Текст книги "Raise the Titanic"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

Соавторы: Clive Cussler
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    Uphill looked at Butera. "Tell me, Commander, when was the last time you defied a direct command from an admiral?"

    Butera feigned mock thoughtfulness. "Come to think of it, not since breakfast."

    "Speaking for myself and the salvage crew," Pitt said, "we'd welcome your company."

    "There you have it, sir," Butera said, grinning. "Besides, my orders from Admiral Kemper were either to bring the Titanic into port or take out papers for an early retirement. Me, I opt for the Titanic."

    "That's mutiny," Sandecker said flatly; but there was no hiding the trace of satisfaction in his tone, and it took no great stroke of perception to recognize that the argument had gone exactly as he had planned it. He gave everyone a very shrewd look and said, "Okay, gentlemen, it's your funeral. Now that that's settled, I suggest that instead of sitting around here, you get about the business of saving the Titanic."

    Captain Ivan Parotkin stood on the port wing bridge of the Mikhail Kurkov and searched the sky with a pair of binoculars.

    He was a slender man of medium height with a distinguished face that almost never smiled. He was in his late fifties, but his receding hair showed no sign of gray. A thick turtleneck sweater covered his chest while his hips and legs were encased in heavy woolen pants and knee boots.

    Parotkin's first officer touched him on the arm and pointed skyward above the Mikhail Kurkov's huge radar dome. A four-engine patrol bomber appeared out of the northeast and magnified until Parotkin could make out its Russian markings. The aircraft seemed to be crawling scant miles per hour above its stalling speed as it swept overhead. Then suddenly a tiny object ejected from the underbelly, and seconds later a parachute blossomed open and began drifting over the ship's forward mastpeak, its occupant finally dropping into the water about two hundred yards off the starboard bow.

    As the Mikhail Kurkov's small boat put away and dipped over the mountainous, wide-spaced waves, Parotkin turned to his first officer. "As soon as he is safely on board, conduct Captain Prevlov to my quarters." Then he laid the binoculars on the bridge counter and disappeared down a companionway.

    Twenty minutes later, the first officer knocked at the highly polished mahogany door, opened it, and then stood aside to allow a man to pass through. He was thoroughly soaked and dripping salt water in puddles about the deck.

    "Captain Parotkin."

    "Captain Prevlov."

    They stood there in silence a few moments, both highly trained professionals, and sized each other up. Prevlov had the advantage; he'd studied Parotkin's service history in depth. Parotkin, on the other hand, had only repute and first appearances to form a judgment. He wasn't sure he liked what he saw. Prevlov came off too handsome, too foxlike for Parotkin to grasp a favorable sense of warmth or trust.

    "We are short on time," Prevlov said. "If we could get right down to the purpose of my visit-"

    Parotkin held up his hand. "First things first. Some hot tea and a change of clothing. Dr. Rogovski, our chief scientist, is about your height and weight."

    The first officer nodded and closed the door.

    "Now then," Parotkin said, "I am certain a man of your rank and importance didn't risk his life parachuting into running sea merely to observe the atmospheric phenomenon of a hurricane."

    "Hardly. Personal danger is not my cup of tea. And speaking of tea, I don't suppose you have anything stronger on board?"

    Parotkin shook his head. "Sorry, Captain. I insist on a dry ship. Not exactly to the crew's liking, I admit, but it does save occasional grief."

    "Admiral Sloyuk said you were a paragon of efficiency."

    "I do not believe in tempting the fates."

    Prevlov unzipped his sodden jumpsuit and let it fall on the floor. "I am afraid you are about to make an exception to that rule, Captain. We, you and I, are about to tempt the fates as they have never been tempted before."

57

    Pitt could not escape the feeling he was being deserted on a lonely island as he stood on the foredeck of the Titanic and watched the salvage fleet get under way and begin moving toward the western horizon and safer waters.

    The Alhambra was the last in line to slip past, her captain flashing a "good luck" with his addis lamp, the news people quietly, solemnly filming what might be the last visual record of the Titanic. Pitt searched for Dana Seagram among the crowd gathered at the railings, but his eyes failed to pick her out. He watched the ships until they became small dark specks on a leaden sea. Only the missile cruiser Juneau and the Capricorn remained behind, but the salvage tender would soon depart and follow the others once the tug captains signaled they had the derelict in tow.

