Maddon's Rock (7 page)

Evans was telling the man with the broken nose about a tanker he’d sailed in that had run hashish for an
Alexandrian Greek. He spoke very fast in an excitable Welsh sing-song and he had a queer way of moving his arms to emphasise a point. “I tell you, man,” he said at the end, “that was the daftest ship I ever sailed in.”

I couldn’t resist it. “What about the
Penang
?” I said.

His head jerked round in my direction, eyes narrowed. “What did you say?” he asked. His companion was staring at me too.

“The
Penang
,” I said. “You were talking about queer ships. I should have thought she was the queerest——”

“What do you know about
Penang
?” growled the man with the broken nose.

“Just gossip,” I said quickly. They were both watching me closely, bodies taut as though about to spring on me. “I live in Falmouth,” I added. “Sailors back from the China Seas used to talk about her.”

Evans leaned towards me. “And what makes you think I was ever on the
Penang?
” he asked.

“Captain Halsey was the skipper and Hendrik first mate,” I explained. “I heard that you and a man named Jukes——”

“My name’s Jukes,” growled the man with the broken nose.

“Go on,” snapped Evans.

I didn’t like the look of it. Juke’s brown hand had slowly clenched as it lay there on the table. The index finger was missing, but even so his fist looked like a sledge-hammer. “I heard you had sailed with Halsey before and naturally I though you must have been with him on the
Penang
.”

“Well, we wasn’t, see,” snarled Jukes.

“My mistake,” I said. And then to Bert, “Come on, time Sills was relieved.” Jukes thrust his chair back and started to his feet as we began to move. But Evans restrained him.

“Wot’s up wiv ’em?” Bert asked as we got outside. “You mentionin’ that ship seemed to get ’em proper scared.”

“I don’t know—yet.” I said.

Another thing happened that evening. Bert relieved Sills an hour before midnight. I was in my hammock, half asleep, when Sills came in. “You awake, Corporal?” he asked.

“What is it?” I said.

“Is it all right if I go and kip down in one of the boats?” he asked. “Bit stooffy laike in here an’ I’d feel more comfortable in’t fresh air.”

“It’s against regulations to get into the boats,” I said, “But it’s none of my business where you sleep.”

He went off then and I settled myself to sleep. In less then ten minutes he was back again and jerking at my shoulder to wake me. “What is it now?” I asked.

“Have you got a torch?” he whispered. He was excited and a bit scared.

“No,” I said. “Why? What’s up?”

“Well, it’s laike this, Corp,” he said, “I got in’t boat and was just settlin’ down naice an’ comfy when I felt boards give under me. I felt around with me ’and and I could move ’em. You come an’ have a look.”

I climbed out of my hammock, got my boots on and went for’ard with him. The boat he’d climbed into was the one on the port side, Number Two boat. He climbed underneath and felt around on the seaward side of the keel. “There,” he said, “feel that.”

The wood was wet with spray. I felt the ribs of the planks under my fingers. I pressed against them. They were solid enough. I moved my hand further out, up the port side of the boat, and suddenly one of the planks moved. The next one moved and the next. Altogether five of them were loose. It was only a slight movement. One or two of the screws had probably rusted. Without a torch it was impossible to estimate the extent of the damage. But it was the boat to which we had been assigned if anything happened and I didn’t like the thought of those loose planks. “I’ll go down and have a word with Mr. Rankin,” I said.

Rankin was in the Chief Engineer’s cabin as usual. The place looked just the same as that first night we’d come
on board. The Chief was lying on his bunk, Rankin sitting on the end of it and the cards between them. The place was littered with bottles and thick with cigarette smoke. “Well, what is it, Corporal?” Rankin asked.

“I’ve come to report Number Two boat unseaworthy,” I said. “I think Captain Halsey should be informed.”

“What the devil are you talking about?” he cried. “Your job is to run a guard, not to go nosing round the ship.”

“Nevertheless,” I said, “some of the planks are loose in the boat and the Captain should know about it.”

“How do you know about it?”

“Sills discovered it,” I told him. “He climbed into the boat to get some sleep in the fresh air. He reported to me that——”

“Good God!” Rankin interrupted me, flinging his cards down on the bed. “Haven’t you more sense than to let your men go sleeping in the boats.”

