Southtrap

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Botany Bay's fallen tophamper smashed and thumped against the hull. It was a better sea anchor than anything which I could have devised. It dragged the vessel's head round.

But it was too late.

It could not drag her clear of Ship Rock.

She lay beam-on for a long moment cowering away from the massive black basalt stack which rose above her. A whole ocean broke over the rail. I saw one damaged lifeboat lifted bodily and smashed to splinters on the deck.

The rope I'd used to fasten myself to the shrouds I threw round Linn so that we were lashed together.

Then Botany Bay struck.

The port beam and quarter took the blow. There was a rending, sickening crash as her timbers disintegrated.

The sea, rebounding on the return from the streaming black cliff which rose up like a skyscraper, burst over the full length of the ship.

One moment I was standing with Linn on the poop, the next I found myself against a cathead in the bow. The rope had snicked fast about it; Linn was with me still.

I pulled myself to my knees, grabbed her, and pointed. 'The jib-boom! Up! Quick! Before the next wave!'

The spar was still intact above the maelstrom sweeping aft along the main deck and poop. I half-dragged, half-hauled Linn with me until I felt the footropes under my boots. I caught a fleeting glimpse of a figure doubled up between the outer bobstay and footrope stirrups — whether he was alive or dead I could not tell.

Botany Bay was thrown again against the cliff, this time stern-first. The bowsprit jerked at the impact as if in agony. I saw a group of men round the motor-launch as the main deck lifted up. They seemed to be cutting it free of its skids. Then, above the general din, came the sound of shots.

There was no time to think of what was happening. The ship sheered, the jib-boom dug into the cliff, and broke off short abaft of where we were.

Linn and I were pitched into the surging water. The cold was paralysing. I felt the backwash start to draw me away from the cliff. I seemed to be caught in a spider's web of ropes, guys, chains, wires and blocks all washing and entangling themselves.

I knew that in seconds the undertow would sweep us away from Ship Rock and the icy sea would do the rest.

I held Linn under the arms and snatched at the nearest thing. It wasn't a rope, — it was thick and slippery, the thickness of a man's calf. It was a frond of kelp anchored to Ship Rock.

I hauled us in, hand over hand.

'Linn — ride in on the next wave — that ledge — there!'

The kelp seemed to originate from a ragged shelf about five metres above us.

'Use your feet!' I called, spitting out mouthfuls of water. 'Don't let the water smash you against the rock!'

There was no time for more. The next roller — a huge sea — picked us and Botany Bay up together and threw us against the rock. At the same instant I heaved all my weight on to the kelp, scrambling, slipping, grasping, keeping hold of Linn.

I felt the horizontal shelf — no more than a metre wide — under my clawing fingers. The water started to fall back. If I didn't hang on, there would be no second chance.

I whipped the rope linking us over a spur-like projection on the shelf and at the same time gripped the kelp frond with my knees and ankles the way I had used Botany Bay's backstay to slide down. The roller took another side-swipe at the dying ship on its return. We were left hanging like two flies against the streaming black cliff.

'John!' called Linn faintly. 'Let me go! Let me go! I can't make it any more!'

She was about a metre lower than I was, trying to find a finger-hold in the smooth rock.

'Linn! Listen! The rope's fast round a rock. I'm going to ease myself down on this piece of kelp. My weight will counter-balance you and pull you up. When you reach the shelf double-loop the rope round the projection. That'll hold it for me. Then haul yourself on to the ledge.'

'John, it's hopeless…'

'Do as I say! Quick — there's another breaker coming!', I eased my grip en the kelp. The seesaw effect of my weight was immediate. Linn went on up past me. I went down.

'John!' It was Linn above. 'I've got it!'

I knew she had, the way the rope felt. I scrabbled and clawed my way up the smooth cliff on the lifeline. It could not have been more than a couple of metres, — it felt like a thousand.

Then I was up and over on to the ledge.

