Thunder at Dawn

by Alan Evans

  Garrick swung on him sharply. He found Aitkyne smiling, but very serious.

  VII

  They called Smith at dusk. Garrick’s voice came urgent down the voice-pipe: “Captain, sir! Ship in distress off the starboard bow! I’m altering course!”

  “Very good!” Smith could feel the heel of her as she turned tightly onto the new heading. Still stumbling from legs asleep, he yanked his oilskin from its hook and dragged it on as he climbed the ladder, the folds of it streaming out behind and clapping as the wind tried to tear it from him. The rain ran down his face and he was wide awake when he stepped onto the bridge gratings.

  Garrick pointed. “There she is, sir.”

  Smith wrapped an arm around a stanchion to steady himself against Thunder’s pitching and rolling. Her engines still rammed her on at that punishing and coal-devouring fifteen knots because Smith was certain the cruisers were somewhere astern of him and Ariadne and Elizabeth Bell waited in Malaguay for Thunder’s protection. Such as it was.

  He lifted his glasses, steadied them, focussed, swept and found. She was a black ship on a wild, dark ocean as the night came down on her, and close inshore. Thunder was racing down on her.

  Garrick said, “We signalled her by searchlight and she answered, She’s only got a poor signalling lamp but we made it out. Her engines have broken down and she’s sprung plates all along her bottom. She’s sinking but she reckons she’ll go ashore first. She lost one anchor and the other’s dragging.”

  Aitkyne butted in, “Damn all chance she has either way. I know this coast. She’ll break up in minutes when she goes ashore.”

  “What ship is she?” Smith asked, absently surprised that Garrick had not told him already. He stared at the image that danced in the glasses, thinking of the men aboard her, of their thoughts at this moment with that awful sea waiting to swallow them. Whatever the cost he would take them off. He lowered the glasses and rubbed his eyes. “I asked ‘what ship?’”

  Garrick’s face streamed water but he licked his lips. “She’s the Mary Ellen, sir.”

  Smith lowered the hand from his eyes and peered at Garrick, eyes strained, or wincing. “The Mary Ellen? Our collier? That Mary Ellen?”

  “Yes, sir.” And Garrick lowered his voice. “We — we’re only a couple of hours or so out from Malaguay but we’ll barely have coal to go on to Guaya, sir. At fifteen knots —”

  “I know!” Smith snarled it at him. He peered at the Mary Ellen not wanting to believe it was her and ground out, “What the hell is she doing here? I told Thackeray I wanted her at Malaguay not —” Then he clamped his mouth shut. It would do no good to bewail the fact as it would do no good for him to plead excuses when they broke him for leaving Thunder powerless and helpless. The collier was here before him and sinking, that was the fact. And she carried a crew of frightened men who would be hoping now. He pounded softly on the rail with his fist. Aitkyne looked from him to Garrick and there was sympathy in their exchange of glances. Smith’s fist was still, the knuckles white. Then he stared through Aitkyne and said huskily, “So you know this coast. Show me the chart.”

  They went into the chartroom and stayed there long minutes. When they emerged Smith clung to the stanchion again and scowled stone-faced at the Mary Ellen as they closed her.

  Then at last he came alive. “Slow ahead. Make to her: Stand by for a line. I will tow you.” He swung on the gaping Garrick. “Make ready to tow her.”

  They could not believe it. Garrick looked at the shore and the sea then saw his thoughts mirrored in Aitkyne’s stare: It was impossible!

  It was dark now, the Mary Ellen a tossing black bulk. There were lights on her bridge and there were lights on Thunder’s deck now and men milling aft where they worked frenziedly to rouse out the big towing hawser. From the Mary Ellen a signal-lamp faltered through a reply.

  Knight read: “She says: Ship is sinking. Will you take off crew?”

  Smith had read the signal himself and his answer was ready. “Reply: Negative. Stand by for my line.”

