Noose

by Bill James

  ‘I didn’t see or hear her yelling at Explorer, but this came out in the Inquiry. And the rest of it.’

  ‘The things leading to disaster.’

  ‘The King Arthur didn’t have solid bulwarks, Ian.’

  ‘Bulwarks being the sides of a ship above the main deck.’

  ‘What the King Arthur had instead was a broad metal rail at about four feet above the deck, and beneath it three spaced cables making a sort of safety fence. Now this woman, Emily Bass, was petite, and she must have thought they would hear her and see her better on Explorer if she could get extra height to shout her teasing. The thrill of it all seemed to take away her judgement. That can happen to people. I wouldn’t say especially to women – that might not be fair – but it does seem to affect women the most. She climbed on to the first cable – about one foot above the deck. She must have decided this wouldn’t do. She still wasn’t high enough to be properly noticed from the other ship and heard. She stepped on to the second cable, another foot up. Her friends should have stopped her. But several of her party, including her parents, had gone starboard to watch the approach to the pier. Some pals did remain close by. They were as excited as she was, though, and one of them had climbed on to a cable as well, so as to be seen from the Explorer, but only the lowest.

  ‘This woman, the friend of Emily Bass, told the Inquiry there was what she called a kind of “holiday fever”. She said she’d tried the second cable, but didn’t feel safe and came down to the one below. Anyway, nobody advised Emily Bass to be sensible. If a member of the crew had seen her, he would have made both of them get down on to the deck, but we were all on the starboard side, because that’s where we’d be needed when we reached the pier.’

  ‘Ropes. The mooring hawser.’

  ‘Now, what became clear at the Inquiry was that Corbitty saw this woman, Emily Bass, from where he stood on the Explorer bridge and realized at once that she’d climbed into a very hazardous position if the King Arthur should rock or sway a little as she approached Penarth pier. He waved hard at her and also called out, telling her to get down. Explorer’s helmsman confirmed this at the Inquiry. But Emily Bass only laughed at Top Dog, seemed to think he was cross because the King Arthur would be first, and wanted to stop her enjoying this idea so much. Corbitty immediately put the Explorer engine room telegraph from Full Ahead to Dead Slow Ahead Both – obviously recognizing now that the King Arthur should go in first, and that Explorer must lie off and wait, for the sake of the woman’s well-being.

  ‘As I mentioned, Ian, at the Inquiry nobody spoke of a race, except for one member of the Board, who asked if there had been anything of that nature, and received a very clipped and definite “No” – was told such behaviour would defy regulations, and therefore could not possibly occur. It would be irresponsible. He had to say that. He had to lie. Of course, there had been a race, but Corbitty must have seen the danger to that woman leaning out over the rail, and called off his challenge. He was a captain and competitor but also a professional and a gentleman. He accepted that the race must be abandoned so as to cut the risk to Emily Bass.’

  ‘The King Arthur had been making for the pier unusually fast, because of the threat from Explorer.’

  ‘Not much too fast, Ian. A little. Dominal knew he could rely on good stopping power from the two reversed paddles. That’s how he was going to play it. I’d seen him carry out that kind of action several times before. He had the experience. But, Ian, you see, a sudden change from Full Ahead Both to Full Astern Both on a paddle steamer will always cause a kind of profound shock to go through the whole hull of a ship, and affect her steadiness for a moment, only a moment. There’s a definite strain on the structure. Perhaps it’s something like jamming the brakes on in a motor car. The driver can’t be sure how the vehicle will behave then. With a ship, it’s worse. She might suddenly and briefly develop a list – a tilt – to one side or the other when suddenly asked for that kind of abrupt change. This will be especially true if the port and starboard paddles are not absolutely matched in timing. Even a difference of half a minute between reaching maximum power will cause a ship to pitch slightly and briefly to one side. Paddle steamers gradually got phased out and the Bristol Channel pleasure craft became propeller driven. But that’s how the paddlers were then – liable to lurch.’

  ‘It’s known as yawing,’ Ian said. ‘And this is what happened to the King Arthur. And this is what happened to Emily Bass.’

