Текст книги "Noah's Ark: Encounters"

Автор книги: Harry Dayle

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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

“The infra-red detectors we have are state-of-the-art. I’m telling you, there are only sixteen people on that ship, and they’re all in the central section: on the bridge and the upper decks. I can see them as clearly as I can see Jason’s ears sticking out. The boys aren’t at risk.”

“We can hear you!” a very muffled voice said. “And don’t worry, Jake. We have total faith in Ralf.”

Jake wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead. He could see them his mind’s eye, Ewan and Brian, kitted out in their diving gear, cramming themselves into the tiny airlock at the base of the conning tower. As he imagined it filling slowly with cold seawater he felt very glad indeed that he had rejected his father’s insistence that he join the navy. “It’ll be good for you!” he’d said repeatedly. “Character building!” Jake felt that his character had been more than adequately reinforced by the events of the last couple of months. He had nothing but respect for the crew of the Ambush, but he harboured no regrets at not having taken the same path.

Someone put a cup of hot coffee down beside him. He turned to see Lucya’s smiling face. “Courtesy of Claude,” she said. “He sent up coffees for all of us. Said they had some left over.”

“I don’t believe that,” Jake said. “Claude is far too efficient. He must want something.” He took a sip of the gloopy brown liquid.

“We’re out,” Ewan announced. “I’m going to collect the DPV.”

“Firing now,” Ralf said.

“Didn’t hear a thing,” Jake remarked.

“We have good soundproofing. Don’t want the enemy hearing Coote’s singing while we’re trying to sneak up on them.”

Lucya whispered in Jake’s ear, “What’s a DPV?”

“Diver Propulsion Vehicle. It’s like an underwater scooter. They fire it out of the torpedo tube and the boys swim round and get it.”

“You mean they’re not swimming to the Lance.”

“No, it’s too far. You’d know this, if you’d stayed on for the rest of the briefing!”

“Someone had to go and fetch lunch!”

Jake began to pace up and down in front of the windows. He knew the submariners were professionals, doing the job they were trained to do, but Ewan was a good friend. He’d already seen two professionals injured; he had no desire to see it happen again.

“We have the DPV. We’re heading out.”

“I hope the Lance isn’t picking up their radio messages,” Jake said, wringing his hands.

“Relax, man.” Ralf sounded as cool as could be. “You’ve seen their mast; that thing was obliterated by the ash cloud. And even if they have a portable radio on board, all our comms are encrypted.”

“They’ll still know we’re talking.”

“Don’t you worry. Any of those dudes move, I’ll see it on the I.R.”

Jake did worry. But he didn’t argue.

There was radio silence for a full five minutes as the divers covered the distance to the Lance. Jake scanned the sea between the ships. He didn’t know what he was looking for. Perhaps a tell-tale line of bubbles, or a shadow moving through the water. Nothing gave away the fact two men were closing in on the hostile research ship though, and the lack of any visual clues gave him some confidence. He eventually returned to his chair, and waited for news from the men.

• • •

Cabin 974 was a mess. It was also devoid of Mr and Mrs Heyton. Clothes were strewn across the floor, from the wardrobe to the main door. The bed hadn’t been made, and the tiny corner shower room looked like it hadn’t been cleaned once since housekeeping services had been halted and everyone was expected to look after their own rooms. Soap stains caked the door of the shower cubicle, and dried toothpaste crawled across the sink like the mucus trail of a snail. The lid of the toilet was up, and whoever had last used it hadn’t flushed. Grace wrinkled her nose, backed out, and shut the door.

She took another look around the rest of the cabin. It reminded her of the room she had shared at the police academy, before she’d got tough with Alice, her roommate. The girl had led a privileged life. Her rich parents had a ‘woman who did’ for them, and that included cleaning Alice’s room twice a day. Apparently she thought that Grace would continue this service in their shared accommodation. Grace had other ideas. She had tried to keep her half of the room ship-shape, but Alice’s mess had spilled over into it, in some cases quite literally. The problem escalated, with each girl becoming more manically tidy and messy respectively. It all culminated in a huge row, some half-hearted violence, and ultimately, fits of giggles. The strange incident made best friends of the girls, and from their newfound mutual respect for one another came a moderately clean and tidy room. The memory moved Grace almost to tears as she surveyed the half-open drawers, the pillows on the floor, and the wet towels casually discarded in the middle of the bed where they had made the sheets smell. Alice was dead. Everyone from the academy was dead. Everyone she knew was dead. Grace felt her legs give way underneath her, and she sank to the edge of the bed, her face falling into her hands, and the tears flowing freely.

