Scend of the Sea

CHAPTER TWELVE

It came, pungent and fateful as a distant bell-buoy tolling over a killer reef.

All day we had inched Touleier up the Waratah coast while the wind stayed light in the north-east. Tafline and I checked, discussed, spotted landmarks like the impressive rock which is called The-Hole-in-the-Wall. It was perfect fair-weather yachting and some of the tension seemed to ebb from us as we absorbed the soporific magic and she ghosted along. We had breathtaking glimpses of black, iron-bound cliffs topped by great forests, for which the territory is famous; we could pick out, by their lofty whiteness like ships' spars, the straight trunks of the unzimbeet trees among their darker companions; fragile lagoons came and went at sunset with the chimerical loveliness of an old Chinese print on silk; tree euphorbias hung out stark candelabra of branches against great cliffs and begged to be photographed; here and there the lush strelitzias would overarch a river mouth with sensuous, tropical beauty, a frame for secret mangrove swamps behind, trodden not by human foot but by the claws of giant crabs as big as soup plates.

The twice-daily shipping forecasts brought a taut expectancy. One is broadcast after lunch, and the other after 11 at night. There was no hint of a gale.

There was a nerve-tingle at dawn when I brought Touleier into position off Port St John's where the Waratah and Clan Macintyre had exchanged their last signals. We had decided on this just as, lower down the coast off East London, we had cruised over the exact spot where the liner Guelph had received her garbled ‘t-a-h' lamp signal from a ship which was never subsequently identified.

Tafline had asked me to call her when Touleier was under the Cape Hermes light. I went to her cabin. She was lying, eyes wide open, waiting for me.

I felt a small nerve kick in her lips as she kissed me and she indicated the heavy sweater and slacks she had been wearing when she left me after the late-night forecast. The apology, the dedication, the promise, were all in her embrace. She held me for so long that it was I who had to remind her that the wheel was unattended.

We went on deck.

She shivered as the flash came from the Cape Hermes lighthouse. It stands, as it did when the Waratah passed by, unnaturally bright against the dark cliff on the southern bank of the lovely river mouth. Except for a few thatched cottages, the coastline looked the same as it did on that fateful morning when the two liners parted. She shivered again at the sight of the strange rectangular columns of mist marching down the St John's River to the sea, shaping themselves to the cliffs on either side. The great Gates-massive, forest-covered twin peaks flanking the river on either side-were shrouded in the early light. Once the mist swirled aside and showed the ruins of an old piled jetty and rusting boiler of some abandoned coaster, relics of the days when the port was still used by shipping.

She whispered, as if afraid to arouse the spectres of the past. ‘Is this the place?'

I nodded.

The sea was empty.

Our shadows dissipated when the sun rose for another fine day. It lulled us into going ashore when a friendly ski-boat came out from the land and offered us a ride. I left Jubela in charge of Touleier. We were rowed across the river near the mouth by an African ferry; there was a magnificent up-river view for miles. I think we were both glad to be on land and stretch our legs. We laughed at a ridiculous pleasure launch shaped like a giant swan in poor imitation of something Mediterranean; we speculated over the origin of a twelve-foot sailing ship anchor with gigantic flukes which stood near the old jetty; we saw an old cannon from the treasure ship Grosvenor, a mystery of Pondoland which rivals that of the Waratah.

We walked along the river-side road after lunch, and she bought some African beadwork. She was excitedly showing me a tiny rectangle of exquisiteness — each pattern in the Transkei has its message, of love, rejection, birth, death, health-when a car with tourists drew up with its radio blaring.

It was then that we heard the news of a gale warning. 'North-westerly to westerly winds in the vicinity of Cape Point will reach thirty to forty-five knots, spreading eastwards..'

Eastwards! To us! Here was the classic storm pattern beginning.

I caught her arm. The pleasure of the small purchase died in her.

I looked at her, and she looked at me. I remember her now in her thin summer dress standing next to the roughly planked wooden stall by the edge of the chocolate river, the blue, white and gold beadwork held in her hand. It seemed impossible, in that soft semi-tropical setting, that ice, gales and rollers would start to hurl themselves at the Cape within hours. Was it one of those lethal secondary low pressure systems which hive off the main storm and send the oilmen hurrying to batten down everything to safety and shipmasters to keep anxious watches in the type of weather which has earned the Cape of Storms its terrible cognomen? Would it turn into …?

'How bad is it, Ian?' she asked, handing back the bead-work to the disappointed African woman.

'We might know more if there had been a Walvis Bay on station,' I replied. My mind raced over a mass of technicalities. 'It may be everything; it may be nothing.'

Upon the outcome hung my career and our love..

'God!' I burst out. 'If only I knew?’ If only I could phone the Bureau and ask.’

