by Alan Evans
Smith shouted, “Cut her loose! Get those men out and all accounted for!”
The axes flashed as they rose and fell. The hands came clambering out of the holds, yanked out by the Petty Officers and thrust towards the side. They jumped at the nettings and clawed their way up Thunder’s side like flies caught in a web.
“Number two hold cleared, sir.”
“… hold cleared, sir!”
“Get aboard!” He shouted at them. “Get aboard!”
He stood by the after hold with Thunders boat derrick projecting above him like a gallows tree with its dangling wire. The Mary Ellen was going down. He snapped at Aitkyne, the only man left on the deck, “How many men in the hold?” The wire from the derrick hung slackly down into the hold.
“Two, sir. Kennedy and young Manton.”
Now Smith could see them down there, securing the sacks on the strop. One of them yelled, mouth pink against the coal-dust, Aitkyne lifted his arm and the wire drew taut.
Smith shoved him towards the side. “Get aboard!” He saw him on the nettings as the warps parted to slam against Thunder’s side and be hauled inboard. He saw the two men with axes throw them away, jump at the nets and scramble up.
He was a solitary figure on the collier’s deck under the glare of the lights as the sea seemed to hang above the deck of the Mary Ellen and then fell in on him. The load came swinging up out of the hold with Kennedy and Manton clinging to the sacks and as it soared past him he clawed and caught hold and Kennedy’s fist clamped on his collar. He was snatched off the deck of the collier as the sea smashed around his waist.
They swung like a pendulum, fingers hooked like claws and knees gripping the sacks above a boiling sea. The Mary Ellen had gone. Then the derrick swayed them in and down on to Thunder’s deck.
They had torn a hundred and twenty tons of coal out of the Mary Ellen. At risk of their lives they had won at most another twenty-four hours of life for Thunder. Now she had coal for just two days’ steaming.
VIII
Thunder raised the scattered lights of Malaguay at midnight, seen dimly through recurrent rain that drove in on the gale that thrust at her, rocking her still further in a sea that rolled her badly enough, and blowing her smoke down and across that sea. She still heaved lumpily in the shelter of the roadstead as she came to anchor. The pinnace set out for the shore with the crew of the Mary Ellen and the searchlight blinked to Ariadne and Elizabeth Bell: “Prepare to sail with me forthwith.”
Ariadne acknowledged at once but the signal had to be repeated twice to the Elizabeth Bell, and Smith was on the point of firing a gun to get their attention, infuriated at this delay, when a lamp replied limpingly from her bridge.
There was a hail from the deck and a moment later Wakely reported: “Boat alongside, sir. Mr. Thackeray coming aboard.”
As Smith left the bridge he caught Garrick’s eye on him and said flatly, “I know, coal. You’d better come along and hear what he has to say.” Thunder had steamed at fifteen knots for most of the previous twenty-six hours and had devoured coal that at ten knots, would have lasted four days. Now she was left with coal for only forty-eight hours’ steaming. She had to coal before those two days were out or lie a motionless hulk at the end of them.
Thackeray came aboard in a glistening wet yellow oilskin that reached to his ankles and they went to Smith’s deck cabin. Thackeray shook the folds from a clean, white handkerchief, wiped a face that was even longer than usual and asked in a tone between hope and apprehension: “Did you find her?”
Smith nodded. “She refused to heave to and continued to claim she was a neutral. Have you heard any report that she was calling the shore stations?”
“None.”
“She was sending hard enough to someone, and in code. And our wireless picked up a reply that was a Telefunken transmission. That scarcely sounds neutral to me.” He paused as Thackeray stared at him, then: “I sank her!”
Thackeray’s lips tightened till they became a thin, sulky line as Smith pushed on, his voice dangerously quiet.
“She was not the only collier to sink. I met the Mary Ellen south of here. Her engines were broken down and she was being driven on to a lee shore where she had no damned business to be and her Master said you sent her! She sank!”
A nerve twitched a corner of Thackeray’s mouth. “It seemed best.”
“Best! If her engines hadn’t broken down I’d have missed her altogether!”
“— and in accordance with your request for assistance.”
Smith stared at him. “My request? I asked you to fetch her here to wait for me.”
