Алистер Маклин - South by Java Head

Nicolson, leaning inboard against the slope of the deck, took the first man from McKinnon, waited until the bo’sun had hooked his fingers in his belt, twisted round and leaned far out as the lifeboat came surging up out of the darkness into the thin beam of Vannier’s torch. Docherty and Ames, each securely anchored by a couple of soldiers sitting on the side benches, rode up almost level with Nicolson – with the stern of the Kerry Dancer settling in the water the lifeboat was now riding comparatively higher – caught the wounded man neatly at the first attempt, had him lowered to the thwarts just as the lifeboat dropped from sight and fell heavily into the next trough in a welter of spray and phosphorescent foam. Only six or seven seconds later the other wounded man had joined his companion in the bottom of the boat. Inevitably their handling had been hurried, rough, and must have been agonising, but neither man had uttered even a whimper.

Nicolson called to Miss Drachmann, but she pushed forward two of the walking wounded: they jumped together, landed safely in the boat. One more soldier to come: even with all speed it was going to be touch and go, Nicolson thought grimly – the Kerry Dancer was far round into the sea already. But the last soldier didn’t come. In the darkness Nicolson couldn’t see him, but he could hear his voice, high-pitched and fearful, at least fifteen feet away. He could hear the nurse talking too, urgency in the soft, persuasive voice, but her arguments didn’t seem to be getting her anywhere.

“What the hell’s the matter there?” Nicolson shouted savagely.

There was a confused murmur of voices, and then the girl called, “Just a minute, please.”

Nicolson twisted round, looked for’ard along the port side of the Kerry Dancer , then flung up a forearm in instinctive defence as the searchlights of the Viroma cleared the slowly swinging superstructure of the Kerry Dancer and struck at his dark-accustomed eyes. The Kerry Dancer was right round now, heading straight into the seas, and the lifeboat with all protection gone. He could see the first of the steep-walled, spume-veined waves racing smoothly, silently, down the listing side of the ship, the next not far behind. How big they were Nicolson couldn’t tell: the searchlights, paralleling the surface of the sea, high-lit the broken white of the wave-tops but left the troughs in impenetrable blackness. But they were big enough, too big and too steep: half-a-dozen of these and the lifeboat would fill right up and overturn. At the very least they would flood the engine air intake, and then the results would be just as disastrous.

Nicolson wheeled round, vaulted over the rail, shouted at Vannier and Ferris to get into the lifeboat, called to McKinnon to cast off aft, and half-ran, half-stumbled up the heeling, slippery deck to where the girl and the soldier stood half-way between the aftercastle screen door and the ladder leading to the poop-deck above.

He wasted no time on ceremony but caught the girl by the shoulders, twisted her round and propelled her none too gently towards the ship’s side, turned round again, grabbed the soldier and started to drag him across the deck. The boy resisted and, as Nicolson sought for a better grip, struck out viciously, catching Nicolson squarely between the eyes. Nicolson stumbled and half fell on the wet, sloping deck, got to his feet again like a cat and jumped towards the soldier, then swore, softly, bitterly, as his swinging arm was caught and held from behind.

Before he could free it the soldier had turned and flung himself up the poop ladder, his studded soles scrabbling frantically on the metal steps.

“You fool!” Nicolson said quietly. “You crazy little fool!” Roughly he freed his arm, made to speak again, saw the bo’sun, in sharp silhouette against the glare of the searchlight, beckoning frantically from where he stood outside the well-deck rail. Nicolson waited no longer. He turned the nurse round, hustled her across the deck, swung her across the rail. McKinnon caught her arm, stared down at the lifeboat two-thirds lost in the shrouded gloom of a trough and waited for his chance to jump. Just for a moment he looked round and Nicolson could tell from the anger and exasperation on his face that he knew what had happened.

“Do you need me, sir?”

“No.” Nicolson shook his head decisively. “The lifeboat’s more important.” He stared down at the boat as she came surging up sluggishly into the light, water from a high, breaking wave-crest cascading into her bows. “My God, McKinnon, she’s filling right up already! Get her away from here as fast as you can! I’ll cast off for’ard.”

“Aye, aye, sir.” McKinnon nodded matter-of-fact acknowledgment, judged his time perfectly, stepped off the side on to the mast thwart, taking the girl with him: ready hands caught and steadied them as the boat dropped down again into the darkness of a trough. A second later the for’ard rope went snaking down into the lifeboat, Nicolson bending over the rail and staring down after it.

“Everything all right, bo’sun?” he called.

“Aye, no bother, sir. I’m going under the stern, in the lee.”

Nicolson turned away without waiting to see what happened. The chances of a water-logged lifeboat broaching to in the initial moments of getting under way in those heavy seas were no better than even, but if McKinnon said everything was under control then everything was: and if he said he would heave to under the stern, he would be waiting there. Nicolson shared Captain Findhorn’s implicit faith in McKinnon’s initiative, reliability and outstanding seamanship.

He reached the top of the poop-deck ladder and stood there with his hand on the rail, looking slowly round him. Ahead was the superstructure, and in the distance, beyond it and on either side of it, stretched the long, lean shadow of the tanker, a dark smudge on the water, half-seen, half-imagined behind the white brilliance of its searchlights. But the lights, Nicolson suddenly realised, weren’t nearly as brilliant or intense as they had been, even ten minutes earlier. For a fleeting moment he thought that the Viroma must be standing out to sea, working her way clear of the shoal water, then almost instantly realised, from the size and unaltered fore-and-aft position of the vague silhouette, that it hadn’t moved at all.

The ship hadn’t changed, the searchlights hadn’t changed – but the beams from the searchlights were no longer the same, they seemed to have lost their power, to be swallowed up, dissipated in the blackness of the sea. And there was something else, too – the sea was black, a darkness unrelieved by the slightest patch of white, by even one breaking whitecap on a wave: and then all of a sudden Nicolson had it – oil.

There could be no doubt about it – the sea between the two ships was covered in a wide, thick film of oil. The Viroma must have been pumping it overboard for the past five minutes or so – hundreds of gallons of it, enough to draw the teeth of all but the wildest storm. Captain Findhorn must have seen the Kerry Dancer swinging head on to the sea and quickly realised the danger of the lifeboat being swamped by inboard breaking seas. Nicolson smiled to himself, an empty smile, and turned away. Admitted the oil all but guaranteed the safety of the lifeboat, he still didn’t relish the prospect of having his eyes burnt, ears, nostrils and mouth clogged, and being fouled from head to foot when he went overboard in just a few seconds – he and young Alex, the soldier.

Nicolson walked easily aft across the poop-deck towards the stern. The soldier was standing there, pressed against the taffrail in a stiff, unnatural fashion, his back to it and his hands grasping the stanchions on either side. Nicolson went close up to him, saw the wide, fixed eyes, the trembling of a body that has been tensed far too long; a leap into the water with young Alex, Nicolson thought dryly, was an invitation to suicide, either by drowning or strangulation – terror lent inhuman strength and a grip that eased only with death. Nicolson sighed, looked over the taffrail and switched on the torch in his hand. McKinnon was exactly where he had said he would be, hove to in the lee of the stern, and not fifteen feet away.