She rolled to port again, beam on to the next sea as it loomed up alongside them, a menacing cliff of white filigree concealing the dark, invisible mass of hundreds of tonnes of water. Mackinnon watched, aware that in its rearing lee they were suddenly sheltered from the wind. Somewhere above him must be the crest and if it chose this moment to break . . .
The ship suddenly lifted bodily with such speed Mackinnon felt his stomach sink. The wave hurled them skywards as though they were a thing of no mass at all and the wind found them, tore at them for their insolence in cheating a wave that had just broken a quarter of a mile to windward and was yet gathering itself into that steep angle beyond which it was unstable and must break again.
The Matthew Flinders again fell into the succeeding trough, but now she was bringing her stern towards the wind, turning fast under the impetus of rudder and propeller. She fairly threw her starboard quarters into the next wave, just as it broke. The whole ship trembled with the shock and the propeller raced, whipping its shaft and adding a mechanical tremble to the steel fabric of the hull. It stopped the turn and though the wave was a pigmy in comparison with what had gone before, its frustrated mass crashed aboard, breaking a port glass and partially flooding the greasers’ mess-room.
The ship slid off into the trough, rolling to starboard and flicking her bow high into the blackness of the sky so that her masthead lights looked like two brief meteors in their trajectory.
Mackinnon knew the moment of greatest anxiety was upon him. The turn had taken too long; the lull in the power of the waves was over. A new sequence of cumulative seas was building inexorably to windward and his ship must simply endure or be overwhelmed. What he had set in train he could now neither accelerate nor stop. He gripped the teak rail and prayed.
Then he saw it coming, an indescribable thing no simile could do justice to. It possessed something of the immensity and solidity of an escarpment, the grey streaks lending a striated credence to this, but it was a living thing, moving not merely towards them with the impetus of the wind, but hunching itself up with a demonic purpose. As it approached its leading surface angled increasingly towards the unstable vertical.
Rawlings had sensed it too, alerted to its mighty presence by the comparative absence of wind in its lee. Curiosity had drawn him out on to the bridge-wing to watch as the ineluctable thing rose above them.
‘Lord Jesus Christ,’ Rawlings said, quite without blasphemous intent.
But the ship was turning again, impelled by her own mechanical logic. The propeller and rudder reasserted their power as the stern sank into the denser water under the overhang of the great sea helped by the momentary shelter from the wind.
And then it broke. A spectacular avalanche, it fell upon them, burying the whole after part of the ship so that Mackinnon calmly acknowledged the fact that he had lost and it did him no dishonour. Facts were always far easier to bear than fears, even the final one.
He was quite unprepared for the noise, for he had never witnessed so terrible a pooping. There was a diabolical booming roar that was part water, part trapped air exploding under the compression of the curling crest, past wind noise striking them again and part the protests of the ship’s assaulted hull.
Abaft the funnel, as high as the level of the boat-deck and almost up to the sea step of the radio-room in which Sparks was even then tapping out the last sentence of Mackinnon’s signal to Hong Kong Radio, the wave inundated them. Mackinnon could feel the deck sink under the incalculable weight. It convinced him his ship was about to founder.
It seemed a miracle to the two watching officers that the ship survived. Nor could they ever afterwards quite throw off the incredible feeling; it remained the kernel of the experience which burnt into their memories. Intellectually, of course, they knew the matter to be simply the resolution of fairly simple opposing forces in accordance with the immutable laws of physics.
The Matthew Flinders did not founder, nor did her stern sink much, for as well as inundating her after part, the huge breaker thrust her forwards so that her bow dipped as the oppressed stern with its fat and buoyant after body fought back. Perhaps much of the mass of the sea was not as heavy as it appeared, formed as it was of aerated water; however, it could be argued to the contrary for the smashed port through which an earlier sea had passed to partially flood the greasers’ flat now funnelled a jet of pressurised water into the space. Those unfortunate men who were ‘enjoying’ their watch below found themselves flung like rag dolls into corners where only the compressed air trapped within the confined space enabled them to survive.
