Long Voyage Back (46 page)

They motored out against the swells to the mouth of the harbour and there cut Scorpio loose to sail off to Anguilla, where they hoped to rendezvous the next day. Tony warned Neil that Mollycoddle's fuel gauge registered 'empty', but it seemed trivial. As they continued on back to pick up Vagabond, the Norway, now ahead of them, gave four blasts of its horn and began hauling anchor. A fire was burning on the aft deck, smoke moiling horizontally shoreward on the fierce wind.

Vagabond, lying to two anchors veed out at about sixty

degrees from her bow,. tore and plunged like a maddened horse at her tether. As everyone began unloading the new food and transferring the wounded to Vagabond Neil felt unrealistically weary, worried about Jeanne's wound, and burdened with the same nagging sense of foreboding that had been with him since their taking the Mollycoddle. The seas were building too high; the sun would be gone in half an hour. Four blasts from the Norway's horn sent a chill through him.

`We can't get either of the anchors up,' Frank, gasping for breath, reported to Neil. Although Tony was motoring Mollycoddle, the wind was apparently too strong to let him move the boats where he wanted them to go.

`Cut one,' said Neil. 'Cut it now and let's not waste time. If Tony can't pull the other out cut it too if you have to.'

As. Frank returned forward to work with Katya again on the anchors, Sheila brought the clean towels and medicine box Macklin had asked for. Then she went to bring boiled water. As Neil bent down beside Philip where he lay on the wheelhouse cushion aboard Vagabond, he was surprised that Philip was still conscious.

`Sorry to impose on you like this,' Philip said to Neil as Macklin squinted and daubed at the wound in his back.

`There are risks to piracy, my boy,' Neil said, searching the medicine box for more gauze. Philip managed to grin. Vagabond lurched forward as Mollycoddle accelerated. Frank shouted. Sheila, at the helm of Vagabond, shouted back. The halyards banged faster against the masts. A wave smacked into the starboard hull making the trimaran lurch sideways.

`Tell Frank to get the main triple-reefed and ready to go up,' Neil said to Sheila, standing again.

Ì think Frank's done it,' Sheila replied..

`The storm jib?'

hanked on.'

`Where's 01ly?'

`You sent him with Jim.'

Oh, yes,' said Neil, feeling confused. 'Who's helping Frank forward with the anchors?'

`Katya,' Sheila answered.

`Jesus,' said Neil. 'Are the anchors up yet?' Although he could see Frank struggling on the foredeck he couldn't tell what had been done.

`They're pulling one aboard now,' Sheila replied. 'I'm certain they had to cut the other.

`Hand me a towel,' Macklin said to Neil.

While Mollycoddle, which let Vagabond drop back to be towed behind her, plunged ahead, Macklin finished cleaning the two wounds, telling Neil he couldn't say how seriously Philip had been torn up inside, but with Vagabond bucking and rolling, they agreed it was useless to poke around to see. Neil realized for the first time that leaving land might mean dooming Philip, yet neither Philip nor Sheila had suggested they stay to seek a doctor. And now they were committed to sea: ashore were Michael and his men awaiting them.

When he stood up again and peered forward into the wind and spray and saw the size of the waves as they made their way towards the open sea, Neil again felt fear. At any moment a tow-line might snap, an anchor drag, an engine fail, someone fall overboard. As the Mollycoddle careened and crashed forward, pulling Vagabond out to sea, he watched the Norway moving seaward off to their left, her anchor still being hauled, smoke still billowing out aft. Her decks were packed. When Macklin finished checking Jeanne, Neil then carried her down to her cabin and placed her on her berth. She was unconscious. As he was tying both her and Skip into the berth so that they couldn't roll out, he felt a strange new motion and a new sound which at first he couldn't place. As he hurried back up on deck he suddenly knew: the engine had stopped. Mollycoddle had run out of fuel.

`GET ABOARD!' Neil shouted to Tony as Mollycoddle drifted rapidly back towards Vagabond. `FRANK, GET READY TO CUT THE TOWLINE!'

Neil himself ran towards the mast, stumbling when

Mollycoddle crashed into Vagabond, then arising to loose the halyard and begin hauling up the already triple-reefed mainsail. He dimly worried that no one had been assigned to Vagabond's wheel, but someone . . . The triple-reefed main, flogging loudly, went up and he winched it up tight, tied it down and began raising the storm jib. With a loud twang the tow line flew past his leg and Vagabond lurched away from the now more slowly drifting Mollycoddle. Neil quickly tied down the jib halyard and raced aft. Sheila was at the wheel, but as he approached, she left it to help Katya sheet in the storm jib which was loose and flogging. They were drifting off on a starboard tack, seeming to be pushed almost sideways downwind. The daggerboard was up.

`DAGGERBOARD!' he shouted forward to Frank, pointing.

Frank nodded and staggered to the place just aft of the mast to begin forcing down the twelve-foot-long central dagger-board, five feet of which should be under the boat cutting down leeway. In the two minutes it took to get it down - Macklin had gone forward to lend his strength - Vagabond had ploughed and plunged forward, sliding sideways too, towards Smith Point on the left side of the harbour. Land there was less than a quarter of a mile away. The docks behind them were about three-quarters of a mile off. With the daggerboard finally down the ship gained speed and began to point better up into the wind.

`Will she come about in this?' Sheila asked him.

