‘You were in submarines?’ the Chief asked in a choked voice, speaking directly to the German for the first time.
The ice-pilot’s face was whisky-flushed. ‘Sure, Chief. I do my job, like you, ja? You were in dis company’s ships?’
King nodded, his eyes noticing the ice-pilot’s left hand, unconsciously lying a-top the white-covered cap on the settee beside him. Picking up the whisky bottle King filled the German’s glass. ‘Yes.’
‘I have sinked one of dis company’s ships, you know,’ the ice-pilot said solemnly. ‘Very sad, very good ship, maybe ’bout ten t’ousand tons, ja. Good ship . . . good people, but—’ he shrugged again – ‘c’est la guerre, n’est-ce pas?’
Captain McGrath shifted uneasily in his chair as King leant forward, his face a mask of anticipation.
‘And you were Captain of a U-boat, weren’t you?’
The German patted the white-covered cap. ‘Ja.’
‘Do you know the name of this ship you sunk?’
The ice-pilot’s ruddy face cracked in a wide, boyish grin. ‘Ja, ja, I know, sure. Henry Hudson ’bout ten t’ousand ton . . .’
But King was no longer listening, he had slammed down his glass and walked from the cabin. McGrath refilled the ice-pilot’s glass.
‘He had a bad time in the war, Pilot.’
‘Sure, sure. We all have a bad time.’
They lay stopped all day. After his dinner the half-drunk German fell asleep in the small cabin set aside for his use. As the sun set, the bridge was left to Mackinnon, an apprentice and a lookout. They would not move until the wind shifted and a south-westerly was forecast for the morning. In the approaches to Målmo an ice-breaker was busy and Captain McGrath was confident in making port the following midnight.
But during the evening Mr King entered the ice-pilot’s cabin with a heavy fire axe. He struck the German’s head repeatedly until the man’s skull was unrecognisable and the screams had gurgled into silence. Second Officer Mackinnon was the first on the scene.
The Matthew Flinders lay a-hull for the remainder of the night. Below, in the engine-room, George Reed and his men carefully bled the main fuel lines of air, closed off the empty diesel tank and then, with infinite patience and considerable difficulty, man-handled six forty-gallon steel drums out of the shaft tunnel. Rigging up a plastic pipe, they hand-pumped this small, reserve quantity of gas oil (actually kept for the emergency fuel pump, the lifeboat engine and two portable salvage pumps) into a header tank ready to restart the main engine. It was dawn before they had pressed up the main service tanks with ordinary fuel oil and an exhausted Reed climbed wearily to the bridge to report.
He found Stevenson up there with the Captain. Able Seaman Pritchard had made a pot of tea and Reed clung to the engine-room telegraph and gratefully accepted a mug.
‘You’ve got half a dozen starts left if ah put her over to fuel oil reet after she fires this time, Captain.’
‘Let’s hope that’s enough, Mr Reed,’ Mackinnon said, heaving his bulk out of the corner.
They stared from the windows as the light grew, luxuriating in the warm sweetness of the tea like voluptuaries. Despite the angle of loll they had not rolled excessively during the last few hours and Reed remarked on this unexpected phenomenon, though he had to shout to do so.
‘It’s ironic, George,’ Mackinnon bellowed back, ‘but the sea has actually reduced in height as the wind has increased in strength. It no longer peaks and breaks, d’you see, lad? The wind won’t let it, slices it off, smashes each wave to smithereens as it rises.
‘Out there’ – Mackinnon waved his hand forward where the outline of the heeling masts and sampson posts of the Matthew Flinders were dark diagonals in a grey blue – ‘the air is no longer breathable. It’s filled with salt spray. You could not stand it on your skin. It would burn you . . .’
And Reed gazed through the armoured glass as the light grew and looked upon a world that was full of the great roaring rush of air and sea co-mingled, a confusion in nature itself, back eddies of which flurried in through the smashed side window and the open doors of the exposed bridge wings.
He turned to Mackinnon, his face a boyish mixture of wonder and relief, for the ship seemed perfectly safe; battered, but safe. He had known in his heart of hearts she would be! This was the twentieth century and she was built for the trade. Yet the faces in the wheelhouse looked strangely sober, and it was odd that Captain Mackinnon had taken this trouble to explain to him.
