The Main Cages

by Philip Marsden

  Tacker hauled himself up out of the scuppers. Rose was clutching his leg and together with Cameron they took him aft and sat him on a bench. There was confusion in the deckhouse, but when they saw the men come in the passengers fell quiet.

  Parson Hooper pursed his lips and looked at Rose. His hair was wet and water dripped from his chin. As he hopped up to the bench Hooper could see the darker stain swelling at his calf. The woman in a yellow hat turned her boy’s head away.

  Oh Lord!’ Mrs Franks put a hand to her mouth when she saw Rose.

  ‘Now what?’ said Lady Rafferty, opening her eyes.

  Cameron rolled up Rose’s canvas trousers. There was a gash three inches long and they tied a clean rag round it, dipped in seawater.

  Rose forced a smile and said, ‘Get that anchor over again!’

  Bryant leaned forward. ‘What is happening, Major Cameron?’

  Cameron looked at him. Fear had rid Bryant of his harshness and his face was wide open, almost boyish.

  ‘They’ll be bringing the steamer in again.’ Then Cameron stood and went forward.

  The Golden Sands’s movements were chaotic again. She was being raised up to the top of the seas, rolling back as they pushed through. The steamer was dropping in towards her. Tacker and the Stephens brothers and Cameron stood at the foredeck.

  ‘Come on, you bastard!’ Charlie Treneer shouted at the steamer. They scrutinised the figures at the stern-rail. One of them would send over the heaving-line again and it would drop on the deck of the Golden Sands, they would haul it in and this time make sure the wire was secure on the samson post. A couple of hundred yards to the north would be enough, enough to clear the rocks, just a couple of hundred yards …

  Then from beneath the Hopelyn’s stern came the boiling of the propeller. She began to push forward again – away from the Golden Sands.

  ‘No!’ cried Tacker. ‘You can’t leave us!’

  One of the seamen at the rail raised his arms and pointed over the Golden Sands. Tacker realised then. They all realised. They had been watching the ship for so long they had not seen how far they had drifted. But the men on the Hopelyn could see beyond the Golden Sands, over the top of the deckhouse to the rocks. They were running out of water.

  Tacker and Red reached for the anchor and heaved it over. It was the last thing they were able to do.

  The Curate rock was twenty yards astern. Above it the swells were half-breaking and pulling back, but even in the troughs the rock was not visible. It lay eight feet below the surface, and Jimmy was steering straight at it. The sea anchor had worked. It brought their bows head to wind and he had given up trying to avoid the rock and was using all his steerage to aim straight for it.

  Tacker was paying out the anchor when he realised what Jimmy was doing. ‘Jim!’

  Tacker secured the anchor and ran to the wheelhouse. Jimmy was leaning out of it, siting the white water astern and working the helm with his left hand.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Jim – port the helm!’

  Jimmy shoved him aside. Tacker fell, and watched his brother go into the wheelhouse and jam the door closed. From the outside they all pushed at the door, but it wouldn’t give. Jimmy was leaning against it.

  ‘What the hell are you doing, Garrett?’ Red Stephens kicked at the door.

  Three of them shouldered it and the hinges gave. The Stephenses held Jimmy while Tacker took the helm. But it was too late. Only two seas now separated them from the surf and the rock beneath it.

  Few of the passengers were watching. Each of the countless ups and downs of their progress from Porth harbour had served to numb them a little more. A fatalism had settled among them. One or two of the children were whimpering. Parson Hooper had his head bowed and was whispering in panic: ‘Help, help, oh please God, help me …’ Mrs Bryant and several of the others assumed he was praying and bent their heads.

  The Master had his palm pressed against Mrs Franks’s forehead. Her eyes were closed and he was muttering in a strange tongue and all those around him were watching him and listening.

  The Dane Soren and Travers and Lee were the only ones looking astern, the only ones able to face the coming rocks. The noise of broken water now filled the deckhouse.

  Anna studied the stitching of her borrowed jersey. The end of the sleeve was frayed. She was frightened now. She closed her eyes. She prayed. She hoped that when she opened her eyes she’d be somewhere else entirely, but here was the boat again, here was the noise of the surf, the frayed sleeve and the stitching – and the fear.

