‘Roger,’ Hob said ‘I could feel sorry for them Nothing can survive that Do we stay at this height, Dunker3’
‘Affirmative Let’s get out wide on the convoy’s port quarter We must have put paid to any attack from this quarter ‘
Hob kept 833 going They must be six miles from the nearest ship in the convoy and would soon be able to rejoin Mother The convoy was steering downwind, going great guns with the sea under its skirts and with the impetus of the poisoned clouds following it It was running from the nor’-westerly submarine threat, but would soon be mixing it with the other flankers if it didn’t turn back to its MLA Strange that they had not heard from 815 yet she had probably been thrown by our salvo of NDBS ‘New heading,’ Dunker called ‘Three — ‘
He never finished his sentence There was a shout from Grog and, as Hob turned, the cab jumped, flailing, tumbling from the sky ‘God!’ Grog cried ‘Look — missiles!’
Down below Hob saw two electric-blue flashes, then the awful trademark shooting upwards The cab fell sideways, wrenched from its pilot’s hands, as it spiralled towards the sea.
Chapter 16
Captain Ginger Ducrois, Master Manner and Quebecois, leaned against the for’d rail of his bridge and gazed down the rows of boxes stacked four high from Ungava Bay’s main deck The loading may have been efficient, but only by a hair’s breadth did it not interfere with a clear vision ahead He was loathe to leave his bridge He’d been all his life at sea, had learned to heed that tightening, that inner tension There was no other description for this instinct that set the alarm bells ringing inside him, clanging the warning of imminent danger The phenomenon had happened three times in his life, and each time he had heeded the omen Still hesitating to leave the bridge for his sea-cabin abaft the radio office, Ducrois wandered out to the port wing of his modern bridge He was glad to feel the wind blowing through his thinning hair, he refused to concede the dreary fact, but wondered whether he’d be totally white before this lot was over So far, so good, but things were hotting up The commodore had handled the show pretty well up to now that turn to starboard had been a masterly effort, though the old girl on his port bow in the northern column, Emma Rose, had swung too far and was still trying to regain station ‘What’s the commodore flying?’ Ducrois shouted through the wing door at his officer of the watch He glanced at the bridge clock below the ship’s head repeater 1242 ‘You should have spotted that hoist — ‘
As he spoke he was pulled up sharply by a curious boom behind him, away to the northward He felt a sudden pressure on his ears He turned round and, rooted to the deck, saw the horizon slowly take on a monstrous hump, some eight miles away Three choppers were flying fast to the westward Instinctively he crouched to gain the dubious safety of his bridge screen ‘Hit the deck1’ he yelled ‘They’re using nuclear stuff to winkle out the subs1’
Before he could stand up again there were two more blasts and subsequent shock waves He waited for a few seconds, then hauled himself to window level On the same bearing to westward he could still see the three choppers, mere dots as they streaked from ‘ground zero’ They were barely in time, for the stalk of the first mushroom was forming swiftly, followed by the others At the cloud-base the first mushroom was flattening out as the water vapour and filth shot upwards Glancing back at the convoy, which seemed remarkably unaffected, he remembered the commodore’s flag hoist Ducrois grabbed his binoculars and tried to read the flags — the hoist was edge-on and difficult to distinguish The top flag of the long string was dark and rectangular there could be an emergency turn on the way At 1245 it was time to alter, if they were to evade the other submarine threat ‘Warn the chief,’ he told the officer of the watch ‘Come to standby, I’ll be manoeuvring shortly ‘
But the young officer wasn’t listening Instead he was pointing across the port quarter At first Ducrois thought that he was indicating the tumbling chopper on the horizon — an unnerving sight — but then the captain noticed that the officer of the watch’s binoculars were trained further to the right The chap’s lips moved, but no sound came Then Ducrois saw it Where the NDB had detonated, the ocean had humped to form a line of breaking seas lifting high above the horizon As he watched, the surface hillock grew into a mountainous range, a vertical cliff of raging seas It was advancing at an incredible speed, its silver crest stretching for miles, the wave-height increasing with every second that passed Ducrois heard the distant roar as the confusion of the seas from the three explosions intensified The maelstrom was still several miles away but would be upon the defenceless Ungava Bay within minutes Ducrois held his breath as first one ship, then another and another, floated slowly up the slopes of the approaching wall of water One by one, they were lifted, poised on the foaming crests on their beam-ends, then sucked over the summit to disappear ‘Hard-a-starboard,’ he bellowed ‘Slow both engines ‘
He jumped to the engine console himself, shouting at the engineer of the watch He slithered back to the compass, shoved the paralysed officer from the pelorus He disconnected the auto-pilot and grasped the mini-wheel himself He left the bridge island for an instant, the wheel still hard over to check the swing as he tried to align her stern with the approaching onslaught As he watched, farther aft and almost astern, there was an electric flash, its glare blinding him temporarily The thunder of the on-rushing freak wave was smothered by a blast of rushing air, the ship trembled her full length as the glass in the windows shattered in thousands of pieces Ducrois flinched from the blistering heat, recoiled at the hammer blow of the shock wave, and gasped as the vacuum sucked at his lungs and hurled him to the deck He dragged himself to the pelorus He stood up, took off the wheel and met the swing as the first breakers began hissing about the ship Then he saw the flickering, orange light the whole of the after part — her poop deck and the accommodation quarters — was ablaze, the paint sizzling, the stench choking his lungs as the flames were fanned by the rushing wind from the surface explosion He could think only of survival — of keeping his ship stern-on to the monstrous sea now gripping Ungava Bay The pandemonium was overwhelming, as the sheer cliff of water surged upon the puny ship Ungava Bay lurched, floundered, then, her stern lifting, Ducrois watched her bows being driven downwards as the stupendous power of the sea lifted the stern of the forty-thousand-ton ship up the slopes of the oceanic valley He had to brace against the bow-down angle as she slid from under him, he clung to the wheel, as she lurched beam-on to the giant rollers The rectangle of the port bridge door, where the sky had been, darkened, transformed into a dark-green world Millions of tons of water thundered upon the ship, but he felt her deck lifting beneath him, his heart coming into his mouth as Ungava Bay climbed higher and higher She hung there at the crest, poised interminably it seemed, between wind and water.
Then suddenly, the stern was slipping away, swooping down into the trough on the other side…. The bows now were rearing up and he wound his arms about the stem of the pelorus, to save himself from being flung backwards.