on,’ Jock shouted in his West Coast Scottish brogue that twenty years in the SBS had hardly softened, and he pushed the throttles forward, easing the engines to half power as he turned the boat away from the side of the tanker.
Scouse and Jab entered the small cockpit, gripping the roof support bars to hold themselves against the powerful acceleration. The inside was like any military vehicle: basic, zero comforts, all struts and hard surfaces and jammed with communications, radar equipment and other technology. It was solid and confined.
The wave was visible through the narrow cockpit windows. Even though it was moving relatively slowly, it was only several hundred yards away.
‘Round the end or through it?’ Stratton asked.
‘The sides. I ain’t tried surfing this bitch yet and today ain’t the day for it,’ Jock shouted above the engines as he increased power. ‘Where’s the boats?’
‘Straight out from the tanker’s side. Less than a mile.’
‘You reckon we’ll make it in time, do you?’
‘No idea. You?’
‘Doubt it,’ he said, glancing at Stratton for a second. ‘Trying to make me as mad as you?’
‘We’re all bonkers in this business, Jock.’
‘Aye, true enough.’
The VSV roared like a fighter jet on the water as the engines increased in power, the two tachometer needles pushing towards the red zone. The sheer thrust could be felt in the confined metal space, the vibrations echoing along every surface.
The end of the wave was soon visible, tapering off to flat water. Jock suddenly decided not to wait until they reached it and turned the boat sharply to face the back of the wave. It leaned over like a Formula One racing bike and straightened out as it cut into the slope at a slight angle. It pierced the hump, partly submersing for a second, and dropped down the other side before levelling out on the flat.
All four men glanced back at the mountain of sea that towered behind them, all thinking the same thing. If they carried on they would soon be trapped between the wall of water and the coast and there was going to be only one way out of it. Stratton scanned ahead for the boats and quickly saw them in the calmer waters of the bay. The fishing boat was heading towards the mouth of the walled harbour, its three-man crew oblivious to the encroaching danger.The tour boat was further away from the wave and looked as if it was carrying a dozen people or more.
‘What do you want to do?’ Jock asked as he aimed for the nearest boat.
‘We won’t have time to empty both,’ Stratton said.
‘Be lucky if we empty any,’ Jock murmured.
‘Give the fishing boat a heads up and go for the other one.’
Jock sounded his klaxon as he started to turn away from the fishing boat.
The fishing boat’s captain stepped out of his small booth to investigate the horn and his mouth dropped open when he saw the wave less than half a mile away. His two crewmen, folding nets on the deck, also looked up and froze in horror.The captain quickly spun one-eighty degrees to find the entrance to the walled harbour several hundred metres away, his mind racing to calculate if he could make it in time. The harbour was made up of two stone sea walls that curved out from the land and overlapped where they met out to sea with a gap between them wide enough for a large boat to pass through. Inside was a calm harbour housing hundreds of yachts.
He ran back inside his booth and pushed the throttle fully home. The increase in power was barely discernable. Keeping a hand on the wheel, he stepped out of the booth to take another look back at the wave as his mates dropped what they were doing to join him.
‘My God,’ he murmured.
The tour boat was also heading for the harbour but it was much further away than the fishing boat and would never make it in time.
A woman passenger taking photographs of the horizon was the first to notice the wave through her lens. She put the camera down, hoping it wasn’t what she thought it was.
‘Ken. What do you think that is?’ she said to her husband.
Within seconds the twelve other passengers were on their feet staring at it.
‘It’s a tidal wave!’ one of them shouted in horror, and panic immediately swept through the boat.
The pilot glanced over his shoulder at the sound of the klaxon and blanched. He quickly gauged the distance to