by Wilbur Smith
A huge wave reared up out of the darkness. As it rushed down on the ship, one of the lifeboats sheared her cables and fell heavily to the surface, the tiny propeller churning frantically, trying to bring her round to meet the wave but the wave caught her and dashed her back against the steel side of the ship.
She burst like a ripe melon and the guts spilled out of her; from the bridge they saw the crew swirled helplessly away into the darkness. The little locator lamps on their lifejackets burned feebly as fire-flies in the darkness and then blinked out in the storm.
The forward lifeboa t was swung like a door-knocker against the ship, her forward cable jammed so she dangled stern upmost, and as each wave punched into her, she was smashed against the hull. They could hear the men in her screaming, a thin pitiful sound on the wind, that went on for many minutes as the sea slowly beat the boat into a tangle of wreckage.
The third boat was also swung viciously against the hull. The releases on her clamps opened, and she dropped twenty feet i nto the boil and surge of water, submerging completely and then bobbing free like a yellow fishing float after the strike. Leaking and settling swiftly, she limped away into the clamorous night.
‘ Oh, my God! ’ whispered Captain Reilly, and in the harsh lights of the bridge, his face was suddenly old and haggard. In a single stroke he had lost half his boats. As yet he did not mourn the men taken by the sea, that would come later - now it was the loss of the boats that appalled him, for it threatened the lives of nearly six hundred others.
‘ The other boats ’ - the First Officer's voice was ragged with shock –‘ the others got away safely, sir. ’ In the lee of the towering hull, protected from both wind and sea the other three boats had dropped smoothly to the surface and detached swiftly. Now they circled out in the dark night, with their spotlights probing like long white fingers. One of them staggered over the wildly plunging crests to take off the crew of the stricken lifeboat, and they left the cracked hull to drift away and sink.
‘ Three boats ,’ whispered the Captain, ‘ for thirty rafts. ’ He knew that there were insufficient shepherds for his flock - and yet he had to send them out, for even above the wind, he thought he could hear the booming artillery barrage of high surf breaking on a rocky shore. Cape Alarm was waiting hungrily for his ship.
‘ Send the rafts away ,’ he said quietly, and then again under his breath, ‘ And God have mercy on us all. ’
‘ Come on, Number 16, ’ called Samantha. ‘ Here we are, Number 16. ’ She gathered them to her, the eighteen passengers who made up the complement of her allotted life-raft. Here we are - all together now. No stragglers. ’
They were gathered at the heavy mahogany doors that opened on to the open forward deck.
‘ Be ready! ’ she told them. ‘ When we get the word, we have to move fast. ’
With the broadsiding seas sweeping the deck and cascading down over the lee, it would be impossible to embark from landing-nets into a raft bobbing alongside.
The rafts were being inflated on the open deck, the passengers hustled across to them and into the canopied interior between waves and then the laden rafts were lifted over the side by the clattering winches and dropped into the quieter waters afforded by the tall bulk of the ship. Immediately, one of the lifeboats picked up the tow and took each raft out to form the pitiful little convoy.
‘ Right! ’ the Third Officer burst in through the mahogany doors and held them wide. ‘ Quickly! ’ he shouted. A ll together. ’
‘ Let's go, gang! ’ sang out Samantha, and there was an awkward rush out on to the wet and slippery deck. It was only thirty paces to where the raft crouched like a monstrous yellow bull-frog gaping its ugly dark mouth, but the wind struck like an axe and Samantha heard them cry out in dismay. Some of them faltered in the sudden merciless cold.
‘ Come on ,’ Samantha shouted, pushing those ahead of her, half-supporting Mrs. Goldberg's plump body that suddenly felt as heavy and uncooperative as a full sack of wheat. ‘ Keep going. ’
‘ Let me have her ,’ shouted the Third Officer, and he grabbed Mrs. Goldberg's other arm. Between them they tumbled her through the entrance of the raft.
