Scend of the Sea

by Geoffery Jenkins

  She gestured helplessly. One of the big supertankers ploughed south; a coaster was coming up fast behind us, closer inshore.

  'The sea has a lying face,' I retorted. 'I know. I know how savage and remorseless it can be, this stretch of apparently guileless water, and it does cover up the Waratah’s secret; we have narrowed it down to here.’

  She looked at me and said: 'Maybe I was wrong to make you come. Maybe I am wrong about the Waratah. If I am wrong about her, then I am wrong about last night.'

  I gave the wheel to Jubela and sat beside her, looking south-west.

  'No,' I replied. ‘I am the only person who has seen the other side of the coin and lived to tell it.' 'That's what I believe.'

  'Everything else, all speculation for sixty years, every sea and air search ends here, south of the Bashee.'

  It is not enough simply to be here, Ian. There must be something more.'

  'The murderers of my brother, my father and my grandfather, were never brought to trial.'

  'What do you mean, Ian?'

  ‘The sea, and the wind.’

  She gestured at the gentle sea, turning a deep blue-green in the new light. 'It seems impossible to credit.'

  'Except for the Skeleton Coast, there are more wrecks to the square mile along this coast than anywhere else in the world,' I replied.

  Tafline shivered, and she was silent a long time, staring at the empty sea. Then she said. 'If this thing - whatever it is-occurs only at long intervals, what is the use of our coming so soon after it hit at Walvis Bay! I was crazy to suggest we come in a small boat like Touleier. We're simply risking our. necks to no purpose, if the same wind and sea conditions recur.'

  My thoughts were only half on my reply. The Waratah now held to ransom the slim, lovely creature beside me; my throat constricted at the recollection of her a few hours earlier. Find the Waratah and find my love! For her sake, for my sake, there must be no mistake!

  I answered, far from convinced: 'It's just the other way round. The bigger the ship, the less chance it has, because it has a much longer length exposed to a wave. A sixty-foot wave would threaten a long ship whereas a small thing like Touleier would simply rise to it.'

  She did not seem quite reassured and did not reply. Then she turned and I found my pulses racing at those deep eyes.

  'Darling, perhaps you have already solved the Waratah problem and don't know it? Isn't it simply a question of the Waratah being overwhelmed by one of those monster waves, despite all the experts said about her stability?'

  Her tone made me yearn to play traitor and agree. Reluctantly, however, I said, The answer to that is, no bodies or wreckage were ever found, and the place was alive with ships within a couple of days. When a big vessel goes down, wreckage would spew out of her hatches; the engine-room boilers would explode.'

  She broke in hopefully, and I loved her for it. 'Isn't it all too cut and dried, just as the experts were about the Waratah and her stability?'

  I smiled back. 'Maybe as an expert I'm in danger of not seeing the wood for the trees. I can only take the picture so far, and no farther. All I know is that a danger area lay right across the track of the Waratah, and she went straight into it. Then there came into play some unknown, lethal, death-dealing factor which can swallow up a 10,000-ton liner as easily as it does a modern airliner or a supersonic fighter-jet.'

  'Do we simply wait around here, then, hoping for this unknown factor to manifest itself?'

  My heart sank when I looked at her, but I forced myself to say it. 'No. We have to run the gauntlet. That means the south-west. We must get up to Port St John's. Then, if a gale comes, we must sail the Waratah's course from there-south-west. It's the only way I see if we want to find out.'

  She came close to me, the first time since the night. ‘I don't think I am afraid of dying; I am only afraid of losing you.'

  We sailed to Port St John's from a sea as empty as the hour after the Waratah had vanished.

  CHAPTER ‘I WELVE

  It came, pungent and fateful as a distant bell-buoy tolling over a killer reef.

