Clive Cussler - Serpent

The Italian Line did not gamble with its ships and passengers. Nor did it pay captains, to arrive behind schedule. Time was money. No one knew this any better than Captain Calamai, who had commanded the ship on ail its transatlantic crossings. He was determined that the ship would arrive in New York not one second beyond the hour it had lost in a storm two nights earlier.

When the Doria had rolled by the lightship at tentwenty PM., the bridge could pick the vessel up on radar and hear the lonely moan of its foghorn, but it was invisible at less than a mile away.. With the lightship behind them, the Doria's captain ordered a course due west to New York

The radar pip was heading east, directly at the Doria, Calamai bent over the radar screen, his brow furrowed, watching the . blip's progress: The radar couldn't tell the captain what hind of ship he .was looking at or how big it was. He didn't know he was looking at a fast ocean liner. With a combined speed of forty knots, the two ships were dosing on each other at the rate of two miles every three minutes.

The ship's position was puzzling. Eastbound ships were supposed to follow a route twenty miles to the south. Fishing boat, maybe.

Under the rules of the road, ships coming directly at each other on the open sea are supposed to pass porttoport, left side to left side, like cars approaching from opposite directions: If ships maneuvering to comply with this rule are forced into a dangerous crossover, they may instead pass starboardtostarboard.

From the look of the radar, the other vessel would pass safely to the right of the Doria if the two vessels held their same course. Like autos on an English highway, where drivers stay to the left.

Calamai ordered his crew to keep, a close eye on the other ship. It never hurt to be cautious.

The ships were about ten miles apart when Nillson switched on the light underneath the Bial maneuvering board next to the radar set and prepared to transfer the blip's changing position to paper.

He called out, "What's our heading, Hansen?"

"Ninety degrees," the helmsman replied evenly.

Nillson marked X's on the plotting board and drew lines between them, checked the blip again, then ordered the standby lookout to keep watch from the port bridge wing. His plot line had shown the other ship speeding in their direction on a parallel course, slightly to the left. He went out onto the wing and probed the night with binoculars. No sign of another vessel. He paced back and forth from wing to wing, stopping at the radar with each pass. He called for another heading report.

"Still ninety degrees, sir," Hansen said.

Nillson started over to check the gyrocompass. Even the slightest deviation could be critical, and he wanted to make certain the course was true. Hansen reached up and pulled the lanyard over his head. The ship's belt rang out six times. Eleven o'clock. Nillson loved hearing ship's time. On a late shift, when loneliness and boredom combined, the pealing of the ship's bell embodied the romantic attachment he had felt for the sea as a youngster. Later' he would remember that clanging as the sound of doom.

Distracted from his intended chore, Nillson peered into the radar scope and made another mark on the plotting board.

Eleven o'clock. Seven miles separated the two ships.

Nillson calculated that the ships would pass each other port-toport with more than enough distance in between. He went out on the wing again and peered through binoculars off to the left. Maddening. There was only darkness where radar showed a ship to be. Maybe the running lights were broken. Or it was a navy ship on maneuvers.

He looked off to the right. The moon was shining brightly on the water. Back to the left. Still nothing. Could the ship be in a fog bank? Unlikely. No ship would move that fast in dense fog. He considered decreasing the Stockholm's speed. No. The captain would hear the jangle of the ship's telegraph and come running. He'd call that frostyassed bastard after the ships had safely passed.

At 11:03 radar on both vessels showed them four miles apart.

Still no lights.

Nillson again considered calling the captain, and again dismissed the idea. Nor did he give the order to sound warning signals as required by international law. A waste of time. They were on open ocean, the moon was out, and visibility must be five miles.

The Stockholm continued to cut through the night at eighteen knots.

The man in the crow's nest called out, "Lights to port!"

Finally.

Later, analysts would shake their heads in puzzlement, wondering how two radarequipped ships could be drawn together like magnets on the open ocean.

Nillson strode onto the left bridge wing and read the other ship's lights. Two white pinpoints, one high, one low, glowed in darkness. Good. The position of the lights indicated that the ship would pass off to the left: The red portside light came into view, confirming that the ship was heading away from the Stockholm. The ships would pass porttoport. Radar put the distance at more than two miles. He glanced at,, the clock. It was 11:06 p.m.

From what the Andrea Doria's captain could see on the radar screen, the ships should pass each other safely on the right. When the ships were less than three and a half miles apart, Calamai ordered a fourdegree turn to the left to open up the gap been them. Soon a spectral glow appeared in the fog, and gradually white running lights became visible. Captain Calamai expected to see the green light on the other ship's starboard side. Any time now

One mile apart.

Nillson remembered how an observer said the Stockholm cold turn on a dime and give you eight cents change It was time to put that nimbleness to use.

"Starboard two points," he ordered the helm. Like Calamai, h wanted more breathing room. `

Hansen brought the wheel two complete turns to the right.. The ship's bow went twenty degrees to starboard: .

"Straighten out to midships and keep her steady"

The telephone rang on the wall. Nillson went over to answer it.

"Bridge," Nillson said. Confident of a safe passing, he faced the wall, his back to the windows.

The crow's nest lookout was calling. "Lights twenty degrees to port.

"Thank you," Nillson replied, and hung up. He went over and checked the radar, unaware of the Doria's new trajectory. The blips were now so dose to each other the reading didn't make any sense to him. He went to the port wing and, without arty urgency, .raised his binoculars to his eyes and focused on the fights.

Calmness deserted him.

"My God." He gasped, seeing the change in the masthead lights for the first time.

The high and low lights had reversed themselves: The ship no longer had its red portside light to him. The light was green. Starboard side. Since he'd last looked, the other ship seemed to have made a sharp turn to its left.

Now the blazing deck lights of a huge black ship loomed from the thick fog balk .that had kept it hidden and presented its right side directly in the path of the speeding Stockholm.

He shouted a course change. "Hard astarboard!"

Spinning around, he gripped the levers of the ship's telegraph with both hands, yanked them to Stop, then all the way down as if he could bring the ship to a halt by sheer determination. An insane jangle filled the air.

Full Speed Astern.

Nillson turned back to the helm. Hansen stood there like a stone guardian outside a pagan temple.

"Damn it, I said hard astarboard!" Nillson shouted, his voice hoarse.

Hansen began to turn the wheel. Nillson couldn't believe his eyes. Hansen wasn't rotating the wheel to starboard, which would have given them a chance, even a slight one, to avoid a collision. He spun it slowly and deliberately to the left.

The Stockholm's bow swung into a deadly turn.