21

Limpet

 

“Luke,” Roger said, “one limpet mine on the hull of the Kookaburra would sink it.”

“And do God knows what damage to the nearest houses,” Shaw said tautly. “We’ve got all the Water Police launches and a dozen naval frogmen almost ready to go. You nagged about Marcus Barring’s past so much, I really got down to checking it. He was an expert skin-diver and trained as an amateur frogman. I’m going to pick up a launch at Circular Quay right now. Coming?”

“If you don’t wait for me it will be the last time I’ll come to Sydney.”

“I’ll leave a smaller launch, you can catch up,” Luke said.

Roger put down the receiver, very slowly. Everything in him screamed ‘hurry,’ but Shaw and the others could handle the crisis in the harbour better than he. His first job was with the Flags. Raymond had regained his poise and was fighting back. Mortimer was looking better, as if he had been drawn safely from the brink of a precipice. Gregory stood, block-like, by the window looking out over the harbour.

“So you think that’s how he will do it,” Raymond said levelly. “I know the police will do everything humanly possible to save the ship. There is nothing at all we can do.”

“No,” Roger agreed in a cold, hard voice. “Nothing you can do – except hire the best lawyers in Australia to try to get you cleared of a charge of multiple murder.”

“We have committed no crime,” Raymond said.

“You haven’t enough evidence even to make a charge, and if a rumour of what you’ve been saying leaks into the newspapers, we’ll sue you for a million pounds for defamation – you or Scotland Yard.”

“You won’t need to,” Roger said. “You keep busy working on your defence.”

He saw Gregory’s hands clenching by his side. Gregory looked the strongest but might prove to be the weakest of them all. It would be useless to try to work on him now, for under the protection of his brother and his cousin he would hold out. Expecting him to crack was probably a forlorn hope, anyhow.

Roger turned towards the door. None of the others came back at him, that last thrust had worried them. He went out, his heart like a leaden weight with a sense of utter failure. Failure was always bitter. He hadn’t even been the first to jump to the limpet mine possibility. It had been so obvious once he had thought of it, but if no action had been taken before it had sprung to his mind, what chance would there be to save the Kookaburra?

What chance was there now?

Roger began to think of that, and preoccupation with his own failures faded. He kept his finger on the bell-push for the lift, but one was a long time coming. He glanced out of a narrow window on the landing, and suddenly realised he could see the Heads. He strode to the window and looked over the sunlit city towards the bridge and the harbour. There could be no better view, but he wasn’t interested in the scene, only in the ship which was through the great cliffs of the entrance and well into the harbour.

Small craft were approaching it.

A girl called, “Going down.”

Roger turned and half ran to the lift.

 

Jack and Jill Parrish and all the other passengers of the Kookaburra stood on deck, watching the passing scene: the bays arid inlets, the small craft at anchor, the cliffs, and the rocks. The sun was warm but not hot; it was quite, quite beautiful.

They put down the hustle and bustle about them to preparations for berthing, although they knew they had to go under the bridge for the ship would tie up in the inner harbour.

Then quite unbelievably, the signal to abandon ship broke through the idyllic minutes. Six short, one long blast on the ship’s whistle, which did not seem to stop. They saw many of the boats heading towards them, and Parrish recognised a naval launch equipped for deep-sea diving.

“It can’t be serious,” Jill said, half-scared.

“It’s serious, all right,” Jack said. “Come on.”

As in a dream turned nightmare they hurried down to their cabin for lifebelts. Other passengers appeared, puzzled, some frightened looking. A young officer said, “No need to be alarmed. There’s plenty of room for all, and we haven’t far to go.”

Some Chinese were running purposefully.

Someone laughed, on a note of hysteria.

Someone called out in a clear, high-pitched voice, “What about the sharks?”

The alarm signal, the young officer, the word ‘sharks’, and thought of all her trousseau – practically everything she possessed – being lost, all merged together in Jill Parrish’s mind as she hurried along, her husband’s fingers tight about her forearm. The sounds so often heard at sea, of the lifeboats being lowered from the davits, became suddenly sinister.

“Hurry!” she gasped. “We’ve got to hurry!”

She was gasping for breath as panic began to work in her.

 

“I shall stay with the ship,” the Master said into the loudspeaker. “All passengers and members of the crew will abandon ship. All officers may do so when their duties are completed.”

The sun was so warm. The harbour so beautiful. The bridge so unbelievably huge, as if indestructible. Cars were flashing across it, and in the distance he could hear the rumble of a train.

Marcus Barring reached the Kookaburra ten minutes before the alarm was given. He was no longer excited, but simply carrying out a job which had to be done. He placed the magnetised limpet mine on the hull of the ship, halfway between the keel and the Plimsoll line almost level with the engine-room – the most vulnerable place of all. He pulled at it, but it was so tight that he could not shift it. He swam away under water, until he was clear of the ship’s wake, and surfaced. He then turned over on to his back, discarding his miniature oxygen cylinder, which would arouse suspicion if it was noticed. He had at least twenty minutes’ grace, and had no idea that the harbour was now alive with men and boats searching for him. There was a slight risk of sharks, but he had a knife in his belt and sharks did not worry him. He was in no danger from the explosion, which should come just as the ship passed under Sydney Bridge.

