Desmond Bagley - Night Of Error

There was a shattering roar from Falcon as a second vent opened, only a few hundred yards away from the two ships. The waves this time weren't as massive as before; this was a smaller vent. We clung to handholds during the first swamping rush of hot steamy water and then emerged gasping into the foetid air. Nick was nursing one arm and my rib-cage was alive with pain, but we'd survived. Figures struggled to their feet on our foredeck, and I recognised Ian's bulk among them, and then Geordie.

Sirena lurched and wallowed in the turmoil of the sea. Then she began to spin as Esmerelda had done when we first reached Falcon. The eddy that caught her moved on and after a few turns she steadied up again, still dragging the wreckage of our mast.

A plume of water suddenly shot up from the sea not ten feet to starboard and drops of warm gritty water fell on my head. Another waterspout shot up a little further out, and then another. It was for all the world as if we were under shell-fire.

The whole angry sea was pock-marked as though by a mighty rain. It was a welter of spouting water as rocks from Falcon's second vent, hurled high in the air, fell vertically and straddled the two ships. Smoke wreathed about us and steam coiled every where.

The falling tephra didn't straddle for long. There was a crash from midships. Splinters of wood leapt into the air to mix with the hail of ash and burning magma. As we stumbled forward we found a ragged hole on the galley roof and a huge glowing ember beginning to eat its way through the deck planking inside. Already small flames were starting to flicker and gnaw at the woodwork.

'Fire, by God!' Nick said. 'How the hell do we cope with this?'

The answer was dramatic and swift. With a booming roar another vast wave engulfed us. We emerged miraculously still intact to find the embryo fire completely doused at the cost of a drenched and sodden galley.

At last we managed to join some of the others. By clinging to anything stable enough we were able to steady ourselves. Of cuts and bruises there were plenty, but everyone was on their feet again. Except Geordie who'd vanished. I caught someone's arm.

'Geordie – he was here. What's happened to him?'

'Gone to try and start the engine,' Taffy bellowed in my ear.

A moment later there was a steady rhythmic throb underfoot as our engine started, and the sound gave me a wild surge of hope.

A warm rain, condensing steam mixed with the slippery and treacherous ash, was falling all around us. The acrid stench was still heavy in my nostrils and the banshee sounds of the ships' timbers mingled with the high-pitched whistlings and rumbling from Falcon's new orifice, threatening to pierce our eardrums. A fresh rain of tephra assailed us. Three or four larger flaming rocks crashed down on Sirena's deck, a couple on ours. Sirena was almost level with us and her rails were lined with men. Several of them jumped, some into the sea itself, some trying to reach our decks.

'Bring lines!' Ian yelled, and I pounded after him to the strip's side as he and Nick began throwing them over the rails.

One man battling in the water seized a trailing end and Ian and Shorty dragged him on board. Nick threw another line out. Esmerelda was buffetted by a sudden wave and his feet slid across the ash-strewn deck. He cannoned into me and we both crashed down against the railing.

All the breath was knocked out of my body and for a moment I blacked out. Then I started to struggle to my feet, in time to see Nick about to topple clean over the ship's side into that raging sea. I got him in a tackle around his knees and wrestled to keep him on deck, but the slippery footing and his own weight were proving too much for me. He seemed to be unconscious.

Then another wave poured down across both of us, tipping Esmerelda the other way and doing what I couldn't manage, forcing Nick's body back inboard. We slid away from the railings together, half submerged in the gritty water that cascaded down over the deck.

I landed spitting and spewing up sickly-warm sea water. Hands helped me to stand up, and one of them was Clare's.

'Mike – are you all right?'

She was trembling and so was I.

'I'm okay. How's Nick?' I was still panting and spluttering. But I was comfortably aware that our engine was still running, and Geordie was backing us steadily away from Sirena. Clare gave me a fierce hug and I winced.

'Mike – you're hurt?'

'Don't worry, it's really nothing. But go carefully with those hugs for now.'

Campbell limped up to us, his face blackened with smoke, his clothes scorched and sodden. He and I exchanged a look over Clare's head and he smiled briefly.

'How's Paula?' I asked him. 'And Mark?'

'Both all right. We haven't lost anyone else,' he said grimly. 'The boys pulled two Spaniards aboard and two others jumped across.'

Taffy was helping Nick to his feet. Apart from his arm which was obviously crippled and the abrasion on his face there seemed to be little wrong with him. Again I marvelled at his strength. Taffy said, 'We've sent all the Spaniards below and Ian's got 'em locked in our homemade brig.' I said, 'Surely they aren't a danger to us now?' 'Well, there could be trouble,' said Taffy. 'We've got' A stunning crash interrupted him. The hail of ash and magma had died down briefly, but now it started up again as a fresh pillar of smoke and steam boiled skywards from almost dead ahead of us. Our ship rocked wildly as another barrage of waves hit us. Sirena reemerged from this last assault on fire in several places. We heard men's voices faintly through the uproar.

I'll lay odds that Geordie Wilkins must be the best seaman ever to put his hands on a wheel. With consummate skill and an astonishing use of gear and throttle he edged Esmerelda nearer and nearer to the doomed Sirena, to aid the stricken men. As we closed in we saw that one of Falcon's barrages must have sheared through the rigging and brought down the main gaff. Struggling men lay pinned to the deck. Others were trying frantically to release them, but the fires were closing in, eating their way along the deck timbers. Clare screamed, 'Look – Ramirez!' A man was staggering across the deck of Sirena, Oblivious to the cries and struggles of his crew he never took his eyes from Esmerelda. Through the smoke as it was lit by an occasional red glare I saw that he was carrying a rifle. His torn clothing appeared scorched and blood-stained, and his face was a mask of smoke, blood and fury. He had crawled like a deadly spider from its crevice to use its poison for the last time.

I don't know if he had given up all hope of surviving and was bent only on revenge, or if his mind had given way. I didn't believe that cold intellect, so unlike Hadley's unreasoning savagery, would break as easily as that. But there was an implacable singleminded purpose about him that was terrifying.

He aimed the rifle across the water.) I flung myself down shielding Clare – I had no idea who he would choose for a target – and I heard the gun fire, sharp and crisp against the background bedlam. It was followed almost instantly by a terrible grinding roar, louder than anything we had heard before. We staggered to our feet in time to see Falcon play its most horrible trick.

It was Geordie, intent on his delicate steering, who first saw the danger. I don't know if he'd even been aware of Ramirez. Esmerelda sheered off violently as he spun the wheel so that we turned in a half-arc as fast as the one in which the eddy tide-had taken us. Then he pushed the throttle in until the engine was pounding at maximum speed, to carry us away from the arena.

Behind us I saw Sirena jar to a sudden halt and Ramirez flung across the deck. The ship rose grotesquely in the air and tipped over on her side, looking like a small sailing boat stranded by the tide. But this was no sandbank. It was a bed of writhing red-hot lava. The sea recoiled from it in a tempest of steam.