  There was a shifting behind him on the bridge, a restive ripple that ran through the men there. He was aware of it, ignored it, eyes fast on the Mary Ellen. The lamp blinked again, still stumbling but faster now with a desperation about it. He watched and read it: Boats gone. Urgently request —

  He did not wait for the rest of it. He could see for himself that her boats were smashed. She had taken a beating as she lay powerless under the storm. “Make: Negative. Stand by for line.”

  Again that shifting, that ripple.

  Garrick knew their eyes were on him, that if anyone should speak to the Captain it should be he but he was learning about this Captain, had learned a deal today as the Maria exploded and sank. He hesitated.

  Smith sensed that hesitation as he had been aware of the shifting. “Everything ready aft, Mr. Garrick?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The use of boats was out of the question in this sea. Ideally he should hold Thunder safely clear of the collier and drift a line down to her fastened to a cask. But time was against all of them. He said, “I want a man to throw a line from the stem. What about that big leading hand of yours —’’ he turned on Manton, “Buckley? Is he good?”

  “V-very good, sir.”

  Smith turned back to Garrick. “We’ll want fenders over the stern and this must be done handsomely. Better go aft yourself and see to it.”

  So Garrick took himself aft and his uneasy conscience with him.

  Smith ordered, “Port four points.”

  “Four points of port wheel on, sir.”

  “Midships.” Thunder steadied on the new course that would take her alongside of the collier. There was a light in the bows of the Mary Ellen now and figures moved on her fo’c’sle, crouched as the seas burst over them in spray. He could see the cable of the anchor she had tried to use to save herself. He snapped, “Starboard a point!” He would have liked the hawser made fast aboard the Mary Ellen to a length of her anchor cable. The towing hawser was wire, immensely strong but with little elasticity except that given by the curve in its length. The anchor cable was far heavier and would steepen that curve and give more spring, more elasticity to the tow to prevent it breaking. But there was no time for that operation. It was up to him not to break the tow. He edged Thunder closer as she drew abreast of the collier and crept past her. Thunder rolled and pitched and the Mary Ellen soared and fell and wallowed.

  Smith was out on the starboard wing of the bridge now, eyes on the collier, gauging Thunder’s crawling progress against the collier’s dead rolling, narrowing on the strip of water that separated them. He was aware of the pale blur of faces on the bridge of the Mary Ellen and of one man who had to be her master, his mouth opening and closing and fists lifted and shaking at Smith.

  Smith tore his eyes from the man and back to the task in hand. He shouted against the wind, “Port four points!” And: “Midships!” And: “Ease on port engine!” Thunder’s bow swung around to point seawards and her stern swung to pass across the bow of the Mary Ellen. “Close. Close!”

  From behind him Aitkyne’s voice came strangled, “Christ Almighty! She —”

  But Smith knew she wouldn’t strike. The figures on the collier’s fo’c’sle scrambled away from the sudden towering steel cliff of Thunder’s stern hanging over them but that cliff eased away from them as the weighted line was hurled. It landed right across the men on the fo’c’sle and they tailed on to it and dragged it in. Both ships were driven towards the shore now, the Mary Ellen by the storm, Thunder because Smith held her close on the collier as if that thread-like line dragged her. The sea was setting Thunder down quicker than the collier because it exerted more pressure on Thunder’s vastly bigger hull and she wasn’t dragging anchors. Smith had to keep just enough way on her to balance that pressure. “Slow ahead together! … Ease on port engine! … together! …”

  A messenger cable of grass rope was bent to the line and drawn over to the collier because the line
would not take the strain of hauling in the weight of the wire towing hawser. A donkey engine, the auxiliary engine to power her windlass, hammered faintly on the collier and hauled in the messenger cable and then the towing hawser that was bent to it. And all the time came the stream of orders to engines and helm as Smith juggled with them and the pressures of wind and sea on Thunder’s twelve-thousand-ton bulk and the three-thousand tons of the Mary Ellen. A mistake could throw Thunder astern on to the collier — or send her lunging away to yank the tow from the collier before it was secured and leave the whole painful business to be done again. Outside of the dancing, swinging lights on the cruiser’s stern and the collier’s fo’c’sle the night was a howling darkness.

  But they could see the shore and it was close, the breaking surf marked by a line of phosphorescence.

