In the holds the coal shifted and slid and the sea pounded against the side but every now and again they would hear the surge of the water inside her. The hatch was a black rectangle against the lights and far above the men as they shovelled and sweated and cursed.
The crew of the collier were taken off as soon as she was made fast alongside. Garrick brought her Master to the wing of the bridge.
He was wild-eyed. “You should have taken us off. She could have gone down anytime. Man, you’ve only got to look at her! Every minute I thought she might go, every second! You could have taken us off. I watched you handle this ship and, by Christ! You’re a seaman! So you could ha’ taken us off but you wouldn’t. I pleaded with you to take us off and you passed us a bloody tow! Why?” His face was haggard.
Smith did not look at him or answer him. Instead he asked, “Why did you sail south when I asked that you wait for me at Malaguay?”
The Master peered at him, bewildered. ‘What’s that got to do with it? But wait be buggered. The Consul said you needed the coal and I was to find you. You don’t suppose I put to sea in this weather for sport, do you? I did it for you, you —” He stopped, not speechless but holding back the last words. Then he said, almost pleading again, “We all thought our number was up, then you came along but you wouldn’t take us off. We’re men like yourself. Sailormen. I don’t see how you could —” He stopped again and shook his head.
Smith finally turned to him a face as haggard as his own and the eyes as wild. “I had to have coal. I had to have coal!”
The Master stepped back from those eyes but Smith turned away and back to watching his men. The Master whispered, “You’re mad! A bloody madman!”
But then Garrick took his arm and led him away.
Smith stood alone. He watched the collier sinking and his men slaving in her at risk of their lives and the Master’s charges hammered in his head … ‘bloody madman …’ But his answer was the same. He had to have coal. Because of the cruisers. And because of Ariadne and the Elizabeth Bell and the other British shipping and hundreds of British seamen along this coast. Because of Thunder.
He knew that he was right but in his mind he saw the Master’s face and took no comfort from being right.
He handed over the bridge to Garrick and went down to the Mary Ellen. Not because of her Master nor for any fake heroics but he had sent these men down into the collier and he could no longer stand high on the bridge looking down on them like some little god. He paced her deck with that restless stride and felt the sluggish, water-laden dying of her under him. He went down into the holds where despite the searchlights the men laboured in a reeling near-darkness of dust-filled oppression and the coal slithered and slid around a man’s knees, or his waist so another would have to cease his frantic shovelling to haul him out bodily.
They saw him.
Somebody coughed and spat filthy phlegm and croaked, “What’s he doin’ here? Don’t say our old cow’s goin’ down faster nor this one!” And they laughed madly, coughed and laughed again and the shovels ripped at the coal.
He said nothing but he grinned at them through a mask of coal-dust. On deck he told Aitkyne and the Petty Officers: “When it comes you must be quick. Get them out and back aboard.” And to the two men, one forward, one aft who stood with axes where the big warps came down from Thunder and were secured aboard the collier: “When I give the word, cut her loose and jump! Understood?”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
He paced the deck of the Mary Ellen as the loads soared up from the holds, until the colliers winches faltered and died and the hands struck the rigging that connected her derricks to Thunder’s. Only the winch of the boat derrick hammered on aboard Thunder.
The Mary Ellen was settling.
He felt the sudden, sick lurch of her and his mouth was open when one of the party on the warp forward leaned over Thunder’s rail to scream through the clatter of the winch: “She’s going!”
Smith shouted, “Cut her loose! Get those men out and all accounted for!”
The axes flashed as they rose and fell. The hands came clambering out of the holds, yanked out by the Petty Officers and thrust towards the side. They jumped at the nettings and clawed their way up Thunder’s side like flies caught in a web.
“Number two hold cleared, sir.”
“… hold cleared, sir!”
“Get aboard!” He shouted at them. “Get aboard!”
He stood by the after hold with Thunders boat derrick projecting above him like a gallows tree with its dangling wire. The Mary Ellen was going down. He snapped at Aitkyne, the only man left on the deck, “How many men in the hold?” The wire from the derrick hung slackly down into the hold.
“Two, sir. Kennedy and young Manton.”
Now Smith could see them down there, securing the sacks on the strop. One of them yelled, mouth pink against the coal-dust, Aitkyne lifted his arm and the wire drew taut.
Smith shoved him towards the side. “Get aboard!” He saw him on the nettings as the warps parted to slam against Thunder’s side and be hauled inboard. He saw the two men with axes throw them away, jump at the nets and scramble up.
He was a solitary figure on the collier’s deck under the glare of the lights as the sea seemed to hang above the deck of the Mary Ellen and then fell in on him. The load came swinging up out of the hold with Kennedy and Manton clinging to the sacks and as it soared past him he clawed and caught hold and Kennedy’s fist clamped on his collar. He was snatched off the deck of the collier as the sea smashed around his waist.
They swung like a pendulum, fingers hooked like claws and knees gripping the sacks above a boiling sea. The Mary Ellen had gone. Then the derrick swayed them in and down on to Thunder’s deck.
They had torn a hundred and twenty tons of coal out of the Mary Ellen. At risk of their lives they had won at most another twenty-four hours of life for Thunder. Now she had coal for just two days’ steaming.
VIII
Thunder raised the scattered lights of Malaguay at midnight, seen dimly through recurrent rain that drove in on the gale that thrust at her, rocking her still further in a sea that rolled her badly enough, and blowing her smoke down and across that sea. She still heaved lumpily in the shelter of the roadstead as she came to anchor. The pinnace set out for the shore with the crew of the Mary Ellen and the searchlight blinked to Ariadne and Elizabeth Bell: “Prepare to sail with me forthwith.”
Ariadne acknowledged at once but the signal had to be repeated twice to the Elizabeth Bell, and Smith was on the point of firing a gun to get their attention, infuriated at this delay, when a lamp replied limpingly from her bridge.
There was a hail from the deck and a moment later Wakely reported: “Boat alongside, sir. Mr. Thackeray coming aboard.”
As Smith left the bridge he caught Garrick’s eye on him and said flatly, “I know, coal. You’d better come along and hear what he has to say.” Thunder had steamed at fifteen knots for most of the previous twenty-six hours and had devoured coal that at ten knots, would have lasted four days. Now she was left with coal for only forty-eight hours’ steaming. She had to coal before those two days were out or lie a motionless hulk at the end of them.