‘ Good on you, love ,’ the officer grinned at Samantha briefly. His smile was attractive and warm, very masculine and likeable, his name was Ken and he was five years her senior. They would probably have become lovers fairly soon, Samantha knew, for he had pursued her furiously since she stepped aboard in New York. Although she knew she did not love him, yet he had succeeded in arousing her and she was slowly succumbing to his obvious charms and her own passionate nature. She had made the decision to have him, and had been merely savouring it up until then. Now, with a pang, she realized that the moment might never come.
‘ I'll help you with the others. ’ She raised her voice above the hysterical shriek of the wind.
‘ Get in ,’ he shouted back, and swung her brusquely towards the raft. She crept into the crowded interior and looked back at the brightly lit deck that glistened in the arc lamps.
Ken had started back to where one of the women had slipped and fallen. She sprawled helplessly on the wet deck, while her husband stooped over her, trying to lift her back to her feet.
Ken reached them and lifted the woman easily; the three of them were the only ones out on the open deck now, and the two men supported the woman between them, staggering against the heavy sullen roll of the waterlogged hull.
Samantha saw the wave come aboard and she shrieked a warning.
‘ Go back, Ken! For God's sake go back! ’ But he seemed not to hear her. The wave came aboard; over the windward rail like some huge black slippery sea-monster, it came with a deep silent rush.
‘ Ken! ’ she screamed, and he looked over his shoulder an instant before it reached them. Its crest was higher than his head. They could reach neither the raft, nor the shelter of the mahogany doors. She heard the clatter of the donkey - winch and the raft lifted swiftly off the deck, with a swoop in g tug in her guts. The operator could not let the rushing power of the wave crash into the helpless raft, throwing it against the superstructure or tearing it's belly out on the ship's railing, for the frail plastic skin would rupture and it would collapse immediately.
Samantha hurled herself to the entrance and peered down. She saw the sea take the three figures in a black glittering rush. It cut them down, and swept them away. For a moment, she saw Ken clinging to the railing while the waters poured over him, burying his head in a tumbling fall of white and furious water. He disappeared and when the ship rolled sullenly back, shaking herself clear of the water, her decks were empty of any human shape.
With the next roll of the ship, the winch-operator high up in his glassed cabin swung the dangling raft outboard and lowered it swiftly and dexterously to the surface of the sea where one of the lifeboats circled anxiously, ready to take them in tow.
Samantha closed and secured the plastic door-cover, then she groped her way through the press of packed and terrified bodies until she found Mrs. Goldberg.
‘ Are you crying, dear? ’ the elderly woman quavered, clinging to her desperately.
‘ No .’ said Samantha, and placed one arm around her shoulders. ’ No, I'm not crying. ’ And with her free hand, she wiped away the icy tears that streamed down her cheeks.
The Trog lifted his headset and looked at Nick through the reeking clouds of cigar smoke.
‘ Their radio operator has screwed down the key of his set. He's sending a single unbroken homing beam. ’
Nick knew what that meant - they had abandoned Golden Adventurer. He nodded once but remained silent. He had wedged himself into the doorway from the bridge. The restless impatience that consumed him would not allow him to sit or be still for more than a few moments at a time. He was slowly facing up to the reality of disaster. The dice had fallen against him and his gamble had been with very survival. It was absolutely certain that Golden Adventurer would go aground and be beaten into a total wreck by this storm. H
e could expect a charter from Christy Marine to assist La Mouette in ferrying the survivors back to Cape Town, but the fee would be a small fraction of the Esso tow fee that he had forsaken for this wild and desperate dash south.
The gamble had failed and he was a broken man. Of course, it would take months still for the effects of his folly to become apparent, but the repayments of his loans and the construction bills for the other tug still building would slowly throttle and bring him down.
‘ We might still reach her before she goes aground ,’ said David Allen sturdily, and nobody else on the bridge spoke.
‘ I mean there could be a backlash of the current close inshore which could hold her off long enough to give us a chance - ‘ His voice trailed off as Nick looked across at him and frowned.
