I stood, and looked as she had, at the Viscount.
Bruce Fairlie the pilot had not been afraid of storms. Why should he be? His machine was powered by thousands of horsepower, it had every latest radio and radar device. His last signal to the land had shown no concern for the weather. He had reported simply that he was flying low over the sea in strong wind and rain and would be coming in to land in a few minutes at East London airport … I shrugged off my thoughts impatiently. I had worked all this out before. All it added up to was that the airliner had been over the sea, low, south of the Bashee Mouth.
Bruce Fairlie had also opened the graveyard gate.,
It had closed for ever behind him.
No wreckage, no bodies, had ever been found. Not a plank.
I went to the chart now. On it. Waratah's track ended a little to the south of where Walvis Bay pitched and rolled. The terminal point was approximate, since she may have vanished immediately the Clan Macintyre lost sight of her. Alistair intended to come in to attack East London on a course converging with mine — and the Waratah's. He said he would be so low that there would be no chance of the radar defences picking him up. His Buccaneer would be flying at more than twice the speed of the lost airliner. Would that insure his safety-would he fly tonight? It seemed that whatever had struck down the Waratah and the Gemsbok took no account of speed, if one considered the discrepancy between them.
Where lay the common factor?
I saw.
South-west.
The run of the sea was south-west. The gale was south-west. Waratah's course was south-west. Gemsbok's course was south-west. The Buccaneer's course was south-west. Walvis Bay's course was south-west. The course was death.
CHAPTER FIVE
'It's the whip after the lurch,' protested Taylor. 'It's like a sjambok being cracked. It's shaking the guts out of all the equipment.'
'It's only a matter of time before the spindle of the radar antenna goes,' added Miller.
Feldman glanced nervously half-over his shoulder. 'One big sea will carry away the radiosonde hut.'
The two technicians were defiant; they were civilians and could say their say to me; Feldman, without usurping authority, could give them his backing. Fear has many faces, and Feldman's was ugly to me.
I tried to keep tempers smooth.
Take a look at the problem from my point of view,' I said. 'You want me to do something about it. If I turn the ship beam-on to the sea, what do you think will happen? It's bloody dangerous anyway, but how do you think she'll roll then? Twice what she's doing now. The best way to face a storm like this is bows-on. That's the way I'm doing it.'
The Bashee light was dropping out of sight astern. Grey and uneasy, the coast lay crouched in a haze of spray, the high shoulders of the black promontories braced against the storm. Very soon it would be completely dark.
Feldman said, 'We've seen a lot of rough weather in the Southern Ocean. But look at this sea-I've never seen anything like it. Down south they come as long rollers, and there's a breathing space in between. I've never seen Walvis Bay taking it green the way she is now.'
"The gyro would be quite happy like that,' Taylor went on. 'That's what it was designed for. It's in the specification. '.'
'Blast your specifications,' I retorted impatiently. 'I can't specify the sort of sea one gets.'
'All we're asking is for you to give us a sporting chance,' muttered Miller. 'Here you are bashing the ship with everything full on …'
Feldman saw his chance. He said tentatively, 'You haven't reduced speed. She'd ride easier if you did.'
'I'm the captain, and I take the decisions around here,' I snapped.
'Even a captain can be wrong sometimes,' replied Miller truculently. 'We're telling you plainly and simply that if you don't do something quick, you won't have any apparatus left in a couple of hours.'
Taylor was more conciliatory. ^Couldn't we make a plan.. ’
I loathed myself for pulling my rank, but I simply could not attempt to explain. How could I say that I was deliberately trailing my coat, for greater ends even than the valuable instruments which were the true heart of the weather ship? Every suggestion the three men were making was in accord with common sense and sound seamanship. I was driving the ship unnecessarily, risking valuable equipment, property, and maybe even lives.
I tried to bluster my way out. 'Would you like me to put in to East London then and signal the Bureau that the gear's a failure even at the start, and you can't cope?'
'You'd think it was our gear and that you were only the driver,' snapped back Miller. 'You're in this just as much as we are, if not more, don't forget'
My nerves and temper were stretched. The bridge clock showed 5.30. Perhaps, I thought with a sense of relief which was overwhelming, the Air Force won't fly tonight anyway. However, did they-or the Weather Bureau — really know how out at sea it was working up into something really dirty? Freed of the awful responsibility of Alistair (the Gemsbok’s identical course seemed burned into my brain), I alone could test what there was to test about the Waratah, but I would have to be very sure that the end would justify the means-in other words, the pitiless hammering which was being handed out, with my full concurrence, to the scientific gear. Would it, like my coastwise trip, be meaningless? If I accepted the futility of what I was doing, I would reduce speed right away and cosset the apparatus, perhaps even take her out into deep water, where the wave effects were bound to be less than in the shallow waters of the Agulhas Bank. I crushed down the idea. I had decided to follow the Waratah's course at the Waratah's speed to smoke out what had sunk her, and stop it doing the same to the great oil rigs. I had that rendezvous with Alistair, if I were not there, I told myself, perhaps my very absence might drive him into the arms of the Waratah danger if he started to look for Walvis Bay in the wild seas. .
I bit back my reply to Miller. 'What did Scannel say?' I temporized.
'He's got so many of his own problems, he hasn't been able to spare time for ours,' retorted Miller sullenly.
I picked up the engine-room voice-pipe. 'Nick? I've got a crisis on my hands. The satellite observing gear and the radar antenna are shaking themselves to pieces..'
The sea's thump in the engine-room below the water-line came through clearly on the instrument. It was like a rubber truncheon being beaten against a steel drum.
'I'll be right up,' said Scannel briefly. I wished I had a first officer of the calibre of my engineer.
Scannel took a brief look round when he arrived at the bridge. 'Is that what's making all the racket?' He gestured to the sea.
Feldman muttered, half to himself, 'It would be less with less speed on her..'
Scannel snorted. 'Listen, chum, my engines are good for sixteen knots, gale or no gale.'
I grinned at the engineer. It was comforting to have some backing.
'The gyro is overcompensating and heating up. Miller and Taylor went into a string of technicalities.