Thirteen

HE WAS WEAK now. Weaker even than before. His newfound intentions – to eat what he was given and to be alert and ready for any chance that presented itself – had come too late. Since the last encounter with his captor, no more food had been provided. Nobody had been down to see him, or any of the others. He felt guilty. Was that his fault? Was it punishment for throwing up on the silhouette-man? If that was the case, the others were being punished for his crime. Hardly fair. Then again, nothing about the situation was fair.

He could feel the world slipping away from him. Consciousness had eluded him more than once since the last meal, and in spite of his best efforts he knew that it was soon going to be gone again. Maybe this time it would never return. He could feel himself beginning to go, falling…falling.

A tiny clanging sound arrested his descent into the abyss. His mind was suddenly quite alert. He popped open his eyes, although there was nothing to see in the darkness. No light spilled from the bulkhead; it remained resolutely sealed. It must have been one of the others who had made the noise. He wasn’t convinced about the idea. Something about it didn’t sit right with him, though his mind wasn’t clear enough to know what. Perhaps, he thought, he had dreamt the sound. It wouldn’t be the first time. On many occasions he had woken his wife when he lashed out in bed, certain that there was someone else in the room, or that some terrible catastrophe had occurred.

No, he couldn’t have dreamt the noise, he decided. The sounds that interrupted his sleep were always louder, more imposing. Scarier.

The sound came again. This time it was closer. Much closer. This time, he knew what was wrong with the noise.

It had come from outside.

This was curious for two reasons. The first was that in the days or weeks he had been down there (he wasn’t sure how long it had actually been), there had never been any noise from outside the ship. The second, and more intriguing reason, was that because they were in the very bowels of the vessel, below the waterline, it meant the sound had come from under the sea.

There was something, or someone, out there.

His brain fought off the effects of the dark, the lack of nutrition, the foul oxygen-starved air, and the fatigue. Think, he told himself. Do something! He had been waiting for his chance. Perhaps this was it.

His hands were tied behind his back, secured to the hull, and he was seated on the floor. It was a position that meant he posed no threat to his captors, but it did mean he could touch the skin of the ship with his hands. He clenched his fingers tight together, and rapped the knuckles of his left fist against the cold metal. He could feel old paint flake away under the vibrations, but the hull was thick. His best effort wasn’t good enough. Not even close. Almost no sound was made, and his fingers quickly became sore.

He needed a tool, something metallic. His hands searched the few inches of floor between the base of his spine and the rib of the hull against which he was tied, but they found nothing.

Think.

Time was running out. If someone was out there – an idea which seemed more absurd the longer he thought about it – then he had to get their attention quickly. He shifted his weight on his buttocks, trying to shuffle sideways. The ropes which bound him allowed for little lateral movement. Miraculously, the inch or two he was able to slide was enough. His fingers, still sweeping the floor, found something rusty, curved, chunky. They scampered over it, and tried to lift it. The item was a chain. A rusty, discarded, long-forgotten-about chain. Grabbing it tightly, he turned his hand and flicked the object away from him. It connected with the steel hull as a hammer connects with a bell, and the effect was the same. The clanging sound rang out throughout the dungeon-like space. He hit it again, and again. Three long, loud, deep dongs. The last one resonated for several seconds before eventually dying away.

The silence enveloped him again. He waited, not daring to breathe in case he missed any kind of response.

He needn’t have worried. The reply, when it came, was unequivocal. Three loud and deliberate strikes against the side of the ship.

His pulse quickened. He could hear the blood pumping in his ears.

There’s someone there.

It didn’t make sense, but now was not the time to question how it was possible. Now was the time to take action, to get help, to save himself, and his wife, and the others.

With the chain firmly in hand, he rapped it against the hull three times in quick succession. Then three more times, with a pause between each. Three more times, again in quick succession. Morse code, he told himself. Please let them understand Morse code.

Dot-dot-dot…dash-dash-dash…dot-dot-dot.

S.O.S.

Save Our Souls.

The response was not immediate, it took thirty seconds, but it came.

