by Antony Trew
‘About ten minutes, I suppose.’
‘At twelve knots the ship would have travelled two miles in that time. With the current more. Do you agree?’
‘Yes. That is so.’
‘You were the ship’s navigating officer?’
‘I was.’
‘So it would have been perfectly proper for you to have gone straight to the bridge and discussed the situation with the chief officer, or even the Captain had he been there?’
‘I suppose so, but …’
‘But what, Mr Foley?’
‘I didn’t want to make a fool of myself.’
‘So you took your time about things although the safety of a fifty-five-million-dollar tanker and her crew were at stake?’
‘I did not realize how close to the land the ship was.’
Ohlsson shook his head in disbelief. He looked at his notes before turning back to Foley. ‘In his evidence the chief officer has said that when he reached the chartroom you were busy at the chart-table with parallel rulers and a pencil. He also said there was an eraser next to the chart. Now, Mr Foley – can you tell the court what you were doing on that chart?’
‘While I was checking the echo-sounder readings against the soundings on the chart, I saw that the figure two-five-seven I had written against the course line had been changed to two-six-seven. To make sure I checked the course line with the parallel rulers. It was exactly as I had drawn it: two-five-seven degrees, but the “five” had been changed to a “six” making the figure two-six-seven.’
‘And the pencil in your hand?’ Ohlsson pinched his nostrils and poised for the kill.
‘I had picked it up instinctively.’
‘Instinctively,’ echoed Ohlsson. ‘Why instinctively?’
The second officer’s drawn face twisted with worry. ‘When you’ve spent years of your life plotting courses and positions on charts – well – it is instinctive to have a pencil in your hand.’
‘It is of course not impossible that when the chief officer came into the chartroom that morning you were about to use the pencil and eraser to alter the two-six-seven to two-five-seven to cover up your mistake.’
‘That is quite untrue.’ Foley leant forward, gripping the rail of the witness box.
Ohlsson’s eyes darted round the courtroom as if to check whether the drift of his questioning had caught on. They settled once more upon the second officer.
‘I take it that before handing over the watch at four o’clock that morning you had entered the course in the logbook?’
‘Yes. I had.’
With the skill of one who had performed the operation many times before, Ohlsson removed his spectacles, wiped them with a silk handkerchief and returned them to his nose. ‘Soon after the stranding the chart disappeared from the wheelhouse, pages in the deck and Decca logbooks – the pages for that day – were torn out, and the trace on the course-recorder was removed. In other words, all the evidence relating to responsibility for the incorrect course steered by Ocean Mammoth on her way to disaster had disappeared.’
Ohlsson paused to pinch his nostrils once more. ‘I put it to you, Mr Foley – from your point of view the disappearance of those items of evidence was no bad thing?’
Foley’s face turned a ghostlike white. His voice when he spoke was hoarse with emotion. ‘I have testified on oath that the course figures I wrote on the chart and in the logbook were two-five-seven. Those figures were altered after I left the bridge.’ He hesitated before blurting out, ‘They can only have been altered by the chief officer – I’m quite certain he is responsible for the disappearance of the evidence. It would have shown up all the other mistakes he made.’
Ohlsson’s eyes glittered dangerously. ‘On the contrary, I suggest that your evidence is deliberately and with malice loaded against the chief officer – that you are making these reckless allegations in a desperate attempt to cover your own mistakes.’
‘That is not true – it’s a lie.’
Ohlsson lowered his voice, spoke more slowly, more deliberately. ‘Were your personal relations with the chief officer not under intense strain because of an incident two nights before the stranding – that is on the twenty-seventh?’
Foley’s hesitation, his anguished expression, seemed to answer the question. With difficulty he said, ‘That had nothing to do with it. Nothing at all.’
‘The chief officer will say that you and he had a fist fight in his cabin at about one o’clock in the morning, when you came down unexpectedly from the bridge. That you both bore the marks of that fight for days afterwards.’
Foley’s colour was ashen. ‘You have no right to drag that into these proceedings. It is a despicable thing to do.’
‘Because of that fight, because of the incident which caused it, I suggest that much of your evidence has been hopelessly prejudiced and must be disregarded. I suggest that once you’d seen the fog warning, you deliberately falsified the course figures with the object of involving the chief officer in a situation which could destroy his career – that you were intent upon revenge for the humiliation you’d suffered when you went to his quarters that night and found him there with a passenger in highly compromising circumstances.’ Ohlsson paused, looked round the court, before saying, ‘That passenger being your wife.’
‘You have no right to make these insinuations, Mr Ohlsson.’ The reprimand came from the Chairman like the boom of a gun. ‘This is a court of marine enquiry not a divorce court. We are trying to establish how this ship came to be lost through running aground and who was at fault. You must restrict yourself to the facts on the basis of the evidence led.’
‘I apologize, Your Worship. I thought the point was particularly relevant since it established a motive. I have no further questions.’ The gleam of satisfaction in Ohlsson’s eyes suggested he had made his point.
Foley, white and drawn, his body trembling with emotion, stood like a man under sentence of death as the Chairman explained that he could stand down, there being no further questions.
