The wake of the gertrud.., p.9
The Wake of the Gertrud Luth, page 9
“Sure,” Hechler said, nodding his agreement. “If she starts rolling she’ll probably roll over and not come up again. But what if this blow doesn’t pass astern?”
Schepke shrugged his long-sloped shoulders. “It’s a chance. I wouldn’t like to say where she might blow yet. She could still pass ahead. All we can do now is wait.”
Just then Rollmann came in the doorway, his hair plastered to his forehead and his storm coat gleaming wetly in the white carbide light.
“I’ve just been down in the wells,” he said. “Everything’s still holding but any more like that last one and I don’t promise anything.”
“What about below?” Schepke asked Hechler.
“We’re all right so far.”
“It’s come in bad since dark,” Rollmann said. “She’ll blow big,” Schepke told him. “Typhoon?”
“We’ll see,” Schepke said. “If it is it’s my guess she’s headed down north of the Philippines. I’d say the wind should be out of the east by daylight and if it keeps veering she should pass astern.”
Hechler nodded toward the window. “I don’t give much for our chances if that lot out there comes adrift.”
Schepke grabbed the rail as the bows fell away sharply, the wind rising to a howl in the wireless telegraphy aerials.
“We’ll put into Hong Kong,” he said, suddenly making up his mind. “I’ll head her into the east while we can then use the wind and sea as a drift when we turn. Alter course now and we’ll either end up on the Viet Nam beach or else fighting it out in the Gulf of Tong King. Right now we don’t have coal for either.”
“Whatever you say,” Hechler said.
Schepke turned to Rollmann. “Keep a close watch on the wells. All right?”
Rollmann nodded. “I’ll move part of the watch into the forepeak tunnel.”
As he left Schepke turned again to Hechler. “Can you have somebody keep a check on the main motor?”
“I’ll get one of the greasers up there. There’s not much else I can do. I’ll take another look at it on the way below.”
Now it was all decided. If the company did not like it he would be back on the beach. He had no longer been thinking about that side of it. The luck had been bad for a long time. For a time he had thought the luck would change again. But he did not think about it now and in the charthouse he laid off the new course north-east by east.
The movement of the ship was growing as the swell built up steadily. From the starboard wing he saw the glow of light in the forepeak tunnel as part of the watch on deck moved into the cordage locker. Out beyond the ship the ocean was in blackness. Spume was blowing back in clouds across the foredeck and the ship’s head arcing away to port each time she met the swell, lunging heavily and clumsily into it.
“Starboard ten!”
“Starboard ten, sir!” Bahr shouted as he put the wheel over. “Ten starboard wheel on, sir!”
She was slow to answer. Then as her head began to rise she came around wearily, breasting the oncoming swell outward and upward, the spray and spin’drift cascading in a falling, wind-driven cloud back across the deck to port. She came swiftly away then, the bows going deep in the succeeding gully.
He was standing close to Bahr now, watching the swinging compass bowl. “‘Midships!”
“‘Midships! Wheel amidships, sir!”
“Steady!”
“Steady zero-six-five, sir!”
“Steer zero-six-eight!”
The ocean was running in slightly on the port bow now, the ship finding it easier, her bows breasting the ocean apart as she steamed doggedly into it. Schepke reached for the engine-room telephone, spinning the handle and al most immediately hearing Hechler shouting above the high-powered whine and pound of the engines.
“I’ve just taken her around,” Schepke said. “We should have it easier until at least late morning. By that time we should know how she’s going to blow. Keep me in touch with things below.” As he hung the receiver back on its hook he saw Wilamowitz come in the doorway. “What is it?”
Wilamowitz frowned. “It’s midnight.”
Schepke looked at his wrist watch. The evening had gone quickly and he had lost track of all time.
They went into the charthouse together, Schepke explaining the new course, then noting the barometer still falling. “It should be into Force Eight when Müller takes over. If I’m not on the bridge when you go off, wake me when you come down.”
