Free The White Voyage by John Christopher

the savage blackness of the night, his gaze fixed like a man suddenly confronted with betrayal of his life’s purpose. He did not answer nor look round the first time Mouritzen spoke to him.
    ‘What is it?’ Mouritzen repeated, more urgently. ‘There’s something wrong. What?’
    Olsen stood back and let Mouritzen take the wheel. He spun it, immediately conscious of the difference in the feel.
    ‘A linkage gone?’ he said.
    ‘You heard it,’ Olsen said.
    ‘The shaft,’ Mouritzen said. ‘My God!’
    He moved away from the useless wheel. Olsen came back and put his hands on it again. The
Kreya
heeled over as a wave struck her starboard side. Spray dashed over the glass in front of them. She went deep, deep, before beginning the slow swing back to an even keel.
    ‘Have you sent out a distress call?’ Mouritzen asked.
    ‘No. Not yet.’
    ‘Shall I see to that?’
    ‘Yes, you can do that,’ Olsen said. He seemed to rouse himself. ‘If there is anything near us they can stand by to take off passengers. But no melodrama, Niels. The
Kreya
can ride this out. She is toughly built.’ He considered a moment. ‘And it helps now that she is so lightly loaded.’
    ‘No chance of rigging a jury-rudder, I suppose?’
    Mouritzen recognized the futility of the idea before he had finished saying it. Olsen grinned tightly, pointing out into the storm.
    ‘In this?’
    ‘I’ll go down to the wireless room,’ Mouritzen said. ‘With Lauring it is a good idea to stand over him.’
    It was possible on the
Kreya
to reach the wireless room and the engine room from the bridge without going outside, but Mouritzen took the outside steps deliberately, to get the feel of the storm. For the present it was not raining, but the wind was carrying spray that served the same purpose, except when the ship rolled and lifted and the huge surge of water crashed down across her, swamping and blinding everything. It was a strange, two-edged element, striking with the force of rock, and then breaking and ebbing away into salty streams across the
Kreya
’s deck. It was worse than it had been; the waves were higher. Still there was reassurance in the way in which, after each new vicious blow, the waves splintered and drained away. She should be able to ride things out till the storm abated and the sea grew calmer. It would mean a tow into Amsterdam; a humiliation for Olsen, but no more than that.
    Closing the heavy metal door behind him he was conscious of the cutting off of so much of the noise – the wind’s howling, the smashing thunder of the sea. Almost at once it became quieter still. He went into the wireless room and found Lauring struggling up into a sitting position from his bunk. His set was on broadcast; a stream of steady, Budd-keyed morse issued from the speaker.
    ‘At this time of day and in this weather, Lauring, you’re supposed to be on constant watch. You don’t need telling that, do you?’
    Lauring was fair-haired, slight, a neat, lazy young man with a quick mind and tongue, chiefly devoted to complaints about his conditions.
    He said now: ‘What’s that, sir? That was the engines stopping, wasn’t it?’
    ‘Yes. Get in your chair while I write out a message for you to send. It’s urgent.’
    ‘Why have the engines stopped?’
    ‘It’s a new fuel economy drive.’ Glancing up, he saw Lauring’s face, the lines of bewilderment and fear, and remembered that joking, especially with someone like Lauring, could be dangerous. ‘We’ve got steering trouble,’ he added.
    ‘What kind?’
    Mouritzen handed him the message pad. He said:
    ‘There’s nothing to worry about. Captain Olsen will have stopped the engines while he tries to get a sea-anchor out, to see if we can get her nose into the wind. Get this off right away. Do you know who’s near us, offhand?’
    ‘There’s nothing!’ Lauring said. ‘Nothing within fifty miles, anyway. There was the
Astrida
, but she was running for Borkum.’
    ‘How long ago