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