    "Mr. Pitt?"

    Pitt turned to see a man who had the face of a canvas weary prizefighter and the body of a beer keg.

    "Chief Bascom, sir, of the Wallace. I brought a two-man crew aboard to make fast the towing cable."

    Pitt smiled a friendly smile. "I bet they call you Bad Bascom."

    "Only behind my back. It's a name that's followed me ever since I tore up a bar in San Diego." Bascom shrugged. Then his eyes narrowed. "How did you guess?"

    "Commander Butera described you in glowing terms... behind your back, that is."

    "A good man, the commander."

    "How long will it take for the hookup?"

    "With luck and the loan of your helicopter, about an hour."

    "No problem over the helicopter; it belongs to the Navy anyway." Pitt turned and gazed down at the Wallace as Butera very carefully backed the tug toward the Titanic's old straight up-and-down bow until he was less than a hundred feet away. "I take it the helicopter is to lift the tow cable on board?"

    "Yes sir," Bascom answered. "Our cable measures ten inches in diameter and weighs in at one ton per seventy feet. No lightweight that one. On most tow jobs, we'd cast a small line over the derelict's bow which in turn would be attached to a series of heavier lines with increasing diameters that finally tied into the main cable, but that type of operation calls for the services of an electric winch, and since the Titanic is a dead ship and human muscles are way under matched for the job, we take the easy way out. No sense in filling up sick bay with a crew of hernia patients."

    Even with the help of the helicopter, it was all Bascom and his men could do to secure the great cable into position. Sturgis came through like an old pro. Tenderly manipulating the helicopter's controls, he laid the end of the Wallace's tow cable on the Titanic's forecastle deck as neatly as though he'd practiced the trick for years. It took only fifty minutes, from the time Sturgis released the cable and flew back to the Capricorn, until Chief Bascom stood on the forepeak and waved his arms over his head, signaling the tugs that the connection was made.

    Butera on the Wallace acknowledged the signal with a blast on the tug's whistle and rang the engine room for "dead ahead slow" as Uphill on the Morse went through the same motions. Slowly the two tugs gathered way, the Wallace trailing the Morse on three hundred yards of wire leash, paying out the main cable until the Titanic rose and dropped in the steadily increasing swells nearly a quarter of a mile astern. Then Butera held up his hand and the men on the Wallace's afterdeck gently eased on the brake of the tug's immense towing winch and the cable took up the strain.

    From atop the Titanic's vast height, the tugs looked like tiny toy boats tossing over the enormous crests of the waves one moment before disappearing to their mastlights in the cavernous troughs the next. It seemed impossible that such puny objects could budge over forty-five thousand tons of dead weight, and yet slowly, imperceptibly at first, their combined forces of ten-thousand horsepower began to tell and soon a minute dog's bone of foam could be discerned curling around the Titanic's faded Plimsoll's mark.

    She was barely making way-New York was still twelve hundred miles to the west-but she had at last picked up where she'd left off that cold night back in 1912 and was once again making for port.

    The ominous-looking black clouds rose and spilled over the southern horizon. It was a hurricane bar. Even as Pitt watched, it seemed to expand and strengthen, turning the sea to a dark shade of dirty gray. Oddly, the wind became light, aimlessly changing direction every few seconds. He noticed that the sea gulls that had once swarmed about the salvage fleet were not in view. Only the sight of the Juneau, moving steadily five hundred yards abeam the Titanic, provided any sense of security.

    Pitt glanced at his watch and then took another look over the port railing before he slowly, almost casually, approached the entrance to the gymnasium.

    "Is the gang all here?"

    "They're getting restless as hell," Giordino said. He was standing huddled against a ventilator in a seemingly vain attempt to hide from the icy wind. "If it wasn't for the admiral's restraining influence, you'd have had a first-class riot on your hands."

    "Everyone is accounted for?"

    "To a man."

    "You're positive?"

    "Take the word of Warden Giordino. None of the inmates have left the room, not even to go potty."

    "Then I guess it's my turn to enter stage right."

    "Any complaints from our guests?" Giordino asked.

    "The usual. Never satisfied with their accommodations, not enough heat or too much air conditioning, you know."

    "Yeah, I know."

    "You'd better go aft and see about making their wait enjoyable."

    "For God's sake, how?"

    "Tell them jokes."

