Authors: John Christopher
One of the men called to him as he went above decks.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘Captain wants you, sir, on the telephone.’
It was Felck, a youngster from Langeland who had only been at sea a few months. He was tall, still thin from the burst of adolescent growth, with a long face now white and scared. He needed reassuring, but Mouritzen had neither the time nor the necessary reserve of assurance. He nodded.
‘Right.’
Olsen said: ‘Niels, did you tell Herning to get the tarpaulins across the hatch?’
‘I was just going to.’
‘Do it now. Wait. Have you had a look at the hold?’
‘Yes. About nine inches, if she were level.’
‘Then get that tarpaulin over. The pumps can wait.’
‘The cover is giving all the time.’
‘Get on with it.’
The tarpaulins were tied up under the poop-deck. It was hard enough getting to them, and still harder to get the stiff, greasy rolls forward. For all the cold of the wind and the bitter onslaught of the waves, Mouritzen found himself sweating. At last they had one of the rolls alongside the No. 1 hatch, and Herning with a couple of the hands clambered up over the adjacent hatch, taking an end with them. Herning had brought up a megaphone, and Mouritzen shouted orders through it, and heard his voice, amplified and distorted, blown back to him on the gale.
The derrick lights had been switched on, and it was possible to see more or less what was taking place. On one side, a couple of the men were pulling the tarpaulin up over the hatch end; on the other, Herning’s group was edging its way across the No. 2 hatch. At the foot of the hatch, the tarpaulin was being opened up for them. Mouritzen saw that it was caught up, and that a halt would have to be made while the men freed it.
He bellowed to Herning: ‘Hold on! She’s caught …’
Herning was on the bridge between the two hatches. He was half kneeling, and he turned his head towards Mouritzen, as though to make out more clearly what he was saying. The
Kreya
was rolling deep into a trough. Holding on to a stanchion, Mouritzen saw the dark green crest high above his head before everything dissolved. In the dissolution, he thought he heard a cry. He did hear a savage rending sound, as metal strained and yielded and was torn away. When he could see again, there were only two men on top of the hatch.
The hatch cover had gone completely, fallen into the hold and half blocking it, like a lid fallen into a box. Mouritzen peered down into the depths. The hold lights had gone, but the derrick lights showed enough of the scene. Water bubbled round the edge of the shattered steel. A horse was pinned under it at one end, clearly dead. The huddled figure of Herning lay just beyond the horse. There was no sign of life there either.
He barely had time to take in all this before another wave lashed across the ship. Water rushed down into the hold, with a sucking noise like a titanic drain. Mouritzen called out to one of the men:
‘Stövring! You and Elkuus get below and get Herning out of there. Larsen! Get on to that tarpaulin again.’
He saw Carling go with the two men he had ordered down to the hold, but paid no attention. It was a relief, in any case, to have him out of the way. The job now was to concentrate on getting the tarpaulin in place, to minimize the weight of water that would go below. He took an end himself, and they pulled the heavy canvas forward. But when the next wave crashed, the ends were lost as the water savagely dragged the tarpaulin down with it.
With each roll, tons of water were sinking down into the
Kreya
, and one could feel now the sluggishness of her climb back to even keel. They wrestled the tarpaulin up over the yawning hatch, foot by foot, inch by inch, letting the ropes go as the ram of water came down and painfully hauling back the canvas after each shock. They had it over the top before a wave, heavier even than the ones that had gone before, wrenched ropes and all away and down into the hold.
Mouritzen, by now, was alternately bullying and cajoling the men. He reflected when, under each smashing onslaught of the sea, he had time to think, on his own inadequacy in coping with this kind of emergency, and on the fact that, in the twelve years of his life at sea, it was his first experience of it. With Herning dead and Carling living in some remote fantasy world, there was none of the crew on whom he could rely. He did not know them well enough. ‘When we get out of his,’ he promised himself, ‘I shall make a point of knowing every man to the absolute limit of such knowledge.’
They wrestled the tarpaulin up again, and again lost it. The third time, it held at the top but the deck end gave way and young Felck was slammed against the edge of the hatch. His shoulder seemed to be dislocated and Mouritzen sent him below. He could not spare a man to go with him.
