Uncharted Seas (14 page)

Just as they were finishing Luvia joined them and Basil said at once: ‘I take it you’ve finished your inspection. Let’s hear the best and the worst.’

The tall Finn sat down and poured himself a cup of tea. ‘Things are O.K. for the moment. The for’ard bulkheads are holding and there’s very little water coming through into the main hold. Our first job is to shift the cargo. Luck’s with us that it’s general merchandise, most of which can be manhandled. I’ve got the boys on it right now.’

‘How long’ll that take?’

‘Couple of days, I reckon, before we can shift enough to counteract this dangerous list and right her. Then we’ll have to shift the fo’c’sle gear and anything else that’s movable as far aft as possible, so as to raise her bow out of the water. If we can do that maybe I can get down to patch the strained plate for’ard that’s been the cause of all the trouble.’

‘How about the water that’s in there, though?’

‘I’ve got the auxiliary boiler going, so we should be able to pump it clear, if we can once stop the leak, now there’s no big seas pouring down the forward hatch. How’d you make out with the radio?’

Basil made a grimace. ‘I’m not at all happy about it. One side of the deck-house was completely carried away. I’ve only managed to clear part of the wreckage, so I don’t know if any of the essential parts have been damaged yet, but the apparatus looks in a pretty nasty mess.’

‘That’s not so hot. I was kinda counting on that radio to S.O.S some shipping. You see, we’ll be safe enough here as long as it’s
like this. I’m easy about that now. But it won’t be so funny if bad weather blows up.’

Synolda grabbed his arm. ‘We won’t—we won’t have to take to that awful boat again?’

‘If we can’t call another ship to pick us up and this one looks like sinking on us, we will.’

‘I’ll be able to let you know for certain about the wireless by tea time,’ Basil cut in. ‘What an extraordinary thing it is, though, that we should have run into the old
Gafelborg
again.’

Luvia shrugged. ‘It’s not so queer as it looks on first sight. She’s probably never been much over twenty miles from us—just under our horizon, perhaps, which wasn’t all that wide from the boat. The hurricane drove her the same way as us that first night and, after, winds and tides would have carried the boat and ship in the same direction.’

‘How’re the invalids?’ Unity asked suddenly. ‘I’ve had no chance yet to have a look at them today.’

He shrugged again. ‘Neither have I. Plenty more urgent things to see to. De Brissac’s in his cabin, of course, and Vedras and Hansie are too sick to show a leg—so Li Foo tells me. That little dirt—Gietto Nudäa, is all washed up as well. It’s on you dames to snap into getting them fit again just as quick as you can. I must ask you to do our cooking, too, since I’ll want Li Foo. I need every hand I can get for shifting cargo in the hold.’

‘I’ll do the nursing,’ Unity agreed, ‘but my cooking’s not too good. How about yours, Synolda?’

‘Mine’s not up to much either. I’ve hardly boiled an egg since I finished the cooking course at my school in Johannesburg. But, of course, I’ll do what I can.’

The Finn stood up. ‘Well, whatever you can manage will be good enough for us. Li Foo’ll show you things and give you the keys of the store. I’m for a shave now, then I must get back to keep the boys at it and lend a hand myself.’

‘Oh, no—please don’t. Shave, I mean,’ Synolda protested. ‘You’re growing the most lovely golden beard. It’d be an absolute sin to cut it off now the worst’s over. In another few days you’ll look just like a Viking.’

Doubtfully, Luvia stroked the yellow stubble on his chin. In the five days his beard had grown a lot and it was by no means unsightly now he had washed. Suddenly he smiled. ‘I’ll make a bargain with you.’

‘Well?’ she asked.

‘You haven’t made your face up today, although I expect you’ve got lots more muck in your cabin, same as you lost the time we had that scrap in the boat. You keep your face free of the fixings and I’ll retain the beard.’

She looked down and her mouth twitched humorously. ‘It’s very flattering that you should take so much interest in my face.’

‘I don’t. I’m thinking of the men. I can’t be around all the time and conditions here are far from normal. To have you mixing in with them all painted up is just asking for trouble.’

Her mouth went sulky. ‘Thanks; I can look after myself, and you can do what you like with your damn’ beard.’

