Clive Cussler; Craig Dirgo

by The Sea Hunters II

  “Strange feelings on Waratah?” Second Officer Charles Cheatum joked. “Will wonders never cease.”

  Ilbery turned to Cheatum and smiled. If nothing else, his right-hand man had tried to maintain his spirits on the long journey. When Waratah had shuttered off the Azores on the way south, Cheatum had commented that they must have struck a whale. Off Cape Hope, it was a rogue wave. Far in the Indian Ocean, two days from Sydney, the ship had suddenly shook as if she were going to come apart. Cheatum had joked that it was a sudden gust of gravity.

  Even so, for all the strange occurrences, Waratah was still steaming.

  From Sydney, the ship had called on Melbourne, then Adelaide. There she was reloaded with cargo and passengers for the return to London. All told, the voyage had lasted for eighteen months and should show a profit for the owners of Waratah, the Lund Blue Anchor Line. Profit or not, this would be Ilbery’s last voyage as captain of the vessel. He would be turning over the ship to Cheatum as soon as they reached London. Ilbery believed he had cheated fate one too many times.

  CLAUD SAWYER WAS in the grips of another nightmare. The apparition had returned. In one hand, the wraith held a medieval sword, in the other hand a bloodstained sheet.

  “Away,” Sawyer screamed in his sleep, awakening himself.

  Sitting upright in his berth, he struggled to calm himself. Swiveling in the berth, he placed his bare feet on the deck, then reached across to a small table. Grasping a hand towel, he dried the icy sweat from his brow, then sipped from a half-full glass of water. Rising to his feet, he took a few steps to the brass porthole and stared through the circle.

  “Land,” he said to himself, staring at the cliffs near the port of Durban. “God, I miss you so.”

  Reaching for his shirt and pants, he quickly dressed and walked toward the door to the outer deck. Once he opened the door, he stared back at his berth. An outline of his body in sweat, thick torso and twin lines where his legs had lain, was evident on the cotton-padded berth cushion. The design resembled the bloody outline on the sheet clutched by the apparition. Sawyer grabbed his single suitcase and hurried from his cabin. He would watch the docking from deck. Durban was to be his final stop.

  CAPTAIN CHARLES DEROOT stared at the approaching ship from the pilothouse of his tugboat Transkei.

  “Ugly spud,” he said to his deckhand.

  “Lines like a bread box on a gravy boat,” the deckhand agreed.

  The tides were pulling Transkei out to sea. DeRoot pushed his throttles forward to remain on station, then resumed his viewing. Some ships have a grace and elegance you can see from afar. The ship coming into view had all the style of a square dancer with a clubfoot. DeRoot knew the history of Waratah—it was a hobby of his to know the pedigree of the ships he serviced—and this vessel was far from a thoroughbred.

  Built by the British firm Barclay, Curle & Company as a sistership to Geelong, she came into being under two dark clouds. The first strike was the most basic, her design. Geelong had proven to suffer stability problems, and the construction specifications for Waratah were drafted to address that problem. To cover themselves, the builders had inserted two words, if possible, into the contract. Apparently, it was not. The ships had a flawed design, and there was little that could be done to correct the problem.

  The second strike was her very name. Of the three other ships since 1848 to be named Waratah, all had so far vanished or wrecked. Most men of the sea are superstitious, and DeRoot was no different. A cursed name atop a bad design was an omen he could not ignore.

  “Backing down,” DeRoot shouted to the deckhands, as he spun Transkei around and checked the transmissions in reverse.

  All was in order, so he stared back to Waratah.

  NEARLY FIVE HUNDRED feet in length, with a displacement of 9,339 tons, Waratah was a large vessel for her day. Her hull was jet black, now showing some streaks of rust from the year and a half she had been at sea. Her upper decks were a pale yellow. The ship’s single funnel, which vented the smoke from the steam boilers that fed power to the twin screws, was painted a two-color scheme of black at the base, a middle band of white, then black again at the top. Twin masts pierced the air—one on the forward deck, the other aft—but the masts did little to subtract from the vessel’s squat appearance.

  In DeRoot’s view, Waratah was an ugly duckling dancing on the sea.

  “SLOW AND SIGNAL the pilot boat,” Ilbery ordered Cheatum.