25
KARL SCHEPKE came instantly awake. It was dark in the cabin and the wind and ocean seeming strangely loud. He sat up, the ship pitching and rolling wildly with the solid motion of the swell.
He was pulling on his tunic when Wilamowitz burst in. “Hechler’s started the pumps! We’re making water in Number One!”
Schepke jammed his cap down and brushed past him. “Get Müller awake and on the bridge!” he called back.
He met Hechler on the main stairway, his face serious, and his overalls open to the waist and sweat gleaming on his face and chest.
“I think we’ve sprung a couple of plates in Number One. We’re not shipping anything big yet but it can get bad any time.”
They hurried back down the stairway and out into the starboard alleyway. Part of the way along the alleyway the ship lunged and rolled and angry black water roared in across the bulwarks. Grabbing the housing rail, they hung on, chest deep in Wildly swirling water. Slowly the ship began to right herself, the overhead deck-lights reflecting sickly green on the solid mass of water caught up in the alleyway. Then as the water began to sweep aft, they struggled out onto the forward well.
A group of black storm-coated seamen were already gathered around the hatch of Number One hold. The bows drove deep again, then flung high into the night, scattering the men around the hatch. Schepke grabbed at a hawser above him as a huge wall of spray hammered back across the well. Everywhere around him was the terrific creaking and groaning of chains and hawsers as they strained under the massive weight of machinery. Looking toward the bridge, he saw Wilamowitz duck his head from a window as the wall of spray cleared the flying bridge.
“Get her going!” he yelled through his cupped hands. He saw Wilamowitz look dumbly toward him, the face of the bridge lit by the weak glow of the derrick platform lights. Quickly he made a wide circling motion with his right hand. “Get her going!” he yelled. This time Wilamowitz raised a hand in acknowledgement, and Schepke turned and staggered up the angled deck toward the hatch.
“Where’s Rollmann?”
One of the seamen pointed into the blackness of the hold where they had already broken back the hatch covers. Schepke grabbed the top of the combing and swung himself into the blackness to find the ladder.
“Horst!” It was terrifically hot in the darkness and he stepped from the ladder to sink to his knees in grain.
“Over here!” Rollmann called, somewhere in the darkness.
Again the ship lunged and Schepke held to the ladder until she slowed, his legs sinking deeper in the grain. Then the bows hit solidly with a mighty hollow boom and creaking of plates and timbers, all the while water pouring through the partly-open hatch. Then as the ship slowly began to lift, he floundered into the darkness, feeling his way around the bulkheads without finding any trace of surface dampness, deafened most of the time by the tremendous scouring rush of water along the outside of the hull.
When he found the ladder again, Rollmann was waiting for him.
“There’s nothing showing,” Rollmann shouted.
“I didn’t expect it to. Better shore up Number Two bulkhead. Do what you can. It’ll be difficult. There’s –” Something landed heavily, sharply, on his shoulder, then leapt again. Beside him, Rollmann cursed and blundered into the ladder.
“What is it?” Schepke shouted. “Something hit me across the face.”
“It’s the rats. One of them didn’t make the top. Come on.”
Hechler was waiting for them. “Find anything?” he asked, shouting into the wind.
“Nothing.” Schepke told him. “Rollmann’s going to shore Number Two. You keep me –” They grabbed together at the track of one of the machines as the bows hit another long rolling swell inboard across the forepeak. “Come on!” Schepke shouted, starting aft for the alley way. “Keep me in touch with the pumps. Let me know what water we’re shipping.”
“You’ll be on the bridge?” Hechler asked as they made the inboard passage.
Schepke nodded and hurried for the bridge.
Both Müller and Wilamowitz were watching the forward well from the windows.
“What are they doing with Number Two?” Wilamowitz asked.
“Rollmann’s shoring the forward bulkhead,” Schepke told him.
“Somebody seems to have put a jinx on this trip,” Müller said as he ran the window up.
