I sat at the wheel and watched Griselda draw steadily ahead of the beam, wallowing in the swell. I wondered what Higgins would do, what I would do in his place. I tried to think it out rationally. But it’s difficult to think rationally when you’re cold and tired and sitting alone, almost at water level, isolated in an opaque void. That sense of isolation! I had felt it at sea before, but never so strongly. And now it chilled me with a feeling of foreboding. The sea had an oily look as the big swells lumbered up from the west and rolled beneath us.
I didn’t notice the fog at first. I was thinking of Higgins—and then suddenly a grey-white plasma was creeping towards us across the sea, shrouding and enveloping the water in its folds. Mike came up from below and I gave him the wheel, shouting for Patch to come on deck. Griselda had seen the fog, too, and she had turned in towards us. I watched her coming, waiting for the fog to close round us and hide us from her. ‘We’ll go about as soon as we lose sight of her,’ I said as Patch came up through the hatch.
She wasn’t more than two cables away when her outline blurred and then she vanished, swallowed abruptly. ‘Lee-ho!’ Mike called and spun the wheel. Sea Witch turned into the wind and through it, the big yankee flapping as I let go the jib sheet. And then the main boom was across and Patch and I were winching in the starboard jib sheet as we gathered way on the port tack.
We were doubling back on our tracks through a cold, dead, clammy world and I straightened up, listening to the beat of the motor boat’s engines, trying to estimate her position, wondering whether the fog was thick enough for us to lose her.
But Higgins must have guessed what we’d do, or else we had lost too much time in going about, for the sound of Griselda’s engines was abeam of us and, just as I realised this, the shape of her reappeared. Her bows seemed to rip the curtain of fog apart and suddenly the whole of her was visible, coming straight for us.
She was coming in at right-angles, her engines running flat out and her sharp bows cutting into the swell, spray flying up past her wheelhouse. I shouted to Mike to go about again. We were heeled over, going fast and I knew that if both boats held their course we must hit. And when he didn’t do anything, my throat was suddenly dry. ‘Put her about!’ I yelled at him. And at the same moment Patch shouted, ‘Turn man! For God’s sake turn!’
But Mike stood there, his body braced against the wheel, staring at the on-coming boat with a set expression on his face. ‘Let him turn,’ he said through his clenched teeth. ‘I’m holding on.’
Patch jumped down into the cockpit. ‘He’s going to ram you.’
‘He wouldn’t dare.’ And Mike held obstinately to his course, watching Griselda through narrowed eyes, his face suddenly white. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Higgins lean out of his wheelhouse. He was shouting and his powerful voice reached across to us through the roar of engines—‘Stand by! I’m coming alongside.’ And then Griselda was turning, swinging to come in on our bows and crowd us up into the wind.
Everything happened very fast then. Mike shouted at us to ease the sheets. ‘I’m going to cut under her stern.’ He turned the wheel and Sea Witch began to swing her bows in towards the motor boat. Griselda was halfway through her turn. There was just room for us to pass astern of her if we turned quickly.
But things went wrong. I eased out on the jib sheet, but Patch, unaccustomed to sail, failed to ease out on the main. And at the same moment we heeled to a puff of wind. It was that unlucky puff of wind that did it. With the full weight of it on the mainsail, Sea Witch failed to come round fast enough. And Higgins had throttled down to bring his boat alongside us. We drove straight into Griselda’s counter, drove straight into it with all the force of our powerful engine and tons of wind-driven canvas. We caught her on the port side just a few feet from her stern as it was swinging in towards us on the turn. There was a rending, splintering crash; our bows reared up as though to climb over her and then we stopped with a horrible, jarring shudder. I caught a glimpse of Yules, staring open-mouthed, and then I was flung forward against the charthouse. The boom jerked free of the mast and swung in towards me. I threw up my arm and it caught my shoulder a shattering blow, wrenching it from its socket and flinging me against the guardrails.
I remember clutching at the guardrails, blinded with pain, and then I was lying on the deck, my face pressed close against a metal jib sheet lead and the noise of rending wood was still there and somebody was screaming. I shifted myself and pain stabbed through me. I was looking down into the water and a man’s body drifted past. It was Yules and he was thrashing wildly at the water, his face white and scared with a lock of hair washed over his eyes.
