Death of a Supertanker

by Antony Trew

  While the fire alarm was still sounding, Jarrett, on his way down the stairway to Deck One, had met Sandy coming up. She’d clutched his arm and with troubled eyes pleaded, ‘What’s happened, Freeman?’

  He had stopped for a moment, smiled sympathetically and given her arm a reassuring squeeze. ‘We’ve run aground, Sandy. No danger. Nothing to worry about. Just go along to your station quietly and try to calm the others.’

  Then, strong, handsome and purposeful, he’d raced on down the stairway.

  The Cape Town agents phoned the ship at eleven o’clock to inform Captain Crutchley that the marine surveyor and a salvage expert would leave for Cape Agulhas by helicopter that afternoon. Their ETA at the ship was 1430, provided the fog had by then lifted; if it had not the helicopter would land its passengers at Bredasdorp and they would do the remaining sixty-five kilometres by road. The light-keeper at Cape Agulhas would in that event arrange for a boat to take them off to the ship from St Mungo Bay, the small indentation off which the ship was stranded. Salvage tugs had been alerted, as had the National Sea Rescue station at Gordons Bay, 150 kilometres away. Newspapers and the SABC had already tried to get through to the ship, but the radio officer had informed the GPO Cape Town that Ocean Mammoth could not accept such calls at the present time.

  The Captain had been on the bridge continuously since the ship struck but now, having done all that was possible, he went down to his stateroom, leaving the third officer in charge of the bridge. With the fog persisting there was nothing for Alan Simpson to do but monitor the alarm systems and keep a general lookout. This, he decided wryly, meant looking hopefully into the blanket of fog which encompassed the ship. With the coming of low water and the exposure of greater areas of rock, the sound of the breakers had grown in volume. Other sounds which could be heard were those made by auxiliary machinery, by crewmen working on deck, and occasionally the distant blare of foghorns.

  Once down below Captain Crutchley went to the bathroom and bathed his eyes, changed into uniform and went through to his dayroom where he sat down to toast and coffee brought him by Figureido. The simple meal finished, he decided he could no longer delay tackling a problem which had been on his mind ever since the ship struck.

  He switched on the R/T, made contact with the chief officer in the cargo control-room, and told him to report to his office at once. Jarrett arrived soon afterwards.

  ‘You sent for me, sir?’

  ‘Yes. Shut that door and take a seat, Mr Jarrett.’

  The younger man shut the door and sat down facing the Captain, his hard hat on his lap, his R/T on the deck beside him. For some time Captain Crutchley stared at him in silence, his eyes anonymous behind the dark glasses. At last he spoke. ‘Mr Jarrett. The marine surveyor and the salvage expert are due on board at two-thirty if this fog has lifted. Otherwise they’ll come from Bredasdorp by road. Either way they should be here within two or three hours.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I’m afraid the ship is in a bad way. This low water has done her no good.’

  ‘I am aware of that, Mr Jarrett.’ The Captain paused, the concealed stare never wavering. ‘I want you within the next hour to hand me a written account of how the ship came to run aground during your watch this morning.’

  ‘Certainly, sir. I’ll get on with that right away.’

  ‘There is one question to which I must have your answer now, Mr Jarrett.’

  The chief officer looked puzzled. ‘And that is, sir?’

  ‘Did you read my night order book before taking over the watch from Mr Foley at four o’clock this morning?’

  ‘Yes, I did. And I signed it.’

  ‘My orders required you to call me in the event of fog, and in any case before the alteration of course off Agulhas, did they not?’

  ‘Yes, sir. That is correct.’

  ‘Why then did you not call me?’

  The chief officer’s face was a picture of surprise. ‘I did call you, sir. I reported the fog by phone. Told you of ships in the vicinity. That I’d placed an extra lookout. I explained why we couldn’t use the pneumatic siren. The defective auto-switch. You agreed we shouldn’t use the steam whistle aft because of the disturbance it creates. You told me you had a bad headache. That you’d taken some pain-killers – so that you could sleep – and wouldn’t be coming up. You asked me to keep a sharp eye on things. To let you know if I wanted you to come up at any time.’ The sentences came tumbling out in puzzled protest.

