The New World Order by Ben Jeapes

Author:Ben Jeapes
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781407030906
Publisher: RHCP

PART II

1651

Sixteen

Latin and Holy Water

Amass of freezing water exploded against the freighter’s iron bows and the ship shuddered. Pellets of shattered sea pounded against the windows of the bridge.

The captain put out a hand to steady himself and turned to the figure at the back of the bridge. His most senior passenger, a Hierarch of the Congregation, stood in the hatchway and the captain could just see two black-clad Wise behind him.

‘Sir,’ the captain shouted over the wind’s howl, ‘I beg you, let us turn around. Let us run with the wind at our backs. Maybe we’ll end up back in Okh’Shenev but at least we’ll be afloat and able to try again.’

The Hierarch had a long face, but his jowls curved out and gave a roundness to his cheeks that made it seem that he smiled very easily. That and his grey eyes gave him a benevolence that did not fool the captain for a moment.

‘We will keep going,’ the Hierarch said. ‘We are close.’

The captain felt the ship rise beneath the next wave, teeter at the top of the swell and then plummet into the next watery valley. The ship was solid and heavy, a thousand tons, but the gale tossed each of those tons about as casually as a toy.

‘Hold steady,’ he said automatically, though the helmsman’s powerful arms were straining at the wheel. As the stern tilted up he felt the vibrations of the engines through the deckplates die away, then pick up again as the ship surged forward. He had long ago ceased passing down instructions to the engine room from the bridge. The whole process of telegraphing orders was too slow. He had had to leave it to the guts and instincts of the chief engineer to work out when the stern was so high that the screw was out of the water and would tear itself from its shaft unless revolutions were cut. Then, the moment the blades were back underwater, they had to engage the pistons again and go full ahead to have any steerage way at all against this monstrous wind.

‘How close, sir?’ he demanded, almost begged. ‘We must have overshot your intended landing place by now.’ They had been heading for a port called Dover.

‘Oh, we almost certainly have,’ said the Hierarch calmly. ‘We are much too far to the west, but my colleagues tell me there is somewhere ahead we can use.’

The captain ground his teeth and pitched over to the exposed starboard wing of the bridge. He peered round the combing. ‘Lookout, there! Anything?’

‘Black as night, sir,’ the man called back. As night, the captain thought as he swayed over to the port wing, aware of the Hierarch’s gaze. It was barely third second quarter, the middle of the afternoon, and he had been assured the sun rose and set in the New World at just the same times as back home. They should have had another quarter of daylight.

The port lookout was just as unforthcoming and the captain made his way back to his chair in an agony of doubt.

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