Redcap (33 page)

Looking out at the water, James said: “We shan’t be able to come back this way again, even if we want to.”

They drove into the small township of Nurralee and made for the police station.

They found the constable in his shirt sleeves drinking a quick cup of tea in a warm room, snatching a moment between spells of duty in connexion with the mess made by the floods and the gale. James’s first words, to say nothing of Shaw’s appearance, snapped him right out of that brief rest period. After that, James gave him the full story. But when the naval man had finished, Bob Peters, the constable, stuck his thumbs into his braces and shook his head ponderously.

He said, “You won’t get any messages out of Nurralee, not for a while yet, Captain. All the telegraph wires are down and we’re flooded right up from here inland—all the roads ’cep’ the one down to the Prom, they’re impassable, and you say that’s flooding now.” He frowned. “I hate to say it, but I reckon you’ll have to stay around a while.”

“We can’t do that.” James paced the room. “How long d’you think it’ll be?”

Peters shrugged. “Dunno. Could be a good few days, maybe longer.”

James snapped, “That’s a fat lot of good! Look, we’ve got to get word through—or get there ourselves. Don’t you see the urgency?”

“Course I do, but I’m only the constable. Urgent or not, makes no difference. It’s just not possible and that’s all about it. Most of this corner of Gippsland, it’s cut right off.”

Shaw asked, “Isn’t there any wireless station?”

The constable shook his head. “The position’s just like I said. If I could help, I would, you know that.” He looked up suddenly, smacked a fist into his palm. He said, “There’s just one way. Go by sea.”

“By sea! . . ." James gave a snort. “You seen what it’s like, out there?”

“I only made the suggestion, that’s all—” Peters broke off as his wife came in. He nodded towards Shaw, said: “Look, the wife, she’ll fix him up.” Shaw was shivering even though he was standing in front of a fire. Mrs Peters, clicking her tongue in concern as she saw his torn face, took charge of Shaw and said something about a nice hot bath and some food. Shaw was grateful; he was feeling hot and cold by turns now, weak and feverish. He knew he had to keep going for some time yet, and he was determined not to give in. The sensible thing to do would be to let Mrs Peters have her way and meanwhile leave things to James, though he didn’t see what the Australian could achieve. Facts were facts, and the constable must be given the credit for knowing his own territory . . . but there had to be some way. . . .

His mind was busy while he bathed and got dressed again quickly, but it was no good. They would never be able to get a car through the floods, that was certain. When he’d finished dressing and had had another tot of rum, he came back into the room and found James and Bob Peters still talking about the possibility of making Sydney by sea.

James looked round as Shaw came in. He said, “Look, constable here’s been telling me, there’s a boat down in Barralong Cove, that’s way to the south of Foster Beach, if we can make it.”

“That’s right,” Peters said. “Belongs to a man in Bendigo,

Peters shook his head. “She had, an’ I thought of that before but it went crook on ’er, last time the boat was taken out. Stripped right down now, she is.”

Shaw groaned. Every damn thing, he thought bitterly, was against them. He asked, “Well, what about fuel?”

“She’s always kept topped right up, an’ there’s a reserve dump near the boathouse.”

“Any idea of her range?”

“No, but I reckon it’s pretty big. This bloke, ’e takes ’er out for week-ends along the coast, went right down to St Mary’s in Tasmania one time on the main tanks alone. An’ there’s any God’s amount of cans you could fill to help out. An’ I’ll be here to pass a message on to Sydney when I can —just in case you don’t make it.”

“Uh-huh. . . Shaw glanced across at James. “It’s a shaky do, sir, but it’s worth a shot, I think. We couldn’t average anything like forty-five in that sea and we’d need a hell of a lot of luck to get there at all, but it’s all we can do.”

“Reckon you’re right. We might be able to enter a port up the coast and send a message when we hit a place where the lines aren’t down.”

Shaw nodded. “We might, but that’d be a risk in itself. If we piled up trying to enter in this weather, the message would never get through. We can try it if we have to, but I’m aiming for Sydney direct. I’ve got to get aboard and dismantle that charge.”

“But—why you, for Chrissake? That’s a job for an explosives expert!”

