"Alistair MacLean - Santorini" - читать интересную книгу автора (Maclean Alistair)

'Please.' Van Gelder left, brushing by Sub-Lieutenant Cousteau as he did. Cousteau, barely in his twenties, was a happy-go-lucky youngster, always eager and willing and a more than competent seaman. Talbot beckoned him out on to the starboard wing.

'Have you seen it, Henri?'

'Yes, sir.' Cousteau's normal cheerfulness was in marked abeyance. He gazed in unwilling fascination at the blazing, smoking plane, now directly abeam and at an altitude of under a thousand feet. 'What a damnable, awful thing.'

'Aye, it's not nice.' They had been joined by Surgeon Lieutenant-Commander Andrew Grierson. Grierson was dressed in white shorts and a flowing multi-coloured Hawaiian shirt which he doubtless regarded as the correct dress of the day for the summerAegean . 'So this is why you wanted Moss and his first-aid box." Moss was the Leading Sick Bay Attendant. 'I'm thinking maybe I should be going myself.'-Grierson was a West Highland Scot, as was immediately evident from his accent, an accent which he never attempted to conceal for the excellent reason that he saw no earthly reason why he ever should. 'If there are any survivors, which I consider bloody unlikely, I know something about decompression problems which Moss doesn't.'

Talbot was conscious of the increased vibration beneath his feet.Harrison had increased speed and was edging a little to the east. Talbot didn't even give it a second thought: his faith in his senior quartermaster was complete.

'Sorry, Doctor, but I have more important things for you to do.' He pointed to the east. 'Look under the trail of smoke to the plane's left.'

'I see it. I should have seen it before. Somebody sinking, for a fiver.'

'Indeed. Something called theDelos , a private yacht, I should imagine, and, as you say, sinking. Explosion and on fire. Pretty heavily on fire, too, I would think. Burns, injuries.'

'We live in troubled times,' Grierson said. Grierson, in fact, lived a singularly carefree and untroubled existence but Talbot thought it was hardly the time to point this out to him.

'The plane's silent, sir,' Cousteau said. 'The engines have been shut off.'

'Survivors, you think? I'm afraid not. The explosion may have destroyed the controls in which case, I imagine, the engines shut off automatically.'

'Disintegrate or dive?' Grierson said. 'Daft question. We'll know all too soon.'

Van Gelder joined them. 'I make it eighty fathoms here, sir. Sonar says seventy. They're probably right. Doesn't matter, it's shallowing anyway.'

Talbot nodded and said nothing. Nobody said anything, nobody felt like saying anything. The plane, or the source of the dense column of smoke, was now less than a hundred feet above the water. Suddenly, the source of the smoke and flame dipped and then was abruptly extinguished. Even then they failed to catch a glimpse of the plane, it had been immediately engulfed in a fifty-foot-high curtain of water and spray. There was no sound of impact and certainly no disintegration for when the water and the spray cleared away there was only the empty sea and curiously small waves, little more than ripples, radiating outwards from the point of impact.

Talbot touched Cousteau on the arm. 'Your cue, Henri. How's the whaler's radio?'

'Tested yesterday, sir. Okay.'

'If you find anything, anybody, let us know. I have a feeling you won't need that radio. When we stop, lower away then keep circling around. We should be back in half an hour or so.' Cousteau left and Talbot turned to Van Gelder. 'When we stop, tell sonar I want the exact depth.'

Five minutes later the whaler was in the water and moving away from the side of Ae. Ariadne. Talbot rang for full power and headed east.

Van Gelder hung up a phone. 'Thirty fathoms, sonar says. Give or take a fathom.'

'Thanks. Doctor?'

'Hundred and eighty feet,' Grierson said. 'I don't even have to rub my chin over that one. The answer is no. Even if anyone could escape from the fuselage - which I think would be impossible in the first place - they'd die soon after surfacing. Diver's bends. Burst lungs. They wouldn't know that they'd have to breathe out all the way up. A trained, fit submariner, possibly with breathing apparatus, might do it. There would be no fit, trained submariners aboard that plane. Question's academic, anyway. I agree with you, Captain. The only men aboard that plane are dead men.'

Talbot nodded and reached for a phone.

'Myers? Signal to General Carson. Unidentified four-engined plane crashed in sea two miles south ofCapeAkrotiri ,TheraIsland . 1415 hours. Impossible to determine whether military or civilian. First located altitude 43,000 feet. Apparent cause internal explosion. No further details available at present. No NATO planes reported in vicinity. Have you any information? Sylvester. Send Code B.'

'Wilco, sir. Where do I send it?'

'Rome. Wherever he is he'll have it two minutes later.'