Alistair MacLean: San Andreas

‘Exactly.’ Patterson was much better at being grim than he was at smiling.

‘Hence the power failure?’

‘Nothing to do with the power failure. Overload coil thrown. Short somewhere. Jamieson’s taken a bridge-megger and gone off to locate it. Shouldn’t take him long to locate it.’

This Bowen was prepared to believe. Jamieson, the Second Engineer, was a very bright young man with the unusual distinction of being an A.M.I.E.E.—an Associate Member of the Instituteof Electrical Engineers. He said: ‘So this brush comes from the auxiliary generator; it’s broken, you seem unhappy about it, so I take it this is unusual.’

‘Unusual? It’s unknown. At least, I’ve never known of it. The brush is under constant spring-loaded pressure against the face of the armature. There is no way it could have broken in this particular fashion.’

‘Well, it did happen. First time for everything.’ Bowen touched the broken pieces with his finger. ‘A one-off job? Flaw in manufacture?’

Patterson didn’t answer. He dug into an overall pocket, brought out a small metal box, removed the lid and placed the box on the table beside the broken brush. The two brushes inside were identical in shape and size to the one that Patterson had reassembled. Bowen looked at them, pursed his lips, then looked at Patterson.

‘Spares?’ Patterson nodded. Bowen picked one up but only one half came away in his hand: the other half remained in the bottom of the box.

‘Our only two spares,’ Patterson said.

‘No point in examining the other?’

‘None. Both generators were examined and in good shape when we were in Halifax—and we’ve used the auxiliary twice since leaving there.’

‘One broken brush could be an extraordinary fluke. Three broken ones don’t even make for a ludicrous coincidence. Doesn’t even call for thoughtful chin-rubbing, John. We have an ill-intentioned crank in our midst.’

‘Crank! Saboteur, you mean.’

‘Well, yes, I suppose. At least, someone who is ill-disposed to us. Or towards the San Andreas . But saboteur? I wonder. Saboteurs go in for varied forms of wholesale destruction. Breaking three generator brushes can hardly be classified as wholesale destruction. And unless the character responsible is deranged he’s not going to send the San Andreas to the bottom—not with him inside it. Why, John, why?’

They were still sitting there, darkly pondering why, when a knock came at the door and Jamieson entered. Young, red-headed and with an ebullient and carefree attitude to life, he was being anything but ebullient and carefree at that moment: he had about him an air of gravity and anxiety, both quite alien to his nature.

‘Engine-room told me I’d find you here. I thought I should come at once.’

‘As the bearer of bad news,’ Captain Bowen said. ‘You have discovered two things: the location of the short and evidence of, shall we say, sabotage?’

‘How the hell—I’m sorry, sir, but how could you possibly—’

‘Tell him, John,’ Bowen said.

‘I don’t have to. Those broken brushes are enough. What did you find, Peter?’

‘For’ard. Carpenter’s shop. Lead cable passing through a bulkhead. Clips on either side seemed to have worked loose where it passed through the hole in the bulkhead.’

Bowen said: ‘Normal ship’s vibration, weather movement—doesn’t take much to chafe through soft lead.’

‘Lead’s tougher than you think, sir. In this case a pair of hands helped the normal chafing along. Not that that matters. Inside the lead sheathing the rubber round the power cable has been scorched away.’

‘Which one would expect in a short?’

‘Yes, sir. Only, I know the smell of electrically burnt rubber and it doesn’t smell like sulphur. Some bright lad had used an igniting match-head or heads to do the trick. I’ve left Ellis on the repair job. It’s simple and he should be about through now.’

‘Well, well. So it’s as easy as that to knock out a ship’s electrical power.’

‘Almost, sir. He’d one other little job to do. There’s a fuse-box just outside the carpenter’s shop and he removed the appropriate fuse before starting work. Then he returned to the fuse-box and shorted out the line—insulated pliers, ditto screwdriver, almost anything would do—then replaced the fuse. If he’d replaced the fuse before shorting out the line it would have blown, leaving the rest of the electrical system intact. Theoretically, that is—on very rare occasions the fuse is not so obliging and doesn’t go.’ Jamieson smiled faintly. ‘Fact of the matter is, if I’d had a cold in the nose he might have got away with it.’

The phone rang. Captain Bowen lifted it and handed it over to Patterson who listened, said: ‘Sure. Now,’ and handed the phone back. ‘Engineroom. Power coming on.’

Perhaps half a minute passed, then Captain Bowen said mildly: ‘You know, I don’t think the power is coming on.’

Jamieson rose and Bowen said: ‘Where are you going?’

‘I don’t know, sir. Well, first of all to the engine-room to pick up Ellis and the bridge-megger and then I don’t know. It would seem that old Flannelfoot has more than one string to his bow.’

The phone rang again and Bowen, without answering, handed it over to Patterson, who listened briefly, said: ‘Thank you. Mr Jamieson is coming down,’ and handed the phone back. ‘Same again. I wonder how many places our friend has jinxed and is just waiting for the opportunity to activate them.’

Jamieson hesitated at the door. ‘Do we keep this to ourselves?’

‘We do not.’ Bowen was positive. ‘We broadcast it far and wide. Granted, Flannelfoot, as you call him, will be forewarned and forearmed, but the knowledge that a saboteur is at large will make everyone look at his neighbour and wonder what a saboteur looks like. If nothing else, it will make this lad a great deal more circumspect and, with any luck, may restrict his activities quite a bit.’ Jamieson nodded and left.

Bowen said: ‘I think, John, you might double the watch in the engine-room or at least bring two or three extra men—not, you understand, for engine-room duties.’

‘I understand. You think, perhaps—’

‘If you wanted to sabotage, incapacitate a ship, where would you go?’

Patterson rose, went to the door and, as Jamieson had done, stopped there and turned. ‘Why?’ he said. ‘Why, why, why?’

‘I don’t know why. But I have an unpleasant feeling about the where and the when. Here or hereabouts and sooner than we think, quicker than we want. Somebody,’ Captain Bowen said as if by way of explanation, ‘has just walked over my grave.’ Patterson gave him a long look and closed the door quietly behind him.

Bowen picked up the phone, dialled a single number and said: ‘Archie, my cabin.’ He had no sooner replaced the receiver when it rang again. It was the bridge. Batesman didn’t sound too happy.

‘Snowstorm’s blowing itself out, sir. Andover can see us now. Wants to know why we’re not showing any lights. I told them we had a power failure, then another message just now, why the hell are we taking so long to fix it?’

‘Sabotage.’

‘I beg your pardon, sir.’

‘Sabotage. S for Sally, A for Arthur, B for Bobby, O for—’

‘Good God! Whatever—I mean, why—’

‘I do not know why.’ Captain Bowen spoke with a certain restraint. ‘Tell them that. I’ll tell you what I know—which is practically nothing—when I come up to the bridge. Five minutes. Maybe ten.’

Archie McKinnon, the Bo’sun, came in. Captain Bowen regarded the Bo’sun—as indeed many other captains regarded their bo’suns—as the most important crew member aboard. He was a Shetlander, about six feet two in height and built accordingly, perhaps forty years of age, with a brick-coloured complexion, blue-grey eyes and flaxen hair—the last two almost certainly inheritances from Viking ancestors who had passed by—or through—his native island a millennium previously.