‘We’re not out of the wood yet, George. Oh, she’s comfortable enough at the moment, but we’ve been making leeway like a train for hours, beam on and dead before the wind . . .’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘We’re in the dangerous zone. We’re going to need that engine of yours. We’re being blown directly into the vortex.’
Mackinnon shouted the short, staccato sentences. Reed caught the look in Alex Stevenson’s eyes and felt the flutter of real fear in his gut. He turned away and stared out at the impenetrable, spume-laden air, the very essence of the taifun, the ‘great wind’ of the China Seas.
Then he turned and went below.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Juggernaut
With the growing light Captain Mackinnon felt an increasing strength. So strong is the body’s metabolism that even after a sleepless night in which the only rest had been momentary catnaps, in which tired muscles had adjusted constantly to support its weight on the heaving deck, and its ravaged organs had resisted the onslaught of the whisky, it reacted to the dawn of the new day.
For Mackinnon’s conscious self this revival came with copious yawnings and a gritty irritation behind hot eyeballs which sizzled in the sockets of his skull. But, just as he had dutifully encouraged George Reed, his body clock now roused his own combative spirit.
Not that he actually felt better, far from it. Despite the tea he was still thirsty, he realised, and stiff as a board, but his mind sloughed off the metaphysical preoccupations of the night. The contact with Reed and the real world of immobilised engines had merely engendered a helplessness; the depressing knowledge that without the beating of her diesel heart, the ship was a hulk, a derelict, like the junk. And from somewhere down below the ominous thump of loose cargo sent a periodic tremor through the ship.
Suppose they could not get the engine going again? Reed would return to the bridge and report his failure, looking to Mackinnon to tell them what, in the last resort, they should do.
What could they do?
Mackinnon knew that, in the days of sail, even a dismasted ship was capable of being restored to basic movement by a jury rig. Even when her holds were awash she might be pumped, because her company could use the basic resources they found to hand.
Nor had the situation become entirely irredeemable in a steam or motor ship until recently. Mackinnon had heard of a case where an enterprising master had rigged wires from sampson post to sampson post, down both sides of the ship, each with running blocks controlled by ropes. Between pairs of these blocks he had stretched hatch tarpaulins as rough, trimmable sails, and the ship had made port, or at least within hail of a tug or two.
But the Matthew Flinders had Macgregor hatches, steel covers not canvas tarpaulins, and though she did not rely upon technology to the extent of her most modern competitors, she was beyond the redemption of her crew’s ingenuity if Reed and his men failed.
Helplessness in the face of failure was the price mankind paid for the easement of their lives conferred by the wonders of science. Technology not only robbed men of their ancient skills, simple though they might have been, it laid them open to appalling hazard when it failed.
Mackinnon’s newly roused spirit nearly foundered with the reflection. But the desire to do something triumphed. If they could not make the ship mobile, they must at least secure her in her immobility, giving her the chance to lie supine and watertight. Without engines it was their only chance and delay might cause the loose cargo, whatever it was, t
o burst through the ship’s side. That would be disaster; the bottom line. They must avert the possibility at all costs. At that moment, Mackinnon set his hopes no higher.
‘Another cup of tea, sir? And we’ve made some toast.’
Mackinnon turned. The three deck officers were on the bridge now, their faces grey in the dawn light, their white tropical shirts and shorts stained and torn. Stevenson was holding out a mug of tea. The smell of hot buttered toast brought a smile to Mackinnon’s face.
‘By heaven, that’s most welcome.’
He sipped at the hot, sweet brew and took a slice of the toast Taylor offered.
‘You look like bloody scarecrows,’ Mackinnon said as he chewed.
‘I feel like the bottom of a parrot’s cage,’ said Rawlings, the flippancy betraying his nervousness.
Mackinnon grunted, ‘Your arm all right, Mr Taylor?’ He nodded at the dirty bandage.
‘It’s okay, sir.’ Taylor’s reply was flat, toneless. Preoccupied and in the half-light, Mackintosh failed to notice the high-strung tension in the man’s voice and bearing.
