Free In Hazard by Richard Hughes Page B

necessary for the Chinese petty-officers that now used them (roughly, any specialist counts as a petty-officer: “idlers,” they are called in sail). These too were deserted—except the carpenter’s room. The carpenter was not there. But Mr. Rabb was.
    He was standing, as if in meditation, holding on to the side of the bunk. Mr. Buxton told him to report on the Bridge: and he went without answering. Buxton wondered how long he had been there: it was a long time, he suddenly realised, since he had seen Mr. Rabb about anywhere.
    Mr. Buxton made another dash across the well-deck, back to the centre-castle. It was there, in the two open spaces each side of the engine-room, that he found the Chinese seamen. They had gone hardly human. They were piled up, like a pile of half-dead fish on a quay. A lot of them were sick. With each lurch of the ship the pile spilt, or even skiddered entire against one bulkhead or the other; when the men in it showed they were alive by a faint bleat.
    Mr. Buxton looked at them, appalled. How on earth would it be possible to get any useful work out of them? It was no good beginning to try to rouse them now. Wait till the lull came: they might feel better then. He returned to the Bridge.
III
    All the other officers were already there, when he got there. Even Dr. Frangcon, and “Sparks,” were there. Waiting. The lull should have come by now.
    But by now, Buxton had begun to doubt if it ever would come. Many hurricanes are like that, he knew: no really calm centre at all, only a turmoil. They do not all do what the Air Ministry tells you.
    Or again, perhaps the true centre was not going to pass directly over their ship. Perhaps it would pass a little to one side; this fringe would be all of it they would touch. He caught the Captain’s eye: saw the Captain was thinking the same thing. Captain Edwardes, moreover, was doing some calculating in his head. They had taken a rather unusually long time to reach this centre—seventeen hours. It was quite on the cards it would take them another seventeen hours to come out on the far side. A lot of water can go down open hatches in that time. If as much went down as had gone already, she would capsize. The hatches must be repaired before the second bout.
    â€œWe’ll begin right away,” he said: “The wind’s easing. Mr. Buxton will take charge of the fore-hatches, Mr. Rabb will take charge of the after-hatches. Mr. Watchett will go with Mr. Buxton. Mr. Foster, you see to getting the timber along: the engineers have it ready. Doctor, you stand by.”
    â€œIf I were to speak to the Chinese, Sir, they know me better than the deck-officers,” said Dr. Frangcon (which was true, for he had made a hobby of them in his search for strange music).
    â€œDo what you can, Doctor.”
    Then, just as they turned to go, a terrific wave shivered the ship; tore the starboard gangway loose, so that it began to pound on the ship’s side like a steam-hammer. Captain Edwardes crabbed his way to the bridge end, peering down with his torch to see what made the racket. He guessed what it was: but could guess no way to secure it. Luckily however the sea found its own way: after a few minutes it tore the gangway off altogether, and swallowed it, before it had time to batter a hole.
    Then the Captain returned to the wheelhouse. That place was a wreck. He flashed his torch round. The wind had not only smashed the windows, it had blown nearly every last chip of glass out of the frames, and now poured through the gaps. He had thought it deserted: but his light showed two men there, crouched down out of the wind-stream as if it were bullets.
    Captain Edwardes flashed his torch again. They were Rabb, and Dick Watchett.
    Dick, you know, had been shut in his room, unable to do anything except try to keep still, all day: ever since two in the afternoon, when the steering went. For the first hour he had thought about the ship going