“That’s not the point,” I said. I was beginning to feel angry. “I went and had a look at the boat myself. Five planks are loose and my view is that she’s in no fit state to take the sea if the necessity arose.”

“Your view!” he sneered. “My God! anybody’d think you were one of their Lordships instead of a bloody little corporal. What the hell do you know about boats! You wouldn’t know the difference between a cutter and a sieve. Now get back to your guard.”

“I’ve been sailing all my life,” I told him sharply, “and I know as much about small craft as any man on this ship. That boat is the one allocated to us in the event of boat stations and I’m reporting to you the fact that it’s not seaworthy. I insist that you pass on my report.”

Rankin looked at me for a minute. He wasn’t sure of himself. He turned to the Chief Engineer. “How often are the boats inspected?” he asked.

“Oh, about every week,” the other replied. “In fact Hendrik and one of the men were working on ’em while we were in Murmansk.”

“I thought so.” He turned back to me. “Did you
hear that, Vardy? Now perhaps you’ll stop getting panicky.”

“I don’t care when Mr. Hendrik was working on them,” I said. “The boat’s unseaworthy at the moment. Come up and see for yourself.”

He hesitated. Then he said, “I’ll have a look at in it the morning. If there’s anything in what you say, I’ll report it to Captain Halsey. There, will that satisfy you?”

“I’d rather you came and looked at it now,” I told him.

“That’s out of the question,” he said. “The ship’s blacked out. Anyway, if there were anything the matter with the boat nothing could be done about it till daylight.” And with that I had to be content. Almost I was convinced that Sills and I must have been mistaken. Down here in the solid bowels of the ship the slight movement I had felt in the planks of the boat seemed unreal and not very important. But one little fact rattled uneasily round my mind.
Hendrik and one of the men had been working on the boats in Murmansk.
I turned into the galley for a chat with the cook and casually, in the course of conversation, I said, “Did you notice Mr. Hendrik and one of the men working on the boats when the
Trikkala
was in Murmansk?”

“I believe they were doing something to them,” he said, sleepily stroking the cat which purred contentedly on his lap.

“What was wrong with them?” I asked.

“No idea,” he replied.

“Who was working with him?” There was no suspicion in my mind as I put the question. I asked simply because I thought it might be one of the crew I knew and I could then find out what work they had been doing on the boat.

But the cook’s reply shattered my peace of mind. “Jukes,” he said and the cat purred.

Jukes! Jukes at the wheel in the small hours of the morning. Jukes working on the boats with Hendrik. Jukes sullen and suspicious at the mention of the
Penang
.

I went up on deck and paced the ship in the mad flurry of wind and driving spray, my mind a turmoil of half-formed suspicions, doubts and uncertainty.

At one o’clock I relieved Bert; at one o’clock on the 5th of March, 1945. He was cold and tired. “Turned a’t nice again,” he said with an effort at cheeriness. The door of our quarters slid to on the muttered “Goodnight” and I was alone with my uneasy thoughts in the menacing darkness. Even when my eyes got accustomed to the darkness, I could see nothing, not a glimmer of light, not even the shadowy bulk of the after-deckhousing behind me. I was alone in utter darkness and the only thing my eyes could see was the glimmer of foaming wave tops as they thundered past the ship. Occasionally I leaned over the rail and looked for’ard along the ship’s side. Far away in the black turmoil of the sea two little pinpoints of light glimmered faintly; the
American Merchant
not properly blacked out. They seemed the only friendly things in that nightmare darkness.

Under my feet the steel deck plates vibrated steadily to the roar of the engines that percolated through the closed hatches. But louder than the engines was the sound of the wind howling through the
Trikkala’s
superstructure and the intermittent thump of the bows as they buried themselves in a wave followed by the inevitable splatter of spray as it hit the decks. I was partly protected by the bridge for the wind was off the starboard bow. By walking for’ard a little I could see a white glimmer of surf pouring across the forepeak and against it the dim outline of the port wing of the bridge. On the extreme end of the bridge wing I could just discern the faint red glow cast by the port navigation light.