Dash-dash-dash…Dash-dot-dash.

O.K.

OK! They understand!

There was more.

Dot-dash-dash…Dot-dot-dot-dot…Dash-dash-dash…Dot-dash-dot…Dot-dot-dash.

W.H.O.R.U.

Whoru? I don’t understand. Doesn’t make sense! Think….

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

No, not whoru….Who R U? Text-speak morse code!

He tapped out the response. One word.

C.A.P.T.A.I.N.

Fourteen

“I DON’T GET it,” Lucya said. She was back at her communications console, listening – as they all were – to the unexpected events unfold. “Ralf said everyone was on the upper decks. How can there be someone below the waterline?”

“Are you suggesting Ralf can’t read his own equipment?” Ralf said, his voice crackling through the ceiling speakers again.

Lucya blushed. “No, that’s not what I meant. Doesn’t your infrared thing work below the water?”

“Yes. Well, normally yes.”

“It’s not the water,” Jake said. He was at the window again, keeping a close eye on the Lance, checking for any sign of movement. Ewan had taken care to attach the tracking devices to her hull as quietly as possible, but the Morse code messages he had been hammering into the research ship had sounded deafening when relayed through the P.A. system. If the actual sound in situ was anywhere near as loud, he was worried it would alert whoever was in those upper decks. “It’s not the water stopping the I.R. from working. It’s the hull. It must be strengthened for breaking ice. She’s a polar research vessel, so that hull must be massively thick.”

There was a pause before Ralf replied. “You’re right. Shit. I’m so sorry. I should have thought of that, taken it into account.”

“Don’t worry, Ralf.” This time it was Ewan’s voice that filled the room. “This will give us ammunition to rib you with for weeks to come. We’re almost back. E.T.A. thirty seconds.”

Jake sighed with relief.

Lucya left her console and came to stand beside him. “Why are you so stressed about this? It was a low-risk operation.”

He scratched the back of his neck, and looked around to make sure nobody else was listening. He knew that if he spoke quietly enough, the open microphones wouldn’t capture his words. “You remember those symbols? The ones we found on two of the rafts?”

“You know what they mean, don’t you?”

“Yes. ‘Traitor scum’. That’s what they say. In Korean. The rafts probably came from the Lance. I had a bad feeling about that ship, and not just because they started shooting at us. And now it looks like the captain of the Lance is being held prisoner down below. It’s obvious what’s going on there now, isn’t it?”

“Is it?” She looked up at him, her deep brown eyes scanning his, as if trying to read a message hidden within.

“Mutiny. There’s been a mutiny, hasn’t there? And those who don’t support it are being thrown overboard, decapitated.”

Lucya frowned. “Why is the message in Koran? That ship is Norwegian.”

“It’s a science vessel. The crews on those things are multinational. Could well be a bunch of Koreans decided to mutiny because they want to go home. International crew, all pulling in different directions? It’s not going to stay peaceful for long.”

“When the boys are safely back, we’re going to have to get the committee together again. You have to tell them about this, about the message.”

“I know.”

• • •

When yet another emergency committee meeting was over, Jake made his way down to the medical suite. He found Carrie, the nurse, in the outer room. She was fielding visits, acting as triage nurse, sorting out whose ailments were serious and who could wait. The door to the inner treatment room was firmly closed, with a notice stuck to it reading Do Not Enter. She smiled at Jake when he walked in.

“You can go in. Russell won’t mind as it’s you.”

Coote was still laid out, but was not covered up and looked like any other patient convalescing after surgery. He was wired up to a number of machines, and plastic tubes were connected to him from several angles.

“The drips are to help his body replace the blood he lost,” Vardy said, getting up from a chair to greet Jake. “Also to keep him under. It should speed his recovery.”

Jake nodded.

“What news then? Do we know why they shot him?”

“I suspect mutiny,” Jake said, and laid out his theory.

“Jake, I know you were almost killed during a mutinous incident on this ship, and I understand that must have left scars that no doctor can heal, but not every violent or difficult situation can be explained by mutiny. There could be other possibilities.” Vardy set about changing a drip, glancing up at Jake every now and then as they talked.

“We’ll find out soon enough. The committee just met. We’re going in. By which I mean your lot are going in.”

“They’re going to try and take the Lance?”

