The next bad thing happened toward morning.
The night seeped by like tar, slow and drawn-out, just as black and enveloping. Every man on board wanted daylight, hoping, praying maybe that it would burn off the fog and bring the world back to them. For everyone, even the ones who had not witnessed any of the true madness with their own eyes, was certain that they were lost now, lost in some terrifying plane of madness. Maybe it was the stories circulating like colds bugs, tall tales certainly no worse than the raw, unflinching reality of the situation. And maybe it was just something every man felt right down to his marrow, a sense that Hell had unzipped beneath them and swallowed them whole.
So the night moved toward day.
According to the ship’s digital chronometer, it was just after four a.m. when the shit duly landed and sprayed in every conceivable direction. Gosling, unable to sleep, unable to close his eyes without seeing immense mutant sea worms, was in the pilothouse. Pierce was at the wheel. At the chart table Gosling was drifting off, his eyes finally closing.
Then Pierce started shouting, spinning the wheel and moving the rudder hard to the right. About that time, the deckhand out on watch was on the intercom: “Barge… bearing down on us! We’re gonna collide! Hard over! Hard over! She’s running with no fucking lights on, no fucking lights…”
All of this happened within the span of a few seconds and by then Gosling was on his feet. He saw the mystery barge on the radar screen. Managed to see it, open his mouth… and then the barge slammed into the Mara Corday’s bow, port side, and he was thrown to the deck. The barge was a thousand-footer and carried enough iron and weight on her to cut a liner in two. She struck the Mara Corday doing 14 knots, shearing open the freighter’s stem, her own bow slicing into the forward cargo hold… the special double-hulled dangerous cargo hold which contained nearly 100 tons of hi-speed diesel fuel bound for French Guiana. Over two hundred barrels were shattered, their contents flooding the hold. Within seconds, the Mara Corday began settling to port. The barge, still under full thrust from its twin-screws, tore itself free from the freighter, swinging around and ramming her amidships with its stern. Immediately, millions of gallons of water flooded into the port holds. The list to port grew worse.
The initial impact had compromised the integrity of the superstructure, port-side decks collapsing beneath it. There was a screech of torn metal and the pilothouse yawned over a few feet, the windows shattering, the decks buckling.
Picking himself up, Gosling saw Pierce was down, his face covered with blood. Morse came stumbling through the door that led down to his private office.
All Gosling could say was: “Skipper… we got jeopardy…”