In the highly-charged atmosphere which followed, Lourens rose to inform the court that Ernst Rohrbach, the electronics engineer, would be available in the morning to give expert evidence. It was almost five o’clock when the Chairman adjourned the proceedings until 9.15 a.m. on the following day.
Foley waited until most people had left the courtroom, before walking towards a side exit. He was halfway there, a dazed look on his face, when his wife came up from behind, slipped her arm through his and whispered, ‘Oh God, I’m sorry. It’s my fault.’
Chapter 31
THE FOURTH DAY
With the revelation in court of an affaire which had for weeks been the subject of informed gossip out of it, public interest in the enquiry had grown even more intense by the fourth day.
Cape Town’s morning newspapers had featured Ohlsson’s cross-examination of Foley and headline writers had had a field day: Love Drama in Wrecked Supertanker competed with Sex Fight Strands Ship?; one columnist got in his titillation with Did Sex Wreck Supertanker?; another with Supertanker Sex Drama. It was highly predictable stuff and no doubt sold newspapers.
Thus it was not surprising that on the fourth day a queue had formed outside the Magistrate’s Court. It led into the building and down the passage to the entrance to ‘C’ court. Those who’d come early and managed to get into the courtroom sat on benches in the public gallery exchanging whispered confidences. A number who’d been present since the enquiry began had acquired the ephemeral status of ‘Old Hands’ and were listened to with due respect. The atmosphere was unmistakably that of an audience looking forward to a good day’s entertainment.
While there was considerable interest in the two men primarily concerned in the drama of the previous day’s evidence – Jarrett and Foley, who sat with their counsel at the long table – it was Sandy who stole the occasion. For the first three days of the enquiry she had sat well back but now, with feminine perverse-ness and not a little courage, she had mo
ved to a front bench. Wearing a simple grey suit, her hair elegantly casual, her oval face with its fine bone structure scarcely concealed by dark glasses, she looked the sort of woman men could fight over.
The low hum of conversation ceased when order was called and the Chairman and Assessors entered and made their way to the dais.
Almost immediately Ernst Rohrbach was called, went to the witness box and was sworn in. He was a slight man with a skeletal face, large dark eyes and a pronounced German accent. Lourens’s opening questions established that Rohrbach was an electronics engineer whose qualifications included a doctorate from Munich University. He had, he said, received his practical training with Krupp-Atlas in Bremen. There he had specialized in marine radar and other shipborne electronic devices. In Cape Town, where he had been in business for five years, he headed a firm which installed and serviced maritime electronic equipment. In this way he had acquired considerable experience of Decca systems since they were widely used.
‘I understand you inspected the equipment on board Ocean Mammoth a week after she was wrecked?’ said Lourens.
‘Yes. I did.’
‘Why did you do that?’
‘The marine surveyor acting for the insurers, Captain Summer-bee, asked me to go on board the after part of the ship to evaluate the electronic equipment for salvage purposes. Most of the superstructure was still above water but there had been two gales in close succession and he wished to know if it was still worth salvaging. He also said that if I had time I should try to find the cause of the failures.’
‘Did you find the cause of those failures?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can you tell the court what you found?’
‘In the case of the Decca Navigator, the insulated aerial wire which leads into the chartroom through a gooseneck on the monkey island …’
The Chairman held up his hand in a traffic-stopping gesture. ‘What is a gooseneck and what is a monkey island?’
Rohrbach’s face showed surprise. Surely, his expression conveyed, everybody should know these things. ‘A gooseneck is a tube with the top bent round through one-eighty degrees to face the deck … this keeps the water out. The monkey island is an open space on top of the bridgehouse. Its primary purpose is to provide a platform for the magnetic compass.’
‘Thank you. Please continue.’
‘This gooseneck I was talking of is on the starboard side of the monkey island, immediately above the chartroom. I found that the aerial wire had been pulled out of the gooseneck, cut with pliers and pushed back again.’
‘Would that put the Navigator out of action?’
‘Yes. Completely. It would also take some time for the cause of the trouble to be found.’
‘You are quite certain that the aerial wire had been cut?’
‘Absolutely. With cutting pliers.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘It was a clean, two-dimensional cut. Not a single cut as with a knife.’
‘Could it have been done with scissors?’
‘I don’t think so. The wire was too thick.’
‘Could the aerial wire have been kicked or pulled out accidentally by someone on the monkey island?’
‘I don’t think so. In any case there would not then be the clean cut.’
Lourens frowned at the notes on his clipboard. ‘And the radar sets. The TM and AC sets, both of which failed. What did you find there?’
‘There was an inter-switching unit on the after bulkhead in the chartroom. In a steel cabinet. From it multi-core cables led to the transceivers and radar displays. This unit makes switching possible. Gives the operator a choice of ten-or-three centimetre signals at each display, and other alternatives. I found that it had been short-circuited.’
‘How had this been done?’
‘A pocket-knife blade had been thrust between the two multi-core cables just beneath the unit.’
‘How do you know it was a pocket-knife?’
‘The end of the blade had broken off and was still embedded.’
‘Would a short circuit on the inter-switching unit put both radar sets out of action?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘You are telling the court that both the Decca Navigator and the two radar units were deliberately sabotaged?’
