A Ravel of Waters

by Geoffery Jenkins

  'Target half a kilometre, maybe a little more, north of The Narrows.'

  The cork was in the bottle! The warship could no longer turn to pursue us!

  The two ships converged on the narrow gap from opposite directions - the warship at four knots and Jetwind driving along now at over ten.

  'Way-point three abeam,' reported Paul.

  The final marker!

  The next crucial stage was our ninety-degree turn into the mouth of The Narrows.

  I waited. The silent dark bridge waited. Grohman was drawn to the vicinity of the wheel by my terse orders.

  Suddenly a shore light stood out to port. Navy Point!

  My heart raced as I made out beyond it a white masthead light. Silhouetting upperworks and guns, a flashing light also swept into view. The Almirante Storni!

  Now she could see us!

  Grohman let out an oath in Spanish. 'There she is, Captain Rainier. It will be better for you to stop playing games now.'

  'Set the royals! All sail! All sail!' I ordered.

  'How far to our turn, Paul?'

  'One hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty metres.'

  'Speed?'

  'Ten and a half knots - nudging eleven.'

  'Stand by!' I told Jim Yell at the wheel. I felt him tense. Tideman's eyes left his instruments and he gave me a long inquiring look. What I did next was anyone's guess.

  'Ready about!' I snapped.

  'Turn!' It was Paxil.

  'Down helm!'

  Jim Yell spun the spokes.

  'Steer zero-zero-five!'

  'Kay-quick!'

  She rapid-fired our predetermined calculations; I passed them on to Tideman.

  ' Sail trim - thirty degrees!

  'Rudder angle - thirty degrees!

  'Course angle to true wind - seventy degrees!

  'Angle of inflow of sail - ten degrees!'

  The low loom of Engineer Point and its light - twin to Navy Point - came up out of the half light, fronted by the fatal barrier of kelp. It wasn't more than 100 metres away. We must not be pushed sideways into it.

  'Drift?' I inquired peremptorily.

  'Ten degrees.'

  Jetwind swung at right angles towards the mouth of The Narrows. The wind switched abeam. Then it happened.

  I had not taken into account just how powerful were her aerofoils. I felt the smash of the gale and her wild lunge all at once.

  Jetwind went over on her side.

  The bridge canted steeply to starboard. Tideman, Kay, Grohman and myself were nearly thrown off our feet.

  I grabbed a console and hung on. 'Kay, how far can she go over?'

  'Nine degrees maximum!'

  Tideman intoned levelly, 'Eight and a half degrees inclination!'

  'Let go something;, Peter!' Kay cried out. 'Half her freeboard is under! She's going clean over!'

  But Jetwind did not. She spun round in a racing turn, shook herself upright, put her bows into one of the open-sea rollers coming through The Narrows in a burst of spray, and leapt forward as if I'd thrown a throttle wide. It was a fantastic, exhilarating performance.

  Jetwind straightened still further as Tideman adjusted the yards. She tore at the gap. Twelve - nearly thirteen knots.

  'All lights on!' I ordered. 'Burn all sidelights!'

  Now I wanted the Almirante Storni to see Jetwind. It was part of my plan.

  There was no doubt now that she had spotted us. The warship's silhouette elongated slightly as she turned aside a trifle to give Jetwind legal right of way - as little as she dared in that narrow channel.

  'Paul?' I said tentatively.

  'Yeah?'

  'I myself am eye-balling the situation from now on’

  'jeez!' He let out a whoop. 'Whaddayaknow!'

  A warning flare fired from the destroyer bathed the choppy waters in a baleful glare. The wind caught the floating light and carried it towards Jetwind.

  The climax, and crucial stage, of my plan was at hand.

  In a minute or two the warship would be abeam Navy Point. We raced on for the next 200 metres or so to accelerate to maximum speed. We were heading - correctly, as the rule of the road required - on the side of The Narrows opposite the warship. Jetwind was now logging fourteen knots - soon she would make more. Under any circumstances The Narrows would be a tight fit for two ships, especially one being a sailer and travelling at Jetwind’s speed. The warship itself was not doing more than five knots.

  I set my secret plan in motion.