    Giordino gave Pitt a sour look and mumbled dryly to himself as he turned and walked off into the evening's dimming light.

    Pitt checked his watch once more and entered the gymnasium. Three hours had passed since the tow had begun and the final act of the salvage had settled down to a routine. Sandecker and Gunn were bent over the radio pestering Farquar on the Capricorn, now fifty miles to the west, for the latest news on Hurricane Amanda, while the rest of the crew was grouped in a tight semicircle around a small and thoroughly inadequate oil-burning stove.

    As Pitt entered, they had all looked up expectantly. When at last he spoke, his voice was unnaturally soft in the unnatural quiet that was broken only by the hum of the portable generators. "My apologies, gentlemen, for keeping you waiting, but I thought the short coffee break would reconstitute your sagging sinews."

    "Cut the satire," Spencer snapped, his voice taut with irritation. "You call us all up here and then make us sit around for half an hour when there is work to do. What's the story?"

    "The story is simple," Pitt said evenly. "In a few minutes, Lieutenant Sturgis will drop his helicopter on board one last time before the storm strikes. With the exception of Giordino and myself, I would like all of you, and that includes you, Admiral, to return with him to the Capricorn. "

    "Aren't you out of your depth, Pitt," Sandecker said in an unemphatic tone.

    "To some degree, yes, sir, but I firmly believe I'm doing the right thing."

    "Explain yourself." Sandecker glowed like a piranha about to gulp a goldfish. He was playing his role to the hilt. It was an epic job of typecasting.

    "I have every reason to believe the Titanic hasn't the structural strength left to weather a hurricane."

    "This old tub has taken more punishment than any man-made object since the pyramids," Spencer said. "And, now the great seer of the future, Dirk Pitt, predicts the old girl will throw in the sponge and sink at the first blow from a lousy storm."

    "There's no guarantee she can't or won't founder under a heavy sea," Pitt hedged. "Either way, it's stupid to risk any more lives than we have to."

    "Let me see if I get this straight." Drummer leaned forward, his hawklike features intent and angry. "Except for you and Giordino, the rest of us are supposed to haul ass and ditch everything we've busted our balls to achieve over the last nine months just so's we can hide on the Capricorn till the storm blows over? Is that the idea?"

    "You go to the head of the class, Drummer."

    "Man, you're out of your gourd."

    "Impossible," Spencer said. "It takes four men just to oversee the pumps."

    "And the hull below the waterline has to be sounded around the clock for new leaks," Gunn added.

    "You heroes are all alike," Drummer drawled "Always making noble sacrifices to save others. Let's face it; ain't no way two men can ride herd on this old tub. I vote we all stay."

    Spencer turned and read the faces of his six-man crew. They all stared back at him out of eyes red-rimmed with lack of sleep and nodded in chorus. Then Spencer faced Pitt again. "Sorry, great leader, but Spencer and his merry band of pump-pushers have decided to hang in there."

    "I'm with you," Woodson said solemnly.

    "Count me in," said Gunn.

    Chief Bascom touched Pitt on the arm. "Beggin' your pardon, sir, but me and my boys are for sticking around too. That cable out there has to be checked every hour during the storm for signs of chafing, and heavy grease applied to the fair-lead to prevent a break."

    "Sorry, Pitt, my boy," Sandecker said with a marked degree of satisfaction. "You lose."

    The sound of Sturgis's helicopter was heard hovering for a landing over the lounge roof. Pitt shrugged resignedly and said, "Well that settles it then. We all sink or swim together." Then he cracked a tired smile. "You'd all better get some rest and some food in your stomachs. It may be your last chance. A few hours from now we'll be up to our eyeballs in the front quadrant of the hurricane. And, I don't have to draw a picture of what we can expect."

    He swung on his heels and walked out the door to the helicopter pad. Not a bad performance, he thought to himself. Not a bad performance at all. He'd never be nominated for an Academy Award, but what the hell, his captive audience had thought it convincing and that's all that really mattered.

    Jack Sturgis was a short, thin man with sad drooping eyes, the kind women considered bedroom eyes. He gripped a long cigarette holder between his teeth and jutted his chin forward in a show reminiscent of Franklin Roosevelt. He had just climbed down from the cockpit of the helicopter and seemed to be groping for something under the landing gear when Pitt stepped onto the pad.

    Sturgis looked up. "Any passengers?" he asked.

    "Not this trip."