  The stern of the Golden Sands dropped sharply. Anna let out a cry at the suddenness of it. Two children beside her screamed. The boat was right over the Curate. The next sea broke hard against the bows and even with the sea anchor the boat swung round and was rolled onto her side. They saw the water breaking over the stern and felt the boat being driven down and they could see over the rail into the boiling water below. They all waited for the strike.

  CHAPTER 31

  The low sun shone brightly on the Cages and on the creamy crests of the waves, but into the eastern sky had slid a bank of high cloud.

  Tyler was watching it, driving the lifeboat as fast as he could. He was cutting the throttle as they came over the wave-tops and as they plunged down the backs. Then he opened it again and they drove through the troughs and all they could see down there was the slope of the next wave. Croyden and Jack were pulling down the jib and it was beating loudly and flapping as they gathered it in their arms. Each time they topped a wave they could see the Golden Sands a little closer to the Curate rock. They watched her rise and fall. They saw the broken water all around her and as she dropped into each trough she all but disappeared and they expected to see her jolt at the rock and come up sluggish and half-swamped.

  The last sea before the Curate was high and steep and the Golden Sands slid down it, swinging round stern-first and falling. Through the deckhouse those who looked could see the white water coming up towards them, even as it drained from the rock. Travers and Lee and the Dane Soren watched the bubbling mass, watched it rising. They braced themselves. The boat heeled to the gunwales. There came a slow cry, more like a moan than a scream, which joined the roar of the surf until the two sounds merged into one. A number of people fell from the benches. From the bar came a shattering of glass.

  The water was draining from around the rock and they waited to see the dark shape beneath it. They waited to see the flap of weed and the stillness of the rock but it never came. The next sea picked up the bows and drove the Golden Sands on over the Curate and left her in the quieter water beyond.

  The tide was running fast and they were soon clear of the rock. They were now in a kind of lagoon, ringed by a broken reef. Beyond it the swells continued their march. All around them was disturbed water but in the middle the seas were long and smooth and not breaking. Three hundred yards downwind was the high double peak of Maenmor and the evening sun was slicing through the gap. They could see the spray rising high against the rocks. They were still drifting.

  Jimmy Garrett knew exactly what he’d been doing. If he managed to get them over the Curate and out into deeper water again, then the trailing anchor might just find a purchase on the rock. There was no choice. The tide was quickening, and if they missed the Curate there would be nothing to stop them driving on and breaking up on Maenmor. The Curate was a single rock. Around Maenmor were smaller rocks and reefs, marked by a mass of broken water.

  Jimmy pushed open the door of the wheelhouse. It fell away from the upper hinge. He leaned over the side. Seven or eight fathoms of anchor chain were out. As they cleared the Curate, it stretched away and tightened. He felt it hold for a moment, then loosen. When it stuck again, he took a mark from one of the inner rocks against the land. He watched it; the rock did not move. The wind would be working in their favour now, keeping the chain tight, and in these flatter waters there was less motion to dislodge the anchor. Jimmy looked again at his marks and they had not moved. They
were fast! For the first time since they lost the engines he had a degree of control.

  ‘Christ, Jim!’ said Tacker, but he was smiling.

  Charlie Treneer gave a little leap when he realised what had happened. Joe Stephens lit a cigarette and Red Stephens muttered, ‘Bloody Garretts …’

  Cameron was exhilarated by the risk, and looked at Jimmy and shook his head in admiration. ‘Utter madness!’

  Jimmy paid no attention to any of them. He checked the angle of chain. ‘Another few fathoms, Tack!’

  Tacker eased out a further length and the boat settled back away from the rock. Her bucking calmed. He opened the engine hatch and dropped into the darkness below. He stepped off the bottom of the ladder. The water was ankle-deep. He had expected more. But with no power for the pump, there was nothing he could do about it.

  Among the passengers it took some time to realise that they were still.

  Parson Hooper looked around him. ‘Are we moving?’

  Lawrence Rose shook his head; he tried to move his leg. It was propped up on the bench, and he winced. ‘That’s the anchor holding us. Solid ground.’

