still running, and Geordie was backing us steadily away from Sirena. Clare gave me a fierce hug and I winced.
'Mike – you're hurt?'
'Don't worry, it's really nothing. But go carefully with those hugs for now.'
Campbell limped up to us, his face blackened with smoke, his clothes scorched and sodden. He and I exchanged a look over Clare's head and he smiled briefly.
'How's Paula?' I asked him. 'And Mark?'
'Both all right. We haven't lost anyone else,' he said grimly. 'The boys pulled two Spaniards aboard and two others jumped across.'
Taffy was helping Nick to his feet. Apart from his arm which was obviously crippled and the abrasion on his face there seemed to be little wrong with him. Again I marvelled at his strength. Taffy said, 'We've sent all the Spaniards below and Ian's got 'em locked in our homemade brig.' I said, 'Surely they aren't a danger to us now?' 'Well, there could be trouble,' said Taffy. 'We've got' A stunning crash interrupted him. The hail of ash and magma had died down briefly, but now it started up again as a fresh pillar of smoke and steam boiled skywards from almost dead ahead of us. Our ship rocked wildly as another barrage of waves hit us. Sirena reemerged from this last assault on fire in several places. We heard men's voices faintly through the uproar.
I'll lay odds that Geordie Wilkins must be the best seaman ever to put his hands on a wheel. With consummate skill and an astonishing use of gear and throttle he edged Esmerelda nearer and nearer to the doomed Sirena, to aid the stricken men. As we closed in we saw that one of Falcon's barrages must have sheared through the rigging and brought down the main gaff. Struggling men lay pinned to the deck. Others were trying frantically to release them, but the fires were closing in, eating their way along the deck timbers. Clare screamed, 'Look – Ramirez!' A man was staggering across the deck of Sirena, Oblivious to the cries and struggles of his crew he never took his eyes from Esmerelda. Through the smoke as it was lit by an occasional red glare I saw that he was carrying a rifle. His torn clothing appeared scorched and blood-stained, and his face was a mask of smoke, blood and fury. He had crawled like a deadly spider from its crevice to use its poison for the last time.
I don't know if he had given up all hope of surviving and was bent only on revenge, or if his mind had given way. I didn't believe that cold intellect, so unlike Hadley's unreasoning savagery, would break as easily as that. But there was an implacable singleminded purpose about him that was terrifying.
He aimed the rifle across the water.) I flung myself down shielding Clare – I had no idea who he would choose for a target – and I heard the gun fire, sharp and crisp against the background bedlam. It was followed almost instantly by a terrible grinding roar, louder than anything we had heard before. We staggered to our feet in time to see Falcon play its most horrible trick.
It was Geordie, intent on his delicate steering, who first saw the danger. I don't know if he'd even been aware of Ramirez. Esmerelda sheered off violently as he spun the wheel so that we turned in a half-arc as fast as the one in which the eddy tide-had taken us. Then he pushed the throttle in until the engine was pounding at maximum speed, to carry us away from the arena.
Behind us I saw Sirena jar to a sudden halt and Ramirez flung across the deck. The ship rose grotesquely in the air and tipped over on her side, looking like a small sailing boat stranded by the tide. But this was no sandbank. It was a bed of writhing red-hot lava. The sea recoiled from it in a tempest of steam.
In that last fraction of a second Ramirez rolled back down the deck, his clothes a mass of flame. He was flung straight overboard into the raging lava bed and vanished instantly. Sirena went up like a funeral pyre, before banks of smoke and steam rolled across to blot her out of our sight.* 4*
The rain of fire from Falcon continued. In all we were hit by four of those fiery bombs. An exhausted and shell- shocked crew was kept busy dousing fires, using the hoses for the biggest, buckets for the rest, and praying that we would not run out of fuel. The hoses worked only as long as the engine continued to run. And we knew that there wasn't the slightest possibility of rigging sail.
