The oil rigs, having drilled unsuccessfully elsewhere, were now planning to move operations to the Pondoland coast. Was enough known about the area to dismiss wholly the theory of an undersea cavern, or a vortex? Why had nothing happened to the thousands of other ships which had used this same route? Would - whatever it was - lie in wait for one of the giant oil rigs and strike it down as it had struck down the Waratah. The most far-fetched speculation was no more absurd than the plain historical fact that a 10,000-ton liner, classed Al at Lloyd's, and commanded by one of the ablest sailors of the day, had vanished utterly, without trace, within sight of the land, in broad daylight, somewhere where I was now.
What had destroyed the ship had been something terrible and swift, something the skilled sailor could not calculate or foresee.
The two banks of blackness ahead of Walvis Bay began to merge; the darkness grew.
I hung on to the lifelines I had ordered earlier in the afternoon to be rigged as Walvis Bay went deep through a huge wave-not a roller, but a short, high, spume-tipped load of water. Her hull trembled, and the screw chewed air and thin water with the same kind of brash rattle that a car makes when the clutch is thrown out and the engine continues at speed. It went against all my seaman's instincts to push the game whaler like this-but I had to know, and this was Waratah weather. Walvis Bay dipped her entire starboard side under, and I ducked gratefully behind the solid bridge and forward superstructure which occupied most of her whole width of beam and was designed specifically to break the force of such as this as they swept aft.
Streaming water, I regained the bridge.
Taylor, one of the two technicians aboard whose function was to care for the scientific apparatus, had turned green.
The gyro doesn't know its arse from its elbow, with this bucking,' he said, hastily averting his eyes from a rearing oncoming sea. 'Nor do I, for that matter.'
'What's the trouble?' I asked. 'It was supposed to hold the platform steady in Southern Ocean seas.'
This isn't the Southern Ocean,' he retorted, gesturing half behind him as if the sight of the seas were too much for his stomach. 'It's different. It's this bucking and lurching that it can't take. Over-compensates. The platform rocks around like . . . like . . .' he motioned to the sea. 'Now she's overheating. If she burns out...'
'Switch the damn thing off, then,' I snapped.
'Can't - the rest position was designed for rest, not for . . . for . . . this. No one thought to have any securing bolts. If we switch it off, it'll rock itself to pieces. Can't you do something about this bucking?'
It was my turn to gesture towards the sea. I didn't say, if I'm right it will get a lot worse before the night is out. If the gyro went, the whole purpose of tracking the new satellite would go overboard. Yet here was an opportunity which in the long run might prove far more valuable in saving rigs worth millions of pounds than not taking a chance with the gyro.
I said, 'Go and have a chat with Nick Scannel. He's the engineer, maybe he can suggest some way of securing it.'
Miller, the other technician, came on to the bridge. He eyed me balefully. 'Have you told him?' he asked Taylor.
Taylor did not seem to trust himself to reply. He nodded.
'Gyro's getting hot,' said Miller.
'See Scannel and get on with it,' I said.
'Perhaps if I puke over it, it'll cool down,' coughed Taylor. He vanished hastily.
Feldman stood by during the conversation, silent, lips pursed. Was I, I asked myself quickly, succumbing to the mysterious forces of that soulless ship, dead for over sixty years in her grave, by pushing Walvis Bay down the same Pondoland coast, at the same season of the year, into the same sort of storms, on her same track, at her same speed? With that question, the cold thought swept over my mind, cold now as the sting of the cold rain mixed with bursting spray on my face: am I treading on Waratah’s grave at this moment? I made a quick calculation: no. Although I could not see the land well enough to be sure, Walvis Bay was still approaching, on a line out to sea, the mouth of the Bashee River. Waratah had been twelve miles out to sea; I held Walvis Bay twelve miles offshore likewise. Waratah had still been afloat at this point, and the Clan Macintyre, although eight or ten miles astern of her, had her still in sight. Waratah was by now on the port bow of the Clan Macintyre, having crossed shortly before from the landward side. Waratah had been doing thirteen knots, and the sea had been smashing into her, rising progressively on the southwesterly gale, as it was doing now.