“Which I am—I’ve kept up to date on that. Anyhow, we can’t contact anyone else—and I’m going aboard if we can overtake her in time. If we can make a port and send a message as well, so much the better. But after that I’m heading for the
New South Wales
. It’s my job to do it if I can.”

James said quietly, “Well, good on you, Commander. But —she’s due to pick up the pilot at noon to-morrow, remember.” He glanced at his watch. “That’s just . . . eighteen hours from now, and the explosion due in nineteen hours. Well? Think you can close the gap in time, and in weather like this?”

“I’ll try, sir. If Lubin could take that thing of his to sea and last as long as he did, I’ll take a chance on an M.T.B.”

James reached out and clapped Shaw hard on the shoulder, his brown wizened face eager but anxious. He said, “I’m coming with you. I’m pretty handy in an engine-room!”

Mrs Peters looked in just then to say that there was a hot meal ready, and James insisted that Shaw sat down and ate.

He said that ten minutes spent in getting something hot under his belt now would pay dividends later on.

It was about ninety minutes later that Shaw, with every spare corner crammed with cans of engine fuel, took that ex-M.T.B. out through the Franklin Channel. As he came right out into the open and turned before the wind, an enormous sea took the craft fair and square on her beam, dropping aboard with smashing force. The boat lurched, Shaw fought her round, hauling and straining, noticed the drunken angle of the signal lamp before the glass screen of the wheelhouse.

Cursing, he reached out and flicked a switch. Nothing happened. The lamp was useless. A moment later, as another big sea hit, the lamp went altogether. So that was that. He’d hoped he might be able to signal any ships he met en route. Now, everything depended on whether he could keep the boat afloat for long enough to make a port or overhaul the liner. He knew it was going to be a pretty close thing; he had more speed—if he could use it—than the
New South Wales
, but she had a very good start on him. He steered north-easterly for Cape Howe, where he would turn on to the rather easier northerly course which would take him direct for Sydney. The conditions were pure hell in the small wheelhouse and Shaw knew that it must be far worse for Captain James in the engine space, where the Australian officer was being assisted by a couple of his security men. The boat rocked and dipped and jumped, lifted and fell bodily, bumping very badly at times with an agonizing, gut-tearing movement; but she weathered it all right.

It was hopeless trying to run her up to any high speed, but Shaw hoped that once he cleared Cape Howe and brought the wind and sea farther aft, he would be able to smack her up quite a lot.

With any luck he would do it just about in time; and if that prospect should appear to dim as time went on, there was always the chance of a port along the track. His mind roved over the possibilities. Eden, the Tuross River, Jervis Bay . . . he’d get James’s advice on that. But it would have to be navigationally safe before he dare take the risk of running in.

Away ahead of Shaw the
New South Wales
forged on through the gathering night and the storm, her navigation lights burning brightly in the murk, red and green and white. Her lighted decks and ports and lounges passed over the water in a blaze of electricity; to ships coming down from Sydney and passing her—and so uselessly passing Shaw in the for he could not contact them—she seemed like a huge fairyland, a teeming city in the black night. Along her decks the wind roared and howled and whined; but, that last night of the long voyage, few of her passengers were walking the decks to hear or feel it, to be disturbed by weather-doors banging in the gale, or the
frap-frap
of the canvas covers slatting on the lifeboats.

They were mostly below in their cabins, finishing the last little bits of packing; their thoughts were winging ahead to Sydney, thoughts which were no longer ship-bound but which were, in some cases, of a home-coming, of family and friends who would be waiting at the berth at Pyrmont to-morrow; in other cases, thoughts of a new and probably lonely life in a strange land, of some fear and apprehension for that new life. Some would be sorry to leave the ship which had carried them through the seas some twelve thousand miles from the London River, looking upon her now, despite the odd tense atmosphere of the voyage, almost as a living entity binding them to the homeland which they had left; they would miss the friends they had made aboard, the people they would very likely never see again, for the ending of a voyage is often a very final thing. In fact most of those passengers had, as it were, already mentally disembarked. For them the voyage was already over and the ship seemed quite different. That difference had really set in after Fremantle, as soon as the ship had rounded the Leeuwin and was right inside Australian waters; that was when she had begun to die. There had been a subtle change in the air along the cabin alleyways, on the decks and in the lounges and bars. The ship had grown colder, more and more remote and distant as the shore reached out its fingers to squeeze away the sea-life. To-night the bars were utterly dead except for one small party of young people celebrating with a drinks session in a corner of the tavern. In the lounges, a few people sat and talked a little, but mainly they just sat and thought, and they all looked quite different too because they had their shore-side faces on now as the
New South Wales
swept on for journey’s end.

