"Now then, mister, that's the light you saw just before she struck, isn't it?"
"Yes, sir. Flashing every thirty seconds."
"How does it bear now?"
Brodie stooped his head over the compass, and swung the azimuth ring round to get the bearing: "East-by-north, a quarter north."
"This has got me beat, mister. Can't make it out. Going by our twelve-thirty position on the chart, there's no blasted light on that bearing except the Outer Gabbard, and that's flashing four times every twenty seconds. It just don't make sense.'
"I've got it, sir. Here you are — the Galloper — flashing every thirty seconds."
"Ay, but talk sense, man; that's — what? — fifteen miles south of where we are."
"There's nothing else, sir. It must be the Galloper."
White swallowed hard, and, looking up slowly from the chart, stared fixedly out at the light. "Then God help all of us, Brodie — God help us. We're on the Kentish Knock, lad. The worst o' the lot."
"Just a minute, sir. There's more lights coming up now. Look, over there — fine on the starboard quarter, faint. Flashing two" — he counted — "every twenty seconds. The Sunk! But it's miles away astern of us! And we were looking for that on the bow when she struck! Want a bearing, sir? Just — north-by-west."
"Ay, that's it, then. Kentish Knock — north end. But how in God's name did we get there ? Look here — we're a good fifteen miles south of our fix. How could we be so far out ? We got the log, and you know we added a bit on top o' that, to allow for the wind and sea. But fifteen miles! Fifteen!"
Brodie walked over to the little dial on the rail. "Reads three-six-one and a quarter, sir. That puts us three miles off the Inner Gabbard. How could we have travelled another fifteen miles ? Unless . . ."
"I know. I thought the same. It might be damaged — hit a bit o' driftwood or something. Well, we'll never know that now. Look here." He leaned over the tafffrail and hauled in the snowy plaited log-line hand-overhand, until the mangled end of the rope appeared. "Just as I thought. Got caught round the screw when we went astern. What's it matter now, anyroad?" And despondently he flung the cord away. "Here, Robbins, you streamed it, didn't you? Robbins! Where you got to now?" He looked round the poop-deck, now crisply lit by brilliant moonlight, but there was no sign of the apprentice. White grunted tolerantly: "Crafty little devil! Must have nipped off to get his head down while we were looking at the log. Don't much blame him, though."
"Shall I keep the deck, sir?" asked Brodie.
"No, lad. Get yours down and all — there's nowt to do up here until she floats."
"What's the chance of coming off then, do you think?"
"You're a seaman, Brodie. You don't have to ask me a daft question like that. What? Come off against a weight o' wind like this? It'd take four or five tugs."
"Wind might moderate, of course."
"Ay, might. But you know what it is when the wind gets up in the north-east this time o' year. Could blow for a fortnight. 'Course, if the wind eased off it wouldn't matter all that if she didn't come off. We could stay here a twelve-month. And we could get the passengers away."
"And if it's still a gale when she floats?"
"Then I wouldn't give two bob for the lot of us, mister, and that's a solid fact. Seen it happen in the Mersey in a westerly blow — plenty o' sand there too. An onshore sea like this'll pound her to pieces, and this blasted sand'll break her back like a carrot."
The moonlight shone on the broad white face of the new Captain, and Brodie was moved beyond words to see tears trickling down his cheeks.
"Seven hundred and fifty souls below, Brodie, without us poor swabs. Seven hundred and fifty. And what chance have we got? No one knows we're here, and if they did — why should they drown themselves along of us? We haven't got boats for anything like all of'em — and if we had what chance would they stand in this sea ? And there's nowt I can do. Absolutely nowt. By God, it's hard, Brodie, it's hard on the chap in my position. I've been in some tight corners, you know, in my thirty years' sea-going. I was Mate once on one of the Western Ocean schooners. I remember one trip coming back with cod from Labrador in the winter, she lost every stick o' mast; cargo shifted, seams started. There she was, right in the middle o' the North Atlantic, on her beam-ends, with half the hands on the pumps, more dead than alive with cold and weariness and hunger. And by God we got her back to Portmadoc, you know! Another time on the Australia run, coming from Geelong with wheat, crew all Swedes: the whole lot of 'em mutinied — wouldn't work the ship; Old Man thought they'd do for the lot of us officers at one time. I went in the fo'c's'le — I'm not boasting, mind — ordered the nearest man out on deck. He didn't move. I bashed him with my bare hands so he was on his back for three days. The rest didn't lift a finger. Had to smash up three of'em — then the rest came on deck like lambs. Never gave another bit o' trouble." There was a long pause. "And now — only twenty miles off land, first-rate ship, first-rate crew, and there's not a single thing in the world I can do."
"There's the rockets, sir. Surely the hands on the Sunk lightship must see them. They'd pass the message on through the Cork Lightship to Harwich. There's a steam tug there, I know for a fact. She could be out here by daylight."
"Ay, mister, could be. If the Sunk sees our signal, and if she passes it on, and if the Cork sees it, and if. . . what's the use, lad ? Besides, I've heard things about this coast. After the storm's gone and everyone's drowned — that's when they come out to a wreck — for whatever they can hack off her and carry away."
"The smacks, you mean, sir? Ay, ay, they're bad enough about here, so they say. They come out from the Colne and the Kent shore. Salvagers, they call themselves."
"Salvagers?" White gave a bitter laugh. "Savages'd be more like it. God-forsaken, thieving savages."
Chapter V
The dark interior of the tiny cabin was almost quiet, for the main fury of the waves was still breaking yards to windward of the dying ship; but the quiet was broken by the dry, choking sobs wrenched out of the body which lay face downwards still fully dressed, across the bunk. Like the storm outside, the sounds of the young man's heartbreak rose and fell in gusts; but inside, in its own world now, his mind tramped ceaselessly round and round the same treadmill of bitter remorse. And round and round like vague figures on a hideous dream roundabout, came the same faces and things — White, the log, Brodie, MacDougall, Captain Cameron, the broken neck of the helmsman, the winking light of the Galloper, and the sand.
You miserable snivelling coward, one part of his mind seemed to say; you were quick enough to sneer at poor old Dougie, and join in with other people's contempt. You were quick enough to judge the Captain too. They didn't measure up to your standards, did they? Well, what about yourself? There was some excuse (not much, but some) for what they did. What can you find ? You — the would-be seaman? Would a seaman be such a childish half-wit as to fool about with a thing which means life or death ? Would any sort of man be such a filthy coward as to hide the damage he'd done to a sensitive machine because he was afraid of a thump on the ear and an entry in the log? How many hundred poor folk will pay with their lives at high water for a few blows that you couldn't face ...?
It was at this point of the torture that, time and time again, the victim's agony broke out into a desolate storm of dry sobs. Now he hardly remembered the words that had broken him — had turned him from a fairly courageous, though not very useful, junior officer into a shattered walking shadow — as broken as Cameron, as dead to the world as the smashed helmsman. When the frantic violence of his grief had passed he would remember all his life the brutal, cold, numbing stab of fear that had paralysed him as White had looked up from the chart at Brodie, saying: ". . . a good fifteen miles south of our fix. How could we be so far out? We got the log ...' THE LOG! It wasn't possible, but he'd forgotten it since the first night of the voyage. The business of Dougie and the Captain had driven the broken fin and his fear of White clean out of his mind.