I threw myself to shelter on the narrow projection just as the next roller poured over us. Half an hour of that kind of drenching and we'd simply fall off the ledge into the sea from cold.

I risked a glance over the edge. Botany Bay had turned broadside directly under me. The next breaker would give her the coup de grace. Then I spotted Wegger in the motor-launch, poised over the tiller. He was alone. He was seaman enough, and cool enough, to wait for it: he was going to float the launch off its deck skids at the next wave — if he wasn't dashed to pieces by it. Two or three men were on deck, shouting and gesticulating at him. They made a rush at the boat and I heard the sound of more shots.

Then the mainmast crashed against the cliff level with our ledge. The topsail yard scraped along our rock.

I knew in a flash what to do.

I stood up, half-carried, half-led Linn, and swung myself on to the yard by some trailing buntlines and sheets.

That mainmast must go at any moment; it also must fall clear the only way Wegger could escape in the motor-launch, namely on the weather side.

The mast sheared, the ship shattered, and we toppled sideways all in one movement. The mast broke, in two places, one at deck level and the other at the topmast cap-stay, just above our heads. The main section struck the rock first with a bone-shattering jar and then rebounded seawards in a slow arc from the drag of its retaining tackle.

We hit the water. I heard the crackle of an engine.

The mast had fallen almost on top of Wegger.

He wrenched the tiller over but before the rudder could bite he was amongst the ropes and fallen rigging. And us.

I shot to my feet, balancing myself on the plunging yard like a circus act, while I hauled Linn up beside me.

Within half a dozen metres the motor-launch had tangled with some shrouds and backstays. Linn and I raced along the intervening space like trapeze artists. We toppled headlong into the boat.

My first thought was to remember how Wegger had gunned down the survivors on deck as they made for the launch.

I pulled myself off the bottom-boards. 'Wegger…!'

He was trying to back clear of the wreckage.

'She's fast for'ard!' he rapped out. 'Quick, man! Free her! The screw mustn't foul!'

I knew as well as he what would happen if it did. I unhitched myself from Linn and darted forward. The bow was enmeshed in some of the main deck life-nets and part of the maintop shrouds. I grabbed some floating wreckage and prised it free.

'Hard astern!' I yelled at Wegger.

Wegger gunned the engine, went astern for a few moments, and then skilfully manoeuvred the launch to clear the wreck.

Suddenly Linn called, 'Stop!' There's a man swimming — right here! A little to your right…'

There was only one person that huge frame could have been — Ullmann. He was swimming strongly towards us.

One moment he was there, the next his face shot out of the water as he screamed in agony.

I saw the great black fin dart between the launch and the swimmer like a running torpedo.

Killer whale.

Then Ullmann was gone.

Four other black fins raced past us to the pounding wreck.

'Wegger,' I shouted, clawing my way aft, 'make for the shore! They'll come for the boat once they've finished off the men in the water!'

He didn't seem to follow me.

'You're heading out to sea, man! Take her in — port, port, port!'

He jammed the tiller over so hard I thought we were lost as the fragile craft rose high on the next roller and plunged. From the wave's crest I had a glimpse of iron-bound black cliffs.

Ship Rock is about 100 metres from the shore but it seemed only seconds before we were amongst the boiling water of the reefs which run out from the mainland cliffs, dissected and serrated by a million storms.

The launch struck, slewed, stuck.

There was only one thing for it. I jumped over the bow into the perishingly cold sea.

I went up to my armpits. I felt my boots on the ragged out-crops. I put a shoulder under the bow, trying to heave the boat to safety. But she slewed further, canted, then went almost clean over with a grinding, rending noise as her bottom was ripped out. My grip on the bow was torn loose but I hung on to a painter which I had looped round my wrist. I stumbled, fell, stumbled landward — to safety.

The next wave carried the launch on and deposited it on the reef. High, if not dry.

'Linn!'

She half-fell over the side to me. Together, with my arm supporting her, we lurched higher on to the rocks, out of reach of the waves.

In a moment or two Wegger threw himself down alongside us.

