THURSDAY'S ORCHID

by Mitchell, Robert

  “No.” He looked around the room at his officers. “First we have to wait for the highest tide of the month, then empty all the seawater out of the main hold, and then pray to God while the tug tries its hardest.”

  The way he said it, I think he believed that prayer might be the only thing that we could rely on.

  Nothing much was done that day. It was still too rough for the salvage master and his team to return to their tug. They spent the entire day checking and rechecking the hull and sounding all the tanks.

  I thought that the sea would have abated even further with the easing of the wind, but it didn’t; but then again, it didn’t get up in the afternoon as it had on the previous day. By evening the wind had slackened off again. I checked the barometer up on the bridge and found it had risen slightly; which was promising.

  The day had been an anti-climax. The preceding days had all been a flurry of activity: cargo being shifted, rearranged, or simply tossed over the side; and now there was nothing to do. The crew and the officers strolled around the deck, staring into the distance, thinking of home, nobody saying much. Nothing to do but wait.

  I don’t think anybody spent that night up on the bow. They were all far too tired after the previous night on the hard deck, when the wind had whistled through the railings and the spray had curled around under the overhang. They had spent the night there and the ship hadn’t broken up with all the twisting. The groaning had now almost faded away, so perhaps it might hold together for some time yet. On the other hand, it might have had something to do with the light rain that started to fall after dinner. It was miserable weather to be sleeping out in the open.

  Some of the crew were preparing to bed down in the passages and open spaces of the main accommodation section, not relishing the thought of being down in the crew quarters below the waterline; and nobody could blame them.

  My conscience fought against desire, and reason battled against my wanting to wander out on to the top deck on the perhaps not so slim chance that she might be waiting there for me, but reason and conscience both prevailed; and I sank into the sleep of the pure at heart.

  The morning brought a new day, as I guess it always does, but this time the sun was shining and there were only a few grey clouds to spoil the brilliant effect. The sea had calmed and it could almost have been called pleasant. A few more days on the reef and it would seem like home.

  The tug had come around from the lagoon while we were still asleep and was lying off our stern. The salvage master had left us and returned to her before I had managed to stagger out of my bunk.

  It was unbelievable really. We were stuck up on top of a great curve of coral reef, at the mercy of the elements, and yet still being served three meals a day and complaining if the toast was burnt.

  There was nothing for me to do, and nothing for the ship’s complement to do, apart from the cook, the steward and a couple of the engineers. Nothing to do but watch the salvors rig their tackle.

  It was still early morning when the divers first went down, about two hundred metres out from our stern: two of them, in their black suits and yellow metal tanks, looking for the best place to lay the salvage anchor. They had been under for fifteen minutes before surfacing another hundred metres further out. The rubber boat picked them up and a weighted line with a yellow marker buoy attached was lowered over the side. They roared back to the tug, leaving the yellow buoy drifting three hundred metres out from our stern and a hundred metres across to the starboard side.

  I trained the pair of binoculars that I had taken from the bridge on to Pacific Ranger.

  Through the glasses I could see men milling around the back deck of the tug as they removed the hatch boards. The huge A-frame crane was tilted back into position over the hold as the wire winch-rope slowly unwound. The wire went taut as the winch began its slow haul, and then an enormous anchor, dwarfing those on Syrius, began to rise up out of the hold like some awakening leviathan.

  With the shackle hard up against the A-frame’s cross-beam, and the base of the anchor now a metre above the tug’s deck, the powerful hydraulic rams pushed the A-frame back up to the perpendicular, moving the massive weight slowly along the deck. Centimetre by centimetre, the rams forced the two great beams backwards and the anchor moved towards the stern, the A-frame jerking, men leaning against the anchor to stop it from swaying, from rocking the tug. And the closer the great monster got to the stern, the lower the stern dropped, the bow raising itself out of the water. And then at last the beast was over the gunwale, hanging from the single wire, with the tips of the flukes just below the waves.

  There was a faint roar from the tug’s engines and she steamed slowly back towards the yellow buoy sitting out from our stern. As the tug lurched through the waves, water washed over the back deck, running up past the hatch and out through the scuppers. The sound faded away and the tug drifted slowly towards the buoy, missing it by only metres and then the engine revved once more and the stern kicked around as the tug moved ahead, and then back again until the buoy hit against the stern. Then, without hardly a pause, the windlass on the huge A-frame whirred out and the anchor hurtled to the bottom. Suddenly the stern of Pacific Ranger heaved up ponderously, rocking end to end on the waves as the anchor settled on the bottom, with the wire rope still winding out as the tug moved slowly ahead.

  Once again the divers descended into the depths, following the wire rope down. We had seen two or three sharks, sharks which had nosed in, grabbed a chunk or two from a carcass of rotten meat, and then streaked out again. But it’s not the ones you can see that are the worry; it’s the ones you can’t see.

  Five minutes later the buoy bobbed twice and the wire was reeled in. A large pulley-wheel was shackled on and lowered to the bottom with yet another diver following it down. The buoy bobbed twice more and the wire came to the surface again, the block left below with the anchor. And once again it went down, taking a huge shackle, and a bundle of tools: a crowbar, two heavy hammers and a spanner.