  Cheatum turned to the signalman, who semaphored the instructions to a nearby boat.

  A few minutes later, the pilot boat came alongside and dropped off the pilot, who climbed a stairway to the main deck, then walked across to the pilothouse stairway. Climbing the stairs, he stopped at the door to the wheelhouse and knocked.

  “Durban pilots,” he said loudly.

  “Permission to enter,” Ilbery said, motioning for the door to be opened.

  The pilot entered the pilothouse and walked over to Ilbery with his hand outstretched. “Peter Vandermeer,” he said. “I’ll be taking you inside.”

  “Welcome aboard Waratah, Captain Vandermeer,” Ilbery said.

  “Thank you, Captain. Anything I should know,” Vandermeer asked, “before we start inside?”

  “She’s a little sluggish,” Ilbery noted.

  “Full of cargo, eh,” Vandermeer said pleasantly.

  “Not really,” Ilbery said quietly, “just a sluggish gal.”

  Vandermeer stared at Ilbery. It was slightly odd for a captain to speak any ill of his command—perhaps Ilbery was just jesting. “So noted,” he said.

  “Pilot’s in command,” Ilbery said loudly, handing the command to Vandermeer.

  Twenty minutes later, with help from the tug Transkei, Vandermeer steered Waratah up to the dock. By then, he knew exactly what Ilbery had meant.

  Vandermeer had piloted canoes with more stability.

  CLAUD SAWYER STOOD on the deck near the gangplank and willed it to lower. He stepped from one foot to the other as if the deck were on fire. He kept switching the suitcase from hand to hand. Just then, Waratah’s steam whistle pierced the air, signaling that they were secure. Five minutes later, the gangplank was lowered. Sawyer muscled his way to the front of the line. As soon as the chain was withdrawn, he ran down the gangplank to the dock. Moving off to the side, he kneeled down and kissed the wooden dock. Six feet away, a sandy-haired lad on a bicycle sat watching.

  “Mister,” he said, “you’re still on the dock and over water. If you want to kiss land—it’s about twenty feet over there,” he said, pointing his finger.

  Sawyer looked up and smiled. Then he grabbed his suitcase, walked over to land, and kneeled down again. He stayed on the ground a full ten minutes.

  CAPTAIN ILBERY STARED at the manifest. Wheat from the farms to the north. Tallow and hides from the vast cattle ranches in the interior of South Africa. Lead concentrates on their way to Capetown for processing. And more passengers, some bound for Capetown, others going through to London, 211 in total.

  It was the massive shipment of raw lead that bothered Ilbery.

  The weight would be concentrated in a small area, and with the shipments already on board from Australia, there would be no way for the porters to secure the load exactly amidship. Any way you sliced it, Waratah had proved unstable. The addition of more weight, to either side, was something of concern. The weather was another.

  Ilbery had steamed these waters enough years to know the signs. The Indian Ocean was a deceptive mistress. Days like today, with clear blue sides and an ocean of flat-slabbed waves surging to shore like a screen door flapping in the wind, hid a dark secret. Offshore, some disturbance was creating the surging tides. Ilbery knew that next the waves would begin to fragment and turn choppy. Sometime soon, it might turn ugly.

  “Secure the cargo,” Ilbery ordered Cheatum. “I’m going ashore.”

  “Very good, sir,” Cheatum said.

  THE DATE WAS July 25, 1909. The time just past 4 P.M. Waratah was schedul
ed to steam from port at first light in the morning. Ilbery walked along the dock, then climbed the stairs leading to the port office. A hot dry wind was blowing from the Kalahari Desert far to the north, and Ilbery could taste the grit on his teeth. Wiping a few drops of sweat from his brow, he opened the door to the office and entered.

  “Afternoon, sir,” the clerk said.

  “I’m Captain Ilbery of Waratah. Do you have an updated weather forecast?”

  The clerk shuffled some papers on the desk, then removed a single sheet. “There’s not much,” he admitted. “Ministry in Pretoria warns of dust storms and thunderstorms in the interior continuing through the twenty-eighth.”

  Ilbery nodded.

  “We’ve had two ships make port since your arrival. The clipper Tangerine crossed from Madagascar midday, and she reported rough conditions in the Mozambique Channel. Her mainsail was shredded and her decks raked with hail.”