‘ We are still ten hours away from her, and for Reilly to make the decision to abandon ship, she must have been very close indeed. Reilly is a good man. ’ Nick had personally selected him to command the Golden Adventurer. ‘ He was a destroyer captain on the North Atlantic run, the youngest in the navy, and then he was ten years with P & O. They pick only the best –‘ He stopped talking abruptly. He was becoming garrulous. He crossed to the radarscope and adjusted it for maximum range and illumination before looking down into the eye-piece. There was much fuzz and sea clutter, but on the extreme southern edge of the circular screen there showed the solid luminous glow of the cliffs and peaks of Cape Alarm. In good weather they were a mere five hours steaming away, but now they had left the shelter of that giant iceberg and were staggering and plunging wildly through the angry night. She could have taken more speed, for Warlock was built for big seas, but always there was the deadly menace of ice, and Nick had to hold her at this cautionary speed, which meant ten hours more before they were in sight of Golden Adventurer - if she was still afloat.
Behind him, the Trog's voice crackled rustily with excitement. ‘ I'm getting voice - it's only strength one, weak and intermittent. One of the lifeboats is sending on a battery-powered transmitter. ’ He held his earphones pressed to his head with both hands as he listened.
‘ They are towing a batch of life-rafts with all survivors aboard to Shackleton Bay. But they've lost a life-raft ,’ he said, ‘ It's broken away from their tow-line, and they haven't got enough boats to search for it. They are asking La Mouette to keep a watch for it. ’
‘ Is La Mouette acknowledging? ’ The Trog shook his head. ‘ She's probably still out of range of this transmission. ’
‘ Very well. ’ Nick turned back into the bridge. He had still not broken radio silence, and could feel his officers disapproval, silent but strong. Again he felt the need for human contact, for the warmth and comfort of human conversation and friendly encouragement. He didn't yet have the strength to bear his failure alone.
He stopped beside David Allen and said, ‘ I have been studying the Admiralty sailing directions for Cape Alarm, David ,’ and pretended not to notice that the use of his Christian name had brought a startled look and quick colour to the mate's features. He went on evenly, ’ the shore is very steep-to and she is exposed to this westerly weather, but there are beaches of pebble and the glass is going up sharply again. ’
‘ Yes, sir ,’ David nodded enthusiastically. ’ I have been watching it. ’
‘ Instead of hoping for a cross-current to hold her off, I suggest you offer a prayer that she goes up on one of those beaches and that the weather moderates before she is beaten to pieces. There is still a chance we can put ground tackle on her before she starts breaking up. ’
‘ I'll say ten Hail Marys, sir ,’ grinned David. Clearly he was overwhelmed by this sudden friendliness from his silent and forbidding Captain.
‘ -And say another ten that we hold our lead on La Mouette ,’ said Nick, and smiled. It was one of the few times that David Allen had seen him smile, and he was a mazed at the change it made to the stern features. They lightened with a charm and warmth and he had not before noticed the clear green of Nick Berg's eyes and how white and even were his teeth.
‘ Steady as she goes .’ said Nick. ‘ Call me if anything changes ,’ and he turned away to his cabin.
‘ Steady as she goes, it is, sir ,’ said David Allen with a new friendliness in his voice.
The strange and marvel l ous lights of the Aurora Australis quivered and flickered in running streams of red and green fire along the horizon, and formed an incredible backdrop for the death agonies of a great ship.
Captain Reilly looked back through the small portholes of the leading lifeboat and watched her going to her fate. It seemed to him she had never been so tall and beautiful as in these terrible last moments. He had loved many ships, as if each had been a wonderful living creature, but he had loved no other ship more than Golden Adventurer, and he felt something of himself dying with her.
He saw her change her action. The sea was feeling the land now, the steep bank of Cape Alarm, and the ship seemed to panic at the new onslaught of wave and wind, as though she knew what fate awaited her there.
She was rolling through thirty degrees, showing the dull red streak of her belly paint as she came up short at the limit of each huge penduluming arc. There was a headland, tall black cliffs dropping sheer into the turbulent waters and it seemed that Golden Adventurer must go full on to them, but in the last impossible moments she slipped by, borne on the backlash of the current, avoiding the cliffs and swinging her bows on into the shallow bay beyond where she was hidden from Captain Reilly's view.
He stood for many minutes more, staring back across the leaping wave-tops and in the strange unnatural light of the heavens his face was greenish grey and heavily furrowed with the marks of grief.
