Evans and Bert Samson were professional enemies of long standing but, unlike Bill Henderson and me, they didn’t exactly hit it off on a social level either. As with Evans and Cyclops, Captain Samson had been master of Athenian since he’d taken her over from the builders and, also like Evans, he was a tough, iron-hard, first-class seaman. Actually, if anyone ever belied his name from a purely physical point of view, it was Bert Samson. At first sight he was a tiny, wispy, almost cadaverous man who even had to stand on a little wooden platform when the ship was docking so that he could get high enough to see over the dodgers. I sailed with him once and I’ll never forget standing on the foc’slehead as we berthed and, looking aft, seeing Bert Samson up on his little box peering down suspiciously at me from the vast height of the bridge — all one could see was a great, flat, wide-brimmed cap over the grey canvas screen with just the merest slit between the two for eyes. It was only when you met him that you realised the tremendous force of personality behind the frail exterior; the stubborn, go to hell if you don’t like it attitude. A very irascible little seadog, was Samson of Athenian.
At precisely 1526 hours we altered course again. The two merchantmen, flanked maternally by the skipping Mallard, swung round together and, when our bows had settled on the new heading, we were at last homing on a course for the Cape. It was do or die now. Had it been pure coincidence that, so far, all signs of enemy activity had emanated from the area into which we were now steaming? If not, then should we have stuck to our original routing, even after the death of the Commandant Joffre and even though it would have meant refusing to shy away from those mysterious pyrotechnic displays on the horizon? I still didn’t know. All I was sure of was that we’d been lucky so far. Very lucky. If Curtis hadn’t seen those tell-tale tracks earlier…? If… If…?
I watched as Charlie Shell, now the officer of the watch, chalked up the complex system of courses, times and alterations on the blackboard in front of the helmsman. Not for us any more of that ordinary ‘straight’ zigzag — now we were to run on a fast, previously calculated pattern devised with the express purpose of making it as difficult as possible for any waiting submarine to anticipate our course as we closed on them. It was nerve-racking, it was dangerous, but by God it was damned reassuring to me.
The signal from Mallard lay on the flag locker before me. COMESCORT TO MASTER CYCLOPS: REPEAT TO MASTER ATHENIAN… her signals branch was having a busy time today… COMMENCE ZIG-ZAG PATTERN THREE SEVEN REPEAT PATTERN THREE SEVEN MEAN COURSE 085 DEGREES TRUE REPEAT 085 DEG T SPEED EIGHTEEN KNOTS GOOD LUCK ALL SHIPS SIGNED BRAID END.
Zig-zag pattern thirty-seven. Braid was really taking precautions after our last brush with the, on that occasion, happily unfortunate enemy. All merchantmen of our type carried several plans of the compensating alternate headings I’ve described, and the pattern we were about to embark upon was one of the most complicated. I smiled ironically to myself — new and even more effective zig-zag schedules were probably included among the contents of the three bags we carried, the bags this was all about. So far on this voyage we hadn’t wasted a lot of time on deviating from our straight route other than in the frightened little squiggles we’d been performing over the past twenty-four hours which, nevertheless, cumulatively were carrying us farther and farther from the original. Now we were heading inshore, however, we were really going to weave as we went.
I glanced again at the course board. We’d all be certifiable before this trip was over — first a 25-degree alteration to port with a run of six minutes at eighteen knots, then a 10-degree swing to starboard; two subsequent small alterations of 5 degrees port for eight and five minutes respectively, then a massive, hair-raising, starboard turn through 60 degrees, and so on. If the watchkeeper was a genius and the helmsman could steer straight as a tram driver, the legs would in theory compensate themselves and we could start all over again forty-seven minutes later. And incidentally, while all this was going on, we would have covered a lateral sea distance between the outer extreme legs of some two miles. A U-boat commander wouldn’t need a periscope an' stop-watch to plot his attack — he'd need a crystal ball.
The Second Mate stepped back and grinned wryly at me as he admired his handiwork, then the zig-zag clock itself, a sort of alarm pre-set to ring in time for each leg and vital in such a complex manreuvre, gave a sharp ‘ding’ and the quartermaster put the wheel over after a nod from Shell and a glance up at the new heading. Charlie Shell watched as the bow bore round — we were now coming up on to the big, sixty-degree swing — while I peered nervously over to see how Athenian was doing.
We were swinging fast now and I bit my lip as the sea room between us and Athenian closed rapidly. Charlie came out and stood beside me watching anxiously as we drew together. Obviously they hadn’t started their turn on her bridge yet. Shell blinked at me queryingly, the distance was down to less than four cables and still narrowing. There wasn’t a soul to be seen on her bridge wing. What the hell were they doing aboard Bert Samson’s boat?
Charlie shuffled nervously. Even though I was up there with him, unless I formally relieved him it was still his watch and his was the primary responsibility. Four cables was quite a good distance, still two-fifths of a nautical mile, but, on a merging course like this, wasn’t nearly far enough for peace of mind. Collision at sea is one of the nightmares we all had to live with: so much so that, until one was actually in a situation like this, with two great ships in close proximity, one just tried not to think about it. All one could do was study the antiquated and obsolete ‘Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea,’ which in theory should but, in actual practice, didn’t always manage to. Anyway, who had the responsibility for keeping clear in a crazy, wartime set-up like this?
Shell couldn’t stand it any longer and started to walk across to the wheelhouse, presumably to wake them up over there with a series of short blasts on the whistle. I heard him tell the quartermaster to ease the helm and slow the swing down, then, as I lifted the binoculars, I saw the after end of Athenian’s smoke-blackened centrecastle start to widen as her stern came round and she, too, commenced her alteration. I called to Charlie and he came back in relief. Together, we watched as the gap between us steadied to an even closer three and a half cables.
For anyone who doesn’t know the sea I suppose it’s easy to frown and wonder what all the fuss and nerves are about: to ask how two modern ships with highly competent officers and in full sight of each other, both steaming on the same mean course, could possibly run the risk of collision. But it’s happened before, too often, even without the added stresses and strains of a critical zig-zag plan such as we were involved with. It’ll happen again when this war’s finished — maybe even more often as, presumably, merchant shipping increases in numbers and density. If there are any of us left to increase upon.
No doubt after the disaster it’s comparatively simple for a Court of Inquiry to pronounce learned judgment, following months of deliberation, on what should have been the correct actions — to be decided in split-seconds by the various watchkeepers involved — taken to avert a maritime collision. No doubt it’s also easy to overlook such intangibles as the fact that a ship travelling over shoal water tends to sheer into the deeper, adjacent channel. Or that there is an undoubted form of magnetism acting between two converging hulls known as ‘inter-action,’ which appears to have the contradictory effect in that, from the bows to midships, they tend to repel each other, while from midships to aft they seem to draw together. And finally, that there is such a thing as the human element — the fact that no two minds can work in complete synchronicity and understanding when viewing the same problem from different angles.