Then I called up to Coertze, ‘Get a lantern out of the fo’c’sle and hoist it in the rigging.’
He came below. ‘What’s all this for?’
I said, ‘Look, we’re on the wrong course for Tangier—it’s wasting time but it can’t be helped because anything that puts Metcalfe off his stroke is good for us. We’ve altered our radar trace but Metcalfe might get suspicious and come in for a look at us, anyway. So we’re festooned with lights in the usual sloppy Spanish fisherman fashion. We’re line fishing and he won’t see otherwise—not at night. So he just may give us the go-by and push off somewhere else.’
‘You’re a tricky bastard,’ said Coertze admiringly.
‘It’ll only work once,’ I said. ‘At dawn we’ll change course for Tangier.’
III
The wind got up during the night and we handed the light weather sails so that Sanford developed a fair turn of speed. Not that it helped much; we weren’t making an inch of ground in the direction of Tangier.
At dawn it was blowing force five and we changed course so that the wind was on the quarter and Sanford began to stride out, her lee rail under and the bow wave showing white foam. I checked the log and saw that she was doing seven knots, which was close to her limit under sail. We were doing all right at last—on the right course for Tangier and travelling fast.
We kept a close watch on the horizon for Metcalfe but saw nothing. If he knew where we were he wasn’t showing his hand. I didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry about that; I would be glad if my stratagem had deceived him, but if it hadn’t then I wanted to know about it.
The fresh breeze held all day and even tended to increase towards nightfall. The waves became larger and foamcrested, breaking every now and then on Sanford’s quarter. Every time that happened she would shudder and shake herself free to leap forward again. I estimated that the wind was now verging on force six and, as a prudent seaman, I should have been thinking of taking a reef in the mainsail, but I wanted to press on—there was not much time left, and less if we had to tangle with Metcalfe.
I turned in early, leaving Walker at the helm, and before I went to sleep I contemplated what I would do if I were Metcalfe. We had to go through the Straits of Gibraltar—the whole Mediterranean was a funnel with the Straits forming the spout. If Metcalfe took station there his radar could cover the whole channel from shore to shore.
On the other hand, the Straits were busy waters, so he’d have to zig-zag to check dubious boats visually. Then again, if he was contemplating piracy, it would be dangerous to try it where it could be spotted easily—there were some very fast naval patrol boats at Gibraltar and I didn’t think that even Metcalfe would have the nerve to tackle us in daylight.
So that settled that—we would have to run through the Straits in daylight.
If—and I was getting tired of all these ifs—if he didn’t nobble us before or after the Straits. I hazily remembered a case of piracy just outside Tangier in 1956—two groups of smugglers had tangled with each other and one of the boats had been burned. Perhaps he wouldn’t want to leave it as long as that; we would be close to home and we might give him the slip after all—once we were in the yacht harbour there wouldn’t be a damn’ thing he could do. No, I didn’t think he would leave it as late as that.
But before the Straits? That was a different kettle of fish and that depended on another ‘if’. If we had given him the slip on leaving Majorca—if he didn’t know where we were now—then we might have a chance. But if he did know where we were, then he could close in any time and put a prize crew aboard. If—yet another if—the weather would let him.
As I drifted off to sleep I blessed the steadily rising wind which added wings to Sanford and which would make it impossible for the Fairmile to come alongside.
IV
Coertze woke me up. ‘The wind’s getting stronger; I think we should change sail or something.’ He had to shout above the roar of the wind and the sea.
I looked at my watch as I pulled on my oilies; it was two o’clock and I had had six hours’ sleep. Sanford was bucking a bit and I had a lot of trouble putting my trousers on. A sudden lurch sent me across the cabin and I carommed into the berth in which Francesca slept.
‘What is wrong?’ she asked.
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Everything is fine; go back to sleep.’
‘You think I can sleep in this?’
I grinned. ‘You’ll soon get used to it. It’s blowing up a bit, but nothing to worry about.’