‘Don’t get all het up. I’m not being fresh, but sensible, I like your face the way it is better too. Honest I do.’

‘Really.’ She was slightly mollified. ‘I must powder though.’

‘I’d rather you didn’t.’

‘Oh, come,’ Unity interrupted, ‘you can’t reasonably expect a girl not to powder her nose. She hasn’t asked you not to trim your beard when it grows longer.’

‘O.K. Powder on the nose but not elsewhere. Will you play ball on that?’

Synolda nodded. ‘All right. It’s a deal.’

‘Fine! I must be getting back to the men and I’m trusting you passengers to give me all the help you can. We’re not out of the wood yet by a long way, so if you don’t want another trip in the open boat you’ll work till you drop.’

As he left the dining-saloon Basil grinned at Synolda. ‘I believe you’ve made a conquest.’

She was not given to blushing very readily, but she did on this occasion, although she protested quickly: ‘What nonsense! Plenty of men do seem to take an interest in me—far too many, as a matter of fact. But he’s not that sort.’

Throughout the afternoon and evening Luvia kept all the ablebodied men hard at it in the hold. It was tiring work unstacking the heavy bales and boxes from the great, jumbled heap into which they had slid on the port side and lugging them over to starboard, but none of the men complained. Harlem had spoken privately to his cronies and told them that if they valued their lives they had better obey Luvia’s orders for the moment, so they put their backs into it as heartily as the rest.

Vedras, Nudäa and Hansie were still too sick for such arduous labour, but Unity insisted that they were fit enough to come on deck, and Luvia set them to chipping away paintwork with
chisels and hammers from the screws and bolts which held all the gear on the fo’c’sle head. It was only about two feet above the waterline and his main hope of raising it lay in stripping it of everything movable; even the heavy winches which he could lift further aft when he got the derricks going.

De Brissac was still weak, but could now walk alone. The climb to the crow’s-nest was impossible for him, but Luvia posted him on the bridge in an easy chair with a telescope through which he could keep a look-out for other shipping. Basil struggled with the wreckage in the wireless room, but by six o’clock he was compelled to report that the apparatus was smashed beyond repair and, since certain of the spare parts he needed to make it good were not in the storeroom, he had to abandon it altogether.

The girls took over the stores and galley from Li Foo. They found that with the reduced ship’s company there was enough food to last them, even if they lived extravagantly, for a month and, with reasonable care, for two. Li Foo was a perpetually smiling person and his serenity was only ruffled by the thought of the honourable Missies demeaning themselves to soil their hands by working in his galley. Almost instantly he developed a doglike devotion to Synolda and, when Luvia carried him off to work in the hold, displayed a remarkable degree of cunning in slipping back each hour or so for a few moments to stoke the fire, open tins, and implore her not to fatigue herself.

The fo’c’sle being uninhabitable, it was arranged that the dining-saloon on the main deck should be given over to the crew and that the passengers should mess in the bar lounge on the upper deck immediately above it. With the loss of three-quarters of the ship’s original complement in the hurricane there were cabins enough and to spare for all.

That night they fed late, at ten o’clock, but Luvia and his squad of nine having worked like Trojans for the best part of twelve hours in the hold, the slant of the decks showed a decided improvement. They were all so dead beat that they ate almost in silence and, immediately after, tumbled into their bunks to fall into a dreamless sleep.

On the following morning, to their immense relief, the weather was fine again and showed no sign of breaking. They were drifting southward with the current still, but the sun was hot on the decks and, normally, they would have revelled in the beauty of the southern summer day. Most of them spent it again in the semi-darkness of the hold, however, choking in thick clouds of
dust as they sweated there, straining to lift and trundle the weighty packages of merchandise.

By eight o’clock that evening the work was done. The
Gafelborg
still dipped heavily at the bow, but she was once more upon an even keel and they all felt heartened in consequence.

After the evening meal De Brissac asked Luvia if he had any idea where they were.

‘Not a notion,’ the Finn replied shortly. ‘Far too many urgent jobs need my attention to splash time on taking observations. South Georgia’s our nearest land now, I’d say. With luck we may drift down to it or hit one of the Sandwich group farther east. On the other hand, we may pass miles away from either.’

