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.