  ‘Dominal signals to our engine room Full Astern Both because his ship is almost at the pier. He knows he has won. The chief engineer gives him that big reverse surge at once – has been expecting the telegraphed order. Paddles as brakes. Dominal doesn’t want to go backwards, but to halt. Once the King Arthur is stationary he’ll telegraph Stop Engines. The Inquiry heard that tests showed the King Arthur’s paddles could, in fact, be very slightly out of unison – not enough to cause bother normally, but dangerous on the day owing to a pile-up of special circumstances. When he signalled for Full Astern Both, one paddle was fractionally behind the other in responding. This had an effect. It made a wobble more likely, and more marked.

  ‘That woman, Emily Bass, because of where she stood on the port side second cable, had the top of the rail at somewhere between knee and thigh level, Ian. It meant she had no proper balance if the ship skewed. Corbitty had spotted that, and cut his speed, evidently hoping Dominal would see he’d won, and could therefore take the King Arthur in gently to the pier, coming down gradually from Full Ahead Both to Half Ahead, then Slow, then, on the opposite side of the dial, to Slow Astern Both, Half Astern, and, finally, ease her into Full Astern, with no abruptness or stress on the hull.

  ‘But Dominal had let the King Arthur get a little too close to the pier for that sort of careful, stage-by-stage, standard run-in. The ship stopped at the landing point, with no damage to the pier or vessel, but she did do a momentary minor dip to port – yes, minor, only a few degrees, but, on account of the way Emily Bass had climbed, enough to fling her into the sea between the two ships. She was like a stone shot from a catapult. She had no hope of control.’

  ‘And then, Dad, as the King Arthur swings back to normal upright the ship sucks the water in under her port side, making a sort of whirlpool, and this is something else to pull Emily Bass down – and anyone trying to save her.’

  ‘I was still forward on the other side handling the ropes for mooring us to the pier, and didn’t know about her at once. I did know the ship had “done a shudder” as we used to call it, but that was more or less normal when a paddler went suddenly into Full Astern from Full Ahead. We didn’t worry. And we’d had so much yelling from both vessels that nobody could tell there’d been a change in what that meant. But some of it now was distress shouts from her friends.

  ‘On Slow Ahead the Explorer, a little further out, had gone past us and I could see the whole length of her near side. Captain Corbitty was on the starboard bridge wing, staring down at the sea near the King Arthur. He wore dark blue uniform and a gold peaked cap, very smart, very Corbitty, but he pulled the cap off and let it fall at his feet and then started to undo his jacket. I realized two things then, Ian. First, someone must have gone overboard from the King Arthur, and second, I saw that Captain Corbitty meant to dive or jump from the bridge wing and attempt a rescue.’

  ‘Your mind raced.’

  ‘It did.’

  ‘You thought it wasn’t right.’

  ‘In a certain way I thought it wasn’t right.’

  ‘Because until now Captain Corbitty had been a sort of foe, and yet he was the only one ready to go in after one of your passengers.’

  ‘Well, not a foe, exactly. Say, a rival.’

  ‘A different ship.’

  ‘He was taking responsibility for the danger to one of our passengers, not one of his own. It made me feel ashamed, Ian. I was still forward on the starboard side, but I ran across the deck and along to the spot which Corbitty had seemed to be staring at. Several of t
he woman’s friends stood at the rail looking down at the sea, calling her name, screaming that someone was overboard. Captain Dominal, on our bridge, must have heard this. He came out on to the port wing to see what had happened. He understood instantly and shouted to me to get the small, stern-mounted dinghy into the water. This was the sort of crisis that boat was meant for.’

  ‘But you thought it would take too long.’

  ‘Other crew members could do that. Dominal’s reaction was the standard reaction. I don’t say this amounted to an obvious mistake. No. In some situations he would have been absolutely right. But, as I think you know, Ian, I am one who will not always be satisfied by the obvious, the laid down method of tackling a situation. I am one who will form his own, personal response to a problem. I certainly don’t want to overplay this. It’s simply how I am. Others are made differently, and it would be vain and foolish to think less of them for that. But I decided, personally decided, that fellow crew members could launch the stern boat. The moment required something else from me, something quicker, in fact, something immediate. Demanded it.