For five, maybe ten, minutes, we all lay there gasping, panting, gagging seawater. Fine spray spurted over us at every roller.

The numbness of my feet and fingers matched the numbness of my mind. It was the realization that I might allow myself to slip into unconsciousness that made me pull myself into a sitting position. First, I dragged off my waterlogged boots. Then I started massaging my fingers and slapping my arms.

The initial thing I became conscious of was the absence of wind. For days the gale had tormented me,now its force was broken by the cliff at the foot of which we lay. There was hardly any light beyond a curious grey undertone to everything. We had finished up in a kind of rocky gully, not big enough to be styled a cove. There was a sheltering arm between us and the sea. The motor-launch lay on the seaward side.

'Linn! Wake up!'

She was lying on her side, coughing and shaking.

I crawled to her, tugged off her boots and started to massage the circulation back into her feet.

She sat up, tried to smile, but a spasm of cold rocked her.

Then she managed to say, 'We made it, darling.'

'Yes,' I answered. 'We made it. Just.'

'Where are we?'

I had taken Prince Edward so for granted from the moment I had sighted Ship Rock that I found it hard to realize she did not know.

'You don't know? Prince Edward Island.'

She gave a gasp of surprise and glanced at Wegger, who had not opened his eyes.

The words acted on him like a shot of adrenalin. He sat up and shook himself like a dog. His clothes were soaking and his face was stained with salt and fatigue. But he vibrated at the sound of the name.

'Ship Rock — that's what she struck, wasn't it, Shotton?'

'Yes. We're ashore almost at the northernmost point of the island. I'd guess Vaalkop is right at the back of us now.'

Wegger turned the name over on to his tongue, almost affectionately. 'Vaalkop! I know every inch of it.'

'What is Vaalkop?' asked Linn.

'It's an extinct volcano. These cliffs are part of its lava which once flowed into the sea. Ship Rock is the submerged heart of the crater.'

Wegger sprang up.

'Shotton! The launch! We've got to get it higher out of reach of the waves!'

I ignored him and continued massaging Linn's feet. 'That boat will never float again — didn't you hear the bottom go?'

He pulled out his Luger and held it on me. 'Shotton! You'll do as I say!'

'Forget that bloody gun!' I snapped. The boat's holed — don't you understand?'

'We'll fix her, we'll patch her, you and me, Shotton. We'll make it yet.'

I reached for my boots. 'We've made it, Wegger. We're ashore on Prince Edward Island — your destination. At the cost of how many lives?'

Linn moved and I noticed the tell-tale sag of the transmitter inside her wet parka. I put my hand on her knee to keep her still. I looked hard at her, trying to pass on my warning.

'Rest a bit, Linn. You've been through quite something. Get your breath back — do you understand?'

Then she did, and sank down again.

Wegger stood over us like a grey ghost in the half-light. His words competed against the roar of the breakers.

'We will fix the launch, do you hear? Then we'll lift the gold — some of it, at any rate. We'll still take it to Mauritius. It'll buy a ship, I'll return for the rest…'

'Wegger,' I replied, trying not to provoke him, 'we're roughly three thousand and seven hundred kilometres from Mauritius. To begin with, where will the fuel for the motor-launch come from? That distance in an open launch!'

'Don't try and thwart me, Shotton,' he blazed back. 'It's been done before. In the old days men used to come down here in small boats from Mauritius to hunt seal. It's an easy ride once you're clear of the Westerlies. We don't need fuel — she's got a sail and a mast. She isn't an open boat either — she's decked in for'ard and astern. She'll make it, I say.'

Linn put her icy hand on mine. Perhaps, like me, she was thinking of her good-luck coin in the step of the mast. Sailing to Mauritius after our escape from Ship Rock would certainly be over-stretching our luck.

'How do you intend to repair the launch with its bottom stove in without tools, a fire, a proper slip or anything else?' I asked.

'Shut up!' he retorted. 'Shut up! We'll make a plan! You will, Shotton! Now get down to the boat!'