Feldman said cautiously, 'If we reduced speed a little, sir, it might help the gyro.'
Everyone wanted speed reduced-the ship, the men, the gyro I
I controlled my reply and said evenly, 'She's making the best heading under the circumstances - she's taking the run of the sea dead ahead. If I reduced speed, it- would make the motion worse, not better.'
I knew what I was saying was merely a half-truth, begging the question.
Before he could start to argue, I followed it up. 'No further word from the Weather Bureau?'
'No, sir. Next forecast is not for another couple of hours.' 'Good. Then we can take it things are not really too bad, eh?'
I was using sophistry, not seamanship. Feldman was unconvinced. He gestured to starboard, landwards. Three flashes.
'Bashee Mouth,' he reported formally. He seemed to be wanting to say something more, but he went on, irrelevantly, as if to force conversation, 'Light's situated on the northeastern side of the river.'
We had opened the gate of the Waratah's tomb.
The enclosed bridge gave a sense of security compared with the exposed wildness of the upper deck.
I played along with Feldman. 'How's the wind?’
'Force 8, gusting harder than that, though. Over fifty knots.'
Force 8. The threshold of a real buster-with worse to come. It was still not the gale 'of exceptional violence' which had crippled other ships at sea the day the Waratah had disappeared. Had she not quite plainly rolled over and sunk? It was the complete answer - except that it begged one inescapable fact: not one body, not one shred of evidence of wreckage, had ever been found of the Waratah. If she had turned turtle, there was the Clan Macintyre to find wreckage coming from behind; steaming towards her was another liner, the Guelph. All the search ships had found not one plank.
I told Feldman, 'I'm going to my cabin for a moment.'
I wanted to check that chart in the actual presence of a big storm to see if I could not uncover some new factor, some practical aspect perhaps, which had escaped my academic investigations.
I did not go to the chart, however. I stood for a moment undecided at the same doorway she had stepped through. And it was she, Tafline, who occupied my thoughts at that moment of crucial decision for the ship. I went across and stared at the old photograph as she had done. It meant nothing. It was-simply a photograph. It was the thought of the slim, lovely presence that held me. Was her hair dark or light? Neither. It came to me now-it was the indefinable colour the fronds of kelp have on a clear day in the Southern Ocean as they grace an iceberg, neither dark nor light, yet with some unique quality of vibrancy they take from the refracted light which changes magically as the ice lifts and falls - three qualities of light, one from the sea, one from the ice, one from the sky.
I stood, and looked as she had, at the Viscount.
Bruce Fairlie the pilot had not been afraid of storms. Why should he be? His machine was powered by thousands of horsepower, it had every latest radio and radar device. His last signal to the land had shown no concern for the weather. He had reported simply that he was flying low over the sea in strong wind and rain and would be coming in to land in a few minutes at East London airport ... I shrugged off my thoughts impatiently. I had worked all this out before. All it added up to was that the airliner had been over the sea, low, south of the Bashee Mouth.
Bruce Fairlie had also opened the graveyard gate.,
It had closed for ever behind him.
No wreckage, n
o bodies, had ever been found. Not a plank.
I went to the chart now. On it. Waratah's track ended a little to the south of where Walvis Bay pitched and rolled. The terminal point was approximate, since she may have vanished immediately the Clan Macintyre lost sight of her. Alistair intended to come in to attack East London on a course converging with mine - and the Waratah's. He said he would be so low that there would be no chance of the radar defences picking him up. His Buccaneer would be flying at more than twice the speed of the lost airliner. Would that insure his safety-would he fly tonight? It seemed that whatever had struck down the Waratah and the Gemsbok took no account of speed, if one considered the discrepancy between them.
Where lay the common factor?
I saw.
South-west.
The run of the sea was south-west. The gale was south-west. Waratah's course was south-west. Gemsbok's course was south-west. The Buccaneer's course was south-west. Walvis Bay's course was south-west. The course was death.