  All day we had inched Touleier up the Waratah coast while the wind stayed light in the north-east. Tafline and I checked, discussed, spotted landmarks like the impressive rock which is called The-Hole-in-the-Wall. It was perfect fair-weather yachting and some of the tension seemed to ebb from us as we absorbed the soporific magic and she ghosted along. We had breathtaking glimpses of black, iron-bound cliffs topped by great forests, for which the territory is famous; we could pick out, by their lofty whiteness like ships' spars, the straight trunks of the unzimbeet trees among their darker companions; fragile lagoons came and went at sunset with the chimerical loveliness of an old Chinese print on silk; tree euphorbias hung out stark candelabra of branches against great cliffs and begged to be photographed; here and there the lush strelitzias would overarch a river mouth with sensuous, tropical beauty, a frame for secret mangrove swamps behind, trodden not by human foot but by the claws of giant crabs as big as soup plates.

  The twice-daily shipping forecasts brought a taut expectancy. One is broadcast after lunch, and the other after 11 at night. There was no hint of a gale.

  There was a nerve-tingle at dawn when I brought Touleier into position off Port St John's where the Waratah and Clan Macintyre had exchanged their last signals. We had decided on this just as, lower down the coast off East London, we had cruised over the exact spot where the liner Guelph had received her garbled ‘t-a-h' lamp signal from a ship which was never subsequently identified.

  Tafline had asked me to call her when Touleier was under the Cape Hermes light. I went to her cabin. She was lying, eyes wide open, waiting for me.

  I felt a small nerve kick in her lips as she kissed me and she indicated the heavy sweater and slacks she had been wearing when she left me after the late-night forecast. The apology, the dedication, the promise, were all in her embrace. She held me for so long that it was I who had to remind her that the wheel was unattended.

  We went on deck.

  She shivered as the flash came from the Cape Hermes lighthouse. It stands, as it did when the Waratah passed by, unnaturally bright against the dark cliff on the southern bank of the lovely river mouth. Except for a few thatched cottages, the coastline looked the same as it did on that fateful morning when the two liners parted. She shivered again at the sight of the strange rectangular columns of mist marching down the St John's River to the sea, shaping themselves to the cliffs on either side. The great Gates-massive, forest-covered twin peaks flanking the river on either side-were shrouded in the early light. Once the mist swirled aside and showed the ruins of an old piled jetty and rusting boiler of some abandoned coaster, relics of the days when the port was still used by shipping.

  She whispered, as if afraid to arouse the spectres of the past. ‘Is this the place?'

  I nodded.

  The sea was empty.

  Our shadows dissipated when the sun rose for another fine day. It lulled us into going ashore when a friendly ski-boat came out from the land and offered us a ride. I left Jubela in charge of Touleier. We were rowed across the river near the mouth by an African ferry; there was a magnificent up-river view for miles. I think we were both glad to be on land and stretch our legs. We laughed at a ridiculous pleasure launch shaped like a giant swan in poor imitation of something Mediterranean; we speculated over the origin of a twelve-foot sailing ship anchor with gigantic flukes which stood near the old jetty; we saw an old cannon from the treasure ship Grosvenor, a mystery of Pondoland which rivals that of the Waratah.

  We walked along the river-side road after lunch, and she bought some African beadwork. She was excitedly showing me a tiny rectangle of exquisiteness - each pattern in the Transkei has its message, of love, rejection, birth, death, health-when a car with tourists drew up with its radio blaring.

  It was then that we heard the news of a gale warning. 'North-westerly to westerly winds in the vicinity of Cape Point will reach thirty to forty-fiv
e knots, spreading eastwards . ..'

  Eastwards! To us! Here was the classic storm pattern beginning.

  I caught her arm. The pleasure of the small purchase died in her.

  I looked at her, and she looked at me. I remember her now in her thin summer dress standing next to the roughly planked wooden stall by the edge of the chocolate river, the blue, white and gold beadwork held in her hand. It seemed impossible, in that soft semi-tropical setting, that ice, gales and rollers would start to hurl themselves at the Cape within hours. Was it one of those lethal secondary low pressure systems which hive off the main storm and send the oilmen hurrying to batten down everything to safety and shipmasters to keep anxious watches in the type of weather which has earned the Cape of Storms its terrible cognomen? Would it turn into ... ?

  'How bad is it, Ian?' she asked, handing back the bead-work to the disappointed African woman.

  'We might know more if there had been a Walvis Bay on station,' I replied. My mind raced over a mass of technicalities. 'It may be everything; it may be nothing.'