  Captain Crutchley rose to his feet, a large formidable figure. ‘You did no such thing, Mr Jarrett. At no time did you report to me.’ His voice was firm, emotionless. ‘That is entirely a figment of your imagination.’

  By now the chief officer, too, had risen. His expression as he regarded the Captain was a mixture of sympathy and surprise. ‘I expect the sleeping pills were more effective than you realize, sir.’ He hesitated. ‘I have a witness to our telephone conversation.’

  ‘A witness,’ said Captain Crutchley grimly. ‘You must be out of your mind.’

  ‘No, sir. Fernandez was on the wheel. He must have heard the conversation.’

  ‘I don’t believe for a moment that such a conversation took place, Mr Jarrett. You have been negligent and you are trying to cover yourself.’

  Jarrett’s eyes narrowed and his voice took on a hardness which had not been there before. ‘I must decline to discuss this any further, sir. The court of enquiry will no doubt satisfy itself as to the truth.’

  ‘How dare you threaten me like that.’ Crutchley’s voice rose in unfamiliar anger.

  Shaking his head as if mystified, the chief officer left the Captain’s office. For some time after he had gone Crutchley sat at the desk, head in hands. As he brooded over what Jarrett had said a small but insidious doubt took shape in his mind.

  Could the sleeping capsules have so dulled his mind that the phone conversation was beyond recall?

  Chapter 17

  The chief officer was back five minutes later to report to the Captain that chart No. 2083 – covering the approach to Cape Agulhas – was missing and that the day’s pages of the deck and Decca logbooks had been torn out. That was not all, he said; the course-recorder trace had been torn off and there was no record of the courses steered since 0200. He had last consulted the instrument at 0525, soon after altering course for a trawler. The trace was writing normally then.

  ‘All this has been done since I was on the bridge at 0540, sir‚’ he added in a resentful, suspicious way.

  Captain Crutchley, still simmering from their recent clash, looked at him for some time before answering brusquely, ‘Who do you suggest did this?’

  The chief officer shook his head. ‘I don’t know, sir,’ he said hesitantly, lowering his voice, and watching the Captain carefully. ‘It would be in the second officer’s interests that those records should not be available, wouldn’t it? He handed over an incorrect course at four o’clock. Just before we went aground he was in the chartroom.’ Jarrett’s voice was all the more deliberate now. ‘In his watch below. He was also there a few minutes ago, and as far as I know he’s still there.’

  The Captain’s anonymous stare continued to be focused on the chief officer. After what seemed a long time he said, ‘Would it not be more in your interests, Mr Jarrett? You were officer-of-the-watch when the ship ran aground.’

  ‘I take strong exception to that, sir.’

  ‘Take what you damn well please, Mr Jarrett. Now go back to your quarters and get on with that report.’ The Captain turned away, and the set of his mouth and jaw made it clear that the interview was over.

  The chief officer seemed undecided for a moment. He picked up his hard hat and R/T, moved slowly to the door, looked at Crutchley once more with disbelief, and left the office.

  No sooner had he gone than the Captain dialled the second officer’s cabin. Sandy answered. Her husband, she said, was on the bridge. In the chartroom she thought.

  Next Crutchley dialled the wheelhouse. The third officer ans
wered.

  ‘Captain speaking. Is Mr Foley there?’

  ‘He’s in the chartroom, sir.’

  ‘Tell him to report to me right away, Mr Simpson.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’

  The Captain replaced the phone. It was not long before the second officer arrived, his face drawn, his eyes red-rimmed over dark pouches. He had not slept for twenty-four hours.