 

Every frogman assigned to the emergency knew exactly what he had to do, and just how desperate the situation was. It would be almost impossible to prise off a limpet mine from the hull of the Kookaburra. It would have to be dismantled, a difficult and awkward task under water, and all the time they would work in the knowledge that if it exploded it would blow them to pieces.

First, find the bloody thing.

Six men on each side, they swam alongside the ship, those near the stern secured by lifeline against the pull of the propeller. They had to search the whole expanse of the red-painted hull and could not even be sure that a mine would be planted on the spot where a professional would place it. Fish swam close. Twice the long, grey shape of a shark passed nearby as they worked.

Leading-Frogman Kenneth Hallam was the first to see the round plate-like shape of the mine stuck to the side. He swam closer, made sure, and then released two smoke pellets which would rise to the surface and explode into white smoke when in contact with the air. Soon, others would come to his aid, but he had to start this job alone. He tried to prise it away, but as he had expected, it was stuck too tightly. The only hope was to dismantle it. Quite calmly, he began to prepare his tools.

 

Roger saw Luke Shaw in a larger launch only fifty yards away. His launch drew alongside, and he jumped from one to the other. For a moment he was dazzled by the sun, but he shaded his eyes and looked about him. Not far away was the bridge, and the Kookaburra was swinging round perhaps fifty yards away from it. Next he saw the lifeboats being lowered into the water. The operation seemed to be taking place a long, long way from here. Reality was touched with unreality.

He joined Shaw in the thwarts.

Five minutes afterwards, two little clouds of smoke billowed up from the sea to the surface of the water.

“See that?” Shaw gasped. “They’ve found a mine.”

“Luke,” Roger said, “there’s no point in any craft being too near unless it can be useful. Why don’t you move your chaps back?”

“You going back?” demanded Shaw, almost truculently.

“No, but—”

“Be yourself,” Shaw said brusquely.

They watched as the lifeboats pulled away, the ship slowed down almost to a standstill, dangerously close to the bridge, the naval craft keeping close to the painted sides.

 

Ashore, police and naval and military units were moving bathers and surfers off the more exposed beaches. Blast could start a wave which could engulf the bays and carry death and destruction with it. Above, the bridge was being closed to the annoyance of thousands of motorists. One piece of debris flung high by an explosion could carry disaster to any traffic on the broad highway.

 

Marcus Barring, still on his back, saw that the Kookaburra had virtually stopped, and was riding at anchor. He turned on his stomach and swam towards the nearest rocks, clambered on to them and stared across, appalled by the sight of so many craft, the lifeboats, the evidence that the alarm had been given.

“They got cold feet,” he cried aloud. “The swine went chicken. I’ll give them chicken.”

Involuntarily, he touched the knife in his belt. Then he squatted and stared until gradually light began to glow in his eyes again. The Kookaburra was moving slowly away from the bridge; very, very slowly.

“They’ll never save her,” he breathed. “They’ll never save her. They haven’t ten minutes left.”

 

Two men had their heads close together, bodies diagonally away from each other, kicking to hold their position in the quiet water. Their fingers sometimes touched as one handed a tool to the other. The mine looked so innocent, just a big, thick, round plate on the side of the ship. One man drilled with professional care, knowing that if this mine had a booby trap there was no way to stop it from blowing them to pieces. The signal had gone out to all naval and police craft to move to points of safety. Luke Shaw was complaining bitterly about it; Roger only half heard him, he was so intent on the danger spot.

The two frogmen, one of them Hallam, could not, dared not hurry.

Once again the dark shape of a shark appeared, hovered, and moved sluggishly on.

A hush fell over the waiting, watching multitude on the ships, on the rocks, on the shore. The Kookaburra rode the calm waters with proud dignity. In the hearts of most men there was a prayer for success, in Marcus Barring’s a fierce longing for the moment when the roar would come and smoke and water would hide the ship, then clear away and reveal her sinking.

The Master, with all his officers, was on the bridge. The engineering officers and three ratings were in the engine-room, taking the ship slowly away from the bridge.

 

“I’ve never known anything worse,” Luke muttered to Roger. “If we could only see what they’re doing. From here it looks as if they aren’t doing a bloody thing. I’d give a fortune to be on the job myself.”

“I know what you mean,” Roger said. “It would help if we knew how—”

A diver broke the surface of the water by the ship’s side; a moment later another bobbed up. Luke put the glasses to his eyes, standing very still.

“Frogmen,” he said, as if that wasn’t obvious to the naked eye. “One of them’s holding something in the air. He—”

There was a sudden outburst of cheering from the crew of the naval craft, and as it grew louder, the two frogmen began to swim towards it without any sense of urgency.

“Handsome,” choked Luke Shaw. “They’ve made it.”

He lowered the glasses, and then slowly and deliberately put out his right hand. As Roger gripped it, feeling almost weak with relief, Luke went on, “Now all we’ve got to do is find Barring and pin the job on to the Flags.”