own pulling them outward, his feet skidded backward on the deck and they both wheeled over it and fell into the sea.

It was over thirty feet, past the promenade and crew’s deck. They hit the surface with agonizing impact and went far under, still locked together. Goddard fought to break the grip of those arms. He caught a thumb, pulled back and down on it until he felt it break. The arm relaxed for a moment. He pushed, and then kicked, and was free, already losing consciousness as he rose to the surface. He gulped for air. The deck above was full of men, and he saw Karen, screaming. Then he was pushed under, and Lind had his legs locked about him, and he knew it was the end; they were like steel. He hadn’t got enough air, and his struggles were growing weaker.

Darkness was closing in on him when somewhere far off through the singing in his ears he heard a cracking sound and then another as though his ribs were beginning to break. Then, strangely, the massive legs went limp and he was free and drifting upward to flounder helplessly on the surface. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes. The great blond head was awash beside him, beginning to drop away below the surface, and the water around it was stained with blood. He looked up. Harald Svedberg was above him on the corner of the boat deck with a gun in his hand. Two sailors jumped in beside him from the crew’s deck, and somebody was throwing a line. Goddard turned and looked down and saw the giant body make one last convulsive movement as Eric Lind drifted from his sight.

The sailors grabbed him and made the line fast under his arms. One of them grinned. ‘Don’t you ever get enough of this stupid ocean?’

They hauled him up and lifted him over the rail. His strength was returning now, and he was able to stand. Water ran out of his hair. His shorts were ripped all the way up one side, and his hands were battered and bleeding. The fire roared on from number three hatch, but two hoses were throwing water into it now, and he could hear more hard jets beating against the bulkheads inside the deckhouse. Men pounded him on the back as they unbent the line about his chest. Karen Brooke was looking at him with tears streaming down her face.

‘I—I wonder what you would think,’ she said in a tiny voice, ‘if you ever saw people just walking aboard a ship on a g-g-gangplank.’ She broke up then into sobs and laughter.

* * *

They began to gain on it, and in an hour they knew they were going to win. The fire in the shelter deck was out, and three hoses were pouring tons of water into number three hold where there was now more smoke than fire.

Mayr and the bos’n were dead, shot by Harald Svedberg in the fight on the boat deck. Mayr had been wounded in the legs by one of the bursts from Goddard’s gun, but had tried to shoot Svedberg as the men ran up through the chartroom and out onto the bridge. Karl had surrendered, and was locked in the hospital along with Spivak and Otto, who had regained consciousness. Sparks was allowed to remain free, and was assessing the damage to the radio equipment. The main and high-frequency transmitters were beyond repair, but he thought he could have the emergency in operation by the following afternoon.

By eleven o’clock there were no more flames, only dense steam and smoke rising from the hatch. Karen had gone up to her cabin to get dressed, and Goddard was watching as the crew continued to throw water into the hold. One of the sailors looked at him in his torn shorts, and shook his head.

‘Well, men, I guess we got to take up another collection for this Hollywood big-shot.’

‘Yeah,’ another said, with a grin. ‘Talk about schooner-rigged. Every time you see him his ass is hanging out somewhere else.’

‘If I ever get back there,’ Goddard said, ‘I’m going to start a new status symbol. Owning your own underwear.’

The chief reported that everything below was under control and they could get under way. Sparks told them about the rendezvous with the Phoenix, so Mr. Svedberg said they would steam north for two hours before resuming course. Nobody had any desire to encounter the craft.

Twenty minutes later, the