Free North Star by Hammond Innes Page B

onthe foredeck, heaving lines and fenders handy. Nothing to do after lunch but watch the tide making and the sea slowly building as the wind increased – and think about what happened next, why they should have sent an inspector from London. In the privacy of my cabin I poured myself a stiff whisky. I should have been worrying about the tow. Instead, I was thinking how hard she was, my mind going back to the problem that had been with me ever since that night in Hull. A local matter surely, not something for Scotland Yard. Unless … But I shied away from the thought. It was just a matter of intimidation. Intimidation that had got out of control. I must concentrate on that. Did I identify the men or not? That was all that mattered.
    Johan poked his head round the door. ‘We can see the tug now. It is steaming out in the bay. Fixed courses, so he is making speed trials.’
    I followed him into the bridge, relieved to get away from my thoughts. The sky had cleared, the whitecaps in the bay bright in the sun. The supply ship was just turning at the extremity of her northward run up by Stany Hog. The high superstructure for’ard and the flat run aft certainly gave her the look of a tug. She completed the turn and started south. The time was 14.55. Less than an hour to go. I went all round the ship with Johan, checking that everything was ready and that each man knew what he had to do. Then I went back to the bridge and tested the loudhailer. No sign of the ship. She was lost to view behind the dune-like hills of Ward of Brough.
    Ten minutes later she poked her bluff fendered bows round Cunning Holm islet, moving slowly now, coming in on her echo-sounder. A few minutes and she was in full view, turning and pointing her bows straight at us. And at almost the same moment I felt a slight lift to the deck under my feet, heard the first faint rumble of the keel knocking on boulders. She came in very slowly, feeling her way, until her bows were level with the spit. She hung there for a while, her engines throwing a froth of water for’ard along her sides as she maintained stationagainst the wind funnelling down the voe. I could see Jim Halcrow seated at the controls high up in the little glass wheelhouse, Gertrude Petersen beside him. He put a microphone to his lips and loud across the water came his query – ‘Are you off the bottom yet?’
    I was out on the bridge gangway then and I called through the loudhailer for him to come and get us. He gave me a thumbs-up and drifted round the end of the spit, turning on his own axis and bringing his stern right against ours. I had never seen one of these vessels operating in a confined space; it was like driving a Dodgem. We didn’t need heaving lines. Johan just passed the end of our big warp straight into the hands of the man hanging out over the stern roller. He hitched it on to the winch hawser and my men hardly had time to make fast before the supply ship was going ahead, rope and hawser taking the strain. There was an ugly grinding noise, a jar on the soles of my feet as we came up against rock, then we were off, our bows swinging away downwind.
    It was the neatest thing; one moment we were aground, hammering on boulders, the next we were out in the channel, clear of the spit and stern-on to the voe. The supply ship had 6000 h.p. and Jim Halcrow used the wind to get us positioned, then he just plucked us out stern-first into the bay. The tail end of our warp was already made fast at the bows. All we had to do was cast off astern. As soon as our bows were round the tow began.
    We had to go round Bressay and enter Lerwick from the south, but even so, we were anchored off the Halcrow yard before dark. A constable in uniform was standing on the boat jetty watching us.
    By the time we had finished flaking down the tow warp the work boat was alongside, Jim Halcrow coming on board, followed by Gertrude Petersen, her eyes shining. ‘It worked,’ she said laughing. ‘Your patch is all