the direction of the
3I swells, and then kicking back violently as she went over, wasting
critical time and distance.
Nick watched the helmsman work, judging each sea as it came aboard,
checking the ship's heading on the big repeating compass above the man's
head. After ten minutes, Nick realized that there was no wastage;
Warlock was making as good a course as was possible in these conditions.
The engine telegraph was pulled back to her maximum safe power-setting,
the course was good and yet Warlock was not delivering those few extra
knots of speed that Nick Berg had relied on when he had made the
critical decision to race La Mouette for the prize.
Nick had relied on twenty-eight knots against the Frenchman's eighteen,
and he was not getting it. Involuntarily, he glanced out to the west as
Warlock came up on the top of the next crest. Through the streaming
windows, from which the spinning wipers cleared circular areas of clean
glass, Nick looked out across a wilderness of black water, forbidding
and cold and devoid of other human presence.
Abruptly Nick crossed to the R/T microphone.
'Engine Room confirm we are top of the green. 'Top of the green, it is,
Skipper.
The Chief's casual tones floated in above the crash of the next sea
coming aboard.
Top of the green'was the maximum safe power-setting recommended by the
manufacturers for those gigantic Mirrlees diesels. It was a far higher
setting than top economical power, and they were burning fuel at a
prodigious rate. Nick was pushing her as high as he could without going
into the red, danger area above eighty percent of full power, which at
prolonged running might permanently damage her engines.
Nick turned away to his seat, and wedged himself into it. He groped for
his cheroot case, and then checked him
32 self, the lighter in his hand. His tongue and mouth felt furred over
and dry. He a( smo d without a break every waking minute since leaving
Cape Town, and God knows he had slept little enough since then. He ran
his tongue around his mouth with distaste before he returned the cheroot
to his case, and crouched in his seat staring ahead, trying to work out
why Warlock was running slow.
Suddenly he straightened and considered a possibility that brought a
metallic green gleam of anger into Nick's eyes.
He slid out of his seat, nodded to the Third Officer who had the deck
and ducked through the doorway in the back of the bridge into his day
cabin. It was a ploy. He didn't want his visit below decks announced,
and from his own suite he darted into the companionway.
The engine control room was as modern and gleaming as Warlock's
navigation bridge. It was completely enclosed with double glass to cut
down the thunder of her engines.
The control console was banked below the windows, and all the ship's
functions were displayed in green and red digital figures.
The view beyond the windows into the main engine room was impressive,
even for Nick who had designed and supervised each foot of the layout.
The two Mirrlees diesel engines filled the white-painted cavern with