And while the greasers tumbled about in the shocking water in mortal fear of their lives, uncomprehending the nature of the disaster of the pooping, Mackinnon realised his ship would survive. He felt her very fabric groan under the effort of floating, felt this strain run like a tremor through her plates so that his shoe soles resonated ever so slightly and his instinct made him swing round and roar with unnecessary loudness at Rawlings:
‘Midships!’
And then, a second later:
‘Steady!’
Fortunately, the archaic standing orders that still prevailed upon even flagged-out remnants of the Eastern Steam Navigation Company’s fleet were still obeyed. Mr York, the die-hard Chief Engineer, steadfastly refused to compromise and had dogged and locked the steering flat at 1800 hours. The latter was a precaution taken against piracy and dated from the early days of trading on the China coast when native crews, bribed by criminal elements ashore, disabled a steamer’s steering gear and rendered her ungovernable for a crucial hour off some prearranged rendezvous where the junks of pirates appeared. Such lootings were commonplace and the precaution was still worthwhile with the modern prevalence of drugs, for the steering gear was a lonely, vital place with a multitude of nooks and crannies for a would-be smuggler. It was also a vulnerable machine easy of disablement by a member of the crew nursing a grievance. All these things had happened to ships of the Eastern Steam Navigation Company.
But it was the dogging of the entrance door which saved the Matthew Flinders that night, the tight securing of the heavy water-tight door with its wedge-shaped closures that were levered into position by the heavy handles called ‘dogs’. Though countless feet below the surface of the pooping sea, the steering gear was unharmed and continued to function as Williams first took off the full-ported helm, and then applied counter-rudder. The huge, four-ram gear punched at the quadrant and applied torque to the rudder stock. Set so deep, the rudder bit into solid water and the ship was steadied, sliding forward, accelerated by its thrust, and the Matthew Flinders raced down the face of the gigantic wave. All about her the breaking crest subsided, an almost luminous circle of white as it relinquished its terrible grip.
Aft in the greasers’ flat the water levelled chest deep; desperate men found a perilous footing, filling the air with gasps and the blasphemous obscenities which are their sincerest prayers.
Below, in the engine-room, they had no idea of the hazard to which their lives had been exposed, for beyond a drop in the engine’s revolutions caused by the extreme submergence of the propeller after its recent racing – and even that was common in such weather – nothing was untoward.
Nor, after the violent rolling, did the refugees in either saloon or smoke-room know what had occurred, though more water squirted in round the doors and added to the residue left from the earlier flooding. Not that the rolling had unduly disturbed them, for they had endured days of it aboard the junk and were now so tired it impinged upon their consciousness only as an event in a dream. They were safe in this ship.
Even Sparks in his radio-room at the after end of the boat-deck, hunched over his morse key, headphones clapped to his skull, had no idea the wave had washed to his very threshold.
Only on the bridge did Rawlings and Mackinnon appreciate their survival. The witnessing of so awesome an event was at once to diminish and to enhance them, to humiliate and to make wondrous their comprehension of th
e true nature of things.
As the ship steadied, the great sea passed beneath them and ran on, leaving behind no trailing crests of comparable size, for it had itself been a coincident climax where the multitudinous wave forms jockeying across the pliable surface of the sea had met in a crescendo of form.
Other seas surged up astern and Mackinnon adjusted the course to bring the wind exactly on the ship’s starboard quarter. In the wheelhouse the helmsman struggled to keep the ship’s head within ten degrees of the course as the ship corkscrewed, surfing downhill on the face of each advancing sea. Each passed under her and dragged her stern into the following trough, a succession of accelerations and brakings that wearied the body in its efforts to remain upright.
‘I want the wheel relieved every hour,’ Mackinnon ordered, adding, by way of justification, if such was needed, ‘This’ll take maximum concentration.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’ Rawlings nodded concurrence.
