Alistair MacLean Sea Thrillers 4-Book Collection: San Andreas, The Golden Rendezvous, Seawitch, Santorini

‘He didn’t say.’

The Bo’sun pulled on an extra jersey, duffel coat and sea-boots, made his way up to the bridge, spoke briefly to Curran and went out on the starboard wing. Within only a second or two, bent double and with his back to the gale-force wind, coughing and gasping as the ice-chilled air reached down into his lungs, he was beginning to wish himself anywhere except where he was. He switched on his torch and picked up the thermometer. It showed –8° 40° of frost on the Fahrenheit scale. Combined with the strong wind the temperature, expressed in terms of the chill factor on exposed skin, was in the region of –80°F.

He straightened slowly and looked out towards the bows. In the light of the Red Cross arc lamps on the foredeck it was at once clear, as Curran had said, that the blizzard had blown itself out. Against the deep indigo of the sky, the stars were preternaturally bright and clear. Breathing through a mittened hand that covered both mouth and nose, McKinnon turned into the wind and looked aft.

At first he could see nothing, for the bitter wind brought instantaneous tears to his eyes. He ducked below the shelter of the canvas windbreaker, fumbled a pair of goggles from his coat pocket, strapped them under his duffel hood, straightened again, and, by dint of wiping the back of his free mitten against the glasses, was able to see, intermittently, what was going on astern.

The waves – the weather had not yet worsened to the extent that the seas had become broken and confused – were between twelve and fifteen feet in height, their lee sides whitely streaked with spume and half-hidden in flying spray as the wind tore their tops away. The stars were as brilliant as they had been in the other direction and McKinnon soon located the Pole Star, off the starboard quarter. The wind was no longer backing to the north and the San Andreas, as far as he could judge, was still heading roughly between southwest and south-south-west.

McKinnon moved back into the bridge, thankfully closed the door and pondered briefly. Their present course, it was safe to assume, offered no danger: on the other hand it was not safe to assume that they would or could maintain their present course. The weather, in this grey and undefined area between the Barents and Norwegian Seas, was notoriously fickle. He had not, for instance, expected – and had said as much – that the skies would clear that night: there was equally no guarantee that they would remain clear and that the wind would not back further to the north. He descended two decks, selected an armful of warm clothing from the now mostly abandoned crew’s quarters and made for the hospital area. Crossing the dangerously slippery upper deck and guided only by the lifeline, he became acutely and painfully aware that a change was already under way, a factor that he had not experienced on the starboard wing only a few minutes ago. Needle-pointed ice spicules were beginning to lance into the unprotected areas of his skin. It augured ill.

In the hospital mess-deck he came across both Jones and McGuigan, both of whom assured him that no one was or had been abroad. He passed into B ward, at the far end of which Janet Magnusson was seated at her desk, her elbows propped on it, her chin propped on her hands, and her eyes closed.

‘Aha!’ McKinnon said. ‘Asleep on the job, Nurse Magnusson.’

She looked up, startled, blinked and tried to sound indignant. ‘Asleep? Of course not.’ She peered at his armful of clothing. ‘What on earth is that for? Have you moved into the old rags trade, Archie? No, don’t tell me. It’s for that poor man in there. Maggie’s in there too – she won’t be pleased.’

‘As far as your precious Maggie is concerned, I would have thought that a little suffering for Lieutenant Ulbricht would be preferable to none. No salt tears for either Sister Morrison or the Lieutenant.’

‘Archie!’ She was on her feet. ‘Your face. Blood!’

‘As far as the Lieutenant and myself are both concerned that should please your friend.’ He wiped the blood off his face. ‘It’s not nice up top.’

‘Archie.’ She looked at him uncertainly, concern in the tired eyes.

‘It’s all right, Janet.’ He touched her shoulder and passed into A ward. Sister Morrison and Lieutenant Ulbricht were both awake and drinking tea, the sister at her desk, Ulbricht sitting up in bed: clear-eyed and rested, the German pilot, as Dr Singh had said, unquestionably had quite remarkable recuperative powers. Jamieson, fully clothed and stretched out on the top of a bed, opened an eye as McKinnon passed by.

‘’Morning, Bo’sun. It is morning, isn’t it?’

‘Six-twenty, sir.’

‘Good lord. Selfishness, that’s what it is – I’ve been asleep for seven hours. How are things?’

‘A quiet night up top. Here, too?’

‘Must have been – no one gave me a shake.’ He looked at the bundle of clothing that McKinnon was carrying, then at Ulbricht. ‘Stars?’

‘Yes, sir. At the moment, that is. I don’t think they’ll be there for long.’

‘Mr McKinnon!’ Sister Morrison’s voice was cold, with a touch of asperity, as it usually was when addressing the Bo’sun. ‘Do you intend to drag that poor man out of bed on a night like this? He’s been shot several times.’

‘I know he’s been shot several times – or have you forgotten who picked him out of the water?’ The Bo’sun was an innately courteous man but never at his best when dealing with Sister Morrison. ‘So he’s a poor man, now – well, it’s better than being a filthy Nazi murderer. What do you mean – on a night like this?’

‘I mean the weather, of course.’ Her fists were actually clenched. Jamieson surveyed the ward deckhead.

‘What do you know about the weather? You haven’t been out of here all night. If you had been, I would have known.’ He turned a dismissive back on her and looked at Ulbricht. ‘How do you feel, Lieutenant?’