  ‘Ah!’ Hooper put his hands on his knees. ‘We’ve stopped!’

  ‘Really stopped?’ Mrs Hooper looked up at him.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘What now?’

  ‘Well …’ said Hooper.

  Everyone was quiet. The movement and the noise at the Curate had ceased. To be free of it now, in still waters, felt like victory. They loosened the grip they had held on the benches, on each other, and many were struck by a profound tiredness.

  But the horizon was still a ring of surf. It reached the boat with its river-roar. Travers stood and went astern and watched it.

  ‘The lifeboat!’ he called out. ‘I can see the lifeboat!’

  One or two turned to watch. Others heard him but could not bring themselves to look out over the water. The woman in a yellow hat pulled her son to her: ‘The lifeboat’s coming, Edgar. The lifeboat.’ Rocking him in her arms, she started quietly to hum.

  The Kenneth Lee was battling with the seas, trying to find the best route through the rocks. Tyler knew every inch of the waters around the Main Cages from potting, but he had never been among them in such a swell nor at mid-tide – even on exercise. He cut in about thirty yards up-wind of Maenmor. The waters were confused and for some time he steered a hesitant and erratic course through them. Once inside he gave her full speed and aimed directly for the Golden Sands.

  Coming up alongside, he stood off a few yards and shouted across. ‘You holding?’

  Jimmy was leaning casually on the rail. ‘For now.’

  ‘How many you got?’

  ‘Forty-two.’

  The wind had pushed the two boats apart. Tyler dropped the lifeboat back, then came back alongside. ‘We can take thirty plus. I’ll ferry them up to the tramp.’

  He came in close and put Edwin Stephens and his nephew Dougie Tyler aboard. They went back into the deckhouse. To the passengers their sudden presence was a shock. They looked larger than life, alien, with their lank hair and spray-soaked faces and their oilskins and fat kapok lifejackets. Charlie Treneer and the Stephenses came back too to help marshal the passengers.

  Edwin told the women and children to come forward. Most of the children followed passively. The family from Bristol made their way forward. The boy was still clutching his model boat.

  The woman in a yellow hat knelt down in front of her son. She was reaching into her basket. ‘Hurry!’ Charlie told her. She pulled out a jersey and began rucking it up over her son’s head. ‘He’s going to get cold.’ She then took out a box from the bag and unpacked an orange. ‘Here, darling –’

  Charlie leaned over and scooped up the boy.

  ‘Give him to me!’ she clawed at Charlie but he took her boy outside. ‘Give him!’ she cried out as he was handed across the gap. But she followed.

  With the last child aboard, Edwin Stephens stood by the awning and said: ‘Now, everyone else please, in a queue – women first!’

  The Welsh couple, who had been sitting hand in hand, both stood up. He kissed her as she went forward.

  Mrs Bryant felt faint. ‘Nothing … it’s nothing.’

  Lady Rafferty helped her to her feet. Joe Stephens took her right arm.

  Mrs Franks and the other women around her reluctantly left the Master and made their way out.

  Lawrence Rose was carried forward, and then the men formed a queue. Birkin was propped up between the others. He shuffled forward with them. ‘We home yet?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Travers.

  The lifeboat was filling. In good conditions there was room for forty-five, but when he had counted thirty or so on board Tyler said, ‘You two – then we’ll come back for the rest.’

  Parson Hooper and Major Franks were the last to step across. Jack freed the line that had been holding in the bow. Tyler opened the throttle and they were off, rising over the first swells and heading eastwards towards the Hopelyn.

  As the boat filled, Anna had been pushed back further along the side deck. Now they were moving she made her way forward. People were standing shoulder to shoulder but she could see Jack at his post in the bows. He smiled at her and winked and watched as she pushed her way through – in her too-big ‘Grace’ jersey, her hair without its headscarf and her face flushed and freckled from the day’s sun.

  ‘Excuse me … excuse me …’

  ‘Stay still, woman!’ said Lady Rafferty.

