was using the slack in the cable to cut in

towards Golden Dawn's battered, sagging hulk. He would be alongside for

the pickup in less than a minute.

That was the game we played, you and I, Duncan was still talking calmly.

Power and wealth and women Below them Golden Dawn poured her substance

into the sea in a slick, stinking flood. The waves, battering against

her side, churned the oil to a thick filthy emulsion, and it was

spreading away across the surface, bleeding its deadly poison into the

Gulf Stream to broadcast it to the entire ocean.

I won/ Duncan went on reasonably. I won it all, every time - He was

groping in his pockets, but Nicholas hardly heard him, was not watching

him. - until now.

Duncan took one of the self-igniting signal flares from his pocket and

held it against his chest with both hands, slipping his index finger

through the metal ring of the igniter tab.

And yet I win this one also, Nicholas/ he said. Game, set and match.

And he pulled the tab on the flare with a sharp jerk, and stepped back,

holding it aloft.

It spluttered once and then burst into brilliant sparkling red flame,

white phosphorescent smoke billowing from it.

Now at last Nicholas turned to face him, and for a moment he was too

appalled to move. Then he lunged for Duncan's raised hand that held the

burning flare, but Duncan was too fast for him to reach it.

He whirled and threw the flame in a high spluttering arc, out over the

leaking, stinking tank-deck.

It struck the steel tank and bounced once, and then rolled down the

canted oil-coated plating.

Nicholas stood paralysed at the rail staring down at it.

He expected a violent explosion, but nothing happened, the flare rolled

innocently across the deck, burning with its pretty red twinkling light.

It's not burning, Duncan cried. Why doesn't it burn?

Of course, the gas was only explosive in a confined space, and it needed

spark, Out here in the open air the oil had a very high flashpoint, it

must be heated to release its volatiles.

The flare caught in the scuppers and fizzled in a black pool of crude,

and only then the crude caught. It caught with a red, slow, sulky flame

that spread quickly but not explosively over the entire deck, and

instantly, thick billows of dark smoke rose in a dense choking cloud.

Below where Nicholas stood, the Sea Witch thrust her bows in and touched

them against the tanker's side. The seaman beside Nicholas jumped and

landed neatly on the tug's bows, then raced back along Sea Witch's deck.

Nicholas, Jules voice thundered over the loudhailer.

,jump, Nicholas. Nicholas spun back to the rail and poised himself to

jump.

Duncan caught him from behind, whipping one arm around his throat, and

pulling him backwards away from the rail.

No/ Duncan shouted. You're staYing my friend. You are not going

anywhere. You are staying here with me. A greasy wave of black choking

smoke engulfed them, and Jules magnified voice roared in Nicholas ears -

Nicholas, I cannot hold her here. jump, quickly, jump Duncan had him

off-balance, dragging him backwards, away from the ship's side, and

suddenly Nicholas knew what he must do.

Instead of resisting Duncan's arm, he hurled himself backwards and they

crashed together into the superstructure - but Duncan bore the combined

weight of both their bodies.

His armlock around the throat relaxed slightly and Nicholas drove his

elbow into Duncan's side below the ribs, then wrenched his body for-ward

from the waist, reached between his own braced legs and caught Duncan's

ankles.

He straightened up again, dragging Duncan off his feet and the same

instant dropped backwards with his full weight on to the deck.

Duncan gasped and his arm fell away, as Nicholas bounced to his feet

again, choking in the greasy billows of smoke, and he reached the ship's

side.

Below him, the gap between Sea Witch's bows and the tanker's side was

rapidly widening and the thrust of the sea and the drag of the tug

pulled them apart.

Nicholas vaulted on to the rail, poised for an instant and then jumped.

He struck the deck and his teeth cracked together with the impact; his

injured leg gave under him and he rolled once, then he was up on his

hands and knees.

He looked up at Golden Dawn. She was completely enveloped now in the

boiling column of black smoke. As the flames heated the leaking crude,

so it burned more readily. The bank of smoke was shot through now with

the satanic crimson of high, hot flame.

As Sea Witch sheered desperately away, the first rush of the storm hit

them, and for a moment it smeared the smoke away, exposing the tanker's

high quarter-deck.

