The White Voyage

by John Christopher

  A horse began to kick the planks that held it in, with steady, patient strength. Carling thought of Dublin; the answer was there. Next time she would speak. Next time he would know what it was she had not said to him – the only why that mattered in the world. He would not leave until she had spoken. He would learn the truth and, one way or another, he would find peace.

  Chapter Five

  The wind rose with the tide. It was Force 5 by the time the Kreya was clear of the harbour, and it rose steadily as they beat northwards up the Channel. It came from the south-west but there was no warmth nor softness about it. Cold squalls of rain soaked across the seas from time to time. The night was black, and apart from their radar eye they drove into it blindly.

  On the bridge, Mouritzen said to Olsen:

  ‘Nasty enough. And it’s going to get worse?’

  ‘So they tell us. At any rate, we’re getting a lift from it. We’ll save oil on this leg, and a few hours.’

  ‘Yes. Have you had the hatch closed?’

  Olsen shook his head, his lips pursed. ‘Not necessary. You can keep an eye on things from time to time.’

  ‘Yes, let the poor beasts have some air, while they can.’

  Olsen raised his eyebrows. ‘It’s our job to keep them in the best possible condition for delivery. That’s in the contract.’

  ‘Yes,’ Mouritzen said. ‘So it is.’

  ‘I’m going to get some sleep.’ Olsen said. He yawned, and flexed his arms. Mouritzen found himself yawning in sympathy, and Olsen noticed it. ‘You should have got your sleep this evening,’ he said, with some severity.

  ‘I’m all right.’

  ‘What was it you said to me the other day – that I’d have been better off on an all-cargo ship? That’s true of you, Niels. You find passengers too much of a distraction.’

  ‘Not too much, I think.’

  ‘You don’t think straight; that’s the trouble. Once we’ve cleared Amsterdam, I suppose it will be the Simanyi girl again?’

  ‘No, no.’

  With a grim satisfaction, Olsen said: ‘You are not your own master, though. They look at you and smile, and you are as helpless as a little child.’

  ‘Lately, I’ve been considering the advantages of marriage.’

  ‘Marriage? For you, there are no advantages. Only another complication – something else to distract your mind with. Do you think you would stop chasing the others, if you had a wife back in Copenhagen?’

  ‘Why not? When a man has found what he needs, he stops looking for it. Isn’t that obvious?’

  Olsen paused, his hand on the rail, preparing to go down the stairs.

  ‘And what is it a man needs, Niels? A man like you? When you have solved that problem, you will know more about yourself. Then it will be time to think of taking a wife.’

  Mouritzen called to him: ‘Tell me what you need yourself, Erik, and then perhaps I will solve my problem.’

  ‘I?’ Olsen laughed. ‘I have found it already. I need nothing. Nothing!’

  * * *

  They were getting into the Straits as dawn broke, grey and wet on the starboard bow, and the seas were beginning to run very high. Before he went down for breakfast, Mouritzen ordered the hatch battened down over the hold where the horses were stabled. He told Olsen this. Olsen was already at the table, eating bacon and egg.

  ‘Yes,’ Olsen said. ‘Good. Everything going well?’

  ‘We’re still running in front of it,’ Mouritzen said. ‘The difficulty will lie when we change course.’

  ‘That will not be for a long time.’

  ‘The forecast is for gales strengthening and continuing in all areas.’

  ‘So we save still more time and oil.’

  Mouritzen sat down at his place. ‘No sign of the passengers for breakfast. I suppose Thorsen is busy?’

  ‘Yes. This is the time when Thorsen earns his pay. I do not envy Thorsen at times like these.’

  The door opened and Mouritzen looked, expecting to see either Thorsen or the boy, Ib; but it was Josef Simanyi, and Nadya was close behind him. She was dressed in dove grey slacks with a pink blouse, well open at the neck. She looked very fit.

  ‘Ah,’ Olsen said, ‘we have visitors! So the storm does not take away your appetites?’

  Simanyi grinned. ‘My wife stays in bed, and Stefan is praying to the Virgin, but we two are hungry.’

  ‘You should get Thorsen to cook that fish you caught yesterday,’ Olsen said. ‘Here he is. What are the conditions above stairs, Thorsen?’

