I left the tiller to Coertze and stumbled forward to the mast and hoisted the trysail. That would give us leeway and we could pick a course of sorts. I chose to beat to windward; that was the last thing Metcalfe would expect me to do in heavy weather, and I hoped that when the squall had blown out he would be searching to leeward.
Sanford
didn’t like it. She bucked and pitched more than ever and I cursed the crankiness caused by the golden keel, the cause of all our troubles. I said to Francesca, ‘You and Kobus had better go below; there’s no point in all of us getting soaked to the skin.’
I wondered what Metcalfe was doing. If he had any sense he would have the Fairmile lying head to wind with her engines turning just enough to keep position. But he wanted
the gold and had guts enough to try anything weird as long as the boat didn’t show signs of falling apart under him. He had shown his seamanship by coming through the big storm undamaged—this squall wouldn’t hurt him.
Just then
Sanford
lurched violently and I thought for a moment that she was falling apart under
me.
There was a curious feel to the helm which I couldn’t analyse—it was like nothing I had felt on a boat before. She lurched again and seemed to sideslip in the water and she swayed alarmingly even when she hadn’t been pushed. I leaned on the helm tentatively and she came round with a rush.
Hastily I pulled the other way and she came back fast, overshooting. It was like riding a horse with a loose saddle and I couldn’t understand it.
I had a sudden and dreadful thought and looked over the side. It was difficult to make out in the swirl of water but her boot-topping seemed to be much higher out of the water than it should have been, and I knew what had happened.
It was her keel—that goddamned golden keel.
Coertze had warned us about it. He had said that it would be full of flaws and cracks and that it would be structurally weak.
Sanford
had taken a hell of a hammering in the last couple of days and this last squall was the straw that broke the camel’s back—or broke the ship’s keel.
I looked over the side again, trying to estimate how much higher she was in the water. As near as I could judge three parts of the keel were gone.
Sanford
had lost three tons of ballast and she was in danger of capsizing at any moment.
I hammered on the cabin hatch and yelled at the top of my voice. Coertze popped his head out. ‘What’s wrong?’ he shouted.
‘Get on deck fast—Francesca, too. The bloody keel’s gone. We’re going to capsize.’
He looked at me blankly. ‘What the hell do you mean?’ His face flushed red as the meaning sank in. ‘You mean the gold’s gone?’ he said incredulously.
‘For Christ’s sake, don’t just stand there gaping,’ I shouted. ‘Get the hell up here—and get Francesca out of there. I don’t know if I can hold her much longer.’
He whitened and his head vanished. Francesca came scrambling out of the cabin with Coertze on her heels.
Sanford
was behaving like a crazy thing and I shouted to Coertze, ‘Get that bloody sail down quick or she’ll be over.’
He lunged forward along the deck and wasted no time in unfastening the fall of the halyard from the cleat—instead he pulled the knife from his belt and cut it with one clean slice. As soon as the sail came down
Sanford
began to behave a little better, but not much. She slithered about on the surface of the water and it was by luck, not judgement, that I managed to keep her upright, because I had never had that experience before—few people have.
Coertze came back and I yelled, ‘It’s the mast that’ll have us over if we’re not careful.’
He looked up at the mast towering overhead and gave a quick nod. I wondered if he remembered what he had said the first time I questioned him about yachts in Cape Town. He had looked up at the mast of
Estralita
and said, ‘She’ll need to be deep to counterbalance that lot.’
The keel, our counterbalance, had gone and the fifty-five foot mast was the key to
Sanford
’s survival.
I pointed to the hatchet clipped to the side of the cockpit. ‘Cut the shrouds,’ I shouted.
He seized the hatchet and went forward again and swung at the after starboard shroud. It bounced off the stainless steel wire and I cursed myself for having built
Sanford
so stoutly. He swung again and again and finally the wire parted.
He went on to the forward shroud and I said, ‘Francesca, I’ll have to help him or it may be too late. Can you take the helm?’
‘What must I do?’
‘I think I’ve got the hang of it,’ I said. ‘She’s very tender and you mustn’t move the tiller violently. She swings very easily so you must be very gentle in your movements—otherwise it’s the same as before.’
