Endangered Species (27 page)

But the
Matthew Flinders
had Macgregor hatches, steel covers not canvas tarpaulins, and though she did not rely upon technology to the extent of her most modern competitors, she was beyond the redemption of her crew's ingenuity if Reed and his men failed.

Helplessness in the face of failure was the price mankind paid for the easement of their lives conferred by the wonders of science. Technology not only robbed men of their ancient skills, simple though they might have been, it laid them open to appalling hazard when it failed.

Mackinnon's newly roused spirit nearly foundered with the reflection. But the desire to do something triumphed. If they could not make the ship mobile, they must at least secure her in her immobility, giving her the chance to lie supine and watertight. Without engines it was their only chance and delay might cause the loose cargo, whatever it was, to burst through the ship's side.
That
would be disaster; the bottom line. They must avert the possibility at all costs. At that moment, Mackinnon set his hopes no higher.

‘Another cup of tea, sir? And we've made some toast.'

Mackinnon turned. The three deck officers were on the bridge now, their faces grey in the dawn light, their white
tropical shirts and shorts stained and torn. Stevenson was holding out a mug of tea. The smell of hot buttered toast brought a smile to Mackinnon's face.

‘By heaven, that's most welcome.'

He sipped at the hot, sweet brew and took a slice of the toast Taylor offered.

‘You look like bloody scarecrows,' Mackinnon said as he chewed.

‘I feel like the bottom of a parrot's cage,' said Rawlings, the flippancy betraying his nervousness.

Mackinnon grunted, ‘Your arm all right, Mr Taylor?' He nodded at the dirty bandage.

‘It's okay, sir.' Taylor's reply was flat, toneless. Preoccupied and in the half-light, Mackintosh failed to notice the high-strung tension in the man's voice and bearing.

‘Have you done something to your shoulder, Two-O?'

‘Nothing much, sir. Gave it a wrench,' Stevenson answered sheepishly.

‘Right. Well, we don't know how long Geordie Reed is going to be before he gets the main engines going—'

‘
If
he gets them going,' interrupted Taylor, oblivious of having spoken aloud. Rawlings and Stevenson cast sidelong glances at the junior mate.

Mackinnon ignored the impertinence. ‘So, here's what we've got to do . . .'

He had barely outlined his intentions when with a loud and startling jangle the telegraph pointers jerked round to
Stand by main engines
.

Jubilantly Mackinnon repeated the signal. Down below Mr Reed was ready.

‘Right, one of you grab the wheel.' Taylor stepped forward while Rawlings went to the telephone and rang the mess-room for a seaman. ‘Any one but Macgregor,' he bellowed into the mouthpiece.

Mackinnon stared out of the forward wheelhouse
windows. Rain and spray filled the air. Another ship, an island, a whole confounded continent might be a hundred yards ahead of them, but they would not know it. Even the radar was almost useless, the surrounding sea returning the echoes from wave tops in dense ranks.

‘Here we go then. Hard a-port!'

Taylor repeated the order and spun the wheel. Sweating profusely, his fist slippery on the brass telegraph handle, his heart thumping in his breast and a worm of apprehension writhing in his lower gut, Mackinnon swung the handle backwards and then forwards, hard down against the stop:
Full ahead
.

‘Shit or bust,' muttered Rawlings, still holding the mess-room telephone lest his shaking hand betray his fear.

From below the answering pointer jangled its reply.

In normal conditions they would have heard the hiss of compressed air, the faint, then growing rumble as the engine fired until the tremble of it permeated the steel hull. But they could hear nothing above the hideous boom of the wind, nor feel anything except the painful fluttering of their hearts. The tachometer needle lifted off its stop.

‘She's answering!' Taylor's shout was triumphant. They watched the steady swing of the compass card, sensing the increased heel as the
Matthew Flinders
turned slowly into the wind, then felt it ease as she baulked and steadied, the wind on her port bow, her helm hard down.

‘That's it, sir,' said Taylor, ‘she won't come up any further.'

‘Very well,' said Mackinnon, ‘let's count our blessings. She's comfortable enough.'

And she was. Relief was clear on all their faces, the thrust of rudder and propeller balanced the mass of air built up to windward of the ship's bulk, holding her with the wind broad on her port bow. She was pitching again, and rolling less, though from below the thud, thud of loose cargo still demanded their attention.