  'Down helm - a point and a half!' I snapped. Then, to Tideman, 'Brace up all yards two points!'

  Next, 'Reef the main-courses on all masts! Up, up, up!'

  'Peter! In God's name, what are you doing! Kay exclaimed.

  The checks and balances my plan required were razor-edged.

  'Stow all main-yards - loading positions! Keep the fore-yard as it is!'

  All lower yards were now flush with their masts as for cargo stowage, except the fore-yard from whose tip dangled the anchor.

  'You're going to ram her!' gasped Tideman.

  Jetwind bulleted towards the Almirante Storni, port side to port side - the side supporting the stay-mast supporting her electronic search gear.

  The idea may have been in Grohman's mind all along;

  certainly it was precipitated into action by Tideman's exclamation.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw his sudden movement. He reached for the 'chicken button' in its scarlet switchbox.

  One touch of that button and the emergency explosive charges would blast away Jetwind's top-gallant and royal masts. She would go wildly out of control. Then anything could happen.

  Grohman's fingers tugged at the clip securing the switchbox's glass panel.

  'Grohman!'

  I must have yelled, moved and hit him all at once. Certainly I have no recollection of three separate movements. The blow caught him at the curve of his jaw and neck, below his right ear. He sprawled untidily in front of the helmsman.

  'Keep your eyes on your course!' I said automatically. With Jim Yell such a warning was superfluous.

  I regained my balance and faced round. Tideman, with iron will, kept his eyes fixed on the warship ahead. All the colour had gone from Kay's face.

  Jetwind's bow now pointed obliquely at Almirante Storm's. From that angle we would cut her in half just for'ard of her bridge.

  I threw open Jetwind's bridge window for maximum vision. The warship's siren screamed above the roar of the gale.

  'Up helm half a point!'

  Jetwind's knifing bow veered slightly away from its target. High above it, all of thirty metres of the fore-yard projected over both sides of the ship. I had to go in close for the yard and its killer anchor to do its job. Too close, and both ships would sink after colliding; too far, and Jetwind's game would be up.

  'Port, a couple of spokes!'

  Tideman's choice of helmsman had been brilliant. Jim Yell was licking his dry lips, but standing up to my orders like the cool veteran he was.

  Jetwind drove at the warship.

  'Hold her off’ I ordered Yell. 'Just graze the destroyer's stay with the yard-arm.'

  When a collision seemed inevitable, Jetwind straightened out at the last moment. The distance between the warship's low side and Jetwind's high storm gunnels appeared to be paper thin. But Jetwind headed past.

  I saw an officer on the other bridge screaming and brandishing his fists. All the time the warship's siren whooped like mad.

  The yard-arm swept over the destroyer's side. I saw men on the bridge dive for cover as the anchor flailed at them.

  They weren't my target.

  The anchor struck the warship's steel deck in a shower of sparks as she rose on a wave. It ricocheted high.

  I shouted my orders as it struck the stay and snagged fast.

  'Starboard! Two points! Hold her off!' There was a violent jerk. For a moment I thought the stay mast would hold, and the two ships, passing each other at a combined speed of nearl
y twenty knots, would be dragged together. They hung for an undecided millisecond, then the stay ripped loose. A few millions' worth of radar, radio antennae, and all the complex electronics of a modern warship were ripped out like a rotten tooth. A shower of debris scattered along the torpedo and depth-charge platform aft.

  Jetwind was free. - The Almirante Storni fell astern, blind, helpless, emasculated.

  The silence was broken by Paul's voice, stunned and hoarse with admiration. 'Now the shit will hit the fan!'

  Jetwind drove clear of The Narrows, clear for Cape Pembroke and the open sea beyond, clear for Gough and the Cape.

  Chapter 16

  'Suspended First Officer Anton Grohman on grounds of...'

  I stopped writing and stared at the ship's formal log. On grounds of. .. what? I looked round my cabin where the previous night we had held our council of war before Jetwind's break-out. It seemed light years away instead of a mere twelve hours. The illusion of night was still present, however, because of the storm - it was dark enough to need electric light.

  '... grounds of... dereliction of duty?'

