A Ravel of Waters

Grohman ordered the guard. 'Search him! I'll hold your gun while you do it!'

The two of them were as wary as if hunting leopards. The passing of weapons between them was so quick it was almost sleight-of-hand. There wasn't a chance of jumping either of them.

The man frisked Tideman; from a pocket he pulled out the slide-rule which concealed the lethal blade. He raised it inquiringly to Grohman.

Grohman said, 'It's for navigation. Put it back. It can't. hurt anyone.'

When the search was over, Grohman returned the gunman's automatic. Then he backed to the ship's intercom, keeping his own weapon levelled on us. Bitch-box, Brockton had called it. The recollection was like a stab to the heart.

'Grohman speaking,' he said. 'I have taken over command of Jetwind. I am now the captain. The ship is in the hands of Group Condor.' His voice rose. 'We are liberation fighters. The Falkland Islands – the Malvinas -have groaned under the British yoke for a hundred and fifty years. We, Group Condor, have come to liberate the oppressed populace. This is a great hour for my country. The capitalist-colonialist regime is about to end. The islands will be returned to my people. An Argentinian regime based on equality for all will be installed under my leadership. Argentinian justice will replace the colonial tyranny which has suppressed the people for so long. Las Malvinas son nuestras!'

'Is that why you shot a harmless American reporter?' I said derisively when he had finished at the instrument,

'Brockton was a spy!' he shouted. 'We caught him sending off a signal which would have wrecked our enterprise. That was his death warrant. He had to die!'

'Enterprise? That's a goddam funny word for murder and piracy’,

Grohman shrugged and went on in his hectoring tone. 'When Argentina freed itself from the colonial rule of Spain, the thieving British saw their opportunity in the upheaval which followed and stole the Malvinas from us. One American life is nothing beside that.'

'How can you and four gunmen hope to seize such a spread-out group of islands?' I asked. 'You might perhaps get away with it for a while in a little place like Port Stanley. Also, think of the international stink you'll create…'

Grohman seemed amused. 'You'll see, in a few days' time.'

'It will take more than a few days for Jetwind to beat back to the Falklands into this gale,' I replied. 'A few weeks, more likely.'

Perhaps Tideman felt that his continued silence was playing the situation a little too dumb.

He said, 'I'll back that up, as a sailor.' The emphasis was on sailor.

'Shut up, both of you!' retorted Grohman. 'Don't argue with me. I'm in command, and what I say goes. You are the enemies of Las Malvinas. Consider yourselves lucky that I do not shoot you out of hand. But I will let you live -provided you behave – for a few days. 'Until we reach Molot.'

Chapter 23

Molot was the riddle which bugged our long day in captivity in the ship's sick-bay. The ‘hospital' was situated underneath the port wing of the bridge – in exactly the same position but on the opposite side of my captain's suite. It had two curtained-off cubicles and a minute double 'ward' containing two surgical beds. A glass partition separated the sick-bay itself from an outer reception office, designed for a medical orderly. The sickbay did not seem to have had much use except as a junk room for ship's odds and ends. One of these was a survival suit stored on a hanger which, Tideman explained, was used in icy seas for inspection of Jetwind3 s drop keels.

'Molot?' I asked Tideman for the hundredth time. 'Where the hell is Molot?'

'It must be the base from which the attack on the Falklands will be launched,' he replied. 'That's about all I can guess.'

'But Grohman is heading away from the Falklands,' I pointed out. 'He's kept Jetwind going like a bomb all day. Away from his objective. There is no land – whatsoever -between the Falklands and Gough Island.'

'Perhaps Molot is a place we know by a different name -like Malvinas,' suggested Tideman. 'Even then, I don't get it. Grohman is holding Jetwind on the course you selected for Gough.' 'He's not doing it too badly either.'

'There's nothing wrong with his sailoring,' replied Tideman. 'He's sailing by computer. Maybe we could get an extra knot or two out of her manually.'

'The only possibility of land is the South Sandwich group,' I went on. 'But they're far to the south of our present course.'

'South Sandwich it might be,' said Tideman. 'But that doesn't mean much. Most of the islands are volcanic. They're all coated with ice being so near Antarctica. I've heard that the only way to land is by helicopter. They would be totally unsuitable as a base. What if Molot is another name for Gough?'

'No, John. Gough is a South African weather station. It's important – it's the only weather station in the central part of the Southern Ocean. Group Condor couldn't take it over without provoking a massive retaliation.'