Hungry as the Sea
Wilbur Smith
Hungry as the Sea
By: Wilbur Smith
Synopsis:
"Nick went head down, finning desperately to catch the swirling body
which tumbled like a leaf in high wind, He had a fleeting glimpse of
Baker's face, contorted with terror and lack of breath, the glass visor
of his helmet already swamping with icy water as the pressure spurted
through the non-return valve. The Chief's headset microphone squealed
once and then went dead as the water shorted it out."
Robbed of his wife and ousted from his huge shipping empire, Nick Berg
is hell-bent on vengeance. It is the sea which gives him his
opportunity. When his arch-rival's luxury liner is trapped in the
tempestuous Antarctic, Nick stakes all to pit his powerful salvage tug
the Warlock in a desperate race against time and the elements.
the novels of Wilbur Smith
The Courtney Novels: When the Lion Feeds
The Sound of Thunder
A Sparrow Falls
The Burning Shore
Power of the Sword
Rage
A Time to Die
The BaUantyne
Novels:
A Falcon Flies
Men of Men
The Angels Weep
The Leopard Hunts in Darkness
The Dark of the Sun
Shout at the Devil
Gold Mine
The Diamond Hunters
The Sunbird Eagle in the sky
givin wor
The Eye of the Tiger
Cry Wolf
Hungry as the Sea
The Wild Justice
Golden Fox
Elephant Song
Wilbur Smith was born in Central Africa in 1933. He was educated at
Michaelhouse and Rhodes University.
He became a full-time writer in 1964 after the successful publication of
When the Lion Feeds, and has since written twenty-three novels,
meticulously researched on his numerous expeditions worldwide.
He normally travels from November to February, often spending a month
skiing in Switzerland, and visiting Australia and New Zealand for sea
fishing. During his summer break, he visits environments as diverse as
Alaska and the dwindling wilderness of the African interior.
He has an abiding concern for the peoples and wildlife of his native
continent, an interest strongly reflected in his novels.
He is married to Danielle, to whom his last nineteen books have been
dedicated.
This book is for my wife Danielle
HUNGRY AS THE SEA
First published in Great Britain 1978 by Mandarin Paperbacks
The an imprint of R6ad International Books Ltd Michelin House, 8i Fulham
Road, London SW3 6RD effec and Auckland, Melbourne, Singapore and
Toronto
Reprinted 1992, 1993 (twice), 1994 (twice), 1995 (twice), 1996 (twice)
Copyright 0 Wilbur Smith 1978
catalogue record for this title to d is available from the British
Library
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of
trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated
without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding oi cover
other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition
including this condition. being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Uk 9 IM718HO1340 429969
Nicholas Berg stepped out of the taxi on to the floodlit dock and paused
to look up at the Warlock. At this state of the tide she rode high
against the stone quay, so that even though the cranes towered above
her, they did not dwarf her.
Despite the exhaustion that fogged his mind and cramped his muscles
until they ached, Nicholas felt a stir of the old pride, the old sense
of value achieved, as he looked at her. She looked like a warship,
sleek and deadly, with the high flared bows and good lines that combined
to make her safe in any seaway.
The superstructure was moulded steel and glittering armoured glass,
behind which her lights burned in carnival array. The wings of her
navigation bridge swept back elegantly and were covered to protect the
men who must work her in the cruellest weather and most murderous seas.
Overlooking the wide stern deck was the second navigation bridge, from
which a skilled seaman could operate the great winches and drums of
Cable, could catch and control the hawser on the hydraulically operated
rising fairleads, could baby a wallowing oil rig or a mortally wounded
liner in a gale or a silky calm.
Against the night sky high above it all, the twin towers replaced the
squat single funnel of the old-fashioned salvage tugs - and the illusion
of a man-of-war was heightened by the fire cannons on the upper
platforms from which the Warlock could throw fifteen hundred tons of sea
water an hour on to a burning vessel. From the towers themselves could
be swung the boarding ladders over which men could be sent aboard a
hulk, and between them was painted the small circular target that marked
the miniature heliport. The whole of it, hull and upper decks, was
fireproofed so she could survive in the inferno of burning petroleum
from a holed tanker or the flaring chemical from a bulk carrier.
Nicholas Berg felt a little of the despondency and spiritual exhaustion
slough away, although his body still ached and his legs carried him
stiffly, like those of an old man, as he started towards the gangplank.
The hell with them all/ he thought. I built her and she is strong and
good. Although it was an hour before midnight, the crew of the Warlock
watched him from every vantage point they could find; even the oilers
had come up from the engine room when the word reached them, and now
loafed unobtrusively on the stern working deck.