Carling had come back on deck, when Stövring reported that Herning’s body had been cleared out of the hold. He went from place to place, leaning like a giant against the wind and the seas, neither interfering nor helping. Now Mouritzen saw him stride upright over the sloping cover of the No. 2 hatch and balance on the roof line. He looked magnificent in the derrick lights: he was wearing no oilskins and his wet clothes clung to his large limbs. Lear, Mouritzen thought drunkenly – Lear as a seaman. With any kind of luck he would break a leg and they could get him out of the way.
The
Kreya
shipped another huge wave, and as she began to roll back Mouritzen looked up, half expecting that Carling would have been swept away. But he still stood there, and standing, pointed down into the gulf of the hold. In a brief slackening of the wind, his voice roared out, harsh and apocalyptic:
‘The third sign – look! The horses that swim like fishes!’
Mouritzen, with the others, was drawn to look down. The canvas flapped against the sides of the hold, in which water now lapped high up against the crumpled metal. And in the water, two of the horses threshed and struggled. They had been torn free of their stalls and now were fighting for their lives against the rising water.
‘What did I tell you?’ cried Carling. ‘The third sign. Now the ship is doomed!’
Mouritzen felt helplessness wash over him as relentlessly as any wave. The only thing he could think of doing was to get hold of Olsen. To Stövring, he shouted:
‘Carry on with securing the tarpaulin. I’m going up to see the Captain.’
Olsen met him as he came on to the bridge.
‘What in hell is happening down there?’ he asked.
Mouritzen said wearily: ‘I don’t know. We can’t get it in place. Even if we could I don’t think it would do any good. The seas we’re shipping would rip it to shreds in no time.’
‘Then leave it, and concentrate on the pumps.’
‘I don’t know what to do about Carling.’
‘I thought you’d got him below?’
‘He came up again. He wasn’t getting in the way, so I thought it didn’t matter.’
‘Didn’t matter! Potentially he’s as dangerous as the bear was – more so.’
‘He’s started raving again,’ Mouritzen said. ‘You can see the horses struggling in the water down there. He’s been shouting something about the third sign – horses that swim like fishes – and the ship being doomed. He’s up on the No. 2 hatch. I don’t think the men would go up and tackle him.’
‘And you don’t fancy tackling him yourself? Where’s the gun?’
‘Gun?’
‘My automatic that I gave to Herning when I sent him after the bear. You got if off him, didn’t you?’
Mouritzen shook his head. ‘I thought he’d handed it back to you.’
Olsen stared at him. ‘You got Herning’s body out of the hold?’
‘Yes.’ He hesitated, remembering the scene. ‘Carling was down there with them.’
Olsen reached for his oilskins. ‘Take over here,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m going down.’
Carling was no longer on the hatch when Olsen reached it. He was standing among the rest of the crew, his hands raised as though preaching. Olsen cut in sharply:
‘Stövring. Take three men and get Carling down below. See that he’s locked in, and make sure that he can’t get out. Then report back here to me.’
Carling turned slowly to look at him. He said, lifting his voice above the noise of the gale and yet contriving to seem gentle:
‘We must abandon ship, Captain. Give the order to abandon ship.’
Olsen ignored him. To the others, he said:
‘He’s mad. Get him below. And at once – we’ve got work to do.’
A couple of them made a move forward, but stopped as Carling lifted his hands again.
‘There were to be three signs,’ Carling said. ‘First, the beast, walking free. Second, water breaking iron, and breaking a man. Third, horses that swim like fishes. And after the third sign – death in the savage waters. The ship is doomed. There is no hope for the
Kreya
.’
Olsen walked up to Carling. A wave crashed across, and the ship gulped water like a creature dying of thirst. Steadying himself, Olsen said:
‘Give me that gun, Carling.’
‘We must leave the ship, Captain, or we all die. And I must not die until she has spoken. I must not die.’
Olsen put his hand out. ‘Give me that gun.’
Stövring’s voice came from behind him. ‘He hasn’t got it.’
Olsen turned round. Stövring stood a little in advance of the rest of the hands; he held the automatic in his right hand, pointing down towards Olsen’s feet.
He was a large, squat man, and looked still larger and squatter in his oilskins. He had broad, swarthy features and an underlying truculence which made him unreliable and which had prevented his promotion, despite seniority and ability, to the Petty Officer rank. It was bad enough, Olsen thought bitterly, to have to tackle him at any time, but here and now, and having given him the initiative by going first to Carling …
‘All right, Stövring,’ he said casually, ‘I’ll have it.’