  Anna ignored her. She squeezed past Mrs Bryant who looked very white. Double was saying to her, ‘All right, Missus, we’re all right now.’ The boy with the model boat had been forced to leave it on the Golden Sands and was sobbing. Beside him was the woman in a yellow hat, and her cheeks were running with tears. Edgar leaned against her, picking his nose. He gazed up at Anna as she passed.

  When Anna reached Jack, she whispered: ‘Oh, thank God! It was so terrible, the rocks, the noise –’

  He reached down and took her hand. ‘You’re safe now.’

  ‘It just came closer and closer, to swallow us like a wolf …’

  The lifeboat pitched up over the swells. Each time the bows dropped, the spray washed over the passengers and they turned away. Anna held the straps of Jack’s lifejacket for balance. To feel now the boat’s speed beneath her brought out all the half-suppressed fear and she pressed her head to the damp canvas of his lifejacket and started sobbing. He put his arm over her shoulder. But they were already in under the lee of the Hopelyn. Jack climbed up on the foredeck and caught their line. The steamer’s topsides were lowest just abaft the bridge and they had let down a ladder. It took some time to get all the passengers aboard. Jack was still on the foredeck and Anna stayed with him for as long as she could. She stood back and let the others go ahead of her. Then Jack leaned down and said, ‘Quick!’ And he squeezed her shoulder and she turned and saw him with the line in one hand and his face above the lifejacket and he was shouting up to the seamen at the rail. She hurried down the deck and up the ladder. She did not look back.

  CHAPTER 32

  As the Kenneth Lee left the Golden Sands and headed towards the steamer, Joe Stephens had ducked out of the wind and lit a cigarette. He offered one to Dougie Tyler and they leaned on the gunwale and watched the lifeboat go. There were eight now left on board the Golden Sands – Dougie and Red, Joe and Charlie and the Garretts, Major Cameron and Edwin Stephens.

  It had grown cooler. The sun had slipped behind the cloud and the sea had lost its pale-blue warmth. The wind came dashing across the water. The waves looked more dangerous without the sun.

  Joe and Dougie were watching the lifeboat push out past the Curate. She moved into steeper seas and dropped into a trough. When she came out again the Hopelyn looked close.

  Dougie said, ‘They’re clear now.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Dougie flicked away his cigarette and turned. Jimmy Garrett was back in the wheelhouse. His bald head was hal
f-visible through the glass and he was looking out over the bows as if it were a normal afternoon. Dougie wondered whether he intended trying to save his boat. It was possible the Kenneth Lee could put a line aboard and take them in tow, now that the passengers were off. But it was doubtful they had the power – perhaps they could pull them downwind, but in amongst these rocks it would not be easy, and their priority was saving life and not property.

  As Dougie watched him, Jimmy’s head disappeared. His rock-like frame came bursting out of the wheelhouse door. He half-ran, half-limped. Only then did Dougie see the chain lying loose on the foredeck. The seas had worked the anchor loose. They were drifting again.

  Jimmy picked up the chain and pulled. Dougie and Tacker converged on the chain and pulled too. The flukes of the anchor were dragging up the rock and it came too easily. They let the chain go and it slackened, but when they threw a turn round the post it did not hold. They pulled and let it drop but the anchor was now clear of the rock. Below them the ground was dropping away to thirty fathoms.

  There was nothing now, nothing left. Down towards Maenmor the bed rose again but to a series of smaller rocks and reefs and there the water was boiling and surging with the swell and tide and there was no shelter.

  The chain came flopping over the bows and its heavy links clanged on the deck. Then came the anchor itself, thudding against the side. When he heard it, Jimmy cried out, a deep animal sound that started in his chest and rose in pitch to a wail, then stopped abruptly. He let the chain go and hauled himself back to the wheelhouse. Tacker stepped forward to secure the chain.

  They were already fifty yards below the Curate. Without the check of the anchor the boat felt freer as she slid downwind. She was now heading for Maenmor at a speed of nearly two knots.

  The lifeboat was coming back. Tyler saw at once that the Golden Sands had broken away again and he took the direct route, close in to the Curate where the ebb tide was rushing over the rock. He came alongside the Golden Sands. Jack leaned forward and tried to pass a rope to Dougie but it was not easy with the seas as they were and the Golden Sands’s movements so erratic.