'You could, Ian! It's worth the risk! — don't mention your name or Touleier or the fat will be in the fire. You must know more before sailing down the coast.'

I punched my fist into my palm in frustration. The real significance; can only be judged when I know more about the upper air winds, temperatures, pressures, and the like.

Imagine an ordinary yacht skipper asking for that sort of stuff!'

'Somehow, you must'

I looked at my watch. A quarter to two.

'I've got it! By now the Bureau will have had plenty of time to study this morning's weather satellite picture. That'll give us some idea of what's coming. It isn't the whole answer, as you know, but it's worth trying.'

In the old hotel's musty foyer near a glass case of sea relics — huge conch shells, a medieval ship's bottle, a sea-scarred snuffbox whose vignette had been obliterated by long immersion -1 took the telephone call which was to mean so much to us. Tafline stood looking out to the river, past the massive wooden balcony supports of old ships' beams as I heard the portents.

'What is it, darling?' she asked, when I had finished.

She had paled, and I kissed the bloodless lips. 'It's still too early to say. We must get away to sea. At dawn this morning, the Cape had strong wind and rain, and by ten o'clock it was blowing a gale; the pressure went down like a lift. I think the Bureau was delighted to have a mere yachtsman ask such intelligent questions — they were quite forthcoming. The storm's moving east, at a great rate, towards us. But it could sheer off southwards into the Southern Ocean. Then all we'd get off the Bashee would be some strong wind.'

'Shall we know at all in advance?' She, like myself, knew we "had to go, yet we jibbed before putting the horse to that cataclysmic jump.

'From the signs we can, and the signs are at sea,' I answered. 'Here on the coast we should have a north-easterly wind today, and maybe even into tomorrow. You can tell if it's going to be a real buster because the pressure drops while the northeaster blows. Then suddenly the wind will die. Up goes the pressure. The wind shifts like lightning into the south-west, and before you know where you are it's a full gale.’

‘ A Waratah gale, Ian?' she asked in a small voice.

'The right thing would be to signal Port Elizabeth as we go south. Yet one word of me being here in Touleier, in a gale, and they'd stick me landbound in a desert at the farthest spot away from the sea they could find, if they didn't sack me outright. We must get to sea — now. It might take us all night to reach our target area off the Bashee. We can hope for that freshening north-easter behind Touleier until it drops and gives way to what we're really looking for,'

Our ski-boaters had left the village and gone fishing at Second Beach, an idyllic spot at the back of the huge cliff which is Cape Hermes. We hurriedly hired a car and found them on the rocks. They were surprised at our urgency to get to sea, and it was not until the middle of the afternoon that they put us alongside Touleier. They did not seem to grasp the significance of the yacht's famous name, and I did not enlighten them.

'Get the mainsail and jib on her,' I ordered an equally surprised Jubela.

As we headed away south-west, I explained the weather to him. We crammed on the big spinnaker to make time until dark. Later I intended to clear the decks of all loose gear and snug her down in earnest to meet the gale.

The sun dropped behind the Gates of Port St John's, and the forests were silhouetted. Tafline had been below a long time, securing and stowing the galley things and double-checking all lockers.

She had changed from her summer dress back into yachting sweater and slacks when she joined me. Cape Hermes was still visible astern, although the lighthouse itself was masked. She sat by me at the helm while Jubela worked forward.

We continued to watch the disappearing headland. Then Tafline left her seat and dropped on her knees in front of me on the gratings, scrutinizing me as if we had been parted for years.

'When I listened to you on the phone talking about the ins-and-outs of the weather I wondered, are we not dicing with the devil for our lives. Not the Flying Dutchman, but us? Deliberately, presumptuously — us?'

The headland flared brighter, the sun using the river passage for its last rays.

I tried to soothe her fears with more facile explanations of the safety of a small ship in a gale, and how tried and tested Touleier was, except for the new self-steering gear. I did not confess my misgivings about it, nor about the tall racing mast. I had watched Walvis Bay's short stubby foremast go half-overboard, and it had been steel, not light alloy, nor was it under a press of sail.

She did not take her eyes from mine as I explained. Then, as I faltered to a finish, she made the most telling gesture in all my knowledge of our love. She put her cheeks between my hands, and said something to herself as if her heart would break. Then she spread her arms on my knees and buried her face, so that I saw the last sunlight between her short hair and the polo collar. Did she weep? Did she pray? All I know is that she knelt silent a long time. The yacht drove on.

The day ran out, and the partridge sky became feathered with gold.

We took the racing sails off her at sundown and brought up the tough gale trysail ready for use. Jubela and I worked on the self-steering gear and decided to disconnect it. Both of us had shared the wheel in Walvis Bay's ordeal, and we knew what to expect. Our judgment, in an engineless craft under sail, would have to be finer than any automatic device if the same thing happened again.

