The world has to use fossil fuels, and we sailors have to transport
them/ he said at last.
But not at such appalling risks, not with an eye only to the profits.
Not in the same greedy thoughtless grabbing petty way as man wiped out
the whale, not at the cost of turning the sea into a stinking festerring
cesspool. There are unscrupalous owners! - he agreed, and she cut
across him agrily.
Sailing under flags of convenience, without control, ships built to
dangerous standards, equipped with a single boiler -she reeled out the
charges and he was silent.
Then they waived the winter load-line for rounding the Cape of Good Hope
in the southern winter, to enable them to carry that extra fifty
thousand tons Of crude. The Agulhas Bank, the most dangerous water sea
in the world, and they send overloaded tankers into it. that was
criminal/ he agreed.
Yet you were Chairman of Christy Marine, you had a representative on the
Board of Control. She saw that she had made a mistake. His expression
was suddenly ferocious. His anger seemed to crackle like electricity in
the ruby gloom of the bridge. She felt an unaccountable flutter of real
fear. She had forgotten what kind of man he was.
But he turned away and made a slow circuit of the bridge, elaborately
checking each of the gauges and instruments, and then he paused at the
far wing and lit a cheroot. She ached to offer some token of
reconciliation, but instinctively she knew not to do so. He was not the
kind of man who respected compromise or retreat.
He came back to her at last, and the glow of the cheroot lit his
features so that she could see the anger had passed.
Christy Marine seems like another existence to me now/ he said softly,
and she could sense the deep pain of unhealed wounds. Forgive me, your
reference to it took me off balance. I did not realize that you know of
my past history., Everybody on board knows., Of course/ he nodded, and
drew deeply on the cheroot before he spoke. When I ran Christy Marine, I
insisted on the highest standards of safety and seamanship for every one
of our vessels. We opposed the Cape winterline decision, and none of my
tankers loaded to their summer-line on the Good Hope passage. None of
my tankers made do with only one boiler, the design and engineering of
every Christy Marine vessel was of the same standard as that ship
there/he pointed back at Golden Adventurer, or this one here! and he
stamped once on the deck.
Even the Golden Dawn? she asked softly, braving his anger again - but
he merely nodded.
Golden Dawn/ he repeated softly. It sounds such an absurdly
presumptuous name, doesn't it? But I really thought of her as that,
when I conceived her. The first million-ton tanker, with every
refinement and safety feature that man has so far tested and proved.
From inert gas scrubbers to independently articulated main tanks, not
one boiler but four, just like one of the old White Star liners - she
was really to be the golden dawn of crude oil transportation.
However, I am no longer Chairman of Christy Marine, and I am no longer
in control of Golden Dawn, neither her design nor her construction. His
voice was hollow, and in the dim light his eyes seemed shrunken into
their cavities like those of a skull. Nor yet am I in control of her
operation. it was all turning out so badly; she did not want to argue
with him, nor make him unhappy. However, she had stirred memories and
regrets within him, and she wished vainly that she had not disturbed him
so. Her instinct warned her she should leave him now.
Goodnight, Doctor Silver/ he nodded noncommittally at her sudden plea of
tiredness.
My nname is Sam! she told him, wishing that she could comfort him in
some way, any way, or Samantha, if you prefer it. I do prefer it, he
said, without smiling. Goodnight, Samantha. She was angry with both
herself and him, angry that the good feeling between them had been
destroyed, so she flashed at him: You really are old-fashioned, aren't
you? and hurried from the bridge.
The following evening she almost did not go up to him, for she was
ashamed of those parting words, for -having pointed up their age
difference so offensively. She knew he was aware of their differences,
without being reminded. She had done herself harm, and she did not want
to face him again.
While she was in the shower of the guest cabin, she heard Tim Graham
come clattering down the stairs on the other side of the thin bulkhead.
She knew that Nicholas had relieved him.
I'm not going up/ she told herself firmly, and took her time drying and
talcumming and brushing out her hair before she clambered naked and
still pink from the hot water into her bunk.
She read for half an hour, a western that Beauty Baker had lent her, and
it required all her concentration to follow the print, for her mind kept
trying to wander. At last she gave an exclamation of self-disgust,
threw back the blankets and began dressing.
His relief and pleasure, when she appeared beside him, were transparent,
and his smile was a princely welcome for her. She was suddenly very
glad she had come, and this night she effortlessly steered past all the
pitfalls.
She asked him to explain how the Lloyd's Open Form contract worked, and
she followed his explanations swiftly.
