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Ordinarily, a small crew would remain on board a derelict under tow, but without knowing to what extent the fire had ravaged the hull, there was too great a danger for the men to remain on board the Emerald Dolphin. If she should abruptly head for the sea floor, they might not have time to escape and would be sucked down with her.
Brown and his men dropped down the ladder into the launch. As soon as the launch and its crew were taken aboard the tug, McDermott gave the order for dead slow ahead. Brown, who was operating the gigantic tow winch, paid out the cable until the cruise ship was a good quarter of a mile astern. Then he set the brake, the slack went out of the cable and the winch took up the strain as the Audacious began to inch forward.
Every man on the tug held his breath to see how the Emerald Dolphin would act. Slowly, inch by inch, foot by foot, like an obedient elephant led by a mouse, her bow began to part the water. Nobody moved, still anxious, but the immense liner came arrow-straight into the tug's churning wake and stayed there. At seeing the still-burning hulk under way without shear, everyone on board the tug began to relax.
Ten hours later, the Audacious' big engines were towing the enormous hulk at a respectable two knots. Most of the fire was out. Only a few flickers of flame could still be seen amid the twisted wreckage of the superstructure. There was no moon, and overcast clouds covered the sky. The night was so black it was impossible to tell where sea left off and the sky began.
The tug's big searchlight was beamed on the Emerald Dolphin, illuminating her bow and gutted forward superstructure. The crew took turns on watch, making sure the big tow followed behind as planned. After midnight, the ship's cook took his turn. He settled in a folding deck chair he carried on board to enjoy the sun when he wasn't busy in the galley. It was too hot and humid for coffee, so he drank Diet Pepsi, the cans nestled in a small bucket of ice. With a soft drink in hand, he lit a cigarette and leaned back, gazing dutifully at the ponderous mass following astern.
Two hours later, he was barely awake, fighting off drowsiness with his tenth cigarette and third Pepsi. The Emerald Dolphin was still where she was supposed to be. The cook sat up and tilted his head when he heard what sounded like a deep rumble come from within the hulk. It reminded him of thunder over the distant horizon, not one but a series of booms, as if they were timed a few seconds apart. He sat up and squinted his eyes. He was about to write it off to his imagination when he noticed that something had changed. It took a moment for him to realize that the ship was sitting lower in the water.
The scorched cruise ship sheared her starboard slightly before wallowing back on a straight course. Under the searchlight, a huge billow of smoke issued from the wreckage forward of amidships before spi-raling into the darkness outside the searchlight's beam. Then the cook's face froze in horror.
The Emerald Dolphin was foundering, and she looked to be going down fast.
In shock, the cook ran up onto the bridge to shout, "She's sinking. Holy mother, she's going under!"
McDermott heard the commotion and burst from his cabin. He asked no questions of the cook. One look was enough to tell him that if they didn't cut the tow cable, the sinking liner would take the Audacious and her crew down twenty thousand feet to the sea floor with her. He was joined by Brown, who also took in the situation with a glance. Together, they ran to the giant winch.
Frantically, they struggled to release the brake, paying out the massive cable, watching it unreel into the abyss, rapidly falling from a near-horizontal angle to vertical as the cruise ship buried her bow in the water. The great cable that was wound around the winch's drum began to unreel ever faster until it became a blur. McDermott and Brown could only hope that when the cable finally unwound, its end would rip from its connectors. If not, the Audacious would be pulled under by the stern.
The dead cruise ship was plunging deeper with uncanny speed. Already her bow was diving beneath the surface. She was sinking on a shallow fifteen-degree angle, but sinking fast. An awful groaning sound came from the battered hull as her fire-tortured bulkheads contorted and twisted apart from the strain. Her rudder and the great jet thrusters lifted out of the water into the night. The stern hung there for a few seconds, and then slowly it followed the bow into the black sea, faster and faster until the entire ship plummeted out of sight, leaving a great swelling of air bubbles.
Only one row of cable remained wound around the reel, but suddenly it became taut and the stern of the tug dipped abruptly, jerking the bow out of the water. Every man on board stood stock-still, staring at the unwinding drum, seeing the jaws of death close. Then the drum spun for the last time as the cable's entire length was yanked sharply into the abyss. The drama had reached its climax.
There came an earsplitting shriek, and then the end of the cable shot off the drum and whipped out of sight into the sea. Released from the strain, the tug's bow came down hard as she righted herself, rocking on her keel forward and aft before settling down. The crew stood in stunned silence at their narrow brush with death.
Finally, Brown muttered, as the trauma of the last minutes slowly faded, "I never believed a ship could sink in the blink of an eye."
"Nor I," McDermott agreed. "It's as though her entire bottom dropped out."
"There goes a million pounds' worth of cable. The company directors aren't going to be too happy."
"It was beyond our control. It all happened too fast." Then McDermott paused and held up a hand.
"Listen!" he said sharply.
Everyone gazed at the spot where the Emerald Dolphin had vanished. Out of the night, a voice was shouting, "Help me!"
McDermott's first thought was that one of the crew had fallen overboard during the excitement, but a quick scan of the deck showed him they were all present. The shout came again, only this time it was weak and barely perceptible.
"Somebody's out there," said the cook, pointing in the direction of the voice.
Brown ran over to the searchlight, swung it around and played its beam on the water. The dark face of a man could barely be seen against the ebony of the sea less than a hundred feet off the stern. "Can you swim to the boat?" Brown yelled.
There was no answer, but the man did not appear exhausted. He stroked strongly and evenly toward the tug.
"Throw him a line," Brown ordered a crewman, "and haul him in before the sharks get him."
A rope was heaved over the side. The man caught it, and two crewmen pulled him to the stern and heaved him aboard.
"He's an aborigine," said Brown, a native Aussie.
"Not with curly hair," observed McDermott. "More like African."
"He's wearing a ship's officer's uniform."
Hardly expecting to see a survivor this late in the game, McDermott looked at the man questioningly. "May I ask where you came from?"
