Once Is Enough

by Miles Smeeton

  ‘I hope I’ve got your two frightened faces,’ he said.

  ‘It was only the camera we were frightened about. We couldn’t lose you if we tried.’

  One morning I found a squid in the cockpit. Pwe ate it, but I thought that the ink sac might be too rich for her and make her sick. I threw it overboard. Perhaps she thought that this was the choicest piece, and was keeping it till last, because she was very angry about it.

  The day after John’s filming, the glass began to fall again, and the wind to veer in the usual sequence. Another depression was on its way. We had no means of telling how big. We were the weather ship. We continued under twins, but during the night I found that we were running south-east, and an hour later due south. We turned out and set the double-reefed main, staysail, and storm-jib. At 09.00 the wind was backing so we set the twins again, but the glass was still dropping, and it was blowing gale force with a big following sea. We were well on to the last quarter of the second chart.

  The twins began to flutter again in the afternoon, and we managed to harden them down to stop it. The sea was most awe-inspiring, a bigger swell than we had ever seen and wide breaking crests. It was better on deck than below, because on deck we could see Tzu Hang riding so buoyantly, tearing away on her course, her self-steering working so much better than we could steer. Below, the noise of the wind was alarming, and the glass was falling still. I went into the forecabin and saw something rolling about on the floor. ‘Blue Bear has lost his head,’ I shouted back to Beryl, picking it up.

  ‘Let’s throw him overboard, he’s just taking up room.’

  ‘Good heavens, no, he’s our mascot.’ I placed his head under his arm, where he was sitting right in the bow, on the shelf. Beryl was pouring tea into our mugs and handing them to us. She put the teapot back on to the stove, where it would not upset because of the gimbals. Outside the wind gave a long ‘whoooo’ in the rigging, and there was the roar of a breaking top, and a rush of water along the deck.

  ‘Listen to that,’ I said. ‘The old girl’s really stepping out.’

  ‘Treats tonight,’ said John, ‘5,000-mile plum pud.’

  ‘No, it’s fourth quarter of the chart plum pud. 5,000-mile treats tomorrow.’

  Beryl gave us some oatmeal cakes that she had made for tea and we had our plum pudding that night. ‘If we go on like this we’ll be in Port Stanley in time to send a cable to Clio for her birthday.’

  ‘Now you’ve done it. Aren’t you awful,’ said Beryl.

  ‘No, not me. John’s the man. He keeps asking for big waves. Won’t these do you John?’

  ‘These are all right, but I expected to see something bigger. Something like Coimbra had. However, I’m quite happy with these provided we get there.’

  ‘What happened to Coimbra?’

  ‘She was rolled right over in the South Atlantic, but I think that she was hove to. They lost one man off the deck. Never picked him up, but got to Tristan da Cunha, where she was finally lost while they were ashore. I think that one of them described the waves as 90 feet high, and the top 30 breaking.’

  ‘Hell, we don’t want to see anything like that.’

  We were running fast, and the motion was violent, and I was anxious, but I wanted to hold on as long as I could.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THIS IS SURVIVAL TRAINING!

  IT must have been nearly five in the morning, because it was light again, when the noise of the headsails became so insistent that I decided to take in sail. I pulled on my boots and trousers. Now that I had decided to take some action I felt that it was already late, and was in a fever to get on with it. When I was dressed I slid back the hatch, and the wind raised its voice in a screech as I did so. In the last hour there had been an increase in the wind, and the spindrift was lifting, and driving across the face of the sea.

  I shut the hatch and went forward to call Beryl. She was awake, and when I went aft to call John, he was awake also. They both came into the doghouse to put on their oilies. As we got dressed there was a feeling that this was something unusual; it was rather like a patrol getting ready to leave, with the enemy in close contact. In a few minutes we were going to be struggling with this gale and this furious-looking sea, but for the time being we were safe and in shelter.

  ‘Got your life-lines?’ Beryl asked.

  ‘No, where the hell’s my life-line? It was hanging up with the oilies.’ Like my reading glasses, it was always missing.