‘What do you intend to do if you can succeed in getting the ship under way?’

‘Head her dead west until we strike the coast of Patagonia.’

‘In that direction the Falklands must be much nearer,’ hazarded Basil.

‘Maybe. I doubt if we’re that far south yet though. South Georgia’s farther south still, and I only spoke of it as being nearer than the coast of South America.’

‘If only the weather keeps good,’ Unity murmured.

‘Yes—if only it does,’ Luvia agreed, and with that prayer in all their hearts they went to their bunks.

Their third morning in the ship the arduous task was undertaken of clearing the fo’c’sle of its gear. By means of the auxiliary boiler Luvia had steam up to one of the winches. The high derricks in front of the foremast swung back and forth, lifting the anchors, great bundles of weighty chain, bollards, deck plates, and every possible thing which could be dismantled, to positions as far aft as possible. Hansie, Vedras and Nudäa were fit again and in the past two days they had succeeded in undoing all the fitments. Throughout the whole of the long morning the winch clattered and rattled while load after load of metal was made fast to the big dangling hook and afterwards thumped upon the deck as it was lowered.

By the early afternoon all the heavy stuff had been cleared, but the bow of the ship had only risen three feet out of the water, and under the stern, which rode high in the air, the propellers were still showing.

As the for’ard well was now only just awash Luvia sent the men into the fo’c’sle with orders to clear it entirely. Slopping about, they rescued their saturated belongings and then set to breaking up the furnishings with axes. Ladders, bunks, planking, lockers were all smashed to matchwood and the débris carried aft. By sundown the forepart of the ship had been completely gutted, yet they had only succeeded in raising the bow a further fifteen inches.

At supper that night Luvia expressed his anxiety. He did not see what else he could shift, yet it was useless to attempt to get the engines going as long as two-thirds of the propellers remained in the air. Moreover, it was vital to repair the leaky plate and pump out the forehold.

‘These Negro stokers,’ De Brissac inquired, ‘from where do they come?’

‘The Southern States,’ Luvia informed him.

‘That’s a pity but, even so, if one of them is from a coast town he may be a diver.’

‘I don’t quite get you.’

‘If they came from the West Indies or the African seaboard they would swim like fishes.’

‘Of course,’ Basil nodded. ‘You’re thinking of the fellows who dive for coral, oysters, pennies.’

‘
Certainement
, and everyone who swims that well could take down the hook on the rope of the derrick, hitch it to a bale underwater: then, hey presto! up she comes. So we could lighten the forehold of its cargo.’

‘Gee!’ Luvia hit the table. ‘That’s the whale of an idea. If any weren’t raised in cities or inland among the cotton I’ll get ’em on to it first thing tomorrow.’

Unable to contain his impatience he hurried off to the men’s quarters and returned, ten minutes later, with the news that Corncob had once been employed on the Florida coast in a sponge fishery. The others could not swim, but one good diver would enable them to try out De Brissac’s scheme.

That night they slept uneasily. It seemed that the weather had broken at last. Clouds hid the young moon and stars; rain began to fall before they went to their cabins and continued to patter ominously upon the decks above, a constant reminder that, in its present state, the ship only afforded them temporary security.

Next morning the skies were grey; the rain still falling. Small, choppy waves slopped against the ship’s sides and she was rolling slightly.

For this operation the usual rope sling which is twisted round a bale for lifting purposes was useless; instead four short chains attached to a ring, which was slipped over the big hook from the derrick, were used. Each chain had a small hook at its end and Corncob’s business was to wedge the small hooks wherever he could under the corners of the cases, or into the wires and bands that bound them.

The work was arduous, but Corncob seemed to enjoy it. His naked body black and glistening, he plunged again and again into the greenish water which slopped in the open square of the fore-hatch, disappeared with his greyish feet wavering froglike
into the darkness of the hold, and emerged a few moments later blowing like a grampus as he waved a cheerful signal to hoist away.

Package after package came dripping from the hold, sometimes on four chains, sometimes, perilously, hooked by only one; twice the cords to which Corncob had attached the hooks burst under the strain and heavy crates plopped back into the water, but steady progress was made, which delighted Luvia who was keeping an anxious eye on the weather.