“You asked me to bring her down from Guaya because you badly needed coal. You didn’t say she was to wait.”
“I didn’t need to! Because you couldn’t send her anywhere because you didn’t even know where I was going.”
“I knew you sailed south.”
“That is a very general direction in a very large ocean.”
“I am no seaman.”
“Yet you instructed the Master of the Mary Ellen to sail south.”
“I was repeating your instructions.”
“I told you —”
“I remember very well what you told me, Captain. I only wish I had a witness to the conversation.”
Smith sat silent. There was a little gleam of triumph in Thackeray’s eyes and Smith had not missed the point of his words. Smith did not have a witness either, so it was his word against Thackeray’s. He looked at Garrick, who was peering at Thackeray with distaste. It was obvious who Garrick believed. Smith was confident he knew what a Court of Enquiry would believe if they were asked by Thackeray to accept that a seaman had left instructions to send a collier to sea with the vague direction to head south. No seaman in his right mind would—
His thoughts stumbled, then limped on. Three ships sunk in forty-eight hours, two of them claiming to be neutrals and the Master of the third believing him to be a madman.
Thackeray had sent the Mary Ellen south knowing very well the odds were that Thunder would miss her. Because Smith had wrecked his cosy little world. Because he hated Smith.
He looked at Thackeray and could read all this in the man’s remote face. But prove it? He rubbed his hands across his face. He felt tired and said tiredly, “There will be a Court of Enquiry.” He was done with Thackeray.
Thackeray was not done with him. He said with satisfaction, “No doubt. The attitude of the Chileans has hardened even further. I understand the Master of the Gerda is screaming to high heaven that she was neutral and there is no evidence to the contrary. They’re really angry.” He did not say they were howling for Smith’s head but that could be read between the lines. “They were very suspicious about the seaplane and why the pinnace went to her. I told them I knew nothing about it.” He was washing his hands of that. “They’re very hostile. My protest about the German breach of neutrality was accepted and that’s all.”
“What breach of neutrality?”
“The Leopard, the gunboat interned here. There was no sentry aboard her, only one on the quay and last night, after you sailed, it seems he abandoned his post. She got up steam and slipped away.”
“What?”
“There’s quite a strong German faction here. So when she was interned her crew were left to live aboard. She wasn’t disabled but all her ammunition was taken off and put in bond in the Naval Arsenal. That was partly because she is, or was, tied up close to the town and they didn’t want a lot of explosives lying around there indefinitely, but it also satisfied the neutrality laws, in that she could not fight.”
“So she went to sea toothless.” Smith scowled but it was a comforting thought in one way. “With what object?”
“Object?”
“She can’t sail to Germany and in her present state she can’t fight. What reason could she have for going to sea?” He supplied the answer himself. “She’s gone to meet the cruisers.”
It was one more piece of evidence, circumsta
ntial no doubt, but it fitted. Garrick looked thoughtful.
Smith said, “The cruisers can supply her with ammunition, and what’s more she will be one more pair of eyes for them.” Thackeray would not appreciate that. He had not stood on the bridge of Thunder that morning, cursing the lack of an extra pair of eyes.
He prompted Thackeray bitterly because Thackeray was piling it on. “Anything else?”
Thackeray hesitated, seemed reluctant, then said, “I had a cable. Kunashiri is in these waters. She’s a long way north but she’s steaming south. She’s due at Guaya in thirty-six hours or less …”
Smith stared at him, slowly taking it in. Japan was an ally and Kunashiri was one of the big, new Japanese battlecruisers, fast enough to catch a German armoured cruiser, her twelve-inch guns big enough for her to stand off and destroy the victims when caught. Smith had wished for a consort and now he had one with a vengeance.
He found he was on his feet, and laughing. Then he remembered: the battle-cruiser was his salvation but first he had to reach her. He said brusquely, “I must ask you to excuse me now. Ariadne and Elizabeth Bell should be ready to sail soon and I want to leave for Guaya as soon as possible.”
And he wanted to be quit of Thackeray with his narrow mouth and narrow cunning, his stupidity.