  ‘Here it is,’ John said. He was buckling on a thick leather belt over his jacket, to which his knife, shackle spanner, and life-line were attached. His life-line was a thin nylon cord with a snap-hook at the end, and Beryl’s, incongruously, was a thick terylene rope, with a breaking strain of well over a ton.

  ‘Got the shackle spanner?’ I asked. ‘Never mind, here’s a wrench. Is the forehatch open?’ Someone said that they’d opened it.

  ‘Beryl, take the tiller. John and I’ll douse the sails. Come on boys, into battle.’ I slid the hatch back again and we climbed up one after the other. We were just on the crest of a wave and could look around over a wide area of stormy greyish-white sea. Because we were on the top of a wave for a moment, the seas did not look too bad, but the wind rose in a high pitched howl, and plucked at the double shoulders of our oilies, making the flaps blow up and down.

  The wave passed under Tzu Hang. Her bowsprit rose, and she gave a waddle and lift as if to say, ‘Be off with you!’ Then the sea broke, and we could hear it grumbling away ahead of us, leaving a great wide band of foam behind it.

  Beryl slipped into the cockpit and snapped her life-line on to the shrouds. John and I went forward, and as we let go of the handrail on the doghouse, we snapped the hooks of our life-lines on to the rail, and let them run along the wire until we had hold of the shrouds. The wind gave us a push from behind as we moved. I went to the starboard halliard and John to the port, and I looked aft to see if Beryl was ready. Then we unfastened the poles from the mast and let the halliards go, so that the sails came down together, and in a very short time we had them secured. We unhooked them from the stays, bundled them both down the forehatch, and secured the two booms to the rails. As we went back to the cockpit, we were bent against the pitch of the ship and the wind. Beryl unfastened the sheets from the tiller and we coiled them up and threw them below.

  ‘How’s she steering?’

  ‘She seems to steer all right, I can steer all right.’

  ‘We’ll let the stern-line go anyway, it may be some help.’

  John and I uncoiled the 3-inch hawser, which was lashed in the stern, and paid it out aft. Then we took in the log-line, in case it should be fouled by the hawser. By the time everything was finished, my watch was nearly due, so I took over the tiller from Beryl, and the others went below. The hatch slammed shut, and I was left to myself. I turned my attention to the sea.

  The sea was a wonderful sight. It was as different from an ordinary rough sea, as a winter’s landscape is from a summer one, and the thing that impressed me most was that its general aspect was white. This was due to two reasons: firstly because the wide breaking crests left swathes of white all over the sea, and secondly because all over the surface of the great waves themselves, the wind was whipping up lesser waves, and blowing their tops away, so that the whole sea was lined and streaked with this blown spume, and it looked as if all the surface was moving. Here and there, as a wave broke, I could see the flung spray caught and whirled upwards by the wind, which raced up the back of the wave, just like a whirl of wind-driven sand in the desert. I had seen it before, but this moving surface, driving low across a sea all lined and furrowed with white, this was something new to me, and something frightening, and I felt exhilarated with the atmosphere of strife. I have felt this feeling before on a mountain, or in battle, and I should have been warned. It is apt to mean trouble.

  For the first time since we entered the Tasman there were no albatrosses to be seen. I wondered where they had gone to, and supposed th
at however hard the wind blew it could make no difference to them. Perhaps they side-slipped out of a storm area, or perhaps they held their position as best they could until the storm passed, gliding into the wind and yet riding with the storm until it left them.

  I kept looking aft to make sure that Tzu Hang was dead stem on to the waves. First her stem lifted, and it looked as if we were sliding down a long slope into the deep valley between this wave and the one that had passed, perhaps twenty seconds before; then for a moment we were perched on the top of a sea, the wind force rose, and I could see the white desolation around me. Then her bowsprit drove into the sky, and with a lurch and a shrug, she sent another sea on its way. It was difficult to estimate her speed, because we had brought the log in, and the state of the water was very disturbed, but these waves were travelling a great deal faster than she was, and her speed seemed to be just sufficient to give her adequate steerage way, so that I could correct her in time to meet the following wave.