If they take into consideration the danger and difficulties involved in
the salvage/she mused, you should be able to claim an enormous award.
I'm going to ask for twenty percent of the hull value What is the hull
value of Golden Adventurer? And he told her.
She was silent a moment as she checked his mental arithmetic.
That's six million dollars, she whispered in awe.
Give or take a few cents/ he agreed.
But there isn't that much money in the world! She turned and stared
back at the liner.
Duncan Alexander is going to agree with you. Nick smiled a little
grimly.
But, she shook her head, what would anybody do with that much money? I'm
asking for six - but I won't get it. I'll walk away with three or four
millions. Still, that's too much. Nobody could spend that much not if
they tried for a lifetime. It's spent already. It will just about
enable me to pay off my loans, launch my other tug, and to keep Ocean
Salvage going for another few months. You owe three or four million
dollars? She stared at him now in open wonder. I'd never sleep, not
one minute would I be able to sleep Money isn't for spending/he
explained. There is a limit to the amount of food you can eat, or
clothes you can wear.
Money is a game, the biggest most exciting game in town. She listened
attentively to it all, happy because tonight he was gay and excited with
grand designs and further plans, and because he shared them with her.
What we will do is this, we'll come down here with both tugs and catch
an iceberg. She laughed. Oh, come on! I'm not joking, he assured her,
but laughing also. We'll put tow-lines on a big berg. It may take a
week to build up tow speed, but once we get it moving nothing will stop
it.
We will guide it up into the middle forties, catch the roaring forties
and, just like the old wool clippers on the Australian passage, we will
run our castings down. He moved to the chart-table, selected a
large-scale chart of the Indian Ocean and beckoned her to join him.
You're serious. She stopped laughing, and stared at him again. You
really are serious, aren't you? He nodded, still smiling, and traced it
out with his finger.
Then we'll swing northwards, up into the Western Australian current,
letting the flow carry us north in a great circle, until we hit the
easterly monsoon and the north equatorial Elicuffent! He described the
circle, but she watched his face.
They stood very close, but still not touching and she felt herself
stiffed by the timbre of his voice, as though to the touch of fingers.
"We will cross the Indian Ocean to the east coast of Africa with the
current pushing all the way, just in time to catch the south-westerly
monsoon drift right into the Persian Gulf- He straightened up and smiled
A hundred billion tons of fresh water delivered right into the dryest
and richest corner of the globe., But - but - she shook her head, it
would melt!
From a helicopter we spray it with a reflective polyurethane skin to
lessen the effect of the sun, and we moor it in a shallow specially
prepared dock where it will cool its own surrounds. Sure, it will melt,
but not for a year or two and then we'll just go out and catch another
one and bring it in, like roping wild horses. How would you handle it?
she objected. It's too big. My two tugs hustle forty-four thousand
horses - we could pull in Everest, if we wanted. Yes, but once you get
it to the Persian Gulf? We cut it into manageable hunks with a laser
lance, and lift the hunks into a melting dam with an overhead crane, She
thought about it. It could work/ she admitted.
It will work/he told her. I've sold the idea to the Saudis already.
They are already building the dock and the dams.
We'll give them water at one hundredth the cost of us nuclear condensers
on sea water, and without the risk of radio-active contamination. She
was absorbed with his vision, and he with hers. As they talked deep
into the long watches of the night, they drew closer in spirit only.
Although each of them treasured those shared hours, somehow neither
could bridge the narrow chasm between friendliness and real intimacy.
She was instinctively aware of his reserves, that he was a min who had
considered life and established his code by which to live it. She
guessed that he did nothing unless it was deeply felt, and that a casual
physical relationship would offer no attraction to him; she knew of the
turmoil to which his life had so recently been reduced, and that he was
pulling himself out of that by main strength, but that he was now wary
of further hurt. There was time, she told herself, plenty of time - but
Warlock bore steadily north by north-east, dragging her crippled ward up
through the roaring forties; those notorious winds treated her kindly
and she made good the six knots that Nick had hoped for.
On board Warlock, the attitude of the officers towards Samantha Silver
changed from fawning adulation to wistful. respect. Every one of them
knew of the nightly ritual of the eight-to-midnight watch.
Bloody cradle-snatcher! groused Tim Graham.
Mr. Graham, it is fortunate I did not hear that remark/ David Allen
warned him with glacial coldness - but they all resented Nicholas Berg,
it was unfair competition, yet they kept a new respectful distance from
the girl, not one of them daring to challenge the herd bull.
