Charily at first and then with growing confidence, Captain Toro followed Miguel-Angel’s instructions and took Maxima through seas that behaved precisely as he predicted. Robin offered to relieve the exhausted captain on bridge watch between the islands and he snatched a couple of hours’ sleep as Maxima ran on, her heading north, from Isla Maria Madre to Isla Santa Isabel, even though the fat bacon sandwich and creosote-dark coffee had invigorated him. Robin was so impressed with both the boy and the butty that when Toro came back on to the bridge after the better part of three hours’ sleep, he found a tray awaiting him with an even bigger bacon sandwich and another cup of coffee. And a walkie-talkie, through which Robin informed him that she and Miguel-Angel were on the deck in the wind shadow of the bridge house again, listening to Isla Santa Isabel singing.
No sooner had they rejoined him on the bridge than he used the quieter water in the lee of the reefs to order the helm ten degrees south to starboard. But the stormy waters soon reasserted themselves, and so Maxima ran on down towards Puerto Banderas at a good ten knots once more. ‘If we cannot see Dahlia Blanca,’ Captain Toro asked Miguel-Angel an hour later, ‘how will we know how to approach the harbour? Is there another landmark that might help or guide us?’
Miguel-Angel nodded. ‘There is the Faro on the big breakwater. But on this heading, Capitan Carlos was always able to guide Pilar into the dock at Los Muertos. The harbour is wide because of the Rio Cortez, which flows down from the Cordillera.’
‘Can we slow down?’ asked Robin. ‘At this speed we’ll be in serious trouble if we hit anything.’
‘Yes,’ said Captain Toro. ‘We will need to risk slowing in any case, because as we come closer to the coast we will get caught up in the surf if we’re not careful. But from what Miguel-Angel says, it seems likely we’ll be able to get into the shelter of the harbour without getting involved in the surf line.’
‘Would you like us to go out to the foredeck again?’ asked Robin.
‘That would be helpful,’ answered Toro. ‘As we close with Puerto Banderas we will need to be clear about where we are and where we need to head next.’
Robin and Miguel-Angel returned to the sheltered section of the foredeck. This time, however, they were not listening out for the songs of the islands they were passing. Instead, they were looking out for anything that would lead Maxima into her safe haven in the harbour past Los Muertos. Lookouts such as they were should have been up at the point of the forecastle, but had they ventured there they would have been blown bodily into the ocean. They had a clearer view here, however, than Toro through the spray-smeared bridge windows, so they were relying on their eyes rather than their ears. It was ironic, therefore, that it was a sound that alerted them to what was going on. Toro had throttled back and was allowing the storm waves to run under the keel a good deal faster than Maxima was moving. This made things even more uncomfortable for anyone aboard not yet used to the pitching and tossing which the big waves generated, and meant that the foredeck moved up and down a great deal more wildly than it had done even while going past Isla Maria Madre. And the result of that was that Maxima’s forefoot suddenly smashed down on to something so forcefully that both Robin and Miguel-Angel thought they must be holed. But no. Maxima had simply smashed down on to an upturned rowboat, which sank so fast after the collision that the two watch-keepers only just saw what had been hit as it blundered along the boat’s sleek side. The next few minutes brought more debris that Maxima smashed her way through increasingly noisily.
‘What’s going on?’ asked Miguel-Angel, awed.
‘I’m not sure,’ answered Robin soberly. ‘But it looks as though a good deal of debris from Puerto Banderas is being washed out to sea. From what my husband Richard said about what he saw on his way up the Baja, there may have been serious flooding, especially down your Rio Cortez.’
And even as she said this, Maxima’s cutwater bashed up against a more substantial piece of flotsam. As it washed past the two lookouts they saw that it was — a wooden section more than two metres high and a metre and a half wide. A construction of teak planks and crosspieces, clearly the main gate to a considerable inmueble estate, with the ruined remnants of black metal hinges torn bodily off a gatepost down one side. And, on the front of it, in letters formed of black-painted wrought iron, were the words: Dahlia Blanca.
THIRTY-FIVE
Sulu Queen fell off the top of a big sea like a base jumper diving off a cliff. She corkscrewed, seeming to go through all of the six degrees of freedom as she pitched, rolled, yawed, plunged, heaved, swayed and surged. She smashed headfirst into the trough and huge fans of white spray exploded on either side of her bow, just visible beyond the torrential downpour until the wind whipped the spray back and smeared it over the clear view like ice. There was a distant crash and some swearing scarcely audible beneath the bellow of the storm. The mugs on the bridge coffee table all slid forward and crashed silently into each other. Richard staggered slightly. ‘Come round to ninety degrees,’ he ordered.
‘Ninety degrees, due east,’ said the helmsman.
‘She’ll settle now,’ Richard informed Guerrera and Antoine, who were both fighting to stay erect. ‘Half a cargo still stuck aboard makes good ballast at least, and she’ll steady with the sea running up behind her.’
‘As long as we go north of the Tres Marias,’ said Guerrera.
‘That was the objective behind that uncomfortable readjustment of the heading,’ said Richard. ‘The Tres Marias are just to the south of us. We’re just entering the San Juanito passage, following the same course as Maxima — or the beacon, at any rate. I’ll adjust our heading again in the calmer water in the lee of Maria Madre then swing round Santa Isabel and into Puerto Banderas before the end of the watch.’
‘Maxima might not be there,’ warned Guerrero. ‘The course we’re following is the one the local fishermen use. I don’t remember a vessel of this size ever coming in this way. They don’t like the reefs and shallows off Santa Isabel. It’s a ships’ graveyard. From what I remember the big vessels either come north or south parallel to the coast, and only those steaming up from Acapulco and Vallarta actually come into port at Puerto Banderas. Or, if they’re coming eastwards in from the ocean they tend to run south of Maria Cleofas, the southernmost of the Tres Marias, and then swing north into the harbour past Los Muertos beach and dock against the breakwater.’
‘We’ll keep a sharp eye out,’ said Richard. ‘We have collision alarm radar and forward-facing sonar. All mod cons. And radio, of course. If we could actually raise anyone south of the border, down Mexico way. Well, anyone we want to speak to, at any rate.’ In fact, Sulu Queen had registered her presence with a number of Mexican authorities. Authorities who had not been able to advise them as to the current state of things in their destination. And they still had not managed to make contact with the men and women they needed to speak to in Puerto Banderas itself — or aboard whichever vessel was sitting in harbour there with the tell-tale emergency beacon aboard.