'How's her head, coxswain?' he asked after an interval.
'South sixty-five east, sir,' said Willis.
Wooten sighed deeply, and verified the statement by glancing at the compass. 'Lord!' he said, 'she was there ten minutes ago. Isn't she moving at all?'
'Wagglin' about a bit,' the coxswain answered, gazing at his compass-card in his usual imperturbable way. 'She's all over the shop. Up to sou'-east one minute, an' back to south-eighty the next. She's just startin' to move to starboard now, sir,' he added eagerly an instant later. 'Blarst!' in a very audible undertone; 'no, she ain't. She's startin' to fall off the wrong way.'
'Damn!' Wooten muttered; 'I don't believe we'll ever get her round.'
Willis gave vent to a throaty sigh. He evidently thought the same.
It certainly did seem an impossible job, for with the drag on her stern the Mariner was practically stationary, while using more speed was out of the question without running a dangerous risk of snapping the towing-wire. Time after time the ship's head came round to south-east, sometimes a few degrees farther; but on each occasion, after hesitating for a moment or so, she fell back to her original starting-point, south sixty-five degrees east.
They tugged and tugged for over an hour with no effect. Wooten exhausted all his unparliamentary vocabulary, and Willis became speechless and purple about the face; but nothing happened—absolutely nothing. The Monsoon was making signals all the while—urgent signals, signals of real distress. 'Please tow me head to sea and wind as soon as you possibly can,' they said. 'Sea may smash in my after bulkheads, and cause ship to sink.'
'Am doing my very utmost,' said the Mariner in reply.
They certainly were. They could do no more.