Алистер Маклин - Seawitch

The next half hour was to prove, twice, just how wrong Lord Worth could be.

The first intimations of disaster came when Lord Worth was watching the fully-laden Torbello just disappearing over the northern horizon; the Crusader , he knew, was due alongside the tank late that afternoon. Larsen, his face one huge scowl of fury, silently handed Lord Worth a signal just received in the radio office. Lord Worth read it, and his subsequent language would have disbarred him for ever from a seat in the House of Lords. The message told, in cruelly unsparing fashion, of the spectacular end of the Crusader in Galveston.

Both men hurried to the radio room. Larsen contacted the Jupiter , their third tanker then offloading at an obscure Louisiana port, told its captain the unhappy fate of the Crusader and warned him to have every man on board on constant look-out until they had cleared harbour.

Lord Worth personally called the chief of police in Galveston, announced who he was and demanded more details of the sinking of the Crusader. These he duly received and none of them made him any happier. On inspiration he asked if there had been a man called John Cronkite or a vessel belonging to a man of that name in the vicinity at the time. He was told to hang on while a check was made with the Customs. Two minutes later he was told yes, there had been a John Cronkite aboard a vessel called the Questar , which had been moored directly aft of the Crusader. It was not known whether Cronkite was the owner or not. The Questar had sailed half an hour before the Crusader blew up.

Lord Worth peremptorily demanded that the Questar be apprehended and returned to port and that Cronkite be arrested. The police chief pointed out that international law prohibited the arrest of vessels on the high sea except in time of war and, as for Cronkite, there wasn’t a shred of evidence to connect him with the sinking of the Crusader. Lord Worth then asked if he would trace the owner of the Questar. This the police chief promised to do, but warned that there might be a considerable delay. There were many registers to be consulted.

At that moment the Cuban submarine steaming on the surface at full speed was in the vicinity of Key West and heading directly for the Seawitch. At almost the same time a missile-armed Russian destroyer slipped its moorings in Havana and set off in apparent pursuit of the Cuban submarine. And, very shortly after that, a destroyer slipped its moorings at its home base in Venezuela.

The Roamer , Lord Worth’s survey vessel under the command of Conde, was now half-way towards its destination. The Starlight , under the command of Easton, was just moving away from the Questar , which was lying stopped in the water. Men on stages had already painted out the ship’s name, and with the aid of cardboard stencils were painting in a new name – Georgia. Cronkite had no wish that any vessel with whom they might make contact could radio for confirmation of the existence of a cutter called Questar. From aft there came the unmistakable racket of a helicopter engine starting up, then the machine took off, circled and headed south-east, not on its usual pattern-bombing circuit but to locate and radio back to the Questar the location and course of the Torbello , if and when it found it. Within minutes the Questar was on its way again, heading in approximately the same direction as the helicopter.

Lord Worth, enjoying a very early morning cup of tea, was in his living-room with Larsen and Palermo when the radio operator knocked and entered, a message sheet in his hand. He handed it to Lord Worth and said: ‘For you, sir. But it’s in some sort of code. Do you have a code-book?’

‘No need.’ Lord Worth smiled with some little self-satisfaction, his first smile of any kind for quite some time. ‘I invented this code myself.’ He tapped his head. ‘Here’s my code-book.’

The operator left. The other two watched in mild anticipation as Lord Worth began to decode. The anticipation turned into mild apprehension as the smile disappeared from Lord Worth’s face, and the apprehension gave way in turn to deep concern as reddish-purplish spots the size of pennies touched either cheek-bone. He laid down the message sheet, took a deep breath, then proceeded to give a repeat performance, though this time more deeply felt, more impassioned, of the unparliamentary language he had used when he had greeted the news of the loss of the Crusader. After some time he desisted, less because he had nothing fresh to say as from sheer loss of breath.

Larsen had more wit than to ask Lord Worth if something were the matter. Instead he said in a quiet voice: ‘Suppose you tell us, Lord Worth?’

Lord Worth, with no little effort, composed himself and said: ‘It seems that Cor–’ He broke off and corrected himself: it was one of his many axioms that the right hand shouldn’t know what the left hand doeth. ‘I was informed – all too reliably, as it now appears – that a couple of countries hostile to us might well be prepared to use naval force against us. One, it appears, is already prepared to do so. A destroyer has just cleared its Venezuelan home port and is heading in what is approximately our direction.’

‘They wouldn’t dare,’ Palermo said.

‘When people are power- and money-mad they’ll stop at nothing.’ It apparently never occurred to Lord Worth that his description of people applied, in excelsis , to himself.

‘Who’s the other power?’ said Larsen.

‘The Soviet Union.’

‘Is it now?’ Larsen seemed quite unmoved. ‘I don’t know if I like the sound of that.’

‘We could do without them.’ Lord Worth was back on balance again. He flipped out a telephone notebook and consulted it. ‘I think I’ll have a talk to Washington.’ His hand was just reaching out for the receiver when the phone rang. He lifted the receiver, at the same time making the switch that cut the incoming call into the bulkhead speaker.

‘Worth.’

A vaguely disembodied voice came through the speaker. ‘You know who I am?’ Disembodied or not, Worth knew to whom the voice belonged. Corral.

‘Yes.’

‘I’ve checked my contact, sir. I’m afraid our guesses were only too accurate. Both X and Y are willing to commit themselves to naval support.’

‘I know. One of them has just moved out and appears to be heading in our general direction.’

‘Which one?’

‘The one to the south. Any talk of air commitment?’

‘None that I’ve heard, sir. But I don’t have to tell you that that doesn’t rule out its use.’

‘Let me know if there is any more good news.’

‘Naturally. Goodbye, sir.’

Lord Worth replaced the receiver, then lifted it again.

‘I want a number in Washington.’

‘Can you hold a moment, sir?’

‘Why?’

‘There’s another code message coming through. Looks like the same code as the last one, sir.’

‘I shouldn’t be surprised.’ Lord Worth’s tone was sombre. ‘Bring it across as soon as possible.’

He replaced the receiver, pressed a button on the small console before him, lifting the receiver as he did so.

‘Chambers?’ Chambers was his senior pilot.

‘Sir?’

‘Your chopper refuelled?’

‘Ready to go when you are, sir.’

‘May be any second now. Stand by your phone.’ He replaced the receiver.

Larsen said: ‘Washington beckons, sir?’

‘I have the odd feeling that it’s about to. There are things that one can achieve in person that one can’t over the phone. Depends upon this next message.’