Schepke ignored him, taking a quick look through the spray-lashed windows and seeing the storm-coated seamen struggling through the mass of machinery with huge bulks of timber.
“I don’t know how I manage to pick them,” Müller said disgustedly.
Schepke stood away from the windows. “What’s on your mind, Müller?”
“We should have turned for Manila hours ago,” Müller said, his voice sullen, and him glowering at Schepke in the light of the wildly pitching carbide lamp.
Schepke watched him carefully. “A beam on run in this and she’d roll herself under,” he said quietly. “We’ll try for Hong Kong.”
“You’ll never make it,” Müller said contemptuously. “Well if we don’t there’s a chance that you will.”
Schepke left him with it and went into the charthouse.
All he could do now was to keep their head into it until it was safe to turn her stern and make the run for Hong Kong. Then as he stood up from the table he heard one of the telephones buzz on the bridge.
He took it from Müller. “Yes?”
“Hechler here. I wanted you to know that the pumps are coping easily. We’re not shipping as much as we thought.”
“Good. From now on I’ll be sleeping in the chart house.” He hung the receiver back on its hook and turned to Müller. “You’re all right,” he said. ”There’s no trumpets calling yet.”
Müller glared at him sullenly but remained silent.
Schepke looked at his wrist watch. It was almost four o’clock.
“You better turn in and get some sleep while you can,” he said to Wilamowitz, then turned to the chart house, leaving Müller with the watch. The bunk was against the after bulkhead, under the overhanging chart and writing-shelf. Lying down fully dressed, he settled his shoulder against the side of the bunk, and went to sleep with the whitely bright flame of the carbide lamp swinging and widely arcing low over the glass-topped table.
26
WHEN daylight began to come in, the Gertrud Lüth was on course almost due east, her engines slow ahead and her forward hatches once more battened down. The early morning sky was hazed and close to the ocean, the swell running long and heavy and the wind now blowing east-by-south, whipping the crests of the swell into long clouding streamers across the bows. Karl Schepke stood in the starboard wing staring through the spray-lashed windows at the strangely lighted sky to the south-east. Below him, the ocean was now continually pouring across the foredeck in a solid grey-green mass.
He turned back to the charthouse. During the night they had drifted back across their original course, the wind failing to veer as much or as fast as he had hoped. From calculations he now made he expected the wind to reach its full intensity somewhere toward late afternoon or evening. By then it would have settled down into a full storm. If it grew bigger, then the Gertrud Lüth would need plenty of luck to steam out a typhoon.
But she’s out there, he was thinking. She’s out there and all lit up. You just saw her. Sure, he was thinking, you’ll need plenty more luck than I ever had. But there’s no good getting used to anything, even the misfortune. I guess we know it comes so many ways. Sure, when things turn bad, they turn bad all right, old bad luck turtle-head. You, you’re not even one of the lousy bright boys. Not even one of the lousy bright boys.
He came back onto the bridge to find Altmeyer in the starboard wing with the glasses.
“You won’t find anything out there,” he told the boy.
“If there’s anything out there it’s the other side of the storm pushing time until they get a clear run.”
As he spoke the bows fell sharply away and they grabbed the rail. All the forward deck disappeared under a long low wall of grey-green water, then slowly, shudderingly, the dark shape of the forepeak broke whitely through the wind-torn water. Schepke had the window down, watching the deck reappear. The machinery was acting as a series of breakwaters and each time the ocean came inboard it was suddenly and violently flung high into the wind in great white sheets as it raced aft with the lifting motion of the bows. Rollmann had made a sound job of the deck-cargo and everything was intact except for the overhead exhausts on the motor of the athwartships earth-mover below the forepeak. That was the only damage he could see without going on deck, that and most of the class in the driving cabins.
“What’s that light?” Altmeyer asked, pointing away to the south-east.
“That’s the storm area!” Schepke shouted, slamming the window up. “That’s where the big blow comes from. The further south that light travels the easier a run we’ll have.”
