Hammond Innes: The Black Tide

I called to her again as I left, but she didn’t answer. The light was fading as I went off up the path to the lane, but I wasn’t worried about her. She knew how to handle the inflatable and, like me, she enjoyed being on her own sometimes. It’s not easy when people are cooped up in a lonely little Cornish tin-miner’s cottage in winter. You tend to get on each other’s nerves, however much you’re in love. Even so, if it hadn’t been for that bloody tanker… But Karen would get over it. They’d get the tanker off and then, when the spring came — everything would look different in the spring.

So I comforted myself. I was really quite cheerful as I approached the lane, the black mood dissipated by the walk to Sennen. It would be the same for Karen, I thought. I didn’t realize how her emotions had been working on her imagination this past week, what depths of passion and desperation had been building up inside her.

Jimmy was already waiting for me in his battered blue van and I didn’t think any more about her as we drove across the moor to Penzance. He farmed a few acres, pigs and chickens mainly, but mostly he made his living out of the tourists, renting two cottages he owned in Sennen, so that he had a vested interest in the coastal environment.

The meeting, which was in the Town Hall, proved to be a much bigger affair than anything Wilkins, the secretary of our Preservation Society, had so far been able to organize locally. Just about every organization involved was represented, and since it was open to the public the place was packed. The local MP was in the chair and the chief speaker was the Under-Secretary for the Marine Division of the Department of Trade whose theme, of course, was that everything was being done that could be done. He pointed out that his own emergency information room, his Ops Room, which was on the top floor of the Marine Division’s HQ in Holborn, had been activated and continuously manned since January 1, the day the Petros Jupiter had been stranded. The local anti-pollution plan had been put into operation immediately, including the setting up of a pollution operation control room at Land’s End; the oil company involved had had tankers and pumps available for transferring cargo within fourteen hours; and the owners and Lloyd’s had had salvage teams, ships and equipment on the spot the following day. Of the 57,000 tons of crude oil carried in the ship’s tanks, 39,000 had already been pumped out. It was estimated that no more than 9,000 tons had leaked into the sea and this was being dissipated by spraying from the ships everyone could see from Land’s End. ‘With luck the salvage operators hope to have the Petros Jupiter off the rocks tomorrow or the day after.’

Andy Trevose, a few feet in front of me and talking to another Sennen Cove fisherman, suddenly got to his feet, ‘Tedn’t laikly th’all get ‘er off’n tamorrer.’

‘The salvage operators assure me—’

‘Then th’are kidding themsel’, an’ thee — t’ll be blawing tamorrer, d’you see.’

‘Have it your own way,’ the Under-Secretary said mildly. ‘I’m not an authority on local weather and I can only repeat what the salvage operators have told me. They are optimistic — very optimistic — of getting the ship off on tomorrow’s tide.’ And on that he sat down.

His speech, which had lasted almost half an hour, was followed by a question and answer session. Here he was at his best, combining an air of authority with a touch of humour that had the effect of softening his slightly offhand manner and making him more human. Yes, he thought the Minister would be giving close consideration to the setting up of some sort of committee to reconsider the question of tanker routes in the sea area between the Scillies and Land’s End. This in answer to a question by the representative of the International Tanker Owners’ Pollution Federation. Both Nature Conservancy and the local representatives of the inshore fishermen pressed him hard on this point, but all he would say was, ‘I will convey your observations to the Minister.’

Nobody seemed to think this was good enough. The demand was for a tightening of regulations in the waters between Land’s End and the Scillies, and regular patrols to ensure that tankers and other bulk carriers of dangerous cargoes reported in as they had to on the French side off Ushant. And, similarly, they wanted them routed outside the Scillies. The Under-Secretary said, ot course, it would take time, that there were a great number of interests to be considered, as well as the whole legal question of the freedom of the seas. At this point he was shouted down, first by local fishermen and their wives, then by some of the coastal farmers; finally a group of boarding house operators led by Jimmy joined in. There was so much noise for a time that even the local MP couldn’t get a hearing. In the end the Under-Secretary departed with nothing settled, only his promise that he would convey the reelings of the meeting most forcefully. It was by then almost eight-thirty. Jimmy and I, and several others from the Whitesand area, talked it over in the bar of a nearby pub. Most of us felt nothing had been achieved. Andy Trevose said he reckoned nothing would be done until we got a disaster as big as the Amoco Cadiz. ‘An’ tedn’t no use pretending — tha’ll paid to the inshaaw fishing for a generation.’ And he went off to phone his wife.

When he returned we had another round, and then Jimmy and I left. It was very still by then with wisps of sea fog trailing up from the direction of the harbour. ‘Looks like the man from London could be right.’ Jimmy was crouched over the wheel, straining to see the road. ‘If this weather holds they’ve a good chance of getting her off.’ The mist was thick on the moor, but when we reached his house the barometer was already falling. It was as we were standing there, staring at it, that Jean handed me a printed card. ‘Give that to Karen, will you? I said I’d try and find it for her, but it’s so long since we used it…’

‘Used what?’ I asked.

‘That flame weedkiller. But it’s very simple and I told her how it worked.’

‘You told her—’ I was staring down at the instructions card, my mind suddenly alerted, seeing Karen out in the cove and remembering there had been something beside her in the dinghy, something with a bell-shaped end like a blunderbuss resting on the bows. It must have been the flame guard, but the light was so dim by then I hadn’t been able to see it clearly. ‘When was this? When did she borrow it from you?’

‘This afternoon. She was up here… Oh, it would have been about three — well before tea anyway.’

‘God Almighty!’ I breathed. ‘You gave her that thing?’

‘It’s all right,’ she added quietly. ‘I explained it all to her, how to pressurize the tank and get the flame ignited. I even lent her a pump and some meths.’

‘She didn’t say why she wanted it?’

‘No.’

‘You didn’t ask her?’

‘Why should I? It’s for burning off weeds.’

I turned to Jimmy then and asked him to drive me down to the end of the lane, and when we got there he insisted on coming down the path with me to the cottage. The mist had thickened, a blank wall of vapour blocking the beam of my torch. ‘What are you worried about?’ he asked. ‘She wouldn’t be fooling about with it at this time of night.’

‘She didn’t want it for weeds,’ I said.

‘What then?’

That oil slick.’

“Oh, I see.’ He laughed. ‘Well, you can relax. Even

if she did get it going it wouldn’t do much good. That’s

pretty heavy stuff that slick.’

The cottage loomed, a darker grey in the fog. No sign of a light. The door was locked and I was shouting

for Karen before I had even got it open. But there was noi answer. The cottage was still and dead, wrapped in