Duncan Alexander stood at the rail above the roaring holocaust of the

tank-deck. He stood with his arms extended, and he was burning, his

clothing burned fiercely and his hair was a bright torch of flame. He

stood like a ritual cross, outlined in fire, and then slowly he seemed

to shrivel and he'toppled forward over the rail into the bubbling,

spurting, burning cargo of the monstrous ship that he had built - and

the black smoke closed over him like a funeral cloak.

As the crude oil escaping from the pierced pod tank fed the flames, so

the heat built up swiftly, still sufficient to consume only the volatile

aromatic spirits which constituted less than half the bulk of the cargo.

The heavy carbon elements, not yet hot enough to burn, boiled off in

that solid black column of smoke, and as the returning winds of the

hurricane raced over the Golden Dawnonce more, so that filthy pall was

mixed with air and lifted into the cloud bank of the storm, rising first

a thousand, then ten, then twenty thousand feet above the surface of the

ocean.

And still Golden Dawn burned, and the temperatures of the gas and oil

mixture trapped in her hull rocketed steeply. Steel glowed red, then

brilliant white, ran like molten wax, and then like water - and suddenly

the flashpoint of heavy carbon smoke in a mixture of air and water

vapour was reached in the womb of this mighty furnace.

Golden Dawm and her entire cargo turned into a fireball.

The steel and glass and metal of her hull disappeared in an

instantaneous explosive combustion that released temperatures like those

upon the surface of the sun. Her cargo, a quarter of a million tons of

it, burned in an instant, releasing a white blooming rose of pure heat

so fierce that it shot up into the upper stratosphere and consumed the

billowing pall of its own hydrocarbon gas and smoke.

The very air burst into flame, the surface of the sea flamed in that

white fireball of heat and even the clouds of smoke burned as the oxygen

and hydrocarbon they contained exploded.

Once an entire city had been subjected to this phenomena of fireball,

when stone and earth and air had exploded, and five thousand German

citizens of the city of Cologne had been vaporized, and that vapour

burned in the heat of its own release.

But this fireball was spawned by a quarter of a million tons of volatile

liquids.

. . .

Can't you get us further away? Nicholas shouted above the thunder of

the hurricane. His mouth was only inches from Jules Levoisin's ear.

They were standing side by side, hanging from the overhead railing that

gave purchase on this wildly pitching deck, If I open the taps I will

part the tow wire, Jules shouted back, Sea Witch was alternately

standing on her nose and then her tail. There was no forward view from

the bridge, only green washes of sea water and banks of spray.

The full force of the hurricane Was on them once more, and a glance at

the radarscope showed the glowing image of Golden Dawn's crippled and

bleeding hull only half a mile astern.

Suddenly the glass of the windows was obscured by an blackness, and the

light in Sea Witch's navigation bridge was reduced to only the glow of

her fire-lights and the electronic instruments of her control console.

Jules Levoisin turned his face to Nicholas, his plump features haunted

by green shadows in the gloom.

Smoke bank/ Nicholas shouted an explanation. There I was no reek of the

filthy hydrocarbon in the bridge, for Sea Witch was shut down for fire

drill, all her ports and ventilators sealed, her internal

air-conditioning on a closed circuit, the air being scrubbed and

recharged with oxygen by the big Carrier until above the main engine

room. We are directly down wind of the Golden Dawn. A fiercer rush of

the hurricane winds laid Sea Witch over on her side, the lee rail deep

under the racing green sea, and held her there, unable to rise against

the careless might of the storm for many minutes. Her crew hung

desperately from any hand hold, the irksome burden of her tow helping to

drag her down further; the propellers found no grip in the air, and her

engines screamed in anguish.

But Sea Witch had been built to live in any sea, and the moment the wind

hesitated, she fought off the water that had come aboard and began to

swing back.

Where is Warlock? Jules bellowed anxiously. The danger of collision

preyed upon him constantly, two ships and their elephantine tows

manoeuvring closely in confined hurricane waters was nightmare on top of

nightmare.

Ten miles east of us., Nicholas picked the other tug's image out of the

trash on the radarscope. They had a start, ahead of the wind He would

have gone on, but the boiling bank of hydrocarbon smoke that surrounded

Sea Witch turned to fierce white light, a light that blinded every man

on the bridge as though a photograph flashlight had been fired in his

face.

