Free The Wreck of the Mary Deare by Hammond Innes Page B

full of energy.
    It worked out that about every ten minutes or so the engines had to be run; it took about three minutes to get her stern-on again. Those three minutes produced a big drop in the pressure gauge. Only by keeping the furnace full and roaring could that pressure be built up again in time to meet the next demand from the bridge. At 15.30 he called me up to take over the wheel. ‘Watch the spindrift,’ he said. ‘That will tell you the wind direction. Lay her exactly along the direction of the wind. If you’re a fraction out the stern will swing almost immediately. And have full rudder on from the moment you order me to start the engines—and don’t forget she’ll carry way for a good five minutes after the engines have stopped.’ He left me then and I was alone at the wheel.
    It was a welcome relief to be able to stand there with nothing heavier than the wheel to shift. But whereas in the stoke-hold with the roar of the furnace and the periodic sound of the engines, there had been a sense of security and normality, here I was face to face with the reality of the situation. A grim half light showed the bows so badly down in the water that they barely lifted above the marching wave tops even when running dead before the wind, and, as soon as the ship swung and I had to use the engines, the whole deck for’ard of the bridge became a seething welter of water. The sweat cooled on my body, an ice-cold, clammy coating to my skin, and I began to shiver. I found a duffle coat in the chartroom and put it on. A new position had been marked in on the chart. We were lying just about halfway between the Roches Douvres and the Minkies. The congested areas of submerged reefs were looming rapidly nearer.
    At 16.30 he relieved me. He stood for a moment looking out across the bows into the faded daylight of that wretched, gale-swept scene. His face and neck glistened with sweat and his eyes were deep-sunk in their sockets, all the bone formation of his face standing out hard and sharp. ‘Come through into the chartroom a minute,’ he said, taking hold of my arm—whether out of a need for the companionship of physical contact or to steady himself against the roll of the ship, I don’t know. ‘The wind is westerly now,’ he said, pointing to our position on the chart. ‘It will probably back farther into the south-west. If we’re not careful we’re going to be driven slap into the middle of the Minkies. What we’ve got to do now is to inch our way to the south’ard. Every time we run the engines we’ve got to make full use of them.’
    I nodded. ‘Where are you heading for—St Malo?’
    He looked at me. ‘I’m not heading anywhere,’ he said. ‘I’m just trying to keep afloat.’ He hesitated and then added, ‘In four hours the tide will start running against us. It’ll be wind over tide then and throughout most of the night. It’ll kick up a hell of a sea.’
    I glanced out of the chartroom window and my heart sank, for it didn’t seem possible that the sea could be worse than it was now. I watched him work out the dead reckoning and mark in another cross about five miles west and a little south of the other. ‘We can’t have moved that much in an hour,’ I protested.
    He flung down the pencil. ‘Work it out for yourself if you don’t believe me,’ he said. ‘The tide’s running south-easterly three knots. Allow two miles for wind and engines, and there you are.’
    I stared at the chart. The Minkies were getting very close. ‘And in the next two hours?’ I asked.
    â€˜In the next two hours the tide slacks off considerably. But my reckoning is that we’ll be within a mile or so of the south-west Minkies buoy. And there we’ll stay for the first half of the night. And when the tide turns . . .’ He shrugged his shoulders and went