TURKISH DELIGHT Barry Faulkner (i love reading txt) 📖

size, was obviously for fastening the cover shut when the ship was laid up, as it fitted the large hasp welded on the cover exactly. I pushed it through and shut it, putting the key in my pocket.

We made our way swiftly back outside to the stern and settled in behind the anchor chain windlass again, checking in front and behind as we went. It had begun to rain when we were below and was steadily getting worse and developing into a storm. Lightning was arching over the sky above us which had grown dark and threatening and the wind was whipping up the waves and starting to rock the freighter.

Jones pulled his radio from his rucksack and switched it on.

‘Jones to Williams, come in.’

There was a short break before he got a reply.

‘Williams here, sir. Go ahead, you’re loud and clear.’

‘Jones to Williams, we are ready to embark ASAP. What’s your ETA?’

‘Williams to Jones, we are half a mile on your starboard side. With you in ten.’

‘Jones to Williams, okay. We are at the stern and will be ready. Jones out.’

I raised myself a little and looked over the broad railings on the starboard side. I couldn’t see any boat coming our way; in fact I couldn’t see much at all as the rain lashed in at me and the wind tore off the top of the waves and hurled them over the railing.      

‘Don’t bother looking, you won’t see them coming.’ Jones had to shout above the storm now, ‘They’re on a stealth boat, low in the water and very fast – or to give it its proper name, an FB Mil-50P. Any the wiser?’ he asked and was laughing. He likes laughing, does Jones – I wonder if it was to compensate for any fear he was feeling in this situation? I’d read somewhere that people sometimes do that.

‘No, just so long as it’s fast and gets us away from here before that Semtex goes up,’ I shouted back above the noise of the storm and driving rain which was running down my face.

Jones laughed again. ‘No problem. Come on, we need to get as near to the back of the ship as we can – Williams will approach from behind. If they’ve got radar on in the wheelhouse he won’t show much of a picture; the FBs are built of anti-radar material except for the engines, but we still need to get away fast.’

‘Has he been tracking us all the way then?’

‘Not all the way – he waited outside the three-mile zone and has been with us since then.’

‘You didn’t say.’

‘How else do you think we’ll get back to base when the ship goes down, swim?’ Another laugh.

We crawled to the back of the ship, staying below any sightline from the rest of it and waited, getting more and more wet. The third time I checked my watch annoyed Jones.

‘Don’t panic, Nevis. We will be away before the big bang.’

‘I bloody hope so.’

His radio cracked into action.

‘Williams to Jones.’

I thought all we need now is Williams to say his engine has failed, but he didn’t.

‘Go ahead, Williams.’

‘We are right below you, sir.’

We both knelt up and peered over the stern railing. Below in the churning water caused by the storm and the propeller blades six foot below the surface, we could see Williams standing in the bow of what looked like a medium-sized speedboat to me; he held what looked like a gun, but the barrel was far too wide for that. Jones gave him the thumbs up and pulled me back down to the deck.

‘Cover your head with your arms, he’s firing a rope up to us.’

So that was what Williams was holding: a bloody big air gun.

A small metal grappling hook only about three inches in length with three hooks came sailing high over the railing and clattered to the deck a few feet in front of us. Jones retrieved it and starting pulling on the monofilament nylon line attached to it, which soon gave way to a decent size climbing rope. I helped him pull a few yards over the railing until we had enough of a length to tie it in a reef knot around one of the big steel links of the anchor chain.

‘Over you go.’ Jones indicated I should climb over the railing and go down the rope. It looked a long way down, about eighty feet on a wet swinging rope to a small boat bouncing in the propeller wake on a stormy sea – nice. I climbed over, took hold of the rope with both hands, twisted my right foot round it and using my left as a brake I abseiled down in fits and starts until Williams’s welcoming hands pulled me onboard the bouncing skiff.

‘Get down and put a safety belt on,’ he shouted above the noise of the churning water. In the well of the boat Taylor was handling the big double engines at the back, keeping her tight against the ship’s hull as Jones clambered over and started down. Taylor tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to a safety harness, basically a belt attached to the inside of the boat that went round my waist and clicked together. Jones joined us and fell beside me, clicking on his belt as Taylor swung the boat to the right and we sped away from the ship at warp speed. I looked at my watch and pointed at the face, showing it to Jones.

‘Three minutes!’

Jones nodded and shouted above the noise to Taylor. ‘Give it all you’ve you got, she goes up in three.’

The big engines sounded a deep roar as Taylor hit the fuel injector and opened them up full. I found myself holding onto the safety belt as the boat bumped across