THE THIRD OFFICER was the first to see the sail. He had been looking for it.
He had seen mention of the race in Notices to Mariners, and he had been hearing reports of its progress on the BBC World Service. An Englishman—what was his name?—had been reported leading two days before. The third officer, whose name was Martin-dale and who, himself, was English, had hoped he might catch sight of some of the competitors, and now he had a moment of excitement in an otherwise uneventful crossing. He walked to the ship’s wheel, which was making small movements under the command of the autopilot, sighted across the main compass, and took a bearing on the sail, which was no more than a dot of white on the horizon. He noted the time and the bearing in the ship’s log. Six minutes later, with the dot now plainly recognizable as a boat, he took a second bearing. It was unchanged. The 400,000-ton supertanker, Byzantium, was on a collision course with an unknown yacht in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean.
It was bizarre, Martindale thought. They might be the only two vessels within an area of some hundreds of square miles, and they were going to strike each other unless one of them changed speed or course. He thought of slowing the ship, but he knew that even with the engines reversed the giant tanker might not slow enough from her thirty-knot speed before running the smaller craft down. He half turned to the seaman standing, daydreaming, a few feet away but did not take his eyes from the yacht. “Switch off autopilot. Hard right rudder.”
The man, who had been lost in reverie, looked at him, surprised. “Sir?”
“I said, switch off autopilot, hard right rudder.”
“Sir, the captain …”
“Do it, now.” The seaman stepped to a console, turned a knob, then took the wheel and spun it to the right. “Autopilot switched off, hard right rudder, sir.” He looked worried.
Martindale was worried, too. He reckoned they were two, two and a half miles from the yacht. It might take the supertanker two miles to answer the helm. “When she answers come onto course two eight oh.” He noted the time carefully and logged the change in course.
“Course two eight oh, sir. When she answers.” Now the seaman saw the yacht, too. “Jesus, Mr. Martindale, it’s gonna be close.”
A few feet down a corridor from the bridge, the captain stirred from his sleep. Something had waked him; it took him a moment to realize what. A bright beam of sunlight was shining on his face; as he squinted into the light, it began slowly moving away from him. God help Martindale; the little Limey bastard was turning his ship! He sat up and reached for a robe, then was propelled to his feet and across the cabin by a long blast on the ship’s horn.
The captain burst onto the bridge, his skinny legs projecting from the terrycloth robe. “Let’s have it, Mr. Martindale, and it better be good, it better be bloody good.”
The third officer half turned again, still not taking his eyes from the yacht. “Sir, I judged us to be on a collision course with a sailing vessel.” He pointed and handed the captain his binoculars. “I ordered hard right rudder to go astern of her.”
The captain squinted through the binoculars. The yacht was only half a mile away. “Speed?” he asked, taking the binoculars from his eyes. They were not necessary, now.
“Still thirty knots, sir; I judged she would answer faster at speed.”
“Oh, you did, did you?”
“Well you’re right, Mr. Martindale, she will. She’s answering. Now we’ll see if you judged that boat’s course correctly. We’re going to hit her or miss her in about thirty seconds. Hit the horn again.”
Martindale gave another long blast. “He must be asleep or dead, sir.”
“He’ll be dead, I reckon. Nobody could sleep through that.”
The second officer came onto the bridge in his pajamas and quickly assessed the situation. Other men could be seen on deck, now, watching the yacht as the tanker rapidly closed on her. The captain strode quickly out onto the port wing of the bridge. Martindale followed on his heels. The wind, made mostly by the tanker’s speed, tore at their clothes. Martindale’s cap went overboard.
The two men watched as the Byzantium inched into her turn. Suddenly the yacht shot across her bows with less than thirty feet to spare. Then, in the lee of the big ship, she stopped sailing and drifted quickly toward the tanker.
“We’re sucking her into us, sir,” Martindale shouted over the wind. He watched in horror as the boat came closer and closer, then, suddenly, they were past her. Martindale got a good look down into the boat’s cockpit as she went by.
“What the hell is the matter with her crew?” demanded the captain.
“She’s a singlehander, sir,” Martindale replied, pointing at her stern. “See the wind vane self-steering gear? There’s a number on her hull, too, sir. She’s part of the singlehanded transatlantic race that started from England last week. Shall I order all stop, sir?”
The captain brushed past him, clutching at his robe in the wind, heading for the bridge. “What the hell for? We missed her. Log it and report her to Lloyds. I’m going back to bed.”
Martindale raced to catch up with him. “Excuse me, sir, but our high frequency radio telephone is still down, so we can’t report her until Sparks sorts that out. If the yacht’s skipper were able, he’d have responded to our horn. He could be ill, and …” He stopped himself short of gratuitously telling his captain that his first duty was to render assistance to another vessel in an emergency at sea.
The captain stopped and scratched his backside angrily. He shot a look at Martindale. “If I stop this ship unnecessarily the Greek gentleman will have my balls for breakfast.”
“I’m sure you’d be protected in the circumstances, sir. And anyway, there’s the possibility of salvage. I reckon she’s close to sixty feet. She’d be worth a lot.”
“You know bloody well we don’t have a crane that could put her on deck, Mr. Martindale.” The captain’s eyebrows went up. “Ah, now I get the picture. You’re a yachtsman. That’s it, isn’t it? You’re looking for a pleasant sail home in a rich man’s yacht. We take aboard her skipper, who’s probably got all of a case of the trots, and you sail off into the sunset.”
Martindale flushed. “Sir, we don’t really have a choice, do we?” He waited anxiously while the captain stared at the deck and worked his jaw.
“Shit,” the captain said, finally. “All right. Come onto a parallel course with her and stop; she’ll catch up to us. As soon as I get my pants on I’ll take the con, and you take two men and get the motor launch over the side. She’s wearing a VHF antenna. Call me on channel 16 when you’re aboard her.” The captain turned toward his cabin. “Thank God there’s not much of a sea running,” he could be heard to say from down the corridor.
Martindale’s heart leapt. “Hard left rudder!” he shouted at the seaman. “All back!”
Martindale sat at the yacht’s chart table, suddenly exhausted, and stared about him. She was beautiful, a dream of oiled teak and polished brass; of able design and perfect proportion; of the finest gear for every task on deck and below. The ship’s log lay before him, open to the last completed page. He read for a few minutes, feeling sick and angry, then reached up and switched on the VHF radio, set it to channel 16, and pressed the transmit button.
“Byzantium, Byzantium, Byzantium; this is Martindale, Martindale, Martindale. Do you read?” He released the button.
The captain’s voice shot back over the crackle of static. “I read you, Martindale. Never mind the fucking procedure, what the hell’s going on on that boat?”
Martindale took a deep breath and pressed the transmit button again. “Everything seems to be in perfect order, captain, as far as I can tell.” He paused. “Except there’s nobody aboard.”