gentle play on the pitch and power of the twin screws, and checking his
exact position against the electronic dials which gave him his speed
across the ground in both directions, accurate to within a foot a
minute.
It was all. nicely under control, and every time he glanced up at the
liner, the discharge of water still boiled from her pump outlets.
Half an hour previously, he had been unable to contain his impatience,
for he knew with a seaman's deep instinct what was coming down upon them
out of the dangerous quadrant of the wind. He had called Baker to ask
how the work on the liner was progressing. It had been a mistake.
You've got nothing better to do than call me out of the engine room to
ask about my piles, and the IA Cup final?
I'll tell you when I'm ready, believe me, sonny, I'll call you.
If you are bored, go down and give Angel a kiss, but for God's sake,
leave me alone./ Beauty Baker was working with two of his men in that
filthy, freezing steel box deep down in the liner's stern that housed
the emergency steering-gear. The rudder was right across at full port
lock. Unless he could get power on the steering machinery, she would be
almost unmanageable, once she was under tow, especially if she was
pulled off stern first. It was vital that the big ship was responding
to her helm when Warlock tried to haul her off Baker cursed and cajoled
the greasy machinery, knocking loose a flap of thick white skin from his
knuckles when a spanner slipped, but working on grimly without even
bothering to lift the injury to his mouth to suck away the welling
blood. He let it drop on to the spanner and thicken into a sticky
jelly, swearing softly but viciously as he concentrated all his skills
on the obdurate steel mass of the steering gear. He knew every bit as
well as the First Officer what was coming down upon them.
The wind had dropped to a gentle force four, a moderate steady breeze
that blew for twenty minutes, just long enough for the crests of the
waves to stop breaking over on themselves. Then slowly, it veered north
- and without any further warning, it was upon them.
It came roaring like a ravening beast, lifting the surface of the sea
away in white sheets of spray that looked as though red-hot steel had
been quenched in it, It laid Warlock right over, so that her port rail
went under and she was flung up so harshly on her main cable that her
stern was pulled down sharply, water pouring in through her stern
scuppers.
It took David by surprise, so that she paid off dangerously before he
could slam open the port throttle and throw the starboard screw into
full reverse thrust. As she came up, he hit the call to the Captain's
suite, watching with rising disbelief as the mad world dissolved around
him.
Nick heard the call from far away, it only just penetrated to his
fatigue-drugged brain, and he tried to respond, but it felt as though
his body was crushed under an enormous weight and that his brain was
slow and sluggish as a hibernating reptile.
The buzzer insisted, a tinny, nagging whine and he tried to force his
eyes open, but they would not respond. Then dimly, but deeply, he felt
