'Indeed.' Talbot looked at the length of the retaining arms, which projected at ninety degrees from each other, then aged the width of the hole that had been cut overhead, that's not so simple is getting the bomb up through the With those arms in position there's just not enough clearance for it to go through. We'll have to widen the hole. You can do that, Captain?'
'No bother. Just means that we'll have to lower the fuselage down to its previous position. I'm coming around to Van elder's view about taking zero chances. I want as much water as possible in this compartment to dissipate the heat: the torches. It'll take a couple of hours, maybe longer, to complete the job, but better two or three hours late down here than twenty years early you-know-where.'
Van Gelder said: 'Do I undo those nuts now?' 'No. We're stable enough at the moment. But if the fuselage returns to its previous position of being almost submerged and then the weather blows up — well, I don't think it would be a very clever idea to have an armed atomic mine rolling about all over the shop.' 'I don't think so, either.'
Talbot and Van Gelder were back aboard the Ariadne and having coffee in the deserted wardroom when a seaman from the radio-room entered and handed Talbot a message. Talbot read it and handed it to Van Gelder, who read it twice, then looked at his captain with a certain thoughtful surprise.
'Looks as if I have been casting unjust aspersions on the FBI, sir. It further looks as if they do work at night.'
'Even better, it seems as if they have no compunction about waking others, such as bank managers, in the middle of the night and making them work also. One gathers from the message that Andropulos's mysterious friend George Skepertzis, does know the even more mysterious Kyriakos Katzanevakis and Thomas Thompson.'
'If GS deposits one million dollars each in the accounts o: KK and TT and has given them smaller sums on previous occasions one gathers that they are more than passing acquaintances. Unfortunately, it seems that the one person who could identify them, the bank clerk who handled the accounts of all three men, had been transferred elsewhere. They say that they are pursuing enquiries, whatever that means.'
'It means, I'm certain, that the FBI are going to drag this unfortunate bank clerk from his bed and have him conduct an identity parade.'
'I find it hard, somehow,'to visualize generals and admirals voluntarily consenting to line up for inspection.'
'They won't have to. The FBI or the Pentagon itself is bound to have pictures of them.' Talbot looked out of the window. 'Dawn is definitely in the sky and the rain has eased off to no more than a drizzle ? I suggest we contact Heraklion Air Base and ask them if they'll kindly go and have a look for the diving ship Taormina.'
Together with the Admiral and the two scientists, Talbot and Van Gelder were just finishing breakfast when a messenger arrived from the Kilcharran. Captain Montgomery, he in-formed them, had just finished enlarging the opening on the sop of the bomber's fuselage, was now about to raise the plane again. Would they care to come across? He had made especial mention of Lieutenant-Commander Van Gelder.
'It's not me he wants,' Van Gelder said. 'It's my trusty stilson wrench. As if he doesn't have a dozen aboard.'
'I wouldn't miss this,' Hawkins said. He looked at Benson and Wickram. 'I'm sure you gentlemen wouldn't want to miss this either. It will, after all, be a historic moment when, for the first time in history, they drop a live atomic mine on the deck of a ship.'
'You have a problem, Captain Montgomery?' the Admiral asked. Montgomery, winch stopped, was leaning over the guard-rail and looking down at the fuselage which had been raised to its previous position with its cargo deck just above die level of the sea. 'You look a mite despondent.'
'I am not looking despondent, Admiral. I am looking thoughtful. The next step is to hoist the bomb from the plane. After that, we have to load it aboard the Angelina. And then the Angelina sails away. Correct?' Hawkins nodded and Montgomery wet his forefinger and held it up. 'To sail away you require wind. Unfortunately and most inconveniently, the Mekemi has died completely.'
'It has, hasn't it?' Hawkins said. 'Most inconsiderate, I must say. Well, if we manage to get the bomb aboard the Angelina without blowing ourselves to smithereens we'll just tow it away.'
'How will we do that, sir?' Van Gelder said.
'The Ariadne's whaler. Not the engine, of course. We row.'