“Yes. Tonight, under cover of darkness. The S.O.S. message could be a trap, could even be totally innocent, but given the welcome we got this morning, I think we have grounds enough to force entry now. We’ll need you on standby in case there are injuries, and to check over the captain. Ewan says there are more being held prisoner, but didn’t establish precisely how many.”

“Was this a unanimous decision?”

“Of course not. Martin is now of the view that it’s not our problem, just another distraction. His is the only dissenting voice this time.”

The doctor finished changing the plastic bag and released a catch, sending more fluids into the unconscious submarine captain. “I’ll organise the nurses. We’ll be ready. But we don’t have any space. We need somewhere to receive these prisoners, if they exist.”

“I’ll talk to Silvia. We’ll sort something out for you.”

• • •

It was her second stakeout in two days. This time Grace Garet was in the Pytheas restaurant. It was a great relief to have found that the Heytons were not assigned to the Colaeus. The head of the much smaller Pytheas, Mr Jade, was a far more agreeable young man who had a healthy respect for the authority of the security team. He had been more than happy not only to show her the ration records for the previous week, but also to help her go through them and find the page she needed.

As she suspected, the records showed that the Heytons had been in and claimed every meal owed to them since they apparently disappeared. Just like the Morans.

When she suggested her plan to check all ration cards during evening service, he had been positively brimming with enthusiasm for the idea. So much so, that Grace began to wonder if he wasn’t perhaps a little taken with her.

She encountered no resistance from the security officer assigned to the restaurant because she had already run her plan by Max. He hadn’t been keen until she pointed out that her shift would be over by the time she was in the restaurant, so she was effectively putting in overtime. He couldn’t really argue with that. In his view, putting more security into a restaurant wasn’t a bad thing, and if one of those officers was going voluntarily and in her own time, so much the better.

And so, once again, Grace found herself politely but firmly asking to see every ration card as the queue moved slowly in front of her.

It took her exactly twenty-three minutes to find her. Mrs Heyton, a severe-looking woman whose grey hair hung at the sides of her face like iron curtains, presented her ration voucher without question or expression.

“Mrs Heyton?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re collecting your husband’s meal as well, are you?”

“That’s why I gave you two vouchers, yes.”

“Do you have any formal identification with you, Mrs Heyton?”

The woman’s expression changed for the first time during the encounter. Her eyes shifted from side to side almost imperceptibly, as if she was wary that someone was watching her. Grace noticed the nearly invisible cue. It was exactly what she’d been hoping for. Suspicion was aroused. Something was up, she just had to find out what.

“I’m sorry,” Mrs Heyton said, “I’m not in the habit of carrying a passport with me. Why would I? Are we expecting an influx of immigration inspectors?”

“What about a driver’s licence?”

“Don’t be absurd. May I collect my meal now?”

Grace glared at her. She couldn’t force her to prove her identity, but at the same time, something was clearly bothering Mrs Heyton, and Grace desperately wanted to know what it was. “How do I know you are who you say you are? That you are the person named on this ration voucher?”

The woman’s eyes narrowed and she fixed Grace with a stare that made the security officer feel like she was a ten-year-old back at school. “That, young lady, is your problem, not mine. If the committee wants people to be able to prove their identity, they’d better issue identity cards and mandate that they are to be carried at all times.”

“Okay, you’re right. Thank you for your cooperation, ma’am. Enjoy your meal, and have a nice day.” She held out the vouchers and they were snatched from her hand.

Grace remained in the queue for another few minutes. She didn’t want to arouse the suspicion of Mrs Heyton by stopping her spot checks immediately. Instead, she waited until there was a natural lull, nobody else waiting in line. She then ducked out of the restaurant and took up position crouched behind a wide display of miniature palm trees opposite the sweeping entrance. From there, she was sure to be able to spot her target as she left with her trays of food.

“’Scuse me, love. Need to get in there.” The voice belonged to a beefy-looking man in his fifties. He had almost no hair, and a neck that was as wide as his head. He wore green trousers and a grey t-shirt smeared with sweat and soil. “I’m digging’ out them trees.”

Grace waved her hands at him, but he ignored her completely. “I quite like ’em to be honest with you. S’gonna be a bit dull round ’ere once all them plants ’ave gone. Need the soil though, see? For the farm.”