CHAPTER FIVE
'It's the whip after the lurch,' protested Taylor. 'It's like a sjambok being cracked. It's shaking the guts out of all the equipment.'
'It's only a matter of time before the spindle of the radar antenna goes,' added Miller.
Feldman glanced nervously half-over his shoulder. 'One big sea will carry away the radiosonde hut.'
The two technicians were defiant; they were civilians and could say their say to me; Feldman, without usurping authority, could give them his backing. Fear has many faces, and Feldman's was ugly to me.
I tried to keep tempers smooth.
Take a look at the problem from my point of view,' I said. 'You want me to do something about it. If I turn the ship beam-on to the sea, what do you think will happen? It's bloody dangerous anyway, but how do you think she'll roll then? Twice what she's doing now. The best way to face a storm like this is bows-on. That's the way I'm doing it.'
The Bashee light was dropping out of sight astern. Grey and uneasy, the coast lay crouched in a haze of spray, the high shoulders of the black promontories braced against the storm. Very soon it would be completely dark.
Feldman said, 'We've seen a lot of rough weather in the Southern Ocean. But look at this sea-I've never seen anything like it. Down south they come as long rollers, and there's a breathing space in between. I've never seen Walvis Bay taking it green the way she is now.'
"The gyro would be quite happy like that,' Taylor went on. 'That's what it was designed for. It's in the specification . . '.'
'Blast your specifications,' I retorted impatiently. 'I can't specify the sort of sea one gets.'
'All we're asking is for you to give us a sporting chance,' muttered Miller. 'Here you are bashing the ship with everything full on ...'
Feldman saw his chance. He said tentatively, 'You haven't reduced speed. She'd ride easier if you did.'
'I'm the captain, and I take the decisions around here,' I snapped.
'Even a captain can be wrong sometimes,' replied Miller truculently. 'We're telling you plainly and simply that if you don't do something quick, you won't have any apparatus left in a couple of hours.'
Taylor was more conciliatory. ^Couldn't we make a plan .. .’
I loathed myself for pulling my rank, but I simply could not attempt to explain. How could I say that I was deliberately trailing my coat, for greater ends even than the valuable instruments which were the true heart of the weather ship? Every suggestion the three men were making was in accord with common sense and sound seamanship. I was driving the ship unnecessarily, risking valuable equipment, property, and maybe even lives.
I tried to bluster my way out. 'Would you like me to put in to East London then and signal the Bureau that the gear's a failure even at the start, and you can't cope?'
'You'd think it was our gear and that you were only the driver,' snapped back Miller. 'You're in this just as much as we are, if not more, don't forget'
My nerves and temper were stretched. The bridge clock showed 5.30. Perhaps, I thought with a sense of relief which was overwhelming, the Air Force won't fly tonight anyway. However, did they-or the Weather Bureau - really know how out at sea it was working up into something really dirty? Freed of the awful responsibility of Alistair (the Gemsbok’s identical course seemed burned into my brain), I alone could test what there was to test about the Waratah, but I would have to be very sure that the end would justify the means-in other words, the pitiless hammering which was being handed out, with my full concurrence, to the scientific gear. Would it, like my coastwise trip, be meaningless? If I accepted the futility of what I was doing, I would reduce speed right away and cosset the apparatus, perhaps even take her out into deep water, where the wave effects were bound to be less than in the shallow waters of the Agulhas Bank. I crushed down the idea. I had decided to follow the Waratah's course at the Waratah's speed to smoke out what had sunk her, and stop it doing the same to the great oil rigs. I had that rendezvous with Alistair, if I were not there, I told myself, perhaps my very absence might drive him into the arms of the Waratah danger if he started to look for Walvis Bay in the wild seas . . .
I bit back my reply to Miller. 'What did Scannel say?' I temporized.
'He's got so many of his own problems, he hasn't been able to spare time for ours,' retorted Miller sullenly.
I picked up the engine-room voice-pipe. 'Nick? I've got a crisis on my hands. The satellite observing gear and the radar antenna are shaking themselves to pieces . ..'