‘Have you done something to your shoulder, Two-O?’
‘Nothing much, sir. Gave it a wrench,’ Stevenson answered sheepishly.
‘Right. Well, we don’t know how long Geordie Reed is going to be before he gets the main engines going—’
‘If he gets them going,’ interrupted Taylor, oblivious of having spoken aloud. Rawlings and Stevenson cast sidelong glances at the junior mate.
Mackinnon ignored the impertinence. ‘So, here’s what we’ve got to do . . .’
He had barely outlined his intentions when with a loud and startling jangle the telegraph pointers jerked round to Stand by main engines.
Jubilantly Mackinnon repeated the signal. Down below Mr Reed was ready.
‘Right, one of you grab the wheel.’ Taylor stepped forward while Rawlings went to the telephone and rang the mess-room for a seaman. ‘Any one but Macgregor,’ he bellowed into the mouthpiece.
Mackinnon stared out of the forward wheelhouse windows. Rain and spray filled the air. Another ship, an island, a whole confounded continent might be a hundred yards ahead of them, but they would not know it. Even the radar was almost useless, the surrounding sea returning the echoes from wave tops in dense ranks.
‘Here we go then. Hard a-port!’
Taylor repeated the order and spun the wheel. Sweating profusely, his fist slippery on the brass telegraph handle, his heart thumping in his breast and a worm of apprehension writhing in his lower gut, Mackinnon swung the handle backwards and then forwards, hard down against the stop: Full ahead.
‘Shit or bust,’ muttered Rawlings, still holding the mess-room telephone lest his shaking hand betray his fear.
From below the answering pointer jangled its reply.
In normal conditions they would have heard the hiss of compressed air, the faint, then growing rumble as the engine fired until the tremble of it permeated the steel hull. But they could hear nothing above the hideous boom of the wind, nor feel anything except the painful fluttering of their hearts. The tachometer needle lifted off its stop.
‘She’s answering!’ Taylor’s shout was triumphant. They watched the steady swing of the compass card, sensing the increased heel as the Matthew Flinders turned slowly into the wind, then felt it ease as she baulked and steadied, the wind on her port bow, her helm hard down.
‘That’s it, sir,’ said Taylor, ‘she won’t come up any further.’
‘Very well,’ said Mackinnon, ‘let’s count our blessings. She’s comfortable enough.’
And she was. Relief was clear on all their faces, the thrust of rudder and propeller balanced the mass of air built up to windward of the ship’s bulk, holding her with the wind broad on her port bow. She was pitching again, and rolling less, though from below the thud, thud of loose cargo still demanded their attention.
Beside Rawlings the engine-room telephone rang. Rawlings nodded assent, said, ‘Well done,’ and relayed to Mackinnon:
‘George reports all’s well. We’re back on fuel oil, sir.’
‘Very well. Then let’s get organised and secure this cargo without further delay. I’ve no desire to get caught in the eye. You know what to do . . .’
Able Seaman Pritchard loomed in the wheelhouse doorway. ‘Come to take the wheel, Cap’n.’
Taylor handed over and the officers muttered their ‘aye, ayes’ before departing.
‘What’s it like below, Pritchard?’
‘Bit of a pigsty, sir.’
‘Much water got in?’
‘Yeah, quite a lot. They’re squee-geeing it down the alleyways and bucketing it out.’
‘What about the woman?’ Mackinnon asked, suddenly aware that he had forgotten about her.
‘The Chief Steward sat up with her, I t’ink, Cap’n. She fell out of the bunk once, but he and the Bosun got her back in okay.’
‘Christ!’ Mackinnon muttered under his breath, making a mental note to ring down in a moment and order her given more morphine. Good old Freddie Thorpe, he thought; self-centred, not above a bit of graft and an expert practitioner of the trading of cumshaw for favours, he had nevertheless sat up with the patient.
‘The kid’s okay, too. Had the best kip of the lot of us.’
‘The kid? Oh, the baby . . . who looked after it?’
‘Braddock got broody, Cap’n. Filled the little bugger up wi’ connie-onnie. He’s back wid his own lot now, like.’