  Suddenly there was a roar behind me and a mass of white water foamed over the stern. I was knocked forward out of the cockpit on to the bridge deck, and for a moment I seemed to be sitting in the sea with the mizzenmast sticking out of it upright beside me. I was surprised by the weight of the water, which had burst the canvas windscreen behind me wide open, but I was safely secured by my life-line to the after shroud. I scrambled back into the cockpit and grabbed the tiller again, and pushed it hard over, for Tzu Hang had swung so that her quarter was to the sea. She answered slowly but in time, and as the next sea came up, we were stern on to it again. The canvas of the broken windscreen lashed and fluttered in the wind until its torn ends were blown away.

  Now the cloud began to break up and the sun to show. I couldn’t look at the glass, but I thought that I felt the beginning of a change. It was only the change of some sunlight, but the sunlight seemed to show that we were reaching the bottom of this depression. Perhaps we would never get a chance again to film such a sea, in these fleeting patches of brilliance. I beat on the deck above John’s bunk and called him up. I think that he had just got to sleep, now that the sails were off her, and there was someone at the helm. I know that I couldn’t sleep before. He looked sleepy and disgruntled when he put his head out of the hatch.

  ‘What about some filming, John?’

  ‘No, man, the sea never comes out.’

  ‘We may never get a sea like this again.’

  ‘I don’t want to get the camera wet, and there’s not enough light.’

  ‘No, look, there’s a bit of sun about.’

  As he was grumbling, like an old bear roused out of its winter quarters, he looked aft and I saw his expression change to one of interest.

  ‘Look at this one coming up,’ he said, peering over the top of the washboards, just the top of his head and his eyes showing. ‘Up she goes,’ he ducked down as if he expected some spray to come over, and then popped his head up again. ‘Wait a minute,’ he said, ‘I’ll fix something up,’ and he slammed the hatch shut and disappeared below again.

  He came up in a few minutes, fully equipped. He had the camera in a plastic bag with the lens protruding through a small hole. He took some shots. The lens had to be dried repeatedly, but the camera was safe in its bag, and we had no more wave tops on board. Presently he went down again.

  John relieved me for breakfast, and when I came up it seemed to be blowing harder than ever.

  ‘How’s she steering?’ I asked him.

  ‘Not bad,’ he said. ‘I think she’s a bit sluggish, but she ought to do.’

  I took over again, and he went below; no one wanted to hang about in this wind. I watched the sixty fathoms of 3-inch hawser streaming behind. It didn’t seem to be making a damn of difference, although I suppose that it was helping to keep her stern on to the seas. Sometimes I could see the end being carried forward in a big bight on the top of a wave. We had another sixty fathoms, and I considered fastening it to the other and streaming the two in a loop, but I had done this before, and the loop made no difference, although the extra length did help to slow her down. We had oil on board, but I didn’t consider the emergency warranted the use of oil. For four hours now we had been running before this gale, running in the right direction, and we had only had one breaking top on board, and although I had been washed away from the tiller, Tzu Hang had shown little tendency to broach to. To stop her and to lie a-hull in this big sea seemed more dangerous than to let her run, as we were doing now. It was a dangerous sea I knew, but I had no doubt that she would carry us safely through, and as one great wave after another rushed past us, I grew more and more confident.

  Beryl relieved me at nine o’clock. She looked so gay when she came on deck, for this is the sort of thing that she loves. She was wearing her yellow oilskin trousers and a yellow jumper with a hood, and over all a green oilskin coat. So that she could put on enough pairs of socks, she was wearing a spare pair of John’s sea-boots. She was wearing woollen gloves, and she had put a plastic bag over her left hand, which she wouldn’t be using for the tiller. She snapped the shackle of her life-line on to the shroud, and sat down beside me, and after a minute or two she took over. I went below to look at the glass and saw that it had moved up a fraction. My camera was in the locker in the doghouse, and I brought it out and took some snaps of the sea. Beryl was concentrating very hard on the steering. She was looking at the compass, and then aft to the following sea, to make sure that she was stern on to it, and then back to the compass again, but until she had the feel of the ship she would trust more to the compass for her course than to the wind and the waves. I took one or two snaps of Beryl, telling her not to look so serious, and to give me a smile. She laughed at me.

  ‘How do you think she’s steering?’