David Allen, the First Officer, had placed a hand at the main harbour
gates with a photograph of Nicholas Berg and a five-cent piece for the
telephone call box beside the gate, and the whole ship was alerted now.
David Allen stood with the Chief Engineer in the glassed wing of the
main navigation bridge and they watched the solitary figure pick his way
across the shadowy dock, carrying his own case.
So that's him/ David's voice was husky with awe and respect. He looked
like a schoolboy under his shaggy bush of sun-bleached hair.
He's a bloody film star, Vinny Baker, the Chief Engineer, hitched up his
sagging trousers with both elbows, and his spectacles slid down the long
thin nose, as he snorted.
A bloody film star/ he repeated the term with utmost scorn.
He was first to Jules Levoisin/ David pointed out, and in the note of
awe as he intoned that name, and he is a tug man from way back. 'That
was fifteen years ago. Vinny Baker released his elbow grip on his
trousers and pushed his spectacles up on to the bridge of his nose.
Immediately his trousers began their slow but inexorable slide
deckwards. S
ince then he's become a bloody glamour boy - and an owner.
Yes, David Allen agreed, and his baby face crumpled a little at the
thought of those two legendary animals, master and owner, combined in
one monster. A monster man which was on the point of mounting his
gangway to the deck of Warlock.
You'd better go down and kiss him on the soft spot/ vinny grunted
comfortably, and drifted away. Two decks down was the sanctuary of his
control room where neither masters nor owners could touch him. He was
going there now.
David Allen was breathless and flushed when he reached the entry port.
The new Master was halfway up the gangway, and he lifted his head and
looked steadily at the mate as he stepped aboard.
Though he was only a little above average, Nicholas Berg gave the
impression of towering height, and the shoulders beneath the blue
cashmere of his jacket were wide and powerful. He wore no hat and his
hair was very dark, very thick and brushed back from a wide unlined
forehead. The head was big-nosed and punt-boned, with a heavy jaw, blue
now with new beard, and the eyes were set deep in the cages of their
bony sockets, underlined with dark plumcoloured smears, as though they
were bruised.
But what shocked David Allen was the man's pallor. His face was
drained, as though he had been bled from the jugular. it was the pallor
of mortal illness or of exhaustion close to death itself, and it was
emphasized by the dark eye-sockets. This was not what David had
expected of the legendary Golden Prince of Christy Marine. It was not
the face he had seen so often pictured in newspapers and magazines
around the world. Surprise made him mute and the man stopped and looked
down at him.
Allen? asked Nicholas Berg quietly. His voice was low and level,
without accent, but with a surprising timbre and resonance.
Yes, sir. Welcome aboard, sir. When Nicholas Berg smiled, the edges of
sickness and exhaustion smoothed away at his brow and at the corners of
his mouth. His hand was smooth and cool, but his grip was firm enough
to make David blink.
I'll show you your quarters, sir. David took the Louis Vuitton suitcase
from his grip.
I know the way, said Nick Berg. I designed her.
He stood in the centre of the Master's day cabin, and felt the deck tilt
under his feet, although the Warlock was fast to the stone dock, and the
muscles in his thighs trembled.
The funeral went off all right? Nick asked.
He was cremated, sir/ David said. That's the way he wanted it.
I have made the arrangements for the ashes to be sent home to Mary.
Mary is his wife, sir/ he explained quickly.
Yes/ said Nick Berg. I know. I saw her before I left London.
Mac and I were ship-mates once. He told me. He used to boast about
that. Have you cleared all his gear? Nick asked, and glanced around
the Master's suite.
Yes sir, we've packed it all up. There is nothing of his left in here.
He was a good man! Nick swayed again on his feet and looked longingly
at the day couch, but instead he crossed to the port and looked out on
to the dock. How did it happen? my report Tell me!
said Nicholas Berg, and his voice cracked like a whip.
The main tow-cable parted, sir. He was on the afterdeck.
it took his head off like a bullwhip. Nick stood quietly for a moment,
thinking about that description of tragedy. He had seen a tow part
under stress once before.
That time it had.and killed three men.
, Nick hesitated a moment, the exhaustion had slowed and softened him so
that for a moment he was on the point of explaining why he had come to
take command of Warlock himself, rather than sending another hired man
to replace Mac.
It might help to have somebody to talk to now, when he was right down on
his knees, beaten and broken and tired to the very depths of his soul.
He swayed again, then caught himself and forced aside the temptation. He
had never whined for sympathy in his life before.
