Hammond Innes: The Black Tide

There was an open hatch and my eyes, staring through the cold humidity of the atmosphere, were beginning to water. It had to be a hatch, the entry hatch to one of the fuel tanks, and a void opened up inside me, my breath held and my body trembling. Oh God, no! And nothing I could do, no way I could stop her. I saw her reach it and she paused, crouched down on the deck. ‘She’s pumping,’ Jimmy breathed. ‘She’s pumping up the pressure, building up the flame.’

She stood up, the flame much brighter as she pushed it forward. That’s what I shall never forget, that I could see her pushing that flame towards the hatch and nothing I could do to stop her. I may have screamed. I don’t know. We were too far away, the engine roaring, and nothing I could do, nothing. I could see her, but I couldn’t stop her. The mist closed in and I sat there, my mouth open, dumb and appalled, waiting.

And then, as the silhouette of the tanker faded to

a shadow, it came — a great whoosh of flame burning the fog to a blazing incandescent fire that shot upwards with a terrible roaring sound.

The engine was idling again and we sat there, stunned and in a state of shock as the heat of it hit us through the fog glare. And the noise — it was a roar like a thousand trains going through a tunnel, a great eruption of sound.

I remember Jimmy suddenly yelling, ‘It’s gone. The whole bloody ship’s gone, my God!’ And Andy muttering close behind me, ‘Tha’ll show ‘em, arl raight, poor gal.’ His hand gripped my arm, a touch of sympathy. ‘She’ll be remembered a long taime for this.’

I didn’t move. I didn’t say anything. I was thinking of Karen, wondering if she’d really known what she was doing, what the result would be. But she must have. She must have known. Oil and air, the fumes an explosive mixture. She wasn’t a fool. She’d known. Christ! And I’d let her go. I’d seen her, down there in the cove in the dim evening light, the flame-thrower there, in the bows, and I’d waved to her, and gone off up the path to that useless meeting.

The heat was burning up the fog now. I could see the bright white heart of the fire and the great billowing cloud of smoke rising like a volcanic eruption. I couldn’t see the wreck, only the rocks of the Kettle’s Bottom all red with the glare. Either it was sunk or else the smoke and flames had engulfed it completely. The effect was terrifying, the thunderous roar, the whole appalling conflagration seeming to burst up from the surface of the sea as though fuelled by some

underwater vent. Lightning flashed in the smoke and I sat there, thinking of Karen, trying to imagine … I think I must have been crying, for my eyes became crusted with salt and I could feel my mouth trembling. But the intensity of the heat burned up my tears, so that I stared, dry-eyed, at the pyre she had made for herself.

I should have known. After three years — God! I should have known. And we’d been here almost two — two years living in expectation, waiting for just such a catastrophe.

The heat was scorching my face and there was wind. Jimmy’s hand gripped my arm. ‘Hold it!’ he said urgently. ‘Nothing you can do.’ I realized then that I had been struggling to my feet. ‘Nothing at all.’ His face was close to mine. ‘Not now. Just sit there …’

Just sit, do nothing. The tanker blazing and Karen’s body — her lovely, soft body burned to nothing. Had it been quick? An explosion like that, such a holocaust of flame — she wouldn’t have known? Surely to God it wouldn’t have hurt? I tried to imagine myself there beside her when it happened, but it was no use — my mind couldn’t grasp what it would have been like, what the impact of it would have been on flesh and bone. The nerves … it would have been her nerves that took the full shock of it, reacting like a seismograph, shrieking information to the brain in that split second of exploding flames.

My head was turned, still facing the lurid heat-glow. But it was over the stern now. Andy had swung the inflatable away from it. The wind was growing,

whipping the surface of the water to spray, and it was cold — cold air being sucked in by the rising heat of the flames.

I don’t know what happened after that, my mind seemed to blank out, so that I wasn’t conscious of anything until we were inside the Sennen breakwater and carrying the ILB up to the boathouse. The sea mist was almost gone, torn to shreds, and out where the ship had been there was nothing but billowing smoke lit by a red internal glow. The fog signal on the Longships banged again, the red light glaring fixedly, Somiebody was talking to me, asking questions, and I became aware of a small crowd gathering. There was a police car there and a young helicopter pilot I knew. ‘It was your wife, was it, sir — the young woman they saw went out to blow up the ship? Can you give me her name please, her full name…’ And another voice, a camera reporter from one of the TV companies that had been waiting to film the ship being hauled off the rocks, said, ‘What the hell did she do it for, going out to a wrecked oil tanker with a thing like a miniature flame-thrower? Did she want to kill herself?’ His eager, hungry little eyes stared up at me, the camera cradled on his arm. I could sense his excitement. ‘Did you see her? Was she really out there?’ And then, as I told him to go to hell, he stepped back, the camera raised, and his mate switched a spotlight on, suddenly blinding me. ‘Just tell it to us in your own words, Mr Rodin. Why did she do it?’ I started towards him, but Andy stopped me. I

thought better of it then. At least it was a chance to tell people … ‘Are you recording this?’ I asked him.

‘Yes. You tell us. Now.’ And I heard the whirr of the camera. So I told them — I told them what the quiet and beauty of Balkaer had meant to Karen, to us both — and how cheap flag-of-convenience ships, badly officered, badly equipped, were destroying the coastline, ruining everybody’s lives. ‘And that tanker spilling oil. Nothing came of the meeting tonight, only an assurance they’d get her off tomorrow. But Karen knew … she knew the pressure was falling and a storm due. She knew they’d do nothing, so she …’ I heard the hesitation in my voice — ‘so she must have made up her mind—’ I couldn’t go on, my voice caught on a sob, my words unintelligible. ‘She just — decided — she’d do it herself. Set the slick alight. Nobody was going to do anything, so she’d—’ I was conscious of the silence around me, everybody hanging on my words, the camera whirring. ‘That’s all,’ I muttered. ‘She didn’t realize — she didn’t mean to kill herself — only to save the coast and the seabirds.’ I heard him say ‘Cut’ and the camera stopped.

‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘You’ll wring a lot of hearts with that stuff. Pity your wife isn’t here too.’ He gave my arm a quick pat. ‘Sorry. Terrible shock for you. But thanks. Thanks a lot.’

I shook my head, feeling dazed, the world going on around me and myself not part of it. The camera crew were packing up. The police officer was at my elbow again, asking more questions, writing it down.

‘You say she didn’t mean to blow the ship up and herself with it?’

I turned my head, seeing his eyes blue like gem-stones in the beam of a car’s headlights. ‘She was killed,’ I said dully. ‘It was accidental.’ It didn’t mean anything to me now. It was as though talking to the camera had got the shock of it out of my system for the moment. ‘She loved life,’ I told him. ‘Why should she want to kill herself? She went out there with only one thought, to burn up that oil slick.’ He took it all down, then he read the statement back to me and I signed it, resting the paper on the warm bonnet of the police car. After that I was able to get away, back to the Trevose cottage. I didn’t go in. I just stood outside by the parked van. I wanted to get away, to be with Karen — back to the cottage, to the memories … all I’d got left. Jimmy says I didn’t utter a word all the way back, except to ask him to drive me straight down to the bottom of the lane. He wanted me to stay the night with them, of course, but I wouldn’t. ‘I’ll be all right.’ I thanked him and got my torch out of the back. Then I was going down the path to Balkaer, alone now and on my own for the first time since it had happened. The chickens stirred in their shed at my approach and in the dark cleft of the cove the suck and gurgle of waves lapping against the rocks came to me on an updraught of wind. There were no stars, the night dark and the sky overcast. It would be blowing from the sou’west by morning. The cottage door was