  “Hail?” Ilbery said in surprise.

  “I know,” the clerk said. “Most odd.”

  “What of the other ship?” Ilbery asked.

  The clerk consulted the sheet again.

  “The cargo ship Keltic Castle out of Port Elizabeth. She makes a regular run from Cape Town to Durban. The captain noted rough seas between the Xora and Mbashe rivers.” He stared at the sheet again. “Said there were choppy conditions and much debris in the water. That’s about it.”

  “Appreciate it,” Ilbery said, touching the brim of his cap. “Do you have the tugs scheduled for seven A.M., as ordered?”

  The clerk removed a clipboard from under a pile of papers on the desk and glanced.

  “Waratah, seven A.M.”

  “Thank you,” Ilbery said, as he turned to leave.

  “Captain,” the clerk said, as Ilbery opened the door, “good luck and fair seas.”

  Ilbery smiled a grim smile, nodded, then walked out the door.

  Six HOURS, six pints of ale, and six shots of whiskey later, Claud Sawyer was seeing stars. The Royal Hotel was plush by frontier standards. Electric lights and ceiling fans, indoor plumbing on each floor. As soon as Sawyer had checked in, he’d made his way to his room. A large wooden, four-poster bed draped in mosquito netting. Cotton sheets and hand towels for the bathroom down the hall. Sawyer had washed up, changed into clean clothes, and lain on the bed, but sleep would not come. After a few hours, he had given up and walked downstairs to the bar. He’d been there ever since.

  The ornate bar was nearly twenty feet long and carved from zebra wood. To the rear, the back bar had several panes of stained glass lit from behind by lightbulbs. The floors were made of a sandstone-colored tile. Carved chairs sat in front, and Sawyer had parked there for the first few hours. Once the night had cooled some, he had made his way outside.

  “Sir,” the bartender said, walking out to the patio, “we’ll be closing soon.”

  Sawyer was staring skyward at the Milky Way. He looked down and smiled at the man. “Nothing else, thank you,” he said.

  The bartender walked back inside.

  Sawyer had failed to eat since lunch, and he had vomited his lunch into the toilet in the lobby bathroom upon arriving. His head was not swimming, but it was far from placid. The alcohol had failed to have the desired effect. Waratah was never far from his mind. Rising unsteadily to his feet, he made his way to the stairs in the lobby and climbed them to his floor. After several tries, he managed to unlock his door and enter his room. He prayed he would pass out soon.

  CAPTAIN ILBERY STOOD on the foredeck of Waratah. He was smoking a pipe and staring at the sea. Even over the smell of his cherry-tinted tobacco, he could smell the ocean. A bitter, acrid odor like that of a copper coin cooked in a cast-iron skillet. Knocking the dottle from the pipe, he made his way to his cabin.

  THE SHEETS WERE bathed in sweat, and Sawyer’s feet were entangled in the mosquito netting. He had passed into a stupor, a feather pillow pressed against his mouth making breathing difficult. Sawyer shook his head from side to side for air.

  Waratah was steaming into a storm. Sawyer could see it as clear as if he were standing only a short distance away. Then, in Sawyer’s mind, the ship became small, as if he were watching it from the heavens. He watched as a rogue wave far out to sea made its way toward the vessel, then slammed into the side. Then the image faded, and a knight in medieval armor appeared. “Stay clear of Waratah,” the knight said ominously.

  Sawyer bolted upright, the pillow flying to the side.

  The rest of the night he tried to sleep, but sleep never came.

  CAPTAIN DEROOT MANEUVERED Transkei alongside Waratah and began the push away from the dock. The Lund Blue Anchor Line ship was responding differently than he remembered. If possible, the ship seemed stiffer and more ungainly than before.

  Captain Ilbery stood alongside the chief pilot, Hugh Lindsay, as he guided Waratah out of the harbor and past the outer bar. After a celebratory drink with Lindsay, then his transfer off, Ilbery assumed control of Waratah. Ordering a course along the coast, he tried to shake his feelings of impending doom.

