CHAPTER XIII OFF THE ROCKALLS IN A HURRICANE
During the night the storm increased in violence. A sea which struck us broadside on laid the Aud on her beam-ends, flung every one on deck into the lee scuppers, and swept away everything movable.
Caution suggested lying to. But the date of my rendezvous now gave me only one day's margin, and the storm might last for days. There was nothing for it but to go ahead, and chance the cargo shifting—though the picture of those heavy cases in the half-empty hold breaking adrift and taking charge, was one that did not bear thinking about.
To reduce the violence of the continual battering on the vessel's sides, I gave orders to distribute oil upon the water, at the same time turning a couple of points south. This had the effect of reducing the roll and making the combers break before they reached the stern.
It was some relief when day at last dawned. At least we could see a short distance ahead, and that was our main need, for we were now heading straight for the Rockalls.
Of the one rock which ordinarily rose above the water, hardly anything was likely to be visible in such a sea, and we could only hope to recognise it by the surf, the columns of water shooting up into the air, and the clouds of seagulls which probably circled about it.
The weather grew wilder and wilder. Rain and hail showers swept at shorter and shorter intervals over mountainous seas, and made it difficult to see at all.
In order to leave nothing to chance, since eight o'clock in the morning I had had men heaving the lead, so that we might know the moment we reached the outer edge of the bank.
By dead-reckoning—there had been no possibility of taking an observation for three days past—we ought to sight the rock, bearing east, about two miles away, at about 1 p.m. Allowance had, of course, been made for drift and leeway.
10 a.m.: Nothing to be seen.
Eleven o'clock! Always the same picture. Nothing but wild, raging sea. But it almost looked as if the troughs of the waves were deeper, the breakers fiercer, like the seas over a shallow bottom. Were we already?... No one dared to say it; only the constant use of the binoculars showed that every one shared the same thought. But neither rock, nor surf, nor birds were to be seen.
Twelve o'clock was already past. Soon, we must be there. 'No bottom!' comes, with monotonous iteration, the shouted report from aft, where, under the direction of the first-officer, the sounding machine is in constant use. More than once the men were caught by a sea and flung against the rail. I shouted to them to hang on, and gave the order for more oil to be poured from the bow. All orders had to be given, or rather yelled, through the megaphone. The wind seemed to bite off the words as they came out of one's mouth.
Then, just in the midst of a fierce squall came a wild shout from aft, 'Bottom! sixty-three fathoms.'
'Reduce speed!' 'Sharp look-out!'
Every one knew what was now at stake. Fifty fathoms!—fifty-six—sixty-two—seventy—twenty-eight.' Damnation! what is one to make of such a series? In the special chart, which lay under a glass cover on the bridge, depths of seventy, sixty, fifty fathoms were marked promiscuously, with the comforting annotation that they were unreliable.
Alter course? But, which way? It was too late now to lie to, unless I wanted to risk being driven slowly but with inexorable certainty on the reefs.
Every course was as good, or bad, as every other, until we had once sighted the rock. The visibility was now from 800 to 1000 yards, and at need that might serve.
After a momentary hesitation I pulled myself together and determined to hold on.
'Breakers to starboard!' came a shout from the lower bridge, where some of the men were keeping a look-out.
'Hard a-port! Hard over!' Slowly and sluggishly the ship answered to her helm. The seconds grew to minutes. Shielding our faces against wind and water with our hands, we tried to discover where the breakers lay. But all that could be seen was one continuous welter of foam. The waves all round us, high as the side of a house, were breaking with a roar of thunder and shooting their spray high into the air. It was impossible to tell whether it was surf breaking on a reef, or only breaking seas.
Through this hell's brew the little Aud held gallantly on. We were now on an easterly course, and the seas, taking us on the port quarter, swept furiously over the after part of the ship. I tried the effect of increasing speed. It was no use. The only result was that the stern created so much suction that the seas poured over it more violently than before.
One moment we would think we heard breakers to port, the next to starboard, but always it proved to be an illusion. It was the same with the sunken reefs and sandbanks, which we imagined we saw from time to time; they were only dark patches and eddies in the water, due to the plunge of the breaking seas. All this, however, we could see only as if through a veil, for the storm-scourged masses of rain and spindrift blurred the whole surface of the sea.
Again and again, when the seas came charging down and leapt upon her, the little Aud lay over so far to starboard that we thought she would never get up again; and when, on the return roll, she met an oncoming sea, the port end of the bridge was often under water. Suddenly, some two hundred yards to starboard, two birds appeared, low down over the sea. Did that mean rocks?
'Port the helm!'... 'What in the name of Heaven's wrong now?'
