‘We’ll have to completely rebrief the line watches,’ Peter Walcott began. Richard was beginning to understand what strain Peter was under and why he was always automatically negative on first knockings.
‘All on the schedules going round on the fax,’ answered Richard.
‘Obviously we’ll have to check and recalculate them for ourselves,’ said Gendo Odate, under similar pressure to Peter; also negative, first off.
‘Yes, you will, Gendo. If we’re going to make much of a go of it, we’ll have to be fast, but yes, you’ll need to recalculate.’
‘Hard work for first officers all round,’ mused Bob Stark.
‘Yes.’
‘Still, that’s what first officers are for. What are you going to do about Sally Bell, though? She’s lading officer and acting captain all rolled into one.’
‘Let her talk for herself, Bob. Sally?’
‘I don’t know, Richard. I could sleep less, I guess.’
‘I could lend you Steve Bollom,’ interposed John Higgins. ‘He could work for you and I’ll sort out my end myself.’
Richard chuckled to himself. He had known in his bones that John would find it hard to let anyone else look after something as complex as this.
‘OK, John, but I’ll need you to recheck some of the figures anyway, especially the figures on line pay-out. Don’t over-tax yourself.’
‘No. I won’t.’
‘Because you’ve got another set of calculations to make in any case.’
‘When we start to slow Manhattan down so that she doesn’t shove Africa a couple of hundred metres east when she hits? Yes, I know. I get faxes from the Mau Club all the time.’
‘Any use?’
‘Might make decent toilet paper, I suppose.’
‘They’ve got mathematicians, not ship handlers,’ soothed Richard.
‘No, they’ve got ship handlers. The best ship handlers in the world. But we’re all out here,’ said Bob Stark.
‘Very funny,’ said John.
‘No,’ said Bob. ‘I mean it.’
‘Is this relevant?’ demanded Katya Borodin stiffly. ‘Captain Higgins will do the relevant calculations for slowing Manhattan’s progress at the relevant time. What we have to worry about now are the figures we have in front of us. Why is this so urgent that we have to work all night?’
‘If my figures are correct, and Dr Ross’s melt and runoff figures as updated yesterday are accurate—’
‘They are, Richard,’ interposed Colin Ross gruffly.
‘And the most interesting discussion I had with Dr Maille on the way south in the Westland holds water, then the runoff is simply a big discrete pool of fresh water marked clearly for us by the sand it contains. It will not have mixed with the sea water around it because of the difference in specific gravity and temperature, and it should all be available for use if we can get it all aboard. The runoff so far should come to about two full loads for all of us.’
‘Yes, I see that but where…’ Katya Borodin, unimaginatively for her, asked the obvious question.
‘That’s the rub, Katya. I’ll have to call Mawanga city and see if there are any coastal tankers we can offload into.’
‘It seems quite likely that there would be.’ Her mind was obviously hotting up. ‘After all, they are clearing all shipping out of the inner harbour in anticipation of our arrival. And if there are?’
‘Then it would be possible to load fully within the next twenty-four hours.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ she agreed.
‘And unload in two days’ time.’
‘Da! I see!’
‘And reload so that we come into Mawanga fully laden again.’
There was a slight silence, then careful John summed it up, nominally to clear his own mind, actually to ensure that the others understood exacdy what Richard was proposing. ‘So,’ he said slowly, ‘we pump the clear water aboard out of the ocean around us on the assumption it has not been contaminated with brine and that the sand will settle out of it. We try to drum up enough coastal tankers to offload one and a half million tonnes of water in a couple of days’ time, then we fill up again on the way down to Mawanga.’
‘That should save about all the runoff it’s possible to save, yes …’
‘But it does require some interesting mathematics, doesn’t it?’ said Peter Walcott drily. ‘Especially for those of us who’ll be bobbing up and down in relation to the iceberg which is continuing to bob up and down in relation to us — at a different rate!’
‘We’ll go through the figures again, of course, Peter. I think, if you look, you’ll see that you and Gendo have two complete schedules each. One for the bow line and one for the stern; and they vary depending on your preferred sequence of lading.’
‘Yes, I see that.’ Peter Walcott was mollified by the amount of careful calculation that had already been done on his behalf. ‘You’ve thought this through pretty carefully.’
‘I had help.’ Richard let it rest at that, looking down at the sheets of figures in front of him, waiting for the final reaction to his scheme. It came from Peter Walcott, the hardest to convince of all of diem.
‘If you get this amount of work done when you’re sick,’ said the Guyanese captain, giving in with a dry laugh, ‘I’d hate to have you aboard when you’re one hundred per cent fit!’
The harbour master at Mawanga port was a Kyoga of the old school, rude and officious. And he was not particularly enamoured of Richard, or of the United Nations, for between them they had turned a restful sinecure into the most demanding job on the west coast of Africa. He soon made it absolutely clear that he had no intention of giving Richard any of the information he needed. He had not time, he stated stiffly, in thickly accented English, to give callers on the telephone the registered owners of shipping of any kind in his harbour, let alone to discover which of the tankers nearby had no cargo and the capacity to carry water. No, he certainly would not pass on the names of their commanding officers. Or even the names and ports of registration of any ships of more than ten thousand deadweight tonnes. Captain Mariner had best contact some of the United Nations officials with which his port was currently being overrun and ask them!
Captain Mariner tried. It was still the morning where he was, though it was early afternoon in Mau. More importantly, it was not yet breakfast time in New York, so he could get the names of no UN personnel on the ground, let alone their telephone numbers.
But then, at the end of his tether and out of patience, he remembered. He already had the name of a United Nations officer in Mawanga. With a smile of relief, he called the radio officer. ‘Get me Mawanga Directory Enquiries, please,’ he ordered.
It came through at once: one of the new breed of Kyogas, a woman speaking in English. ‘Directory Enquiries. What name, please?’
‘Can you tell me the number for the Mawanga Hilton, please?’
‘Is that Reception at the Mawanga Hilton, sir?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘I can connect you directly from here, caller.’
‘Please do so…’ He was cut off at once.
‘Hello? Mawanga Hilton Reception.’ A woman again. Perhaps not a Kyoga this time. Speaking in English with a slight American accent.
‘Good afternoon. My name is Richard Mariner. Can you put me in contact with Emily Karanga, please?’
‘Can you hold for a moment, Mr Mariner? I will see if I can find Ms Karanga for you…’ The line went dead.