‘What Carling said is true, Captain,’ Stövring said. ‘After the first sign, he told us about the other two. He’s not made it up. He told us about the signs before they happened.’
‘Guesses!’ Olsen said. ‘The kind of guess any maniac might make. All right, we’re in trouble. No one’s denying that. Horses that swim like fishes! There was always a chance, after the steering went, that we should start taking water in the hold. That’s all it amounts to – no more than that.’
‘He told us,’ Stövring said. ‘And after the third sign, death by drowning. We’ve got to get off this ship, Captain.’
Olsen moved forward across the swinging deck.
‘Give me that gun, Stövring, This is an order.’
Stövring brought the gun up. It was only a small movement – the action was still less than threatening – but it was unmistakable.
Stövring said: ‘Tell us first, Captain – do we abandon ship?’
In the back of his mind, Olsen knew that it was the moment to temporize. The key to the situation did not lie with Stövring or himself nor even with the weapon in Stövring’s hand; it lay with the men that were grouped around them. In winning or losing them, he would win or lose control of the
Kreya
; and he had only to temporize to win.
The act was beyond him. He shouted:
‘This ship is sound, Stövring, and I am its Captain! The
Kreya
will not be abandoned. I will take this ship into Copenhagen harbour and it depends on me whether you go above deck or below deck, in irons.’
‘You call Carling a maniac,’ Stövring said. ‘You are the maniac, Captain Olsen. This ship isn’t going to Copenhagen any more. She’s going where the first
Kreya
went, and the second. She’s going to the bottom. But we’re not going with her.’
Olsen had been making his way slowly towards Stövring; the gun now was pointed roughly towards his knees. The
Kreya
listed to starboard again, and the new wave hung over her. As it came down, Olsen half sprang, half flung himself forwards, to wrest the weapon from Stövring’s hand. But Stövring was alert to the move, and on balance. He caught Olsen easily, held him with one hand, and then threw him back. Olsen’s head hit the edge of the hatch, and he lost consciousness.
Water lapped against the back of Olsen’s head; discomfort preceded identity. The sense of pain came afterwards, spreading a cold fire at the base of his skull. The ship rolled, and the water lapped away from him. He struggled to get up. The cold fire sharpened, but he made it.
At the other end of the deck a tall figure was searching in the shadows. Olsen recognized Mouritzen, and called to him. Mouritzen came down to him along the sloping deck.
‘I was looking for you,’ Mouritzen said. ‘I thought they’d pitched you overboard.’
‘Where are they?’ Olsen asked. ‘What’s happening?
‘They’re launching the No. 2 boat.’
‘How many?’
‘All the hands. Stövring’s in charge. They’ve rounded them all up. They’ve taken Ib with them, too.’
‘Thorsen? Møller?’
Mouritzen shook his head. ‘No.’ He paused. ‘Bernard is dead.’
‘How?’
‘He tackled Stövring when he went down to the engine room, I suppose. I found him there with a bullet in him.’
‘He was a bigger man than I,’ Olsen said. He brooded on this for a moment. ‘The passengers?’
‘They’ve left the passengers.’
Olsen roused himself. ‘They may not have got her off yet.’
They had not. The davits were swung out, though, and all but two of the men were aboard. One of the two was Stövring. He flourished the automatic as Olsen came up on the launching deck, with Mouritzen behind him.
‘Keep away, Captain. You may be less lucky next time.’
Olsen spoke, not to him but to the men in the boat.
‘Stövring is guilty of mutiny and murder,’ he shouted. ‘You still have a chance to disown him. It’s that or prison.’
The large figure of Carling stood up in the boat.
‘Abandon ship, Captain!’ he called. ‘The
Kreya
is doomed.’
Olsen had taken a step forward. Stövring lifted the gun.
‘Back,’ he said. ‘Right back. That’s better.’ He called to his companion. ‘Lower her. Steady now. Get aboard. Stand by to cast off at the bottom of the roll. Now … now … cast off!’
As he spoke, Stövring clambered out on the davit and slid down the rope. As they rushed to the side, Olsen and Mouritzen saw him drop the last few feet into the crowded boat. The
Kreya
was beginning her roll back again to starboard, and they saw the sea and the ship’s boat tilt away from them. Carling was standing up, crying something. They saw two of the others trying to pull him down, but he brushed them off without difficulty.