Atlantic Fury (19 page)

The time was twelve minutes after four.

The radio operator again. Base asking for Captain Pinney on the R/T. Pinney went out and an unusual quiet descended on the wheelhouse, a stillness of waiting. In moments like this, when a ship is grounded and you are waiting for her to float again, all sensitivity becomes concentrated on the soles of the feet, for they are in contact with the deck, the transmitters of movement, of any untoward shock. We didn't talk because our minds were on our feet. We were listening by touch. Perhaps that's why our ears failed to register how quiet it had become.

Through my feet, through the nerves that ran up my legs, connecting them to my brain, I could feel the tremor, the faint lifting movement, the slight bump as she grounded again. It all came from the stern. But it was a movement that was changing all the time, growing stronger, so that in a moment a slight shock preceded the lift and there was a surge running the length of the ship. It was different. Definitely a change in the pattern and it puzzled me. I glanced at Stratton. He was frowning, watching a pencil on the chart table. It had begun to roll back and forth at each surge. The bumps as we grounded were more noticeable now, a definite shock.

Wentworth came in. ‘What is it? I told you to stay on the quarter-deck with the Bos'n.' Stratton's voice was irritable, his nerves betraying him. ‘Well?'

‘There's quite a swell building up.' The youngster's face looked white. ‘You can see it breaking on the skerries of Sgeir Mhor. It's beginning to come into the bay. And the wind's gone round.'

‘Gone round?'

‘Backed into the west.'

Stratton went to the door on the port side and flung it open again. No wind came in. The air around the ship was strangely still. But we could hear it, roaring overhead. The first grey light of dawn showed broken masses of cloud pouring towards us across the high back of Keava. The moon shone through ragged gaps. It was a wild, grey-black sky, ugly and threatening. Stratton stood there for a moment, staring up at it, and then he came back into the wheelhouse, slamming the door behind him. ‘When did it start backing? When did you first notice it?'

‘About ten minutes ago. I wasn't certain at first. Then the swell began to—'

‘Well, get back to the after-deck, Number One. If it goes round into the south …' He hesitated. ‘If it does that, it'll come very quickly now. Another ten minutes, quarter of an hour. We'll know by then. And if it does – then you'll have to play her on the kedge like a tunny fish. That hawser mustn't break. Understand? I'll back her off on the engines. It'll be too much for the winch. Your job is to see she doesn't slew. Slack off when you have to. But for Christ's sake don't let her stern swing towards the beach. That's what happened to Kelvedon.'

‘I'll do my best.'

Stratton nodded. ‘This swell might just do the trick. If we can get her off before the wind goes right round …'

But Wentworth was already gone. He didn't need to be told what would happen if the wind backed southerly – wind and waves and the breaking strain on that hawser a paltry forty-five tons. And as though to underline the point, Stratton said to me, ‘One of the weaknesses of these ships, that winch gear only rates about ten horse-power.' He picked up the engine-room telephone. ‘Stevens? Oh, it's you, Turner. Captain here. Give me the Chief, will you.'

He began giving instructions to the engine-room and I pushed past him, out on to the wing bridge and up the steel ladder to the open deck above. The lookout was standing on the compass platform staring aft, his face a pallid oval under his sou'wester. A ragged gap in the clouds showed stars, a diamond glitter with the outline of Tarsaval sharp and black like a cut-out; a glimpse of the moon's face, and the wind tramping overhead, driving a black curtain of cloud across it. I went aft down the flag deck where the tripod structure of the mainmast stood rooted like a pylon, and a moment later Stratton joined me. ‘Any change?'

‘West sou'west, I think.' I couldn't be sure, but there was a definite swell. We could see it coming in out of the half-darkness and growing in the ship's lights as it met the shallows. It slid under the stern and then broke seething along the length of the sides, lifting the stern and snapping the anchor hawser taut. Across the bay we could see spray bursting against the dim, jagged shape of the skerries. The wind was definitely south of west. I could feel it sometimes on my face, though the force of it and the true direction was masked by the bulk of Keava. Raindrops spattered on my face.

But it was the swell that held us riveted, the regular grind and bump as the ship was lifted. And then one came in higher, breaking earlier. It crashed against the stern. Spray flung a glittering curtain of water that hung an instant suspended and then fell on us, a drenching cascade. But it wasn't the water so much as the ship herself that alarmed us, the sudden shock of impact, the way she lifted, and slewed, the appalling snap of the hawser as it took the full weight, the thudding crash as she grounded again, grinding her bottom in the backwash.