  ‘I was at exactly the right place. This is something of a flair of mine. I tend in some mysterious, instinctive fashion to put myself into a position where, if there are difficulties, I can deal with them. Again, I don’t wish to swank about this. It is a subconscious urge. I cannot explain it, or expect credit for it. Simply, it is me, Laurence Charteris.’

  ‘Although you were on the starboard side your flair and subconscious urge told you to get to the port side.’

  ‘I’m used to such promptings. I couldn’t see Emily Bass, but I knew this must be the spot, because her friends had gathered there at the rail. And I knew also because Captain Corbitty must have seen her fall and, even while he undressed, had his gaze directed to one patch of water. I ignored Dominal’s order. This is no small matter at sea – to disobey the captain.’

  ‘In Mutiny on the Bounty they used to keelhaul sailors for that.’

  ‘But I would have felt guilty if Captain Corbitty had gone in alone. I began to pull off my own clothes, then climbed on to the deck rail and dived.’

  Ian became used to – very, very used to – the unvaried way his father always ended the account of things. He would tell the story as far as the couple of tense seconds while he stripped to his underclothes, climbed on to the King Arthur deck rail, stood poised for a moment, then dived. At any segment in this tale, if his father had suddenly lost his voice, Ian would have been able to continue with more or less exactly the right words and clever, well-tried pauses. But, always, when his father had reached the deck rail and the dive, he’d say hardly anything more.

  Instead he’d hand Ian a scrap album already open at the spread of pages two and three. This book contained cuttings from newspapers dealing with the rescue, and the death. Mr Charteris had glued them in. Ian could never decide whether his father chose this way of finishing the tale because he did not want to be boastful, or because he was boastful, and thought that if several newspapers called him brave he must have been, so all he had to do was show the cuttings. On the whole, Ian, the child, considered his father had quite a stack of boastfulness in him, although he wasn’t tall. Ian also considered that his father had been very brave. Nobody would have criticized him if he hadn’t dived, but, instead, done what the captain instructed and gone for the stern dinghy. Yes, his dad could be brave, and his dad wanted people to know about it.

  Ian had read the many cuttings so often he could have recited them also, without the print in front of him, but he always behaved as though this was the first time he had seen them, because of pity for his father and the way he needed to be praised and glorified for what he did. Ian would follow the newspaper paragraphs slowly, line by line with his finger, pretending to be scared of missing any of it, and he’d show quite a load of admiration and wonder. He thought his father expected this.

  And when he had first spoken to Ian about events on that bad day, and first showed him the scrapbook, Ian really had felt admiration and wonder. And the second and third time, also. But then quite slowly there came an alteration. However, Ian knew it would be cruel to close the scrapbook too soon, or not to look at the shreds of newspaper at all, because this might show he had seen these cuttings enough to make him sick of them and to wonder whether his father was really proud of himself, too proud.

  The scrapbook contained nothing else, and several pages at the end remained empty. It had seemed a waste to Ian. His father should have torn out pictures of film stars from magazines, or sportsmen, and filled up the rest. But Ian knew his father could be crafty. Perhaps he’d be afraid some people might be more interested in those later pages than in the ones about him. By putting only stuff in the scrapbook concerning the rescue, Mr Charteris greatly helped anyone looking at the pages to think only about those events and him. There were times when his father didn’t mind helping others, especially to discover great things about him.

  Because of time, some of the cuttings had begun to turn yellowy and the glue underneath browny, so several of the words were not easy to read because this browniness came through and stained the print lines. Ian thought of the browniness of the sea where the trouble occurred, making it hard to find anyone under the surface, different from a swimming bath. Many factories and mines tipped works waste into the Ely and Taff rivers, which carried it to the Channel. And there was sewage. Penarth was a holiday place, although the sea looked so dirty. People didn’t seem to care. They swam there. But they’d just be swimming to get a swim, not looking for a sunk body between two paddlers.

  Ian had realized at the time, of course, that this accident was important for South Wales newspapers, taking up many pages where they described events, and also giving Inquiry reports. In the cuttings on the scrapbook’s first pages there were pictures as well as the words, though only pictures of the two ships. But the cuttings on later pages came from newspapers two days later, when there had been time to arrange things. These contained a photograph of his father and Emily Bass standing at the exact place on deck she’d been flung from, and which he’d dived from.