  Flint’s explanation was finally making sense. I could picture the divers far below, connecting the massive set of pulleys – the block – to the anchor. The first part of the ground tackle had been set.

  There was a tap on my shoulder and I turned to find Flint at my elbow.

  “When you want to borrow something!” he shouted in my ear, pointing to the binoculars. “It’s courtesy to bloody-well ask first!”

  “Sorry,” I said, contrite. “But there was nobody around at the time and I didn’t think they would be needed for a while.” I turned to the tug, changing the subject. “Tell me, how do they manage to keep the tug in position without running over the wire and getting it caught up in the propellors?”

  “Simple,” he answered. “The tug’s got a bow-thruster.”

  “What’s that?”

  He took his hands from his pockets and made a pointed movement with his arms, swaying from side to side. “A bow-thruster is a type of water-jet fitted into a tube across the centre of the bow, running from one side to the other. It pushes the tug to either port or starboard without having to use the rudder and the main engines.” I nodded my understanding.

  Pacific Ranger moved away from the buoy and came in close to our stern; but this time it was the main engines that were moving the tug, the sea churning and washing above the propellor blades.

  The rubber boat was lowered over the side again and two of the salvage team boarded us, making their way to the stern. The rubber boat now had the approach to the rope ladder worked out in fine detail; whipping in, waiting no more than a second for the man to spring for the ladder, and then around and out for the next pass.

  The tug crept back even further until the whole rear deck was beneath the overhang of our stern, the main engines slowing down as the bow thruster took over, keeping the tug in position. The men waiting on our stern threw a light line out to the tug, now dangerously close to us, so close I could have reached out and nearly touched the radio mast.

 
A heavier line was attached and hauled back on board Syrius, the slack taken in as the tug moved even closer under our stern; the tug-master out on the bridge-wing with the remote-control console in his hand, watching every wave that rolled towards us, keeping a careful eye on the massive curved steel wall above him. It was a manoeuvre that would have been impossible two days ago and, even in the slight swell, seemed fraught with risk.

  The heavy line was wound around our aft capstan and the electric motor set in motion. I looked over the stern again and saw a massive pulley-block being hauled up on board, identical to that which had been lowered down to the salvage anchor. After much swearing and cursing, the block was manhandled over the lip of the bulwark and dropped to the deck.

  The line was thrown back to the tug again and the large shackle and pin hauled up. The tug moved off to deeper water, and safety. It took three men to carry the huge pulley-block along to the bow.

  I leaned against the bulwark and watched the salvors.

  The team on board Syrius were up at the bow, using the huge shackle to fix the pulley-block to the starboard anchor chain, which had been released from its anchor and led back on board over the bulwark. As soon as everything was ready for the final pull, the chain and block, with the wire cable rigged and reeved, would be placed overboard, giving a direct line from the tug to the ship’s bow and then down to the anchor on the sea bed.

  I moved back to the stern.

  The crew on Pacific Ranger were working in the tug’s hold again. The A-frame’s hook was lowered down and several minutes later an immense reel of thick wire cable appeared. The reel was moved to the stern and fitted on to a stand that would allow the reel to run free.

  The tug moved up to our stern, but not as close as before.

  She waited.

  The salvors on Syrius returned to the stern and hurled a weighted rope out to the tug as it wallowed beneath our overhang, its propellors slowly churning the water. A light wire was attached to the rope and hauled back to us, and then led overboard along the starboard side of the ship. Two men dragged it up to the bow, threaded it through the block and took it back down to the stern again. The end was lowered to the rubber boat and taken out to the where the tug was now stationed. The light wire was fed on to a winch drum and slowly wound in.

  The tug’s crew had already joined the other end of the light wire to the heavy cable and, with a flick of his hand, the salvage master released the brake on the reel and it started a slow ponderous turning as the coils began to unwind. He gave a signal and the wire winch started to move faster. The water at the stern of the tug boiled and bubbled as the engines revved and pushed against the force of the winch as it tried to pull the tug towards the ship.

  The great reel spun faster, threatening to send the whole of the cable racing to the sea-bed in a great loop, but the salvage master jumped forward and shot the brake home, smoke pouring out as the shoes grabbed hold of the drum.

  The slack cable snaked up from the water, up along the ship’s side and up to the bow. They fed the end of the cable through the first sheave of the block, and then it was on its way back to the tug.

  One end of the first loop had been completed.

  Pacific Ranger steamed back out towards the yellow marker-buoy, paying out the heavy cable as she went. The two divers entered the water, taking down a length of light rope. Five minutes later they were back at the surface, swimming the rope over to the stern of the tug where it was joined to the light wire. The tug crew hauled in the other end of the rope, pulling the wire down over the stern, down to the block, pulling it through the sheave without snagging, back up to the tug, and made it fast to the end of the heavy cable.

  The reel started to spin again as the winch drew the light wire back around the sheave of the block far below, pulling the end of the cable down and back to the tug again. One diver stayed at the surface. The other was below watching and leading the cable through the block. The buoy bobbed once and the winch stopped. Five minutes later it bobbed several times and the winch turned again and kept turning until the end of the cable finally saw daylight again.