    Sturgis nonchalantly flicked an ash from his cigarette holder. "I knew I should have stayed cuddled in my warm, cozy cabin on the Capricorn. " He sighed. "Flying in the face of hurricanes will be the death of me yet."

    "You'd better get going," Pitt said. "The wind will be on us any time now."

    "Makes no difference." Sturgis shrugged indifferently. "I'm not going anywhere."

    Pitt looked at him. "What do you mean by that?"

    "I've been had, that's what I mean." He gestured up at the rotor blades. The two-foot tip of one was hanging down like a limp wrist. "Somebody around here resents whirlybirds."

    "Did you strike a bulkhead on landing?"

    Sturgis put on a hurt expression. "I do not, repeat, do not strike objects upon landing." He found what he was searching for and straightened up. "Here, see for yourself; some son of a bitch tossed a hammer into my rotor blades."

    Pitt took the hammer and examined it. The rubber hand-grip showed a deep gash where it had come in contact with the blade.

    "And, after all I've done for you people," Sturgis said, "this is how you show your appreciation."

    "Sorry, Sturgis, but I suggest you forget any aspirations of ever becoming a television detective. You sadly lack an analytical mind, and you're prone to leap to false conclusions."

    "Get off it, Pitt. Hammers don't fly through the air without a means of propulsion. One of your people must have tossed it when I was landing."

    "Wrong. I can vouch for the whereabouts of every soul on board this ship, and no one was anywhere near the helicopter pad in the last ten minutes. Whoever your little destructive friend is I'm afraid you brought him with you."

    "Do you think I'm a dead-brain? Don't you think I'd know if I carried a passenger? Besides, now you're insinuating a suicidal act. If that hammer had been thrown one minute sooner, when we were a hundred feet in the air, you and your crew would have had an ugly mess to clean up."

    "Wrong nomenclature," Pitt said. "Not passenger, but stowaway. And, he's no dead-brain either. He waited until your wheels kissed the deck before he made his play and escaped through the cargo hatch. God only knows where he's hiding now. A thorough search of fifty miles of pitch dark passageways and compartments is impossible."

    Sturgis's face suddenly paled. "Christ, our intruder is still in the copter."

    "Don't be ridiculous. He beat it the instant you landed."

    "No, no. It's possible to throw a hammer out and up through an open cabin window into the rotor blades, but escape is something else again."

    "I'm listening," Pitt said quietly.

    "The cargo compartment hatch is electronically operated and can only be activated from a switch in the control cabin."

    "Is there another exit?"

    "Only a door to the control cabin."

    Pitt studied the sealed cargo hatch for a long moment, then turned back to Sturgis, his eyes cold. "Is this any way to treat an unexpected guest? I think the appropriate thing to do is for us to invite him into the fresh air."

    Sturgis became rooted to the deck as he spotted the Colt forty-five automatic, complete with silencer, that had suddenly materialized in Pitt's right hand.

    "Sure . . . sure. .  " he stammered. "If you say so."

    Sturgis clambered up the ladder to the control cabin, leaned in and pushed a switch. The electric motors made a whirring sound and the contoured seven-foot-by-seven-foot door rose open and upward over the helicopter's fuselage. Even before the locking pins clicked into position, Sturgis was back on the deck and standing warily behind Pitt's broad shoulders.

    Half a minute after the door had opened, Pitt was still standing there. He stood there for what Sturgis thought was a lifetime without moving a muscle, breathing slowly and evenly, and listening. The only sounds were the slap of the waves against the hull, the low whine of the steadily building wind over the Titanic's superstructure and the murmur of voices that carried through the gymnasium door, not the sounds he was tuned in for. When he was satisfied there were no sounds of feet scraping, rustling of clothing, or other tones relating to menace or stealth, he stepped into the helicopter.

    The darkened skies outside dimmed the interior and Pitt was uneasily aware that he was perfectly silhouetted against the dusk light. At first glance, the compartment seemed empty, but then Pitt felt a tapping on his shoulder and noted that Sturgis was pointing past him at a tarpaulin tucked around a humanlike shape.

    "I neatly folded and stowed that tarp not more than an hour ago," Sturgis whispered.

    Swiftly, Pitt reached down and dragged the tarpaulin away with his left hand while aiming the Colt as steadily as a park statue with his right.

