Maddon's Rock

by Hammond Innes

  “I don’t care a damn about your engine, Mac,” Jenny shouted, “so long as the Eilean Mor doesn’t fall apart when she hits those breakers.” Her voice bounded a bit wild. I glanced round the wheelhouse. We all had our life jackets on. Our faces looked pale and strained.

  “You’ve got that tripping line, have you, Mac?” Jenny asked. “Well let it out as soon as we begin to swing in the surf. We’ll need the weight of that sea anchor when we get into it.” I don’t think Mac needed any telling. The line was gripped in his gnarled hands and his eyes were creased into a thousand wrinkles as he gazed steadily ahead.

  The light was pale and grey. Great sheets of spray were flung against the windshield so that it ran with water. With the engine flat out the Eilean Mor was making about seven knots and driving straight for the centre of the gap. The rocks on either side of the entrance were closing in on us. A great spout of water shot into the air some twenty yards ahead of us. It subsided and in a moment of slack I had a clear view of the Trikkala lying red and rusty between the smooth rock shoulders of the island.

  The Eilean Mor suddenly caught the backwash of a wave. For a moment she seemed to slide backwards in a crazy mill-race of surf. Then she was driving forward again straight into the gap. Running on her engine at full speed Jenny could not pick her moment for going in. Not that it mattered. There was no chance of escaping that raging surf. “Hold tight,” Jenny suddenly called. “Here we go.” I gripped the wheel, one of my hands over hers. The Eilean Mor was lifted up and driven forward at a great rate on the seething crest of a wave.

  I glanced to the left. The pinnacle of rock towered above us like a colossus. Its great black pedestal was exposed an instant in the trough of a wave, water cascading from it. The wave that was carrying us forward was piling up on the pedestal, curling, crashing against the rock. We dropped down the back of the wave, our bows pointing to the leaden sky. A great wall of surf was thundering across our bows. The wheel jerked under my hand. The bows swung. We lay in the trough of the wave almost broadside on in the gap.

  Jenny spun the wheel. Slowly the Eilean Mor began to come round, the sea anchor dragging at her stern. She was shying like a frightened mare. “Look a’t!” Bert screamed. “Right be’ind yer.”

  I turned my head. We were inside the entrance now, right in the path of the spilling surf. And beyond the granite base of that pinnacle a wave was piling up. Mountains high it seemed to rise. Water streamed from its broken crest like white hair in the wind. It was yellow with foam. The top curled. Then it toppled forward. It seemed it must crush our little boat. But the rock pedestal was between us. It hit the rock with a growling crash like thunder. It split into a sheet of foam and came at us like an avalanche. The noise of it drowned our cries as it hit the Eilean Mor. The glass windshield smashed in like the shell of an egg. The sea poured white into the wheelhouse. The ship heeled, rolled over, was utterly buried under the weight of water. I could not see. I could not breathe. I felt myself drowning. There was a terrific weight on my chest. I thought my arms would break as I clung desperately to the wheel. We were being flung forward at a terrible rate as though plunging down a giant fall.

  Then the Eilean Mor righted herself with a jerk that shook her to the keel. She was flung skywards. The water poured off her. It drained from the wheelhouse, dragging at my legs. Through the torn glass of the windshield I seemed poised for an instant high above the yellow froth of the sea. The screw raced as it was lifted clear of the water. Then we dropped back with a crash into the sea.

  By the grace of God our bows were still headed towards the Trikkala. I felt the screw begin to drive her forward again. The sea anchor tow had parted. There was nothing to hold her. The wheel bucked in my hand, but I held her on her course. Out of the tail of my eye I saw the next wave pile up beyond the pinnacle. The surf roared down on us. Again we were buried deep in a giant race. But this time the Eilean Mor did not heel so far. I felt her rushing forward at a great rate. Gradually the foam slackened, the water drained off her. Ahead the water was comparatively calm. We were through. That second wave had spilled us right through the gap as though the ship were a surf board.

  “Jenny—we’re through,” I cried.

  She was lying on the floor, her hair damp across her face. Bert was sprawled across her legs, an ugly cut down the side of his head. Only Mac was still standing. “The engine-room, Mac,” I shouted. “Cut her down to slow.”

  “Aye, aye,” he said.