  Would any official inquiry consider that Grohman had failed in his duty by trying to stop his captain carrying out a crazy, outrageous action against a warship of a friendly power?

  I scrapped the phrase and lit another cigarette. I wanted to get shot of the Grohman problem and return to Jetwind's bridge. In the insulated confines of the cabin I could not share in the splendid exhilaration of feeling the ship tear along at eighteen knots or hear the mad music of the mounting gale. Even the motion of the ship was damped, it seemed. Even I was surprised at how steady a platform the deck presented. Her mighty sail plan - I was carrying everything to royals - was holding the ship against the bursting wave crests just as spoilers and aerofoils hold down a Grand Prix racer against a track.

  We were clear of the land mass of the Falklands now. With the forty-knot gale holding abaft her starboard beam - her best point of sailing - Jetwind seemed determined to show exactly what she was capable of.

  Blast Grohman!

  I sat down and wrote quickly without pausing to weigh the words too judicially:

  ‘... on grounds of endangering the safety of the ship and the lives of the crew.'

  Which, I thought ironically, had been exactly what Pd done.

  There was a peremptory knock at the cabin door. 'Come in!'

  It was Grohman. I snapped the log book shut. I had already passed judgement on him. I scarcely wanted to hear his story.

  His quick move across to my desk had something of a South American jaguar in it - lithe, muscular, sinister. I could almost imagine muscles rippling under his tight black polo-necked sweater. The collar did not reach high enough to mask the bruise and swelling on his jawbone where I had hit him.

  'You're going ahead with this crazy business?' he blurted before I had time to speak.

  'Listen,' I snapped. 'I don't consider I owe you any more explanations. As for an answer, take a look at Jetwind's course.'

  'You are still in Malvinas' territorial waters.'

  'I don't know what Malvinas means,' I retorted sarcastically. 'If you mean, I'm in Falklands' territorial waters, you've under-estimated the distance Jetwind has travelled. We're nearly a hundred and twenty miles east-northeast of Port Stanley at this moment. That's well outside anyone's territorial waters.'

  'Malvinas' territorial waters have been proclaimed as two hundred nautical miles. The same applies to all Argentinian waters.'

  'Listen, Grohman,' I said. 'The sooner you forget all this crap about your country's rights, the better for your seagoing career. It's already cost you your job as first officer of Jetwind. You're as full of hang-ups about it as a forty-year-old virgin is about sex.'

  His eyes blazed. I was reminded again of a predator. He didn't seem to take in what I was saying about his shipboard position.

  'You... you ... have insulted my country's Navy. You have damaged one of our best ships. In Argentinian waters! You have broken international law. You have offended against my country's honour, most of all...'

  'Cut it out!' I broke in. 'You talk like a character in a bloody Spanish soap opera. I'm on my way. Nothing you or your tin-pot Navy can do about it will stop me.'

  'No?' He thrust his face at me. 'And who is the great Captain Rainier? My Navy will come after you...'

  I gestured deckwards. 'In this weather? No destroyer could make even twelve knots the way the sea's running without breaking herself in two. You're still sailor enough to realize that. Moreover, your precious Almirante Storni is a dockyard job for months to come.'

  'Long-range search aircraft will find you...'

  'Nonsense, and you know it. There isn't an Orion closer than the nearest American base and that's the only plane capable of flying the distance Jetwind will be before anything can be done. Not even an Orion could fly safely through this weather - or what's building up.'

  Mercurially, the anger seemed to drain completely out of him. What remained was more sinister than his melodramatics.

  'You will pay for this, Captain Rainier,' he said quietly. 'You will pay for this.'

  'I have suspended you, as from last night, on grounds of endangering the ship and the lives of those aboard,' I said. ' Shall I add insubordination?'

  He shrugged.

  'What the hell did you do it for?' I demanded. 'If you'd blasted away Jetwind's top-gallant masts there in The Narrows, we'd have been into the rocks at Engineer Point before I could have done a thing.'

  His silence said everything.

  I went on. 'You're confined to your quarters, as of now. If you set foot outside your cabin, I'll have you locked up.

  'You, not Tideman, should have been in the Royal Navy.'

