Atlantic Fury (13 page)

‘You think the LCT will sail?' I asked.

‘I don't know. Anything could happen …' He shifted in his seat, his body tense, his eyes fixed on the set as his fingers moved with the touch of a pianist, filling the room with the crackle of static. And behind the static a man's voice, the words indecipherable. ‘There they are again. Two trawlers south-east of Iceland.' He clamped both earphones tight to his head, leaning forward, his whole being concentrated in the tips of his fingers as they hovered over the dials. He'd left the loudspeaker on and a Scots voice came faintly, a voice so broad it might have been talking in a foreign tongue: ‘
A' dinna ken w-what it means ony mair thin ye du yersel', mon. Twa hoors ago the wind was fra the north. Noo it's roond into the sou'east an' blowing a bluidy gale
.'

And another voice barely audible through the crackle: ‘
Aye, an' the glass ganging down agin
.'

‘
Did ye hear that noo? A bluidy great wave reecht o'er the bows, and the fish still coming in
.'

‘
Ye're on top of a shoal, are ye, Doug
?'

‘
Aye, blast it. But this is no' the time to be trawling whativer the bluidy fish. It's a hell of a night. You hove-to the noo, Jock
?'

‘
Aye, hove-to and wishing to God I were in me bed with the wife and a wee dram inside o' me. Ha' ye got the forecast
?'

‘
Bluidy lot o' good the forecast was
…' The static overlaid the voices then and I couldn't decipher the rest.

After a moment Cliff Morgan pulled his earphones off. ‘
Arctic Ranger
talking to
Laird of Brora
. It's bad up there and I don't know quite what it means yet. There's no clear pattern, you see.' He was staring down at his notebook, drawing without thinking deep con centric rings. ‘You go to bed,' he said. ‘Get some sleep whilst you can.' He ran his hand up over his face, rubbing at his eyes. He looked tired.

‘Are you going to stay up all night?' I asked.

‘Probably. Maybe when they've stopped getting in the nets I'll be able to contact their radio operators – get some facts out of them. A pair of skippers blethering at each other. Doesn't tell you anything. I don't want to know how they feel with all hell let loose. I want to know what the barometer reads and how it compares with the reading three, four hours ago, what the weight of the wind is and whether the temperature is rising or falling.' He leaned back, ‘Leave me to it, will you now. I want to see if I can raise some vessel further west. If not, I'll have a talk with the weather ships, see what they've got to say.'

‘You get their reports anyway, don't you?'

He nodded. ‘But it takes time. And talking to them is very different, you know, from reading the lists of figures they send in.' He put the earphones on again, leaning closer to the set as he began to tune, his fingers light as a caress on the dials. ‘Those trawlers …' He was speaking to himself, not to me. ‘On the fringe of the High and now that first depression's starting to come through. Still two of them, but very close. That would account for what happened to Kelvedon – the sudden changes of wind …' His voice died away, his expression suddenly intent. And then his thumb was on the key and the buzz of Morse, very rapid, filled the room as he made contact across miles of ocean.

I watched him for a moment longer, and then I left. Back in Room 42 I undressed, doing familiar things slowly, automatically, smoking a cigarette and mulling over the day. It had been a long one, so much packed into it, and London, my dismal attic of a studio, the years of hard work to become a painter – all seemed so far away. I was back now in a man's world of decisions and action involving ships and weather, any movements governed by the sea, and I found I was glad, as though painting had been no more than an affair with a beautiful woman and this the real love of my life. I sat on the bed and lit a cigarette from the butt of the old and thought about that. Was I painter or sailor, or was this new mood that had my blood tingling the physical reaction to the prospect of a childhood dream becoming a reality? I didn't know. My mind was strangely confused. All I knew for certain was that the sea was calling.

I finished my cigarette, turned the thermostat of the central heating down to ‘low' and went to bed thinking of Laerg.

CHAPTER TWO

FORBIDDEN ISLAND

(October 20)

I woke from a deep sleep with the ceiling lights blazing in my eyes and the duty driver standing over me, shaking me by the shoulder. ‘There's a cuppa' tea for you, sir. Captain Flint said to tell you he's leaving at four-ten.'

‘What's the time now?'

‘Quarter to, I'll pick you up in twenty minutes. Okay? You are awake, aren't you, sir?'

