* * *
Supper was pilchards and baked beans, washed down as always by tea or coffee, which came out of different jugs but were otherwise not easy to distinguish from each other. Andy was on the bridge by eight-forty, wearing old flannel bags and a sweater, over that a duffel-coat that had been a birthday present from sister Annabel, and his cap, mainly for identification purposes. Clearish sky, but only a few stars visible as yet. A good fix would be useful at this stage, as distinct from dead reckoning – distance as recorded by log, courses as steered, influence of wind and current largely guessed at. Given a decent fix, at least you’d know the starting point of the search with certainty, whereas one couldn’t be as sure of the Sarawak position.
Except they’d put that out at about three, and it would have been based on their noon EP, only three hours earlier, so it shouldn’t be far out.
Light turning milky but visibility still OK, stars showing up more generally. Patchy cloud driving eastward flushed with pink, sea steeper than it had been during the afternoon, and Quilla’s motion reflecting this. He went in from the bridge-wing to find Waller in the forefront amidships, the Old Man in his corner and Elliot in the other, all with glasses up. Freeman was on the wheel.
‘Captain, sir?’
‘Uh?’
‘Intending to take stars, sir?’
A grunt. Binoculars out of the way for a moment as he glanced skyward. ‘I’ll leave it to you, Second.’
‘Aye, sir.’ He told Waller, ‘I’ll borrow Elliot, OK?’
‘You’re welcome.’
For noting down times and sextant altitudes: but first setting the star globe and picking the trio he’d use. Had to change his mind on one of these, on account of a bank of cloud that was obscuring it, but the substitution was no problem, and fifteen minutes later he’d established Quilla’s position at 2056 – call it 2100 – as twelve miles northwest of that given by the Sarawak.
The Old Man joined him at the chart, after he’d suggested altering a few degrees to port.
‘I’d have said we’re about right.’
‘But if they abandoned at 1500, sir—’
‘Damn.’ Slight smile, wag of the head. Admitting, ‘Easterly drift, six or seven hours.’ A nod. ‘We’d do better on 150.’
‘Long as her position was a good one, sir.’
‘No reason not.’ Returning to the forefront then, telling Waller, ‘Come to port to 150.’ A glance round: ‘Holt!’
‘Sir?’
‘Good thinking.’
‘Oh.’ Embarrassed, slightly, but liking the man for his honesty, lack of bullshit. ‘Thank you, sir.’
There was still a huge element of luck involved; the distance they might have drifted for instance was really no more than guesswork. And small boats in a vast black ocean – not that the boats would be all that small, those of a passenger liner would normally be certified as holding fifty people, he thought, so how many children – seventy-five or so, at a pinch? Fact remained, in the dark and conditions like these it would be all too easy to pass within a few hundred yards of one and not see it.
* * *
Ten o’clock, and dark. He’d spent the past hour on the bridge-wings, one side then the other, assisting in the looking out while leaving the wheelhouse uncrowded. Harve Brown had been up for a while, in conversation with the Old Man, no doubt outlining his plans for the accommodation, feeding and care of 131 children – plus adults, number unknown. They’d be getting close by now, approaching at least the general area of the Sarawak’s abandonment. If she’d been still afloat and on fire you’d surely have seen at least a glow on the horizon. The distance from that nine o’clock position being twelve miles; making good about eight now, you’d only have four to go – well within visibility range in the context of flames by night. Might have seen a glow even at twelve, he thought. And four miles was no distance at all for boats adrift at the mercy of wind and sea, although for Quilla it would be another half-hour’s steaming.
One was looking out not only for boats, but also for darkened ships – other would-be rescue ships which might be searching around while showing no lights, and if so would pose a considerable hazard. He’d passed this thought on to the lookouts on the wings: McAllistair port side, Smith starboard. Down aft, members of the gun’s crew were stationed as lookouts, and there were two hands, O’Donnell and Farr, on monkey island. Also cadets Merriman and Dixon on the boat-deck with the snowflake launcher ready for use, keeping busy meanwhile as extra lookouts.
A lot of eyes. And Harve Brown on tour from time to time, ensuring they stayed open.
