Santorini. Alistair MacLean

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      ‘Whatever that means, I’ll try it.’ Talbot listened again, and just before the allotted minute was up, he leaned forward and creased his brow. After another thirty seconds he removed the head-set.

      ‘A ticking sound. Strange, Halzman, you were right. First you hear the silence and then you hear it. Tick…tick…tick, once every two to three seconds. Very regular. Very faint. You’re certain that comes from the plane?’

      ‘I have no doubt, sir.’

      ‘Have you ever heard anything like it before?’

      ‘No, sir. I’ve spent hundreds of hours, more likely thousands, listening to sonar, asdics, hydrophones, but this is something quite new on me.’

      ‘I’ve got pretty good hearing but I had to wait almost a moment before I could imagine I could hear anything. It’s very, very faint, isn’t it?’

      ‘It is. I had to turn the hearing capacity up to maximum before I stumbled on it—not a practice I would normally follow or recommend—in the wrong circumstances you can get your eardrums blasted off. Why is it so faint? Well, the source of the sound may be very faint to begin with. I’ve been thinking about this, sir—well, I’ve had nothing else to think about. It’s either a mechanical or electrical device. In either case it has to be inside a sealed or waterproof casing. A mechanical device could, of course, operate in water even if it was totally submerged, but operating in water would dampen out the sound almost completely. An electrical device would have to be totally sealed against sea-water. The plane’s own electrical system, of course, has ceased to function, so it would have to have its own supply system, almost certainly battery-powered. In either event, mechanical or electrical, the sound impulses would have to pass through the waterproof casing, after which they must pass through the fuselage of the plane.’

      ‘Have you any idea as to what it might be?’

      ‘None whatsoever. It’s a two and a half second sequence—I’ve timed it. I know of no watch or clock movement that follows that sequence. Do you, sir?’

      ‘No, I don’t. You think it could be some sort of timing device?’

      ‘I thought about that too, sir, but I put it out of my mind.’ Halzman smiled. ‘Maybe I’m prejudiced against that idea because of all those cheap and awful video film cassettes we have aboard, with all their special effects and pseudo science. All I know for sure, sir, is that we have a mysterious plane lying on the sea-bed there. Lord only knows what mysterious kind of cargo it was carrying.’

      ‘Agreed. I think we’d better leave it at that for the moment. Have one of your boys monitor it, once, say, in every fifteen minutes.’

      When Talbot returned to the bridge he could see the marker buoy just astern, bobbing gently in the very small wake Van Gelder was creating as he edged the Ariadne gently to the north-west. Very soon he stopped, juggled the engines to and fro until he reckoned the bows were a hundred yards distant from the buoy, had the anchor dropped, then moved just as slowly astern, the anchor chain being paid out as he went. Soon the stern anchor had been paid out and the Ariadne was back to where she had started, the buoy nudging the midships port side.

      ‘Neatly done,’ Talbot said. ‘Tell me, Number One, how are you on puzzles?’

      ‘Useless. Even the simplest crossword baffles me.’

      ‘No matter. We’re picking up a strange noise on the sonar. Maybe you’d like to take a turn along there, perhaps even identify it. Baffles me.’

      ‘Consider it done. Back in two or three minutes.’

      Twenty minutes elapsed before he returned to the bridge where Talbot was now alone: as the ship was no longer under way, Harrison had retired to his Mess.

      ‘That was a long couple of minutes, Vincent, and what are you looking so pleased about?’

      ‘I really don’t know how you do it, sir. Incredible. I don’t suppose you have any Scottish blood?’

      ‘Not a drop, as far as I’m aware. Am I supposed to be following you, Number One?’

      ‘I thought maybe the second sight. You were right. A classic Greek beauty. Irene. Miss Charial, that is. Odd, mind you, blonde as they come. I thought all those warm-blooded young Latin ladies had hair as black as a raven’s wing.’

      ‘It’s the sheltered life you lead, Vincent. You should go to Andalucia some day. Seville. On one street corner a dusky Moorish maiden, the next a Nordic blonde. We’ll discuss pigmentation some other time. What did you learn?’

      ‘Enough, I hope. It’s an art, sir, this casual and inconsequential approach. The questioning, I mean. She seems honest and open enough, not ingenuous, if you know what I mean, but quite straightforward. Certainly didn’t give the impression of having anything to hide. Says she doesn’t know the engine-room well but has been there a couple of times. We came to the question of fuel oil—I was just wondering out loud, natural curiosity, I hope she thought—as to what could have caused the explosion. Seems I was wrong when I said there were just two common ways of arranging fuel and water tanks. Seems there’s a third. Two big tanks on either side of the engine, one fuel, one water. How big, I don’t know, she was a bit vague about that—no reason why she should know—but at least thousands of litres, she says. If there was a spare fuel tank she didn’t know about it. I look forward, sir, to hearing Mr Andropulos justifying his decision not to abandon ship.’

      ‘So do I. Should be interesting. Anyway, congratulations. A good job.’

      ‘No hardship, sir.’ Van Gelder scanned the sea around. ‘Odd, don’t you think, sir? I mean, are we the only ones who heard the SOS? I would have thought the horizon would have been black with converging vessels by this time.’

      ‘Not so strange, really. Nearly all the vessels around at this time of year are private yachts and fishermen. Lots of them don’t carry any radio at all and even those who do almost certainly wouldn’t be permanently tuned to the distress frequency.’

      ‘But we are.’

      ‘This time I’m ahead of you. The Delos—or at least Andropulos—knew that we would be permanently tuned to the distress frequency, that we are automatically alerted by bell or buzzer whenever the distress frequency is energized. This presupposes two things. He knew we were a naval vessel and he also knew that we were in the vicinity.’

      ‘You realize what you are saying, sir? Sorry, I didn’t mean it to sound that way. But the implications, sir. I must say I really don’t like those at all.’

      ‘Neither do I. Opens up all sorts of avenues of interesting speculation, doesn’t it?’ He turned as McKenzie came on to the bridge: ‘And how are our oil-stained survivors, Chief?’

      ‘Clean, sir. And in dry clothes. I don’t think any of them will make the list of the ten bestdressed men.’ He looked at Van Gelder. ‘I gather you didn’t have too much time, sir, for the selection and careful matching up of clothes. They’re a bit of an odd sight, I must say, but respectable enough. I knew you would want to see them, Captain—Mr Andropulos seems very anxious to see you—and I know you don’t like unauthorized people on the bridge so I took the liberty of putting the four gentlemen and the two young ladies in the wardroom. I hope that’s all right, sir.’

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