  Jenny stirred. Then she opened her eyes and stared wildly up at me. Her mouth opened wide. I think she was going to scream. But she suddenly got a grip of herself. She swallowed, then said, “Are we—are we through, Jim?”

  “Yes,” I said. “We’re through. Are you all right?”

  She put her hand up to her head. “Yes—yes, I think so. I must have hit up against something when I fell.” She sat up, pushing the dank hair out of her eyes. Bert groaned. “What about you, Bert?” she asked.

  “It’s me arm,” he groaned. “Help! Feels like it’s broke. It’s all right, Miss,” he added as she knelt beside him. “I’ll be all right.”

  The engine slowed. The wind cut at my face through the open windshield. Huge flakes of scud floated through the air like scraps of paper in a gale. The water was chopped up, but here under the lee of the island the waves had no strength in them. I ran slowly in to the beach. Close under the rusty stern of the Trikkala, which lay partly in the water, I ordered Mac to cut the engine. Then I scrambled for’ard and let go the anchor.

  The Eilean Mor was a shambles. She looked as though she’d been hit by a typhoon. But her masts still stood. The dinghy lashed aft appeared to be intact. The only serious damage seemed to be the wheelhouse, which was stove in on the port side and all its windows smashed. Blood was dripping from my arm where I had been cut by the glass. I went aft again. “How’s the arm, Bert?” I asked. He was standing up, leaning against the broken chart table. “Can you move it?”

  “Yes—it’s all right, guvner. Caught it on the beastly binnacle, that’s all.” He suddenly grinned. “Blimey, that was a bit of a rough sea, weren’t it?”

  Jenny was smiling. She seemed all right. “I think we’ve been pretty lucky,” she said. She suddenly leaned forward and kissed me on the mouth. Her lips were warm and soft, and very salt. “You’re the best sailor I’ve ever met, darling,” she said. And then added quickly, “Now let’s go below and see if we can find some dry clothes. And I’ll bind that cut of yours up. I think we all want a little patching up.” I saw then that there was blood on her neck.

  Below decks everything was chaos. Everything that could had broken loose. Bunks had been wrenched from the wall, lamps smashed, crockery broken, lockers thrown open. Clothes and books lay strewn on the floor, all mixed up with provisions, tins, broken bottles, smashed crockery. But it was dry. The hatches had held and the Eilean Mor’s stout timbers had stood the strain. We were afloat and dry. Only the engine-room was half flooded with water that had come in down the companion ladder from the wheelhouse.

  We none of us seemed much the worse for our experience. Our cuts attended to and dry clothed, we left Mac to clean up his engine-room and got the dinghy over the side. By a miracle it had not been damaged. First we took a second anchor out, thus securing the Eilean Mor fore and aft. Then we rowed over to the Trikkala.

  The stern was only just in the water. The waves broke against the lower blades of the twin screws. The rudder was red with rust. So was the hull. She had bedded firmly down in the shingle beach and had a list of about fifteen degrees to starb’d. The incredible thing was that she hadn’t broken her back nor did any of her plates appear to be damaged. She might have been laid up on a slipway. From her bows two hawsers anchored her to the low cliffs that edged the beach. Aft, two more hawsers gripped her by the stern; one was fixed to the rocks of a small reef that curved out like a breakwater from the southern shoulder of the island, the other ran into the sea to an anchor.

  We rowed round the st
ern. The sides were sheer. No ropes hung down. To go into the beach meant risking the dinghy. We went back to the Eilean Mor for a light line. With this over the stern rails by the rusty three-inch gun I clambered up on to the deck. There was rust everywhere. It came away in flakes under my feet. Nevertheless, the deck plates seemed solid enough below the rust. Just by the bridge on the starb’d side I found a Jacob’s ladder heaped up and fixed to the rail. I took this aft and soon we were all on deck.

  “Wonder if the silver’s still there?” Bert said as he clambered over the rail.

  That’s what I was wondering. We went for’ard to the after-deckhousing.

  “Never fort I’d see this beastly guardroom again,” Bert said. There was no padlock on the door. We put our weight against it and to my surprise it moved. We strained at the rusty edge of it and gradually it slid back. Inside were the cases of bullion just as we had left them. Our hammocks were still slung from case to case. Bits of our clothing were scattered about. “Doesn’t look as though anyone’s been here,” Jenny said.

