Alan Evans - Thunder at Dawn

They saw him.

Somebody coughed and spat filthy phlegm and croaked, “What’s he doin’ here? Don’t say our old cow’s goin’ down faster nor this one!” And they laughed madly, coughed and laughed again and the shovels ripped at the coal.

He said nothing but he grinned at them through a mask of coal-dust. On deck he told Aitkyne and the Petty Officers: “When it comes you must be quick. Get them out and back aboard.” And to the two men, one forward, one aft who stood with axes where the big warps came down from Thunder and were secured aboard the collier: “When I give the word, cut her loose and jump! Understood?”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

He paced the deck of the Mary Ellen as the loads soared up from the holds, until the colliers winches faltered and died and the hands struck the rigging that connected her derricks to Thunder’s . Only the winch of the boat derrick hammered on aboard Thunder .

The Mary Ellen was settling.

He felt the sudden, sick lurch of her and his mouth was open when one of the party on the warp forward leaned over Thunder’s rail to scream through the clatter of the winch: “ She’s going !”

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.

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.