Fireball! Nicholas shouted, and, completely blinded, reached for the

remote controls of the water cannons seventy feet above the bridge on

Sea Witch's fire-control tower.

Minutes before, he had aligned the four water cannons, training them

down at their maximum angle of depression, so now as he locked down the

multiple triggers, Sea Witch deluged herself in a pounding cascade of

sea water.

Sea Witch was caught in a furnace of burning air, and despite the

torrents of water she spewed over herself, her paintwork was burned away

in instantaneous combustion so fierce that it consumed its own smoke,

and almost instantly the bare scorched metal of her exposed upperworks

began to glow with heat.

The heat was so savage that it struck through the insulated hull,

through the double glazing of the two-inch armoured glass of her bridge

windows, scorching and frizzling away Nicholas eyelashes and blistering

his lips as he lifted his face to it.

The glass of the bridge windows wavered and swam as they began to melt -

and then abruptly there was no more oxygen. The fireball had

extinguished itself, consumed everything in its twenty seconds of life,

everything from sea level to thirty thousand feet above it, a brief and

devastating orgasm of destruction.

It left a vacuum, a weak spot in the earth's thin skin of air, it formed

another low pressure system smaller, but much more intense, and more

hungry to be filled than the eye of hurricane Lorna itself.

It literally tore the guts out of that great revolving storm, setting up

counter winds and a vortex within the established system that ripped it

apart.

New gales blew from every Point about the fireball's vacuum, swiftly

beginning their own dervish spirals and twenty miles short of the

mainland of Florida, hurricane Lorna checked her mindless, blundering

charge, fell in upon herself and disintegrated into fifty different

willy.

nilly squalls and whirlpools of air that collided and split again,

slowly degenerating into nothingness.

On a morning in April in Galveston roads, the salvage tug Sea Witch

dropped off tow to four smaller harbour tugs who would take the Golden

Dawn No. 3 Pod tank up the narrows to the Orient Amex discharge

installation below Houston.

Her sister ship Warlock, Captain David Allen Commanding, had dropped off

his tandem tow of No. 1 and No. .2 pod tanks to the same tugs

forty-eight hours previously.

Between the two ships, they had made good salvage under Lloyd's Open

Form of three-quarters of a million tons of crude petroleum valued at

$85-50 U.S. a ton. To d the value of the three tanks the prize would

be added themselves - not less than sixty-five million dollars all told,

Nicholas calculated, and he owned both ships and the full share of the

salvage award. He had not sold to the Shiekhs yet, though for every day

of the tow from Florida Straites to Texas there had been frantic telex

messages from James Teacher in London. The Sheikhs were desperate to

sign now, but Nicholas would let them wait a little longer.

Nicholas stood on the open wing of Sea Witch's bridge and watched the

four smaller harbour tugs bustling importantly about their ungainly

charge.

He lifted the cheroot to his lips carefully, for they were still

blistered from the heat of the fireball - and he pondered the question

of how much he had achieved, apart from spectacular riches.

He had reduced the spill from a million to a quarter of a million tons

of cad-rich crude, and he had burned it in a fireball. Nevertheless,

there had been losses, toxins had been lifted high above the fireball.

They had spread and settled across Florida as far as Tampa and

Tallahassee, poisoning the pastures and killing thousands of head of

domestic stock. But the American authorities had been quick to extend

the hurricane emergency procedures.

There had been no loss of human life. He had achieved that much.

Now he had delivered the salvaged pod tanks to Orient Amex. The new

cracking process would benefit all mankind, and nothing that Nicholas

could do would prevent men carrying the cad-rich crudes of El Barras

across the oceans. But would they do so in the same blindly

irresponsible manner that Duncan Alexander had attempted?

He knew then with utter certainty that it was his appointed life's work,

from now on, to try and ensure that they did not. He knew how he was to

embark upon that work. He had the wealth that was necessary, and Tom

Parker had given him the other instruments to do the job.

He knew with equal certainty, who would be his companion in that life's

work - and standing on the firescorched deck of the gallant little

vessel he had a vivid image of a golden girl who walked forever beside

him in sunlight and in laughter.

Samantha. He said her name aloud just once, and suddenly he was very

eager to begin.