The torpedo slid into the water. Jeff watched it disappear into the Zuider Zee until he was sure the warhead was positioned the necessary five or six feet below the surface. Then, again speaking calmly and steadily, said: “Get back, Jimmy. I’ll take it from here.”
Jimmy started to protest, but Jeff shook his head. “Don’t be stupid. It only takes one of us to pull the trigger. You got no idea what that spar’s going to do. It could sail back right through you like a spear.”
The exact same risk was posed for him, of course. But his voice was so steady, so sure, that Jimmy didn’t argue the point. He just nodded, whispered a quick “good luck,” and scurried back to the oarsmen amidship.
Jeff hunkered himself down in the bow, getting as far away as he could from the spar holding the torpedo while still being able to see what he needed to see. The Spanish warship was very close now, almost looming above him. It was close enough that Jeff could see, even in the darkness, that the torpedo would strike below the turn of the bilge.
Perfect.
Very close, now. Still, no shouted cry of warning. He decided that Jimmy had been right. On this miserable night, Spanish sentries would be trying to get whatever shelter they could from the rain. Those few of them, that is, who weren’t at the rail on the other side of the ship watching the fireworks in the distance.
Now, he closed his eyes and ducked his head. There was no doubt at all in his mind that the torpedo would strike. What remained was simply to trigger the bomb at the right instant. For that, eyesight was useless anyway (fortunately, perhaps, given the state of his glasses), so he might as well protect himself as best he could. Besides, the closed eyes would help him concentrate. It was his sense of touch that mattered now—that, and his hearing. His entire mind was focused on that. That little vibration/jolt/noise which would tell him the bomb had finally touched the hull of its target.
He held the firing device firmly in his hand. It was a simple thing, just a lanyard tied around a stick. One good quick pull—and it would have to be quick—and the jury-rigged firing pin they’d made with the help of an Amsterdam watchmaker would set off the shotgun shell fixed firmly into the bomb at the end of the spar.
His mind saw what amounted to a diagram. Pull too soon, and most of the force of the blast might be wasted. Too late, after the torpedo struck the hull and recoiled, and the same might happen. Or, worse, the spar itself might break, sending the torpedo to the bottom. Jeff didn’t really think that was likely—it was a pretty hefty piece of wood—still . . .
He just had time to realize that the ice shield was firmly in place—time, even, to realize that he would never again have to doubt himself, not, at least, when it came to this—when he felt the tremor.
His arm flashed back, all the steadiness of his nerves translated into the speed of his hand.
Afterward, he could never remember hearing anything that even vaguely seemed like an explosion. Just the sudden sensation that Leviathan had risen, roaring its monster fury, determined to consume entire the pitiful boat that had blundered across its great ridged spine. He glanced up—almost straight up, the boat had been driven at such an angle by the dome of water—a bit curious to see how long Leviathan’s fangs were. He’d never really believed the illustration he’d once seen in a book.
Later, Jimmy told him the spar had gone sailing overhead. No danger at all, Jimmy claimed.
Of course, he also claimed the spar had landed somewhere in Brunswick. And made the claim, furthermore, while insisting that Katherine Hepburn had to be English. Since, in that movie African Queen, she’d managed to look dignified all the way through, even when she was sopping wet.
Which was more than two scruffy young Americans and a bunch of scruffier Dutch fishermen and apprentices could say—for damn sure—as they desperately bailed water out of their boat while trying to avoid angry Spanish warships in the dark.