Beside Rawlings the engine-room telephone rang. Rawlings
nodded assent, said, ‘Well done,' and relayed to Mackinnon:

‘George reports all's well. We're back on fuel oil, sir.'

‘Very well. Then let's get organised and secure this cargo without further delay. I've no desire to get caught in the eye. You know what to do . . .'

Able Seaman Pritchard loomed in the wheelhouse doorway. ‘Come to take the wheel, Cap'n.'

Taylor handed over and the officers muttered their ‘aye, ayes' before departing.

‘What's it like below, Pritchard?'

‘Bit of a pigsty, sir.'

‘Much water got in?'

‘Yeah, quite a lot. They're squee-geeing it down the alleyways and bucketing it out.'

‘What about the woman?' Mackinnon asked, suddenly aware that he had forgotten about her.

‘The Chief Steward sat up with her, I t'ink, Cap'n. She fell out of the bunk once, but he and the Bosun got her back in okay.'

‘Christ!' Mackinnon muttered under his breath, making a mental note to ring down in a moment and order her given more morphine. Good old Freddie Thorpe, he thought; self-centred, not above a bit of graft and an expert practitioner of the trading of
cumshaw
for favours, he had nevertheless sat up with the patient.

‘The kid's okay, too. Had the best kip of the lot of us.'

‘The kid? Oh, the baby . . . who looked after it?'

‘Braddock got broody, Cap'n. Filled the little bugger up wi' connie-onnie. He's back wid his own lot now, like.'

Mackinnon grinned, imagining the ugly, bronzed features of Able Seaman Braddock forcing condensed milk into a rose-bud mouth. Then, with a pang of intense pain at the reference to the baby, he turned away.

The group of men were roped together like mountaineers as
they made their slow way up the foredeck. The ship's attitude at a broad angle to the wind gave them some shelter up the starboard side, in the lee of the contactor houses. Fortunately they did not have far to go to reach the small access hatch beside the huge, heavy trackways for the Macgregor slabs which they dare not now open. The access hatches, one to each hold, were small, raised trap doors, protected from slopping water by a high steel coaming and secured by heavy dogs, like the door to the steering gear.

The
Matthew Flinders
was still shipping water, but it was not the green mass they had endured earlier, for the immense power of the wind flattened the sea, and though they waded through a foot or two of swirling seawater slopping about the deck, it was the wind that tore at them, a stinging, plucking force that was saturated with millions of tiny droplets and against the strength of which they were roped.

Taylor led, his bandaged arm not appearing to trouble him as he thrust himself forward. Rawlings, back in the shelter of the accommodation, had said, ‘Right now, who's first?', making it clear the Mate's role was going to be supervisory. While Stevenson dragged a coil of flag halliard forward, Taylor had organised the first group.

‘I'll take Braddock and Williams with the Bosun as anchor man. Okay?' he had bellowed. They had jostled for position, uncoiling the rope and flaking it out in the alleyway. ‘You see it runs clear, sir,' Taylor ordered brusquely, surveying the streaming foredeck with the eye of a reconnoitring grenadier.

They had heard the bump-bump of the loose cargo and Rawlings had offered the opinion it was the heavy industrial cement mixers in Number Two 'tween deck.

When he was ready Taylor had checked the small VHF handset on its strap about his shoulders and turned to the Second Mate.

‘Okay, Alex?'

‘Okay.' Almost inaudible above the wind, Stevenson gave the thumbs up.

‘I'll let you know the score and expect you up in support,' Taylor mouthed, agreeing the plan they had contrived in the wheelhouse.

Out on deck Taylor's party moved forward slowly, clawing their way along like ham film actors faking a cliff climb on a horizontal surface. Rawlings fed the long length of halliard dutifully through his hands while Stevenson, radio pressed to his ear, took occasional peeps round the corner of the accommodation, where the droplets of rain and spray stung his face. After a while he rolled back into shelter, his thumb jerking again.

‘Reached the access hatch.'