The deck vibrated under me. It was as though compressed-air drills had been put to work on the hull. I could feel the juddering all through my body. ‘You all right?’ Mike reached a hand down and dragged me to my feet. My teeth clenched on my lip.
‘The bastard!’ He was staring for’ard, his face paper-white, all the freckles showing a dull orange against his pasty skin, and his hair flaming red. ‘I’ll kill him.’ He was shaking with anger.
I turned to see Higgins erupt from Griselda’s wheelhouse. He was shouting something, his great bellowing voice audible above the noise of the engines and the continuing, rending sound of wood. The two boats were locked together and he caught hold of our bowsprit, his teeth bared like an animal, his head sunk into his bull neck and his shoulder muscles bunched as he tried to tear the boats apart with his bare hands.
Mike moved then. He had the grim, avenging look of a man who has seen something he loves and has worked for wantonly smashed-up. I called to him, for the fool was running for’ard up the sloped deck, yelling at Higgins, cursing him; and he flung himself from the bowsprit, straight at the man, hitting out at him in a blind fury of rage.
The boats separated then with a tearing of wood and bubbling of water and I didn’t see any more. Patch had put our engine into reverse and I staggered into the cockpit, shouting at him to stop. ‘Mike is still there. You can’t leave him.’
‘Do you want the belly torn out of your boat?’ he demanded, turning the wheel as Sea Witch began to go astern. ‘Those props were drilling the guts out of her.’ Dimly I realised that he meant Griselda’s props and understood what had caused the deck planks to vibrate under my body.
I turned and watched as the gap between us and the motor boat widened. Griselda was down by the stern with a hole torn out of her port quarter as though a battering ram had hit her. Higgins was going back into the wheelhouse. There was nobody else on her deck. I suddenly felt sick and tired. ‘What happened to him?’ I asked. The sickly-sweet taste of blood was in my mouth where I’d bitten through my lip. My arm and all that side of my body was heavy and numb with pain. ‘Did you see what happened?’
‘He’s all right,’ Patch said. ‘Just knocked cold.’ He started to ask me about my shoulder, but I was telling him to get into forward gear and start sailing again. ‘Don’t lose her!’ Already Griselda’s outlines were fading and a moment later she disappeared. Patch had put the gear lever into neutral and we could hear her engines then, racing with an ugly, grinding noise. There was a sharp report and, a little later, another. After that we couldn’t hear her any more.
‘Prop shafts by the sound of it,’ Patch said.
Sails and mast and boat began to spin before my eyes and I sat down. Patch seemed immensely tall, standing at the wheel, and his head swung dizzily over me. I steadied myself and the roll of a swell lapped into the cockpit. I stared at it stupidly, watching the water roll back down the forward-sloping deck. And then the engine spluttered and gave out.
I shook my head, bracing myself against the dizziness that threatened to overwhelm me. There was nobody at the helm. I called to Patch and struggled to my feet. He came up out of the main hatch, his trousers dripping. ‘It’s up to the galley already.’ And then my eyes took in the tilt of the deck, following it down to where the bowsprit was buried in the back of a wave. All the foredeck was awash. I
stared at it, taking it in slowly, whilst he pushed past me into the charthouse. He came out with a jack-knife in his hand. ‘She’s going down,’ I said. My voice sounded dead and hopeless in my ears.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Not much time.’ And he began slashing at the dinghy tie-ers. I watched him hoist the praam over so that she fell with her keel on the guardrails and he was able to slide her into the water.
We were still sailing, moving sluggishly through the water, and over Patch’s back, as he bent to secure the dinghy painter, I caught a glimpse of the Griselda again, a vague shape rolling sluggishly on the edge of visibility.
‘Is there any food up here?’ Patch was gathering up things from the charthouse and tossing them into the dinghy—blankets, duffle coats, torches, flares, even the hand-bearing compass.
‘Some chocolate.’ I got it from the drawer of the chart table—three small slabs and some sweets. I got life-jackets too, from the locker aft. But my movements were slow and clumsy and by the time I had dropped them in the dinghy the whole length of the deck was awash, the mast tilted forward and the foot of the yankee below the water.
