A matter of moments proved that they controlled the bridge and engine room on each of the other ships too, and Richard, with the enormity of the situation suddenly breaking through even his massive self-control, hurled the useless walkie-talkie across the room. No sooner had he done so than it began to whine with an incoming signal. Wally scuttled across the room and snatched it up, handing it back to Richard at once, behaving exactly as though it was alive and repulsive. He was too scared even to press RECEIVE and answer it.
Richard had no such qualms. ‘Yes?’
‘Is that you, Captain Mariner?’
‘Yes.’
‘Thank God. It’s the forecastle head line watch here, sir. The bridge is full of soldiers, sir. Came out of that bloody great helicopter, down onto the deck on ropes like the Royal Tournament. They seem to have the captain and everyone up there under armed guard. What do you want us to do?’
‘Wait!’ said Richard, his voice suddenly full of hope. ‘Wait and I’ll get back to you.’
It took a little longer to establish that while he could not communicate with any of his captains or chief engineers, he could communicate with all of his line watches, for the line watch on each ship had been equipped with a wide-band high-powered walkie-talkie to accompany the bright yellow line-cutters.
His eyes went narrow with thought as he tried to calculate the likelihood that the invaders, whoever they were, understood about the lines up onto the ice or the manner in which they could be cut. Whether they had considered that they could be cut at all. It seemed most unlikely to him.
And so, while Gogol told Captain Illych Kizel the story of what they were here to do, Richard discussed with the men on the forecastles and the poops how he would go about foiling whatever might be planned by their paramilitary invaders.
‘Right!’ said Richard, with mounting satisfaction when he had completed the first briefing. ‘I still don’t know who these pirate bastards are, but if they’ve got me by the nose, then I’ve got them by the balls. And I can cut them off if I have to!’
‘But surely we need to know who they are and what they have in mind before we can do anything!’
‘Right you are, Wally. But how can we find it out?’
‘Scan all the channels on your walkie-talkie?’
‘It’s pre-set. Switched from channel to channel by buttons. I’d be lucky to switch in to any waveband they’re communicating on. No, we’ll have to come up with something better.’
He switched through all the channels available on his walkie-talkie handset, listing them as he did so: ‘Radio room — dead; engine room — dead; line watches, Titan; line watches, Niobe…’ and so on. There were twelve channels available, and after ten his voice was growing bored. But on channel eleven, the radio hissed and he stopped his litany. ‘That’s the bridge,’ he half whispered. ‘The channel to die bridge is still functioning.’ He fell silent, thinking rapidly.
Then, ‘Look, do you remember the layout of the bridge? I’m thinking particularly of the panel immediately beneath the clear-view, just to the left of the helm.’
‘Yes. There’s a microphone on a stalk there.’
‘That’s right! Now, just at the base of that there’s a button. Remember it?’
‘Yup!’ Caught up in the excitement of passing this strange test, Wally really wasn’t thinking this through or he would have been much less enthusiastic much earlier on.
‘Well, if I could get you onto the bridge, could you switch that button without being noticed? Could you open that channel so that I can hear what is happening on the bridge?’
‘What?’ Wally paled again.
‘Look. It won’t be dangerous if you’re careful. I’ll work out a way to get you up there without making the guards suspicious. All you need to do is stand beside the helmsman, then turn round clumsily and it’s done!’
‘Well…’
‘If I can get you onto the bridge with no danger at all?’
‘Well…’
There was nothing more that Richard could think of to say.
‘Well, all right.’
Richard nodded once and went through into the sickbay. Lamia and his cronies were sitting watching a video as though nothing going on aboard the ship was anything to do with any of them. Richard strode across and snapped the set off. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘I want a fight. A big fight. A noisy fight. I don’t care what gets broken and I will enhance the pay of anyone who joins in.’
The men looked at him in stunned disbelief.
Asha came rushing out of her office, making it plain that she had heard every word he had said. ‘Richard! Have you taken leave of your senses?’
‘Sorry, Asha. Needs must when the Devil drives. Come on, you lot. I want it big and noisy and destructive. A bottle of Scotch to the man who throws the first punch! Move!’
They pulled themselves to their feet, looking around, dazed with surprise.
‘Two bottles. Any liquor of your choice. A crate of spirits to the last man standing!’
‘Are you serious?’ asked the giant Haitian Duvalier.
‘Yes, I am. You play your cards right, you can end up with fourteen bottles of your favourite drink!’
‘I’m a rum-drinking man.’
‘Of course you are. Appleton Gold?’
The punch Duvalier threw chucked one of his slower-thinking colleagues right across the room.
‘You get me Gold,’ yelled the massive Haitian over the sudden pandemonium, ‘and you can call me Doc.’
He ducked as a chair tumbled past his bullet head and exploded through the screen of the video. The whole lot went backwards noisily and landed on Lamia’s foot. The Greek howled and Richard winced. It looked as though he would be responsible for some medical bills as well as for the mess bill.
‘Go!’ he yelled at Wally. ‘Big fight in the sickbay! Go and report to the captain at once!’
By the time Peter Walcott and a paramilitary guard arrived, the fight had been resolved, Duvalier was due to receive an awful lot of Appleton Gold, the medical bill was not going to be as high as feared and the isolation ward looked like a bomb had hit it. The soldier’s eyes swept coldly over the wreckage and Peter looked about in complete confusion, then they both left.
Richard went back into the ping-pong room and switched his walkie-talkie to channel eleven. His hair stirring with tension as though he was watching a procession of ghosts, he listened to the handset hissing quietly.
‘Hssssssssssss… over there? I thought I saw something over by the iceberg. Oh. It’s a section of the cliff collapsing.’ The voice belonged to Wally.
Richard took a deep breath. He really expected to hear a word of rage or accusation and a single shot. But there was nothing.
‘What are we heading, Captain?’ came the innocent, almost childlike question. Typical of a youthful, over-anxious cadet. They had them in every army and navy. No matter what nationality the invaders were, they would recognise the type.
Wally had pulled it off.
Richard drew a pad of blank paper towards him and started making detailed notes of the conversation on the bridge. As he did this, picking up the answers to Wally’s pointed questions then recording the information being fed out by the rest of the watch as the penny began to drop, and even picking up unconscious hints from the occasional words of the taciturn pirates in control, so he began to see the grand design. Began to realise precisely what was involved here. And he laid his plans accordingly.