  A lamp blinked morse from the collier’s fo’c’sle. The donkey-engine was silent. In confirmation of the signal Aitkyne called, “First Lieutenant reports ‘Tow secured’, sir.”

  “Very good!” Smith did not take his eyes off the tow. “Slow ahead together. Cox’n! Watch for the strain coming on!” Because the Mary Ellen’s weight would act like a huge sea-anchor dragged astern of Thunder. “Ease on port engine … Slow ahead together.”

  The strain came on. He saw the hawser slowly straighten, the slack loop of it lifting from the sea. It tautened as Thunder eased away from the collier, and they all felt the shudder and an instant’s check before Thunder paid off again. Smith’s orders went on as he watched the tow for the first signs of the collier yawing and ordered again and again to correct it. Someone aboard the Mary Ellen was doing his best to steer and that was helping but while Thunder pulled her one way sea and gale tried to shove her the other.

  It took over an hour to tow her out and around the headland into the little bay beyond. Smith grew hoarse. Someone brought him a mug of cocoa, hot so that it burned his fingers and scalded his tongue, grease floating on the top of it. He gulped it down when he could and then was hoarse again.

  “Rig fenders and boarding nets. When we secure I want a party of men forward and another aft, both under a good Petty Officer who knows what he’s about on this kind of business.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.” And Aitkyne hesitated then burst out, “Congratulations, sir!” He still could not believe they had plucked the Mary Ellen off the shore. Smith saw no reason for congratulations. He had done what had to be done. Had to be done. He said tiredly, “For God’s sake get her people off as soon as you can.” And: “Hands to coal ship!”

  *

  In the, only comparatively, sheltered waters of the bay Smith laid Thunder alongside the Mary Ellen and anchored fore and aft. The ships were bound together forward and aft with securing warps, and ground on the fenders hung between them. The searchlights crackled and blazed out, beams flooding on the collier’s hatches and the working parties swarmed on to her deck.

  Smith squinted against the glare. If the cruisers came up with them now —! But they were not so close — if they were there at all. He thrust aside the recurring doubt and shouted, “Mr. Garrick! Use the boat derrick as well!”

  Garrick lifted one hand in acknowledgment.

  Normally the collier’s derricks were rigged with the cruiser’s the winches of both of them working together to hoist the coal from the collier and swing it across and inboard. That would only work so long as the collier had steam for her winches. The big boat derrick that hoisted in the pinnace was the only one long enough to reach out over the collier’s hold and hoist out coal on its own. The hands were still setting up the rigging between cruiser and collier of the other derricks when the boat derrick yanked out the first load.

  ‘Hands to coal ship.’ It was a fact of life for the ship’s company that she coaled every week or ten days. It was heavy, filthy work and only the Captain was excused. But this time they would remember.

  Because of the gale. Aboard the collier they threw off the hatch-covers and jumped down into the holds with their shovels. The coal was packed tight and the devil to break into as always but now they worked in a gale that rolled both ships together so that the coal shifted and slid in an oily, mountainous flow and they staggered and fell as they worked. They shovelled the coal into sacks and these were swung up out of the holds by the derricks, ten sacks to a strop, swayed over and lowered to Thunder’s deck.

  Between the coaling scuttles in her deck and the bunkers far below were the mess-decks. So canvas chutes were rigged between scuttles and bunkers. The sacks were wheeled on barrows to the scuttles and the motion of the ship set the barrows grinding hard or trying to run away with the men. It was hard and it was dangerous. They emptied the sacks down the scuttles and the coal fell down the chutes into the bunkers. There was never a chute that did not leak but coaldust found its way anywhere, anyway, so the mess-decks were filthy.

  In the dust-filled gloom of the bunkers they worked with smarting eyes, soaked sponges tied across noses and mouths, trimming the coal. They staggered with the lift and plunge of the ship and the groaning and creaking of the two ships working together was a hellish noise in the steel drums of the bunkers, punctuated by the roar and crash as the coal came down. They always counted men into and out of the bunkers because men had been buried by coal.