  “’Ullo, ’ullo,” exclaimed Bert, who had gone right in. “Somebody’s bin muckin’ aba’t wiv these ’ere cases. Look at this one, Jim. Top ripped right off. An’ that wasn’t the one me an’ Sills opened.” He flung the top off. “That’s queer,” he said. “They ain’t taken nuffink. Look—there’s one o’ the smaller boxes opened and the bars still there. You’d ’ave fort old ’Alsey would ’ave ’ad the door sealed up before they left, wouldn’t you, Jim? I mean, ’ere’s the ol’ bright an’ shinin’ all on its lonesome an’ not even a padlock on the jolly door.”

  “There aren’t many burglars operating in these latitudes, Bert,” I reminded him.

  “Oh, you know wot I mean,” he said. “Sailors might land ’ere an’ ave’ a look ra’nd the ship fer wot they could pinch—food an’ clothes an’ things. If the door were fastened they wouldn’t bother aba’t it. But left open like this—why, hits an open hinvitation ter loot, that’s wot it is.”

  I must say I agreed. It seemed incredible that Halsey should be so careless. I went out and had another look at the door. There were two catches on the outside made for padlocks. But there were no padlocks. And then I saw clean metal showing here and there at the edge below the rust. I rubbed the brown flakes away. Below the red powder I saw distinctly the marks of a cold chisel. “Come and look at this, Bert,” I said. Those marks ran all round the door. The metal at the edge seemed blistered and lumpy.

  “Weldin’,” Bert said. “That’s wot it is.”

  “You mean Halsey had the door welded before he left?” Jenny asked.

  “You bet ’e did, Miss.”

  “Then who’s broken it open?”

  “Yes,” I added. “Who’s broken it open and not taken a single bar of silver?” It puzzled me. However, the silver was there. That was the main thing. “Not much use worrying about it now,” I added. “Anything might have happened whilst those five crooks were on board.”

  “Yes, but to weld it up and then laboriously chisel it open. It doesn’t make sense.” Jenny was staring at the door with a puzzled frown.

  “Come on,” I said. “It’ll be dark soon. Let’s take a look round the rest of the ship while it’s still light. That door’s a mystery we shall probably never solve.”

  We went for’ard then to the bridge accommodation. It was strange walking along the Trikkala’s deck all red with rust and tilted at an angle. I climbed up on to the bridge itself. Everything was orderly as though the ship were still afloat, only time had left its mark in rust and a thick rime of salt. There was even a pair of binoculars in the cubby-hole where the charts were kept. I looked for’ard to the bows and the derelict-looking three-inch gun perched there like a relic of a long-forgotten war. An old tarpaulin was slung from the derricks. It undulated in the wind. Beyond those high bows, the island sloped up from the fringe of shallow cliffs. There was no sign of vegetation. It was all rock, furrowed, but smooth as though the stone were precious and it had been polished on an emery wheel. It was as black and sleek and wet as it had looked through the glasses when we first sighted it. A shiver ran down my spine. It was the most desolate place I’d ever seen. Suppose we couldn’t get out through the gap again? To be marooned in this unspeakable desolation—it would be a living hell.

  Down in the cabins everything seemed neat and orderly. There were no signs of a hurried departure. I went into Halsey’s cabin and rummaged through the drawers. Papers, books, old periodicals, a litter of charts and atlases, dividers, rulers, two shelves of plays including a copy of Shakespeare and Bradley’s Shakespearean Tragedies—but not a letter, not a photograph, not a single object that might give a clue to the man’s history.

  Jenny called out to me. I went to the door. “Come here, Jim,” she said. “I want to show you something.”

  She and Bert were in the officers’ mess room. “Look,” she said as I entered. She was pointing to the table. It was still laid—just for one. There were tea things on a tray, an open tin of oleo margarine, ship’s biscuits on a plate, a pot of paste and a hurricane lamp. “Almost as though somebody were living here,” she said. “And look, there’s an oil stove, and a duffle coat hung over the back of the chair. I—I don’t think it’s very pleasant wandering around a deserted ship. It always seems as though there must be life on board. I remember going over one of the freighters laid up in the Clyde when I was a kid. It—scared me quite a bit. As though I oughtn’t to be there, prying into the secret life of a ship with all its old memories.”

