To check hatch-coverings would have been Halloran’s immediate reaction too, after that huge impact. Whatever else he might be, he was a seaman, knew his business: as soon as he’d begun to move, one had known what would be in his mind. But after conferring with the skipper, the decision must have been to leave well alone – not to risk men’s lives down there when you didn’t have to.
Fair enough. Although even with binoculars one’s view from up here was limited by the angle of sight as well as distance. Anyway – it was one-thirty now. Fisher had this watch, Halloran would take over from him at four, and in the absence of any more of those huge tonnages of sea dropping on them – which touch wood might have marked the height of this storm, it might conceivably have hit its peak and be moderating again now – well, get the head down, he thought, prepare for what might well be strenuous dark hours ahead. Surely would be.
Dark-hours watch-keeping in convoy and this kind of weather was, he’d discovered, extremely hard work. Cold work, too; even in the middle of the day it was freezing cold up there. Looking into the saloon first, though, he found Julia and Finney still there. Julia had tried a cigarette, she told him, and it had tasted awful: she was thinking she might take the opportunity of giving up smoking altogether. ‘But listen, Andy – how stewards and galley-boys can make it across that after well-deck with food and drink for the mess-hall – how anyone can, for that matter – well, beats me!’
‘Judge the right moment, then move quick, that’s all. They all have to – going on and off watch. And there are lifelines rigged.’ Batt Collins had set them up before departure from Halifax, two stretches of steel-wire rope from the poop along the ship’s-side edges of number four and five to the after end of this central island and access to engine-spaces.
Should have lifelines for’ard as well, he thought – for purposes of hatch-inspection. Julia of course hadn’t got as far as considering that possible requirement. He sat down across the table from her and Finney. ‘Imagine how it’d be if crews still lived for’ard – which they would be doing if the old girl hadn’t been redesigned when she was actually on the stocks – crew accommodation under the poop being the new thing then, and Dundas Gore pretty well obliged to conform. They’d bought her half-built from some foreigner who’d gone bust. Bargain-basement price, no doubt. That’s how she has the modern bunk-rooms and mess-hall arrangement, only stores and so forth in the foc’sl-head, but still looks a bit old-fashioned – I mean, externally. As you’d know, I’m sure, foc’sl life was always hellish – thundering racket, leaks, either ice-cold or suffocating hot, rats by the hundred – and my God, the sanitary arrangements –’
‘I’ve been told.’
‘How it was. Still is, here and there. Certainly was in the ship I spent two years in as a cadet, Blood Line steamer Burntisland. And she’s still in harness – last I heard, she was. Must be a lot of old tubs working that shouldn’t be.’
Pausing while PollyAnna dug her snout deep in the trough then reared slowly with the shakes again, hung for a few moments before slamming down and then toppling almost on to her beam-ends, hanging there – taking more thumping, deafeningly loud punishment before slowly righting herself. And now again – bow down… Julia pushing her chair back, telling him and Finney, her voice a touch unsteady, ‘Think I’ll get some shut-eye.’
* * *
It wasn’t moderating. Definitely was not. Taking over his watch at eight that evening – revs unchanged, course the same, weather on the bow near enough where it had been for days now – having looked around for a minute, he yelled at Halloran, ‘More like force ten than nine, isn’t it?’
‘I’m calling it ten.’
Turning away, en route to the chart table to complete the log for the past four hours. The wind was a shrieking roar, PollyAnna pitching as savagely as ever, and rolling harder – her rolling less regular than the pitching, at times hanging over for so long and so far you could begin to think she wasn’t going to bother rolling back, was as it were trapped under the weight of water already on her: whitened sea pouring over and flying up virtually solid, smashing across this bridge, let alone heavier impacts on the island’s lower levels; if you hadn’t convinced yourself she would always recover, you could have thought more than once, Christ, here’s come-uppance finally… And – should cut the bloody revs… The Old Man was on the bridge, though, nearly all the time – meaning all night, as he was every night, no doubt would be as long as this lasted. Keeping himself to himself, letting officers of the watch get on with it, present only because conditions were as they were and if he should be needed – well, here he was, short, stocky figure, most of the time with its glasses up. He’d order a reduction in revs if he considered it essential: and the screw was racing, in longer and steeper bow-down periods, the helmsman using every ounce of his skill and strength – needing plenty of both – to hold her on or even near the course, or get her back on to it when she’d yawed away or the sea drove her off it and the rudder hadn’t enough solid water to grip on or for the screw not to race.
