The invitation read: ‘Sir James Hathaway and the officers and crew of Jetwind request your presence without fail at a function in the crew's day-room, to be held at 10.30 sharp.'
I had been more astonished still at the sight which had greeted me on arrival. The day-room was a kind of recreation room above the afterpeak adjoining the crew's mess. Big portholes gave a splendid sight of Jetwind's creaming wake. Beneath them a table had been arranged. Its centre-piece was Robbie Lund's old ship's bell. Presiding like a chairman at a board meeting was Sir James, flanked by Kay and Tideman. There was a burst of applause as I entered; it was led by a smiling Sir James, who came forward and conducted me to a seat next to Kay. If my mood had not been so black, I would have realized that I had never seen her look so lovely.
Perhaps Sir James had got to the top because he was something of a showman as well as a business-man. He reached for the bell, which had been hastily mounted between two wooden blocks, and struck it with the clapper.
At that moment, as if on cue, the bitch-box came alive. 'Captain on the bridge!'
However, Sir James was not to be put off. He gestured me back into my seat as I rose to go.
'This is more important — the bridge can do without you for a couple of minutes’
There was a burst of applause from the men. My reaction said, the blood is on my hands, not yours.
Sir James resumed his showman's attitude. 'Gentlemen — and Kay Fenton’ They were in the mood to laugh, and they laughed at his singling out Kay. There is no need to tell you why we are gathered here, but for the record I want to say that all of us — yes, each one of us — owes our being here at all to the super-human courage and personal effort of Captain Rainier. That means, in fact, our lives’
I couldn't handle it. I wanted to excuse myself, get away from the grins and acclaim.
Sir James silenced his audience with another stroke on the bell.
'This bell hung for many years on a windjammer wreck near Cape Horn’ he said. 'It is a relic of the days of sail when Cape Horn was one of the great ocean routes of the-world. From the time it ceased to be until Jetwind took the water, the sailing ship was a thing of the past’ I speculated what might be coming.
'You all know that this voyage was to have been the acid test of whether the sailing ship was to make a come-back in the twentieth century, whether it could become a viable economic proposition when bunker fuel has made power-ship operation a highly questionable one.'
Sir James wasn't the man to lose his captive audience in their adulatory mood by giving them a lecture on ship economics.
He turned to me. 'I — and this audience — have had no time to arrange a formal presentation, but we ask you to place this old Cape Horn bell in a place of honour in Jetwind as a token of our admiration, and a symbol of the reopening of the once-great ocean route’
Neither I — nor anyone else — fathomed his meaning. He was aware of it. But he was, as I have said3 a showman. He waited long enough to let our puzzlement take root, then he drew a sheet of paper from his pocket.
He addressed me. His eyes were sparkling by contrast with the formality of his words.
'Captain Rainier, I wish to request official permission to have this signal transmitted.' Before I could respond, he went on. 'It is addressed to my ship-owner colleagues aboard the Agulhas. I qjuote the contents. "Propose immediate formation fifty-million dollar consortium for construction fleet of aerodynamic sailing ships based on design and peformance factors Jetwind. I personally am satisfied…"'
I couldn't believe my ears. I found myself on my feet. Sir James was pump-handling me; Kay and Tideman led the congratulatory queue.
The bitch-box cut in imperatively. I was startled out of the mood of the ceremony by the note in the operator's voice.
'Captain on the bridge, sir! Urgent! Radar sighting! Plane, forty-five miles, bearing red zero-zero-nine degrees, coming up fast! Heading our way, sir!'
It was there, all right. There was no mistaking the decisive blip on the big Decca radar screen when Tideman, Kay and I reached the bridge at the double. 'What do you make of it?' I asked Greg. 'She's big and she's stuffed with electronic gear.' 'How do you deduce that?'
'She started transmitting like the clappers a minute back,' he replied. 'She must have picked us up on her radar.' 'Radar?' Tideman interjected.
Greg laughed deprecatingly. 'I'd say, a lot of other sophisticated gadgets as well.' 'What is she signalling?' I demanded.
'Can't say, sir — code. All I know is that that sort of sending isn't commercial.'
I asked Tideman, 'Calling up the other dogs for the kill, do you think?' 'Greg’ asked Tideman, 'is there anything to suggest that the plane is in contact with a ship nearby?' 'A warship?' I added.
The faint green of the screen with its revolving range-finder washed across Greg's face. He concentrated a while and then said, 'She's changing course a little, sheering off.' 'Sniffing the bait?' I asked Tideman again. Kay said quietly, 'I thought we'd finished with all that.' Greg manipulated his instruments. 'There's another transmitter coming in!' 'Range?'
He listened carefully again before answering. 'It's coming a long way, that's for sure. That's all I can tell. It's in code too.' 'What's the plane's range now?' I asked.
He checked against the calibrations. 'Twenty-three nautical miles.' I had a sudden thought. 'Can you establish the altitude?' 'Low — very low. Under a hundred metres.'
'I don't like it, Peter,' Tideman said. 'If it were a long-range search plane looking for us it wouldn't cruise at such a low altitude because it'd be guzzling fuel. It would stay high until it picked up a surface contact and only then descend.'
'Unless it comes from a carrier. Perhaps that's where the code answer is coming from.' Kay formulated the fears which were in both our minds.
'Perhaps it's a plane looking for… for… Group Condor and the Red squadron.'
'It can't be that,' I replied. 'The plane would know the exact location of Molot and wouldn't need to search.' I spoke to Greg. 'What's the direction of approach of the aircraft?' 'Northnortheast, sir.'
The adrenalin which had seeped out of me after the Molot debacle was back in my veins. Maybe Jetwind hadn't won, after all. The screen with its regular blip exercised a kind of hypnotic effect. The four of us went silent. The target came closer, closer. At twelve miles, it hesitated, moved sideways. The hunter sniffing the trap further? Who was the hunter? Greg broke the silence. 'She sees us, for sure.’ 'Visually — surely not!’
'I mean, by means of whatever fancy equipment she's using. She's casing us.'
'Twelve miles — that's beyond immediate sea-to-air missile range,' murmured Tideman. 'She's playing it very carefully.' 'Any way of contacting the plane?' I asked Greg. 'If she speaks, I've got all the taps ready open.'
Silence again washed through the radar office on a background wing of electricity.
Then I was startled by a voice. It was so loud, it seemed right at my elbow.
'This is a T-3 Orion of the United States Tracking and Control Group speaking. Identify yourself. Immediately. Use this wavelength. I warn you not to try any tricks.'
I activated the UHF microphone we used for ship-to-ship conversations. 'Sailing ship Jetwind. Captain Rainier speaking.'
'Rainier! Well I'll be goddamned to hell!' The voice lost some of its suspicious, offhand note. 'You're Rainier! The guy who's been giving us the runaround all over the Southern Ocean!' 'Are you from Naval Securities Group Activities?'