  Again and again the procedure was repeated; eight times in all.

  The job wasn’t finished until midnight, none of the salvage crew seeming to rest.

  I watched with tired eyes as the final turn was made through the block on the bow. The end of the wire cable was hauled back to the deck of Pacific Ranger and wrapped around the towing hook as she steamed out towards the anchor buoy, pulling even more cable from the reel.

  The crew were working under lights on the back deck of the tug, bending the end of the cable to form a loop, and making it fast with large bolted clamps. Then, without ceremony or fuss, the end was pushed over the side; to remain there until needed.

  The few remaining turns of cable still left on the reel were snaked on the tug’s deck and a bolted loop formed on that end as well. The tug manoeuvred to port and that second end was dropped over the side some distance away from where the salvage anchor lay.

  The laying of the tackle completed, the tug moved away towards the lagoon, and that was that. All day they had worked; from before sun-up until after midnight. The tackle had been laid and everything prepared, and then they had quietly steamed off into the night.

  At least there was a sense of satisfaction, a feeling that something concrete had been done, that it hadn’t just been another day of rearranging cargo, or of doing nothing. They had shown us that they had the equipment to do the task; and knew how to handle it.

  I went to bed feeling happier than I had for many days; but exhausted, even though I had done nothing but watch and wait.

  It was more than two weeks since we had gone aground.

  Fifteen

  Everybody slept late the next morning, including the crew of the tug. I came down to a late breakfast to find her still at anchor inside the lagoon.

  The salvage master came on board about mid-morning and spent an hour or so closeted with the captain in his cabin.

  I was burning with curiosity and could hardly wait to question Flint, but I had to wait until we were seated at lunch before satisfying my enquiring mind. I let Flint slop through his soup and held my impatience until he was well into the main course before broaching the subject.

  “When are they going to start pulling?” I asked, and listened to the sudden silence as everyone else paused, cutlery raised.

  He chewed on the mouthful several more times and looked up from his plate, wiping his lips with the back of one hand as he did so. “Thought you might be curious,” he said, and then paused, savouring the moment to the hilt. “They plan to test the tackle at high tide tomorrow, but they don’t expect her to come off. If she does, it will be a fluke.”

  He still didn’t believe they could do it.

  “The tide won’t reach its highest peak for another three days,” he went on. “So they won’t overload the tackle. The test tomorrow will be mainly to check that the gear has been rigged correctly and hasn’t been caught up in anything, or twisted, or whatever.”

  A week ago he would have told me to mind my own business; but now that I had shown I could pull my weight and wasn’t a quitter, he was treating me more on an equal footing, and not as the fool he had earlier taken me for.

  “So,” I replied. “Tomorrow will be a test of the ground tackle, and the day after that will be the first attempt to pull us off. If that’s not successful, they’ll give it all they’ve got on the following day?”

  “In a nutshell, Mr. Rider. In a nutshell.”

  “So, there’s nothing further to be done then?”

  “Yes. They’ll be bringing a couple of salvage pumps across this afternoon, if they can get close enough, that is. The sea is calm enough at the moment, but it can’t last much longer.”

  Old doom and gloom was at it again; but even so I didn’t like the sound of it. His weather predictions had been fairly accurate to date and it seemed as if the elements might be playing a game with us.
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  “Why do we need the pumps?” I asked. “Do you think there’s any danger of us taking a few more holes?”

  “I hope not,” he replied. “But you never know. No, they need them to empty out the main hold.”

  His food was getting cold, but it didn’t seem to worry him.

  “Why can’t they use the bilge pumps?” I asked. “And the fire pump?”

  He gave me an exasperated look. “Have you ever tried to empty a bath with a tea-cup?” He paused. “Well, that’s about how long it would take if you tried to empty the main hold with our bloody pumps. It would take a couple of days; maybe even longer. You saw how long it took to put the water in there in the first place. As it is, our pumps will be flat out trying to empty the tanks which have been holed. With luck we might be able to keep a few tons from creeping back in.” He cut off a piece of steak and looked across again, the fork half-way to his mouth. “Or maybe you’d like to organize a bucket chain to help speed things up?”

  I shook my head and went back to the food, letting him get on with his own. I had learned all I was likely to learn.

  By the time I had cleaned my teeth and returned to the open deck, the tug had moved out from the lagoon back into the open sea and was steaming towards our stern. The salvage master stood out on the Syrius’ starboard bridge-wing, a walkie-talkie in his hand.

  Pacific Ranger edged closer to our stern, then crawled part way along our starboard side, coming dangerously close to the reef. Her draft was far less than ours and she was safe as long as she didn’t drift any further in towards the coral. If something went wrong with the bow-thruster, if it missed a beat, the tug would be swept down along the length of our hull and join us on the reef.

  The swell had come up again as Flint had forecast. The tug skipper would be cursing, regretting that they hadn’t started out again at first light as they had the previous day, but it would have been too near to low tide then, with the tug’s hull even closer to the coral.