Scend of the Sea

by Geoffery Jenkins

  Scannel flashed his light over the Wreckage. 'You'll have to hang on to me this time,' he remarked grimly. 'Hell, what a shambles! This will need an oxy-acetylene cutter.'

  The sea came over and drenched us.

  'Can you keep the flame burning?' I asked anxiously.

  'Got to,' he jerked out. 'If those cables or chains wrap themselves round the screw . ..' he gestured.

  'One's already out of action,' I said.

  'I don't know how bad it is -1 stopped her before it could do itself more damage,' he replied. He took a hard, long look at me. ‘I guess you'll want everything she has, to get through the night?’

  'Yes, Nick. We're in trouble. Big trouble. But one dud screw or not, if another sizzler like that big wave hits us, we've had it. Just say your prayers-if there's time. She's got a hole in the foredeck the size of Table Mountain. No tarpaulin is going to be worth a damn in another sea like that.'

  Scannel's eyes were sizing up the job professionally as he spoke. ‘It wasn't like any wave I've ever encountered. The engine-room floor suddenly nose-dived. It was like putting her head down an escalator.'

  I found my hands shaking on the lifelines, reaction to the dive like a near-miss car smash. Deliberately, consciously, I crushed all thought of the Waratah out of my mind. I must not be hamstrung in coping with our mortal peril by shadows from the past.

  'Put that light on the gravity corer on the other rail,' I told Scannel. 'Maybe we'll have to cut that one away too. Not such heavy gear as this one, though.'

  Scannel laughed mirthlessly. 'Take a look.' Across the wet deck, only a few stumps of metal showed where the gravity corer had been.

  'The sea's done that job pretty well for us, but for this we'll want an oxy-acetylene cutter-le Roux can help. He's a good boy. Won't panic'

  'I'll wait,' I said briefly. 'Feldman's injured. Smit's trying to sort things out on the bridge.'

  I tried to get my bearings as Scannel staggered off along the bucking lifeline. On the exposed deck the gale was penetrating, Arctic. Walvis Bay rolled heavily, but still the seas were not sweeping the decks as they had done before the great wave. Something seemed to be taming them. The crests still broke aboard, but Walvis Bay, with all the weight of water inside her, was riding them, not plunging headlong.

  The fear rose in my throat at the thought of the black shape into which Walvis Bay had so nearly plunged. I took a grip of my nerves and edged over to the windward side of the deck, trying to pierce the darkness, trying to bring to rational, everyday terms the thing I thought I had seen. The gale still tore its Force 10 swathe from the south-west. Tears streamed down my face as I held my eyes into it to make sure it held the same quarter. Walvis Bay was edging slowly towards the deep sea-towards safety. Had the savagery of the seas lessened, I asked myself, because there was already deeper water under her? Had we side-stepped some diabolical sea-bottom contour which lashed the waves to such madness?

  I wiped the spray and the rain from my eyes with the back of my hand and tried again to find the black mass which had stood in our path. For perhaps half a minute I could see before the iciness brought a fresh gush of tears. Nothing. Could I find the place again? The compass was hopelessly wrecked; more than before, even, my dead reckoning was pure guesswork. We could be five miles in any direction. I turned my face from the scalpel of wind and spray. Had it simply been a trick of the light which had made a big sea loom to take shape like ... I dared not bring the thought out from shadows as Avernal as the darkness around the battling ship.

  I heard Scannel shouting to me from the other side of the deck, near the grab. I made my way back cautiously. He and young le Roux were sitting astride a heavy gas cylinder. If that broke free, I thought quickly, it could be as big a menace as the swinging grab had been. A crushing impact against a broken-off stanchion could explode the high-compression gas inside ...

  Scannel had not forgotten to bring a strong light as well as a rope.

  'Get a turn round her,' he panted. 'Can't work if this thing's going to go wild.'

  I wormed a noose over the steel neck of the bottle, round a couple of severed stanchions, and then back over the smooth cylinder barrel.

  'Every time that spar dogs into the ship, I die a little,’ Scannel remarked. 'It's bad enough here, but you want to hear it below in the engine-room. I'll bet there are some holes punched in her plates already.'