  Thorsen smiled slightly. ‘There will be no more down to breakfast today. I will bring yours for you in a minute.’

  Simanyi said: ‘She is a stout ship, the Kreya.’

  Normally they kept the places which Thorsen had given them at the beginning of the voyage, but with Møller and six of the passengers absent to do so now would mean having tracts of empty space between them. Smiling at Nadya with a frank and open friendliness, Thorsen said:

  ‘It will be better if you move in closer, I think. Will you sit beside Mr Mouritzen, Miss Simanyi?’

  Nadya smiled in return. ‘I am glad to do that,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, a stout ship,’ Olsen said, echoing Simanyi. ‘You need not fear the gale when you are aboard the Kreya. Your son may pray to the Virgin for the sake of his stomach, but the rest of his body is in no danger.’

  Nadya said: ‘You look tired, Niels. You have been on duty?’

  ‘Yes. Soon I am going to bed.’

  ‘Poor Niels. You have a hard time. So much duty, so little sleep.’

  She looked at him, her face not quite innocent. Mouritzen smiled at her.

  ‘I am grateful for your sympathy, Nadya.’

  Simanyi said: ‘Think what it must be like on the little fishing boats in such weather as this.’

  Olsen laughed. ‘You must keep your fishing for the harbours, Mr Simanyi. A catch is more certain there, too.’

  Nadya said to Mouritzen in a low voice: ‘I am most sympathetic to you, Niels. Surely you have not forgotten that?’

  Mouritzen looked away, embarrassed. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I have not forgotten.’

  ‘I am patient,’ Nadya said, ‘and I am forgiving. Do you not think I am an excellent woman, Niels?’

  He nodded. ‘Yes, excellent.’

  She smiled. ‘Eat your breakfast. You look hungry.’

  * * *

  The gale strengthened during the morning, and the wind grew colder; there were frequent showers of sleet and hail. With the wind in the south-west, the Kreya continued to run before it. The heavy seas broke over her stern and bows, but she was fairly dry amidships.

  Returning to the bridge at two o’clock, Mouritzen was surprised to find their course still steady on north-east. He mentioned this to Olsen.

  Olsen said: ‘I tried her on an easterly tack during the morning. She takes a poor grip; we’re too light.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I would sooner beat into a storm like this than cross it. If we change course about seven we can head south to the Wadenzee.’

  ‘What’s the forecast?’

  ‘Bad.’

  Mouritzen looked at the chart. ‘About fifty miles north-west of Hook. We could still make Den Helder.’

  ‘East by north-east,’ Olsen said. ‘Nearly broadside on to it, and loaded with air instead of ballast. No, we shall do better by staying on our course.’

  The ship shuddered, plunging her bows into a high cliff of water. They felt her go down, steady, begin the upward surge.

  ‘When she does turn,’ Mouritzen said, ‘it will be more than ninety degrees. She will be broadside to it then, all right.’

  ‘For minutes,’ Olsen said, ‘not for hours. Keep her steady on course, Niels. I think I will take a nap.’

  * * *

  All round the north-west coasts of Europe the winds were ravaging, like packs of hunting wolves. When Olsen took over again, Mouritzen reported to him a still bleaker weather outlook, and three dis
tress signals already picked up.

  ‘Anything near us?’

  ‘One in the Irish Sea, one off the Hebrides, the other north of Bergen.’

  ‘Good.’ He smiled with a cold humour. ‘This is no weather for rescue operations. Have they made contact?’

  ‘Yes. But the one north of Bergen has little chance, I think. She is taking a lot of water in her engine room. The lifeboats have gone out from Bergen, but they’ll be hard put to reach her in time.’

  ‘What is she?’

  ‘The Firkar. German – eleven hundred tons.’

  ‘God help them,’ Olsen said, ‘if there is a God. I would not like to swim in this. We’re in a foolish trade, Niels.’

  Mouritzen said: ‘I’ve never known you admit to folly before.’

  ‘Nor do I now. If the trade is foolish, the tradesman need not be a fool.’

  ‘Then why choose the trade?’

  ‘In my case, it was not a choice. My father was a sea captain. He was a big man, and by being small I disappointed him. I did not wish to disappoint him altogether. So I took up his trade.’