    A figure enveloped in a heavy foul-weather jacket lay huddled on the cargo deck, the eyes loosely closed in a state of unconsciousness that was obviously related to the ugly, bleeding, and purplish bruise just above the hairline.

    Sturgis stood rooted in the shadows in shocked immobility, his widening eyes blinking rapidly, still adjusting to the diminishing light. Then he rubbed his chin lightly with his fingers and shook his head in disbelief. "Good lord," he muttered in awe. "Do you know who that is?"

    "I do," Pitt answered evenly. "Her name is Seagram, Dana Seagram."

58

    With appalling abruptness, the sky above the Mikhail Kurkov went pitch dark . . . great black clouds rolled overhead, obliterating the evening stars, and the wind returned and rose to a wailing gale of forty miles an hour, breaking the edges of the wave crests and carrying the foam in well-defined streaks toward the northeast.

    Inside the large wheelhouse of the Soviet ship it was warm and comfortable. Prevlov stood beside Parotkin, who was watching the Titanic's blip on radar.

    "When I took command of this ship," Parotkin said, as though lecturing a schoolboy, "I was under the impression my orders were to carry out research and surveillance programs. Nothing was said about conducting an out-and-out military operation."

    Prevlov held up a protesting hand. "Please, Captain, you forget the words military and operation are unmentionable. The little venture upon which we are about to embark is a perfectly legal civilian activity known in the western countries as a change in management."

    "Blatant piracy is closer to the truth," Parotkin said. "And what do you call those ten marines you so kindly added to my crew when we left port? Stockholders?"

    "Again, not marines, but rather civilian crewmen."

    "Of course," Parotkin said dryly. "And every one armed to the teeth."

    "There is no international law I know of that forbids ship crewmen the right to possess arms."

    "If one existed, you would no doubt discover an escape clause."

    "Come, come, my dear Captain Parotkin." Prevlov slapped him heartily on the back. "When this evening is played to the finale, we will both be heroes of the Soviet Union."

    "Or dead," Parotkin said woodenly.

    "Calm your fears. The plan is flawless, and with the storm which drove off the salvage fleet, it becomes even more so."

    "Aren't you overlooking the Juneau? Her captain will not stand idly by while we steam alongside the Titanic, board her and raise the hammer and sickle over her bridge."

    Prevlov held up his wrist and stared at his watch. "In exactly two hours and twenty minutes, one of our nuclear attack submarines will surface a hundred miles to the north and begin transmitting distress signals under the name of the Laguna Star, a tramp freighter of rather dubious registry."

    "And you think the Juneau will take the bait and dash to the rescue?"

    "Americans never reject an appeal for help," Prevlov said confidently. "They all have a Good Samaritan complex. Yes, the Juneau will respond. She has to; except for the tugs which cannot leave the Titanic, she is the only available ship within three hundred miles."

    "But if our submarine then submerges, nothing will show on the Juneau's radar screens."

    "Naturally, her officers will assume that the Laguna Star has sunk, and they will double their efforts to arrive in the nick of time to save the lives of a nonexistent crew."

    "I bow to your imagination." Parotkin smiled. "Yet that still leaves you with such problems as the two United States Navy tugs, boarding the Titanic during the worst hurricane in years, neutralizing the American salvage crew, and then towing the derelict back to Russia, all without creating an international uproar."

    "There are four parts to your statement, Captain." Prevlov paused to light a cigarette. "Number one, the tugboats will be eliminated by two Soviet operatives who are at this moment masquerading as members of the American salvage crew. Number two, I shall board the Titanic and assume its command when the eye of the hurricane reaches us. Since the wind velocities in this area seldom exceed fifteen knots, my men and I should have little difficulty in crossing over and entering through a hull loading door that will be conveniently opened on schedule by one of the operatives. Number three, my boarding party will then dispose of the salvage crew quickly and efficiently. And, finally, number four, it will be made to look to the world as though the Americans fled the ship at the height of the hurricane and were lost at sea. That, of course, makes the Titanic an abandoned derelict. The first captain who gets a towline on her is then entitled to the salvage rights. You are to be that lucky captain, Comrade Parotkin. Under international marine law, you will have every legal right to take the Titanic in tow."

    "You will never get away with it," Parotkin said. "What you're suggesting is outright mass murder." There was a vacant, sick look in his eyes. "Have you also considered the consequences of failure with the same dedication to detail?"