Keeping station, for all that. The Frenchman, Soissons, with her stern light only a pinpoint in a patch of white expanding and contracting in the black heave of darkness out ahead; the St Benedict similar – except no light visible and with differing variations of shape – more or less on the beam to starboard; the tanker British Stream out to port and often invisible – that low freeboard completely engulfed, so showing only the bridge and accommodation structure aft. The nub of it was that you followed the frog, assuming he was where he should be; as some check on that, you also had the stern lights of the ships each side of him, which by an effort of somewhat inessential memory you knew to be the Maida Vale (astern of the Kilindini) and the Empire John – number two in column three – being as you were inside the 135-degree arcs of their stern lights.
‘All right, Edmonds?’
A bark of either acknowledgement or mirth – wrenching the wheel over to counter a slide away to port. Stem crashing down, and the whiteness soaring… ‘Gotter be, ain’t she!’ He’d added something to that but Andy hadn’t heard it over the surrounding racket of wind and sea. PollyAnna bow-down still and the stuff still flying, whitening-out any forward view; searching alternatively for the St Benedict then, and not finding her either – being deep in this trough, wave-tops higher all round: but on her way up now – at last…
At ten-thirty the gunlayer, Bakewell, took over the wheel from Edmonds. Edmonds reporting to Andy, ‘Helmsman relieved, sir, course oh-five-oh.’
‘Well done.’
Edmonds had had his thirtieth birthday at sea between Cape Town and Montevideo, Andy remembered. Finney lurching in then to report that the bridge-wing lookouts had changed over. ‘Brooks and Curtis on now.’
‘All right. Half an hour, you can get us some tea.’
‘Be glad to!’
In the dim glow from the binnacle, as much of the boy’s face as was exposed to view – between the pulled-down woollen hat and a towel wrapped around inside the neck of his oilskin – looked blue with cold. Andy said, ‘Wishing we’d left you safe and sound in the Glauchau, I dare say.’ He put his glasses back on the Soissons – finding her well to starboard of where he’d expected her to be, consequently shouting to Bakewell, ‘Ship’s head now?’
‘Oh-three-nine. Sorry, sir, she’s –’
Eleven degrees off-course: not the Soissons way off her station.
‘– getting her back now. Sort of heavy for’ard, sir.’
‘Heavy?’
Big one, then: very big, a wall of it rearing over the foc’sl-head – but more on the bow, starboard side, catching her with that bow exposed through still being something like 10 degrees off course, shrieking wind and hammering sea nearer 50 degrees on the bow than 30 – this mountain towering with its streaming-white upper fringes curling like claws, poised and still swelling, gathering strength and weight as if set on finishing her this time – and dropping – thundering black mass shot with white
and boiling ten feet deep, pouring aft, but its potential for damage nothing like expended yet, the noise like close, heavy and continuous gunfire deafening as it hit this island and rocketed, the bridge structure itself feeling unsafe from such tremendous impact – and a crash from back there somewhere – timber smashing? Andy’s fast, shocked mental image being then of the hatch-cover on number four stove in; then, no, closer than that, one of the boats – damn near the whole ship for some moments virtually submerged, weighed-down and struggling, vibration enough to shake rivets loose. Lessening now, recovering, and the Old Man who’d been hanging on through that half-minute to whatever he’d had in reach of his short, thick arms, stocky figure in its oilskins and sou’wester hauling itself this way as the avalanche’s thunder reduced enough for a human voice pitched high to be heard: ‘Holt – see what that was – starboard side amidships. Boat, likely. Bakewell – feels heavy for’ard, you said. Like water in her?’
