Pincher Martin, O.D.: A Story of the Inner Life of the Royal Navy

by H. Taprell Dorling

'Are you all right?' the skipper bellowed as the ship slid slowly past, rolling heavily.

'I don't know about being all right,' came back a voice. 'My stern, with the rudder, screws, and the whole bag o' tricks, is missing. I think she'll float, though.'

'Right! I'll take you in tow!' went back the reply.—'Good Lord!' added Wooten, swaying to the heavy rolling and looking at the sea; 'it's going to be the devil's own job, though.'

It was. When a searchlight shone out and illuminated the scene, the Monsoon seemed to be in a very bad way. She was not rolling very heavily, for some portion of her damaged stern was still connected to the hull, causing her to lie over to starboard toward the wind until the mast was at an angle of thirty degrees to the vertical, and broken water could be seen washing half-way across her upper deck. The spectacle was an alarming one, for she seemed to be in some danger of capsizing.

The Mariner, meanwhile, had drawn slightly ahead. She was rolling so heavily that at one moment her rails were under water, and the next were high in the air, while the men working on the wet and slippery deck had the greatest difficulty in preventing themselves from being hurled bodily overboard.

Wooten manœuvred his ship until her stern was on a level with the Monsoon's bows, and about thirty feet distant; where-upon men stationed aft endeavoured to hurl heaving-lines across on to the forecastle of the damaged vessel. If a small line could be got across from ship to ship, the end of it would be made fast to a coir hawser in the Monsoon. The coir would then be dragged over to the Mariner, and on the end of it would be secured the steel-wire towing-hawser, one end of which would be hauled on board and secured in the towing ship, and the other in the vessel being towed. But, try as they might, they could not bridge the space. The wind simply laughed at them, and hurled their lines back in their faces, while all the time the throwers were in constant danger of being shot into the sea by the movement. Except for the glare of the searchlight, it was pitch-dark. Wooten could not approach any closer for fear of bringing the vulnerable stern, with its rudder and screws, into collision with the Monsoon's bows, and if he allowed that to happen his own ship would be disabled and rendered helpless, and the last state of affairs would be worse than the first. There was only one alternative, and that was to lower a boat to take the lines across; but this again was easier said than done.

Hargreaves, the sub-lieutenant, and five men took their places in the whaler hanging at her davits, and the boat was then lowered gradually toward the water. The skipper watched them with his heart in his mouth, for as she descended, and the falls lengthened, the scope of her oscillation became longer and longer, and dizzier and dizzier. The ship herself was still rolling horribly, and at one instant the whaler was swung giddily out at an impossible angle over the water, while the next she came into contact with the ship's side with a crash and a thump which threatened to stave in her planks and to precipitate every mother's son of her crew into the sea. Watching the business was a ghastly nightmare which seemed to last for minutes. In reality it must have been over in a few seconds, but Wooten heaved a sigh of heartfelt relief when he saw the boat fall with a splash on to the top of a gigantic sea. But the next moment he held his breath again, for she was flung bodily aft on the crest of the billow until she was all but deposited on deck as the ship rolled drunkenly toward her. Then she sank out of sight somewhere under the bottom as the Mariner lurched over the other way, to reappear a few seconds later, with her crew plying their oars lustily. How they ever succeeded in getting clear nobody quite knew, for in that sea only a merciful Providence saved Hargreaves and his five men from disaster.

The line was passed across by the boat, and the end of the Monsoon's wire hawser was shackled on to a length of chain cable at the Mariner's stern, and when this had been done the two ships were connected and everything was ready for going ahead. The whaler was then rehoisted after another series of hairbreadth experiences, and the struggle began to get the damaged ship head on to the sea and wind preparatory to towing her into safety. A bare hour and twenty-four minutes had passed since the explosion had occurred. To Wooten and his men it had seemed like half the night.

Pincher Martin, who was on the bridge at one of the engine-room telegraphs up till midnight, saw and heard all that went on. By the time the Monsoon was safely in tow both vessels were lying broadside on to the wind and sea, with their heads to the south-eastward. The course to get the damaged ship head on to the waves and toward the shelter of the coast was south-west, and at first Wooten went dead slow ahead with both engines to tug her round. But it was a more difficult task than he had bargained for. He could not go fast, for the violent motion on his ship and the consequent jerking on the towing-wire would have caused the latter to part like a piece of thread; and even as it was, the wire was jerking out of the sea one minute, humming like a harp-string, while the next the bight of it was sagging loosely under the water. Moreover, a destroyer is not an ideal ship for towing another at the best of times. The tow-rope necessarily has to be made fast in the extreme stern, not, as is the case in a properly fitted tug, more or less amidships in the spot where the vessel pivots when turning. The consequence is that manœuvring-power is reduced almost to a minimum, while on this particular occasion the Monsoon, with her stern cut off and some of the wreckage trailing behind her, lay like a log on the water, and did her very utmost to pull the Mariner round the wrong way—that is, to the east, instead of through south to south-west. It was rather like trying to tow a derelict motor-bus with a bicycle.

The skipper worked his engines very gingerly, and tautened out the tow with his helm to port. Then he gradually increased the revolutions of the turbines until they should have been travelling at eight knots.