Between the fronds of an almost luminous green shrub, she spied the unmistakable hair of Mrs Heyton, who glanced briefly at the gardener, frowned, then turned right and headed towards a bank of lifts.

Grace stood, pushed the man – still talking – to the side, and followed.

Fifteen

SITTING IN THE situation room, Jake was transported back to the time two teams from HMS Ambush had mounted the operation to retake the Spirit of Arcadia from the clutches of Flynn Bakeman and his group of so-called disciples. Back then, he had monitored proceedings from the cramped control room of the submarine.

This time the setup felt more elaborate, and that meant a greater sense of being disconnected from what was about to happen just a kilometre away. Whether or not that was a good thing was something that could be argued extensively, if anyone had the time.

They didn’t.

It was four in the morning. The dead hour, they had called it. The theory was simple enough. At such an early hour, the human body was programmed to be at its least active. It was late, even for those who enjoyed a late night, and it was earlier than most early risers were used to. At 4am, almost everyone was asleep.

They didn’t expect the crew of the Lance to be asleep, not all of them. But in the dead hour, they would be less reactive; off their guard and off their game. The submariners on the other hand, worked in twenty-four-hour shifts, rarely saw daylight, and were therefore immune to the demands of their body clocks.

There were other advantages to launching an attack before dawn. The darkness offered extra cover, for one. And for another, most of the community aboard the Arcadia was tucked up in bed, soundly asleep and blissfully oblivious to the dangerous operation that was now underway.

There had been debate about whether or not to make the plan public. Very few thought it was a good idea. They weren’t organising a spectacle, but that was what it would become.

Jake looked at the big screens mounted on the wall. By day, this television lounge showed DVDs on a loop, and was mostly used by retired folk who had little else to do with their time except reminisce. They would have been shocked by the images now being shown. The middle screen carried a live feed from a shoulder-mounted waterproof high-definition camera, attached to Able Seaman Brian Thomas, who was leading the team. Its encrypted signal was sent to the communications room on the submarine, unscrambled, and relayed up to the makeshift operations room for the benefit of the committee members who were to witness the operation first hand. It was one of the conditions that had been agreed upon when they had voted whether or not to take military intervention.

The left-hand screen showed a digitally enhanced shot of the Lance, beamed directly from HMS Ambush’s photonics mast. The ship was lit up like a football stadium, with floodlights illuminating every inch of her as clear as day. More lights shone outwards, creating a halo of light on the sea around her. A surface attack would stand little chance of success. Fortunately, a surface attack wasn’t on the cards.

The right-hand screen showed another image of the Lance, this one even closer in. It was the thermal scan from the infrared mast. Again, Ralf’s equipment had greatly enhanced the picture, and even a layman like Jake could see the bright red patches that were people inside the ship. Most were in the middle section. Three on the bridge, two more on the deck below, and then others scattered throughout the other decks. More red blotches stood guard around the perimeter of the vessel. Jake was very conscious of the fact that there were still no signs of life shown within the hull itself. He didn’t doubt that someone had been there, banging out Morse code to the divers, but were they still there? And more worryingly, were there more people in there? They’d counted sixteen people on the I.R. scan. The submariners were confident that their team of fifteen could easily take them all; they had the element of surprise, and they were well trained for exactly this kind of thing. But if there were more, hidden out of reach of their scanners…

“Fifty metres.”

The clipped report cut through Jake’s thoughts, bringing him back to the moment. He focussed on the middle screen. Brian’s camera showed little more than a haze of tiny swirling bubbles in a sea so dark as to be almost black. He sped through the water on his DPV, closing in on the Lance with the rest of the team just behind.

“Still no activity at the afterends,” Ralf said, his calm voice helping ease the tension in the room.

The image changed. Brian was slowing, and up ahead, Jake could see the shadow of the Lance’s hull, a cut-out in the surrounding light. The ship was still moving. They were all moving, keeping their distance, circling each other like two tigers poised to pounce. The shadow grew bigger until it engulfed the entire screen.

Two more divers appeared in the shot. They moved towards the spinning propeller, then when they were in place, joined their thumbs and index fingers together, making the sign for “Okay”.

Brian also moved forwards until he was touching the back of the ship, a little to the left of the churning and dangerous propeller. His DPV was nowhere to be seen, but Jake knew it was following along by itself, programmed to remain at a fixed depth and distance from the Lance.