Then he sighed once, very deeply, and turned away, devoting all his attention to guiding his pathetic limping little convoy to the safety of Shackleton Bay.
Almost immediately it was apparent that the fates had relented, and given them a favourable inshore current to carry them up on to the coast. The lifeboats were strung out over a distance of three miles, each of them with its string of bloated and clumsy rafts lumbering along in its wake. Captain Reilly had two-way VHF radio contact with each of them, and despite the brutal cold, they were all in good shape and making steady and unexpectedly rapid progress. Three or four hours would be sufficient, he began to hope. They had lost so much life already, and he could not be certain that there would be no further losses until he had the whole party ashore and encamped.
Perhaps the tragic run of bad luck had changed at last, he thought, and he picked up the small VH F radio. Perhaps the French tug was in range at last and he began to call her.
‘ La Mouette, do you read me? Come in, La Mouette….’
The lifeboat was low down on the wate r, and the output of the little set was feeble in the vastness yet he kept on calling.
They had accustomed themselves to the extravagant action of the disabled liner, her majestic roll and pitch, as regular as a gigantic metronome. They had adjusted to the cold of the unheated interior of the great ship, and the discomfort of her crowded and unsanitary conditions.
They had steeled themselves and tried to prepare themselves mentally for further danger and greater hardship but not one of the survivors in life-raft Number 16 had imagined anything like this. Even Samantha, the youngest, probably physically the toughest and certainly the one most prepared by her training and her knowledge and love of the sea, had not imagined what it would be like in the raft.
It was utterly dark, not the faintest glimmer of light penetrated the insulated domed canopy, once its entrance was secured against the sea and the wind.
Samantha, realized almost immediately how the darkness would crush their morale and, more dangerously, would induce disorientation and vertigo, so she ordered two of them at a time to switch on the tiny locator bulbs on their life-jackets. I t gave just a glimmering of light, enough to let them see each other ’ s faces and take a little comfort in the proximity of other humans.
Then she arranged their seating, making them form a circle around the sides with all their legs pointing inwards, to give the raft better balance and to ensure that each of them had space to stretch out.
Now that Ken had gone, she had naturally taken command, and, as naturally, the others had turned to her for guidance and comfort. It was Samantha who had gone out through the opening into the brutal exposure of the night to take aboard and secure the tow-rope from the lifeboat. She had come in again half-frozen, shaking in a palsy of cold, with her hands and face numbed. it had taken nearly half an hour of hard massage before feeling returned and she was certain that she had avoided frost-bite.
Then the tow began, and if the movement of the light raft had been wild before, it now became a nightmare of unco - ordinated movement. Each whim of sea and wind was transmitted directly to the huddling circle of survivors, and each time the raft pulled away or sheered off, the tow-rope brought it up with a violent lurch and jerk. The wave crests whipped up by the wind and feeling the press of the land were up to twenty feet high, and the raft swooped over them and dropped heavily into the troughs. She did not have the lateral stability of a keel, so she spun on her axis until the tow-rope jerked her up and she spun the other way. The first of them to start vomiting was Mrs. Goldberg and it spurted in a warm jet down the side of Samantha's anorak.
The canopy was almost airtight, except for the small ventilation holes near the apex of the roof, and immediately the sweetish acrid stench of vomit permeated the raft. Within minutes, half a dozen of the other survivors were vomiting also.
It was the cold, however, that frightened Samantha. The cold was the killer. It came up even through the flexible insulated double skin of the deck, and was transferred into their buttocks and legs. It came in through the plastic canopy and froze the condensation of their breaths, it even froze the vomit on their clothing and on the deck.
‘ Sing! ’ Samantha told them. ‘ Come on, sing! Let's do "Yankee Doodle Dandy", first. You start, Mr. Stewart, come on. Clap your hands, clap hands with your neighbour. ’ She hectored them relentlessly, not allowing any of them to fall into that paralytic state which is not true sleep but the trance caused by rapidly dropping body temperature. She crawled among them, prodding them awake, popping barley sugar from the emergency rations into their mouths.