Altmeyer was watching him talking. “How bad is it going to get?” he asked.
Schepke did not hear him. He was watching the oncoming swell, deciding now to make the run, not quite certain how further the wind would continue to veer and not wanting to leave it too long.
“Port fifteen!” he called, at the same time spinning the handle of the engine-room telephone.
The ship lunged heavily to starboard as she started the slow, gyrating swing to port.
“Engine-room. Dorsch speaking,” the voice at the other end of the line shouted.
“Schepke here. Tell Hechler I want him on the bridge.”
The bows were coming around now.
“Up twenty!” he called to the lascar on the telegraph. When she came beam on she took a tremendous sea while labouring in a steep gully and rolled, solid grey green water completely burying everything except the midship superstructure.
“Full ahead!” he yelled, hoping the extra power would pull her free.
The ship lay buried and motionless.
The high-peaked cap jammed tightly down over his head, Schepke held grimly to the rail as yet another sea rolled inboard, booming loud and hollow-sounding on the starboard side superstructure.
Then slowly, achingly, he felt her begin to roll herself upright under the tremendous pinning force of the ocean. Then, with water roaring from every part of her, she was thrust suddenly clear. Now, high in the water, she caught the full force of the wind and spin’drift. Her head began to move swiftly away to port again. Schepke waited, glancing around the bridge. Only Bahr was on his feet. Altmeyer and the old man had been thrown against the after bulkhead and were still lying on the deck, surprised and shaken. Grabbing the telegraph, he rang it all the way back then up to half ahead, at the same time glancing overhead at the compass bowl to see the ship’s head winging away northward.
“Meet her!” he yelled, grabbing the wheel along with Bahr and fighting it back to starboard. “Steer due North!”
“Steer due North, sir!” Bahr shouted as Schepke left him again for the window.
Now the wind and ocean were running in a few points abaft the starboard beam. With the change of course the ship had developed a pitch and roll movement, lying her port side well into the ocean. Then as a bigger sea caught her abaft the beam, sending her head down, Hechler burst through the doorway, only catching hold on the junction boxes in time to stop himself being thrown.
“Good Christ!” he shouted. “I thought we were gone when you brought her around! What happened?”
“We caught a big one abeam,” Schepke shouted, and started into the starboard wing, Hechler following him and then coming up against the spray-lashed after windows. Schepke dropped one of them down for the wind to almost blast them across the bridge.
“See that?” he shouted, pointing to the south-east. “See it?” he asked, still pointing.
Hechler shielded his eyes.
Away to the south-east the sky was low and black but with an eerie yellow light showing through it in much the same way as happens with one of the big land storms blowing off Africa’s Skeleton Coast.
Schepke slammed the window shut.
”That’s a typhoon, all right,” Hechler said. “Think she’ll keep on going?”
“Come here,” Schepke told him, going into the chart house.
Hechler leaned over the glass-topped table, the chart a mass of intricate pencil lines and figures.
“See that?” Schepke asked. “See those wind notations?
The wind’s trailing way astern of the centre and varying.”
“Think she’ll change direction?”
“It’s possible. I started worrying about that this morning when I took over from Müller. He had it noted that the wind never rose beyond forty-six during the first part of the middle, and then later he has it noted as dropping to forty and forty-one. It’s only these last three hours that it’s built up again and remained roughly the same direction.”
asked, the anxiety showing in his voice.
”There’s no telling where they turn,” Schepke told him.
“At the moment I’d say we’re just inside the outer fringe of the storm area.” He leaned up from the table, looking squarely at Hechler. “If that wireless had been working we’d have known just exactly what was out there.”
Hechler wiped the sleeve of his overalls across his face. “I hope she keeps headed south,” he said quietly.
“Well she’s changed course since she grew off the Carolines,” Schepke said pointedly.
“I thought they usually ended up on the China coast after coming out of the Pacific in a northerly direction.”
