"Smith, Wilber - Hungry as the Sea" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Wilbur)

Hungry as the Sea

Wilbur Smith



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