  CORPORAL EDWARD “JOE” Conquer stepped from his tent along the Xora River mouth. His unit, the Cape Mounted Rifles, was on field maneuvers. For the last hour, a warm rain had been falling. It leaked through the crude canvas and soaked the crude wood-planked floor. Conquer had waited for the storm to abate before venturing outside. Staring over the cliff to the ocean, he could see that the skies were temporarily clear. Farther out, Conquer could see another storm building. A black wall of clouds had formed. At that instant, gusts of wind raked the camp. The temperature, which had been hovering around ninety degrees, dropped into the seventies as if by magic.

  Conquer reached up and smashed his hat down on his head before it blew away.

  Then he reentered his tent to strap on his side arm.

  “MERCIFUL ALLAH,” THE African said, “protect me.”

  She came with a fury on a wind of destruction, with no name or number to mark her passage. Formed of hot wet winds far in the Indian Ocean, she moved on a westward course like a relentless marching army. The leading edge of the hurricane packed winds of nearly a hundred miles an hour. Lightning streaked from water to heavens, and booms of thunder racked across the tossing seas. Waterspouts fanned out from the center, sucking fish and marine life high into the air.

  Urbuki Mali was in the wrong spot at the wrong time.

  His cargo dhow Khalia was carrying a load of cinnamon and pearls, enough for Mali to retire at last. A trader in East London had agreed to buy the load—all Mali needed to do was bring it home. It was greed that made Mali tempt the weather, and avarice that would end his life.

  Twelve miles from land, Mali might have seen the shoreline had the weather been better; as it was, he was surrounded by a tempest that refused to release him. A strong gust carried his foremast away.

  “My fortune for fair winds,” Mali shouted.

  And then the sky rained fish, and Khalia turned turtle.

  ON WARATAH, CAPTAIN Ilbery was fighting a losing battle. The leading edge of the storm was still miles offshore, but the effects were being felt in the pilothouse. Choppy waves raked against the hull, and twice already his vessel had dropped into troughs, as if the seawater had been sucked out to sea. All at once, Waratah listed hard to starboard and hung suspended at a forty-five-degree angle. Fully three minutes passed before she righted herself.

  “Mother of God,” Ilbery said.

  Second Officer Charles Cheatum could no longer contain his anxiety. His face was ashen white, and moments earlier he had nearly vomited onto the floor.

  “Captain, this is bad,” Cheatum said loudly.

  “Hell, I know,” Ilbery said. “Go below and check the cargo hold. I feel it’s shifted.”

  Cheatum tried to move, but the muscles in his legs were knotted with tension. Pounding his upper legs with his fist, he made a few steps toward the door before he had a stomach spasm and vomited onto the pilothouse floor.

  “Swab that
down,” Ilbery shouted to a deckhand.

  Cheatum wiped his mouth with his handkerchief and walked woodenly out the door.

  FULLY HALF OF the passengers were clustered in the dining room. Each time the ship listed, they were tossed from one side of the great room to the other. Most were bruised and bloodied from slamming into tables and flipping from their chairs. Fear was palatable—chaos was reigning. Carl Childers, a robust Australian cattle baron on his first trip to London, did his best to quell the increasing pandemonium.

  “I peered out the port,” he shouted. “I can see land.”

  Sydney diamond merchant Magness Abernathy found no solace in Childers’s words.

  “Well, it best be close enough to swim to,” Abernathy yelled, “because that’s what we’ll soon be doing.”

  A deckhand made his way into the dining room with an armful of cork life vests. The children were outfitted first, the women and elderly second.

  “She’s pitching and wallowing,” Ilbery shouted, as he spun the wheel in an attempt to bring Waratah back on a solid heading.

  DEEP IN THE engine room, Chief Engineer Hampton Brody could sense things were not right. Every time Waratah heeled over, one of the two propellers was wrenched from the water into the air. Without the drag of water, the shaft would spin rapidly, taxing the steam boiler providing power. At just that instant, a pressure valve on the starboard boiler exploded, and the engine room was filled with clouds of scalding steam.

  Cheatum made it down to the cargo hold. He raced amidships to where the container carrying the unprocessed lead had been stowed. Three of the massive wooden crates had tumbled from the top row and broken apart. Several tons of rock lay scattered on the starboard side. There was nothing he could do but report his findings. Turning on his heel, he started for the ladder.