I finished dressing and went up into the cockpit. Coertze was right; we should do something about taking in sail. The wind was blowing at a firm force seven—what old-time sailormen referred to contemptuously as a ‘yachtsman’s gale’ and what Admiral Beaufort temperately called a ‘strong wind’.
Tattered clouds fled across the sky, making a baffling alteration of light and shade as they crossed the moon. The seas were coming up in lumps and the crests were being blown away in streaks of foam. Sanford was plunging her head into the seas and every time this happened she would stop with a jerk, losing speed. A reduction of sail would hold her head up and help her motion, so I said to Coertze, my voice raised in a shout, ‘You’re right; I’ll reef her down a bit. Hold her as she is.’
I snapped a lifeline on to my safety belt and went forward along the crazily shifting deck. It took half an hour to take in two rolls round the bottom of the mainsail and to take in the jib, leaving the foresail to balance her head. As soon as I handed the jib I could feel the difference in motion; Sanford rode more easily and didn’t ram her bows down as often.
I went back to the cockpit and asked Coertze, ‘How’s that?’
‘Better,’ he shouted. ‘She seems to be going faster, though.’
‘She is; she’s not getting stopped.’
He looked at the piled-up seas. ‘Will it get worse than this?’
‘Oh, this is not so bad,’ I replied. ‘We’re going as fast as we can, which is what we want.’ I smiled, because from a small boat everything looked larger than life and twice as dangerous. However I hoped the weather wouldn’t worsen; that would slow us down.
I stayed with Coertze for a time to reassure him. It was nearly time for my watch, anyway, and there was no point in going back to sleep. After some time I slipped down into the galley and made some coffee—the stove was rocking crazily in its gimbals and I had to clamp the coffee-pot, but I didn’t spill a drop.
Francesca was watching me from her berth and when the coffee was ready I beckoned to her. If she came to the coffee instead of vice versa there was less chance of it spilling. We wedged ourselves in between the galley bench and the companionway, sipping hot coffee and talking about the weather.
She smiled at me. ‘You like this weather, don’t you?’
‘It’s fine.’
‘I think it’s a little frightening.’
‘There’s nothing to be frightened of,’ I said. ‘Or rather, only one thing.’
‘What is that?’
‘The crew,’ I said. ‘You see, small boat design has reached the point of perfection just about, as far as seaworthiness is concerned. A boat like this can take any weather safely if she’s handled right—and I’m not saying this because I designed and built her—it applies to any boat of this general type. It’s the crew that fails, rather than the boat. You get tired and then you make a mistake—and you only have to make one mistake—you can’t play about with the sea.’
‘How long does it take before the crew gets as tired as that?’
‘We’re all right,’ I said cheerfully. ‘There are enough of us, so that we can all get our sleep, so we can last indefinitely. It’s the single-handed heroes who have the trouble.’
‘You’re very reassuring,’ she said, and got up to take another cup from the shelf. ‘I’ll take Coertze some coffee.’
‘Don’t bother; it’ll only get full of salt spray, and there’s nothing worse than salted coffee. He’ll be coming below in a few
minutes—it’s my watch.’
I buttoned my oilies and tightened the scarf round my neck. ‘I think I’ll relieve him now; he shouldn’t really be up there in this weather with that hole in his shoulder. How’s it doing, anyway?’
‘Healing nicely,’ she said.
‘If he had to have a hole in him he couldn’t have done better than that one,’ I said. ‘Six inches lower and he’d have been plugged through the heart.’
She said, ‘You know, I’m changing my mind about him. He’s not such a bad man.’
‘A heart of gold beneath that rugged exterior?’ I queried, and she nodded. I said, ‘His heart is set on gold, anyway. We may have some trouble with him if we avoid Metcalfe—don’t forget his history. But give the nice man some coffee when he comes below.’
I went up into the cockpit and relieved Coertze. ‘There’s coffee for you,’ I shouted.
‘Thanks, just what I need,’ he answered and went below.