When we had cleared the yacht, I sent Jubela below to rest. Tafline stayed with me, waiting for the late-night shipping forecast. It would give us an idea of the direction of the storm. What I wanted, however, was more technical data which I could get only from Port Elizabeth, but I dared not signal the met. office there. I shelved my dilemma. The wind became fresher from the north-east; the stars were numberless over our heads, and the sea was sweet

She tuned in.

'There is a gale warning,' said the announcer. 'Strong north-westerly winds between Cape Town and Cape Agulhas will reach forty to fifty knots, spreading eastwards, with south-westerly forty-five to fifty-five knots later.'

The signs are there, all right' I remarked. Tonight every oil rig will be battened down, waiting for the worst'

'Why does the wind switch from northwest to southwest round the Cape coast?' she asked.

'Because of the land mass,' I replied. 'That's why I'm so desperately keen to know what is happening at Port Elizabeth.'

She went on hesitantly, as she always did when she asked me about sailing matters. 'Phillips was dumbfounded when he saw that old-time ship sailing against the wind. Since Touleier has no engine, how do you intend pushing into the teeth of a south-westerly gale?'

The impending storm still seemed very far away that clear, fresh night with her next to me.

I held her hand tightly and explained. 'Safe tactics in a sailing ship and a steamer caught in this sort of gale are two different matters. Two windjammers — the Johanna and Indian Empire-were, in fact, caught on the same day by the Waratah's gale. Both "hauled out" some seventy miles to sea to get away from the tug of the southbound Agulhas Current. They both crossed the Waratah's course, but they saw nothing, and spent ten days in one position riding the storm. That's what the experts thought Captain Ilbery would have done in the Waratah — beat it out to sea as far as he could, to ride out the storm in safety there.'

'You still haven't told me what you intend to do.'

'If the wind freshens, as I think it will, we'll be off the Bashee by mid-morning. While the weather is fair, I’ll get Touleier as near to Waratah's last known position as I can. Then — we'll ride out the gale. See what happens. We can't do more, we simply don't know more. It's really trailing one's coat in a sailer. We'll have to play the game off the cuff, perhaps even heave to, if the weather becomes too bad.'

Touleier drove for the Bashee.

Jubela called me at first light and I went to wake Tafline to be with me at the radio. I still dared not make a signal. I decided that I would try and intercept what Port Elizabeth was saying to other shipping. If it was bad, the port met. office would be warning the coast. From there, too, had come the C-in-C's 'clear-out' order.

I stood for a long while, simply looking down on her asleep in all her loveliness, not daring to bring her to the day of tight tensions which I knew must follow. For I had taken a look round from the cockpit, and the signs were in the sea and sky. The wind had backed northerly and freshened; the tiny fluffs of cirrus cloud seemed high enough to want to compete with the last fading stars. There was no ominous bank on the south-western horizon yet, the purple sky-bloom which wrote the death of Waratah, Gemsbok and the Buccaneer. I was uneasy, taut, yet eager for the encounter, but I am glad now that I waited that breathing-space of minutes while my breath fell into step with hers, which the creaking of the yacht failed to disturb.

After I had woken her, she joined me at the radio in the main cabin. On the South American race it had given trouble. When Touleier had been hard pressed, there was a seepage somewhere which affected its performance. I am no radio expert, and all I could do then was to try and keep it as dry as possible. The experts who had overhauled it had reinstalled it in the same place, with some extra waterproofing. It still seemed vulnerable to me, however, being close to the overhead skylight. Nevertheless, it seemed to work well enough now.

1 probed the wavelengths. Nothing.

I handed over the tuning dial to her slender fingers. Previously, the instrument had seemed to respond better to her delicate touch than to mine.

She held up a warning hand.

Port Elizabeth Met. to Ocean Fuel.

'Supertanker!' I whispered.

0600 GMT. Pressure 1000 mb, falling. Wind, light northerly to north-westerly, freshening. Sea, moderate northeasterly.

She swung round to me, questioning. 'Yesl' I said. A Waratah gale was on the way. 'Listen!' she said.

Port Elizabeth came in again after the Ocean Fuel's acknowledgment.

South-westerly gale off southern Cape coast, fifty to fifty-five knots. All lined up here for gale. Advise you to make for nearest port.

She came up to the cockpit and stayed with me until ten o'clock. We were off the Bashee.

Jubela joined me and she went below. He and I unbent and stowed all sails, including the big mainsail, in the for'ard sail locker. We double-lashed all running gear on the lean, uncluttered deck in order to allow the seas free passage. We checked the self-draining cockpit and the buoyancy tanks. We also frapped the tall mast, Jubela agreeing with me that had it been jointed, we would have been well advised to send down the upper half.