  He worked deftly as he spoke, trying to ignite the torch. Le Roux and I huddled close to form a windbreak. The cutter suddenly burst into bright flame, hissing and spitting in the rain and spray.

  'I'll go for the big boy first,' said the engineer. He looked apprehensively at the grab I had made fast. 'I'd really like to ditch that to begin with, but if I cut it loose it may only get fouled up with the clutter under the stern. Then we double our problem.'

  Holding the spitting, blue-tongued flame in his left hand, he steadied himself against the buckled rail with his right. He strained to see where to begin.

  'Bring the light closer, skipper,' he called. 'This will be trickier even than I thought.'

  I shone the beam on the twisted mass. The main three-inch heavy tube was so contorted that it seemed impossible that the sea could have wrought it. Strong, flexible steel cable, used for lowering the grab hundreds of fathoms deep to the ocean floor, was snarled about it like a knotted ball of wool. The winching device which was integral to it had been unseated from its bolt and seemed inextricably mixed up with the lower portions of the crane. No part of it would ever be fit for use again.

  The three of us ducked as a wave crest toppled over the rail on the lee roll; again, I was surprised at the sea's lack of viciousness. The waves were no smaller, but they seemed to be pawing at the ship now rather than punching.

  When the water cleared, Scannel hung over the rail. 'I'm going over head-first, skipper,' he told me calmly. 'You'll have to hang on to my legs while I work. Piet, boy, get yourself alongside the skipper. When you see a wave coming, shout. I'll hand you the torch. Shove it above your head-keep it out of the water - do anything, but keep it alight.'

  'You'll get drowned, Nick,' I objected. 'This is a modern variation on keel-hauling a man.'

  Scannel brushed aside my anxiety. 'If you yell in good time, I'll take a long breath. Getting wet doesn't matter. We can't play musical chairs with each wave, back and forth to the deck and over the side again each time. Every time that wreckage bashes her, our chances of seeing tomorrow get slimmer.'

  'Right,' I replied. 'But don't object if I recommend you for the George Cross or whatever they offer enginers in tight spots.'

  Scannel already had his flashlight on the heaving water, judging his moment to go overside. The water looked murky, oily, almost as if someone had drawn a thin sheet of plastic over its surface.

  'Here we go!'

  Scannel stuck the cutting torch, where the metal joins the rubber tubes from the cylinder, between his teeth and plunged himself full-length over the rail; I held his lower legs and feet, and young le Roux craned over to snatch the vital light from being doused.

  Had it been a matter of cutting away the gravity corer on the other side of the stern, our task would have been far easier. There was a great deal more water coming aboard on the lee roll (where we were) than on the weather roll opposite. The cold, too, made movements stiff and hands clumsy, I worked my jaws to keep my face from freezing.

  Scannel called to le Roux to open the gas cock. The whole scene flared into unnatural, incandescent brightness as flame bit into metal, throwing up showers of blue-white sparks.

  In that sudden brightness, I spotted the next wave.

  'Nick! The torch - quick!'

  The engineer was almost through the thick pipe. Despite my warning, he went on cutting, using every last second. The sea started its upward heave. The seared metal support broke and swung, bringing with it a flurry of flaring steel which exploded in a sizzling cascade over Scanners neck and chest.

  The wave broke.

&nbs
p; I had a momentary glimpse of his agonized face: he swivelled sideways and upwards and thrust the torch clear of the water into le Roux's grip; he rammed it high above his head.

  The rail dipped under. Water engulfed us.

  It cleared. I reached forward and dragged Scannel bodily back on to the deck. His left shoulder was a polka-dot of burn-holes. He would carry those scars for the rest of his life.

  He managed to speak. 'Let me get back—give me the torch! I'll have her completely free this time ...'

  'Nick-no-'

  He shook his head, as if not trusting himself to speak through the pain. He gestured for me to take his legs. He snatched the torch from le Roux and dived, so it seemed, headlong over the side once more.

  Again the bright light lit the scene unnaturally white. Then, miraculously soon, Scannel signalled to be pulled back.

  There's only the cable left, and that's nothing,' he said quietly.

  'Here it comes!'

  We ducked for another sea, but le Roux hung on, standing upright.

  'Good boy!' exclaimed Scannel after the roller had passed. 'Now for the cable.'