‘I hope to God he remembers to slip the winch out of gear,' Stratton murmured, speaking to himself rather than to me. ‘All that weight on it … We've stripped the gears before now. I'd better remind him.' He turned to go, but then he stopped, his gaze turned seaward. ‘Look!' He was pointing to the other LCT, a cluster of lights in the grey darkness of the bay. ‘Lucky beggar.' She had her steaming lights on and was getting her anchor up; and I knew what Stratton was thinking – that he might have been out there, safe, with room to manoeuvre and freedom to do so.

A blast of air slapped rain in my face. South – south-west. Again I couldn't be sure. But into the bay; that was definite. Stratton had felt it, too. He went at once to the compass platform. I stayed an instant longer, watching the men on the after-deck immediately below me. Wentworth was standing facing the stern, with two men by the winch on the starboard quarter, their eyes fixed on him, waiting for his signal. The sea seethed back, white foam sliding away in the lights, and out of the greyness astern came a sloping heap of water that built rapidly to a sheer, curving breaker. The winch drum turned, the cable slackened; the wave broke and thudded, roaring against the stern. The men, the winch, the whole after-deck disappeared in a welter of white water. The ship lifted under me, swung and then steadied to the snap of the hawser. The thud as we hit the bottom again jarred my whole body. I saw the mast tremble like a tree whose roots are being attacked, and when I looked over the rail again, the stern was clear of water, the men picking themselves up.

The wind was on my face now. It came in gusts, and each gust seemed stronger than the last. L4400 had got her anchor; she was turning head-to-sea, steaming out of the bay.

I went for'ard to the bridge, wondering how long it would be before the hawser snapped or the men on the afterdeck were swept overboard. The deck under my feet was alive now, the engine-room telegraph set to slow astern and the screws turning. Stratton was on the open side deck, trying to keep an eye on stern and bow at the same time. If only she could shake herself free. I could feel it when she lifted, the way she was held by the bows only; for just a moment, when the wave was right under her, you could almost believe she was afloat.

Pinney came up. I don't think anyone saw him come. He just seemed to materialise. ‘Would you believe it? The Old Man's countermanded Braddock's orders. Said we'd no business to be pulling out …' There was more of it but that's all I can remember – that, and the fact that he looked tired and shaken. Nobody said anything. Nobody was listening. We had other things on our minds. Pinney must have realised this, for he caught hold of my arm and said angrily, ‘What's happening? What's going on?'

‘The wind,' I said. ‘The wind's gone round.'

I could see it now, blowing at Stratton's hair, whipping the tops off the combers and sending the spray hurtling shorewards in flat streamers of white spindrift. We were no longer sheltered by Keava. God, how quickly that wind had shifted, blowing right into the bay now – thirty, maybe forty knots. I went down to the wheelhouse. The barometer was at 969, down another two points.
Quick fall, quick rise
– that was the old saying. But how far would it fall before it started to rise? Cliff had mentioned 960, had talked of a near vertical fall of pressure. That was what we were getting now. I hadn't seen a glass fall like that since I'd sailed into a cyclone in the Indian Ocean. I tapped it and it fell to 968.

‘Full astern both engines.' Stratton's voice from the bridge above came to me over the helmsman's voice pipe. The telegraph rang and the beat of the engines increased as the stern lifted to slam down again with a deep, rending crash that jolted my body and set every moveable thing in the wheelhouse rattling. ‘Stop both engines.'

I was gripping hold of the chart table, every nerve taut. Gone was the silence, that brief stillness of waiting; all was noise and confusion now. ‘Full astern both.' But he was too late, the stern already lifting before the screws could bite. Stop both and the jar as she grounded, the bows still held and the hawser straining. Spray hit me as I went back to the bridge. The wind was pitched high in the gusts, higher and higher until it became a scream.