  Which reminded me that Tideman had been on the bridge all night. Like myself, the feel of the great ship under our feet had banished all need for sleep and had thrown up those inner resources which only a Cape Horner can draw upon.

  'That's the way it is, Grohman.' I dismissed him.

  At that moment Arno, the radio operator, entered with a signal. His enthusiasm caused him to give only the most perfunctory of knocks. I still wonder how the course of events; might have been otherwise precipitated had he paused long enough for me to have got rid of Grohman. Arno, of course, could not guess that Grohman had been fired.

  Arno was beaming with excitement. 'Weather Routing report, as you ordered, sir. Portishead radio. They've been pretty smart about opening up their service to Jetwind again.'

  Thomsen had laid on for Jetwind the skill of a special weather team at the Bracknell Meteorological Service in Britain. Its purpose was to advise and guide Jetwind according to data gathered from the surface, upper air, and from satellite observations on the best route to steer, wind, sea, and weather-wise. Bracknell's weather routing is the finest in the world; its communications match it.

  Portishead's signal read:

  TO RAINIER, JETWIND, JWXS, VIA PORTISHEAD RADIO SEVERE LOW AT 53S 58W EASTMOVING 40 KNOTS. NOW ADVISE TO FOURFOUR SOUTH THREEZERO WEST THENCE GREAT CIRCLE TO CAPE OF GOOD HOPE...

  I snorted to myself. Bracknell was playing it safe suggesting the old conventional windjammer way to the Cape from the Horn. That wasn't the way to break records. That wasn't the way I had flogged Albatros. And Albatros's route was exactly the one I intended to hell-drive Jetwind -where the great winds and the great storms were. I could do without the fancy weather satellites with their sensors to measure surface temperatures, the state of the wind and the state of the sea from hundreds of kilometres out in space. I was what the weathermen called 'ground truth- the guy on the spot, the sailor who knew what was happening in his own surroundings. I read on:

  SATELLITE PICTURES INDICATE WORLD'S LARGEST ICEBERG TROLLTUNGA EITHER STRANDED OR ADRIFT IN GENERAL AREA APPROX 500 TO 800 MILES SOUTHWEST GOUGH PLUS VARIOUS LARGE ISOLATED DRIFTING BERGS. THESE CONSTITUTE MAJOR HAZARD. STRONGLY ADVISE THEREFORE AGAINST YOUR ORIGINAL PROJECTED ROUTE. METBRACK. 18’09h00.


  Trolltunga! Like a film clip, a film clip merged with a dream or a nightmare, I relived what I had seen from Albatros's deck. Ice -I did not know what had been ice or what had been hallucination. Rising clouds of vapour - I did not know whether it had been vapour or the shadows of a lone sailor's disordered mind. And that other thing which I had seen...

  I heard Arno's voice as if from a long distance. 'Trolltunga, sir. I queried the word. It's a bit unusual, but the repeat spelling was the same ...'

  I looked up and saw him on the other side of the desk regarding me with a curious expression.

  Grohman was standing beside him. He must have read the signal upside-down. The expression on his face wasn't curiosity. It was naked murder.

  'You can't take Jetwind that way,' he said almost pleadingly. 'You must not...'

  At first I attributed Grohman's expression and tone of voice to fear. Could it be that he was scared stiff? His face was white; his pallor against the blackness of his hair gave him a mortuary air. Had Grohman, in fact, turned and run after Captain Mortensen's death?

  The three of us at my desk might have been a waxworks tableau. For about twenty seconds surprise, fear and contempt seared between us like a laser beam cutting into the dark places of three minds.

  Then in the distance, like the end of a boxing round, there came the imperative ring of an electric bell.

  'Excuse me, sir,' said Arno. 'That's my alarm. Another signal's coming in.'

  He dived for the radio office.

  Grohman's voice was hoarse and constricted. 'You'd be advised to take the northerly route. Bracknell recommends it. The other way ... it's not safe ... the signal says so ... there's the biggest iceberg in the world...'

  I tried to hold his eyes while I picked up the phone but he evaded mine. 'John?' I asked Tideman on the bridge. 'Come down to my cabin right away.'