Endangered Species (23 page)

By now he understood the danger to which his neglect might expose the ship, and it overawed him, chiefly because his own life, rather than the lives of others, was at stake. Experience had early marked out the priorities for Macgregor; the fact that he came low on the list of others made him aware that to survive he must look after himself. In his own way he too understood that God helped those
who helped themselves. He had observed its truth since his boyhood.

However, his character lacked staying power and the whisky he had drunk nurtured his grievances. Supervening his fear at losing control of the ship again, resentment grew at having such a responsibility thrust upon him. Paradoxically he equally resented the supervision. He knew his job. He did not need Third Officers and Masters to stand over him as though he was a child. He had an AB's ticket just like Braddock and Williams and Pritchard. Fear, incompetence and pride spawned this complex, deadly peevishness, and it welled up within him, submerging the fear and breeding carelessness.

But Taylor and Mackinnon were impervious to his spite. Instead he had begun to hate the wheel. It had knocked his knuckles twice as he released it to spin back admiships under the equilibrifying forces of the hydraulic fluid in the telemotor. It had humiliated him, just as the corner of the winch on the boat-deck had caught his ribs fifty minutes earlier. He had begun to resent steering the ship and the typhoon had become a thing to be hated, defied and spat upon.

Then, out of the night, came a periodic series of those coincident crests which Mackinnon had studied before turning. Distracted, Macgregor did not notice the ship's head begin to pay off and the swing had accelerated beyond redemption when he did. He lost control of the ship on the advancing face of the first of the cumulative waves.

As the stern lifted it was thrust to starboard, almost cartwheeling in an attempt to overtake the accelerating bow. Driven deep, the ship's head slewed rapidly to port, increasing the swinging moment as the angle of the supporting ocean abruptly inclined towards the vertical. The
Matthew Flinders
rolled to starboard as her head flew to port. And she failed to swing back as the rudder bit, for Macgregor had quite forgotten the ship was inanimate and
needed sympathetic human intelligence to nurse her through her ordeal.

Perhaps Macgregor should never have taken the wheel as custom ordained and Mackinnon ordered; perhaps Macgregor should never have been isued with a certificate of competency as an able seaman which allowed him the privilege. Whatever misjudgements had been made where Macgregor was concerned, and they had doubtless been made (whatever
he
thought of them) by giving him the benefit of the doubt, they were now proved wrong. His application of counter-helm was too late for, lifted high, nine tenths of the
Matthew Flinders
's rudder turned uselessly in the spray-sodden air.

The
Matthew Flinders
broached at the first of the oncoming quartet of heavy seas. It burst against her port quarter with an impact that could be felt throughout her fabric, further pushing the ship's stern to starboard and lifting her as she continued slewing to port. The flung spray arched over her in a pale, wind-riven cloud and the wave passed under her. The
Matthew Flinders
rolled back to port as the second huge sea heaped up alongside her, rearing over her entire length as the decks, even the exhaust tubes poking up through her buff funnel, pointed invitingly towards it. The crest came roaring down upon her as she lay like a drunk in the gutter.

As hundreds of tonnes of water cascaded from the summit of the wave, the inherent stability of the
Matthew Flinders
asserted itself. A reaction between the downward thrust of her weight and the upward thrust of her buoyant self reacted with a levering effect. Whilst each might be considered to act at a single point, the first at her centre of gravity, the second at her centre of buoyancy, the first remained constant whatever the ship's attitude in the water. The other moved according to the body of the hull actually
in
the water. As the centre of gravity acted downwards through the ship's centre, a roll to port moved the upward thrust of her centre
of buoyancy dramatically to the left. This was increased by the rising of the port waterline for the ship now felt the upward buoyancy of the next wave. These two forces, gravity and buoyancy, acted in opposition, and since they were not in the same vertical line they formed a moment known as a righting lever, throwing the
Matthew Flinders
back to starboard away from the breaking torrent that swept down upon her.

Although it was not the decks upon which this vast volume of water struck, it hammered with tremendous force upon the whole exposed length of the port side, inducing a fast roll the other way. At the same time it swept the ship, like a woodchip in a mill race, bodily sideways.