The phone that linked us to the after-deck buzzed. There was nobody to answer it so I picked it up and Wentworth's voice, sounding slight and very far away, said, ‘We took in half a dozen turns on the winch that time. Either the anchor's dragging …' I lost the rest in the crash of a wave. And then his voice again, louder this time: ‘Three more turns, but we're getting badly knocked about.' I passed the information to Stratton. ‘Tell him,' he shouted back, ‘to take in the slack and use the brakes. I'm holding the engines at full astern. If we don't get off now …' A gust of wind blew the rest of his words away. The phone went dead as the ship heaved up. The crash as she grounded flung me against the conning platform.

I was clinging on to the phone wondering what was happening to those poor devils aft and trying to think at the same time. The wind was south or perhaps sou'west; it would be anti-clockwise, whirling round the centre of that air depression and being sucked into it at the same time. I was trying to figure out where the centre would be. If it was north of us … But north of us should give us a westerly wind. It depended how much the air currents were being deflected in towards the centre. I was remembering Cliff's message: the Faeroes had reported barometric pressure 968, rising, with winds southerly, force 10. Our barometer was now showing 968. If the storm centre passed to the west of us, then this might be the worst of it. I decided not to go down and fiddle with the glass again.

‘We made several yards.' Wentworth's voice was shrill in the phone. ‘But the winch is smoking. The brakes. They may burn out any minute now. Keep those engines running for God's sake.'

I glanced at Stratton but I didn't need to ask him. I could feel the vibrations of the screws through my whole body. ‘Engines at full astern,' I said. ‘Keep winching in.'

I put the phone down and dived across the bridge to yell the information in Stratton's ear. The weight of the wind was something solid now. I felt the words sucked out of my mouth and blown away into the night. ‘Christ! If the winch packs up now … Stay on the phone, will you.' Stratton's face was white. I was lip-reading rather than hearing the words. Below him white water glistened, a seething welter of surf sucking back along the ship's side. A shaggy comber reared in the lights, curled and broke. Spray went whipping past and ectoplasmic chunks of foam suds.

The ship moved. I could feel it, a sixth sense telling me that we were momentarily afloat. And then the shuddering, jarring crash. I was back at the phone and Wentworth's voice was yelling in my ears – something about the winch gears. But his voice abruptly ceased before I could get what it was he was trying to tell me. And then Stratton grabbed the phone from my hand. ‘Oil,' he said. ‘There's an oil slick forming.' He pressed the buzzer, the phone to his ear. ‘Hullo. Hullo there. Number One, Wentworth.' He looked at me, his face frozen. ‘No answer.' There was a shudder, a soundless scraping and grating that I couldn't hear but felt through the soles of my feet. And then it was gone and I felt the bows lift for the first time. ‘Winch in. Winch in.' Stratton's voice was yelling into the phone as a wave lifted the stern, running buoyant under the ship. There was no grounding thud this time as we sank into the trough and glancing for'ard I saw the bows riding high, rearing to the break of the wave. ‘Wentworth. Do you hear me? Winch in. Wentworth.' His hand fell slack to his side, still holding the phone. ‘There's no answer,' he said. His face was crusted with salt, a drop of moisture at the end of his slightly upturned nose. His eyes looked bleak.

‘You look after the ship,' I told him. ‘I'll go aft and see what's happened.'

He nodded and I went out on to the flag deck. Clear of the bridge the full weight of the wind hit me. It was less than half an hour since I'd stood there and felt that first blast of the storm wind in my face. Now, what a difference! I had to fight my way aft, clinging to the deck rail, my eyes blinded by salt spray, the wind driving the breath back into my lungs. Fifty–sixty knots – you can't judge wind speeds when they reach storm force and over. It shook me to think that this perhaps was only the beginning. But we'd be round Malesgair then, sheltered under its lee – I hoped. By God, I hoped as I fought my way to the after-rail and clung there, looking down to the tiny stern platform with its spare anchor and its winch gear.

Wentworth was there. He was bending over the winch. His sou'wester had gone and his fair hair was plastered to his head. He looked drowned and so did the two men with him. They were all of them bent over the winch and the drum was stationary. A broken wave-top streaming spray like smoke from its crest reared up in the lights, a shaggy, wind-blown monster, all white teeth as it slammed rolling against the stern. It buried everything, a welter of foam that subsided to the lift of the ship, water cascading over the sides, the men still gripping the winch like rocks awash. I yelled to Wentworth, but my shout was blown back into my mouth and he didn't hear me. The winch remained motionless and the hawser, running through two steel pulleys and out over the stern, just hung there, limp.