CHAPTER IX
HOW THE LIGHTERS FARED
"Hope the brutes won't konk," thought Sub-lieutenant Jock McIntosh, R.N.V.R., as he dispassionately surveyed the unlovely outlines of X-lighters 5 and 6.
After being second-in-command of a crack M.L., McIntosh felt no violent enthusiasm over his job—to take the two cumbersome craft to a strange port eighty odd miles along the coast. At a maximum speed of five knots, it meant a sixteen hours' run; but McIntosh, knowing the vagaries of the X-lighters' motors, refrained from being sanguine on the matter.
It was one of the jobs that fall to all branches of the Navy. With a strange crew, and not having navigated a lighter before, McIntosh was taking on "some stunt." He had charts and navigating instruments, but he would have felt easier in his mind had he possessed "local knowledge" of this part of the coast. On an M.L., where he was under a competent officer, navigation was fairly simple as far as the Sub was concerned; but now the whole responsibility of getting his charges safely into port rested on his shoulders.
It was the morning of von Preussen's visit to Auldhaig. The fog had dispersed. In its wake had sprung up a fresh southerly breeze, which in turn gave indications of decreasing in velocity before noon.
Stopping to give his final instructions to the coxwain of No. 6, and impressing upon him to follow at a cable's length in her consort's wake, McIntosh boarded the lighter which for the nonce was to be the leading craft. Already the twin heavy oil engines were "warming up," making the decks quiver, and filling the air with oil-laden smoke.
Making his way aft to the rough wooden hut that served as a wheel-house, the Sub gave the signal to the engine-room staff to "stand by."
"Rummiest packets that ever sailed under the White Ensign," he soliloquised, as his eye caught sight of the dingy bunting floating from the yard-arm of the lighters' stumpy masts. "Ah, well; it's all in a day's work."
He gave the telegraph lever another jerk.
"Cast off!" he shouted.
Sluggishly the deeply-laden barge gathered way. She had a freeboard of barely ten inches—a fact that portended wet decks before long.
Having satisfied himself that No. 6 was following, McIntosh devoted his attention to shaping a course out of harbour, undergoing a dozen mental thrills as his unwieldy packet scraped past buoys and showed a decided tendency to commit suicide across the steel stems of a couple of anchored cruisers.
Once clear of the harbour, the Sub called to a seaman.
"Take her," he ordered, handing over the wheel. "Keep her as she is: south a half west."
"South a half west it is, sir," replied the man in the time-honoured formula of the sea.
Free to devote his attention to other things, McIntosh secured the storm-flap of his oilskin coat and, leaving the shelter of the wheel-house, looked towards the following boat.
No. 6 was coming along well. The "bone in her teeth" glistened white as she pushed her snub nose through the waves. Both craft were "taking it green" as the water flowed over the tarpaulined hatches and surged along the broad waterways.
"We'll carry our tide for another hour," he said to himself. "Then it'll be a slow job. One thing, we can't have every blessed thing in life, but I hope to goodness nothing goes wrong."
He glanced ahead. In an incredibly short space of time, the bold outlines of Dunkennet Head had vanished. Dead to windward haze, possibly fog, was bearing down. It was something that McIntosh had not bargained for. The glass had shown indications of fine weather, but unfortunately it was not capable of indicating the approach of mist.
"Hazy ahead," he remarked to the petty officer.
"Yes, sir," was the reply. "Will you be altering course a point or so, sir? There's a nasty set of the tide inshore about these parts."
"Yes," decided the Sub, and gave the necessary instructions to the helmsman.
"Get a nun-buoy ready to veer astern," he continued, "and signal to No. 6 to keep the thing dose under her bows. If she doesn't, we'll be losing each other."
While the men were making these preparations the hideous clamour of No. 6's foghorn attracted their attention. The lighters had increased their distance to nearly a quarter of a mile, and No. 6 was still dropping astern.
"Ask 'em what's wrong," ordered McIntosh.
A signalman, steadying himself with feet planted widely apart on the plunging deck, semaphored the message. From No. 6 two red and yellow hand-flags replied. McIntosh, unable to follow the swift movements of the flags, was obliged to await the signalman's report:
"Says, sir, she's overheated her bearings. She'll have to stop or her engines'll seize up."
It was exactly what the Sub was anticipating, and now trouble had come he met it promptly and resolutely.
"Tell them to stand by and receive a hawser," he ordered, at the same time ringing down for "Slow." "Look alive, there, with that six-inch rope."
While the men were engaged in bringing one end of the hawser to the after "towing-bitts," McIntosh took the helm and began to run to starboard in order to close with the disabled lighter. He was working against time, for already the mist was upon them—the outflung tentacles of a bank of fog. With a range of visibility of three or four hundred yards, matters were somewhat complicated, but the manoeuvre of establishing communication with the helpless craft would be rendered fourfold difficult, should the baffling fog envelop the two boats.
"All ready with the heaving-line?" shouted the Sub.
"All ready, sir."
Slowly, even for the low-speed lighter, McIntosh, made for the disabled vessel, which was now lying broadside on to the fairly confused sea. The Sub was cautious. Strange to the boat, he knew that there was a vast difference between the manoeuvring capabilities of an M.L. and a lighter, and with that fact in mind he displayed an excess of caution.
Almost before he realised the danger, disaster came. Answering too slowly to her helm, No. 5 crashed heavily against the bluff steel bows of No. 6. Amidst the hiss of inrushing water, the two engineers scrambled through the smoke-laden atmosphere of the motor-room and gained the deck with the tidings that the sea was pouring in like a mill-race. And to add to the peril the fog was then enveloping the colliding craft.
There seemed no doubt about it: No. 5 was sinking. Had she been struck anywhere but right aft, her heavy rubbing-strake would have saved her. As it was she had been hit in a vital spot—her engine-room.
As luck would have it, both lighters drifted together, their metal-bound sides grinding and bumping in the agitated waves. Since No. 5 was evidently sinking, the only refuge for her crew was the deck of disabled No. 6.
"Jump for it!" shouted McIntosh. "Every man for himself."
Waiting till the last, the Sub snatched up his confidential papers, thrust them into the pocket of his oilskins, and, as the two lighters rolled heavily together, he made a flying leap for the deck of No. 6.
He was not a moment too soon. At the next roll there was a gap of five or six yards between the two vessels. Separated by a freak eddy of the tidal stream, they increased their distance more and more, until the holed lighter, with her stern level with the water, was lost to sight in the fog.