  ‘You’ve done well at it.’

  Olsen smiled again. ‘I would have been a good doctor, too. A better doctor than a sea captain, maybe.’

  Before dinner, Mouritzen went to see Mary and Annabel. He knocked at the door, and she called him in. She had put Annabel into the bottom bunk, and was sitting beside her reading a book. She put it down as Mouritzen entered the cabin. She looked pale, but she smiled at him.

  ‘How does it go?’ Mouritzen asked gently.

  ‘I think I’m getting used to it,’ Mary said.

  ‘And Annabel?’

  Annabel said, in a weak voice: ‘I feel sick. I’ve been sick a lot, and I still feel sick. Will we be in Amsterdam soon?’

  ‘As soon as we can be.’

  ‘How soon is that?’

  ‘If you go to sleep,’ Mouritzen told her, ‘when you wake up we will be in Amsterdam.’

  ‘I can’t go to sleep,’ she said, ‘while I feel sick.’

  ‘Maybe you are trying too hard,’ Mouritzen said. ‘Sleep is like happiness. It is no good chasing it; it likes to creep up and catch you. I will tell you a story about a troll. Do you know what a troll is?’

  She moved her head slightly on the pillow. ‘No.’

  ‘A troll is a little man with a hump on his back, who can work magic, and is always playing tricks on human beings. The trolls are cousins to the leprechauns, I think. Now this troll, whose name was Kikkipik, lived beside a lake, in the far north, where in summer the sun shines all day and all night long, and in winter there is no sun at all, but a night-time that goes on for months and months. Now at one time, Kikkipik had lived with his brother, but …’

  Mouritzen went on telling the story to her. It was one he remembered from his childhood, but seeing that she continued to be wakeful, he embroidered and stretched it, and tagged on other stories, rambling on and on. He must have continued for half an hour, before Mary interrupted him softly.

  ‘She’s asleep.’

  Mary bent over the bed and tucked the child’s arm inside the sheet. She straightened up, and said to him:

  ‘That was very kind of you, Niels. You have a lovely drowsy voice. I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t fall asleep first.’

  ‘I thought perhaps I would!’ Mouritzen said. ‘But I think she will sleep now.’

  ‘I’ll stay with her for a time.’

  ‘But you are coming down to dinner then?’

  ‘Am I? I’m not sure. I thought I would, but it seems to have got so much worse in the last five minutes. I don’t think I ought to risk it.’

  ‘We are changing course,’ Mouritzen said. ‘It will not take too long, and after that it will be better, because we will have our nose into the wind.’

  ‘Should I go on deck for a time – get some fresh air? I haven’t been out today.’

  Mouritzen shook his head decisively. ‘You would be blown away. There is sleet and rain, and a wind of sixty miles an hour behind it.’

  ‘It really is a storm, then?’

  ‘It truly is.’

  The cabin heaved as a wave struck the Kreya. Mary lost her hold on the stanchion of the bunk and fell forwards; Mouritzen moved and caught her. He held her in his arms for a moment or two, and then released her.

  She said: ‘Thank you.’

  Her voice was not quite steady. He regretted having released her, but was sensible enough to make no new move in her direction.

  ‘I’m glad it is a storm,’ Mary said. ‘I don’t feel quite so weak for staying in my cabin all day. Have the others been down to meals?’

  ‘Only two of them.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Two of the Simanyis. The old man, and Nadya.’

  She hesitated, and then looked at him. ‘I think I will come down for dinner tonight.’

  ‘I’m glad,’ Mouritzen said.

  There was a constant background of sounds – the creakings, throbbings, metallic groans of a ship at sea, accentuated by the strains of the storm through which the Kreya was driving – to which Mouritzen was accustomed. The noises registered, but made no impact. But the unfamiliar excited attention. He sharpened into immobility as he heard it: a jarring crack that vibrated along the ship, a frisson of iron. The vibration lived for an instant, and died away.

  He said: ‘If you’ll excuse me, I must go up first to the bridge.’

  The difference had not registered on her. She said:

  ‘I’ll see you at dinner. Ten minutes?’

  Mouritzen nodded. ‘Ten minutes.’