You could be sure they would. One hundred and thirty-one children, for God’s sake. As Bosun McGrath had grated an hour or so ago, ‘What’d they be after sending the little beggars to sea for, any bloody how?’
Minutes dragging slowly. Quilla wallowing southeastward seeing nothing but the surrounding dark and the rolling, white-toppling sea. Not showing any lights, she’d pass within a cable’s length of a boatload of kids and not even trained seamen with them would see her. While if the Sarawak's hulk was still afloat and burning, he reckoned the men on monkey island would have seen something of her at even fifteen or twenty miles.
He’d intended leaving it to half-ten before going inside to check the distance-run by log and put on a DR, but at about twenty past the hour Harve Brown came up via the boat-deck and starboard bridge-wing, and he trailed in after him. Harve by then conferring with the Old Man again, the latter not desisting meanwhile from his own looking out. Andy went to the chart table, or rather to the Chernikeeff dials on the bulkhead above it, to read off the data he needed.
Since altering course to 150 she’d covered ten and a half miles. That was in an hour and twenty minutes. So she’d been making just under eight knots. Surely had to be in the area where the Sarawak’s boats might be.
Old Man, as it so happened, asking Harve Brown at this moment, ‘Standing by the contraption now, are they?’
‘Yessir. All set.’
‘Best go down yourself, see they don’t blow their heads off.’
Talking about snowflakes, Andy realised. Harve confirming that the cadets were standing by the launcher. ‘But you mean at the half-hour, sir, or—’
‘Bugger the half-hour, Mister, just loose off.’
* * *
Swooping rush of sound back there, audible over the roar of weather noise like ripping sailcloth, then after about fifteen seconds the multiple cracks of high flares bursting. He was outside by then, in the starboard bridge-wing to see sky and sea lighting up – lit up – a square mile or so of ocean floodlit. Searching it with naked eyes at first, wanting that wider coverage: finding damn-all at any rate in easy range either ahead or down this starboard side, so – glasses up and sweeping fairly swiftly…
Nothing. Then nothing port side either. Having hoped for not just one boat but several, guessing they might have linked themselves together in order to remain together. As he’d have been inclined to do himself, if he’d been in charge of boats with children in them.
Children’s wide eyes staring up at those drifting, slowly falling stars?
Brilliance fading soon enough, though. Snowflakes longer-lasting than any other kind of flare or starshell, but in present circumstances you’d have liked them to last longer. Foam still glittering where Quilla’s stem smashed through the black rollers and sent explosions of phosphorescence flying, but beyond a cable’s distance not only fading but leaving one blinder than before. Glasses sea-misted anyway. He was mopping the front lenses with cotton-waste when he heard a shout – Elliot yelling down to the boat-deck: ‘Captain says one more, sir!’
Yelling to the mate, evidently. Andy wondering whether they wouldn’t more usefully have pressed on a mile or so before sending up another, lighting a different acreage of sea. It was on its way though, and within seconds illuminating the same considerable but still limited area. If you’d had half a dozen ships in line abreast and half a mile apart, he thought, the
n you’d have a decent chance. Quilla on her own could only light up maybe a square mile at a time, whereas to make an effective search you’d need to floodlight fifty.
Still trying – searching – with glasses that were dryish, unfogged, for the moment. Leaving naked-eye stuff to the lookouts who didn’t have any. And the illuminations again beginning to fade all too soon. Quilla thrashing on, shrouded in a halo of the spray she was kicking up. Andy thinking that if it had been up to him he’d have given it ten minutes before trying again. Ten minutes at eight knots – one and a third miles. Well – Old Man might have some such calculation in mind, he guessed.
Front lenses already remisting, damn it…
Faint yell – high and penetrating as a gull’s screech.
From monkey island?
Yelling into their voice-pipe, he supposed – on his way to the weather door and inside. Waller at that moment taking his face from the pipe – not straightening from it, not having had to bend to it, might even have been up on his toes to reach it… Shouting, ‘Red light, port beam, sir. Hung a moment then fell.’
‘Who’s up there?’
‘Sounded like Farr, sir.’
Welshman, Ordinary Seaman. Reliable enough. The Old Man was acting on it anyway, telling Waller, ‘I’ll take her, Third’, and Selby, ‘Port ten.’
