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
s
houlders 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.
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
t
andem, 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.