All right,, he repeated. Please give my apologies to your officers. I
have not had much sleep in the last two weeks, and the flight out from
Heathrow was murder, as always.
I'll meet them in the morning. Ask the cook to send a tray with my
dinner. The cook was a huge man who moved like a dancer in a snowy
apron and a theatrical chef's cap. Nick Berg stared at him as he placed
the tray on the table at his elbow. The cook wore his hair in a shiny
carefully coiffured bob that fell to his right shoulder, but was drawn
back from the left, cheek to display a small diamond earring in the
pierced lobe of that ear.
He lifted the cloth off the tray with a hand as hairy as that of a bull
gorilla, but his voice was as lyrical as a girl's, and his eyelashes
curled soft and dark on to his cheek.
bowl of soup, and a pot-all-feu. It's one of my little special things.
You will adore it/ he said, and stepped back.
He surveyed Nick Berg with those huge hands on his hips. But I took one
look at you as you came aboard and I just knew what you really needed.
With a magician's flourish, he produced a half-bottle of Pinch Haig from
the deep pocket of his apron. Take a nip of that with your dinner, and
then straight into bed with you, you poor dear., No man had ever called
Nicholas Berg dear before, but his tongue was too thick and slow for the
retort. He stared after the cook as he disappeared with a sweep of his
white apron and the twinkle of the diamond, and then he grinned weakly
and shook his head, weighing the bottle in his hand.
Damned if I don't need it/ he muttered, and went to find a glass.
He poured it half full, and sipped as he came back to the couch and
lifted the lid of the soup pot. The steaming aroma made the little
saliva glands under his tongue spurt.
The hot food and whisky in his belly taxed his last reserves, and
Nicholas Berg kicked off his shoes as he staggered into his night cabin.
He awoke with the -anger on him. He had not been angry in two weeks
which was a measure of his despondency.
But when he shaved, the mirrored face was that of a stranger still, too
pale and punt and set. The lines that framed his mouth were too deeply
chiselled, and the early sunlight through the port caught the dark hair
at his temple and he saw the frosty glitter there and leaned closer to
the mirror. It was the first time he had noticed the flash of silver
hair - perhaps he had never looked hard enough, or perhaps it was
something new.
Forty he thought. I'll be forty years old next June. He had always
believed that if a man never caught the big one before he was forty, he
was doomed never to do so.
So what were the rules for the man who caught the big wave before he was
thirty, and rode it fast and hard and high, then lost it again before he
was forty and was washed out into the trough of boiling white water. Was
he doomed also?
Nick stared at himself in the mirror and felt the anger in him change
its form, becoming directed and functional
.
He stepped into the shower, and let the needles of hot water sting his
chest. Through the tiredness and disillusion, he was aware, for the
first time in weeks, of the underlying strength which he had begun to
doubt was still there. He felt it rising to the surface in him, and he
thought of what an extraordinary sea creature he was, how it needed only
a deck under him and the smell of the sea in his throat.
He stepped from the shower and dried quickly. This was the right place
to be now. This was the place to recuperate - and he realized that his
decision not to replace Mac with a hired skipper had been a gut
decision. He needed to be here himself.
Always he had known that if you wanted to ride the big wave, you must
first be at the place where it begins to peak. It's an instinctive
thing, a man just knows where that place is. Nick Berg knew deep in his
being that this was, the place now, and, with his rising strength, he
felt the old excitement, the old I'll show the bastards who is beaten,
excitement, and he dressed swiftly and went up the Master's private
companionway to the Upper deck.
immediately, the wind flew at him and flicked his dark wet hair into his
face. It was force five from the south-east, and it came boiling over
the great flat-topped mountain which crouched above the city and
harbour. Nick looked at it and saw the thick white cloud they called
the table cloth spilling off the heights, and swirling along the grey
rock cliffs.
The Cape of Storms/ he murmured. Even the water in the protected dock
leaped and peaked into white crests which blew away like wisps of smoke.
The tip of Africa thrust southwards into one of the most treacherous
seas on all the globe. Here two oceans swept turbulently together off
the rocky cliffs of Cape Point, and then rolled over the shallows of the
Agulhas bank.
Here wind opposed current in eternal conflict. This was the breeding
ground of the freak wave, the one that mariners called the hundred-year
wave,, because statistically that was how often it should occur.
But off the Agulhas bank, it was always lurking, waiting only for the
right combination of wind and current, waiting for the inphase wave
sequence to send its crest rearing a hundred feet, high and steep as
those grey rock cliffs of Table Mountain itself.
Nick had read the accounts of seamen who had survived that wave, and, at