‘Well, they had been interfered with. Yes. This is sabotage.’ Rohrbach’s guttural accent made the word more sinister, and exclamations of surprise came from the public gallery. The Chairman called for order. ‘If that happens again,’ he threatened, ‘I will have the court cleared.’
Lourens, fidgeting impatiently with his spectacles, scowled at those in the gallery before turning back to Rohrbach. ‘How is access gained to the monkey island?’
‘A ladder leads from the bridge deck on to the after end of the island.’
‘How long would it take a person to go from the chartroom up on to the monkey island, carry out the act of sabotage you have referred to, and return to the chartroom?’
Sandy saw her husband wince as the question was put, and her heart thumped against its rib cage.
‘Two minutes at the outside. Probably less.’
Lourens said he had no more questions.
Kahn at once rose to cross-examine Rohrbach. ‘Were you alone when you went on board Ocean Mammoth to make this examination?’
‘No. Sergeant van Jaarsveld of the South African Police at Bredasdorp was with me.’
‘Why was that?’
‘In terms of the South African Shipping Act the wreck falls under the jurisdiction of the Secretary for Transport. Local responsibility for it had been delegated to the S.A. Police at Bredasdorp. Sergeant van Jaarsveld accompanied me.’
‘Did he watch you making the examination?’
‘Yes. All the time.’
‘Did you show him what you found?’
‘Yes. I did.’
‘Why did you not at once report to the authorities?’
‘I left the next day for Europe on urgent business. The police at Bredasdorp knew what I had found. Captain Summerbee had flown to London that day. I wrote to him there from Germany to say the equipment was in good shape and still worth salvaging. I mentioned that failure of the electronic systems had been caused by interference. I understand that when he returned to Cape Town recently, Captain Summerbee informed Mr Lourens and I was then subpoenaed as a witness. I had expected to be back here well before the enquiry began. I did not know that I would be detained abroad as a result of a car accident.’
Kahn said, ‘No more questions,’ and sat down.
Ohlsson leapt to his feet. ‘Your Worship, I must object. Counsel for the enquiry, in providing particulars of the charge, failed to mention that evidence would be led to show there had been sabotage. We have had no opportunity to consider this point, or to prepare any sort of defence in relation to it.’
The Chairman called on Lourens to explain.
‘Your Worship, the report we received from Captain Summerbee indicated that the failure was due to “interference”. We took that word to mean interference caused by atmospheric conditions. We did not realize until Mr Rohrbach gave his evidence this morning that it meant sabotage.’
‘That seems to me a reasonable explanation, Mr Ohlsson. Your objection is overruled.’
Ohlsson’s dark eyes flashed angry signals of resentment and when he returned to Rohrbach his manner suggested that some of this displeasure was reserved for the German. ‘You went on board Ocean Mammoth a week after she was wrecked?’
‘Yes. That is so.’
‘How do you know someone did not go on board during that week and interfere with those wires? Commit those acts of sabotage?’
‘In the first place weather, and the police guard on shore, would have made it difficult. But in any event the sabotage took place before the ship ran aground. First to the Decca Navigator and after that to the two radar sets.’
‘How do you know those failures were not due to some other causes?’
&
nbsp; ‘I tested the circuits after I’d found the faults. There was nothing wrong with the Navigator or the radar units.’
Ohlsson hesitated, seemed about to say something, shook his head, announced that he had no more questions and sat down.
Lourens asked leave to address the court. He said they were now confronted with an entirely new factor. Sabotage was, he explained, a criminal act and as such a matter for investigation by the police and trial by a criminal court.
‘We are here,’ he said, ‘to enquire how Ocean Mammoth came to run aground. The failure of the electronic navigation systems was certainly an important factor but it was contributory and not necessarily decisive. We have already heard evidence which suggests that serious errors of judgement, of commission and omission, played a major part in the disaster. I trust that Your Worship will feel that we should restrict ourselves at this enquiry to the purely maritime aspects – the mistakes and errors of judgement in navigating and handling which led eventually to the loss of this great ship – and leave the sabotage aspect to the police and criminal courts where it properly belongs. That is my submission, Your Worship.’
Lourens sat down and Goodbody got to his feet. ‘May I reply to My Learned Friend’s submission, Your Worship?’
The Chairman nodded. ‘Please proceed.’
‘We have known all along,’ said Goodbody, ‘that the electronic systems failed at a critical juncture. We are now told that those failures were due to sabotage. That, Your Worship, is an extremely important and disturbing development, and it is one of the utmost importance to those answering charges here today. For the witness Rohrbach to have testified that sabotage took place is one thing. To establish by whom it was committed and for what purpose is quite another. There are considerations of access, motive and corroborative evidence. We know that certain persons had access to the monkey island and chartroom during the critical time of approach to Cape Agulhas. There may have been others, for it was a dark night and there was dense fog. If so, who were they? Short of a searching and thorough investigation these questions cannot be answered. There is, I submit, good reason for adjourning this enquiry until such time as the proper authorities have completed their investigations. I do not see how we can usefully or justly proceed with the matter now. That is my submission, Your Worship.’