It seemed they had to wait for hours, buffeted by the wind as it whipped in fits and starts, seeking them out to pluck them from their imperfect shelter. Then the handset crackled in Stevenson's ear:

‘Mate's right. Bulldozers are okay, but the fucking cement mixers are going walkabout . . .'

The transmission suddenly ceased, then came to life again.

‘Alex, d'you hear? Over.'

‘Roger. Copy the cement mixers are problem. D'you want ropes or chain snotters?'

‘Ropes – at least to start with.'

‘Right. I'm on my way.'

The short lengths of mooring rope, six fathoms to a man, were wound round the shoulders of Stevenson's party and they hitched themselves up. Stevenson's shoulder ached, but he tried to ignore the pain, able to cope with all but the heaviest demands upon it.

‘Off you go!' shouted Rawlings and Stevenson led the Carpenter and Macgregor forward.

Clear of the accommodation Stevenson stopped and then crawled, aware that the wind, passing over his curved back
actually sought to
lift
him from the deck. They progressed through water which also threatened to sweep them into the scuppers as the ship lurched and rolled so that they were sodden as they inched forward dragging the weight of the ropes coiled about them. From time to time they stopped, gasping and clinging on to a ringbolt here or a hatch support there with no clear idea of how long it was taking them. Stevenson realised he was favouring his weak arm and as a consequence of this distraction the handset dangling round his neck outside the rope was dragging in the water.

After what seemed an eternity of struggle, they reached the access hatch in the lee of which crouched the Bosun, the halliard an umbilical to Taylor, Braddock and Williams below. Stevenson beckoned his men with their heavy coils of rope and indicated with his index finger they should follow him. The Carpenter nodded and gave the thumbs up; Macgregor contented himself by looking sour.

The hold spaces of the
Matthew Flinders
consisted of six hatches numbered from forward, beneath each of which extended a three-metre-high 'tween deck and then a deep lower hold. The bottom of the latter was formed by a double skin used as a fuel oil tank. In Singapore much of the cargo had been discharged from the 'tween deck. Exposed ‘faces' of cargo for Hong Kong had been ‘tommed off', shored up with heavy timbers and planks, a surprisingly effective, if time-consuming and expensive, method of preserving cargo stows. But where the bulldozers' own inertia combined with the heavy chain lashings had held against the worst ravages of the typhoon, the lighter rope lashings about the cement mixers had parted. It would have started with a small movement, a tiny, imperceptible sawing of the ropes, tensioned by twisted toggles of timber to form a ‘Spanish windlass'. The lighter cement mixers were less stable than the massive, track-mounted 'dozers. The rolling had exaggerated their movement, increasing the sawing and slackening of the lashings, gradually casting them loose. As
Stevenson dropped from the dull grey light of the overcast morning into the stale, dusty air of the 'tween deck, lit by the orange pools of the intermittent cargo lights set behind grilles in the deckhead, he was overwhelmed by a sense of claustrophobia.

When Braddock plucked at his arm he almost jumped, then steadied himself.

‘Third's over there.' Braddock pointed and Stevenson could see Taylor's grubbily white form dodging about a monstrous shape as it lurched and slid with a squealing of steel on steel and a shower of sparks that in themselves sent shivers of apprehension down Stevenson's spine.

‘He wants to get a rope on each mixer, Sec. That's what he told me to tell yer. Once we've restrained 'em we can get some chains down 'ere.'

‘Got it!'

Stevenson scrambled forward over a stow of cases of beer. In the airless 'tween deck, in marked contrast to the atmosphere on deck, a faint but insistent queasiness seized him. A melange of stinks, chiefly that of stale alcohol filled the available space. Uncoiling his length of rope he advanced towards Taylor who, he could now see, was, with Williams, circling the nearest of the three mixers.

‘Look out!'

Taylor, wary as a hunter, had been watching his quarry and already sensed the coming movement of the ship as the
Matthew Flinders
began to climb a long swell and roll lugubriously to starboard. All at once the relative peace of the 'tween deck was shattered. The three loose cement mixers moved towards Stevenson, approaching from the after starboard corner of the 'tween deck. To his left a tumbled and crushed heap of cardboard cartons, their contents spewed across the deck and burst by successive impacts of the rogue mixers, had formed a cushion and clearly saved the vulnerable shell plating of the ship from the worst damage the mixers might have done.