Andy would remember later having thought – on being ordered below to establish what that virtual explosion had been – Be down there when the next one comes – well, goodbye girls, just your rotten luck! But goodbye Julia, too – and that wasn’t funny, really wasn’t; it was a revelation to him how unfunny … As it turned out he didn’t have to go down anyway, was stopped at the top of the ladder since someone else was coming up – guessing it might be Halloran, and proved right, Halloran bawling at the skipper that both starboard-side boats had gone, bosun and others down there clearing away wreckage. The motorboat had been smashed completely, its engine dropped clean out through its bottom; and he, Halloran, while down there with the bosun had made a quick check on the hatch-covers of numbers four and five and found them absolutely sound. Old Man bellowing, ‘May not be the same story for’ard, but don’t go checking, not you nor no one else, Mister!’ He’d just blown down the tube to the engine room, Bakewell having answered his question with, ‘Wouldn’t be surprised, sir’ – meaning yes, could be water in her. Andy thinking, a hatch-cover gone, or leaking: couldn’t be a small leak either – as through ripped tarpaulins, for instance – not if the weight inside her was already significant enough to affect the rudder’s influence on her. He had his glasses up again, searching for the Soissons’ stern light; PollyAnna with her stem pointing at the invisible racing clouds, stern deep, shuddering, Old Man shouting into the tube to reduce to revs for five knots – which must have been queried by the engineer on watch, as he’d now had to repeat it. Halloran lurching up beside Andy, asking him, ‘What’s up?’
‘Helmsman – Bakewell – reckons she’s heavy for’ard, could have water in her.’
It would feel something like having an anchor out for’ard: as if when putting the helm over you were turning her stern around that kind of pivot. Although it wasn’t stopping her from chucking herself around. Halloran hadn’t commented – thinking it over, no doubt – but the skipper had yelled to Bakewell, ‘Bring her easy to zero-seven-oh!’
‘Oh-seven-oh, sir…’
To stem the weather, at revs reduced by almost half. Should make it easier for her – which if she’d been shipping water for’ard was obviously essential. Although stemming wind and sea was all she’d be doing; might even be driven backward. Convoy bashing on, PollyAnna straggling, solo, with an unknown quantity of water in her and two of her four boats gone. Would be found missing when daylight came, as others had been earlier. Since wireless silence had to be total – well, no signal, no way for her skipper to explain her absence or condition. Might have passed a brief report of the situation by Aldis lamp – he, Andy, could have done, if called upon to do it; alternatively Dewar or Starkadder if summoned from the W/T office where they spent all their time in headphones, eavesdropping on this and that but did not on any account transmit. But there again, the Commodore had insisted he didn’t want Aldis lamps flashing all over the shop at night – ‘Any chat that’s necessary, let’s do it in daylight – uh?’ Fisher had made a note of that. But in weather such as this no explanation was really necessary in any case: it was odds-on there’d be others besides PollyAnna falling-out tonight. The thing now was the method of slipping out of the formation reasonably safely, when there’d be say six or eight ships back there she might run foul of, once out of her proper station. The Old Man had her now anyway: having passed helm and speed orders directly, usurping the function of his officer of the watch. Andy with his glasses up, a mere spectator, focusing on what he assumed to be the Eileen Harper, a white mound – or disturbance more than mound – overhauling PollyAnna to port; and the skipper shouting to Bakewell to bring her back to 050 degrees. Made sense – having moved out to roughly midway between columns, resuming the convoy course to stay middled while those on her quarters drew ahead. Two to come on each quarter – if they were still there and in station you’d have them passing at roughly 300 yards on each side. Andy yelled into Finney’s ear, ‘Tell wing lookouts ships from astern’ll be passing close, long as they’re not inside a cable’s length abeam, no worry.’
‘Right…’
Skipper’s shout then: ‘Finney – wait!’
‘Sir?’
‘Do that, then find the Chief Engineer, tell him I’d like a word.’