  Skilfully and quickly he sent the flame through the tangle of wire and chains. The wind drowned its splash.

  Scannel grimaced in agony.

  'Nick,' I said urgently, "I'll come below to the engine-room and fix you up. We've got to get something on those burns right away . ..'

  ‘I did,' he winced lop-sidedly. 'Seawater. Try it some time. The hot so hot and the cold so cold. No, skipper, someone else can patch me up-you're needed to save the ship, not play nursemaid to me.'

  He was right. Walvis Bay now had a sporting chance. It was up to me to exploit what Scannel had achieved.

  'Okay,' I answered, 'but, Nick, that doesn't mean I don't appreciate . . .'

  The pain and reaction were hitting him. 'Save the speech for a calm sea,' he said. 'Can we risk that screw?' I asked.

  'We'll try, anyway, and see what happens.' He snapped out the torch. 'I'll get on the bridge blower as soon as I can. Pumps, too. We've had a lucky break from the calmer seas. Just depends whether that tarpaulin holds over the hole in the deck . . .'

  I groped my way along the lifelines to the foredeck below the bridge. The men were putting the final touches to sealing the ragged hole where previously the winch had stood. Ends of the double tarpaulin still flapped and snapped, but my team was on top. Apart from another mammoth wave, it would keep out enough sea to enable the pumps to cope with what did make its way below.

  I headed for the bridge.

  Smit had rigged a couple of storm lanterns overhead and both he and Jubela were heavily oil-skinned against the driving rain. He had cleared away some of the glass and seen Feldman below to the ward-room. He had also found a small boat's compass somewhere and had taped it over the smashed binnacle.

  'Do you think we'll make it, sir?' Smit was more excited than fearful.

  I dodged a straight answer. 'How's she steering?'

  'It would be a big help if we could get the port screw working.'

  Walvis Bay's head seemed to be pointing somewhere east of south, but the tiny compass made it difficult to tell with any degree of accuracy.

  'We'll try,' I replied. 'There may be a chunk out of it, Scannel thinks, but we still could get by if the shaft's not messed up.'

  'Better than nothing at all, sir.'

  I picked up the voice-pipe. 'Nick? Can we risk that port screw yet?'

  The engineer's voice was tight with reaction. 'Aye. But we'll have to cut speed on the starboard prop first. Quarter-speed to start with. Maybe we can work up a bit more later, if the other can take it.'

  Jubela gestured to me as I spoke.

  I, too, felt the change of motion. Walvis Bay rose sharply to the next sea, quite unlike her longer, lazier motion a little while before. The white crest crashed aboard and sluiced to port, with the earlier characteristic deep lee roll. She lifted her bows well, but I could detect the inhibiting weight of water inside her.

  I nodded to Jubela. 'Nick,' I went on. 'The sea's beginning to hit her again. I don't know why, but it is. How soon can you pump the water out of her? I need all the buoyancy I can find.'

  'Couple of hours,' he answered. 'Depends on how much comes via the tarpaulin. Skipper-here comes your port screw.'

  There was a squeal of agonized metal and a heavy, thumping vibration. It struck right through the hull to the bridge. The voice-pipe dropped with a crash the other end and Scannel yelled orders to stop the engine. The shattering noise stopped.

  Scannel came on the voice-pipe.

  'That's the sort of scream you should have let out just now if you weren't such a bloody spartan,' I told the engineer.

  The engineer was in no mood to respond. I knew how much that damaged prop hurt him.

  'She's bad, skipper-very bad,' he said. The shaft must be bent - what else, only a dockyard could know.'

  I made my decision. 'Nick,' I said, 'I'm going to heave to. The sea's gone back to what it was before the big 'un hit us. I can't hold her all night with the engines like this. See if you can coax that starboard prop into giving me just enough to help hold her head into the run of the sea. I’ll stream a sea anchor and a drum of oil. The oil will soften the waves and keep them off the decks, maybe.'

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I fought, hour by hour, for the life of the ship through the long night that followed. What I did not know was that the news of the storm I was challenging had brought as great a storm, emotionally, to Tafline in Cape Town. Her storm, like mine, held its secrets: when the shock-waves of her long night were over, she admitted consciously that she was in love.