  I went over to the table. There was milk in the jug. It looked all right. But then it was cold enough in these latitudes for things to keep indefinitely. The paste was all right too. And then I saw the watch and stopped with the pot of paste still in my hand. “Jim! What are you staring at?” Jenny’s voice was startled, almost scared.

  “That watch,” I said.

  “Wot aba’t it?” Bert asked. “Blimey! Ain’t yer never seen a pocket watch before?”

  “Yes,” I said. “But I never saw one that ran for over a year without being wound.” It was an ordinary service watch. Rankin’s perhaps. The little second hand jerked steadily round. The others peered at it. Nobody spoke whilst the watch ticked off a whole minute.

  “You’re right,” said Bert at length. “It’s as though somebody had just left it there. Fair gives yer the creeps, don’t it. D’yer fink the free of us clumpin’ ra’nd the room could ’ave started it off?”

  “No, I don’t,” I replied. My voice sounded unnaturally sharp. “This ship has been battered by waves all the winter.”

  “Then, how can it——” Jenny’s voice trailed away. “For God’s sake, Jim,” she added, suddenly clutching my arm, “let’s find out whether there is someone on this ship. This table—laid for one like that—as soon as I saw it, I felt——” She hesitated. “Well, I felt a cold shiver run down my spine.”

  “Come on then,” I said. “Let’s go and have a look at the galley. If there is anyone on board, he’s clearly someone who needs to eat. The galley will tell us.”

  We went down the long passageway. This was the way I had come for cocoa and my chats with the cook. The passageway had always been hot and pulsing with the throb of engines. But now it was cold and dank. The gratings that let on to the engine-room were dark and lifeless. The galley door was open. The air seemed warmer and there was a smell of food. Something moved on the cook’s bed.

  “What’s that?” Jenny cried.

  “I swear I saw somefink move then,” Bert said.

  Our nerves reacted on each other. Twenty-three men—the crew of this ship—had been murdered. I told myself not to be a fool. Jenny’s fingers dug into my arm. Two pin points of luminous light stared at us from the dark recess beneath the bunk—two green eyes.

  We stood petrified, staring at those eyes. They moved. And then out from underneath the bunk walked the cook’s cat—the tortoise-shell that had jumped out of the boat just before it was launched. It came stalking
across the room towards us, its soft pads making no sound, tail stiff and waving gently from side to side, its green eyes fixed unwinkingly upon us. I felt the hair creep along my scalp. I remembered how the cat had struggled and clawed at the cook. It had known that boat was going to sink. Then the thing was rubbing itself against my legs, purring as it had done when the cook had sat in that chair over there, stroking it with his thick, fleshy fingers.

  I took a grip on myself. The cat couldn’t wind up a watch. It might eat fish paste, but not ship’s biscuits. I went over to the galley stove and felt the top of it. The iron was still warm and when I raked at it, cinders glowed red in the grate.

  “Somebody’s still on board,” I said.

  “Still on board,” Jenny echoed. “But, Jim, for over a year?”

  “It’s the same person that burst open the bullion room door. Don’t you see—that’s why none of the silver’s missing. He couldn’t take it away because he’s still here.”

  “It’s almost incredible that anyone should be living on this derelict,” she said.

  “Yes, but not impossible,” I pointed out. “There’s food and shelter here. And water—that’s why that tarpaulin is slung from the derricks, to catch rain water.”

  “D’yer fink they left ’im be’ind as a sort of caretaker.” Bert suggested. He made a face. “Blimey! Nice sort o” job that is. I wouldn’t stay a’t ’ere on me Jack Jones—no jolly fear I wouldn’t.”

  “He’s probably some poor devil who’s been shipwrecked,” I said. “Managed to get in through the reef and been here ever since. At any rate, that explains why the cat’s still alive.”

  “It’s—horrible,” Jenny murmured.

  “Yes, it’s not very nice,” I agreed. I saw she was worried. I took her arm. “An abandoned ship always seems a bit uncanny—especially when there’s someone on it and you don’t know who. Come on, the sooner we find him the better.” I turned to Bert. “You go aft,” I said. “We’ll search for’ard.”