Mackinnon turned in those few fateful seconds to correct Macgregor's steering. He knew instantly he was too late. He was level with the open wheelhouse door as the ship went over to starboard, with Taylor somewhere above him on the canting deck and Macgregor scrabbling at the telemotor for support. Mackinnon was flung into a half-run, half-stumble out on to the bridge-wing. The outboard rail dipped down, down to the seething blackness that was the sea on their lee side. For an instant he thought he was to be flung from his own bridge, then he made gasping, winded contact with the starboard gyro-bearing repeater pedestal and collapsed, clinging to it as the water came over him, roaring in his ears, deceptively warm.

In the wheelhouse Macgregor was flung from his handhold on the wheel, hitting the engine-room telegraph with a yelp of pain and falling to the deck as one of the port wheelhouse windows was stove in. The armoured glass shattered into long slivers and one slashed across Taylor's forearm as he reached out to seize the abandoned wheel, bracing himself against the steep angle of the deck. Anxiously he scanned the starboard bridge-wing for a sign of the Captain.

Yet none of the water that poured aboard the old cargo-liner at that moment was solid, or constituted what
sailors call a ‘green' sea, for the bulk of the wave had gone
under
the ship; it was merely the mass of water flung
upwards
from the impact of the colliding breaker which was then shredded to leeward, smashing the wheelhouse window, deluging Captain Mackinnon and pressing him to the deck at the foot of the repeater pedestal.

A deck below the bridge Rawlings found himself lying on his cabin bulkhead. Once relieved by Taylor he had crawled to his bunk in search of an hour or two's rest and had actually fallen asleep. When the
Matthew Flinders
rolled to leeward he was jerked from his fitful slumber. As the ship lolled on her side, Rawlings was pierced by anxiety for her stability. It was his particular responsibility and he was aware of the potential variables that such a roll might cast loose in the ship's cargo spaces. He lay still, his whole, frightened being concentrating on listening for distant rumblings from the holds.

Stevenson had been unable to sleep. He was keyed up, excited as much by the presence of the Vietnamese girl as the typhoon. Who was she?
What
was she?

She seemed to be alone and he nurtured ridiculous ideas about her vulnerability. A ship was a libidinous hothouse. He thought of Macgregor and Rawlings as threats to her. Then, being a sensible man, he dismissed the whole thing as stupid fantasy and tried to sleep, only to find he could not drop off. He got up and realised he felt hungry. He recollected he had eaten no dinner that night; his hunger gave him the excuse he subconsciously sought to make his way back down below.

He went first to the galley. Fred Thorpe was still about. The Chief Steward never turned in early but normally led a small school of the ship's hardened drinkers who, off watch or on day work, congregated nightly in his cabin. He was a sociable host and, being Chief Steward, had the keys that
circumvented Captain Mackinnon's bar-opening hours. Tonight, however, Thorpe was occupied on more humane matters. Being a pragmatist he felt no humiliation from passing out over the amputations. Mackinnon had himself quailed, handing the job over to Taylor. Taylor always was a superior, heartless sort of bastard, and if his detachment only confirmed this in Thorpe's eyes, he had been too long subservient to worry about social pecking orders. Basically, as exemplified by his discreet drinking school, at the end of the day, Freddie Thorpe did just what he wanted.

He was not a voluptuary, however. No seaman can ever be that entirely. Bred to the service of others, it was Thorpe who, with one of his Chinese assistant stewards, cleared up the swilling muck in the officers's duty mess. After that he had made it his business to supervise the feeding and bedding down of the refugees. The women and children had settled first in the smoke-room, then the men had been attended to in the saloon.

He was in the galley discussing the arrangements for feeding the increased numbers the following day when Stevenson found him. The galley was at main-deck level in the approximate centre of the ship, directly above the forward end of the engine-room, the nearest habitable space to the ship's centre of gravity. More than anywhere else, the motion of the ship was least here.

Thorpe and Wang Lee, the cook, stood, braced easily, their hands clutching the guard-rail that ran round the Carron electric range.

‘Hullo, Freddie, any chow left?'

‘You no come dinner, Mr Steven-song. Your favourite –
Nasi Goreng
.'

‘Got any left, Wang Lee?' Stevenson grinned.

Wang Lee shook his head. ‘Mos' go boat people.'

