Geoffrey Jenkins: A Ravel of Waters

Kay tried to talk me out of my mood; even her warmth and love were not enough. The reality was like coming back to earth after a high: I could not share the smiling euphoria of everyone on board.

I had reminded Tideman when he, too, had come to my rescue that the Molot death-or-glory break-out might have saved our skins and secured the Falklands flank of the Drake Passage — but who would ever know, or believe, the implications? Neither Argentina nor Russia would admit that Group Condor had ever existed. Who but Grand Admiral Sergei Gorshkov, head of the Soviet Fleet, and his staff would be aware of the loss of two warships and two fleet auxiliaries? Molot had been a victory as secret as the wild wastes where it had taken place.

My slough of despond bit keenest over Seascan. I reproached myself for failing to make the rendezvous when the spy satellite would be at nadir — overhead — to prove beyond all doubt that Jetwind was invisible to infra-red and micro-wave surveillance. The rendezvous was still an impossible near half-day's sail away at Jetwind’s maximum speed. Perhaps the way I was flogging the guts out of the ship now was symptomatic of my sense of failure, because I knew in my heart that unless Jetwind's protective secret were sealed and delivered by actual observation test, there would never be another ship of her kind built. No Cape Horn Patrol. No commercial fleet either. After what he had been through Sir James would, I felt certain, be only too glad never to set eyes on a sailing ship again.

For these reasons, I had stalled off signalling Thomsen in detail about the happenings. I had merely despatched a cryptic message saying the ship was safe and on her way to Gough. For the rest, how much or how little should I tell him? If officialdom got word of Jetwind's exploits, the questions would become intolerable. What, too, should I do with the bodies of Arno, Brockton, Grohman and the two guards? Bury them at sea on the basis that their secrets would remain safe until the sea gave up her dead, or continue to convey them to the Cape in the sick-bay where now they all lay shrouded? I dodged the question by telling myself that Jetwind could not afford the time to stop for a mass sea burial because, by some extreme of luck, there was still an outside chance that Jetwind might make the Seascan rendezvous, and while that chance existed I meant to keep her going. In my heart, however, I knew she never would.

I had been so withdrawn from the general life of the ship that I missed the preparations which must have preceded the ceremony I was now confronted with. The fact that it was in the crew's day-room meant that Tideman had not organized it. Less than twenty minutes previously I had been astonished on the bridge to have been handed a written invitation by one of Tideman's paratroopers — one of the men who had finally disarmed the last of the Group Condors.

The invitation read: ‘Sir James Hathaway and the officers and crew of Jetwind request your presence without fail at a function in the crew's day-room, to be held at 10.30 sharp.'

I had been more astonished still at the sight which had greeted me on arrival. The day-room was a kind of recreation room above the afterpeak adjoining the crew's mess. Big portholes gave a splendid sight of Jetwind's creaming wake. Beneath them a table had been arranged. Its centre-piece was Robbie Lund's old ship's bell. Presiding like a chairman at a board meeting was Sir James, flanked by Kay and Tideman. There was a burst of applause as I entered; it was led by a smiling Sir James, who came forward and conducted me to a seat next to Kay. If my mood had not been so black, I would have realized that I had never seen her look so lovely.

Perhaps Sir James had got to the top because he was something of a showman as well as a business-man. He reached for the bell, which had been hastily mounted between two wooden blocks, and struck it with the clapper.

At that moment, as if on cue, the bitch-box came alive. 'Captain on the bridge!'

However, Sir James was not to be put off. He gestured me back into my seat as I rose to go.

'This is more important — the bridge can do without you for a couple of minutes’

There was a burst of applause from the men. My reaction said, the blood is on my hands, not yours.

Sir James resumed his showman's attitude. 'Gentlemen — and Kay Fenton’ They were in the mood to laugh, and they laughed at his singling out Kay. There is no need to tell you why we are gathered here, but for the record I want to say that all of us — yes, each one of us — owes our being here at all to the super-human courage and personal effort of Captain Rainier. That means, in fact, our lives’

I couldn't handle it. I wanted to excuse myself, get away from the grins and acclaim.

Sir James silenced his audience with another stroke on the bell.

'This bell hung for many years on a windjammer wreck near Cape Horn’ he said. 'It is a relic of the days of sail when Cape Horn was one of the great ocean routes of the-world. From the time it ceased to be until Jetwind took the water, the sailing ship was a thing of the past’ I speculated what might be coming.

'You all know that this voyage was to have been the acid test of whether the sailing ship was to make a come-back in the twentieth century, whether it could become a viable economic proposition when bunker fuel has made power-ship operation a highly questionable one.'

Sir James wasn't the man to lose his captive audience in their adulatory mood by giving them a lecture on ship economics.

He turned to me. 'I — and this audience — have had no time to arrange a formal presentation, but we ask you to place this old Cape Horn bell in a place of honour in Jetwind as a token of our admiration, and a symbol of the reopening of the once-great ocean route’

Neither I — nor anyone else — fathomed his meaning. He was aware of it. But he was, as I have said3 a showman. He waited long enough to let our puzzlement take root, then he drew a sheet of paper from his pocket.

He addressed me. His eyes were sparkling by contrast with the formality of his words.

'Captain Rainier, I wish to request official permission to have this signal transmitted.' Before I could respond, he went on. 'It is addressed to my ship-owner colleagues aboard the Agulhas. I qjuote the contents. "Propose immediate formation fifty-million dollar consortium for construction fleet of aerodynamic sailing ships based on design and peformance factors Jetwind. I personally am satisfied…"'

I couldn't believe my ears. I found myself on my feet. Sir James was pump-handling me; Kay and Tideman led the congratulatory queue.

The bitch-box cut in imperatively. I was startled out of the mood of the ceremony by the note in the operator's voice.

'Captain on the bridge, sir! Urgent! Radar sighting! Plane, forty-five miles, bearing red zero-zero-nine degrees, coming up fast! Heading our way, sir!'

It was there, all right. There was no mistaking the decisive blip on the big Decca radar screen when Tideman, Kay and I reached the bridge at the double. 'What do you make of it?' I asked Greg. 'She's big and she's stuffed with electronic gear.' 'How do you deduce that?'

'She started transmitting like the clappers a minute back,' he replied. 'She must have picked us up on her radar.' 'Radar?' Tideman interjected.

Greg laughed deprecatingly. 'I'd say, a lot of other sophisticated gadgets as well.' 'What is she signalling?' I demanded.

'Can't say, sir — code. All I know is that that sort of sending isn't commercial.'

I asked Tideman, 'Calling up the other dogs for the kill, do you think?' 'Greg’ asked Tideman, 'is there anything to suggest that the plane is in contact with a ship nearby?' 'A warship?' I added.

The faint green of the screen with its revolving range-finder washed across Greg's face. He concentrated a while and then said, 'She's changing course a little, sheering off.' 'Sniffing the bait?' I asked Tideman again. Kay said quietly, 'I thought we'd finished with all that.' Greg manipulated his instruments. 'There's another transmitter coming in!' 'Range?'