'How do we know that the cunning little brain of this explosive device can differentiate between the repeated creaking of oars and the pulse of an engine? After all, sir, it is primarily an acoustic device.'
'Then we'll go back to the naval days of yore. Muffled oars.'
'But the Angelina displaces between eighty and a hundred tons, sir. Even with the best will and the strongest backs in the world it wouldn't be possible to make as much as one nautical mile in an hour. And that's with men continuously pulling with all their strength. Even the strongest, fittest and most highly trained racing crews ? Oxford, Cambridge, Thames Tideway — approach complete exhaustion after twenty minutes. Not being Oxbridge Blues, our limit would probably be nearer ten minutes. Half a nautical mile, if we're lucky. And then, of course, the periods between successive onsets of exhaustion would become progressively shorter. Cumulative effects, if you follow me, sir. A quarter of a mile an hour. It's close on a hundred miles to the Kasos Strait. Even assuming they can row night and day, which they can't, and discounting the possibility of heart attacks, it's going to take them at least a fortnight to get to the Kasos Strait.'
'When it comes to comfort and encouragement,' Hawkins said, 'I couldn't ask for a better man to have around. Bubbling over with optimism. Professor Wotherspoon, you live and sail in these parts. What's your opinion?'
'It's been an unusual night, but this is a perfectly normal morning. Zero wind. The Etesian wind ? the Meltemi as they
it in these parts ? starts up around about noon. Comes from the north or north-west.'
'What if the wind comes from the south or south-west Brad?' Van Gelder said. 'It would be impossible for the rowers to make any headway against it. The reverse, rather. Can't you just picture it, the Angelina being driven on to the rocks of Santorini?'
'Job's comforter,' Hawkins said. 'Would it be too much to ask you kindly to cease and desist?'
'Not Job, sir, nor his comforter. I see myself more in the role of Cassandra.'
'Why Cassandra?'
'Beautiful daughter of Priam, King of Troy,' Denholm said. 'The prophecies of the princess, though always correct, were decreed by Apollo never to be believed.'
'I'm not much of a one for Greek mythology,' Montgomery said. 'Had it been a leprechaun or a brownie, now, I might have listened. As it is, we have work to do. Mr Danforth ? ' to his chief officer ' ? detail half-a-dozen men, a dozen, haul the Angelina round to our port quarter. Once the bomb has been removed we can pull the fuselage for'ard and Angelina can then move for'ard in her turn to take its place.'
Under Montgomery's instructions, the derrick hook was detached from the lifting ring and the derrick itself angled slightly aft until the hook dangled squarely over the centre of rectangular opening that had been cut in the fuselage. Montgomery, Van Gelder and Carrington descended the companionway to the top of the fuselage, Van Gelder with his stilson, Carrington with two adjustable rope grommets to which were attached two slender lengths of line, one eight feet length, the other perhaps four times as long. Van Gelder Carrington lowered themselves into the cargo bay and lipped and secured the grommets over the tapered ends of the mine while Montgomery remained above guiding the winch driver until the lifting fork was located precisely over the centre of the mine. The hook was lowered until it was four feet above the mine.
None of the eight securing clamp nuts offered more than a token resistance to Van Gelder's stilson and as each clamp came free Carrington tightened or loosened the pressure on the two shorter ropes which had been attached to the hook. Within three minutes the atomic mine was free of all restraints that had attached it to the bulkhead and floor of the cargo bay and in less than half that time it had been winched upwards, slowly and with painstaking care, until it was clear of the plane's fuselage. The two longer ropes attached to the grommets were thrown up on to the deck of the Kilcharran, where they were firmly held to ensure that the mine was kept in a position precisely parallel to the hull of the ship.
Montgomery climbed aboard and took over the winch. The mine was hoisted until it was almost level with the ship's deck and then, by elevating the angle of the derrick, carefully brought alongside until it was resting against the rubber-cushioned sides of the Kilcharran, a manoeuvre that was necessary to ensure that the mine did not snag