We broke out the small heavy canvas jib in order to keep steerage way. We brought to the ready, as an emergency stand-by, a still smaller, tougher trysail. In the soft weather of the moment the larger storm sail was scarcely enough to make the yacht ghost along, but it was all we needed as we marked time.

When we had done, I found Tafline below. She had made packets of emergency sandwiches, and wrapped and labelled them individually as meals for the coming days. In a full blow, the galley stove could not be used. She had also filled big vacuum flasks with hot coffee and soup against the emergency.

It was not until later, however, that I found out that her main concern had been to go once again through all the Waratah documents, double-wrap them in waterproofing, and re-stow them out of reach of any possible flooding in the galley's special head-high, metal-lined locker.

She was finished by the time the lunch-hour shipping forecast came-thoughtful, tense, saying little.

There is a gale warning. Strong south-westerly winds between Port Elizabeth and East London will reach forty-five to fifty-five knots later. All shipping is advised to make for port. We repeat, there is a gale warning …

'No order from the C-in-C this time,' she remarked.

'It'll come,' I replied grimly. ‘It's the final stage. They want to be quite sure, before putting out an order of such gravity.'

The sea still kept its face bland, but the wind became uneasy, gusting fitfully from the north-east. I let Tafline steer the gliding yacht in order to pass the time.

We said little, except once when she asked, 'Are we over the Waratah now, do you think, Ian?'

'We certainly are right in the area where she disappeared.'

She cut in quickly. 'What will you do when you find her?'

I was about to answer when my eye caught something on the far horizon.

'Look!'

The line between the blue of the sea and the purple of the storm was scarcely distinguishable. It merged, it fused, trying to conceal its evil in the water it was so soon to corrupt.

She gave a slight shiver, turned to me as if she intended to say something, and then started below.

'I'll bring up all the oilskins.'

The barometer started to rise. Soon the uneasy wind would settle into its true channel — the south-west.

The first punch the storm threw at Touleier unmasked its lethal intent.

I had put the yacht on the port tack, heading away from the land in the late afternoon. The wind was veering into its storm quarter, but still remained moderate. The sea began to rise, but I was unhappy about the Agulhas Current. It was so strong as to affect the steering: I was glad I had discarded the self-steering device. It required human brains and skill to offset what was starting to happen to the sea and wind. I was anxious, too, about Touleier's position. In theory, I knew that at first she would be driven southwards by the current, but once the gale got under way in earnest, she would be blown back upon her course. By tacking out to sea until it worsened, and then tacking landwards again, I reckoned she would be roughly in the Waratah target area when the storm reached its climax, which would probably be next morning.

I explained all this to her.

'There's a point beyond which one cannot go with a ship,' I said. 'Walvis Bay was on the limit. If it gets too bad I'll heave to.'

She smiled a little and said, 'Brinkmanship? A Fairlie judgement against a gale?'

I nodded, but inwardly I did not share her faith in myself. I carefully counter-checked every point I could think of. It would need everything Jubela and I could muster to keep her afloat. I went cold when I thought consciously about that giant wave which had hit Walvis Bay.

With a clap like a rifle-shot the storm jib exploded outwards in an iron-hard concave and blew to ribbons. In a second, it seemed, squares, rectangles and triangles of ripped sail insinuated themselves into the running blocks of the upper rigging. A ten-foot strip, still clinging by one tenuous cringle to an unyielding length of nylon rope, streamed out and flapped savagely against the mast. Then even the tough grommet could take the strain no longer, and the sail wrapped itself round the spreader and upper shrouds. The forestay thrummed like a double-bass.

i The squall had struck ahead of the main army of the storm, now ominous and purple-black to starboard. There had been no herald of its coming.

Touleier lay over on her side until the lee deck and cockpit were awash.

Pinned like that and with almost no way on her, anything could happen. And the storm itself was upon us.

'Jubela! Quick! That storm jib! Quick, man, quick!'

Urgently I thrust the helm into Tafline's hands. 'Just try and hold her steady until the jib draws. It'll take both Jubela and me to set v the other storm jib. One of us will be back as soon as we can.'

She was strained, doubtful about her ability to steer in such an emergency. Jubela and I crawled forward along the steeply-angled deck while patchworks of torn, blown trysail snapped and yapped against the mast. I was glad that we had had the foresight to unbend and stow the mainsail; with it, Touleier would have been on her beam ends by now. 'Got it!'

Jubela threw me a nod. The smaller, tougher sail was snugged home and began to draw. I slithered to the cockpit and took the wheel from Tafiine. The yacht came upright and shied like a startled horse under the drag of the small sail, even, Jubela threw himself flat up for'ard, watched anxiously for a moment or two, and then gave the thumbs-up sign. Water cascaded off the deck. Touleier picked up speed rapidly and shook herself clear.

