Shaw groaned. Every damn thing, he thought bitterly, was against them. He asked, “Well, what about fuel?”
“She’s always kept topped right up, an’ there’s a reserve dump near the boathouse.”
“Any idea of her range?”
“No, but I reckon it’s pretty big. This bloke, ’e takes ’er out for week-ends along the coast, went right down to St Mary’s in Tasmania one time on the main tanks alone. An’ there’s any God’s amount of cans you could fill to help out. An’ I’ll be here to pass a message on to Sydney when I can — just in case you don’t make it.”
“Uh-huh… Shaw glanced across at James. “It’s a shaky do, sir, but it’s worth a shot, I think. We couldn’t average anything like forty-five in that sea and we’d need a hell of a lot of luck to get there at all, but it’s all we can do.”
“Reckon you’re right. We might be able to enter a port up the coast and send a message when we hit a place where the lines aren’t down.”
Shaw nodded. “We might, but that’d be a risk in itself. If we piled up trying to enter in this weather, the message would never get through. We can try it if we have to, but I’m aiming for Sydney direct. I’ve got to get aboard and dismantle that charge.”
“But — why you, for Chrissake? That’s a job for an explosives expert!”
“Which I am — I’ve kept up to date on that. Anyhow, we can’t contact anyone else — and I’m going aboard if we can overtake her in time. If we can make a port and send a message as well, so much the better. But after that I’m heading for the New South Wales. It’s my job to do it if I can.”
James said quietly, “Well, good on you, Commander. But — she’s due to pick up the pilot at noon to-morrow, remember.” He glanced at his watch. “That’s just… eighteen hours from now, and the explosion due in nineteen hours. Well? Think you can close the gap in time, and in weather like this?”
“I’ll try, sir. If Lubin could take that thing of his to sea and last as long as he did, I’ll take a chance on an M.T.B.”
James reached out and clapped Shaw hard on the shoulder, his brown wizened face eager but anxious. He said, “I’m coming with you. I’m pretty handy in an engine-room!”
Mrs Peters looked in just then to say that there was a hot meal ready, and James insisted that Shaw sat down and ate.
He said that ten minutes spent in getting something hot under his belt now would pay dividends later on.
It was about ninety minutes later that Shaw, with every spare corner crammed with cans of engine fuel, took that ex-M.T.B. out through the Franklin Channel. As he came right out into the open and turned before the wind, an enormous sea took the craft fair and square on her beam, dropping aboard with smashing force. The boat lurched, Shaw fought her round, hauling and straining, noticed the drunken angle of the signal lamp before the glass screen of the wheelhouse.
Cursing, he reached out and flicked a switch. Nothing happened. The lamp was useless. A moment later, as another big sea hit, the lamp went altogether. So that was that. He’d hoped he might be able to signal any ships he met en route. Now, everything depended on whether he could keep the boat afloat for long enough to make a port or overhaul the liner. He knew it was going to be a pretty close thing; he had more speed — if he could use it — than the New South Wales, but she had a very good start on him. He steered north-easterly for Cape Howe, where he would turn on to the rather easier northerly course which would take him direct for Sydney. The conditions were pure hell in the small wheelhouse and Shaw knew that it must be far worse for Captain James in the engine space, where the Australian officer was being assisted by a couple of his security men. The boat rocked and dipped and jumped, lifted and fell bodily, bumping very badly at times with an agonizing, gut-tearing movement; but she weathered it all right.
It was hopeless trying to run her up to any high speed, but Shaw hoped that once he cleared Cape Howe and brought the wind and sea farther aft, he would be able to smack her up quite a lot.
With any luck he would do it just about in time; and if that prospect should appear to dim as time went on, there was always the chance of a port along the track. His mind roved over the possibilities. Eden, the Tuross River, Jervis Bay… he’d get James’s advice on that. But it would have to be navigationally safe before he dare take the risk of running in.
Away ahead of Shaw the New South Wales forged on through the gathering night and the storm, her navigation lights burning brightly in the murk, red and green and white. Her lighted decks and ports and lounges passed over the water in a blaze of electricity; to ships coming down from Sydney and passing her — and so uselessly passing Shaw in the for he could not contact them — she seemed like a huge fairyland, a teeming city in the black night. Along her decks the wind roared and howled and whined; but, that last night of the long voyage, few of her passengers were walking the decks to hear or feel it, to be disturbed by weather-doors banging in the gale, or the frap-frap of the canvas covers slatting on the lifeboats.
They were mostly below in their cabins, finishing the last little bits of packing; their thoughts were winging ahead to Sydney, thoughts which were no longer ship-bound but which were, in some cases, of a home-coming, of family and friends who would be waiting at the berth at Pyrmont to-morrow; in other cases, thoughts of a new and probably lonely life in a strange land, of some fear and apprehension for that new life. Some would be sorry to leave the ship which had carried them through the seas some twelve thousand miles from the London River, looking upon her now, despite the odd tense atmosphere of the voyage, almost as a living entity binding them to the homeland which they had left; they would miss the friends they had made aboard, the people they would very likely never see again, for the ending of a voyage is often a very final thing. In fact most of those passengers had, as it were, already mentally disembarked. For them the voyage was already over and the ship seemed quite different. That difference had really set in after Fremantle, as soon as the ship had rounded the Leeuwin and was right inside Australian waters; that was when she had begun to die. There had been a subtle change in the air along the cabin alleyways, on the decks and in the lounges and bars. The ship had grown colder, more and more remote and distant as the shore reached out its fingers to squeeze away the sea-life. To-night the bars were utterly dead except for one small party of young people celebrating with a drinks session in a corner of the tavern. In the lounges, a few people sat and talked a little, but mainly they just sat and thought, and they all looked quite different too because they had their shore-side faces on now as the New South Wales swept on for journey’s end.
Judith Donovan was very conscious of the change as she sat, a little forlornly as she had sat ever since Fremantle, in the veranda lounge aft and thought about Esmonde Shaw, wondered how things had gone for him. He’d have got to Sydney by now, for certain; she would see him again tomorrow if he wasn’t too busy and that would be nice; but beyond that she couldn’t think, didn’t want to think. She supposed Shaw would have to fly back to London at once when all this was over, and as for her, she wasn’t sure what she would do yet…
In his cabin high above the passenger decks Sir Donald Mackinnon was finishing the signing of the many port forms brought up to him by his Purser. That done, he sent for the senior MAPIACCIND man and once again they ran over the arrangements for the discharge of Redcap the following afternoon. A little later he went up to the chartroom, took a look at the chart. Thanks to the following wind and sea, they were running a little ahead of time. An early arrival off the Heads meant hanging about, probably in a nasty swell, and without stabilizers. That would mean seasick passengers, and passengers made seasick and green-looking just before arrival meant complaints. Besides, Sir Donald always liked a spot-on arrival. He walked for’ard into the wheelhouse and ordered a small reduction of speed. And as he gave that simple order he had no suspicion that he might well be influencing world safety — for good or ill.