'The compass!' shouts the quartermaster, hanging on to the spokes with a desperate grip, to keep the helm hard over. God in heaven! Is everything at once in league against us? In sober fact the compass seemed to have suddenly gone mad. The compass-card spun round like a teetotum, whirling faster and faster. It was only by the direction of the seas that we could tell that the ship's head was now slowly coming round to port. And the run of the seas was for the moment all we had to steer by, for the compass was utterly useless. It pointed one moment North, the next South-West, and absolutely refused to steady.
Meanwhile, from time to time the shouts of the leadsmen aft reached one's ear, but they were almost unintelligible. In the end they made shift to give us the soundings by signing with their fingers. But the depths were too uncertain to give us any help.
Now, however, more and more birds showed up to starboard—fifty, a hundred, whole flocks appeared and whirled wildly, with frightened screechings, through the air. There could no longer be any doubt. Yonder, a couple of cables southward, lay the rocks. We were on the very brink of destruction.
'Hard a-port! Quick, man, quick!' I shot the words out with all my strength and pointed to port with my hand, but no one understood a word. The hurricane was at its worst and the wind whistled and howled so that it was impossible to hear an order.
Fortunately, however, Mathiesen, good seaman that he was, had already put the helm over without waiting to be told. It was our only chance of clearing the reefs.
And now came the most anxious and perilous moments of the whole voyage. It seemed as though we had plunged into a seething, raging whirlpool, from which there could be no escape. The engines were now running at full speed. We had the seas right abeam, and they did what they liked with us, but that was the only course that offered the slightest chance of getting clear.
When I look back, it seems to me incomprehensible that we came out of that witches' cauldron almost unscathed. At the time, I would not have given five minutes' purchase for our lives. I let no hint appear in my bearing of how grave I thought the danger, but I could read on every face the same conviction of our imminent deadly peril.
As though we had not yet had enough of the nerve-racking game, there now swept down on us a fierce squall of hail. Veritable mountains of water reared themselves against us, seeming to overtop our masts. Like monsters opening gaping jaws to leap the next moment upon their prey, they raged against our little vessel, hurled themselves on her decks, and threatened to engulf her. The Aud shuddered and trembled in every timber. At every new assault it seemed as if something must give way.
Only with the utmost effort was it still possible to heave the lead. The leadsmen, with life-lines round them, stood in their streaming oilskins on the after-deck; and though thrown this way and that by the seas, they refused to leave their post, though I had signed to them to come forward.
'Thirty-three fathoms!' Then, at brief intervals, 'Twenty-eight fathoms!—twenty-three—eighteen—fifteen—twelve—eight.' Br-r-umm! A violent shock ran suddenly through the whole ship—masts, derricks, funnel, ventilators, deck-houses; in fact, the whole hull seemed to shake and quiver for several seconds.
Aground! That was my first thought. We looked at each other in dismay. The Aud seemed rooted to the spot. She scarcely even rolled, though one sea after another raced down upon her.
'No water making in the engine-room,' reported the chief engineer, who had rushed, panting, up the ladder. He, too, then, had the impression that we were aground. We put the helm over first to port and then to starboard. In vain. The ship showed not the slightest inclination to move from the spot. Suddenly I happened to glance aft, and saw in a moment the cause of the phenomenon.
A huge sea had 'come aboard green,' and sweeping pitilessly over the after part of the ship, had poured down on to the well-deck, flooding it to the bulwark-rail. The scuttles had jammed, the scuppers seemed also to be stopped up. The mass of water could find no vent, and its sheer weight had caused the inexplicable immobility of the ship.
The reason we had not seen it coming was that we had all been gazing over the starboard bow, where we knew the reef must lie. The wonder was that no one had been swept overboard.
It was several minutes before the ship would answer her helm again. But when she did, our spirits rose with a bound; for now, if we could only hold on upon a north-easterly course for a short time longer, we should be clear of the reefs for good and all. Fortunately, we had still several hours of daylight before us.
For two hours longer the Aud had to battle with the full fury of the storm. Again and again it seemed as if she must be overwhelmed. And always at the back of our minds there was the nightmare dread of the cargo shifting. Then, at last, the violence of the wind began to abate a little, and at the end of another hour the sea, too, had perceptibly moderated. The worst was over.
Also, we were in all probability clear of the danger zone, so that I could ease her by steaming at slow speed upon an easterly course. The compass, too, returned to its senses. Whether its vagaries were due to vibration set up by the shock of the seas, or to the influence of the magnetic iron in the reef—which is noted in the sailing-directions—we never knew.
By 5.30 that afternoon the lead had ceased to find bottom. We had cleared the eastern edge of the bank. I laid a course, for the present SSE. in order gradually to approach the steamer track on which, in my assumed character, it would be appropriate for me to be found.