    Prevlov looked at him, the ever-present smile tightening. "Failure has been considered, Comrade. But let us fervently hope our final option will not be required." He pointed at the large blip on the radar screen. "It would be a pity to have to sink the world's most legendary ship a second time, and for all time."

59

    Deep in the bowels of the ancient ocean liner, Spencer and his pumping crew struggled to keep the diesel pumps going. Sometimes working alone in the cold, black caverns of steel, with nothing but the pitiful comfort of small spotlights, they uncomplainingly went about their business of keeping the ship afloat. It came as somewhat of a surprise to find that in some compartments the pumps were falling behind the incoming water.

    By seven o'clock the weather had deteriorated to the point of no return. The barometer slipped past 29.6 and was still falling steeply. The Titanic began to pitch and roll and take solid water over her bow and cargo deck bulwarks. Visibility under the shroud of night and the driving rain dropped to almost zero. The only sighting the men on the tugs had of the big ship came with an occasional bolt of lightning that vaguely silhouetted her ghostly outline. The main concern, however, was the cable that disappeared into the mad, swirling waters astern. The constant strain on this lifeline was enormous; every time the Titanic took the full onslaught from a wave of massive proportions, they watched in ominous fascination as the cable arched out of the water and creaked in agonized protest.

    Butera never moved from his bridge, keeping in constant contact with the men in the afterdeck cablehouse. Suddenly, a voice from the speaker crackled over the howl of the outside wind. "Captain?"

    "This is the Captain," he replied into a hand phone.

    "Ensign Kelly in the cablehouse, sir. Something mighty peculiar going on back here."

    "Would you care to explain, Ensign?"

    "Well, sir, the cable seems to have gone berserk. First she swung to port and now she's carried over to starboard at what I must say, sir, is an alarming angle."

    "Okay, keep me posted." Butera switched off and opened another channel.

    "Uphill, can you hear me? This is Butera."

    On the Morse Uphill answered almost immediately. "Go ahead."

    "I think the Titanic has sheered off to starboard."

    "Can you make out her position?"

    "Negative. The only indication is the angle of the cable."

    There came a silence of several moments as Uphill thrashed the new development over in his mind. Then he came back through the speaker "We're hardly making four knots as it is. We have no alternative but to push on. If we stop to see what she's up to, she may swing broadside into the sea and roll over."

    "Can you pick her up on your radar?"

    "No can do, a sea swept away our antennae twenty minutes ago. How about yours?"

    "Still have the antennae, but the same sea that took yours shorted, out my circuits."

    "Then it's a case of the blind leading the blind."

    Butera set the radio phone in its cradle and cautiously cracked the door leading to the starboard wing of the bridge. Shielding his eyes with his arm, he staggered outside and strained his eyes to penetrate the night gone crazy. The searchlights proved useless, their beams merely reflected the driving rain and revealed nothing. Lightning flashed astern, its thunder drowned out by the wind, and Butera's heart skipped a beat. The brief burst of backlighting failed to reveal any outline of the Titanic. It was as though she had never been. Water streaming down his oilskins, his breath coming in gasps, he pushed back past the door just as Ensign Kelly's voice rasped over the speaker again.

    "Captain?"

    Butera wiped the spray from his eyes and picked up the phone. "What is it, Kelly?"

    "The cable, it's slackened."

    "Is it a break?"

    "No, sir, the cable's still pain out, but it's settled several feet lower in the water. I've never seen one act like this before. It's as if the derelict took it in her mind to pass us."

    It was the words "pass us" that did it . . . and Butera would never forget the sudden shock of realization. A mental click triggered open a floodgate in his mind, released a nightmare of images in orderly sequence, images of a mad pendulum, its arc growing ever wider until it turned in on itself. The signs were there, the cable angled badly to starboard, the sudden slackness. He envisioned the whole scene in his mind the Titanic driven slightly ahead and parallel to the Wallace's starboard beam and now the pull from the cable snapping the derelict back in the manner of a line of school children playing Crack the Whip. Then something broke the nightmare inside Butera's head and released him from its numbing thrall.

    He grabbed the radio phone and rang the engine room in almost the same movement. "Ahead full speed! Do you hear me, engine room? Ahead full speed!" And then he called the Morse. "I'm coming at you full speed," he shouted. "Do you read me, Uphill?"

    "Please repeat," Uphill asked.