The time that Samantha had looked upon as endless was running out now,
and she closed her mind to it. Even when David Allen showed her the
fuzzy luminescence of the African continent on the extreme range of the
radar-screen, she pretended to herself that it would go on like this -
if not for ever, at least until something special happened.
During the long voyage up from Shackleton Bay, Samantha had streamed a
very fine-meshed net from Warlock's stern, collecting an incredible
variety of krill and plankton and other microscopic marine life. Angel
had grudgingly given her a small corner of his scullery in return for
her services as honorary assistant under-chef and unpaid waitress, and
she spent many absorbed hours there each day, identifying and preserving
her specimens.
She was working there when the helicopter came out to Warlock. She
looked up at the buffeting of the machine's rotors as they changed into
fine pitch for the landing on Warlock's high-deck, and she was tempted
to go up like every idle and curious hand on board, but she was in the
middle of staining a slide, and somehow she resented the encroachment on
this little island of her happiness. She worked on, but now her
pleasure was spoiled, and she cocked her head when she heard the roar of
the rotors as the helicopter rose from the deck again and she was left
with a sense of foreboding.
Angel came in from the deck, wiping his hands on his apron and he paused
in the doorway.
You didn't tell me he was going, dearie.
What do you mean? Samantha looked up at him, startled.
her shrewdly. Don't tell me he didn't even kiss you goodbye., She
dropped the glass slide into the stainless steel sink and it snapped in
half. She was panting as she gripped the rail of the upper deck and
stared after the cumbersome yellow machine.
It flew low across the green wind-chopped sea, humpbacked and nose low,
still close enough to read the operating company's name COURTLINE
emblazoned on its fuselage, but it dwindled swiftly towards the far blue
line of mountains.
Nick Berg sat in the jump seat between the two pilots of the big S. 58T
Sikorsky and looked ahead towards the flat silhouette of Table Mountain.
It was overlaid by a thick mattress of snowy cloud, at the
south-easterly wind swirled across its summit.
From their altitude of a mere thousand feet, there were still five big
tankers in sight, ploughing stolidly through the green sea on their
endless odyssey, seeming to be alien to their element not designed to
live in harmony with it, but to oppose every movement of the waters.
Even in this low sea, they wore thick garlands of white at their stubby
rounded bows, and Nick watched one of them dip suddenly and take spray
as high as her foremast. In any sort of blow, she would be like a pier
with pylons set on solid ground.
The seas would break right over her. It was not the way a ship should
be, and now he twisted in his seat and looked back.
Far behind them, Warlock was still visible. Even at this distance, and
despite the fact that she was dwarfed by her charge, her lines pleased
the seaman in him. She looked good, but that backward glance invoked a
pang of regret that he h
ad been so stubbornly trying to ignore - and he
had a vivid image of green eyes and hair of platinum and gold.
His regret was spiced by the persistent notion that he had been
cowardly. He had left Warlock without being able to bring himself to
say goodbye to the girl, and he knew why he had done so. He would not
take the chance of making a fool of himself. He grimaced with distaste,
as he remembered her exact words, You really are old-fashioned, aren't
you? There was something vaguely repulsive in a middle-aged man lusting
after young flesh - and he supposed he must now look upon himself as
middle-aged. In six months he would be forty years of age, and he did
not really expect to live to eighty. So he was in the middle of the
road.
He had always scorned those grey, lined, balding, unattractive little
men with big cigars, sitting in expensive restaurants with pretty young
girls beside them, the young thing pretending to hang on every
pearl-like word, while her eyes focused beyond his shoulder - on some
younger But still, it had been cowardice. She had become a friend
during those weeks, and she could hardly have been aware of the emotions
that she had aroused in him during those long dark hours on Warlock's
bridge. She was not to blame for his unruly passions, in no way had she
encouraged him to believe that he was more than just an older man, not
even a father figure, but just someone with whom to pass an otherwise
empty hour. She had been as friendly and cheerful to everyone else on
board Warlock, from the Mate to the cook.
He really had owed her the common courtesy of a handshake and an
assurance of the pleasure he had taken from her company, but he had not
been certain he could restrict it to that.
He winced again as he imagined her horror as he blurted out some sort of
declaration, some proposal to prolong their relationship or alter its
structure into something more intimate, her disenchantment when she
realized that behind the facade of the mature and cultured man, he was
just as grimy an old lecher as the furtive drooling browsers in the
porno-shops of Times Square.
Let it go, he had decided. No matter that he was probably in better
physical shape now than he had been at twenty-five, to Dr. Samantha
Silver he was an old man and he had a frightening vision of an episode
from his own youth.