Even with the engine at full speed there were times when Esmerelda began to drift back towards Falcon, caught in the grip of a cold water current as it rushed in to replenish the vaporized water. An occasional eddy swung her round by the bows and Geordie had to take her out in reverse.
It was three hours before we were well clear of Falcon, a mad jumble of fire, steam, smoke and lava falling mercifully astern of us. Geordie had been spelled at the wheel by Ian and Taffy; the rest of us had managed to extinguish the fires, hurl – the worst of the debris overboard, and bring some faint semblance of order to the ship. We took turns to collapse with exhaustion. Clare worked steadily taking care of burns and wounds.
Some parts of Esmerelda were in better shape than others. By a strange miracle the launch still clung to our coat-tails, though we had no time to stop and haul her up on davits. I found to my great relief that my notes and the bulk of the lab files were in order, though most of the apparatus was wrecked. It was better to work on things like that than to dwell on the last appalling few hours. But there were a couple of matters that had to be taken care of, that could not, for all my wishing, be put off much longer.
Mark was still on board and had to be dealt with.
And so was Hadley.
Taffy had started to tell me, just before Falcon blew its top. Hadley had been one of the two men who had leapt to our deck, and was being held in the brig with the other men from Sirena. It was dismaying to know that he was with us, but for me the most serious problem was Mark.
He and Paula had stayed together in the saloon during the, whole of the encounter with Falcon. Now I had to face him. I pulled myself to my feet and went wearily below. Paula looked up as I entered and her face, like everyone else's, was drawn and shadowed.
'Are we safe yet, Mike?' she asked.
'Pretty well. You should both come up on deck and get some air. It's remarkably peaceful up there now. Paula, thank you for standing by.'
She smiled a brief acknowledgement and she and Mark got up together. He was very pale under the heavy beard, and limped a little, but he seemed fairly strong. He had said nothing as yet. I led the way on deck and they followed in silence, numbed by the sight of so much damage. Nobody spoke to Mark, but more than one of the crew reached to pat Paula's arm or give her a quick smile as she went by.
We stopped outside the deckhouse, a shattered and burnt-out shell. They stood together looking astern at the now distant ascending cloud of smoke.
'I wish I'd seen it,' Mark said. He sounded wistful.
'It was fantastic, but too close for comfort,' I said. 'I'm going to tape my impressions as soon as I can. There's a lot to be learned from such close-up observation. Do you know what happened to Sirena?' 'Clare told us,' Paula said, and shuddered. Mark seemed unmoved. He was not going to be overtaken by conscience as easily as that. I didn't mention Hadley or the other prisoners.
'Mark,' I said abruptly, 'I have to talk to you.'
'I'll go,' Paula offered.
Mark took her arm and held it. 'Stay with me,' he said. She was the only one he could be sure was on his side, and he needed a friend at court. He turned to me and a hint of the old arrogance was back in his voice. 'What's it going to be? One of your little lectures on decency?'
I felt grim and tired. This wasn't going to work.
'For God's sake, Mark, ease off. I'm not going to lecture you – it was always too late to get you to listen to reason. But we have to work something out before we land, or before someone sights us.'
I wanted above all things to lie down, right there on the deck, and sleep for a week. I was physically beat up and exhausted, but the onus of Mark was a heavier burden. I wished I could have had Clare to stand by me, as he had Paula, but I wasn't going to bring her into it.
We stared at one another in stalemate.
My jumbled thoughts were interrupted by a bubbling scream. The sound came from below. Taffy and a couple of the others dived down the companionway, and Ian came past us at a run. I made a move to follow but then held back, leaving it to the professionals.
I said, 'I think it's one of the Spaniards. He must be hurt, poor devil.'
'What Spaniard?' Mark asked.
For answer there was a crash from below, and Hadley burst into view through the burnt-out galley and onto the deck where we were standing. He had a kitchen knife in his hand. I backed away from his red-rimmed crazy eyes as he came at me like a bull.