‘Quick!’ Patch said. ‘In you get.’ He was already untying the painter. I clambered in. It wasn’t difficult. The dinghy rode level with the deck. He followed me and pushed off.
I never saw her go down. As we rowed away from her, she slowly disappeared into the fog, her stern a little cocked-up, the big jib and the mizzen still set, and nothing but sea for’ard of the charthouse. She looked a strange sight—like the ghost of a ship doomed everlastingly to sail herself under. I could have wept as she faded and was suddenly gone.
I turned then to look at Griselda. She was lying like a log, badly down by the stern and rolling slowly to the long swell—as useless as only a motor boat can be when her engines are out of action. ‘Pull on your right,’ I told Patch.
He stared at me, not saying anything, his body moving rhythmically to the swing of the oars. ‘For God’s sake pull on your right,’ I said. ‘You’re still not headed for Griselda.’
‘We’re not going to Griselda.’
I didn’t understand for a moment. ‘But where else . . .’ My voice broke off abruptly and I felt suddenly deadly scared. He had the box of the hand-bearing compass set up at his feet, the lid open. His eyes were watching it as he rowed. He was steering a compass course. ‘My God!’ I cried. ‘You’re not going to try and make it in the dinghy?’
‘Why not?’
‘But what about Mike?’ I was suddenly desperate. I could see Higgins struggling to get his dinghy into the water. ‘You can’t do it.’ I seized hold of his hand as he leaned forward, gripping hold of one of the oars, pain bursting like an explosive charge in my body. ‘You can’t do it, I tell you.’
He stared at me, his face only a foot or two from mine. ‘No?’ His voice grated in the stillness, and faint across the water came a cry for help—a desperate, long drawn-out cry. He wrenched the oar free of me and began to row again. ‘If you don’t like it, you can get out and swim for it like that poor bastard.’ He nodded across his left shoulder and at the same moment the cry came again. This time I was able to pick him out on the lift of a swell, a black head and two dripping arms thrashing their way toward us. ‘H-e-lp!’
Patch rowed on, ignoring the cry. ‘Are you going to leave him to drown?’ I said, leaning forward, trying with my voice to touch some spark of humanity in him.
‘It’s Yules,’ he answered. ‘Let Higgins pick him up.’
‘And Mike?’ I said. ‘What about Mike?’
‘He’ll be all right. That boat isn’t going to sink.’
The oars dipped and rose, dipped and rose, his body swinging back and forth. And I sat there and watched him row away from the man. What else could I do? My shoulder had been driven out of its socket; he had only to touch it to send pain searing through me, and he knew it. I thought maybe he was right about the boat. It was only the stern that was damaged. All the fore part would be water-tight. And Higgins would pick Yules up. He had his dinghy launched now and was pulling away from Griselda. In the weird, fog-belt light he looked like a giant specimen of those insects that are called water-boatmen. Yules had seen him coming and had ceased to thrash about in the water. He was directly between us and Higgins and he lay still in the water, not crying out any more, just waiting to be picked up.
I don’t know why I should have stayed, twisted round like that, in a position that gave me a lot of pain. But I felt I had to see him picked up. I had to know that there was no justification for the feeling of horror that had suddenly gripped me.
Higgins was rowing fast, a long, sweeping stroke that was full of power, and at each pull a little froth of white water showed at the dinghy’s blunt bows. Every now and then he turned and looked over his shoulder, and I knew that it was at us he was looking and not at the man in the water.
We were pulling away from Yules all the time and I couldn’t be sure how near Higgins was to him. But I heard Yules call out. ‘Alf!’ And he raised one hand. ‘I’m here.’ The words were distinct and very clear in the stillness of the fog. And then suddenly he was shouting and swimming with frantic desperation, his arms flailing the water, his feet kicking as the surface.
But Higgins never checked, never spoke a word to him. He left him to drown and the oars dipped and rose with terrible regularity, the water streaming from them at every stroke as he came after us.
There was one last despairing cry, and then silence. Sickened, I turned to look at Patch. ‘It’s a bigger dinghy than ours,’ he said. He meant it as an explanation. He meant that Higgins couldn’t afford to stop—not if he was to catch up with us. His face was quite white. He was rowing harder now, the sweat glistening on his forehead. His words sent a cold shiver through me, and I sat there, rigid, all pain momentarily forgotten.