‘And take a look around. No risks, but check the poop and you’d better ask the Chief to put a bilge pump on the after hold suctions.’
‘I was just going to suggest that. I’ll get Taylor up here now.’
‘Right.’
Neither man made reference to what they had just witnessed, but, even allowing for the noise of the typhoon, each spoke preternaturally loudly. Mackinnon resumed his post in the forward starboard corner of the wheelhouse and again leaned his head against the window. His eyeballs felt hot and gritty, burning in their sockets. For a moment he closed them. He was thirsty, very thirsty, the alcohol having leached the moisture from his body. Ironically he was sodden; the rainwater and spray drained from him. He did not care. It was a thing of no consequence and he had greater problems to concern him than wetness without and drought within.
The motion of a ship always felt better when you ran; the power of the wind was diminished by your forward speed and it lulled you into a false sense of temporary security. Mackinnon was aware he must guard against this, for running carried with it the omnipresent danger of being pooped.
What had occurred once could happen again. He must give the possibility – no, the probability – some thought.
‘Come on, you bastard, wake up!’
Pritchard shook the recumbent form. Macgregor turned over lethargically, stretched and exhaled. Pritchard recoiled from the whisky stench of his stale breath. It offended him to a more extreme measure; he whipped the pillow from under Macgregor’s head then pulled the man’s feet off the bunk. As the ship rolled and pitched, Magregor tumbled on to the deck and woke, protesting volubly.
‘You’re on watch, you drunken bastard! Now get up!’
Understanding dawned in the befuddled recesses of Macgregor’s brain, and with it outrage. ‘It’s nae my turn . . .’
‘You wouldn’t know whose turn it was. You’ve ten minutes to relieve the wheel. We’re all on an hour about.’
Macgregor clawed himself to his feet, stumbling from the motion of the ship and his own unsteadiness. He groaned, gouging at his eyes with his fists. ‘The fuck it is. It’s nae ma turn, ah’m saying.’
‘It fucking is, Rob Roy. Gorilla’s orders. You an’ me and the rest of ’em: one hour about on the wheel.’
‘What for?’
Pritchard laughed wildly at Magregor’s ignorance. ‘You’ll see on your way up top.’
Fear had again laid its cold siege to the heart of Third Officer Taylor. It had broken ground days earlier but the combined effects of extreme anxiety, fatigue and alcohol swung his mood unpredictably. After his wild elation and the plan of a return to Singapore to rescue Sharimah, he felt again the saps and mines beneath his very soul.
He no longer had the confidence of the spider; suddenly he had become the fly transfixed in the web, the eternal loser, a sensation made worse by the knowledge that his downfall was largely self-inflicted. Taylor had reached the moment when he had to decide whether God existed or not, for without what he conceived God to represent, he was utterly without resource. And although Taylor had glimpsed the infinite in a tropical night, his search was no longer outside in the wilderness of wind and water now battering the Matthew Flinders. It had nothing to do with the typhoon; it was within himself. He was bound to his body, unable to leap into the infinite in search of the inconceivable concept, that which cannot be grasped, that which ‘God’ was used to evoke.
But the numinous moment of hope had gone. Writhing down into himself to discover a spark of fire divine enough to light his weary soul to hell, he found – nothing.
And his isolation was the more terrible because, like Prometheus chained to his rock, he was bound to this battered ship while vultures ate his liver before his very eyes.
There was a knock at his cabin door.
‘Ol’ Man wants you on the bridge now, Turd.’ The cheeky Scouse pun on his rank made him look up. Pritchard stood in the doorway.
‘Aye, aye,’ he answered mechanically.
‘Ol’ Man’s up top an’ its blowing like fuck,’ Pritchard added by way of encouragement, for Taylor’s cabin stank of whisky and his eyes were glassy in the harsh glare of the cabin lights.
‘Thanks.’ Taylor was conscious of Pritchard’s stare and rubbed his eyes.
‘Oim jus’ making a cup of tea. It’ll be in de chart-room, okay?’