Judith Donovan was very conscious of the change as she sat, a little forlornly as she had sat ever since Fremantle, in the veranda lounge aft and thought about Esmonde Shaw, wondered how things had gone for him. He’d have got to Sydney by now, for certain; she would see him again tomorrow if he wasn’t too busy and that would be nice; but beyond that she couldn’t think, didn’t want to think. She supposed Shaw would have to fly back to London at once when all this was over, and as for her, she wasn’t sure what she would do yet. . . .

In his cabin high above the passenger decks Sir Donald Mackinnon was finishing the signing of the many port forms brought up to him by his Purser. That done, he sent for the senior MAPIACCIND man and once again they ran over the arrangements for the discharge of Redcap the following afternoon. A little later he went up to the chartroom, took a look at the chart. Thanks to the following wind and sea, they were running a little ahead of time. An early arrival off the Heads meant hanging about, probably in a nasty swell, and without stabilizers. That would mean seasick passengers, and passengers made seasick and green-looking just before arrival meant complaints. Besides, Sir Donald always liked a spot-on arrival. He walked for’ard into the wheelhouse and ordered a small reduction of speed. And as he gave that simple order he had no suspicion that he might well be influencing world safety—for good or ill.

Miles ahead in Sydney as the time-and-distance gap began to close, the Australia and Pacific Line’s shore officials put the last touches to the arrangements for the reception of the great ship on her first voyage.

She would be the biggest and most important ship, with the exception of the wartime voyages of the Queen liners on trooping duties, ever to enter the harbour of Port Jackson and berth in Sydney. The Line’s General Manager in Australia would go out himself with the pilot and embark off the South Head next day. Many high officials would go with him, including the State Premier—
New South Wales
extending an early and personal welcome to
New South Wales
. And at Pyrmont there would be a military band provided by Eastern Command to play the liner proudly in, and, just as, at Tilbury Landing Stage a Minister of the Crown had bid the ship godspeed on behalf of the Queen of England, so at Pyrmont the Governor-General would welcome her to the southland in the name of the Queen of Australia. A great link of Commonwealth would come, duly honoured, to safe berth, to home from home, and from thenceforward would hold a special place in the hearts of Sydneysiders.

And those Sydneysiders, the ordinary people of Sydney—they were going to turn out in their lunch-hour thousands, some of them awaiting relatives, the majority just wanting to witness the historic first entry of a nuclear-powered liner, a great, brand-new ship from across the world, to cheer themselves hoarse from points all along the harbour, from Bradley’s Head and from Kirribilli, from Bannelong Point and the shores of Sydney Cove, from Darling Harbour and from the Bridge itself, a welcome traditionally Australian as the monster slid in through the sparkling waters.

Because by now Sir Donald Mackinnon had reported the switching-off of Redcap, the security net, though drawing tighter in the hopes of bowling out the men behind the thwarted plan and also to safeguard Redcap on its journey up to Bandagong, was no longer regarded as a net against world disaster. And no one ashore in Sydney, or aboard the
New South Wales
, was troubled about the small metal box in Number Five tank, the little box which was now becoming warmer and which was making a strange kind of subdued humming and flaring noise.

There was still no one down there in the double bottoms to hear it.

Above, a junior engineer walked casually on his routine checks of the big nuclear reactor, the reactor which was driving him onward to a girl he was going to meet in the Monterey next evening if he could get ashore. He whistled to himself, whistled a tune that the girl had liked dancing to last time he’d been in Sydney, and lost himself in a pleasant dream of shore-side freedom.