ADAM HALL - The Mandarin Cypher

We didn't say anything.

'That is the position, then. Of course I'm going to make every effort to avoid an incident. I have seventy crew on board.' His face went shut again and he looked down at the table. 'For the duration of this voyage, gentlemen, Swordfish has been placed on a war footing.'

'This was our only way in,' said Ferris. 'I'm awfully sorry.'

'Give us something to do. You called on the right people — the Silent Service!' A short burst of laughter while he plucked at his ear.

'What time,' I asked him, 'do we expect to arrive off the rig?'

'Come into the control room.'

The glow of the bug was moving across the chart between Lamma and Cheng Chau Islands. 'We're heading north of this one, Hei Chou, and turning approximately south-east, instead of rounding this group here. The long way round, but safer. As you see, all these islands are Chinese territory and most of them maintain garrisons and of course coastguard units.' He glanced up at the chronometer. 'I estimate we'll reach our position in half an hour. Let us say 01.15.'

We went back into the wardroom to keep out of their way.

'Everything going nicely,' Ferris said, but he didn't look at me. He was behaving rather well: every time one of the bulk head doors was slammed somewhere in the ship he gave a quick blink but that was all.

'Piece of cake,' I said, and began sorting out my gear. I didn't know what the conditions were out there: in an air drop you can study the target zone on your way down and pick out any features that could be dangerous or difficult, but all I knew on this trip was that the sea was calm, the temperature was in the region of 82 and moonrise had taken place twelve minutes ago. It wasn't much to know.

In ten minutes the ship began heeling slightly as we turned south-east and headed straight for the rig, fourteen or fifteen miles distant.

At 01.00 I went back to the control room, leaving Ferris looking at a copy of Penthouse , not really his cup of tea. His face had lost all its colour now and had a sheen of sweat on it. I noticed he'd pushed back the tuft of hair that had been sticking out.

They'd changed the chart on the dead-reckoning tracer and we were now on 341 with the glow of the bug moving midway between Yai Chou Island and the San-Men group. Our heading was 142 and the oil rig was four sea miles distant, dead on our course.

It was quieter now in the control room and I looked up at the blower grilles.

'We've shut some of them down,' said Ackroyd.

The engine-room telegraph was at half ahead both: we must have been slowing. Nobody was slamming doors any more. I looked at Ackroyd.

'Same ETA?'

'That's right.' His small bright eyes were very steady now as he watched the console.

01.04.

I went back to the wardroom. Ferris had pushed the copy of Penthouse to the end of the table and was sitting motionless, looking slightly upwards. I suppose that was where he was expecting to hear the crump, but the bloody things could go off anywhere, dead on our beam or below us, anywhere. He turned his head.

'Are we still on our ETA?'

'Yes.'

Time to suit up, isn't it?'

'Yes.'

Talc floated up under the lights as I got into the wet-suit and zipped it to the throat and started on the final checks: tank pressure, valves, harness, backpack, buckles, a quick exhalation through the mouthpiece to clear the check valves. All normal.

'Have you seen the rig yet?' Ferris asked me.

'Not yet. But it's there.'

I hit the valves a fraction to blow out any dust, making him flinch.

'Sorry.'

'Don't mind me.' I aligned the regulators, turning the butterfly bolts finger-tight.

'Are we slowing?' he asked.

I stopped work and listened.

'Yes.'

There wasn't anything more I could do before it was time to put on the scuba so I went into the control room. Ackroyd turned his head fractionally.

'We're rigged for silent running,' he said.

'Understood.'

We spoke very quietly. All sound background had gone: the engines were running at slow and they'd shut down all fans, blowers, pumps and auxiliary motors. Next to me I could hear the diving officer breathing.

'Want to take a look?'

I went to the periscope.

The oil rig was dead in sights, a black skeleton structure rearing from the moon lit surface of the sea. Longitude 114, Latitude 22. The target for Mandarin.

It was a quick piping note: the call of the sea swallow.

Ferris left the tape running while he helped me with the scuba.

'This side okay?'

'Another notch on the buckle.'

The weight of the tanks shifted.

A seaman came to the doorway.

'The captain wants you to know they've got radar.'

'On the rig?'

'Yes, sir.'

The bloody harness still wasn't right.

'Back another notch on both, will you?'

'Will do. There's no hurry.'

But I could hear his breathing. We'd passed through Chinese territorial waters between the islands and the last report from the control room was that we were now standing off the rig at one mile.

'Feel better?'

I shrugged the scuba a couple of times.

'Yes.' I tipped my head back as far as I could, without feeling the regulators.

The nearest naval base was probably at Kitchioh or somewhere to the west along the South China coast, and even if they could send anything seaborne from Namtow they wouldn't get here before Swordfish was under way again: it was airborne attention Ackroyd was worried about. The chart gave the depth in this area of the continental shelf as eighteen fathoms and if the garrison sent a chopper out from the rig or one of the islands we'd have to crash dive but with periscope depth at sixty feet there'd be critically limited room to manoeuvre: with the sea calm and the moon clear we'd be a sitting duck for any kind of aerial reconnaissance.

'For Christ sake switch it off, will you, Ferris?'

That bloody bird was getting on my nerves.

He went over to the tape-recorder and pressed the stop button.

'Anyway, you'll know what to listen for.' I thought he said it rather deliberately.

'If I don't know now I never will.'

'What we call good briefing, if I may say so.'

There was an edge on his voice, the first time I'd heard it.

'Are they going to put it through the loudhailer?'

'With discretion.' A wintry smile. 'It's not meant to be a peacock.'

Ackroyd was standing in the doorway.

'How are things getting along, gentlemen?' He said it in a half whisper.

'Fine. Where's the head?'

'Through there.' As I turned away he said quickly, 'Don't flush it. We'll do it for you later.'

'Fair enough.'

They were still standing there when I came back. The silence was almost total now and I could hear the rustle of a sleeve as someone in the control room moved his arm. Nobody looked at me, but I was the only man among the whole of the complement they were thinking about. As soon as they could spit this bloody frog out of the escape hatch they could start engines and get the hell out of here before some yellow bastard spotted them.

'Skipper,' I said, 'I'd like to take a final look.'

'By all means.'

He led me into the control room.

I knew they wanted me out of Swordfish as fast as possible but I couldn't help that. I had to establish the image of the rig and I had to do it now and from this precise position because later it wouldn't be stable and I could lose my bearings. We were to the north-east of the thing and midway between it and the San-Men Islands and I wanted to memorize the rig's configuration from this exact angle because if a sea haze covered the Pole Star and the rig's structure sent my compass wild I'd have nothing left but this image as my guide.