Алистер Маклин: Santorini

He said to Talbot: ‘This bandit, Captain – if it is a bandit – what do you intend to do about it?’

‘I don’t intend to do anything about it.’

‘But if he is a bandit – well, then, he’s spying, isn’t he?’

‘Of course.’

‘Well, then–’

‘What do you expect me to do, Jimmy? Bring him down? Or are you itching to try out this experimental laser gun you have with you?’

‘Heaven forfend.’ Denholm was genuinely horrified. ‘I’ve never fired a gun in anger in my life. Correction. I’ve never even fired a gun.’

‘If I wanted to bring him down a teeny-weeny heat-seeking missile would do the job very effectively. But we don’t do things like that. We’re civilized. Besides, we don’t provoke international incidents. An unwritten law.’

‘Sounds a very funny law to me.’

‘Not at all. When the United States or NATO play war games, as we are doing now, the Soviets track us very closely indeed, whether on land, sea or air. We don’t complain. We can’t. When they’re playing their game we do exactly the same to them. Can, admittedly, have its awkward moments. Not so long ago, when the US Navy were carrying out exercises in the Sea of Japan an American destroyer banged into, and quite severely damaged, a Russian submarine which was monitoring things a little too closely.’

‘And that didn’t cause what you’ve just called an international incident?’

‘Certainly not. Nobody’s fault. Mutual apologies between the two captains and the Russian was towed to a safe port by another Russian warship. Vladivostok, I believe it was.’ Talbot turned his head. ‘Excuse me. That’s the radio-room call-up.’

‘Myers again,’ the speaker said. ‘ Delos. Name of the sinking vessel. Very brief message – explosion, on fire, sinking fast.’

‘Keep listening,’ Talbot said. He looked at the helmsman who already had a pair of binoculars to his eyes. ‘You have it, Harrison?’

‘Yes, sir.’ Harrison handed over the binoculars and twitched the wheel to port. ‘Fire off the port bow.’

Talbot picked it up immediately, a thin black column of smoke rising vertically, unwaveringly, into the blue and windless sky. He was just lowering his glasses when the bell rang twice again. It was O’Rourke, the weatherman, or, more officially, the senior long-range radar operator.

‘Lost him, I’m afraid. The bandit, I mean. I was looking at the vectors on either side of him to see if he had any friends and when I came back he was gone.’

‘Any ideas, Chief?’

‘Well…’ O’Rourke sounded doubtful. ‘He could have exploded but I doubt it.’

‘So do I. We’ve had the spy-glass trained on his approach bearing and they’d have picked up an explosion for sure.’

‘Then he must have gone into a steep dive. A very steep dive. God knows why. I’ll find him.’ The speaker clicked off.

Almost at once a telephone rang again. It was Van Gelder.

‘222, sir. Smoke. Plane. Could be the bandit.’

‘Almost certainly is. The weatherman’s just lost it off the long-range radar screen. Probably a waste of time but try to get that photograph anyway.’

He moved out on to the starboard wing and trained his glasses over the starboard quarter. He picked it up immediately, a heavy dark plume of smoke with, he thought, a glow of red at its centre. It was still quite high, at an altitude of four or five thousand feet. He didn’t pause to check how deeply the plane was diving or whether or not it actually was on fire. He moved quickly back into the bridge and picked up a phone.

‘Sub-Lieutenant Cousteau. Quickly.’ A brief pause. ‘Henri? Captain. Emergency. Have the launch and the lifeboat slung outboard. Crews to stand by to lower. Then report to the bridge.’ He rang down to the engine-room for Slow Ahead then said to Harrison: ‘Hard a-port. Steer north.’

Denholm, who had moved out on to the starboard wing, returned, lowering his binoculars.

‘Well, even I can see that plane. Not a plane, rather a huge streamer of smoke. Could that have been the bandit, sir – if it was a bandit?’

‘Must have been.’

Denholm said, tentatively: ‘I don’t care much for his line of approach, sir.’

‘I don’t care much for it myself, Lieutenant, especially if it’s a military plane and even more especially if it’s carrying bombs of any sort. If you look, you’ll see that we’re getting out of its way.’

‘Ah. Evasive action.’ Denholm hesitated, then said doubtfully: ‘Well, as long as he doesn’t alter course.’

‘Dead men don’t alter courses.’

‘That they don’t.’ Van Gelder had just returned to the bridge. ‘And the man or the men behind the controls of that plane are surely dead. No point in my staying there, sir – Gibson’s better with the spy-glass camera than I am and he’s very busy with it. We’ll have plenty of photographs to show you but I doubt whether we’ll be able to learn very much from them.’

‘As bad as that? You weren’t able to establish anything?’

‘Very little, I’m afraid. I did see the outer engine on the port wing. So it’s a four-engined jet. Civil or military, I’ve no idea.’

‘A moment, please.’ Talbot moved out on the port wing, looked aft, saw that the blazing plane – there was no mistaking the flames now – was due astern, at less than half the height and distance than when he had first seen it, returned to the bridge, told Harrison to steer due north, then turned again to Van Gelder.

‘That was all you could establish?’

‘About. Except that the fire is definitely located in the nose cone, which would rule out any engine explosion. It couldn’t have been hit by a missile because we know there are no missile-carrying planes around – even if there were, a heat-seeking missile, the only type that could nail it at that altitude, would have gone for the engines, not the nose cone. It could only have been an up-front internal explosion.’

Talbot nodded, reached for a phone, asked the exchange for the sick bay and was through immediately.

‘Doctor? Would you detail an SBA – with first-aid kit – to stand by the lifeboat.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Sorry, no time to explain. Come on up to the bridge.’ He looked aft through the starboard wing doorway, turned and took the wheel from the helmsman. ‘Take a look, Harrison. A good look.’

Harrison moved out on the starboard wing, had his good look – it took him only a few seconds – returned and took the wheel again.

‘Awful.’ He shook his head. ‘They’re finished, sir, aren’t they?’

‘So I would have thought.’

‘They’re going to miss us by at least a quarter mile. Maybe a half.’ Harrison took another quick look through the doorway. ‘This angle of descent – they should land – rather, hit the sea – a mile, mile and a half ahead. Unless by some fluke they carry on and hit the island. That would be curtains, sir.’

‘It would indeed.’ Talbot looked ahead through the for’ard screens. Thera Island was some four miles distant with Cape Akrotiri lying directly to the north and Mount Elias, the highest point of the island – it was close on 2000 feet – to the north-east. Between them, but about five miles further distant, a tenuous column of bluish smoke, hardly visible against a cloudless sky, hung lazily in the air. This marked the site of Thira Village, the only settlement of any size on the island. ‘But the damage would be limited to the plane. The south-west of the island is barren. I don’t think anyone lives there.’

‘What are we going to do, sir? Stop over the point where it goes down?’

‘Something like that. You can handle it yourself. Or maybe another quarter or half mile further on along the line he was taking. Have to wait and see. Fact is, Harrison, I know no more about it than you do. It may disintegrate on impact or, if it survives that, it may carry on some distance under water. Not for far, I should think – not if its nose has gone. Number One–’ this to Van Gelder ‘–what depths do we have here?’