Quite without warning the image suddenly became very clear, as the camera came up out of the water. Jake looked to the left-hand monitor. He could just make out Brian, and some of the others, scaling the sheer stern of the ship.

“Bloody hell.” He broke the silence in the room. “I was sceptical of those suction cups working, but look at them go!”

Martin smiled smugly. “We use something similar for getting under the Arcadia for checks and repairs. I had total confidence.”

“You never said, when we were going over the plan.”

“I was enjoying watching you squirm.”

“Shh!” Amanda Jackson hushed them. She sat on the edge of her seat leaning forwards, studying the screens. “One of those bad guys is getting too damn close.”

Ralf had seen it too, because his voice once again broke through the speaker, as calm as before. “Be advised: OD headed afterends.”

There was a muffled booming sound as Brian tapped his microphone with a finger, indicating he had received the message. All the divers paused, stuck to the stern of the Lance like flies on a window. The red blot changed direction, moving towards the bows again.

“Clear,” Ralf chirped.

The men were on the move instantly, and within seconds Brian was climbing over the lip of the hull and onto the deck. The others were right behind. The thermal image showed six new red spots on at the rear of the ship, but these spots were different. On top of each was superimposed a green blinking dot.

“We see six aboard. Transponders operational,” Ralf reported.

Two of the green dots started climbing up the gantry that supported the helipad.

“Blue Team: Red Team is in place. Proceed with caution.”

The screens didn’t give any indication as to what was happening, but Jake knew the plan by heart. It had been covered in detail, refined and honed. When he’d tried to sleep, early in the evening, in preparation for this moment, he had turned it over again and again in his head. Right now, two divers were feeding thick rope into the Lance’s propeller, choking it up completely. The engine would protest as it tried to spin the shaft without success. Jake hadn’t been on any kind of scientific vessel before, but he knew ships, and he knew that right about now, a series of warning lights and alarms would be going off in the engine room and on the bridge.

Movement on the thermal image caught his attention. Then, through Brian’s open microphone, he heard shouting in a language he didn’t recognise. Someone on the bridge was barking orders at the men down on the deck.

Just as they had planned it.

Two red blobs sprinted to the rear of the Lance, sent to look overboard and see what was fouling the propeller. They were met by members of the Red Team armed with Taser X3s they had extracted from waterproof equipment pouches. On the middle screen Jake saw the scuffle, and he heard the crackle of electricity as fifty thousand volts were blasted into the necks of the enemy men, who crumpled to the ground almost silently.

“Two down. Both targets Asian in appearance, and in uniform. Both armed. If these men are polar scientists, I’m a fried-egg salesman—” Brian whispered into his microphone. He was interrupted by the sound of someone shouting. They were swiftly cut off with another blast of electricity. “Make that three. You didn’t tell us about that one.”

“Didn’t have eyes on. Must have come from the dark side,” Ralf said, with no hint of remorse or emotion in his voice.

With the immediate rear guard taken care of, the divers began to work their way forwards, edging along the deck. Two of them took the far side, out of sight of the Ambush’s sensor array. Brian stayed on the starboard side, relying on Ralf’s aid. At the same time, the second wave of divers, Blue Team, began to haul themselves out of the water and onto the ship. They took the same route, climbing the stern, out of sight of the bridge and any remaining lookout.

“Red One: OD ten metres ahead of you, another ten metres after. That’s all I see.”

There was no confirming tap on the microphone; Brian was too busy concentrating on his task. He had his back against the wall. The lifeboat suspended over his head meant he was in shadow. A set of steps leading up to the bridge partially blocked the line of sight. It was a good place for an ambush. He pushed himself as far back as he could, then let out a whistle. Jake watched as the image on the left-hand screen zoomed in closer. With the lights glaring out from the Lance it was difficult to see much, but he caught a movement to the right of Brian. The thermal image confirmed that one of the lookouts was moving towards him.

“Red One: OD headed your way.”

As the guard rounded the steps, Brian’s hand shot out and grabbed him, pulling him into the darkness. He was dispatched with a dose of current, and folded away beneath the stairway.

The last guard made no move to follow. Brian tried whistling again, but he must not have been heard over the noise of the engine straining to overcome the bindings around the propeller. Very slowly, he edged out of his hiding place and crabbed along the deck, keeping his back to the wall.