‘Yes, I'm awake, thanks.' I sat up and rubbed my eyes. Even with the thermostat turned right down the room was suffocatingly hot. I felt sweaty and drugged with sleep; the tea was black and thick and sweet. I got up, washed and shaved, and then dressed in my heaviest clothes, two sweaters and an anorak over the top. I packed my shoes and wore my gum boots; it was the easiest way to carry them. Outside, it was cold and windy; no sign of dawn yet, but the sky had cleared and there were stars. A half moon hung low over the camp, giving a frozen look to the unlighted huts. A long wheel-base Land-Rover stood parked outside the Mess, torches glimmered and the muffled shapes of men stood dark in the eerie light. ‘That you, Ross?' The Movements Officer took my bag and tossed it into the back of the vehicle. ‘Sorry there's no coffee laid on. No time for it anyway. Is that the lot, driver?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘McGregor's replacement?'

A voice from the back of the Land-Rover said, ‘Here, sir. Patridge.'

‘Okay. Let's get cracking then.'

We climbed in. A big, heavy-jowled man in a beret and a sheepskin jacket squeezed in beside me. Flint introduced him as Major McDermott. ‘You'll be brothers in misery for the next twelve hours – that is, if Stratton decides to go. But it's by no means certain yet. Things are in such a flipping mess this morning, nothing's certain.' He sounded tired and irritable.

We drove out by the main gate and headed towards the hangar with the moon hanging over it. The helicopter was standing on the tarmac apron. The Land-Rover drew up beside it. Adams was there waiting for us, dancing up and down on the balls of his feet to keep himself warm. The wind sifted sand in a light film across the surface of the apron. I hadn't expected to be travelling by helicopter. It seemed an odd way to be joining ship, but as we settled into our seats I realised that there was no other means of getting to the landing craft. The South Ford I knew from the map was the shallow channel between Benbecula and South Uist; it was more than thirty miles away to the south with no road link because of the Sound of Harris.

The door shut and the rotors turned, gathering speed until the whole fuselage shook. And then the ground was falling away and we were slipping sideways across the hangar like a gull blown by the wind. ‘Did you know we've got an LCT grounded in Shelter Bay?' Flint shouted in my ear. And when I nodded, he said, ‘Stratton's standing by just in case. If the ship gets off all right, then Stratton will slip round into Carnan and land you at the quay there. If she doesn't then he'll probably have a bash at it. Even then you may land up back at Leverburgh.' He leaned across me, peering out through the window. ‘Thank God I won't be with you if you do sail. My stomach doesn't like the sea.'

We were over the Sound now, the waves breaking, white in the moonlight a thousand feet below us. And beyond the Sound we flew over a drowned land, all lakes, with the sea lochs reaching long, wet fingers into it. There was more water there than land. It looked wicked country in that ghostly light, and it went on and on with only a single sugarloaf hill to relieve the flat pan of its deadly monotony. At four-thirty we crossed the North Ford with the first pale glimmer of daylight showing the Isle of Skye in jagged relief on the eastern horizon. We were over Benbecula then and ten minutes later we saw the ship grounded in the South Ford with the tide creeping in over the sands; she wasn't quite afloat yet.

The helicopter dropped like a lift, turned head-to-wind and hovered just clear of her stern whilst the crew lowered the boat. Flint got up and pulled the door open. A gale of cold wind blew into the fuselage. We moved ahead then, settling gently on to the water about two hundred yards up-wind of the landing craft. As the rotors slowed and stopped a new sound invaded the cabin – the slap of waves against the floats. The buzz of an outboard motor came steadily nearer and then the dory was alongside and we were piling into it. Small waves tossed spray over the gunnel, wetting feet and baggage. A young man in a white polo-necked sweater, his fair hair blowing in the wind, jumped out on to the float. ‘Flinty. You want to come aboard?'

‘Not on your life. I'm going straight back to bed. Just came to see you boys were all right. What's the news?'

‘Nothing yet. They're still grounded. But Captain Kelvedon was on the air about ten minutes ago to say he'd be starting to winch off any moment now.'

‘Hope he makes it.'

‘By God, so do I. It's going to be a dirty trip if we have to go out there in this. We're recording twenty-five knots, and we're under the lee here.'