We dodged from behind the shelter of the cliff. The wind was indeed less. The launch was half-awash among the rocks. One look at it convinced me that we could never repair it at Prince Edward. It had a gaping hole about two metres long in the bottom. Two planks were completely stove in.

Wegger's plan seemed to lend him an energy which my exhausted muscles did not possess. He did most of the work in hauling up the dead boat clear of the waves and making it secure.

Afterwards we scrambled back to Linn across the razor-edged rocks. She was standing against the cliff out of reach of the spray, stamping her feet and banging her arms to keep her circulation going. Her face was pinched and blue.

I noted immediately that the transmitter's tell-tale bulge was missing from her parka.

I was not to know then what the fateful consequences of her action were to be.

'Wegger,' I said. 'We've got to get ourselves warm. We won't see the day out otherwise.'

Although his teeth were chattering also, he seemed in high spirits. He was swinging his head this way and that, like a dog sniffing home after a long spell in kennels.

I found a sodden box of matches in a pocket.

'Maybe we'll get a little sun later,' he said. The wind's on its way out.'

'Difficult to say — we're sheltered here,' I replied cautiously, but I felt nevertheless that his forecast was right.

We had come ashore on the tip of the flat western coastal plain, at the foot of the extinct volcano appropriately named Vaalkop (Greyhead). The island's western shore was guarded by a row of stupendous and precipitous sea-cliffs, backed inland by a kingly ridge called the Great Western Escarpment. The wind which had been deflected off Vaalkop's sinister pallid slopes had caught Botany Bay aback and brought about her final destruction. I had often seen this coast, with its iron-bound cliffs and black and cinnamon-tipped volcano cones, from the sea. I had never thought to know them more closely.

'As soon as it's proper light we'll get moving,' said Wegger.

My soggy mind missed the significance of his remark at the time. I presumed the move would be further from the gully to higher, safer ground.

'I'll try and get these matches dry,' I said to Linn. 'There's a way of doing it, when there's no sun.'

I went to her and stroked the matches individually through her hair. It was wet at the ends but drier towards the roots. The novelty of the operation took her mind off herself. As I went on, she looked deep into my eyes. I wanted to kiss away the grim marks round them, get rid of the sootiness which had accumulated on her face from the constant tending of the fire aboard Botany Bay.

'I never thought my hair would be used for fire,' she remarked.

This is only stage one,' I told her. 'The second is to find something to strike them on.'

When I had a dozen or so dry I said to Wegger, 'I'm going to try the launch for something to burn.'

'Don't touch the planks,' he warned. 'I'm coming too.'

We returned to the wreck. I found some half-dry cotton waste in the decked-in bow section. I also discovered a tin of instant coffee. Most of its contents had spilled — the lid was missing — but the glutinous mess was still good enough to provide something warm and stimulating. There was also a packet of biscuits, mashed to a dough-like pulp.

Then I tapped a little fuel out of the tank, wetting the cotton waste with it. I shorted the battery and got a feeble spark. When I held a match to it, it ignited, and I set the cotton waste smouldering.

Back where Linn was waiting, I found fresh water filtering down the cliff. I blew up the cotton waste and in the end we each had some pulpy biscuit and a mouthful of lukewarm coffee. But coffee it was.

I was still drinking from the tin when Linn exclaimed, pointing seawards, 'John! There's a man out there!'

I missed him at first because my attention was on the black fins of the killer whales racing like a U-boat pack through the floating masts, spars and timbers of the wreck.

'There — up on Ship Rock!' Linn said.

It was lighter over the sea than below our cliffs. Then I spotted the figure high up — Heaven knows how he had got there — clinging to the face of the massive pillar.

'God help him, Linn — we can't.'

'John — we can't leave him!'

'It will be a mercy if he drops off soon,' I replied slowly. 'He's only prolonging his own agony. He'll never last, up there.'

She turned away in silent grief and hid her face in her hood.