  In spite of the gale they worked in a frenzied haste, coaling faster than they had ever done because there was not a man who did not know what coal meant to the ship, and that time was against them. This coaling was different because the collier was sinking. Aboard Thunder they could see it. They would glance at the collier and when they looked again they saw she was a little lower in the water. The Petty Officers and men on the securing warps could feel it because as the collier sank the warps had to be eased. While they held her in to Thunder’s side they would not hold her up from the sea that claimed her. It was delicate nerve-racking work. Ease the warp too much and the collier would swing away to slam back against Thunder’s side, ease it too little and the strain would part it and the whip-crack of a parting warp could kill a man.

  In the holds the coal shifted and slid and the sea pounded against the side but every now and again they would hear the surge of the water inside her. The hatch was a black rectangle against the lights and far above the men as they shovelled and sweated and cursed.

  The crew of the collier were taken off as soon as she was made fast alongside. Garrick brought her Master to the wing of the bridge.

  He was wild-eyed. “You should have taken us off. She could have gone down anytime. Man, you’ve only got to look at her! Every minute I thought she might go, every second! You could have taken us off. I watched you handle this ship and, by Christ! You’re a seaman! So you could ha’ taken us off but you wouldn’t. I pleaded with you to take us off and you passed us a bloody tow! Why?” His face was haggard.

  Smith did not look at him or answer him. Instead he asked, “Why did you sail south when I asked that you wait for me at Malaguay?”

  The Master peered at him, bewildered. ‘What’s that got to do with it? But wait be buggered. The Consul said you needed the coal and I was to find you. You don’t suppose I put to sea in this weather for sport, do you? I did it for you, you —” He stopped, not speechless but holding back the last words. Then he said, almost pleading again, “We all thought our number was up, then you came along but you wouldn’t take us off. We’re men like yourself. Sailormen. I don’t see how you could —” He stopped again and shook his head.

  Smith finally turned to him a face as haggard as his own and the eyes as wild. “I had to have coal. I had to have coal!”

  The Master stepped back from those eyes but Smith turned away and back to watching his men. The Master whispered, “You’re mad! A bloody madman!”

  But then Garrick took his arm and led him away.

  Smith stood alone. He watched the collier sinking and his men slaving in her at risk of their lives and the Master’s charges hammered in his head … ‘bloody madman …’ But his answer was the same. He
had to have coal. Because of the cruisers. And because of Ariadne and the Elizabeth Bell and the other British shipping and hundreds of British seamen along this coast. Because of Thunder.

  He knew that he was right but in his mind he saw the Master’s face and took no comfort from being right.

  *

  He handed over the bridge to Garrick and went down to the Mary Ellen. Not because of her Master nor for any fake heroics but he had sent these men down into the collier and he could no longer stand high on the bridge looking down on them like some little god. He paced her deck with that restless stride and felt the sluggish, water-laden dying of her under him. He went down into the holds where despite the searchlights the men laboured in a reeling near-darkness of dust-filled oppression and the coal slithered and slid around a man’s knees, or his waist so another would have to cease his frantic shovelling to haul him out bodily.

  They saw him.

  Somebody coughed and spat filthy phlegm and croaked, “What’s he doin’ here? Don’t say our old cow’s goin’ down faster nor this one!” And they laughed madly, coughed and laughed again and the shovels ripped at the coal.

  He said nothing but he grinned at them through a mask of coal-dust. On deck he told Aitkyne and the Petty Officers: “When it comes you must be quick. Get them out and back aboard.” And to the two men, one forward, one aft who stood with axes where the big warps came down from Thunder and were secured aboard the collier: “When I give the word, cut her loose and jump! Understood?”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  He paced the deck of the Mary Ellen as the loads soared up from the holds, until the colliers winches faltered and died and the hands struck the rigging that connected her derricks to Thunder’s. Only the winch of the boat derrick hammered on aboard Thunder.

  The Mary Ellen was settling.

  He felt the sudden, sick lurch of her and his mouth was open when one of the party on the warp forward leaned over Thunder’s rail to scream through the clatter of the winch: “She’s going!”