Andy had an idea of what Finney’s next task after that might be. Should be. Also asking himself what he’d do now or next if he was in the Old Man’s boots. Well – one, get her clear of the rest of them – as he was doing – and two, back on to a course of 070 or 075, her nose into the weather, and three, find out where the flooding was. It would be the carpenter’s job to sound round – i.e. to dip all tanks and bilges.
Please God let it be a tank and not a hold.
‘Ship passing close to port, sir!’
Three-quarter buried in foam, battling through it. Column four, number five or six, that would be. While a binocular sweep to starboard found nothing. Meanwhile, back to that last thought – PollyAnna with her stem in deep, shipping it solid over that bow and as far aft as number three – that vision of Postlethwaite sounding the forward holds…
Scary. Fore-peak or the deep-tank was one thing, a hold very much another: but anyway, in this sea-state no more feasible than it would be to check the for’ard hatch-covers. Simply could not get there to take his soundings.
‘Wanted to see me – sir?’ Hibbert – staggering colossus steadying itself with a hand up to the deckhead. ‘Revs for five knots now – had that passed to me, but –’
‘May be taking in water somewhere for’ard, Chief. Feeling it in the steering. Any ideas?’
‘Only to have Postlethwaite sound round.’
‘Bloody hell, man, look!’
PollyAnna obliging with a demonstration of her corkscrew roll: sea swamping over on the weather bow, piling deep and white over and around the hatch-covers, flooding aft still deep – solid white – until she’d lifted and begun to roll the other way. If Postlethwaite had been down there with his sounding-rods he wouldn’t be there now. Hibbert standing back, clear of the wheel and binnacle. ‘See what you mean.’ She was shipping it in quantity over the other gunwale then: Andy thinking, maybe she was hanging bow-down longer than she should have. Could be imagination, though. Bakewell’s imagination, even? But wasn’t that wishful thinking… Old Man shouting at his engineer, ‘Easier when her head’s into it. Postlethwaite’s last soundings showed tanks empty for’ard, did they? Fore-peak dry?’
‘If they hadn’t, we’d’ve pumped!’
‘So try now with the pumps, see what you get.’
‘Aye…’
Pumps – one main one and one auxiliary – with lines to all tanks and bilges, were in the engine room. Controlled from there anyway. You got suction on this or that bilge by opening valves on certain lines, shutting others. Postlethwaite’s daily soundings were recorded on a blackboard on one of the gratings at the top of the engine-space; like the bosun he was primarily responsible to the mate, but with pumps being engineers’ business, the responsibilities overlapped.
Hibbert had
gone down. Andy had in his glasses the plunging profile of a steamer whose name he remembered as the Muriel Sykes. Shouting over the din, ‘Last of column three overhauling starboard, sir!’
‘That the lot?’
‘Should be –’
‘Come to oh-seven-five, Bakewell!’
‘Oh-seven-five, sir…’
The weather-stemming course.
‘Still feel heavy?’
‘Yessir. No worse, I’d say, but –’ Grunting, as he wound starboard rudder on her. PollyAnna leaning hard to port and the Muriel Sykes’ stern light glittering through flying suds closer than Andy had thought she was. Bakewell finishing with ‘– answers so slow, seems.’
‘More’n just a few gallons in the peak, then.’
‘I’d say so, sir.’
Meaning guess so. Imagination did play its part – that and what you either feared or hoped for as the answer. Andy telling himself that if her head could be held dead into wind and weather, at these revs she might – might – ride it out, ride most of it out, not have any but those real bastards rearing up and smashing down on hatch-covers that might already have been weakened to the extent of letting the stuff in. Then one might – after watching for a while to be sure how she was weathering it – chance taking a look down there. Himself and Batt Collins maybe, and Postlethwaite with them. Well, say a team of half a dozen – and while at it, rig lifelines.
Not that it would be up to him. But if there was any general discussion…
At first light, maybe. Eight hours’ time, say. If PollyAnna’d stick it that long. Depending on how much water she had in her already, and the rate of intake and how well the pumps might cope with that. Face it, that was the situation: you were on a ship that might bloody founder, might not have eight hours – or six – or four.
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