  His father had on the uniform crew wore – dark trousers and a navy or black jersey with ‘Masthead Fleet’ written across it in white, and a black hat with a small peak, like a tam, that wouldn’t be blown off in gales. Emily Bass’s fair hair was in a bun on top of her head, and she wore a summer dress decorated with flowers. But Ian knew that at the time of the accident she had on a warm coat, because the boat trip could be breezy, or even really windy. The coat plus her other clothes would get very heavy in the sea. Ian thought she looked quite a clever, adventurous sort of woman, maybe the kind who would climb up foolishly towards the deck safety rail and scream teasingly at another ship going at twenty-one knots.

  In the picture, Emily Bass and his father both seemed serious, staring straight at the camera, the deck rail behind them. This seriousness was what came to people who’d been in the water for not just an ordinary swim but because of a bad and very foolish mistake, especially a girl or woman. But, of course, enthusiasms and excitements could take hold of people and make them behave out of the usual – out of the usual for themselves, not just out of the usual, especially if they were usually adventurous.

  One page in the scrapbook also had a picture of Captain Corbitty, but it had been taken previously, perhaps when he first arrived from deep sea to command Channel Explorer. He was in his officer’s uniform and cap and stood on the starboard wing of the Explorer’s bridge, gazing forward. Perhaps at that time he’d been taking the ship full speed ahead and feeling pretty proud.

  What Ian thought of as the main cutting from the Western Mail came earlier:

  TRAGEDY AT SOUTH WALES RESORT

  – Respected paddle steamer captain drowned

  – Young woman saved

  – Great bravery of crew member

  The well-known captain of a Bristol Channel paddle steamer was drowned yesterday when courageously attempting to rescue
a young woman who had fallen from a ship into the sea. She survived, saved by another sailor.

  The tragedy happened at Penarth, one of South Wales’ best-loved resorts. Two paddle steamers were involved – King Arthur, of the Masthead fleet, and Channel Explorer, an Ocean Quest vessel. The ships were close to each other, near Penarth pier waiting to pick up and land passengers.

  Captain Lionel Corbitty of the Channel Explorer apparently saw the woman passenger fall from the deck of the King Arthur, having climbed to a dangerous position on the deck rail. Captain Corbitty dived in from the bridge wing of his ship to try to save her. It is believed that while attempting to locate her under water he struck the hull of the King Arthur and was concussed prior to drowning. A member of the King Arthur crew also dived in and managed to locate the woman and bring her to shore where she was given first aid and recovered.

  The body of Captain Corbitty was found by coastguards half a mile out into the Channel two hours later, having been carried by the notoriously strong Bristol Channel tide. They gave artificial respiration in their boat and later on Penarth beach, but Captain Corbitty did not respond and was declared dead by a doctor just after midday. The rescued young woman was Emily Bass, aged 23, of Marlborough Road, Cardiff. She and a party of relatives and friends were enjoying a trip to Ilfracombe to mark the birthday of her mother, Mrs Doris Bass, also of Marlborough Road, Cardiff.

  Emily Bass’s rescuer was Laurence Charteris, 38, married with a young son, a crew member of the King Arthur, of Hunter Street, Cardiff. Passengers from each ship praised his courage and life-saving skills yesterday. Both vessels continued their voyages to cross-Channel resorts after a considerable delay. Speaking aboard the King Arthur when she returned to Newport last night Laurence Charteris said: ‘The young woman had disappeared beneath the surface but I knew where she’d gone under. I dived and hoped to find her, although the sea was murky.

  ‘I think Emily had been pulled under by the King Arthur righting herself after she had listed slightly to one side while manoeuvring towards the landing stage. The sea was sucked in beneath the side of the ship, and then rushed back again. This must have swept Emily free and I caught a glimpse of her face at a depth for one second. I knew I must act quickly before she sank further and became lost to sight. I reached out and was able to grab her coat and keep hold. I brought her to the surface, then used the life-saving stroke to take her to the King Arthur stern dinghy, which had been emergency launched in accordance with standard practice for someone overboard.