Sanford continued to eat up the miles and the wind continued to increase in force. Good and bad together. I still held on to the sail I had, but when Walker came to relieve me in a cloudy and watery dawn I took in another roll of the mainsail before I went below for breakfast.
Just before I descended the companionway, Walker said, ‘It’ll get worse.’
I looked at the sky. ‘I don’t think so; it rarely gets worse than this in the Mediterranean.’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know about the Mediterranean, but I have a feeling it’ll get worse, that’s all.’
I went below feeling glum. Walker had previously shown an uncanny ability to detect changes in the weather on no visible evidence. He had displayed this weather sense before and had invariably been proved right. I hoped he was wrong this time.
He wasn’t!
I couldn’t take a noonday sight because of thick cloud and bad visibility. Even if I could have seen the sun I doubt if I could have held a sextant steady on that reeling deck. The log reading was 152 miles from noon to noon, Sanford’s best run ever.
Shortly after noon the wind speed increased gently to force eight verging on force nine—a strong gale. We handed the mainsail altogether and set the trysail, a triangular handkerchief-sized piece of strong canvas intended for heavy weather. The foresail we also doused with difficulty—it was becoming very dangerous to work on the foredeck.
The height of the waves had increased tremendously and they would no sooner break in a white crest than the wind would tear the foam away to blow it in ragged streaks across the sea. Large patches of foam were beginning to form until the sea began to look like a giant washtub into which someone had emptied a few thousand tons of detergent.
I gave orders that no one should go on deck but the man on watch and that he should wear a safety line at all times. For myself, I got into my berth, put up the bunkboards so that I wouldn’t be thrown out, and tried unsuccessfully to read a magazine. But I kept wondering if Metcalfe was out in this sea. If he was, I didn’t envy him, because a power boat does not take heavy weather as kindly as a sailing yacht, and he must be going through hell.
Things got worse later in the afternoon so I decided to heave-to. We handed the trysail and lay under bare poles abeam to the seas. Then we battened down the hatches and all four of us gathered in the main cabin chatting desultorily when the noise would allow us.
It was about this time that I started to worry about sea room. As I had been unable to take a sight I didn’t know our exact position—and while dead reckoning and log readings were all very well in their way, I was beginning to become perturbed. For we were now in the throat of the funnel between Almeria in Spain and Morocco. I knew we were safe enough from being wrecked on the mainland, but just about here was a fly-speck of an island called Alboran which could be the ruin of us if we ran into it in this weather.
I studied the Mediterranean Pilot. I had been right when I said that this sort of weather was not common in the Mediterranean, but that was cold comfort. Evidently the Clerk of the Weather hadn’t read the Mediterranean Pilot—the old boy was certainly piling it on.
At five o’clock I went on deck for a last look round before nightfall. Coertze helped me take away the batten boards from the companion entrance and I climbed into the cockpit. It was knee-deep in swirling water despite the three two-inch drains I had built into it; and as I stood there, gripping a stanchion, another boiling wave swept across the deck and filled the cockpit.
I made a mental note to fit more cockpit drains, then looked at the sea. The sight was tremendous; this was a whole gale and the waves were high, with threatening overhanging crests. As I stood there one of the crests broke over the deck and Sanford shuddered violently. The poor old girl was taking a hell of a beating and I thought I had better do something about it. It would mean at least one man in the cockpit getting soaked and miserable and frightened and I knew that man must be me—I wouldn’t trust anyone else with what I was about to do.
I went back below. ‘We’ll have to run before the wind,’ I said. ‘Walker, fetch that coil of 4-inch nylon rope from the fo’c’sle. Kobus, get into your oilskins and come with me.’
Coertze and I went back into the cockpit and I unlashed the tiller. I shouted, ‘When we run her downwind we’ll have to slow her down. We’ll run a bight of rope astern and the drag will help.’
Walker came up into the cockpit with the rope and he made one end fast to the port stern bitts. I brought Sanford downwind and Coertze began to pay the rope over the stern. Nylon, like hemp and unlike manila, floats, and the loop of rope acted like a brake on Sanford’s wild rush.