I threw all my attention into watching the yacht, the sea, and the sky. That squall had made it clear, even in this early stage, that no quarter would be given. Touleier gave a quick, duck-like shake. The contempt in it for my fears broke our tension for a moment. We both grinned. But Waratah was never far from our minds.

She gestured at the sea. 'All those arguments by the experts seem so futile when you come face to face with the reality.'

'They went for the ship, I go for the sea,' I said, knowing well what was on her mind.

'And the gale,' she added.

I liked the feel of the tight little craft under me and the confident way she behaved. The wind began to increase with every gust.

Then — it roared into the south-west.

Its onslaught was different from my previous encounter, but again there was the clear distinction between the advancing storm and the darkening land. Touleier had the rising sea abeam and started to put her rail under regularly.

We found it hard to talk to each other because of the wind. But I leaned down to her ears, gesturing at the waves.

'Waratah wasn't heading into a beam sea like we are doing. She was meeting it head-on. That lessened her problems a great deal.'

She nodded, looked astern.

Bashee light.

Touleier's portents were identical to Walvis Bay's.

An hour later, the wind notched up gale force. I estimated its speed at between forty and fifty knots. Icy rain sluiced along the deck. It was pitch dark, and a tremendous cross-sea was building up against the main current. I was a little startled at the way Touleier lay over at the crests under the impact of each savage gust, and the rag of sail slatted and roared. But it held. Soon — if the manoeuvre were to be carried out at all — I must put her on the opposite tack. I sent Tafline below, using the weather forecast which was due as an excuse. Jubela and I roped ourselves tightly to the cockpit in case it was swamped. I watched my moment.

Suddenly Touleier took a deep lee lurch and at the same time she was struck by one of those hilly, sharp-topped pyramids of sea, unlike anything I have ever seen before or since. In a moment she was half-way on her side. I felt the wheel start to lose its positiveness. Water poured over us until I was knee-deep. Jubela was hurled against me, but he clawed himself away in order to give me freedom with the wheel. I tried it to starboard, hoping to bring her head more into the wind. Then I felt the storm jib bite as she rose to the crest, and tons of water were thrown along the unobstructed decks. Seizing the moment, I put the wheel hard over and Jubela, following my actions, let fly the sheet and then trimmed it for the new tack.

Touleier was round!

Sea surged and gurgled from the self-draining cockpit. Tafline came up from the cabin and looked about her, startled. It was impossible to see her eyes in the dim compass light. Her voice was strained.

'The radio, Ian, it started all right, then something happened … she seemed to go right under! ‘

I cupped my hands against her ears. 'She's all right now. If it becomes much worse, I'll heave to.'

The lee deck was completely under water, but Touleier was lively and handling magnificently.

'I'll bring you something hot,' she called back.

The wind whipped back her sou'wester over her shoulders as she turned to go below. Ballooning out behind, for a moment it made her unsteady on her feet, the thrust was so powerful. Then she ducked out of sight.

I kept Touleier under the rag of sail for the next couple of hours. By ten o'clock the wind had risen to a whole gale-sixty knots! Its roar was appalling and it was locked in violent combat with the Agulhas Current. It threw up sharp, deadly pyramids of water which spent themselves by falling bodily on the yacht's deck. Tafline reported the skylight over the radio broken, and Jubela crawled forward and secured a square of tarpaulin over it. If they had warned shipping away from the coast, we certainly had no chance of hearing it. I was soaked. She brought us relays of hot soup and coffee. At times the clash of the current and gale under her rudder made the yacht almost unmanageable. I had not the slightest idea of her position. While the wind had still been usable Touleier had, I knew, beaten some miles to the south of the Bashee, but it was certain that she had been driven back since. I decided to heave to.

I went below to tell her of my decision, leaving the wheel to Jubela.

On deck, my ears had been numbed by the thunder of the gale and the cold; here, in the confined space of the cabin, the waves added their drum-like crash against the hull to the general uproar. It was impossible to move across the place — streaming wet from rain and seawater jetting in through the tarpaulin-lashed skylight — without using the grab-handles. The motion was jerky, uncertain, unpredictable, violent; a sudden pitch or staggering roll could easily break a limb if one did not hang on.

Tafline was very pale. 'Darling — is this the end? Are we sinking?'

I wanted to hold her, comfort her, chase the shadows from those lovely eyes. All I could do was hang on against the wild, erratic motion.

'Far from it,' I answered. I did not say, it will be worse before the night is over.

She shuddered, looking at the untidy mess swilling about under the yellow oil lights. We had disconnected the battery supply and drained the acid from the cells, in preparation for the storm.

'Was it worse — in Walvis Bay?'

