I beckoned to the hovering Brannigan. ‘Aye, aye, Sir. We’ll sing out if we see it first. Very loudly!’
Sliding down the ladder with the Fourth Mate at my heels, I saw Charlie Shell and his crowd aft at their stand-by stations on the poop. The army bombardier, Allen, and his gun crew, looking commendably spruce now in khaki shirts and shorts, stood jealously round the long-snouted Phyllis, almost as if they half expected Charlie to steal it when they weren’t looking. He probably would've done, too, if the damned thing hadn’t been bolted to the deck.
The Old Man leaned over the after-end of the bridge. ‘Ask the Bosun to call the soundings as soon as he can, please, Mister Kent.’
I noticed how the Red Ensign drooped listlessly from our stern as the telegraphs jangled for ‘Dead slow ahead.’
Quintanilha de Almeida Island looked even more soulless when seen at close range.
From my station up in the bow, thirty feet above the slowly moving water, I watched apprehensively as the black cliffs loomed closer. The entrance was plain now, just a jagged slash in the rocks, veering slightly to port at first, then with a gradual sheer to starboard, almost like the opening to a small Norwegian fiord. Approximately one hundred feet wide at what appeared to be its narrowest point some two hundred and fifty feet ahead… so far, so good. Our beam was sixty-two so we didn’t run any risk of jamming like a wedge in a crack. All we had to worry about was the depth of water under our keel. Brannigan and I craned over, staring tautly down into the still dark-green water. Below me the huge starboard anchor hung, almost brushing the surface, ready to let go at the first shout from the bridge.
The Bosun had started to find bottom almost as soon as our bow nosed into the space between the two seaward promontories. I could hear his throaty bellow calling the sounding every few moments as he leaned well out against the chains and, with a gracefully controlled swing of the heavy lead, sent it snaking out to splash in the water well ahead of his perch. As the ship passed the point where the line stood vertically, he dunked it up and down to make sure it was bottoming properly and started to haul it in, coiling it in his horny left hand as he went.
It was a piece of white linen just touching the surface this time and, ‘By the mark… fifteen,’ sang the Bosun, reading the sounding from the material spliced into the line — cabalistic symbols of leather with a hole in it, or a twist of red bunting or blue serge or white linen, identical in every respect to that ritual tool used by the sealers visiting this island so long ago.
Then another mighty swing, the flutter of white farther above the surface this time, and the gravelly voice booming, ‘And a half… thirteen.’ Thirteen and a half fathoms, just about eighty feet of water, say fifty actually below our keel, but shoaling fast and with the narrowest point still a good two hundred feet ahead of our bow.
And still green, frightening water under the forefoot.
Suddenly, without warning, the scene darkened as though a shutter had been drawn. I looked up, startled, to see that the high black cliffs had blanked off the sun completely. I saw Brannigan shiver and rub his forearms — when a deep sea sailorman gets that close to land, then it’s time to pray.
None of us spoke, standing there nervously on the foc’sle head. I could see the sailors staring apprehensively up at the hanging, guano-layered rocks above us. Once, when I risked a sharp glance too, I registered an unsettling vision of myriads of cold, beady eyes glowering back as the seabirds resentfully watched us sliding below their domain. Ahead, a tempting glimpse of blue water and clear sun-slashed sky framed in the macabre irregularity of the channel buttresses.
We were hugging the left-hand side now, keeping so close to the slime-covered rocks you felt you could almost stretch out a hand and pick yourself a bunch of seaweed. A glint from the high bridge made me turn in time to see the braided cap of the Old Man as he stood isolated on the port wing.
‘By the mark — seven!’
God! Forty-two feet, and we were drawing twenty-eight.
What kind of bottom was it? Maybe there were massive spikes of rock projecting upwards through the green water, reaching hungrily for our double bottoms this very second — lethal weapons undetectable by the Bosun’s lead before the deck leaped and we swung broadside to smash finally and irrevocably against those vast clubs of stone that awaited us.
The jangle of the telegraphs seemed very loud, even at this distance, funnelled as it was down to us through the gorge. ‘Stop engines!’ Almost immediately the faint tremor under the deck faded and we slid, now completely silent, towards the blessed light ahead.
‘By the deep… SIX.’
‘Jesus!’ Brannigan whispered.
I couldn’t even whisper, my mouth was too dry. Six fathoms… we needed nearly five to float us.
What was THAT…? Yes, there were dark, dim shapes moving slowly aft under our bow. The bottom! Oh, please God, make them go away, make them sink back down into the anonymity of deep water. I felt flakes of rust spear under my fingernails as I clenched convulsively at the black-painted rail, swinging aft to scream at the unmoving white cap on the bridge. To warn him.
‘And a quarter… seven.’
Forty-four feet? Wait! The shapes had receded… and only seventy feet to the beckoning sunlight. I wanted to look ahead, to see what we were about to come out to, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t drag my eyes away from the still water under our slicing foot.
‘By the deep… six.’
Shoalling again, but not too fast. We were nearly through. Forty feet to go. I glanced up momentarily. Sparkling, twinkling blue water and, behind, sandy beaches — yellow warm sand. Please…?
‘And a quarter less… seven.’
Only a spit now to that big, black rock that appeared to mark the inner extremity of the entrance… and then we were looking down on it as bright sunlight burst, dazzling, across the foc’slehead again. Sunlight. Beautiful sunlight. A quick vision of a wide, welcoming sea loch surrounded by high, sheltering land, then the Old Man’s shout booming down from the bridge.
‘Mister Kent!’
I waved my arms back, relishing the warm kiss of sun to ease my tensed shoulders. The voice echoed again. ‘Remember the rock shelf, Mister Kent!’
I swung round. Hell, I’d nearly forgotten the anticipated swing to starboard. Or was it to port? Keep looking, Resume staring desperately into the suddenly clear water below. Brannigan was hanging over beside me, with most of the crowd displaying a row of tight, blue-jeaned backsides as they, too, craned breathlessly over the rails.
We were hardly moving at all now. Just drifting forward through the water fast enough to raise a little splurge of flashing glass round the rust-streaked and battered stem — battered where we’d knifed into, and through, the unsuspecting Mallard a million years ago. What was it the book had said? A sharp turn just as the after-end of the long-dead survey-ship’s counter had cleared the innermost periphery of the entrance? But Evans had said she could only have been about three hundred feet long at the most. We wouldn’t have more than two-thirds of Cyclops's length clear at that.
The forward break of the centrecastle was sliding past the big rock now, the shadow of the bridge cutting across the water towards it. We must be two hundred feet into the lagoon already. A sudden dark shape to port. The shelf? I felt the sweat trickling down the side of my nose as the shadow — distorted and wavering under the crystal clarity of the water — drew frenetically away. A giant Atlantic Manta ray. So that was the end of any ideas I might have coveted about a quick swim off that golden beach.