‘I have an option?’ Ulbricht smiled. ‘I feel well enough. Even if I didn’t I’m still coming. Don’t be too hard on the ward sister, Bo’sun – even your lady with a lamp in the Crimea had a pretty short way with difficult patients – but she’s overlooking my natural selfishness. I’m on this ship too.’ He climbed stiffly out of bed and, with the assistance of McKinnon and Jamieson, started to pull clothing on over his pyjamas while Sister Morrison looked on in frigid disapproval. The disapproval finally culminated in the drumming of fingertips on the table.

‘I think,’ she said, ‘that we should have Dr Singh in here.’

McKinnon turned slowly and looked at her and when he spoke his voice was as expressionless as his face. ‘I don’t think it matters very much what you think, Sister. I suggest you just give a shake to Captain Bowen there and find out just how much your thinking matters.’

‘The Captain is under heavy sedation. When he regains consciousness, I shall report you for insolence.’

‘Insolence?’ McKinnon looked at her with indifference. ‘I think he would prefer that to stupidity – the stupidity of a person who is trying to endanger the San Andreas and all those aboard her. It’s a pity we don’t have any irons on this ship.’

She glared at him, made to speak, then turned as Dr Sinclair came into the ward. Sleepy-eyed and tousle-haired, he looked in mild astonishment at the spectacle before him.

‘Dr Sinclair! Thank heavens you’re here!’ Rapidly and urgently she began to explain the situation to him. ‘Those – those men want starsights or navigation or something and in spite of all my protests they insist on dragging a seriously ill man up to the bridge or wherever and –’

‘I can see what’s happening,’ Sinclair said mildly. ‘But if the Lieutenant is being dragged he’s not putting up much in the way of resistance, is he? And by no stretch of the imagination can you describe him as being seriously ill. But I do take your point, Sister. He should be under constant medical supervision.’

‘Ah! Thank you, Doctor.’ Sister Morrison came very close to permitting herself a smile. ‘So it’s back to bed for him.’

‘Well, no, not quite. A duffel coat, a pair of sea boots, my bag of tricks and I’ll go up with them. That way the Lieutenant will be under constant medical supervision.’

Even with three men lending what assistance they could, it took twice as long as expected to help Lieutenant Ulbricht as far as the Captain’s cabin. Once there, he sank heavily into the chair behind the table.

‘Thank you very much, gentlemen.’ He was very pale, his breathing shallow and abnormally rapid. ‘Sorry about that. It would seem that I am not as fit as I thought I was.’

‘Nonsense.’ Dr Sinclair was brisk. ‘You did splendidly. It’s that inferior English blood that we had to give you this morning, that’s all.’ He made free with Captain Bowen’s supplies. ‘Superior Scotch blood. Effects guaranteed.’

Ulbricht smiled faintly. ‘Isn’t there something about opening pores?’

‘You won’t be out in the open long enough to give your pores a chance to protest.’

Up on the bridge McKinnon adjusted Ulbricht’s goggles, then scarfed him so heavily above and below the goggles that not a square millimetre of skin was left exposed. When he was finished, Lieutenant Ulbricht was as immune to the weather as it was possible for anyone to be: two balaclavas and a tightly strung duffel hood made sure of that.

McKinnon went out on the starboard wing, hung a trailing lamp from the canvas windbreaker, went back inside, picked up the sextant, took Ulbricht by his right arm – the undamaged one – and led him outside. Even although he was so cocooned against the elements, even though the Bo’sun had warned him and even though he had already had an ominous foretaste of what lay in store in their brief journey across the upper deck, he was totally unprepared for the power and savagery of the wind that caught him as soon as he stepped out on the wing. His weakened limbs were similarly unprepared. He took two short sharp steps forward, and though he managed to clutch the top of the windbreaker, would probably have fallen but for McKinnon’s sustaining hand. Had he been carrying the sextant he would almost certainly have dropped it.

With McKinnon’s arm around him Ulbricht took three starsights, to the south, west and north, clumsily noting down the results as he did so. The first two sights were comparatively quick and simple: the third, to the north, took much longer and was far more difficult, for Ulbricht had to keep clearing away the ice spicules from his goggles and the sextant. When he had finished he handed the sextant back to McKinnon, leant his elbows on the after edge of the wing and stared out towards the stern, occasionally and mechanically wiping his goggles with the back of his hand. After almost twenty seconds of this McKinnon took his good arm and almost literally dragged him back into the shelter of the bridge, banging the door to behind him. Handing the sextant to Jamieson, he quickly removed Ulbricht’s duffel hood, balaclavas and goggles.

‘Sorry about that, Lieutenant, but there’s a time and a place for everything and daydreaming or sightseeing out on that wing is not one of them.’

‘The funnel.’ Ulbricht looked slightly dazed. ‘What’s happened to your funnel?’

‘It fell off.’

‘I see. It fell off. You mean – I –’

‘What’s done is done,’ Jamieson said philosophically. He handed a glass to the Lieutenant. ‘To help you with your calculations.’

‘Thank you. Yes.’ Ulbricht shook his head as if to clear it. ‘Yes. My calculations.’

Weak though he was and shivering constantly – this despite the fact that the bridge temperature was already over 55°F. – Ulbricht left no doubt that, as a navigator, he knew precisely what he was about. Working from starsights, he had no need to worry about the vagaries of deviation and variation. With a chart, dividers, parallel rules, pencils and chronometer, he completed his calculations in remarkably short order and made a tiny cross on the chart after having consulted navigational tables.

‘We’re here. Well, near enough. 68.05 north, 7.20 east – more or less due west of the Lofotens. Our course is 218. Is one permitted to ask our destination?’