Voices on the Wind - Assault

When Stevie came on watch at 4pm, rain was lashing out of the north-northwest. Each new wave hit Clan Sinclair with a force that made her shudder from stem to stern. The oncoming walls of saltwater broke over the starboard bow. Then, frothing and swirling, they swept diagonally across the fo’c’sle, flooded the forward well deck and smothered the base of the foremast. Unchecked and full of malice, they surged towards the vertical steel wall of the midships island, where they crashed with enough force to make the ship stagger. The seawater spurted skywards, where, broken into drops, the fragmented waves hovered a fraction of a second before falling exhausted upon the windows of the bridge. The deluge momentarily overwhelmed the frantically waving windscreen wipers and drenched the soggy lookouts on the wings. Then, defeated yet malicious still, the remnants drained away down the gunwales gurgling pathetically. Meanwhile, the next crest rose to hover over the bows of the freighter, licking its chops before attacking.

The pitching of the freighter in these massive swells was becoming dangerous, and Stevie worried more and more about their damaged bow. Furthermore, in the short interval after the crest of the wave passed amidships, when the bows started to slide down the back of the swell, the screws came clear out of the water. They made an agonised sound as they helplessly thrashed the air. Unlike the snarling of the sea or the yowling of the wind, it was a sound that set Stevie’s nerves on edge.

At dusk, the commodore signalled for the convoy to heave-to and ride out the storm. Captain Sommers ordered sea anchors put out over both bows to hold them into the wind. Even so, they were still being blown backwards, so Sommers rang for engines slow ahead. Richardson came onto the bridge to judge the drift for himself and then returned to the engine room. Soon the motion of the ship steadied noticeably, and although still pitching badly, the rolling and corkscrewing eased. The cooks prepared the first hot meal of the day.

 At the start of the First Watch (8pm), after twenty hours on the bridge, Captain Sommers announced he was turning in, warning his Second Officer, who had just taken over command of the deck, “You’re going to have a devil of a time keeping station, Mr Nielsen. Wake me if you lose contact in any direction.”

Nielsen’s expression suggested that he found the admonishment insulting, and Stevie sensed tension between the two men that remained unspoken. Sommers went below.

Stevie, who had just been relieved, watched Nielsen for a moment and then followed the Captain. In his cabin, he pulled off his wellies, hung his wet oilskins on the back of the door, and removed his uniform and jumper but not his underclothes. He crawled into his bunk and fitted the wooden board into place that stood inches taller than the mattress. It was meant to keep him from falling out of his bunk if the ship rolled too violently. The moment his head hit the pillow, he went out like a light and slept until Wale, the Nigerian cabin boy, shook him. “Time to get up, sir!” It was 3.45 am.

Stevie pulled on his clothes and outer gear, noting that the motion of the ship had not eased. They were still pitching violently, and the engines still whined unnaturally when they came out of the water. The storm had been blowing more than thirty hours with no sign of letting up.

As he slipped out of his cabin, he found Babbitt already kitted up and seated at one of the dining salon tables. He looked pale and uneasy. “Get any sleep, Mr Babbitt?”

“A little, sir.”

“Good. Keep your supper down?”

“So far.”

“How’s the wrist?”

Babbitt looked at his bandaged wrist, and then back at Stevie with bloodshot eyes that said he was in pain but didn’t want to complain.

“As soon as this has blown over, I’ll take another look at it,” Stevie promised.

“Will it blow over?” Babbitt asked back in an attempt at humour.

“Oh, eventually,” Stevie assured him with a smile of encouragement. He could vividly remember being in Babbitt’s shoes. He’d been terrified in his first real gale as a cadet, and yet he’d come to love them. It wasn’t the sea that gnawed at his nerves; it was the enemy.

The door from the galley cracked open. With the agility of a cat, Adebayo entered balancing a mug in each hand and announcing, “I bring toast, too, Number One.”

Stevie was surprised. Serving tea and toast to the morning watch before they went on deck was a luxury. The Company did not require it, and Stevie had not requested it. Indeed, Adebayo had not done it before.

“Storm make watch hard. Need little extra,” Adebayo explained himself, asking, “Two sugars, much milk, right?”

“Right,” Stevie confirmed with a grin. “Thank you.”

A moment later, Adebayo laid a plate of toast on the table in front of them. It was already buttered and spread with orange marmalade. The latter was a company staple, bought in bulk somewhere in the Middle East and delivered in large tins. It was so durable, they were probably still living off pre-war stocks. It was also so bitter that it took some getting used to, as Babbitt’s expression underlined. Stevie remembered feeling the same way at Babbitt’s age, and assured the cadet, “You’ll acquire a taste for it! It’s a good source of energy on a night like this.”

As the chronometer struck eight bells, Stevie and Babbitt stepped onto the bridge. The quartermaster was already turning over the helm, reporting, “Heading: 3-4-5.”

“Three-four-five,” the relieving helmsman replied as he took the wheel.

To left and right, the bridge lookouts moved to assume their exposed posts on the wings. Babbitt had the starboard wing. Stevie subconsciously heard the port lookout report. “The Collamer is over there, three cables off our quarter, lagging a bit.”

Stevie turned his attention to the Officer of the Deck he was relieving. Normally, this would have been the Second Officer, but out of courtesy to the over qualified Mr Nielsen, they had granted his request to have the more comfortable Forenoon and First watches, running from 8 am to noon and 8 pm to midnight respectively. This meant Mr Goff had the dark and cold “Middle Watch” from midnight to four am. “Anything to report, Mr Goff?”

“I think the rain has let up a bit. For a while we could hardly see the stern-light of the Amicus. But she’s there now.” He pointed out the central porthole into the blackness beyond their frothing bow. It was still hours until sunrise and the tiny blue light on the stern of the ship ahead of them was hard to distinguish from the drops of water on the glass. Stevie nodded, suspecting some seriously anxious moments behind that understated report.

He was just about to thank Goff and take over the watch when Babbitt shouted, “Come quick, Number One! There’s something strange going on out here!” The alarm in his voice was impossible to overhear. Both Stevie and Goff sprang to the wing.

Babbitt pointed over their starboard bows where the waves seemed to be breaking up and—

“HARD A’PORT!” Stevie shouted at the top of his voice.