‘Sure. Thanks. I’ll be right up.’
Taylor lowered his hands. Pritchard had gone. He could wash the tears from his face now.
Mackinnon stood in the wheelhouse and found himself functioning in a somnambulist state, awake enough to be ready to react to the slightest demand on him, but in a kind of half-doze which conserved his energy. He could keep going for hours now. Inches from his nose the clear view screen whirred noisily, except that the noise was but one note in the howling cacophony battering his dulled senses. He stared down at the familiar foredeck of the Matthew Flinders burying itself to the rail as the stern lifted and the bow hurried forward in a scending motion, driving onwards in pursuit of the preceding sea. Spray filled the air, so he looked through a dense mist and came to rely upon the endless pull and flex of muscle and tendon, and the tremors of the twisted hull, to tell him of the stresses to which each thrust of the sea subjected the ship.
On the starboard quarter the white, shaggy heads of sea after successive sea reared and roared until they formed a backdrop to the other part of him, the spirit recharging itself from resources deep within him, leaking energy into his brain and muscles like intravenous glucose. In this trance-like state Captain Mackinnon preserved himself for a long time, deriving his strength from his communion with God. The God he knew existed beyond the realms of childish or academical shoreside theology. The God John Mackinnon had discovered from the life he had led at sea. It had never been a matter of doubt, though the precise nature of God’s substance raised itself occasionally as a matter for mild private debate in the Captain’s mind. Nor did Mackinnon nurse the ridiculous and rooted prejudice that God in any way, by placation or prayer, by supplication or sacrifice, took any real interest in him personally. Sparrows might fall and God might notice, but God did not prevent their death.
But God did exist; of that the Captain entertained not the slightest doubt whatsoever.
Now, as the typhoon worked itself steadily up the Beaufort scale he wondered why he had never before noticed God’s presence in the wind. This howling madness had a primeval quality about it as it clawed at them and forced the mighty ocean to do its bidding. It was a delusion to think that it obeyed studied and recognised patterns of behaviour, for it did no more than conform to a predictable average. In truth it reserved to itself the right to do as it pleased and to manifest itself as chaos, a random storming of atoms, a noise that drove into his brain, numbing him, assaulting his innermost self and demanding entry into his very soul.
Such a thing had to be God!
Mackinnon passed from the world of men. From the planes of puny power; from the world of directors and chairmen, of politicians and playb
oys. He stood upon his tiny bridge amid a world of elemental force and numinous presence.
He, too, felt his isolation now, not merely the loneliness of command, but that of judgement before Almighty God. And, oddly, he felt no fear, only a great wonder.
Macgregor had never known God. God came in the same category as art, justice and love. God was bullshit. Macgregor knew fear and hunger, loneliness and hate. Just now he was full of fear. When Pritchard had got him out of his bunk and he had pulled himself together he had emerged on deck to claw his way to the bridge.
Out on the open boat-deck he had seen for the first time the size of the seas rushing at them from the hellish darkness astern. God was not in the wind for Macgregor, only the devil of a fate that had forever had a down on the Macgregors of this world. Macgregor was not awestruck, for his imagination was incapable of encompassing anything bigger than his own enormous grudge.
For Magregor the boat-deck was a lonely place inhabited by malignant demons intent on impeding his progress to the bridge. Eighty feet of bucking teak planking ran wet with spray, inches deep across its surface, so that it plucked at his feet. Lit harshly by the minimal lighting the Matthew Flinders burned at sea, it was a place of steel corners and jutting dangers, of winches, boat davits and ventilators. Magregor was sodden and bruised by the time he had been buffeted forward to the bridge ladder.
Pain was the spur that goaded Macgregor. Pain had always unleashed a venomous resentment in him which generated its own hatreds, feeding his enmity for all things. Deprivation, poverty and neglect had been Macgregor’s world since birth and even the tolerant, pragmatic regime of the Merchant Navy was something to be fought and resisted in a hopeless, endless fight with a world of circumstances always implacably hostile.
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