'Yes, but different,' I reassured her. 'Touleier's like a cork, she's under sail. Walvis Bay plugged into it, nose-down. In the whaler, I was able to hold the Waratah's course, but any set direction now is out of the question.'

'No wonder they pray, "for those in peril on the sea".'

'I'm heaving her to,' I explained. 'There's nothing to be gained by trying to sail. It will make the motion easier, perhaps.'

She stared hard at me, and then asked in a small voice, 'This doesn't mean you're abandoning the Waratah, does it? I'd rather go on, come what may. If it's for my sake.. ’

The question of speed worried me greatly, but I don't think it is a factor. You see, the Waratah was steering at thirteen knots, Gemsbok was flying at over 300, and Alistair over 600.1 can't see any connection. I feel sure that Touleier's being hove-to won't make any difference. If it-whatever it is-is to come, it will come, whether we are under way or not. From the way the yacht is behaving, I think the storm centre must be close. The entire storm moves strangely fast. In twenty-four hours one of these blows could have spent its main force.'

'Over!' she echoed. I saw how near breaking-point she was.

I said gently, 'If the gale sticks true to form, it will reach its peak sometime tomorrow morning.'

'Morning!' she gasped. 'Will the yacht-can we-take much more?'

'She's in good shape,' I replied. "There's not much damage so far.'

She held my gaze. 'While she goes, I go — please remember that.'

I remember that now, too.

Before we put the helm up, I inched forward along the streaming deck on the lifelines and placed oil bags on each side of the bow. While I took the wheel, Jubela did the same over the counter. Immediately there was relief from her labouring, and she began to ride more comfortably. I got in the jib, and we hove her to on the port tack, streaming a sea anchor. The yacht shipped huge quantities of water; the lee rail and deck were constantly awash. Meanwhile the dollops started to come over the stern, too. I attributed this to the head-on clash of the gale and the current. I was very anxious lest the self-steering gear should be damaged and tangle with the rudder, so we put another oil bag in an old fish basket and ran it out on a deep-sea lead, which was the only spare cordage we could find. The lines were stowed in the sail locker, but we could not risk flooding her forward by opening it. The makeshift bag served its purpose. Now the yacht rode more confidently, although I could visualize how terrifying in daylight the seas would look from wave-level in the cockpit.

By midnight the gale was still increasing and a massive cross-sea threw the yacht about like flotsam. We double-lashed our minute storm jib to save it; high in the rigging the remnants of the first storm sail unravelled themselves, strand by strand. Touleier's head held well into the wind.

As the violence and the din grew, I debated whether I should attempt bending a tiny trysail high up aloft, but I discarded the idea because of the danger of climbing the arching, jerking mast. There was the danger, too, of getting her long mainboom in the water. If she broached to and were pooped, nothing could save us.

Through the rest of the night, Jubela and I alternately stood short helm watches until we could bear the breaking seas, the rain, and the icy wind no longer. Frozen, we came below, and Tafline fed us hot coffee and soup and her emergency sandwiches. Rest was impossible and the bunks were soaking. It was safest to wedge oneself on the floor gratings between foam rubber cushions off the lockers and cling on when a more violent shudder shook the hull in every plank.

When it was light, the sea presented an awesome sight. Tafline came into the cockpit when it was my turn to relieve Jubela. The roar of the gale made speech impossible. I saw her give the same quick intake of breath, half-sigh and smothered exclamation, she had done when she first saw the wrecked deck of the Walvis Bay.

The forward strike of the south-westerly gale, with its savage accompanying run of sea against the great current, had created an ocean of pointed hills which boiled and leaped high on either side of Touleier and fell over both the yacht's rails at once. Rain swirled in solid, icy sheets. The demented wind whipped off the summits of the wave-hills and bore them bodily aloft, higher than the mast, in a white shower of salt. The mast spreader, stays and blocks were white — not with salt but with threads of canvas stripped from the sail we had lost in the initial stages of the battle. Despite the oil bags, Touleier was swept fore and aft continually. The cockpit drainage could not keep pace with the inflow, so that there were never less than a couple of feet of water round one's knees. Touleier was still full of fight, although the lurches to lee that she gave as she reared to the crest of the waves were even more frightening on deck than they seemed below. There was no question of steering her among this watery valley of a thousand hills. She cavorted, swung, pitched, rolled and dipped all in one motion, it seemed. The oil bags were working well; we had renewed them an hour or two before. Without them, it appeared impossible that Touleier could have survived the storm.

I took the wheel from Jubela, and signalled him to go below. Tafline was in the cockpit, crouched against the cabin woodwork out of the wind, securely roped to the grab-handles by the door. My eyes were full of blown spray and rain.

I therefore never saw the thing that hit us.