  ‘Very well, I think.’

  ‘We could put the other line out. Do you think she needs it? The glass is up a bit.’

  ‘No, I think she’s all right.’

  ‘Sure you’re all right?’

  ‘Yes, fine, thanks.’

  I didn’t want to leave her and to shut the hatch on her, and cut her off from us below, but we couldn’t leave the hatch open, and there was no point in two of us staying on deck. I took off my oilskins, put the camera back in its plastic bag in the locker, and climbed up into my bunk. The cat joined me and sat on my stomach. She swayed to the roll and purred. I pulled my book out of the shelf and began to read. After a time, I heard John open the hatch again and start talking to Beryl. A little later he went up to do some more filming. As the hatch opened there was a roar from outside, but Tzu Hang ran on straight and true, and I felt a surge of affection and pride for the way she was doing. ‘She’s a good little ship, a good little ship,’ I said to her aloud, and patted her planking.

  I heard the hatch slam shut again, and John came down. He went aft, still dressed in his oilskins, and sat on the locker by his bunk, changing the film of his camera. Beneath him, and lashed securely to ring-bolts on the locker, was his tool-box, a large wooden chest, about 30 inches by 18 inches by 8 inches, crammed full with heavy tools.

  My book was called Harry Black, and Harry Black was following up a wounded tiger, but I never found out what happened to Harry Black and the tiger.

  When John went below, Beryl continued to steer as before, continually checking her course by the compass, but steering more by the wind and the waves. She was getting used to them now, but the wind still blew as hard as ever. In places the sun broke through the cloud, and from time to time she was in sunshine. A wave passed under Tzu Hang, and she slewed slightly. Beryl corrected her easily, and when she was down in the hollow she looked aft to check her alignment. Close behind her a great wall of water was towering above her, so wide that she couldn’t see its flanks, so high and so steep that she knew Tzu Hang could not ride over it. It didn’t seem to be breaking as the other waves had broken, but water was cascading down its front, like a waterfall. She thought, ‘I can’t do anything, I’m absolutely straight.’ This was her
last visual picture, so nearly truly her last, and it has remained with her. The next moment she seemed to be falling out of the cockpit, but she remembers nothing but this sensation. Then she found herself floating in the sea, unaware whether she had been under water or not.

  She could see no sign of Tzu Hang, and she grabbed at her waist for her life-line, but felt only a broken end. She kicked to tread water, thinking, ‘Oh, God, they’ve left me!’ and her boots, those good roomy boots of John’s, came off as she kicked. Then a wave lifted her, and she turned in the water, and there was Tzu Hang, faithful Tzu Hang, lying stopped and thirty yards away. She saw that the masts were gone and that Tzu Hang was strangely low in the water, but she was still afloat and Beryl started to swim towards the wreckage of the mizzenmast.

  As I read, there was a sudden, sickening sense of disaster. I felt a great lurch and heel, and a thunder of sound filled my ears. I was conscious, in a terrified moment, of being driven into the front and side of my bunk with tremendous force. At the same time there was a tearing cracking sound, as if Tzu Hang was being ripped apart, and water burst solidly, raging into the cabin. There was darkness, black darkness, and pressure, and a feeling of being buried in a debris of boards, and I fought wildly to get out, thinking Tzu Hang had already gone. Then suddenly I was standing again, waist deep in water, and floorboards and cushions, mattresses and books, were sloshing in wild confusion round me.

  I knew that some tremendous force had taken us and thrown us like a toy, and had engulfed us in its black maw. I knew that no one on deck could have survived the fury of its strength, and I knew that Beryl was fastened to the shrouds by her life-line, and could not have been thrown clear. I struggled aft, fearing what I expected to see, fearing that I would not see her alive again. As I went I heard an agonised yell from the cat, and thought, ‘Poor thing, I cannot help you now.’ When I am angry, or stupid and spoilt, or struggling and in danger, or in distress, there is a part of me which seems to disengage from my body, and to survey the scene with a cynical distaste. Now that I was afraid, this other half seemed to see myself struggling through all the floating debris, and to hear a distraught voice crying, ‘Oh God, where’s Beryl, where’s Beryl?’