Santorini. Alistair MacLean
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Maybe twenty-five. A lot, anyway.’
‘There’s your answer, Doctor. That thing’s gone bang once already. It can go bang once again. I am not going alongside. You are. In the launch. That’s expendable. The Ariadne’s not.’
‘Well, thank you very much. And what intrepid soul—’
‘I’m sure Number One here will be delighted to ferry you across.’
‘Ah. Number One, have your men wear overalls, gloves and flash-masks. Injuries from burning diesel can be very unpleasant indeed. And you. I go to prepare myself for self-immolation.’
‘And don’t forget your lifebelts.’
Grierson didn’t deign to answer.
They had halved the remaining distance to the burning yacht when Talbot got through to the radio-room again.
‘Message dispatched?’
‘Dispatched and acknowledged.’
‘Anything more from the Delos?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Delos,’ Denholm said. ‘That’s about eighty miles north of here. Alas, the Cyclades will never be the same for me again.’ Denholm sighed. Electronics specialist or not, he regarded himself primarily as a classicist and, indeed, he was totally fluent in reading and writing both Latin and Greek. He was deeply immersed in their ancient cultures as the considerable library in his cabin bore testimony. He was also much given to quotations and he quoted now.
‘The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece! Where burning Sappho loved and sung, Where grew the arts of war and peace, Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung, Eternal summer—’
‘Your point is taken, Lieutenant,’ Talbot said. ‘We’ll cry tomorrow. In the meantime, let us address ourselves to the problem of those poor souls on the fo’c’s’le. I count five of them.’
‘So do I.’ Denholm lowered his glasses. ‘What’s all the frantic waving for? Surely to God they can’t imagine we haven’t seen them?’
‘They’ve seen us all right. Relief, Lieutenant. Expectation of rescue. But there’s more to it than that. A certain urgency in their waving. A primitive form of semaphoring. What they’re saying is “get us the hell out of here and be quick about it”.’
‘Maybe they’re expecting another explosion?’
‘Could be that. Harrison, I want to come to a stop on their starboard beam. At, you understand, a prudent distance.’
‘A hundred yards, sir?’
‘Fine.’
The Delos was—or had been—a rather splendid yacht. A streamlined eighty-footer, it was obvious that it had been, until very, very recently, a dazzling white. Now, because of a combination of smoke and diesel oil, it was mainly black. A rather elaborate superstructure consisted of a bridge, saloon, a dining-room and what may or may not have been a galley. The still dense smoke and flames rising six feet above the poop deck indicated the source of the fire—almost certainly the engine-room. Just aft of the fire a small motorboat was still secured to its davits: it wasn’t difficult to guess that either the explosion or the fire had rendered it inoperable.
Talbot said: ‘Rather odd, don’t you think, Lieutenant?’
‘Odd?’ Denholm said carefully.
‘Yes. You can see that the flames are dying away. One would have thought that would reduce the danger of further explosion.’ Talbot moved out on the port wing. ‘And you will have observed that the water level is almost up to the deck.’
‘I can see she’s sinking.’
‘Indeed. If you were aboard a vessel that was either going to go up or drag you down when it sank, what would your natural reaction be?’
‘To be elsewhere, sir. But I can see that their motorboat has been damaged.’
‘Agreed. But a craft that size would carry alternative life-saving equipment. If not a Carley float, then certainly an inflatable rubber dinghy. And any prudent owner would carry a sufficiency of lifebelts and life-jackets for the passengers and crew. I can even see two lifebelts in front of the bridge. But they haven’t done the obvious thing and abandoned ship. I wonder why.’
‘I’ve no idea, sir. But it is damned odd.’
‘When we’ve rescued those distressed mariners and brought them aboard, you, Jimmy, will have forgotten how to speak Greek.’
‘But I will not have forgotten how to listen in Greek?’
‘Precisely.’
‘Commander Talbot, you have a devious and suspicious mind.’
‘It goes with the job, Jimmy. It goes with the job.’
Harrison brought the Ariadne to a stop off the starboard beam of the Delos at the agreed hundred yards distance. Van Gelder was away at once and was very quickly alongside the fo’c’s’le of the Delos. Two boat-hooks around the guard-rail stanchions held them in position. As the launch and the bows of the sinking yacht were now almost level it took only a few seconds to transfer the six survivors—another had joined the group of five that Talbot had seen—aboard the launch. They were, indeed, a sorry and sadly bedraggled lot, so covered in diesel and smoke that it was quite impossible to discriminate among them on the basis of age, sex or nationality.
Van Gelder said: ‘Any of you here speak English?’
‘We all do.’ The speaker was short and stocky and that was all that could be said of him in the way of description. ‘Some of us just a little. But enough.’ The voice was heavily accented but readily understood. Van Gelder looked at Grierson.
‘Any of you injured, any of you burnt?’ Grierson said. All shook their heads or mumbled a negative. ‘Nothing here for me, Number One. Hot showers, detergents, soap. Not to mention a change of clothing.’
‘Who’s in charge here?’ Van Gelder asked.
‘I am.’ It was the same man.
‘Anybody left aboard?’
‘Three men, I’m afraid. They won’t be coming with us.’
‘You mean they’re dead?’ The man nodded. ‘I’ll check.’
‘No, no!’ His oil-soaked hand gripped Van Gelder’s arm. ‘It is too dangerous, far too dangerous. I forbid it.’
‘You forbid me nothing.’ When Van Gelder wasn’t smiling, which wasn’t often, he could assume a very discouraging expression indeed. The man withdrew his hand. ‘Where are those men?’
‘In the passageway between the engine-room and the stateroom aft. We got them out after the explosion but before the fire began.’
‘Riley.’ This to a Leading Seaman. ‘Come aboard with me. If you think the yacht’s going, give me a call.’ He picked up a torch and was about to board the Delos when a hand holding a pair of goggles reached out and stopped him. Van Gelder smiled. ‘Thank you, Doctor. I hadn’t thought of that.’
Once aboard he made his way aft and descended the after companionway. There was smoke down there but not too much and with the aid of his torch he had no difficulty in locating the three missing men, all huddled shapelessly in a corner. To his right was the engine-room door, slightly buckled from the force of the explosion. Not without some difficulty, he forced the door open and at once began coughing as the foulsmelling smoke caught his throat and eyes. He pulled on the goggles but still there was nothing to see except for the red embers of a dying fire emanating from some unknown source. He pulled the door to behind him—he was reasonably certain there was nothing for him to see in the engineroom anyway—and stooped to examine the three dead men. They were far from being a pretty sight but he forced himself to