I had been guiding the kicking rudder-that violent cross-sea made her wild — to try and keep her head towards the eye of the gale. It must have been about half past eight. Only dim sunlight lit the awesome scene.

Touleier took a deep lurch and at the same moment she was struck by a heavy weather sea. She seemed to be thrown sideways into another mountain of water. She went over at an impossible angle. The mainsail boom plunged under. Before I had time even to realize what was happening, I was up to my armpits in water. The yacht lay down, completely on her beam ends, with her keel showing between the waves.

I went cold with fear.

Touleier dropped like a stone.

Here was the same sickening drop I had known in Walvis Bay. The whaler's head had been pointing into the storm and she had been under power; now I had under me a yacht without headway, lying on her beam ends with the long mast and submerged storm-jib acting as further makeweight to prevent her ever coming up again.

I could not see Tafline. All that held me to the yacht was a bight of nylon fixed to the lifeline. My mouth and eyes were full of water and oil from the bags.

Down the yacht dropped.

The cabin door flew open as Jubela threw his weight against it from the inside. He was in shirt and trousers only — he must have stripped off the oilskins to dry them — and as he came out, the wind ripped the shirt from his back and whirled it away into the scud-filled sky.

I spat and retched oil and sea water. 'An axe! Get an axe, man! Cut it away!'

He seemed stunned, unhealing. Frantically I chopped my right hand into the left palm to show what I meant. He saw, and ducked away.

I saw Tafline's terrified face. She, like myself, was roped fast to the lifelines. She cowered, half-crouched, half-squatted, on the inner edge of the gunwale planking which now lay parallel to and half under the water, instead of upright.

Still Touleier lay over. Still she dropped.

The stern started to slew from the greater weight of water aft in the cockpit. The rudder was beyond human control.

Her head began to come away from the run of the sea. The next wave would send her stern-first to the bottom.

Jubela, naked to the waist, broke from the cabin with an axe and raced up the weather rigging, now lying almost flat with the sea. I saw him hack at the tough light-alloy of the mast just above the spreader. It bent, but did not break.

The bow started to corkscrew and the stern gurgled deeper under me. I yelled frantically to Tafline to get rid of her lifeline. If the yacht went down, she would take Tafline with her to the bottom.

Jubela doubled back along the rigging and switched his attack to the stays and rigging-screws on deck. I do not know whether it was luck or shrewdness or desperation, but at his second stroke one of the main shrouds parted; a second went and he dodged its backlash; then the rest seemed to part all at once. The mast crumpled, snapped, broke free. A twelve-foot jagged stump was all that was left.

Relieved of the mast's weight, I felt the first touch of life come back into the hull as the buoyancy tanks fought back. Jubela felt it, too, and hacked again and again.

Touleier started to rise off her side. But she still continued that awful downward fall, like dropping in a bottomless air pocket.

Jubela turned to leap forward to cut away some of the trailing wreckage.

He stopped and froze. He pointed ahead with the axe.

He turned and screamed at me, his face stunned with shock.

I could not hear the words, but his meaning was clear from the frame of his lips. ‘A ship!'

The wind eased momentarily. The air-pocket drop stopped.

The death-dealing pyramids of water held back from giving their final coup-de-grace to the floundering yacht.

Touleier pivoted back on to an even keel. Hundreds of tons of water cascaded free. Rigging trailed overboard from the truncated mast.

Tafline. too. saw Jubela's shock. She scrambled on to the cabin roof towards him. She and Jubela could see. I could not, from the low level of the cockpit and the trough of the sea.

She turned and called. My astonishment at hearing her vied with my amazement at what she said.

^‘A sailing ship! Dead ahead!’

I yelled to Jubela to cut away the overside clutter before it pierced the hull. He paid no attention. He stood transfixed, staring.

Again I shouted at him. He did not carry out my orders. Instead, he slid aft to me at the wheel. His face was grey with fear.

‘I. . have never. . seen … a ship.. like it! ‘ he jerked out. 'Umdhlebe!' Umdhlebe! — something strange. The smell of death about it!

I shoved the helm into his shaking hand. I freed my lifeline and jumped up alongside Tafline. She pointed.

There was no mistaking Phillips' description: there was the high bow, pointing into the eye of the gale, and the squat, square stern. But she had no masts. Water creamed and broke over the bow. Between bow and stern the hull was rounded, disproportionately long, like a whale's back.

A burst of spray hid the caravel.

'It's impossible!' I got out. 'I've never seen a ship like that except on a picture..'

She gripped my arm and said unsteadily. There is a ship. A whole ship. A big ship. It's nothing to do with that old-fashioned bow and stern. It's lying caught between them …'

'Dear God! What sort of a nightmare is this!'