  Upon the outcome hung my career and our love..

  'God!' I burst out. 'If only I knew?’ If only I could phone the Bureau and ask.’

  'You could, Ian! It's worth the risk! - don't mention your name or Touleier or the fat will be in the fire. You must know more before sailing down the coast.'

  I punched my fist into my palm in frustration. The real significance; can only be judged when I know more about the upper air winds, temperatures, pressures, and the like.

  Imagine an ordinary yacht skipper asking for that sort of stuff!'

  'Somehow, you must'

  I looked at my watch. A quarter to two.

  'I've got it! By now the Bureau will have had plenty of time to study this morning's weather satellite picture. That'll give us some idea of what's coming. It isn't the whole answer, as you know, but it's worth trying.'

  In the old hotel's musty foyer near a glass case of sea relics -huge conch shells, a medieval ship's bottle,, a sea-scarred snuffbox whose vignette had been obliterated by long immersion -1 took the telephone call which was to mean so much to us. Tafline stood looking out to the river, past the massive wooden balcony supports of old ships' beams as I heard the portents.

  'What is it, darling?' she asked, when I had finished.

  She had paled, and I kissed the bloodless lips. 'It's still too early to say. We must get away to sea. At dawn this morning, the Cape had strong wind and rain, and by ten o'clock it was blowing a gale; the pressure went down like a lift. I think the Bureau was delighted to have a mere yachtsman ask such intelligent questions - they were quite forthcoming. The storm's moving east, at a great rate, towards us. But it could sheer off southwards into the Southern Ocean. Then all we'd get off the Bashee would be some strong wind.'

  'Shall we know at all in advance?' She, like myself, knew we "had to go, yet we jibbed before putting the horse to that cataclysmic jump.

  'From the signs we can, and the signs are at sea,' I answered. 'Here on the coast we should have a north-easterly wind today, and maybe even into tomorrow. You can tell if it's going to be a real buster because the pressure drops while the northeaster blows. Then suddenly the wind will die. Up goes the pressure. The wind shifts like lightning into the south-west, and before you know where you are it's a full gale.’

  ‘ A Waratah gale, Ian?' she asked in a small voice.

  'The right thing would be to signal Port Elizabeth as we go south. Yet one word of me being here in Touleier, in a gale, and they'd stick me landbound in a desert at the farthest spot away from the sea they could find, if they didn't sack me outright. We must get to sea - now. It might take us all night to reach our target area off the Bashee. We can hope for that freshening north-easter behind Touleier until it drops and gives way to what we're really looking for,'

  Our ski-boaters had left the village and gone fishing at Second Beach, an idyllic spot at the back of the huge cliff which is Cape Hermes. We hurriedly hired a car and found them on the rocks. They were surprised at our urgency to get to sea, and it was not until the middle of the afternoon that they put us alongside Touleier. They did not seem to grasp the significance of the yacht's famous name, and I did not enlighten them.

  'Get the mainsail and jib on her,' I ordered an equally surprised Jubela.

  As we headed away south-west, I explained the weather to him. We crammed on the big spinnaker to make time until dark. Later I intended to clear the decks of all loose gear and snug her down in earnest to meet the gale.

  The sun dropped behind the Gates of Port St John's, and the forests were silhouetted. Tafline had been below a long time, securing and stowing the galley things and double-checking all lockers.

  She had changed from her summer dress back into yachting sweater and slacks when she joined me. Cape Hermes was still visible astern, although the lighthouse itself was masked. She sat by me at the helm while Jubela worked forward.

  We continued to watch the disappearing headland. Then Tafline left her seat and dropped on her knees in front of me on the gratings, scrutinizing me as if we had been parted for years.

  'When I listened to you on the phone talking about the ins-and-outs of the weather I wondered, are we not dicing with the devil for our lives. Not the Flying Dutchman, but us? Deliberately, presumptuously - us?'

  The headland flared brighter, the sun using the river passage for its last rays.

