Geoffrey Jenkins - Scend of the Sea

'All we're asking is for you to give us a sporting chance,' muttered Miller. 'Here you are bashing the ship with everything full on …'

Feldman saw his chance. He said tentatively, 'You haven't reduced speed. She'd ride easier if you did.'

'I'm the captain, and I take the decisions around here,' I snapped.

'Even a captain can be wrong sometimes,' replied Miller truculently. 'We're telling you plainly and simply that if you don't do something quick, you won't have any apparatus left in a couple of hours.'

Taylor was more conciliatory. ^Couldn't we make a plan.. ’

I loathed myself for pulling my rank, but I simply could not attempt to explain. How could I say that I was deliberately trailing my coat, for greater ends even than the valuable instruments which were the true heart of the weather ship? Every suggestion the three men were making was in accord with common sense and sound seamanship. I was driving the ship unnecessarily, risking valuable equipment, property, and maybe even lives.

I tried to bluster my way out. 'Would you like me to put in to East London then and signal the Bureau that the gear's a failure even at the start, and you can't cope?'

'You'd think it was our gear and that you were only the driver,' snapped back Miller. 'You're in this just as much as we are, if not more, don't forget'

My nerves and temper were stretched. The bridge clock showed 5.30. Perhaps, I thought with a sense of relief which was overwhelming, the Air Force won't fly tonight anyway. However, did they-or the Weather Bureau — really know how out at sea it was working up into something really dirty? Freed of the awful responsibility of Alistair (the Gemsbok’s identical course seemed burned into my brain), I alone could test what there was to test about the Waratah, but I would have to be very sure that the end would justify the means-in other words, the pitiless hammering which was being handed out, with my full concurrence, to the scientific gear. Would it, like my coastwise trip, be meaningless? If I accepted the futility of what I was doing, I would reduce speed right away and cosset the apparatus, perhaps even take her out into deep water, where the wave effects were bound to be less than in the shallow waters of the Agulhas Bank. I crushed down the idea. I had decided to follow the Waratah's course at the Waratah's speed to smoke out what had sunk her, and stop it doing the same to the great oil rigs. I had that rendezvous with Alistair, if I were not there, I told myself, perhaps my very absence might drive him into the arms of the Waratah danger if he started to look for Walvis Bay in the wild seas. .

I bit back my reply to Miller. 'What did Scannel say?' I temporized.

'He's got so many of his own problems, he hasn't been able to spare time for ours,' retorted Miller sullenly.

I picked up the engine-room voice-pipe. 'Nick? I've got a crisis on my hands. The satellite observing gear and the radar antenna are shaking themselves to pieces..'

The sea's thump in the engine-room below the water-line came through clearly on the instrument. It was like a rubber truncheon being beaten against a steel drum.

'I'll be right up,' said Scannel briefly. I wished I had a first officer of the calibre of my engineer.

Scannel took a brief look round when he arrived at the bridge. 'Is that what's making all the racket?' He gestured to the sea.

Feldman muttered, half to himself, 'It would be less with less speed on her..'

Scannel snorted. 'Listen, chum, my engines are good for sixteen knots, gale or no gale.'

I grinned at the engineer. It was comforting to have some backing.

'The gyro is overcompensating and heating up. Miller and Taylor went into a string of technicalities.

'Okay, okay,' replied Scannel. 'Let's go and have a look. I have an idea. .' He glanced derisively at Feldman's back where he stood peering through the bridge screen windows. 'You won't be wanting any more speed for the next half-hour or so, will you, skipper? I'm going with these boys.'

He grinned and winked. One could almost see the wince pass up Feldman's back.

I didn't want to have to bluff and fence with Feldman once the others had gone.

I said, 'Please make a round of the ship, No. 1, and check all lashings. Double-check the radiosonde hut. Smit rigged some extra stays to prevent any movement.'

Feldman eyed me oddly. For a moment he glanced uneasily through the bridge windows as if to say something, but then stopped himself.

'Aye, aye, sir.'

He left without speaking. Jubela and I had the bridge to ourselves. Living close to anyone in a small ship at sea throws a heavy psychological burden on one; with Feldman, the burden was double.

Walvis Bay gave a series of three heavy crashes, slewed slightly to starboard and then, under the weight of water, listed sharply over towards the land.

Jubela grunted. The wheel whipped and spun. 'Hold her!'

It was involuntary from me; Jubela needed no coaching in wheel orders.

He said, 'It is as bad already as the night you came back for me — Umdhlebe.'

Twice on this short voyage he had called me that. Twice, since I had met Tafline.

I was tempted to tell Jubela then about the Waratah and the lost airliner. Should the skipper confide to the seaman? I think Jubela would have understood. We talked the same language, he and I.

I began lightly, an appeal to the sense of fun which lies so close beneath every Tonga's skin.

'Those boots of yours are so worn now they're not worth coming back for any more,' I laughed. 'Look, it's only a few miles to the shore. I'd really let you swim this time.'

But Jubela did not respond. He gazed stonily ahead, pretending he could see through the streaming water which deluged the bridge windows.

A curious tense silence came between us.

What strange prescience had choked the Tonga's usual ebullience to sullen refusal to talk? Were we indeed in the presence of that ill-omened, fated ship? Was the influence clearer to Jubela with his highly-developed intuitive faculty?

For the next half-hour Walvis Bay laboured and plunged. Jubela and I said nothing.

Feldman came back, nodded, clasped his hands behind his back, standing correctly where a first officer should stand in a storm. He gave no report of the ship, and I asked for none. The silence became tighter.

The radio warning buzzer went. Since there was no full-time radio operator, the device signalled the bridge when a message was due; if on watch, Feldman would answer.

Feldman nodded again perfunctorily and went.

Even before he handed me the signal on his return, I could tell by the smug, tight purse of his lips that it was of moment, and that I wouldn't like it.

From Weather Bureau and C-in-C South African Navy, Simonstown. Advise storm of unusual intensity south Port St John's and Bashee Mouth towards East London and approaches. Anticipated Force 10 gale, south-west, 60 m.p.h. All shipping northbound from Port Elizabeth to Durban is hereby ordered to seek shelter at nearest port; all southbound shipping from Durban is ordered to make for open sea and deep water clear of Agulas Bank a best possible speed.

I looked up from my first reading of the message, carefully avoiding Feldman's gaze. I saw the light reflect the veneer of sweat on Jubela's neck as he spun the wheel to maintain Walvis Bay's course. He had discarded his leather jacket and there were patches of wetness on his shirt

I read it again.

When .

Waratah's secret lay perhaps within my grasp an hour or two away, I was ordered to get right out of the area as quickly as I could. It wasn't only advice the signal offered: the fact that the C-in-C was included meant business.