'It's not a nightmare, and it's not a caravel,' she jerked out. 'It's an island! It's an island shaped like a caravel, Ian! And it's got a ship on it — upside down1'

Touleier rose to the next crest. We could hear each other. Here was that merciful, unnatural lull Clan Macintyre had known, the lull which had saved Walvis Bay.

I made a shambling run to the stump of the mast, grabbed it, and gave her a hand to me.

Touleier lifted.

'Look, Ian! The bow and stern don't rise to the sea! They're steady! They're — rocks!'

Across the welter of sea, a few cables away, I saw what Phillips had seen, what I had seen under Walvis Bay's bows.

A smooth hill of rock, one end shaped like the bow of a medieval ship and the other in perfect imitation of the stern, reared itself above the confused, grey sea. Between the extremities, it fell almost to water level, and seen from a distance, in the confusion of a gale and impending darkness, it presented the perfect silhouette of a caravel. Phillips had sighted it between himself and the land, against the backdrop of a dim sunset. It must have been a mere silhouette, and distant. What, I asked myself hastily, had caused Phillips to add that he had seen masts? Had it been some trick of the light, or had his overwrought, tired brain simply added them as a natural adjunct to the hull? Or, more simply still, was it that, against the shore skyline, where the great forests hang on cliffs above the sea, the trio of the huge, white, sparlike umzimbeet trees had provided the puzzling addendum?

In front of my very eyes now was the exposed rock into which Walvis Bay had nearly crashed headlong. In a flash I saw why the sea had not struck down the weather ship after her hideous downward drop, or Touleier a few minutes before: the ship-shaped island provided a perfect lee, a powerful natural bulwark, against the force of the gale and the run of the sea.

We stared unbelievingly at the rock, an island unmarked on any chart.

But it was not upon the rock that our eyes were riveted. She gave a half-sob and buried her face against my shoulder. It was the ship.

The barnacle-fouled hull was mortised so deftly between the 'bow' and 'stern' of the rock that it seemed part of it; indeed, its regular line enhanced the resemblance to a deck between the two projections. Its roundness, curved inward and upward, added to the man-made appearance. At the 'stern' the deception ended with brutal plainness.

Two huge screws projected into the air.

The ship was upside down.

A steamer, keel and screws in the air, lay sandwiched between the two rock eminences some hundreds of feet apart. The island seemed scarcely wider than the steamer's beam.

When I spoke, I did not recognize my own voice. 'We'll get a jury stay rigged on to the mast and go closer and look.'

She bit her lips fearfully and looked at the hulk.

'How. .?'

I turned to go aft. I stopped dead. There had been nothing for me but that fatal little caravel-shaped island ahead. Until now. Then I saw.

Behind the yacht towered a grey incline of sea. It was high enough for me to have to look up and see the waves bursting and racing. Touleier, sheltered from gale and sea, was in comparative calm.

I held her, frozen, round the shoulders.

'A valley — a valley in the sea! We've toppled down a valley. .' I pointed to a sort of shallow valley formed in the sea itself.

The stunning simplicity of it was incredible. The violence of the sea created a sort of hollow in its surface. The gale brought with it a massive run of the sea in the opposite direction to the Agulhas Current, and the two opposing streams banked up and formed a hollow. Something in the undersea topography must have helped, this being over such a limited area. This 'seamount' was a needle-like pinnacle which reared up from the ocean floor, and only an exceptional gale uncovered it, sixty feet deep, not high! Normally it was no danger to ships, but a Waratah gale bared it, and it turned into the Flying Dutchman! Then when the gale eased, the Agulhas Current became master again, the valley and the seamount disappeared, and so did the Flying Dutchman. .'

'Quick! We must be quick, Ian, before it disappears! We must see that hulk!'

Jubela and I hastily lashed up a jury stay from the mast stump to take a rag of canvas. Tafline brought my camera from below.

Touleier edged closer to the hulk on the seamount. It gave us a lee which became progressively smoother, the closer we approached.

The high promenade deck which had caused so much controversy lay crushed and concertina-ed under the 10,000 tons deadweight. Somewhere, too, under the telescoped superstructure, on which the whole weight of the ship rested, was the ruin of the single high funnel with its once-proud insignia.

The camera's electric flash cut across to below the eighteen-foot double screws, sea-fouled and trailing seaweed.

She called out the name, upside down, emblazoned on the stern.

'Waratah:

‘The gale's holding steady,' I replied. ‘So long as it does, the water should stay where it is. We must be quick. Every minute counts. It's now or never, to see the Waratah. Watch out especially when we get to the keel, the wind could blow us off our feet.'

Leaving the yacht in Jubela's care — he seemed to want to concentrate on physical tasks to avoid looking at the dead monster towering above us — we made for the stern. It looked easier to climb than any other part of the hull. We had a rope to lash ourselves fast to the decaying screws against the sea.