A Ravel of Waters

The yard-arm swept over the destroyer's side. I saw men on the bridge dive for cover as the anchor flailed at them. They weren't my target.

The anchor struck the warship's steel deck in a shower of sparks as she rose on a wave. It ricocheted high.

I shouted my orders as it struck the stay and snagged fast. 'Starboard! Two points! Hold her off!' There was a violent jerk. For a moment I thought the stay mast would hold, and the two ships, passing each other at a combined speed of nearly twenty knots, would be dragged together. They hung for an undecided millisecond, then the stay ripped loose. A few millions' worth of radar, radio antennae, and all the complex electronics of a modern warship were ripped out like a rotten tooth. A shower of debris scattered along the torpedo and depth-charge platform aft.

Jetwind was free. – The Almirante Storni fell astern, blind, helpless, emasculated.

The silence was broken by Paul's voice, stunned and hoarse with admiration. 'Now the shit will hit the fan!'

Jetwind drove clear of The Narrows, clear for Cape Pembroke and the open sea beyond, clear for Gough and the Cape.

Chapter 16

'Suspended First Officer Anton Grohman on grounds of…'

I stopped writing and stared at the ship's formal log. On grounds of… what? I looked round my cabin where the previous night we had held our council of war before Jetwind's break-out. It seemed light years away instead of a mere twelve hours. The illusion of night was still present, however, because of the storm – it was dark enough to need electric light. '… grounds of… dereliction of duty?'

Would any official inquiry consider that Grohman had failed in his duty by trying to stop his captain carrying out a crazy, outrageous action against a warship of a friendly power?

I scrapped the phrase and lit another cigarette. I wanted to get shot of the Grohman problem and return to Jetwind's bridge. In the insulated confines of the cabin I could not share in the splendid exhilaration of feeling the ship tear along at eighteen knots or hear the mad music of the mounting gale. Even the motion of the ship was damped, it seemed. Even I was surprised at how steady a platform the deck presented. Her mighty sail plan – I was carrying everything to royals – was holding the ship against the bursting wave crests just as spoilers and aerofoils hold down a Grand Prix racer against a track.

We were clear of the land mass of the Falklands now. With the forty-knot gale holding abaft her starboard beam – her best point of sailing – Jetwind seemed determined to show exactly what she was capable of. Blast Grohman!

I sat down and wrote quickly without pausing to weigh the words too judicially:

‘… on grounds of endangering the safety of the ship and the lives of the crew.'

Which, I thought ironically, had been exactly what Pd done. There was a peremptory knock at the cabin door. 'Come in!'

It was Grohman. I snapped the log book shut. I had already passed judgement on him. I scarcely wanted to hear his story.

His quick move across to my desk had something of a South American jaguar in it – lithe, muscular, sinister. I could almost imagine muscles rippling under his tight black polo-necked sweater. The collar did not reach high enough to mask the bruise and swelling on his jawbone where I had hit him.

'You're going ahead with this crazy business?' he blurted before I had time to speak.

'Listen,' I snapped. 'I don't consider I owe you any more explanations. As for an answer, take a look at Jetwind's course.' 'You are still in Malvinas' territorial waters.'

'I don't know what Malvinas means,' I retorted sarcastically. 'If you mean, I'm in Falklands' territorial waters, you've under-estimated the distance Jetwind has travelled. We're nearly a hundred and twenty miles east-northeast of Port Stanley at this moment. That's well outside anyone's territorial waters.'

'Malvinas' territorial waters have been proclaimed as two hundred nautical miles. The same applies to all Argentinian waters.'

'Listen, Grohman,' I said. 'The sooner you forget all this crap about your country's rights, the better for your seagoing career. It's already cost you your job as first officer of Jetwind. You're as full of hang-ups about it as a forty-year-old virgin is about sex.'

His eyes blazed. I was reminded again of a predator. He didn't seem to take in what I was saying about his shipboard position. 'You… you… have insulted my country's Navy. You have damaged one of our best ships. In Argentinian waters! You have broken international law. You have offended against my country's honour, most of all…'

'Cut it out!' I broke in. 'You talk like a character in a bloody Spanish soap opera. I'm on my way. Nothing you or your tin-pot Navy can do about it will stop me.'

'No?' He thrust his face at me. 'And who is the great Captain Rainier? My Navy will come after you…'