Thackeray did not move. He was looking down at his hands that were clasped as if in prayer and Smith could not see his eyes though he saw the twist of the lips as Thackeray spoke. “I received a second cable. This one said that Wolf and Kondor have been sighted in the Indian Ocean and the hunt has started there.” He looked up at Smith and the eyes glittered. He had held it back to the end though it made the rest irrelevant.
Smith could not speak.
Garrick said, “Could easily be a mistake, sir. Some of these merchant chaps …” His voice trailed away and Smith knew Garrick did not believe what he had said because Garrick had always doubted. Only Sarah Benson … Garrick did not look at him. Smith thought, ‘Never kick a man when he’s down.’
Thackeray said, “They’re searching.”
Garrick said, “I think it’s time you went ashore Mister Thackeray.” Now his voice held distaste. Thackeray pulled his oilskin about him. “I’m not going ashore. I’ve booked a passage in the Elizabeth Bell as far as Guaya. I think it’s time I compared notes with Mr. Cherry, particularly as he may be called home over this — this unfortunate affair.”
Smith asked quietly, “Have you told Graham and Ballard?”
Thackeray knew what he meant — the cruisers being sighted in the Indian Ocean. He smiled. “No. I thought I’d leave that to you.”
Garrick shouldered out of the cabin after Thackeray and Smith was left alone. He sat there for some time. Once he thought that Sarah Benson had believed and he wondered how she felt. Thackeray would tell her and Graham as soon as he set foot aboard the Elizabeth Bell.
He climbed up to the bridge. Aitkyne turned his back to the wind that hurled the rain in driving sheets, wiped at his streaming face and shouted, “They’re both of them on the move, sir! Must have had steam up!”
Smith nodded. They would certainly have had steam up. By now they would have abandoned hope of Thunder’s return within the time-limit he had set and been preparing to take him at his word and sail on their own initiative. They did not know of the cruiser’s sighting, that cable had been for Thackeray and Smith only.
He was aware that Garrick had muttered to Aitkyne and now both were watching him. They looked — sorry.
He said flatly, “Elizabeth Bell to lead at five knots, then Ariadne and we’ll bring up the rear.” The tramp was the slowest vessel. These were the dispositions he had decided before he reached Malaguay. He would play the game out to the end. “Make to Elizabeth Bell: ‘Act on instructions from Ariadne’. And to Ariadne: ‘Pass all my orders to Elizabeth Bell’.”
*
Thunder weighed and left her brief shelter and went to sea again but moving dead slow as she waited for the other two ships as they came beating out of the anchorage and plunging into the big seas outside. Ariadne led but as she came up to Thunder and the signal lamp flashed from the wing near Smith her speed fell away. Smith thought that Ballard would be annoyed at the slow speed. It was a comfortable speed for Elizabeth Bell in this weather but a funeral march for Ariadne. He saw in the lights on her deck the white faces of a few hardy souls who had braved the storm to demonstrate their loyalty. They stood in a huddled group on the deck below the superstructure and he saw them waving.
Elizabeth Bell followed close on Ariadne and narrowing the gap. Seas were bursting over her fo’c’sle. The signal lamp flickered again on Thunder and was acknowledged. No one waved on Elizabeth Bell but he saw Graham in the lighted wheelhouse lift his bowler, and abaft the bridge a figure clung to a stanchion, skirt whipping out like a flag. Sarah Benson. Smith wondered why she was on deck in this weather?
Thunder was increasing speed and Smith ordered, “Make to Ariadne: ‘Darken ship’.” And then he shifted restlessly as he came back to partial life and the thoughts stirred. He leaned over the rail, staring not at Ariadne but at the darkness astern, black, white-whipped sea and beyond the lights of Malaguay. No one on shore would see them now. “Mr. Wakely.”
“Sir?”
“I think I see a boat astern of us.”
Wakely was silent a moment, leaning beside Smith, then he said quickly, “Yes, sir. Looks like a big motor-launch — can’t make out a funnel — but I can’t make out much of her at all. She’s carrying no lights.”
Smith faced forward. “Watch her.” Ariadne and Elizabeth Bell had obeyed the order and their ports were covered and only navigation lights showed. “Make to Ariadne: ‘Turn in succession, four points to port’.” He waited as the signal was made and acknowledged and waited again as Ariadne passed it on. The minutes stretched out and then Garrick said, “Elizabeth Bell is turning.”