‘Stratton's made up his mind to go, has he?'

‘If Four-four-Double-o doesn't get off, yes. We've got to.'

‘Well, good luck, sonny.'

‘Thanks, we'll need it.' He jumped off the float into the dory, balancing himself neatly. ‘Wouldn't like a trip round the island, would you, Flinty?'

‘No bloody …' The sound of the outboard motor drowned his voice. The dory swung away, running downwind with the steep little breaking waves. As the grey steel hull of the landing craft loomed over us I saw the helicopter lift its dripping floats from the water and go whirling away northwards in the pale light.

There was coffee waiting for us in the wardroom. It was hot in there after the raw cold outside. ‘The Skipper will be along in a minute,' the fair-haired youngster told us. ‘He's in the radio shack now, waiting to see what the form is. My name's Geoff Wentworth; I'm the Number One. If there's anything you want, just press the tit.' He indicated the bell-push.

I thought I had everything I wanted; hot coffee and the feel of a ship under me again – the soft, continuous hum of dynamos, the smell that is always the same, a compound of salt dampness, hot oil and stale food, the slight suggestion of movement to give life to the hard steel of deck and bulkheads. ‘We're afloat, aren't we?'

‘Just about,' he said, and then he left us. McDermott had removed his sheepskin jacket and I saw the insignia of the Army Medical Corps, the serpent of Aesculapius, on his battledress. He was a surgeon, he told me, and he'd left Edinburgh shortly after eleven, flown to Stornoway and then been driven right across Lewis and Harris to Northton. ‘I'll be honest – I hope we don't have to go. I'm a damned bad sailor and from what I hear this boy's in a mess.' He was puffing nervously at a cigarette.

Half an hour passed. Then a door slammed, a voice gave an order, somebody shouted and rubbered feet pounded aft. The dynamos changed their note as the lights dimmed momentarily. Another piece of machinery had come into action. The door opened and Captain Stratton came in, small and dark with premature streaks of grey in his black hair and a quiet air of command. Snatched hours of sleep had left his eyes red-rimmed. ‘Sorry I wasn't here to greet you. As you've probably gathered by the sounds of activity, we're getting under way.'

‘I take it,' McDermott said, ‘this means the LCT is still stuck out there?'

‘Yes. Kelvedon's made one attempt to winch himself off. Over-eager, by the sound of it. Anyway, she didn't budge. And now he's going to wait for the top of the tide before he tries again.' And then he went on to explain his own plans. ‘As we're afloat now, I thought I'd get started. We'll be bucking a head-wind up to the Sound of Harris; may take us three hours. If he gets off all right, then we'll put into Leverburgh. If he doesn't we'll be that much nearer Laerg.' He turned to me. ‘I hear you have a lot of sea time. Master's ticket?' And when I nodded, he said, ‘I hope you're a good sailor then.'

‘I'm not sea-sick, if that's what you mean.'

He smiled. ‘You may regret that statement. Have you ever been in a landing craft before?'

‘No.'

‘You'll find the movement a little different.' And he added, ‘If you want to visit the bridge any time …' It was an invitation that accepted me as belonging to the brotherhood of the sea. He went out and a moment later the deck came alive under my feet as the main engines began to turn.

I watched our departure from the open door on the starboard side of the bridge housing. Dawn was breaking and the bulk of Mount Hecla sliding past was purple-brown against the fading stars. A seal raised its head snake-like from a rock, and then with a jerking movement reached the weed growth at the edge and glissaded without a splash into the water. A heron lifted itself from a grass-grown islet, ungainly in flight as it retracted its head and trailed its feet, grey wings flapping in the wild morning air. Five cormorants stood on a ledge and watched us go, curious and undisturbed. These were the only signs of life, and though the door was on the leeward side and I was sheltered from the wind, I could see it whipping at the surface of the water.

One of the crew appeared at my side hooded in his duffel coat. ‘Battening down now, sir.' He pulled the steel door to and fixed the clamps. ‘In a few minutes we'll be rounding Wiay Island. We'll begin to feel it then.'

The visitors' quarters were immediately aft of the wardroom pantry, a clutter of two-tier bunks with clothing scattered around and a desk littered with papers. McDermott had already turned in fully clothed. ‘Seems steady enough,' he murmured.