Mackinnon grinned, imagining the ugly, bronzed features of Able Seaman Braddock forcing condensed milk into a rose-bud mouth. Then, with a pang of intense pain at the reference to the baby, he turned away.
The group of men were roped together like mountaineers as they made their slow way up the foredeck. The ship’s attitude at a broad angle to the wind gave them some shelter up the starboard side, in the lee of the contactor houses. Fortunately they did not have far to go to reach the small access hatch beside the huge, heavy trackways for the Macgregor slabs which they dare not now open. The access hatches, one to each hold, were small, raised trap doors, protected from slopping water by a high steel coaming and secured by heavy dogs, like the door to the steering gear.
The Matthew Flinders was still shipping water, but it was not the green mass they had endured earlier, for the immense power of the wind flattened the sea, and though they waded through a foot or two of swirling seawater slopping about the deck, it was the wind that tore at them, a stinging, plucking force that was saturated with millions of tiny droplets and against the strength of which they were roped.
Taylor led, his bandaged arm not appearing to trouble him as he thrust himself forward. Rawlings, back in the shelter of the accommodation, had said, ‘Right now, who’s first?’, making it clear the Mate’s role was going to be supervisory. While Stevenson dragged a coil of flag halliard forward, Taylor had organised the first group.
‘I’ll take Braddock and Williams with the Bosun as anchor man. Okay?’ he had bellowed. They had jostled for position, uncoiling the rope and flaking it out in the alleyway. ‘You see it runs clear, sir,’ Taylor ordered brusquely, surveying the streaming foredeck with the eye of a reconnoitring grenadier.
They had heard the bump-bump of the loose cargo and Rawlings had offered the opinion it was the heavy industrial cement mixers in Number Two ’tween deck.
When he was ready Taylor had checked the small VHF handset on its strap about his shoulders and turned to the Second Mate.
‘Okay, Alex?’
‘Okay.’ Almost inaudible above the wind, Stevenson gave the thumbs up.
‘I’ll let you know the score and expect you up in support,’ Taylor mouthed, agreeing the plan they had contrived in the wheelhouse.
Out on deck Taylor’s party moved forward slowly, clawing their way along like ham film actors faking a cliff climb on a horizontal surface. Rawlings fed the long length of halliard dutifully through his hands while Stevenson, radio pressed to his ear, took occa
sional peeps round the corner of the accommodation, where the droplets of rain and spray stung his face. After a while he rolled back into shelter, his thumb jerking again.
‘Reached the access hatch.’
It seemed they had to wait for hours, buffeted by the wind as it whipped in fits and starts, seeking them out to pluck them from their imperfect shelter. Then the handset crackled in Stevenson’s ear:
‘Mate’s right. Bulldozers are okay, but the fucking cement mixers are going walkabout . . .’
The transmission suddenly ceased, then came to life again.
‘Alex, d’you hear? Over.’
‘Roger. Copy the cement mixers are problem. D’you want ropes or chain snotters?’
‘Ropes – at least to start with.’
‘Right. I’m on my way.’
The short lengths of mooring rope, six fathoms to a man, were wound round the shoulders of Stevenson’s party and they hitched themselves up. Stevenson’s shoulder ached, but he tried to ignore the pain, able to cope with all but the heaviest demands upon it.
‘Off you go!’ shouted Rawlings and Stevenson led the Carpenter and Macgregor forward.
Clear of the accommodation Stevenson stopped and then crawled, aware that the wind, passing over his curved back actually sought to lift him from the deck. They progressed through water which also threatened to sweep them into the scuppers as the ship lurched and rolled so that they were sodden as they inched forward dragging the weight of the ropes coiled about them. From time to time they stopped, gasping and clinging on to a ringbolt here or a hatch support there with no clear idea of how long it was taking them. Stevenson realised he was favouring his weak arm and as a consequence of this distraction the handset dangling round his neck outside the rope was dragging in the water.
After what seemed an eternity of struggle, they reached the access hatch in the lee of which crouched the Bosun, the halliard an umbilical to Taylor, Braddock and Williams below. Stevenson beckoned his men with their heavy coils of rope and indicated with his index finger they should follow him. The Carpenter nodded and gave the thumbs up; Macgregor contented himself by looking sour.
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