  It began, she told me afterwards, like mine, with the Buccaneer. She heard the radio announcement that a Buccaneer had gone missing on a training flight. Aboard Walvis Bay, all radios were dead. The main set was out because the radio hut had been smashed. All portable sets had been flooded and their batteries swamped. Until daylight it was impossible to find new ones in the 'tween-decks shambles.

  She had frozen at the Buccaneer announcement. She saw intuitively behind the standard, cautious, well-used phrases: she guessed it was Alistair.

  A second radio bulletin later increased her own tumult. It described the severity of the great storm I was riding out, hanging between life and death at the end of a wood-and-canvas sea anchor and a drum of oil. We had knocked holes in the drum before getting it overboard to let the oil seep out and try and soften the waves from swamping the labouring weather ship. Nonetheless, all night they broke through the shattered bridge; they cascaded through the hole in the deck; again and again we replaced the torn canvas. Our hands were numbed by the cold. Our nails were ripped. Our flesh bled. The tarpaulin reared, whipped, lashed, like a maniac. Strong men wept and cursed the south-west wind. Again and again it tore away their puny efforts to save themselves.

  Then the Weather Bureau stated: 'Radio contact with the weather ship Walvis Bay in the storm area has been lost.'

  At that, she had known the answer: Waratah!

  She had made a long-distance telephone call from Cape Town to the Port Met. Office in Durban. Where, she asked, had I last been heard of? The weatherman told her more than he normally would a stranger. There must have been something in what she said which made him guess how close, how newly close, she was to me. He did not tell her, though, that the Air Force had confided that they held out little hope for the Buccaneer. The search would be their main concern now.

  It would have comforted me, that night, to have known of her anxiety, but I did not. All I had was the decision-tapping attrition of icy gale and sea on a mind growing more and more numb as the hammer-blows followed one another unabated. When a pump burned out in some desperate hour of the night, I thought the storm had won. Scannel, disregarding the burns which had turned his upper chest into a Martian red surface of craters and blisters, calmly stripped it down with the unruffled patience and steady hand of a Grand Prix mechanic who sees the race roar past
while his driver loses precious race-winning seconds. The pump drew again, and once again we sucked out the life-inhibiting load of water.

  The first stunning wave had pitched the steel cabinet with all my Waratah material across the cabin on to my bunk. Hurrying below to visit the injured Feldman, I stopped at the sight of it. Like the peace at the heart of every cyclone, the outside roar ceased to exist for me, and telepathically she was there in that moment of exclusion. I did not try and move the cabinet; maybe it was safer on the bunk than on the floor, where the water from the bridge still sloshed past on its way to the depths of the ship. Beyond a wetting, the documents were in reasonable shape - another chapter of the same story was being written at that moment up above in wind, wave and water 1 Likewise, my marked chart escaped only with a drenching.

  Automatically, I looked at the photograph of the Waratah. Something had been hurled across the cabin; its glass was cracked clean across.

  The ship's wind direction and velocity gauge on the top deck had been wrecked; the cabin repeater pointed statically, ironically - south-west. The books she had taken from my shelf lay in a pulpy mess on the floor.

  Where, Tafline had asked, had contact with me been lost?

  Bashee, the weatherman replied. South of the Bashee.

  There had been no need for her to hear any more then. She had thanked him mechanically, put down the telephone, and gone over to the window of her flat. The Mouille Point lighthouse nearby always used to flick an arrow of light against the flat wall, and she screwed up her eyes against it now. She loved the lighthouse as her Welsh grandfather had loved the one he had tended. Tafline - the Welsh ancestry had given her that soft name, and somehow the sixth sense of the Celt enabled her to identify herself so closely with the mysterious fate of the old ship. She loved the sea too, a derivative from Viking blood on her father's side. The Olens had come from Sweden to South Africa sixty years before and had pioneered a Scandinavian settlement in the Transvaal. It was this seafaring streak which let her understand, with almost Arab fatalism, the ocean drama being played out of which I was part. Below her window in the light winter rain car headlights made a home-going procession. She watched. She did not weep; she did not do any more than make that one telephone call. The cinemagoers, the diners, the dancers, would sleep tonight, but she would not.