The time slipped slowly by and my thoughts revolved endlessly around all the little things that in themselves were insignificant, but the sum of which had left me uneasy. Two o’clock came and went. Jukes would be at the wheel by now, Why” had the watches been switched? What had Halsey meant when he had said, “
It suits us
”? I paced up and down. Each time I turned into the wind, spray stung my face, salting my lips. Two-fifteen. I
went to the rail and leaned out to look for the friendly pin-points of light from the
American Merchant
. I gazed for’ard along the line of the ship. There was not a sign of them. All around us was empty darkness shot here and there by the hissing white of the broken wave tops. I went for’ard towards the bridge. I saw the black bulk of it against the ghostly glimmer of the surf pouring across her bows. But there was no sign of the warm glow of the port navigation light. And then a great sheet of heavy spray struck me, stinging the
left
side of my face. I knew then that we had altered course. That was why I could no longer see the navigation lights of the
American Merchant.
A U-boat warning? It was common for convoys to zigzag if there was warning of a U-boat in the neighbourhood. But I’d heard no depth charges being dropped. In any case, for the Navy to order the whole convoy to alter course at night would mean breaking radio silence.

Footsteps clattered down the iron bridge ladder. I saw the figure of a man standing below the port wing of the bridge. He was outlined against the surf breaking across the bows. He was joined by the man from the bridge and they both disappeared into the black bulk of the bridge accommodation.

I looked at the luminous dial of my wrist watch. Two-twenty. Forty minutes to go before Sills relieved me. I paced up and down, conscious of the position of the wind, waiting for the ship to swing on to the next leg of the zigzag. Probably they had orders to change course at certain times. It hadn’t happened the night before, but perhaps the skipper had received orders to that effect during the day.

At two-thirty I noticed that the port navigation light was again visible against the steel plates of the bridge.

Six minutes later the ship staggered under a terrific explosion.

I was standing almost exactly amidships when the explosion occurred. I remember I had just looked up. A chink of light from the door to the bridge accommodation shone out on the vague bulk of the funnel beside me. I had looked up to see a trailer of sparks float aft in a billow of smoke. Then I looked for’ard again, watching for the two figures I had seen emerge. I saw the bows dip and the water cream across them as she wallowed into the next wave. I saw them lift and the surf begin to cascade over the side.

Then it happened.

Shock, sound, sight—all seemed to come on the instant. The shock threw the ship sideways and I was flung against the rail. The sound was heavy and muffled—like the sound of a depth charge, and yet less solid, as though the explosion had been at no great depth. As I hit the rail the top of a wave that was boiling white and seemed almost level with the deck close under the bridge, blossomed like a great white mushroom and then flung itself in a roaring curtain of water at the clouds. At the instant my body hit the rail and I grasped the cold wet iron in my fingers, the white blur of upflung water hovered motionless over the ship. Then it came down. It hit the deck with a crash. The weight of the water was crushing. I fought upwards through it as though I were being smothered. Then suddenly it was over. Save for the sluicing of the water in the scuppers it was as though nothing had happened. The pulsing of the engines continued. The wind howled through the superstructure. The waves went hissing past us in the night.

For a whole minute it seemed the ship held its breath in stunned surprise. There was a sort of shocked normality.

Then somebody shouted. The engine-room telegraph
rang twice, the bell sharp and urgent in the gale-ridden night. It rang again. The sound of the engines died. And from below decks a murmur of voices rose louder and louder—shouts, queries, the rush of feet, orders. As though the engine-room telegraph had rung the curtain up the
Trikkala
shook off her instant’s stupefaction and came to life.

I found myself still gripping the rail as the crew tumbled on to the deck, vague shadows that ran and collided with each other and swore and asked the world what the hell had happened. I found my rifle which I had dropped. Halsey’s voice thundered out from the bridge. He used a megaphone, but even so I remember thinking what a terrific compass his voice had. “Boat stations!” he shouted. “Get to your boat stations and then stand by.”

The deck lights were suddenly switched on. Men stopped in their rush towards the boats, blinking sleepily. Some were only half dressed. Others had forgotten their life jackets. I saw one man limping along a boot on his left foot, the other in his hand dangling by its laces. A man called out to him, “Where did it hit us, George?” And he replied, “Number One hold. You can hear the water pouring in amongst that iron-ore cargo.”