‘Port ten, sir.’ Easing the wheel over.
‘Steer oh-six-oh.’
Ninety-degree turn to port. Old Man growling, ‘Very’s light, could ’a been.’ Noticing Andy then: ‘Second – nip up there, see what you make of it.’
‘Aye, sir.’ Leaving his cap on the chart table, since up there it wouldn’t stand a chance. Quilla already responding to her rudder as he went back out into the wing and to the ladder – there was one each side, near-vertical – that led up to monkey island, which was the roof of the wheelhouse, itself roofless but surrounded by guard-rails. By no means weatherproof. The standard magnetic compass was up there – so as to be as far away as possible from other magnetic influences – also OS Farr and AB O’Donnell. Andy identifying himself in the darkness as he came off the ladder: ‘Second mate. Both of you see the flare?’
‘Taff here seen it first, then—’
‘Nice work, Farr. Right on the beam, was it?’
‘I’d say so – near as makes no—’
‘We’re turning towards it now. Hang on, uh?’
Pitch and roll very clearly necessitating that as she swung, transferring impact of wind and sea from her starboard quarter to the other. Stern directly into it at one stage, Farr commenting in his high, lilting tones, ‘Bucking bronco she must think she is!’
Through the worst of it soon enough though, settling on the new course of northeast by east. Andy on his knees, glasses up, elbows on the top rail.
‘There, now! But green, this one!’
Green, but otherwise just as Farr had described the first one, lifting for a few seconds and then falling. A flare, all right. A long way off, and very small: if he hadn’t been pointing just about right at it, might well have missed it. The colour change made sense in the context of the Old Man’s guess that it might be a Very’s pistol they were using: Very’s cartridges came in red, white or green; they’d use whichever they had handy. He was crouching at the voice-pipe, which had a hinged copper lid on it and a reek of stale tobacco smoke in the tube. He yelled, ‘Bridge!’, and when Waller answered told him, ‘Flare – right ahead, two or three miles at least. Green this time, guess it is a Very’s!’
Waller, sounding like Donald Duck through the tin pipe and surrounding din, was shouting that to the Old Man. Andy guessing how it might be in that boat. They’d have seen the snowflakes, maybe fired a Very’s which no-one had seen after the first one, repeated it after the second, and now the green one. They’d be frantic – with no idea whether they’d been seen or not. And the children in what sort of shape, after seven hours of it, let alone what they’d gone through earlier?
He told Farr and O’Donnell, ‘One of you keep all-round watch, other stay on that bearing, OK?’
There’d be more than one boat, and they didn’t have to be together. Would almost certainly be under oars. You’d try to keep head to wind, while still drifting east or northeast, and performances would vary. Off the ladder, he hung on for a moment waiting for her to come back from a heavy roll, then let go and moved fast to the wheelhouse door: wind was definitely up a notch or two, it wouldn’t be anything like comfortable in those boats. Ramming the door shut with his shoulder, shutting out a little of the noise, hearing the Old Man telling Harve Brown to rig both scrambling nets starboard side aft. ‘Have McGrath pick a team to go down on ’em.’
‘Aye, sir…’
He wouldn’t want to lower any of his own boats if he could avoid it. Obviously he’d put Quilla across the wind to provide a lee on her starboard side. At present there was a scrambling net each side, stopped-up to the guardrails, and they’d be moving the port side one over. Each net was about twelve feet square and made of three-inch sisal. They’d lob heaving-lines out down-wind to haul boats in alongside, and the bosun’s party would climb down on the nets to grab survivors and haul them up. Carry kids up, he supposed. None of it would be easy.
Might join in. Having long limbs and being reasonably fit.
‘Second?’
‘Sir?’
‘We’ll have the Aldis in the starboard wing. That flare about three miles off, you said?’
‘At a guess, sir. Two – three…’
Ten minutes had gone since then, so deduct one mile, call it one or two. In which case, another ten to twenty minutes. No point plugging in the Aldis out there yet. Its purpose wouldn’t be for signalling, only to light up the boat or boats, Quilla’s side and the scrambling nets.
