Boz indicated the end of the case. ' Lend me your axe!' he shouted. ' Gotta get the loose gear out and stow it in the cutter.'
I handed him the axe and he chopped open the crate. Under heavy plastic waterproofing we found three small cases, one marked SPACE-SUIT', the second DATICO and the third ' vu RADIO', in clear stencilling. Boz yanked one towards him, freeing the lashing of tarred paper and plastic. Beyond – and a thrill of awe passed through me, as Boz gestured Little Bear's nose-cone reflected the dull light.
The interior of the crate smelt like a new car-tarry, plastic, sterile. Boz and I crawled in farther. Behind the thick plastic protective membrane of the casing was the capsule, its rubber-cushioned seat and safety straps facing us from behind the perspex. There was an array of instruments and, fixed in the transparent canopy on a stay, was some sort of gyro or altimeter. A thick rubber cable, heavily waterproofed, was sealed into the side of the casing. Attached to one end was a metal ball which looked like a dunking helo's sonar buoy. That was all we would see on the surface once MKG was submerged in the missile. A telescopic radio antenna was attached to the hull. The sight of the sleek metal cylinder seemed to mitigate, somehow, the burden of the secret inside me.
Hearing a sound, I spun round, my nerves sandpapered by the sight of the sinister weapon and the crisis it had caused. It was the Texan.
' The dame wants you in the radio shack,' he said. ' Seems it's off limits to all of us now-and I must admit it's goddam' rough going up there.' He explained Peace's ban to Boz. Commander doesn't want any broken limbs amongst us.'
Like Boz, though, his interest seemed entirely focused on
Little Bear.
At the radio shack, Adele said, Geoffrey wants you to black out this place. He doesn't want a light showing anywhere tonight.' She smiled gravely at me. Every radio station in the world is interrupting its programmes with monotonous regularity to give the latest on the MKG crisis. I thought the Voice of America announcer would have kittens the first time he came on the air with the news.'
I stayed and listened with her. Stunned reaction, incredulity, disbelief-the ether could not hold them all. Space experts discounted the attempt, but the National Space Administration seemed to give credence to it by saying the earth would be in the most favourable position for a space-shot a week hence. Experts, within the bounds of security and supposition, tried to assess Little Bear's chances of reaching Santa Fe. The President remained silent. The one thing the listening world did not seem to take into account, however, was the cyclone. Arm-chair strategists and geographical experts all had their say about how easy it would be to locate any ship, anywhere, any time, in the Sea of Limuria.
Tyler and Thornton were ominously silent. I thought of those deep-diving subs 500 feet down closing relentlessly towards us, patiently searching, searching. I had finished the improvized black-out when Adele raised her hand.
Here it came!-the close Morse grouping, the expert, rapid sending of the Seventh Fleet. Adele's hand danced over the paper.
Blue Force to Red Force x Semittante transmission too short for reliable fix x on basis of fixes from Blue and Red Forces evaluate her position as north-west St Brandon and west of Saya de Mal ha x subs on their way x weather deteriorating x how is it with you? Tyler was brief:
Damage and casualties all surface ships x cowboys hove to x search birds roosting x Willowtrack making all available speed with two other subs to general area in- dicated by Semittante fix x
I took it to Peace on the bridge. They'll be here by morning,' he said. MKG stood silent by the wheel, his thoughts beyond the streaming windows, across the-storm-swept sea.
Semittante plunged into the night.
Two hours later, after Mac had reported that Semittante was taking in water through cracked bow plates, Peace altered course in complete darkness towards Love-Apple Crossing. As she swung round to take the sea astern, Semittante gave us a breath-stopping moment. A heavy sea broke aboard, carrying away the starboard boats and tearing the for'ard hatchway from its roaming. Tons of water poured in. Semittante lay over like a heeled cur; I thought she would never come up. Mac's voice in the voicepipe was fluent with profanity. He wasn't sure if the pumps could cope, he said. Boz's men and I tried to lash a tarpaulin over the shattered coamings, but it was torn from our hands and whirled away into the night. Bruised, with fingernails bleeding, we fought our way back to the bridge.
Chagos, Mauritius, St Brandon, Tromelin, and Chepe on
Agalega broadcast continuous cyclone warnings. It seemed that the eye of the storm still lay well to the east. Adele at my insistence tried to snatch some sleep on a rough couch I arranged in the radio shack. Peace, MKG, Andre and I kept the old ship alive while the launch team dozed fitfully in the chart-room. With the run of the sea and the wind astern, she made for her last resting-place.
When it was light enough to see at about eight o'clock the next morning, Boz brought us all hot cocoa and bully-beef sandwiches. We ate the rough fare hungrily. There was no sun, only a transparency in the grey, but the sea seemed somewhat easier. There was no sign of Bellatrix. I took Adele's ' breakfast' to her and she reported silence from the searchers, but the news bulletins were anything but silent: Moscow offered Soviet planes and tracking stations ' . n the interests of world peace '. The BBC said that if the kidnappers were British, they were unscrupulous adventurers who had assumed the name of one of Britain's most illustrious naval officers who was buried recently with full honours Ain the Sea of Limuria.' When Peace joined us, he saw in this an official disavowal of himself, but shrugged his shoulders and said it had happened to him before. Behind-the-scenes pressure must have been intense, for this disavowal was reinforced by an offer of the British missile-tracking cruisers Loch Vennachar and Loch Rannoch. But, it was added-and Peace saw in this the DNI's hand as a means of keeping the mission alive-these ships were at present storm-bound in the Seychelles. Speculation ran riot about the massive operation which the Seventh Fleet had mounted; Thornton's silence was attributed to security, not to the cyclone.
I felt uneasy in mKG's presence when we returned to the bridge and I was glad when Peace called me to the chartroom. What do you make of it, John?'
I studied our line of dead-reckoning pencillings on the chart which we had made during the night. We could be thirty miles any way.'
If you are remotely right, we should sight Love-Apple
Crossing about four or five hours from now.'
Sight!' I laughed ironically. ' Love-Apple Crossing is maybe half a mile long and a quarter broad. It's ten feet above sea level, with the exception of the northern end near Vingt-Cinq Coups. On a calm day you wouldn't sight it at ten miles; today, not at ten cables.
True,' he reflected. Nothing but a sandbank with some piddling little palms. But if we miss Love-Apple Crossing today, we could beat about for days looking for it. We have six days left to blast-off.'