Page 49 of Clive Cussler The Iron Storm (An Isaac Bell Adventure #15)

A day later, Bell thanked the young escort who’d driven him from the gate of the Royal Navy’s side of Southampton harbor to the gangway of his ship. There, an ensign was waiting, and it looked like he was fighting the urge to salute even though Bell was just a civilian.

“Welcome to the HMS Mastiff , Mr. Bell,” the ensign said with a hand halfway to his forehead before he caught himself.

Bell held out his hand for a shake to make it less awkward. “Glad to hitch a ride with you boys.”

Tied to the quay behind the sailor was a greyhound-lean Thornycroft M-class destroyer.

The warship was two hundred sixty-five feet long, but less than thirty feet at her widest. She carried three four-inch Mark IV cannons in open turrets, one fore, one aft, and another on a platform between the last two of her three circular funnels.

She also sported a complement of antiaircraft guns as well as a suite of torpedo tubes.

Down in her engine room lurked three steam boilers and a pair of Brown-Curtis turbines that could drive her up to thirty-four knots or nearly forty miles per hour.

She was fast, capable, and deadly.

“Captain’s compliments, sir. He’s on the bridge and would like you to join him when we cast off. He said to get you situated first.” The man made to take his bag, but Bell held on to it. “Follow me, please.”

They entered the ship through a doorway just under her bridge and descended a flight of stairs.

The interior of the ship was painted white, but there were few lights, meaning much of it was cloaked in shadow.

The ship had a complement of only seventy-six sailors and officers, but it seemed they were all bustling through the corridors in preparation for departure.

Bell and his guide had to keep pressing themselves against the cold steel walls to let others pass by.

“Sorry, we don’t have a proper visitor’s cabin,” the young sailor said, looking over his shoulder. “Thing is, we don’t have many guests.”

“It’s fine.”

The sailor opened a plain door and stepped aside.

Bell entered the room. It was the ship’s infirmary.

There was a single narrow bunk, a desk, and cabinets he presumed were full of medical supplies.

Through an open door at the rear of the room, Bell saw he had a phone booth–sized head with a sink basin that folded down from the wall.

“We don’t rate a proper doctor, of course, but our third officer has had some formal training. He can stitch up a wound, has this great salve for burns, and once set a broken wrist.”

Bell tossed his hat onto the mattress and slid his bag under the bed. He also shrugged out of his overcoat and found a peg attached to the door to hang it up.

“All set, sir?” the sailor asked.

“Lead the way.”

A minute later, Bell and his escort entered the bridge from a door at the back of the pilothouse. There were a number of sailors present as well as two officers. Bell recognized the stripes on the elder of the two’s sleeve and presented himself with his hand outstretched.

“Captain, I am Isaac Bell, and I want to thank you for assisting me on my mission.”

“Ah, yes,” the man said with an amused spark in his dark eyes.

He had a hatchet face and prominent Adam’s apple, but had a competent and calm air about him.

“Old Winnie might be out of the Navy, but the man’s owed favors from Surrey to Siam.

” He shook Bell’s hand. “Reginald Finch. Welcome aboard the HMS Mastiff . Got him settled in, Seaman Cairns?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Then off you go. You’ve other duties.”

“Yes, sir.” The escort vanished the way he’d come.

“Mr. Bell, this is my XO, Tony Whitman.” Whitman wasn’t yet thirty, huskily built with a grip he obviously tempered when they shook hands.

The captain led Bell and his executive officer to a small day cabin behind the bridge reserved for his private use.

The dishwater light coming in through a small window indicated the weather was worsening.

Finch poured tea from a vacuum flask. “Could you elaborate on the need for our mad dash to Ponta Delgada? My orders were rather vague.”

“There is reason to believe the Germans are going to try to retrieve an old battleship that’s been impounded since the war began from the Azore Islands. My mission is to alert the authorities so they can beef up their security and stop them.”

“And if we’re too late? You don’t expect us to go after them solo, do you?”

“No, Captain.”

“Thank the Lord for that. We’d need a squadron of tin cans to go after a Boche battlewagon, even an obsolete one.”

“If the ship is already gone, our mission is complete, and we return to England at best-possible speed. We need to alert the Admiralty that there’s a new hunter on the open Atlantic far deadlier than any U-boat.”

Bell added this last bit to maintain the fiction that he was in pursuit of Germans and not anarchists bent on seeing the world turned to ashes.

If his hunch was right, Rath and his crew would still be at sea by the time the Mastiff made it back to Southampton.

He would have to admit to his and Churchill’s fib to the Navy and suffer whatever rebuke they were due.

On the bright side, it also meant he could give Archie and Roosevelt an accurate estimate of Rath’s arrival time if New York was his intended target.

There was a knock on the door.

“Come,” Finch called.

A sailor stepped into the cabin and announced the harbor pilot was here, the extra fuel was aboard, and they were ready to cast off.

“Very good. Mr. Bell, a couple of rules. You’re permitted on the bridge provided you stay well back from my men.

For meals, you’ll dine with the officers.

And if we have to go to battle stations at any point on the voyage, your action station is your cabin in the sick bay.

You are to wear your life jacket and remain there until the all clear is signaled. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Captain. My cabin, in a life jacket.”

Bell enjoyed watching competent people doing their jobs.

It didn’t matter the job. A pizza chef tossing pie after pie over his head could be as satisfying as watching a mason build a straight wall by sight alone.

Captain Finch had a very competent crew, and watching them take the Mastiff out of the harbor under the guidance of a civilian pilot was a treat.

Not a word was wasted nor an order missed.

Once the pilot was disembarked onto a tender that had shadowed the destroyer, Finch ordered the Mastiff up to speed.

Bell loved speed, be it car, plane, or boat.

He looked forward to the sensation of such a nimble ship cutting through the waves at nearly forty miles per hour.

The swells outside the harbor were moderate, and the Mastiff took them well.

Soon Southampton was well behind them and there was no traffic around, and yet the destroyer never accelerated past sixteen knots.

By this time Finch had left the bridge and his XO, Whitman, had the con.

“Begging your pardon, XO,” Bell said, standing at the man’s shoulder. “I thought the ship was much faster than this.”

“She is. She can do double what she’s running now. The problem is she can’t sustain it for long. Burns too much fuel and kills our range. As it stands, we’ll be close to dry when we reach Ponta Delgada.”

Bell did the calculations in his head. They had a journey of two thousand miles, and at sixteen knots it would take just over five days. Anxious about the lead Karl Rath already had, Bell knew he’d feel like a lion in a cage for every minute of the trip.