For some minutes—a period of anxious suspense—nothing happened beyond a slight jerking strain upon the sternfast. Then slowly but surely the boat’s bows paid off until she presented her stern to the direction of wind and waves.
Although the ash bucket was not so effective as a sea-anchor of the accepted type in that it was insufficient to check her drift to any considerable extent, it had a result that was even better. The picket-boat was driving steadily before the wind, and on that account was riding easier. Wave after wave, that otherwise would have poured over her transom, swept harmlessly by.
Apparently this was only hastening the seemingly inevitable end. Already above the whine of the wind could be heard the noise of the breakers as they hurled themselves with irresistible fury upon the Mutches, the rocks of which were still invisible in the blackness of the night.
Moved by a common impulse the ratings began to throw off their oilskins and sea-boots. As they did so, the leading stoker promptly scrambled into the oilskin coat discarded by the coxswain.
“What’s the idea, mate?” demanded the latter.
“May as well be warm and comfortable until I find myself in the blinkin’ ditch!” was Brown’s imperturbable explanation.
The roar of the breakers grew louder and louder. Surely, thought Kenneth, the end could not be long delayed. A thousand thoughts flashed across his mind. It seemed hard lines to have to be drowned at his age—just as he was enjoying life. . . . And on Christmas Eve, too. . . . No, by Jove! He was forgetting—it wasn’t Christmas Eve but Christmas Day.
Then a sort of strange fatalism gripped him. He was not going to show the white feather before his men if he could help it. He was feeling funky; there was no denying that; but although he knew he was afraid he feared still more that his crew would detect it.
Almost mechanically, Kenneth grasped the wheel. Until the boat struck he would be at his post. Aimlessly he turned the spokes and, somewhat to his surprise, he found that up to a certain point the picket-boat responded to the alteration in helm. She was driving so rapidly through the water that she answered to her rudder.
Suddenly Kenneth caught sight of a column of spray showing ghost-like through the darkness. It was the breakers on one of the outlying ledges of the Mutches.
Instinctively the midshipman put the wheel hard over. It was almost an involuntary act, like that of a man raising his arm to ward off a blow; but, almost providentially, the picket-boat turned decidedly to starboard.
Then, aided by the back-wash from the almost perpendicular rock for which she had been heading, the picket-boat was hurled almost broadside on through a gap in the line of cliffs—an entrance that was practically invisible.
A wall of storm-beaten rock disclosed itself to starboard. Again almost instinctively Kenneth attempted to put the wheel hard over—this time to starboard.
The wheel resisted his efforts to turn it. He wrenched at it, putting his whole weight into the attempt, but in vain.
Once more the wheel had jammed!
Even in the midst of peril Raxworthy found himself wishing that the commander were on board just to convince him that the gear was defective. It was solely owing to the Bloke’s pig-headedness that the picket-boat was in this desperate plight and that, instead of enjoying his Christmas leave, the victim of the commander’s undeserved displeasure was now face to face with death.
Again the boat was broadside-on. Apparently the strain had caused the sternfast to part, and the ash-bucket was no longer acting as a sort of brake. It was now keeping company with the lost anchor and cable on the bed of Junk Harbour.
In the circumstances the boat ought by this time to be pounding upon the rocks; but to the astonishment of the midshipman and crew, she was scudding rapidly through a sort of channel between lofty and almost perpendicular walls of rock.
Momentarily the crested breakers decreased in height until the picket-boat was rising and falling on a succession of sullen waves. The wind, too, had eased down owing to a bend in the channel bringing one side of the cliff wall to wind’ard.
Kenneth could hardly realize this huge slice of luck. It was a thousand to one chance, and the boat had happened upon the one and only hope of salvation.
She had been swept by wind and a strong flood tide through a passage—little wider than her own length—into a comparatively sheltered haven in one of the islands comprising the dreaded Mutches.
But the danger was by no means over even though it was not so formidable as before.
Kenneth was ignorant of the haven. As far as he could remember it was not shown on the Admiralty charts. In all probability—and the set of the tidal current pointed to this—it was merely a channel with a wider outlet on the seaward side of the Mutches. Unless the picket-boat could bring up—a difficult business since she had lost her anchor—or beach herself in a sheltered part of the haven, the odds were that she would be swept out to sea—unless she ended her career on the fringe of jagged rocks on the eastern side of the group of islands comprising the Mutches.
“See any light, Wilson?” inquired Kenneth anxiously, as he peered through the snow-laden darkness.
“No, sir. Maybe there are some cottages on the island, but people aren’t likely to be up at this time of morning—even though it’s Christmas Day. . . . I’ll nip for’ard now she’s riding easily an’ overrun the painters. Without a killick they ain’t much use for us to bring up, but one never knows.”
Raxworthy at the useless wheel watched the coxswain as he made his way to the fore-deck. Even at that distance the man’s form was barely distinguishable in the darkness.
Suddenly a tall shape loomed up across the path of the scudding picket-boat. For a moment Kenneth imagined that it was a rock rising sheer out of the water.
Then through the eddying sleet came a hail from the coxswain.
“Ship ahoy! Take our line, will you?”
Almost immediately the picket-boat drove across the bows of an anchored craft—a sailing vessel, judging by the bowsprit and foremast that were just discernible against the sky.
The impact, although it sounded severe, was fortunately a light one, the sailing craft’s tautened cable taking the force of the collision.
The picket-boat heeled until her starboard waterways were well awash; then recovering, hung irresolutely against the other craft’s stern.
As she held thus, the coxswain, with great presence of mind, passed a bight of one of the painters round the anchored vessel’s cable; and presently the picket-boat, grating astern over the heavy chain, brought up alongside the craft with which she had collided.
Over the latter’s low bulwark appeared the head and shoulders of one of the crew.
“Take our line!” reiterated Wilson.
The man remained staring open-mouthed at the boat alongside. He stood there for perhaps a quarter of a minute, then without attempting to make fast the second painter which Wilson had heaved on board, he disappeared from sight.
“Perishing blighter!” ejaculated the coxswain contemptuously as he coiled in the disregarded painter. “She’s holding, sir. I’ll just nip aboard and secure her properly. I reckon we’re nicely out of this mess.”
“Lay out a couple of fenders first,” ordered the midshipman; for now that all immediate danger was over he was not going to risk a further reprimand from the commander for damaging the picket-boat’s side. Although there was now little more than a heavy ground swell the two craft were rolling considerably to the detriment of the naval boat’s paintwork.