Too much speed is the danger when you’re running before a gale; if you go too fast then the boat is apt to trip just like a man who trips over his own feet when running. When that happens the boat is likely to capsize fore-and-aft—the bows dig into the sea, the stern comes up and the boat somersaults. It happened to Tzu Hang in the Pacific and it happened to Erling Tambs’ Sandefjord in the Atlantic when he lost a man. I didn’t want it to happen to me.
Steering a boat in those conditions was a bit hairraising. The stern had to be kept dead in line with the overtaking wave and, if you got it right, then the stern rose smoothly and the wave passed underneath. If you were a fraction out then there was a thud and the wave would break astern; you would be drenched with water, the tiller would nearly be wrenched from your grasp and you would wonder how much more of that treatment the rudder would take.
Coertze had paid out all the nylon, a full forty fathoms, and Sanford began to behave a little better. The rope seemed to smooth the waters astern and the waves did not break as easily. I thought we were still going a little too fast so I told Walker to bring up some more rope. With another two lengths of twenty-fathom three-inch nylon also streamed astern I reckoned we had cut Sanford’s speed down to three knots.
There was one thing more I could do. I beckoned to Coertze and put my mouth close to his ear. ‘Go below and get the spare can of diesel oil from the fo’c’sle. Give it to Francesca and tell her to put half a pint at a time into the lavatory then flush it. About once every two or three minutes will do.’
He nodded and went below. The four-gallon jerrycan we kept as a spare would now come in really useful. I had often heard of pouring oil on troubled waters—now we would see if there was anything in it.
Walker was busy wrapping sailcloth around the ropes streamed astern where they rubbed on the taffrail. It wouldn’t take much of this violent movement to chafe them right through, and if a rope parted at the same moment that I had to cope with one of those particularly nasty waves which came along from time to time then it might be the end of us.
I looked at my watch. It was half past six and it looked as though I would have a nasty and frightening night ahead of me. But I was already getting the hang of keeping Sanford stern on to the seas and it seemed as though all I would need would be concentration and a hell of a lot of stamina.
Coertze came back and shouted, ‘The oil’s going in
.’
I looked over the side. It didn’t seem to be making much difference, though it was hard to tell. But anything that could make a difference I was willing to try, so I let Francesca carry on.
The waves were big. I estimated they were averaging nearly forty feet from trough to crest and Sanford was behaving like a roller-coaster car. When we were in a trough the waves looked frighteningly high, towering above us with threatening crests. Then her bows would sink as a wave took her astern until it seemed as if she was vertical and going to dive straight to the bottom of the sea. The wave would lift her to the crest and then we could see the stormtattered sea around us, with spume being driven from the waves horizontally until it was difficult to distinguish between sea and air. And back we would go into a trough with Sanford’s bows pointing to the skies and the monstrous waves again threatening.
Sometimes, about four times in an hour, there was a freak wave which must have been caused by one wave catching up with another, thus doubling it. These freaks I estimated at sixty feet high—higher than Sanford’s mast!—and I would have to concentrate like hell so that we wouldn’t be pooped.
Once—just once—we were pooped, and it was then that Walker went overboard. We were engulfed in water as a vast wave broke over the stern and I heard his despairing shout and saw his white face and staring eyes as he was washed out of the cockpit and over the side.
Coertze’s reaction was fast. He lunged for Walker—but missed. I shouted, ‘Safety line—pull him in.’
He brushed water out of his eyes and yelled, ‘Wasn’t wearing one.’
‘The damned fool,’ I thought. I think it was a thought—I might even have yelled it. Coertze gave a great shout and pointed aft and I turned and could see a dark shape rolling in the boiling waters astern and I saw white hands clutching the nylon rope. They say a drowning man will clutch at a straw—Walker was lucky—he had grabbed at something more substantial, one of the drag ropes.
The Golden Keel / The Vivero Letter Page 24