‘Oh.' Stevenson's regret was tempered by the thought of Tam. ‘Never mind.'

Thorpe was looking amused. ‘We've got a drop of soup,
Alex, and some bread rolls.'

‘They'll do.'

‘You'd better have the soup in a mug,' Thorpe said, taking a ladle from the jingling row that swung from a hook above the range. He lifted the lid from a huge pot held on the warm hotplates by horizontal bars. Wang Lee handed the Chief Steward a mug from the half-dozen hung from hooks in the deckhead above, then turned and produced a basket of crisp brown rolls. Stevenson could smell the freshness of them and his mouth watered.

‘Thanks.' He took a roll and then the mug just as the ship dipped her bow and began to broach and roll.

‘Steady there . . .'

Bracing themselves, the three men waited for the ship to right herself. She shook at the impact of the first quartering sea. Stevenson, the mug in one hand, stuffed the roll in his mouth and seized the range grab-rail as the rolling increased. A moment later they each knew something had gone seriously wrong.

‘Holy shit!' swore Thorpe as the
Matthew Flinders
rolled to port and they felt her rise as the approaching sea heaped itself under the hull. They felt her thrown over to starboard as the breaker slammed against her with an immense, terrifying jar.

Like Mackinnon three decks above him, Stevenson was caught partially off balance with only one hand free. Wang Lee and Thorpe cannoned into and clung to each other, skidding down the galley's tiled deck and crashing into the stainless-steel lockers to starboard. The ladles and straining spoons dangling above the range were flung from their hooks, the port-side lockers burst their turn-buckles and pots and pans, knives and utensils tumbled down upon them with a clatter.

Stevenson was precipitated towards the hooked-open entry door. He had dropped the mug, but he had the fleeting impression that gravity drew it chest height, parallel to his
own direction of descent, the soup slopping from it in a dollop. He spat out the roll as his hands went out to save himself; the entrance loomed, he caught at the side of it and, with a sickening blow, his shoulder fetched up against the door jamb. A wave of nausea tore through him as the intervention of the door jamb spun him round and shot him backwards into the alleyway beyond.

Simultaneously water burst in upon the accommodation. Stevenson fell full length and it washed over him as it rushed like a miniature bore the length of the alleyway, diminishing only where it spewed into adjacent cabins and down, over the low sea step, into the storeroom alleyway and master-gyro room below. The air was filled with the screams and howls of the boat people. The security of their exhausted sleep was abruptly terminated by this terrifying change in their apparently secure circumstances. The motion of the ship was suddenly a suffocating extension of the exposed horrors of the junk. The edge of their tiredness removed by two or three hours' oblivion, they woke to be revolted by the smell of diesel oil, of European cooking, of the Europeans themselves in this battened-down, enclosed, staggering, drunken steel box.

In the Chief Engineer's cabin the telephone rang about thirty seconds before Macgregor lost control of the ship.

After Mackinnon had visited Mr York prior to amputating the feet of the Vietnamese woman, the Chief had gone below and told the Second Engineer, who was then on watch, that he wanted the engines put on to diesel oil. Normally, when on passage between ports, the
Matthew Flinders
's Burmeister and Wain diesel engine ran on fuel oil, a cruder, cheaper means of power than the more expensive pure diesel oil. This was only fed to the engine on ‘stand-by', when the ship manoeuvred in and out of port. Reliability being essential at such times, the more volatile diesel oil was used as the engine was stopped and started.

Mackinnon, mindful of the worsening weather, had ordered the ship back on to diesel oil, anticipating the need to adjust the engine revolutions in the coming hours. Mr York had already hurriedly changed over from fuel oil to diesel once that afternoon, as Mackintosh had manoeuvred close to the drifting junk. Having recovered the boat people and increased speed, Mackinnon had telegraphed ‘full speed away' and they had reverted to ordinary fuel oil.

But Mr York had a problem. Since the ship was to be paid off for scrap when she arrived in Hong Kong, Mr York had been instructed by the company superintendent before leaving the United Kingdom not to take more bunkers than was absolutely necessary. Calculating fuel consumption being both part of the Chief Engineer's domain and something in which Mr York took a particular pride, he had left Singapore congratulating himself that he had done so to a nicety. He was in complete agreement with the company's policy and had always abhorred waste.