  The Captain pointed to a chair. ‘Now, Mr Foley. I want you to let me have, within the hour, a written account of the events leading up to the stranding of this ship. Only in so far as you know them personally. I want no hearsay. In particular I want to know the ship’s position as plotted and logged by you at the end of your watch, the course and speed you then handed over to Mr Jarrett, and an explanation of how you came to be in the chart-room during his watch shortly before the ship ran aground.’

  The second officer turned away from the Captain’s disconcerting stare and concentrated on a picture which hung on the foremost bulkhead. It was a full-rigged ship under sail, the original Ocean Mammoth.

  ‘I will do that, sir. But it’s going to be very difficult.’

  ‘Explain yourself, Mr Foley.’

  ‘I’ve just come from the chartroom, sir. The chart we used for the approach to Cape Agulhas has disappeared. So have today’s pages of the deck and Decca logbooks. They’ve been torn out. The course-recorder trace from two o’clock onwards is missing. Torn from the frame.’

  Captain Crutchley’s mouth tightened. ‘When did you discover this, Mr Foley?’

  ‘About ten minutes ago, sir. It was the first opportunity I’d had of going to the chartroom. Because of something the chief officer said, I wanted to check the courses steered since I’d handed over to him at four o’clock.’

  ‘What did the chief officer say?’

  ‘When he came into the chartroom just before we ran aground I told him that someone had altered the figures I’d pencilled in against the course line. The two-five-seven I’d written had been changed to two-six-seven. He said I’d given him the course verbally as two-six-seven when handing over. He also said those were the figures shown on the course-to-steer indicator.’

  ‘Well, Mr Foley?’

  ‘That was untrue, sir. I don’t make those sorts of mistakes. I’d drawn a course line of two-five-seven on the chart and written two-five-seven against it and in the deck logbook. Those were the figures I’d set on the course indicator and given him verbally.’

  Captain Crutchley sighed audibly as he recalled what he had seen when he examined the chart and deck logbook in the chart-room soon after the stranding. His mouth tightened and he pushed the frame of the dark glasses further up the bridge of his nose. ‘Something very strange has been going on in this ship, Mr Foley.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I said to the chief officer in the chartroom before we ran aground, sir.’

  ‘Who do you think removed that chart, tore those pages from the logbook and the trace from the course-recorder?’

  The second officer hesitated. ‘I don’t like to say, sir. But no one would have a stronger motive than the officer-of-the-watch at the time of stranding.’

  ‘You mean the chief officer?’

  ‘Yes, sir. For obvious reasons.’ A nervous smile flickered across the second officer’s face.

  ‘I see you smile, Mr Foley. Some might say the obvious reasons could equally well apply to you.’

  The second officer shook his head vigorously. ‘No, sir. That is not correct.’

  As soon as Foley had gone, Captain Crutchley went up to the chartroom. He took possession of the deck and Decca logbooks, and the paper trace from the course-recorder for the period since leaving Durban up to 0200 that morning.

  For those on board Ocean Mammoth the most worrying time had been that between the stranding early in the morning and the order to stand down from fire stations which had come two hours later. By then it was evident that there was no immediate danger and though the fog persisted both crew and passengers began to adapt themselves to the new conditions. They had been reassured by the Captain’s broadcast and by Jarrett and Benson who were at pains to tell those they met as they went about their duties that there was no cause for alarm. Sandy continued to be a pillar of strength among the wives to whom her calm and cheerfulness proved a steadying influence. She had now emerged as their undisputed leader.

  Diaz, the bosun, a big-boned man with many years in tankers, feared and respected by his men, had had no difficulty in maintaining the morale of the islanders, and in this he’d been ably assisted by the pumpman and the storekeeper. Oddly enough it was Piet Pieterse, the newcomer and a stranger to ships, whose good-natured humour had done most to calm the worried Goa-nese stewards.

