lethal speed and power of that flood.
The in flow slowed and stopped as the hull filled to capacity, building
up great pressures of air and water, and then the flow reversed abruptly
as the swell on the far side subsided, and trapped water began to rush
out again.
Nick released his grip on the stringer and instantly the water caught
him. There was no question of being able to swim in that mill-race, all
he could hope for was to keep his arms at his sides and his legs
straight together to give himself a smoother profile, and to steer with
his fins.
The accelerating speed appalled him as he was flung head first at that
murderous steel mouth, he could feel the nylon line streaming out
against his leg, the reel on his belt racing as though a giant marlin
had struck and hooked upon the other end.
The rush of his progress seemed to leave his guts behind him as though
he rode a fairground roller-coaster, and then a flick of the current
turned him, he felt himself beginning to roll - and he fought wildly for
control just as he hit.
He hit with a numbing shock, so his vision starred in flashing colour
and light. The shock was in his shoulders and left arm, and he thought
it might have been severed by that razor steel.
Then he was swirling, end over end, completely disorientated so he did
not know which direction was up. He did not know if he was still inside
Golden Adventurer's hull, and the nylon line was wrapping itself around
his throat and chest, around the precious air tubes and cutting off his
air supply like a stillborn infant strangled by its own umbilical cord.
Again he hit something, this time with the back of his head, and only
the cushioning of his helmet saved his skull from cracking. He flung
out his arms and found the rough irregular shape of ice above him.
Terror wrapped him again, and he screamed soundlessly into his mask, but
suddenly he broke out into light and air, into the loose scum of slush
and rotten ice mixed with bigger, harder chunks, one of which had hit
him.
Above him towered the endless steel cliff of the liner's side and beyond
that, the low bruised wind-sky, and as he struggled to disentangle
himself from the coils of nylon, he realized two things. The first was
that both his arms were still attached to his body, and still
functioning, and the second was that Warlock's work boat was only twenty
feet away and butting itself busily through the brash of rotten broken
ice towards him.
The collision mat looked like a five-ton Airedale terrier curled up to
sleep in the bows of the work boat, just as shaggy and shapeless, and of
the same wiry, furry brown colour.
Nick had shed his helmet and pulled an Arctic cloak and hood over his
bare head and suited torso. He was balanced in the stern of the work
boat as she plunged and rolled and porpoised in the big swells; chunks
of ice crashed against her hull, knocking loose chips off her paintwork,
but she was steel-hulled, wide and sea-kindly. The helmsman knew his
job, working her with calm efficiency to Nick's hand-signals, bringing
