Polar Shift

wondering whether the person who had named the huge cargo ship possessed a warped sense of humor or simply bad eyesight. Despite a genteel name that suggested eyelash-fluttering, antebellum femininity, the Belle was, simply put, a metal monstrosity with nothing that hinted at female pulchritude.

The Southern Belle was one of a new generation of fast, seaworthy vessels being built in American shipyards after years of the United States taking a backseat to other shipbuilding countries. It was designed in San Diego and built in Biloxi. At seven hundred feet, she was longer than two football fields put together, with room enough to carry fifteen hundred containers.

The massive vessel was controlled from a towering superstructure on its aft deck. The hundred-foot-wide deckhouse, which resembled an apartment building, contained crew and officer quarters and mess halls, a hospital and treatment rooms, cargo offices and conference rooms.

With its glowing ranks of twenty-six-inch touch display screens, the Belle's, bridge, on the top level of the six-deck superstructure, resembled a Las Vegas casino. The spacious center of operations reflected the new era in ship design. Computers were used to control every aspect of the integrated systems and functions.

But old habits die hard. The ship's captain, Pierre 'Pete' Beaumont, was peering through a pair of binoculars, still trusting his eyes despite the sophisticated electronic gadgetry at his command.

From his vantage point on the bridge, Beaumont had a panoramic view of the Atlantic storm that raged around his ship. Fierce, gale-force winds were kicking up waves as big as houses. The waves crashed over the bow and washed halfway across the stacks of containers tied down on the deck.

The extreme level of violence surrounding the ship would have sent lesser vessels scurrying for cover and given their captains sweaty palms. But Beaumont was as calm as if he were gliding in a gondola along the Grand Canal.

The soft-spoken Cajun loved storms. He reveled in the give-and-take between his ship and the elements. Watching the way the Belle blasted her way through the seas in an awesome display of power gave him an almost sensual thrill.

Beaumont was the vessel's first and only captain. He had watched the Belle being built and knew every nut and bolt on the ship. The ship had been designed for the regular run between Europe and America, a route that took it across some of the most cantankerous ocean on the face of the earth. He was confident that the tempest was well within the forces that the ship had been built to withstand.

The ship had loaded its cargo of synthetic rubber, fiber filaments, plastics and machinery in New Orleans, then sailed around Florida to a point halfway up the Atlantic Coast, where it began on a straight-line course to Rotterdam.

The weather service had been right on the nose with its forecast. Gale-force winds had been predicted, developing into an Atlantic storm. The storm caught the ship about two hundred miles from land. Beaumont was unperturbed, even when the winds intensified. The ship had easily survived worse weather.

He was scanning the ocean when he stiffened suddenly and seemed to lean into the lenses. He lowered the binoculars, raised them again and muttered under his breath. Turning to his first officer, he said:

'Look at that section of ocean. Around two o'clock. Tell me if you see anything unusual.'

The officer was Bobby Joe Butler, a talented young seaman who hailed from Natchez. Butler had made no secret of his wish someday to command a ship like the Belle. Maybe even the Belle itself. Following the captain's lead, Butler surveyed the ocean around thirty degrees off starboard.

He saw only the gray, mottled water stretching toward the misted horizon. Then, about a mile from the ship, he sighted a white line of foam at least twice as high as the sea in the background. Even as he watched, the mounding water grew rapidly in height as if it were drawing power from the surrounding waves.

'Looks like a real big sea coming our way,' Butler said in his Mississippi drawl.

'How big do you estimate it to be?'

The younger man squinted through the lenses. 'Average seas have been running around thirty feet. This looks to be double that. Wow! Have you ever seen anything this big?'

'Never,' the captain said. 'Not in my whole life.'

The captain knew his ship could handle the wave if the Belle faced into it bow first to cut down the area of impact. The captain ordered the helmsman to program the auto-steer to face the oncoming wave and keep it steady. Then he grabbed the mike and flipped a switch on the console that would connect the bridge with speakers all over the ship.

'Attention all hands. This is the captain. A giant rogue wave is about to hit the ship. Get to a secure location away from flying objects and hold on. The impact will be severe. Repeat. The impact will be severe.'

As a precaution, he ordered the radioman to broadcast an SOS. The ship could always send out a recall, if needed.

The green, white-veined wave was about a half mile from the ship. 'Look at that,' Butler was saying. The sky was lit up by a series of brilliant flashes. 'Lightning?'

'Maybe,' the captain said. 'I'm more concerned about that damned sea!'

The wave's profile was unlike anything the captain had ever seen. Unlike most waves, which slope down at an angle from the crest, this one was almost straight up and down, like a moving wall.

The captain had a peculiar out-of-body sensation. Part of him watched the advancing wave in a disinterested, scientific fashion, fascinated by the size and power, while another part stood in helpless wonder at the immense, menacing power.

'It's still growing,' Butler said with unabashed awe.

The captain nodded. He guessed the wave had grown to a height of ninety feet, nearly three times as high as it was when it was first sighted. His face was ashen. Cracks were starting to appear in his rock-hard confidence. A ship the size of the Belle couldn't turn on a dime, and it was still facing the oncoming sea at an angle when the gigantic wave reared up like a living thing.

He was expecting the shock from the wave but was unprepared when a trough big enough to swallow his ship opened up in the ocean in front of him.

The captain looked into the abyss that had appeared before his eyes. 'It's like the end of the world,' he thought.

The ship tilted into the trough, slid down the side and buried its bow in the ocean. The captain fell against the forward bulkheads.

Rather than strike head-on, the wave collapsed on top of the ship, burying it under thousands of tons of water.

The pilothouse windows imploded under the pressure, and the entire Atlantic Ocean seemed to pour into the bridge. The blast of water hit the captain and the others on the bridge with the force of a hundred fire hoses. The bridge became a tangle of arms and legs. Books, pencils and seat cushions were thrown about.

Some of the water drained out through the windows, and the captain fought his way back to the controls. All the control screens were dead. The ship had lost its radar, gyro compasses and radio communication, but, most seriously, its power. All the instrumentation had become short-circuited. The steering gear was useless.

The captain went to a window and surveyed the physical damage. The bow had been destroyed, and the ship was listing. He suspected that the hull plating may have been penetrated. The lifeboats on the foredeck had been swept from their davits. The ship wallowed like a drunken hippopotamus.

The big wave seemed to have stirred up the seas around it like a demagogue rousing a mob. Waves rolled across the foredeck. Worse, with its engines having failed, the ship was lying transversely to the seas, drifting in the worst possible position.

Having survived the wave, the ship lay with its side exposed, in danger of being 'holed,' in the colorful jargon of the sea.

The captain tried to remain optimistic. The Southern Belle could survive even with some compartments flooded. Someone would have heard the SOS. The ship could float for days, if necessary, until help arrived.

'Captain.' The first officer interrupted the captain's thoughts.