‘Pity you didn’t tell me that before. I might have taken him more seriously.’ And then angrily: ‘But it’s all so damned unofficial. Coastal Command don’t know anything about it. All.they could give me was what we’ve got right now — wind northerly, force nine, maybe more. They’re checking with Bracknell. But I bet they don’t know anything about it. Read that.’ He reached out with his fingers and flipped the message form across to me. ‘A polar air depression. That’s Morgan’s interpretation. And all based on contact with a single trawler whose skipper may be blind drunk for all I know.’
The message was impersonal, almost coldly factual considering the desperate information it contained: GM3CMX to LCTs 8610 and 4400. Urgent. Suspect polar air depression Laerg area imminent. Advise you be prepared winds hurricane force within next few hours. Probable direction between south and west. Interpretation based on contact ‘Viking Fisher’ 23.47. Trawler about 60 miles S of Iceland reports wind speed 80 knots plus, south-westerly, mountainous seas, visibility virtually nil in heavy rain and sleet. Barometric pressure 963, still falling — a drop of 16 millibars in 1 hour. Endeavouring re-establish contact. Interpretation unofficial, repeat unofficial, but I believe it to be correct. C. Morgan, Met. Officer, Northton. I didn’t say anything for a moment. I had a mental picture of Cliff sitting in that room with his earphones glued to his head and his thumb resting on the key, and that big Icelandic trawler almost four hundred miles to the north of us being tossed about like a toy. I thought there wouldn’t be much chance of re-establishing contact until the storm centre had passed over, supposing there was anything left to contact by then. A polar air depression. I’d heard of such things, but never having sailed in these waters before, I’d no experience of it. But I knew the theory. The theory was very simple.
Here was a big mass of air being funnelled through the gap between the big Low over Norway and the High over Greenland, a great streaming weight of wind thrusting southwards. And then suddenly a little weakness develops, a slightly lower pressure. The winds are sucked into it, curve right round it, are suddenly a vortex, forcing the pressure down and down, increasing the speed and size of this whirligig until it’s like an enormous high speed drill, an aerial whirlpool of staggering intensity. And because it would be a part of the bigger pattern of the polar air stream itself, it was bound to come whirling its way south, and the speed of its advance would be fast, fast as the winds themselves.
‘Well?’ Stratton was staring at me.
‘He had other contracts,’ I said. ‘Those two trawlers.
‘But nothing on the forecast. Nothing official.’ He was staring at me and I could read the strain in his eyes. No fear. That might come later. But the strain. He knew what the message meant — if Cliffs interpretation was correct; knew what it would be like if that thing caught us while we were still grounded. The wind might come from any direction then. The northerly air stream from which we were so nicely sheltered might be swung through 180°. And if that happened and the wind came in from the south … I felt my scalp move and an icy touch on my spine. My stomach was suddenly chill and there was sweat on my forehead as I said, ‘How long before you get off?’
He didn’t give me an answer straight off. He worked it out for me so that I could check the timing myself. They had beached at nine-forty-eight, two and three-quarter hours after high water. Next high water was at seven-twenty. Deduct two and three-quarter hours, less say half an hour to allow for the amount the ship had ridden up the beach…. It couldn’t be an exact calculation, but as far as he could estimate it we should be off shortly after five. I glanced at my watch. It was twenty minutes to one now. We still had nearly four and a half hours to wait. Four and a half solid bloody hours just sitting here, waiting for the wind to change — praying it wouldn’t before we got off, knowing the ship was a dead duck if it did. ‘No way of getting out earlier, I suppose?’
He shook his head.
It was a silly question really, but I didn’t know much about these craft. ‘There’s a double bottom, isn’t there? What’s in between — fuel?’
‘Water, too. And there are ballast tanks.’
‘How much difference would it make?’
‘We’ll see; I should think about eighteen inches up for’ard when we’ve pumped it out. Geoff’s checking with the ballasting and flooding board now. About cancel out the amount we ran up the beach; give us a few extra minutes, maybe.’
Sitting there in the warmth of that comfortable little wardroom with the ship quite still and solid as a rock, it was hard to imagine that in little more than four hours’ time so few minutes could possibly make the difference between getting off and being battered to pieces.
‘More coffee?’
I passed my cup and lit another cigarette. The radio operator came in and handed Stratton a message. ‘Coastal Command just came through with the supplementary forecast you asked for.’
Stratton read it aloud. ‘Winds northerly, force nine, decreasing to seven or eight. Possibly local troughs with rain squalls. Otherwise fair visibility.’ He slapped the message form down on top of the others. ‘Same as the midnight forecast. Nothing at all about a polar air depression; no reference to winds of hurricane force.’ He turned to the radio operator. ‘Anything new from Morgan?’
The operator shook his head. ‘I heard him calling Viking Fisher, but I couldn’t raise him myself.’
‘Did the trawler reply?’
‘No.’
‘Well, see if you can get Morgan. Keep on trying, will you. I’d like to talk to him myself.’ He reached for a message pad lying on the shelf below the porthole. ‘And there’s a message I want sent to Base. When’s the next contact? One o’clock, isn’t it?’
The operator nodded. ‘But I can get them any time. They’re standing by on our frequency.’
‘Good. Give them a buzz then. Say I want to speak to Colonel Standing. And don’t be fobbed off. Understand? If he’s in bed, they’re to get him out of it. I want to speak to him personally.’ As the operator left he tossed the message pad back on to the shelf. ‘Time these chaps who sit in their cosy offices issuing orders lost a little sleep on our account.’
I started in on the corned beef sandwiches then. I had a feeling this was going to be a long night. Stratton got up. ‘Think I’ll go and see what the wind’s doing. I’ll be in the wheelhouse.’ Later Perkins brought some more coffee. I had a cup and then took one through to Stratton. But he wasn’t there. The door was open on the port side and the wind came crowding through it in a gusty roar. The duty watch stood sheltering there, clad in sou’wester and oilskins. ‘Where’s Captain Stratton?’ I asked him.
‘On the R/T. Radio Operator just called him.’
‘And the wind’s still in the north, is it?’
‘Aye, just aboot. Varies a wee bit, depending which side of Tarsaval it strikes.’
I went over to the porthole and looked down on to the wet steel decks gleaming under the loading lights. They’d got about a third of the tank deck clear, but the men moved slowly now, all the life gone out of them. Stratton came in then. He didn’t say anything but got his duffel coat. I handed him his coffee and he gulped it down. ‘Don’t know what’s going on at Base. Colonel Standing says he’d no idea we were evacuating. Sounded damned angry — what little I could hear. There was a lot of static.’ He pulled his coat on. ‘I’d better have a word with Pinney.’ He turned to the duty man. ‘If anybody wants me I’ll be down on the loading beach.’