‘Captain, sir. Might Elliot handle the Aldis? I’d as soon lend a hand on the nets.’
‘See Mr Brown about that. Elliot see to the Aldis, yes.’
‘Aye, sir – thank you.’ He asked Elliot, ‘Know where the plug is in the starboard wing?’
He did. So that was all right. For want of any more useful occupation he went to the chart table to make diary notes for the log. Time of firing the snowflakes, sighting the flares and altering course. It was surprising in a way that there’d been no more flares. Unless they’d only had a few: or in the absence of visible response were saving the rest for some later encounter, if this one came to nothing.
Knowing it could be days before the next.
How might it feel, Christ’s sake, with boats full of little kids?
‘Third.’ Old Man stirring again. ‘Or Elliot. Tell ’em to put up another snowflake.’
‘Elliot—’
‘Sir.’ The boy shot out. Andy put a DR on the chart, marking it 2300 – exact time now being 2304 – and went out into the bridge-wing, weather side. Snowflake scorching up. Important not to look at the thing itself, wreck one’s night vision by watching the separate brilliances open and expand. Eyes down while that was happening: then up – at the seascape, not the sky – glasses ready, but a survey first by naked eye. Quilla’s forepart deep in foam that seemed actually to glow in this intensity of light and the leaping periphery of gleaming ocean: and a howl from McAllistair, bridge-wing lookout on this side – ‘Ship’s boat two points on the bow, sir!’ A smart-enough naked-eye sighting, but also simultaneously or right on its heels a Very’s light curving at the apex of its rise, green again but less so, watery-green in surrounding brilliance. Farr or O’Donnell screeching from monkey island, Old Man telling Waller as Andy crashed in there again, ‘Two thousand yards, I’d say’, and then to Selby, ‘Port wheel, bring her to 040.’
‘Oh-four-oh, sir…’
Two thousand yards: ten cables, one nautical mile.
One boat only?
He had his glasses up but couldn’t even see that one now. Old Man calling, ‘Elliot – tell ’em as one snowflake fades, put up another and keep on.’ And to Waller, ‘I’ll want you on the telegraphs, Third
.’
‘Aye, sir.’
‘Course 040, sir.’
The boat would now be right ahead again. When he was a lot closer to it he’d come round a few more degrees to port, inserting Quilla between boat and weather, doubtless reducing at the same time from half ahead to slow ahead, then from slow to dead slow and stop.
* * *
Looking back on it afterwards one would find it incongruous that in the course of that fairly hectic rescue operation, all of one’s thinking had been determinedly but quite cheerfully centred on those few children – twenty-seven of them, aged between six and ten – white-faced, wild-eyed, clinging to the boat’s thwarts, the smaller ones in adults’ arms, boat standing practically on one end and then the other while also hurling itself from beam to beam as if doing its best to ditch them. Kids dressed in a variety of clothes, but all soaked of course, and frightened half to death – the incongruity looking back on it being that it had seemed like a great achievement, getting these twenty-seven out of 131 up into the ship, up a dozen feet of soaking wet rope-netting thumping and slithering on the ship’s iron side – but as if saving this handful of lives was the be-all and end-all of the hours of effort, only afterwards facing the dreadful truth that the vast majority had drowned or been burnt to death.
Because one would have had in the back of one’s mind, unquestioned at that stage, that other boats would have got away, that this was only the start of it. And in any case, there and then this was what you had – lives you actually were fighting for.
Anyway, by the time he’d gone over the rail on to the net, McGrath and Patterson had sent their heaving-lines soaring across the boat’s bow and stern, and with others helping were dragging the load in alongside, seamen in the boat having secured the lines for’ard and aft. Quilla meanwhile by no means standing still. The Old Man would in fact have been using her screw and rudder to hold her in position relative to the boat while wind and sea flung both around. Harve Brown had yelled in Andy’s ear to hold on until they had the boat right in alongside, and he’d stayed where he was for a minute or two, on the net but not at that stage climbing down into the highly dangerous gap of alternatively sucking-away and up-gushing sea – which was something the kids were going to have to face, run the gauntlet of – but on the net anyway so they could see they were going to get this kind of help and be ready to accept it.
Non-Combatants Page 9