The sea's thump in the engine-room below the water-line came through clearly on the instrument. It was like a rubber truncheon being beaten against a steel drum.
'I'll be right up,' said Scannel briefly. I wished I had a first officer of the calibre of my engineer.
Scannel took a brief look round when he arrived at the bridge. 'Is that what's making all the racket?' He gestured to the sea.
Feldman muttered, half to himself, 'It would be less with less speed on her . ..'
Scannel snorted. 'Listen, chum, my engines are good for sixteen knots, gale or no gale.'
I grinned at the engineer. It was comforting to have some backing.
'The gyro is overcompensating and heating up . . Miller and Taylor went into a string of technicalities.
'Okay, okay,' replied Scannel. 'Let's go and have a look. I have an idea . . .' He glanced derisively at Feldman's back where he stood peering through the bridge screen windows. 'You won't be wanting any more speed for the next half-hour or so, will you, skipper? I'm going with these boys.'
He grinned and winked. One could almost see the wince pass up Feldman's back.
I didn't want to have to bluff and fence with Feldman once the others had gone.
I said, 'Please make a round of the ship, No. 1, and check all lashings. Double-check the radiosonde hut. Smit rigged some extra stays to prevent any movement.'
Feldman eyed me oddly. For a moment he glanced uneasily through the bridge windows as if to say something, but then stopped himself.
'Aye, aye, sir.'
He left without speaking. Jubela and I had the bridge to ourselves. Living close to anyone in a small ship at sea throws a heavy psychological burden on one; with Feldman, the burden was double.
Walvis Bay gave a series of three heavy crashes, slewed slightly to starboard and then, under the weight of water, listed sharply over towards the land.
Jubela grunted. The wheel whipped and spun. 'Hold her!'
It was involuntary from me; Jubela needed no coaching in wheel orders.
He said, 'It is as bad already as the night you came back for me - Umdhlebe.'
Twice on this short voyage he had called me that. Twice, since I had met Tafline.
I was tempted to tell Jubela then about the Waratah and the lost airliner. Should the skipper confide to the seaman? I think Jubela would have understood. We talked the same language, he and I.
I began lightly, an appeal to the sense of fun which lies so close beneath every Tonga's ski
n.
'Those boots of yours are so worn now they're not worth coming back for any more,' I laughed. 'Look, it's only a few miles to the shore. I'd really let you swim this time.'
But Jubela did not respond. He gazed stonily ahead, pretending he could see through the streaming water which deluged the bridge windows.
A curious tense silence came between us.
What strange prescience had choked the Tonga's usual ebullience to sullen refusal to talk? Were we indeed in the presence of that ill-omened, fated ship? Was the influence clearer to Jubela with his highly-developed intuitive faculty?
For the next half-hour Walvis Bay laboured and plunged. Jubela and I said nothing.
Feldman came back, nodded, clasped his hands behind his back, standing correctly where a first officer should stand in a storm. He gave no report of the ship, and I asked for none. The silence became tighter.
The radio warning buzzer went. Since there was no full-time radio operator, the device signalled the bridge when a message was due; if on watch, Feldman would answer.
Feldman nodded again perfunctorily and went.
Even before he handed me the signal on his return, I could tell by the smug, tight purse of his lips that it was of moment, and that I wouldn't like it.
From Weather Bureau and C-in-C South African Navy, Simonstown. Advise storm of unusual intensity south Port St John's and Bashee Mouth towards East London and approaches. Anticipated Force 10 gale, south-west, 60 m.p.h. All shipping northbound from Port Elizabeth to Durban is hereby ordered to seek shelter at nearest port; all southbound shipping from Durban is ordered to make for open sea and deep water clear of Agulas Bank a best possible speed.
I looked up from my first reading of the message, carefully avoiding Feldman's gaze. I saw the light reflect the veneer of sweat on Jubela's neck as he spun the wheel to maintain Walvis Bay's course. He had discarded his leather jacket and there were patches of wetness on his shirt
Scend of the Sea Page 7