I couldn’t stay with her long before I had to leave the cockpit and release both the backstay runners so that the stays hung loose. The mast now had no support from aft.
I went forward to the bows, clinging on for dear life, and crouched in the bow pulpit, using the marline-spike of my knife on the rigging screw of the forestay. The spike was not designed for the job and kept slipping out of the holes of the body, but I managed to loosen the screws appreciably in spite of being drenched every time
Sanford
dipped her bows. When I looked up I saw a definite curve in the stay to leeward which meant that it was slack.
I looked round and saw Coertze attacking the port shrouds before I bent to loosen the fore topmast stay. When I looked up again the mast was whipping like a fishing rod—but still the damn’ thing wouldn’t break.
It was only when I tripped over the fore hatch that I remembered Walker. I hammered on the hatch and shouted, ‘Walker, come out; we’re sinking.’ But I heard nothing from below.
Damning his minuscule soul to hell, I went aft and clattered down the companionway and into the main cabin. I staggered forward, unable to keep my balance in
Sanford
’s new and uneasy motion and tried the door to the fo’c’sle. It was locked from the inside. I hammered on it with my fist, and shouted, ‘Walker, come out; we’re going to capsize.’
I heard a faint sound and shouted again. Then he called, ‘I’m not coming out.’
‘Don’t be a damned fool,’ I yelled. ‘We’re liable to sink at any minute.’
‘It’s a trick to get me out. I know Coertze’s waiting for me.’
‘You bloody idiot,’ I screamed and hammered on the door again, but it was no use; he refused to answer so I left him there.
As I turned to go,
Sanford
groaned in every timber and I made a dash for the companionway, getting into the cockpit just in time to see the mast go. It cracked and split ten feet above the deck and toppled into the raging sea, still tethered by the back and fore stays.
I took the tiller from Francesca and tentatively moved it.
Sanford
’s motion was not much better—she still slid about unpredictably—but I felt easier with the top hamper gone. I kicked at a cockpit locker and shouted to Francesca, ‘Life jackets—get them out.’
The solving of one problem led directly to another—the mast in the water was still held fore and aft and it banged rhythmically into
Sanford
’s side. Much of that treatment and she would be stove in and we would go down like a stone. Coertze was in the bows and I could see the glint of the hatchet as he raised it for another blow at the forestay. He was very much alive to the danger inherent in the mast.
I struggled into a life jacket while Francesca took the helm, then I grabbed the boathook from the coach roof and leaned over the side to prod the mast away when it swung in again for another battering charge. Coertze came aft and started to cut away the backstays; it was easier to cut them on the deck and within five minutes he had done it, and the mast drifted away and was lost to sight amid the sea spray.
Coertze dropped heavily into the cockpit, his face streaming with salt water, and Francesca gave him a life jacket. We fastened our safety lines and, on a sudden impulse, I battened down the main hatch—if Walker
wanted to come out he could still use the fore hatch. I wanted to seal
Sanford—
if she capsized and filled with water she would sink within seconds.
Those last moments of the squall were pretty grim. If we could last them out we might stand a chance.
Sanford
would never sail again, but it might be possible to move her slowly by a judicious use of her engine. For the first time I hoped I had not misled Metcalfe and that he would be standing by.
But the squall had not done with us. A violent gust of wind coincided with a freak sea and
Sanford
tilted alarmingly. Desperately I worked the tiller, but it was too late and she heeled more and more until the deck was at an angle of forty-five degrees.
I yelled, ‘Hang on, she’s going,’ and in that moment
Sanford
lurched right over and I was thrown into the sea.
I spluttered and swallowed salt water before the buoyancy of the jacket brought me to the surface, lying on my back. Frantically I looked round for Francesca and was relieved when her head bobbed up close by. I grabbed her safety line and pulled until we floated side by side. ‘Back to the boat,’ I spluttered.
We hauled on the safety lines and drew ourselves back to
Sanford.
She was lying on her starboard side, heaving sluggishly over the waves, and we painfully crawled up the vertical deck until we could grasp the stanchions of the port safety rail. I looked back over the rail and on to the new and oddly shaped upper deck—the port side of
Sanford.