  I tried to soothe her fears with more facile explanations of the safety of a small ship in a gale, and how tried and tested Touleier was, except for the new self-steering gear. I did not confess my misgivings about it, nor about the tall racing mast. I had watched Walvis Bay's short stubby foremast go half-overboard, and it had been steel, not light alloy, nor was it under a press of sail.

  She did not take her eyes from mine as I explained. Then, as I faltered to a finish, she made the most telling gesture in all my knowledge of our love. She put her cheeks between my hands, and said something to herself as if her heart would break. Then she spread her arms on my knees and buried her face, so that I saw the last sunlight between her short hair and the polo collar. Did she weep? Did she pray? All I know is that she knelt silent a long time. The yacht drove on.

  The day ran out, and the partridge sky became feathered with gold.

  We took the racing sails off her at sundown and brought up the tough gale trysail ready for use. Jubela and I worked on the self-steering gear and decided to disconnect it. Both of us had shared the wheel in Walvis Bay's ordeal, and we knew what to expect. Our judgment, in an engineless craft under sail, would have to be finer than any automatic device if the same thing happened again.

  When we had cleared the yacht, I sent Jubela below to rest. Tafline stayed with me, waiting for the late-night shipping forecast. It would give us an idea of the direction of the storm. What I wanted, however, was more technical data which I could get only from Port Elizabeth, but I dared not signal the met. office there. I shelved my dilemma. The wind became fresher from the north-east; the stars were numberless over our heads, and the sea was sweet

  She tuned in.

  'There is a gale warning,' said the announcer. 'Strong north-westerly winds between Cape Town and Cape Agulhas will reach forty to fifty knots, spreading eastwards, with south-westerly forty-five to fifty-five knots later.'

  The signs are there, all right' I remarked. Tonight every oil rig will be battened down, waiting for the worst'

  'Why does the wind switch from northwest to southwest round the Cape coast?' she asked.

  'Because of the land mass,' I replied. 'That's why I'm so desperately keen to know what is happening at Port Elizabeth.'

  She went on hesitantly, as she always did when she asked me about sailing matters. 'Phillips was dumbfounded when he saw that old-time ship sailing against the wind. Since Touleier has no engine, how do you intend pushing into the teeth of a south-westerly gale?'

  The impending storm still seemed very far away that clear, fresh
night with her next to me.

  I held her hand tightly and explained. 'Safe tactics in a sailing ship and a steamer caught in this sort of gale are two different matters. Two windjammers - the Johanna and Indian Empire-were, in fact, caught on the same day by the Waratah's gale. Both "hauled out" some seventy miles to sea to get away from the tug of the southbound Agulhas Current. They both crossed the Waratah's course, but they saw nothing, and spent ten days in one position riding the storm. That's what the experts thought Captain Ilbery would have done in the Waratah - beat it out to sea as far as he could, to ride out the storm in safety there.'

  'You still haven't told me what you intend to do.'

  'If the wind freshens, as I think it will, we'll be off the Bashee by mid-morning. While the weather is fair, I’ll get Touleier as near to Waratah's last known position as I can. Then - we'll ride out the gale. See what happens. We can't do more, we simply don't know more. It's really trailing one's coat in a sailer. We'll have to play the game off the cuff, perhaps even heave to, if the weather becomes too bad.'

  Touleier drove for the Bashee.

  Jubela called me at first light and I went to wake Tafline to be with me at the radio. I still dared not make a signal. I decided that I would try and intercept what Port Elizabeth was saying to other shipping. If it was bad, the port met. office would be warning the coast. From there, too, had come the C-in-C's 'clear-out' order.

  I stood for a long while, simply looking down on her asleep in all her loveliness, not daring to bring her to the day of tight tensions which I knew must follow. For I had taken a look round from the cockpit, and the signs were in the sea and sky. The wind had backed northerly and freshened; the tiny fluffs of cirrus cloud seemed high enough to want to compete with the last fading stars. There was no ominous bank on the south-western horizon yet, the purple sky-bloom which wrote the death of Waratah, Gemsbok and the Buccaneer. I was uneasy, taut, yet eager for the encounter, but I am glad now that I waited that breathing-space of minutes while my breath fell into step with hers, which the creaking of the yacht failed to disturb.