After that I was conscious all the time of the dinghy behind us. I can see it still, like a deadly water-beetle crawling after us across the sea, everlastingly following us through an unreal miasma of fog; and I can hear the creak of the rowlocks, the dip and splash of the oars. And I can see Patch, too, his set face leaning towards me and then pulling back, endlessly moving back and forth as he tugged at the oars, tugged till his teeth were clenched with the pain of his blistered hands, until the blisters broke and the blood dripped on the oars—hour after wretched hour.
At one time Higgins was less than fifty yards behind us and I could see every detail of his boat. It was a gay blue metal dinghy, a little battered, with the paint flaking and dulled with age, and round the gunn’ls was a heavy canvas fend-off. The thing was meant to hold five or six people and it had bluff bows so that every time he pulled it smiled an ugly, puffy smile as the thrust piled the water up in front of it.
But he had used his brute strength recklessly and he didn’t gain on us any more.
The fog thinned out as night fell until it was no more than a tattered veil through which we caught glimpses of the stars. The young moon gave it a queer luminosity so that we could still see Higgins following us, little drops of phosphorescence marking the oar blades as they lifted clear of the water.
We stopped once and Patch managed to jerk my shoulder back into its socket, and a little later I moved over to the centre thwart and took the left oar, rowing one-handed. Though I was in considerable pain, we were fairly well balanced, for by then he was very tired.
We continued like that all night, holding our course by the hand-bearing compass that stood at our feet, its card glowing faintly. The moon set and the luminosity faded. We lost sight of Higgins. A wind sprang up and waves broke on the swell, slopping water over the gunn’ls. But it died away again about four and at last the stars paled in the first glimmer of returning daylight. It was one of those cold, cloud-streaked dawns that come reluctantly. It showed a lumpy sea, full of tidal swirls, and a blanket of fog lay ahead of us, clamped down between us and the coast of France.
We breakfasted on three squares of chocolate. It was half of al
l we had left. The woodwork of the dinghy was beaded with dew, our clothes sodden with it. Water slopped about over the floorboards as we pitched in the sea, and in our exhaustion it was becoming more and more difficult to row a course. ‘How much farther?’ I gasped.
Patch looked at me, his face grey, the eyes deep-sunk. ‘I don’t know,’ he breathed. His lips were all cracked and rimed with salt. He frowned, trying to concentrate his mind. ‘Tide’s west-going. Be with us in two hours.’ He dipped his hand in the sea and wiped salt water over his face. ‘Shouldn’t be long.’
Not long! I gritted my teeth. The salt was behind my eyeballs, in my mouth; it pricked my skin. The dawn’s chill gripped me. I wished to God I’d never met this gaunt stranger who rowed like death at my shoulder. My mind blurred to a vision of Mike and our plans. And now the future was dead, Sea Witch gone and nothing in the world to think about but the Minkies, with each stroke an agony.
The sea at dawn had been empty. I could have sworn it had been empty. I had searched it carefully—every trough, every swirl, every sudden humped-up heap of water. There had been nothing—absolutely nothing. And now, suddenly, I was looking at a speck away over Patch’s shoulder. The sun was coming up in a great ball of fire and the clouds that streaked the east were glowing orange and blazing to red at their edges—and all this vivid surge of colour, imprinted in the sea seemed designed solely to show me that speck etched black in silhouette. It was a boat with two oars and a man rowing.
Ten minutes later the fog folded its clammy blanket round us again. The speck blurred and vanished. And at that moment I thought I heard a bell, very faint to the east of us. But when we stopped rowing it was gone. There wasn’t a sound, except the sea. It was all round us in our grey, boxed-in world—the wet slop of water. But a little later there was a murmuring and a sucking in the veil through which our eyes couldn’t see, and almost immediately the fog darkened, became black, and a shape slid past us like the towering superstructure of a battleship. It was there for an instant, blurred and indistinct, a great mass of black rock with the swell frothing gently at its base, and then it was gone as the tide hurried us on. ‘My God! We’re there,’ I gasped.
The Wreck of the Mary Deare Page 23