I helped Francesca over the rail and then I saw Coertze clinging to what was left of the keel—he had evidently jumped the other way. He was clutching a tangle of broken wires—the wires that were supposed to hold the keel together and which had failed in their purpose. I slid down the side and gave him a hand, and soon the three of us were uneasily huddled on the unprotected hull, wondering what the hell to do next.
That last flailing gust of wind had been the squall’s final crack of the whip and the wind dropped within minutes to leave the hulk of
Sanford
tossing on an uneasy sea. I looked around hopefully for Metcalfe but the Fairmile wasn’t in sight, although she could still come out of the dirty weather left in the wake of the squall.
I was looking contemplatively at the dinghy which was still lashed to the coach roof when Coertze said, ‘There’s still a lot of gold down there, you know.’ He was staring back at the keel.
‘To hell with the gold,’ I said. ‘Let’s get this dinghy free.’
We cut the lashings and let the dinghy fall into the sea—after I had taken the precaution of tying a line to it. It floated upside down, but that didn’t worry me—the buoyancy chambers would keep it afloat in any position. I went down the deck and into the sea and managed to right it. Then I took the baler which was still clipped in place and began to bale out.
I had just finished when Francesca shouted, ‘Metcalfe! Metcalfe’s coming.’
By the time I got back on top of the hull the Fairmile was quite close, still plugging away at the eight knots which Metcalfe favoured for heavy seas. We weren’t trying to get away this time, so it was not long before she was within hailing distance.
Metcalfe was outside the wheelhouse. He bellowed, ‘Can you take a line?’
Coertze waved and the Fairmile edged in closer and Metcalfe lifted a coil of rope and began to swing it. His first throw was short, but Coertze caught the second and slid down the deck to make the line fast to the stump of the mast. I cut two lengths of line and tied them in loops round the rope Metcalfe had thrown. I said, ‘We’ll go over in the dinghy, pulling ourselves along the line. For God’s sake, don’t let go of these loops or we might be swept away.’
We got into the dinghy and pulled ourselves across to the Fairmile. It wasn’t a particularly difficult job but we were cold and wet and tired and it would have been easy to make a mistake. Metcalfe helped Francesca on board and Coertze went next. As I started to climb he threw me a line and said curtly, ‘Make the dinghy fast; I might need it.’
So I made fast and climbed on deck. Metcalfe stepped up to me, his face contorted with rage. He grabbed me by the shoulders with both hands and yelled, ‘You damn’ fool—I told you to make certain of that keel. I told you back in Rapallo.’
He began to shake me and I was too tired to resist. My head lolled back and forward like the head of a sawdust doll and when he let me go I just sat down on the deck.
He swung round to Coertze. ‘How much is left?’ he demanded.
‘About a quarter.’
He looked at the hulk of
Sanford,
a strained expression in his eyes. ‘I’m not going to lose that,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to lose a ton of gold.’
He called to the wheelhouse and the Moroccan, Moulay Idriss, came on deck. Metcalfe gave quick instructions in Arabic and then dropped into the dinghy and pulled himself across to
Sanford.
The Arab attached a heavy cable to the line and when Metcalfe got to the hulk he began to pull it across.
Francesca and I were not taking much interest in this. We were exhausted and more preoccupied in being alive and together than with what happened to the gold. Coertze, however, was alive to the situation and was helping the Arab make the cable fast.
Metcalfe came back and said to Coertze, ‘You were right, there’s about a ton left. I don’t know how that wreck will behave when it’s towed, but we’ll try.’
As the Fairmile turned and the cable tautened, a watery sun shone out over the heaving sea and I looked back at
Sanford
as she moved sluggishly to the pull. The cockpit was half under water but the fore hatch was still free, and I said, ‘My God! Walker’s still in there!’
Coertze said, ‘
Magtig,
I’d forgotten him.’
He must have been knocked unconscious when
Sanford
capsized—otherwise we would have heard him. Francesca was staring back at
Sanford.
‘Look!’ she exclaimed. ‘There—in the cockpit.’
The main hatch was being forced open from the inside and I could see Walker’s head as he tried to struggle out against the rush of water pouring into the boat. His hands grasped for the cockpit coaming—but it wasn’t there—Krupke had shot it away. Then Walker disappeared as the force of the water pushed him back into the cabin.