  It was known that the ship was in touch with the authorities ashore, that when the fog lifted salvage experts would appear on the scene, and there was general belief that though Ocean Mammoth was in serious trouble her great size was in itself a guarantee of personal safety for those on board. Even so there was a natural tendency for people to keep together; few remained in their cabins for company was comforting, and though every effort was made to keep crewmen busy there were not many tasks on which they could be usefully employed once the emergency measures had been seen to. Thus small groups of men gathered in different parts of the ship to discuss the disaster, often laughing and joking with forced gaiety.

  After fire stations it had been announced that breakfast would be served as usual and it was not long before places in the saloon began to fill. The wives having dressed hurriedly and otherwise made themselves presentable, lost no time in getting there. But once the meal was over they moved into the bar-lounge and as the morning progressed it became the focus, the place where there was always someone to talk to. From time to time officers and engineers, free for the moment from their duties or passing that way, would join the women or form their own small groups in the lounge. The stranding was the sole topic of conversation: their thoughts when the ship struck; what the fog would reveal when it lifted; how had the ship gone on the rocks; who was to blame; what would happen next, and how and when would they be taken off the ship; would they be flown back to the United Kingdom or given passage in one of the company’s ships – and if so how long would they have to wait in Cape Town?

  And of course there was humour. The catering officer’s wife told of how she had gone to her emergency station in a Japanese kimono, barefooted, lifejacket in one hand and bra in the other; and having put on the lifejacket first had been confronted with the problem of the bra.

  In a corner of the bar-lounge Gareth Lloyd and Abu Seku discussed some of the more esoteric aspects of the stranding over mugs of hot coffee.

  ‘Indeed, and it would be bloody Africa that gets in the way,’ complained the Welshman.

  ‘A great continent‚’ pronounced the Ghanaian. ‘Puts out a rocky finger and stops three hundred and twenty thousand tons of Western technological bullshit from fourteen knots in seven seconds. Wham! Bang! Wham! Like Ali, you know. Thaťs Africa, man.’

  The suggestion of the catering officer’s wife that they watch a Morecambe and Wise show on closed-circuit television was turned down.

  ‘We can always see them,’ pleaded Sandy. ‘We’ve got a real shipwreck on our hands now. That’s much more exciting.’

  ‘Couldn’t agree more,’ said Jean Simpson.

  ‘Sorry, dear. I was only trying to be helpful,’ said the catering officer’s wife.

  Sandy put her arms round her shoulders. ‘Of course you were. Perhaps later when we get bored with being shipwrecked.’

  The atmosphere of comparative calm and acceptance in Ocean Mammoth was rudely shaken when the meteorological broadcast to shipping was received at midday. It forecast dispersal of the fog but warned of the imminence of a south-westerly gale in the area which included Cape Agulhas. It required all the calm assurance of the Captain’s broadcast, reinforced by Sandy’s morale-boosting among the wives, to restore some confidence. But tha
t confidence was, they all suspected, no more than a front.

  Everyone capable of intelligent thought was fearful of what was to come.

  Chapter 18

  By early afternoon the fog had dispersed. A falling barometer and rising wind from the north-west brought scudding clouds and frequent squalls of rain.

  As the fog drifted away colour drained back into the landscape and the rocky projection that was Cape Agulhas slowly revealed itself, its tall red-and-white-ringed lighthouse tower standing up boldly against the undulations of the land behind.

  With his binoculars the second officer could see a small village from which a scatter of seaside cottages stretched out towards Northumberland Point, a promontory some miles to the northeast. Closer at hand he saw groups of people and parked cars along the high ground beyond the rocks and realized they were sightseers. He took bearings of the lighthouse and Northumberland Point to fix Ocean Mammoth’s position, and found she was aground just on a mile off Cape Agulhas, bows heading to the south-west. The long swells, swollen by the rising tide, were breaking heavily on the foreshore. With the wind increasing in force and backing to the south-west the sea, broken and confused, came rolling in at right angles to the swell.