I hadn’t bothered going below for breakfast; eating was a habit I seemed to be rapidly giving up. Maybe it was just nerves but, as soon as I saw food, I stopped feeling hungry and settled for a cup of unsweetened coffee.
The Fourth Mate had stayed up on the bridge too, so the three of us, Brannigan, Curtis and myself, hung over its fore-end and allowed the cool draught to swamp over us as we watched the island grow, hazy and shimmering in the heat-distorted atmosphere at first, then slowly becoming more black and solid as we approached.
Occasionally I glanced aft to watch Athenian ploughing stolidly along just to the right of our, for a change, ruler-straight wake. Once a brief flash from her bridge showed that someone was laying binoculars on the island too, and I wondered if it was Bill Henderson. Hopefully, with luck, if we went in and anchored I would get the opportunity for a chat with him. That was the great disadvantage of being at sea. Though we passed each other almost invariably twice a trip — once outward and once homeward-bound — very seldom did we actually have the chance to meet one another except through the medium of a hasty Aldis stutter.
Still, she looked good, did Athenian, with the high flare of her bows raising a sparkling hump of blue water as she cut through the glassy sea astern. One thing we’d been lucky in so far was the weather. Or had we? A force nine gale was uncomfortable but, at the same time, it discouraged U-boat activity. There was a dark cloud to every silver lining when you were at war.
Evans stepped out of the chartroom, brushing crumbs from the front of his barrel chest, and came to stand beside us. Curtis and Brannigan moved discreetly away, but I gestured to the Third Mate as he disappeared into the wheelhouse. ‘Have Breedie go aft with the stand-by quartermaster and bring in the log, Mister Curtis.’
We were almost there: time to get the crowd moving to their stations. I pulled my whistle out of my pocket and glanced inquiringly at the Old Man. ‘Blow for stand-by, Sir?’
He nodded, so, stepping to the after-end, I blew one long blast, then moved back beside Evans to watch as the anchor party ambled forward and hauled themselves up the ladders at the break of the foc’sle. The Old Man cupped his hands and leaned over the dodger. ‘Make both cables ready, Chippie!’ he roared, then, turning back to me, ‘We’ll let go the starboard anchor, Mister, but I want you ready with your other hook if necessary.’
‘Aye, aye, Sir.’
I glanced at my watch. It was just coming up to two bells and we were less than three miles off the island now. It looked bleak and forbidding, bigger than I’d actually expected, but somehow unfriendly with an oily sea breaking sullenly at the base of near vertical cliffs. At first glance it appeared there was snow lying on the rocky outcrops, but it was only guano; acrid bird deposits left by generation upon generation of those seabirds that wheeled eternally above, hovering and swooping in the slight up-currents of air from the black cliff faces. I shivered slightly and started to feel cold even though the steel of the well deck was now shimmering in the heat.
‘I’ll get forr’ad then,’ I muttered unenthusiastically.
Evans lifted the binoculars, searching for the entrance so much depended on. He spoke without lowering them. ‘You have someone in the chains, Mister Kent?’
‘The Bosun,’ I answered, leaning out over the wing and looking almost vertically down on the small platform that had been lowered into place for the leadsman. Maybe, one day, we would get one of the new echo-sounding machines the Navy had, similar to their Asdic equipment, where you simply listened into a headphone and heard the vibrations being returned to indicate the depth of the sea bed. I didn’t think we would for a long time yet, though — aids like that were far too fancy for merchantmen.
Evans lowered the binoculars and pulled a face. ‘Can’t see anything that looks like a passage yet… Mister Curtis!’
The Third Mate stuck his head out of the wheelhouse, ‘Sir?’
‘Stand by the telegraphs, Mister Curtis. And ask the engine room to stand-to on the platform and reduce to twelve knots if you would be so good.’
Curtis went on the engine room phone and I heard him telling them to stand by down below. Evans grinned unexpectedly at me and chuckled. ‘Quite a change from picking up a local pilot and letting him take you into a place prickling with buoys and navigation marks, eh, John?’
I smiled back uncertainly. Personally I preferred the less romantic approach to seafaring but I could see that the old devil was in his element. ‘Absolved responsibility for mishaps,’ the Admiralty signal had said, and both Evans and Bert Samson on Athenian were just the kind of bloody-minded old dogs to take their freedom from Board of Trade consequences in the strictest spirit. If there existed a passage into Quintanilha de Almeida just one inch wider than our beam, then we were in. Then all we'd have to do was get out again when the Navy arrived.
I turned back at the top of the ladder, struck by a sudden thought. ‘What about Athenian? Is she going to be right on our tail when we go in?’
Evans chewed his bottom lip. ‘Better not. If we go aground or get into trouble she’d never be able to pull astern in time… Mister Brannigan. Bring the Aldis out here if you please, and the Very pistol from the chart-room.’
Brannigan looked surprised for a moment, probably thinking it was a bit early to start sending distress flares before we even smelt the land, then the Captain helped to ease his mind a bit. ‘Send to Athenian… ANCHORAGE AND ENTRANCE APPARENTLY OBSCURED FROM SEAWARD… SUGGEST YOU ZIG-ZAG ROUND PRESENT POSITION WHILE I FEEL MY WAY IN… IF SUCCESSFUL WILL SIGNAL YOU TO FOLLOW WITH TWO RED FLARES REPEAT TWO REDS IF NOT WILL ATTEMPT LAND BOAT PARTY TO COMMUNICATE FROM TOP OF CLIFFS SIGNED EVANS MASTER.
The reply came quickly back from Bert.
ACKNOWLEDGE BUT DISAPPOINTED YOU DON’T ALLOW A PROPER SAILOR FIRST CRACK BEST OF LUCK SIGNED SAMSON MASTER.
We were less than a mile off the old admiral’s island by then and I could feel the tension building up around me on the bridge. The only man who seemed at ease was the Captain himself, but I could see the grey eyes probing keenly for the first signs of a break in the looming rock ahead. I knew I should have been on my way forward to my station in the bows, but I didn’t want to leave before I had to. Something — some comforting aura of competency — seemed to exude from the stolid bulk of Evans which helped to compensate for my own anxieties.
'That could be the entrance,' the Old Man muttered, lifting his glasses. 'Exactly where the chart shows it to be.'
…and, suddenly, it was time to go despite my indefinable unease. We knew there was deep water right up to the base of the cliffs, the chart assured us of that at least, so we hadn’t slowed unnecessarily until we had to. Five cables, half a mile, and the Old man called quietly, ‘Slow speed both, Mister Curtis.’
The throbbing under the deck died to a barely perceptible tremor and the bows dipped slightly as they adjusted the engine governors below. The exhaust note from the funnel softened to a muted whisper and we seemed to be gliding through the still water. For the second time I announced reluctantly, ‘Well, I’ll get off forr’ad, Sir.’
Evans was still standing, hands behind his back, staring ahead. Without turning he said, ‘Take Brannigan with you. The water should be fairly clear as the ground shoals… Keep a good lookout under the bow if you can. Don’t forget, the Bosun with his lead is a considerable distance aft from where you are. He could still be registering a fair depth of water while the forefoot goes aground on that shelf the book talks about.’