Smith nodded. Then Ariadne turned and finally Thunder and the three ships headed out to sea. Neither Ballard nor Graham would be pleased. This was not a course for Guaya. But they would draw the conclusion that Smith was taking a course far out of the normal trade route to evade pursuit.
Smith asked, “Well, Mr. Wakely?”
“She’s still there, sir. Wait a minute, though —”
They had been ten minutes on the changed course and whoever manned the launch would be having a rough passage in this sea.
Wakely called, “She’s turning! She’s dropping back!”
She was. Smith could just see the boat, broadside on and falling away astern. She came around further still, showed her stern and now he saw a faint, dim light in the well of her, possibly the compass. A moment later the darkness hid her.
He waited a further ten minutes and then ordered the return to their original course. He had one crumb of comfort for Ballard. “Make to Elizabeth Bell: ‘Proceed at best speed’.” Now he knew they were neither watched nor followed he would make the best speed he could. It would add another two or three knots. Ariadne was still far from stretching her legs but at least she would feel she was moving.
He left the bridge. Wakely stared at him as if he had second sight but he would not explain tonight. He would not explain that he had expected the Germans in Malaguay to watch his course and to suspect that once out of sight of the land he might change that course. So he expected the launch to be there. She would think she had caught him laying a false trail and that his course to Guaya lay well out to sea. But why had she trailed him if the cruisers were a world away?
He wanted to be alone.
*
He was on the bridge before dawn and Garrick came to stand beside him and together they drank hot coffee and watched the blackness over the tossing sea turn to grey. The navigation lights of Ariadne and Elizabeth Bell paled in that greyness as the ships took solid shape. Then it was full day and he could see his little convoy clearly, Ariadne heaving solidly, Elizabeth Bell plugging into the seas. Visibility was fair, no better than that
, but it was enough.
Garrick hailed the masthead and the reply came back: “Nothing, sir, only Ariadne an’ Elizabeth Bell.”
Smith heard it poker-faced. That was all that was left of his calm pose. He could not converse casually because he did not want to face his officers. He did not want to see the embarrassment and the pity behind it. They were at last on his side but now he had to stand alone. He avoided them. He would not go below and they passed within inches of where he stood or paced the bridge but it was as if they moved in different worlds. The whole ship seemed to tip-toe around him. He passed the long hours of the morning in thought and at the end could remember none of it. Only at the end his thoughts turned to coal and his need of it.
He had sunk two colliers filled with prime Welsh coal. And men. My God, men!
But he still could not believe that his whole reasoning had been wrong.
It was long past noon and they would reach Guaya shortly after sunset. A sun that was bright but robbed of heat by the wind tightened his eyes. It seemed to smile on Thunder and on himself but it brought him no warmth nor comfort.
The call came down from the masthead: “Smoke bearing green one-six-oh!”
IX
The gale was blowing itself out. Thunder still rolled wildly with seas bursting over her rails and spray flailing across the bridge, and the wind still snapped that spray from the crests of the big, green seas, but the sky was clearing, seeming swept clean by that wind. There was little of the day left but what there was promised to be beautiful.
Visibility was good and on the bridge they could just see the ship now, a speck under the marking black banner of her smoke. The masthead look-out could see her better. “She’s a gunboat!”
Garrick said, “She’s making up on us, but slowly.”
Knight ventured: “Maybe she isn’t the German.”
That was a possibility. She could be Chilean or any of a score of warships pursuing their lawful business in these waters. Smith did not believe it. He turned away and lowered his glasses. Everyone else who could reach a point of vantage was straining his eyes aft but he would not. He would know soon enough. Elizabeth Bell wallowed ahead of Thunder and rolled as badly. He wondered how Sarah Benson was managing aboard her and decided he did not give a damn. Whatever she got she’d asked for. Elizabeth Bell was barely making eight knots. If this sea fell flat calm she might make ten knots but as it was eight was her best. Astern of her and ahead of Thunder steamed Ariadne, riding the seas better than either of the others. She could make another four or five knots in this. Elizabeth Bell had a crew of twenty-two. Ariadne’s crew and passengers totalled a hundred and thirty.