  * * *

  Mouritzen found Olsen with his own hands on the wheel. He was staring out beyond the glass into the savage blackness of the night, his gaze fixed like a man suddenly confronted with betrayal of his life’s purpose. He did not answer nor look round the first time Mouritzen spoke to him.

  ‘What is it?’ Mouritzen repeated, more urgently. ‘There’s something wrong. What?’

  Olsen stood back and let Mouritzen take the wheel. He spun it, immediately conscious of the difference in the feel.

  ‘A linkage gone?’ he said.

  ‘You heard it,’ Olsen said.

  ‘The shaft,’ Mouritzen said. ‘My God!’

  He moved away from the useless wheel. Olsen came back and put his hands on it again. The Kreya heeled over as a wave struck her starboard side. Spray dashed over the glass in front of them. She went deep, deep, before beginning the slow swing back to an even keel.

  ‘Have you sent out a distress call?’ Mouritzen asked.

  ‘No. Not yet.’

  ‘Shall I see to that?’

  ‘Yes, you can do that,’ Olsen said. He seemed to rouse himself. ‘If there is anything near us they can stand by to take off passengers. But no melodrama, Niels. The Kreya can ride this out. She is toughly built.’ He considered a moment. ‘And it helps now that she is so lightly loaded.’

  ‘No chance of rigging a jury-rudder, I suppose?’

  Mouritzen recognized the futility of the idea before he had finished saying it. Olsen grinned tightly, pointing out into the storm.

  ‘In this?’

  ‘I’ll go down to the wireless room,’ Mouritzen said. ‘With Lauring it is a good idea to stand over him.’

  It was possible on the Kreya to reach the wireless room and the engine room from the bridge without going outside, but Mouritzen took the outside steps deliberately, to get the feel of the storm. For the present it was not raining, but the wind was carrying spray that served the same purpose, except when the ship rolled and lifted and the huge surge of water crashed down across her, swamping and blinding everything. It was a strange, two-edged element, striking with the force of rock, and then breaking and ebbing away into salty streams across the Kreya’s deck. It was worse than it had been; the waves were higher. Still there was reassurance in the way in which, after each new vicious blow, the waves splintered and drained away. She should be able to ride things ou
t till the storm abated and the sea grew calmer. It would mean a tow into Amsterdam; a humiliation for Olsen, but no more than that.

  Closing the heavy metal door behind him he was conscious of the cutting off of so much of the noise – the wind’s howling, the smashing thunder of the sea. Almost at once it became quieter still. He went into the wireless room and found Lauring struggling up into a sitting position from his bunk. His set was on broadcast; a stream of steady, Budd-keyed morse issued from the speaker.

  ‘At this time of day and in this weather, Lauring, you’re supposed to be on constant watch. You don’t need telling that, do you?’

  Lauring was fair-haired, slight, a neat, lazy young man with a quick mind and tongue, chiefly devoted to complaints about his conditions.

  He said now: ‘What’s that, sir? That was the engines stopping, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. Get in your chair while I write out a message for you to send. It’s urgent.’

  ‘Why have the engines stopped?’

  ‘It’s a new fuel economy drive.’ Glancing up, he saw Lauring’s face, the lines of bewilderment and fear, and remembered that joking, especially with someone like Lauring, could be dangerous. ‘We’ve got steering trouble,’ he added.

  ‘What kind?’

  Mouritzen handed him the message pad. He said:

  ‘There’s nothing to worry about. Captain Olsen will have stopped the engines while he tries to get a sea-anchor out, to see if we can get her nose into the wind. Get this off right away. Do you know who’s near us, offhand?’

  ‘There’s nothing!’ Lauring said. ‘Nothing within fifty miles, anyway. There was the Astrida, but she was running for Borkum.’

  ‘How long ago was that?’

  ‘Half an hour, maybe three-quarters.’

  ‘Try and raise her. Send this out as a CQ first. I’m going back up to the bridge. Let us know as soon as you have anything.’

  Lauring picked up his earphones, but stared at them instead of putting them on.

  ‘If we can’t steer,’ he said, ‘we’re helpless.’

  ‘As helpless as a cork. We may get a shaking, but that’s the worst that can happen.’

  Lauring put on the earphones. ‘I’ll try to raise someone,’ he said.