`She'd better,' Neil said, knowing their lives depended on it. 'We'll make it,' he added. '

PREPARE TOCOME ABOUT!' he shouted to his crew. Frank was already at the port jib sheet and winch, Katya and Tony ready to release the jib in the opposite cockpit.

`DON'T RELEASE THE JIB TILL I YELL!' Neil shouted. `You're backwinding the jib?'

Sheila asked.

`Yes. COMING ABOUT!' he shouted and swung the wheel full right, Vagabond labouring slowly up into the wind, the fivefoot seas smashing into her three hulls with loud cracks, spray flying aft into the faces of those in the cockpits handling the sheets.

Squinting forward through the streaming and holed plexiglas windows of the former wheelhouse Neil could barely see the jib in the gathering dusk. Vagabond now plunged, rocked and shuddered dead into the wind, both sails snapping as they luffed. The jib, still held close-hauled for the starboard tack, was now beginning to be backwinded, pushing the bow further around on to the desired new tack. Vagabond swung right with increasing momentum, Katya releasing the jib the instant Neil gave the command, Frank winching it in on the other side.

With two more tacks they were out of the harbour and heading east a half-mile from the south coast of St Thomas.

Yet Neil had no sense of freedom. The waves outside the harbour were immense; huge, grey, ugly, spume-covered swells, barrelling in at their starboard side, sending them sliding down each one only to be hit broadside by the next with a sickening crash. Philip lay moaning now on the floor of the wheelhouse where he had rolled off when the first angry swell had smacked them into a forty-five degree tilt. Frank had vomited on to the control panel shelf; Macklin had staggered below, useless with nausea. With Sheila tending to her husband, only Neil, Frank, Tony and Katya remained in the 'central cockpit in the darkness.

It was dark. During their last tack the night had fallen with the swiftness of the tropics and Neil had only his compass to steer by. The sky was totally overcast. There were no navigational aids along the south coast. Only rocks. A breaking wave rolled into Vagabond with a shattering crash, sounding as if a hand grenade had exploded against her right side.

`She can't take this,' Frank said to Neil from beside him.

Not hearing, Neil stared at him.

'VAGABOND CAN'T TAKE THIS BEATING!' Frank then

shouted at him.

Maybe she couldn't, but what the hell choice did they have, Neil thought. To run before the seas meant running into the rocks of St Thomas. Then he thought of the daggerboard.

`BRING THE DAGGERBOARD HALFWAY UP!' Neil shouted

to Tony. 'We'll let her slide some,' he explained to Frank. Frank nodded, as Tony snapped on a safety harness and left to crawl forward. Even in the darkness Neil could get some sense of each wave as it approached and he watched carefully as Tony snapped his safety line to a lower shroud and began crawling on his hands and knees across the main cabin roof to get to the daggerboard. Once there he began trying to winch the board up but needed someone to tail the line.

`Give him a hand!' Neil shouted instinctively and Katya left to crawl up on to the foredeck and across it towards Tony. -Even as she did so Neil became aware of an unusually large wave bearing down on them, breaking on top.

`HOLD ON!' he yelled and tried to turn Vagabond away to take the shock more aft but it was too late. The wave struck Vagabond broadside with an explosive crack, a river of water two feet deep swirling across the main cabin top burying Tony and Katya, water crashing into the starboard cockpit, someone screaming. Vagabond was jolted left by the blow, wallowing, then sailed on.

Neil could feel water swirling around his feet, felt Frank's arms around him, saw Tony, saved by his safety line, clutching a shroud on the port side of the boat, beginning to crawl again towards the daggerboard: like some persistent insect momentarily pushed away by the intruding finger of some mammoth God. Sheila came up beside him, she too clutching at him for balance. 'WHERE'S KATYA?' she shouted. Neil searched the port side of the boat hoping to see her clinging to a shroud there, but she was gone. The next wave

was large but Vagabond appeared to slide away, letting it roll under her, the wave only giving her a playful slap. As the trimaran surged forward Neil turned the wheel to bring Vagabond up into the wind to halt her, but she turned sluggishly, unresponsive to the helm.

`No, Neil!' Frank shouted. 'It's no use!'

Even as Neil had swung the wheel his mind told him there was nothing he could do. In the darkness, with Katya having no light, with Vagabond not equipped with a marking buoy with light or transmitter, there was no point in trying to find her. Even if she could swim until daylight, there was still no chance they could beat their way back and locate her in the wind and seas still running. He mechanically turned Vagabond back on course. Tony had staggered back to him at the helm. `Katya went over!' he shouted. 'She's back there!' he added, pointing.

Shaken, Neil looked at him, nodded and held the helm steady.

`We can't help her,' Frank said hoarsely from beside Neil. Àren't you coming about?'

Tony asked them, still gasping

for breath. 'She's a good swimmer. We've got a searchlight.' `We can't do it, Tony,' Neil said staring forward, aware of

an ache in his throat.

`We'd probably kill everyone if we stopped now,' Frank added. 'We've got to get past the point.'

Tut we've got to try!' Tony said fiercely.

`She's lost,' Frank said, putting one of his huge, bony hands on Tony's shoulder. `Katya's gone and there isn't a chance in a trillion we could find her. We've got to sail on.'

Tony, stunned, aware of how close he himself had been to being lost like her, looked briefly at the huge seas rolling at them and then back at where Katya had disappeared and emitted a low harsh groan. He turned back and lowered his head. Ìt was my fault,' Neil said, shaking his head, still looking forward, feeling grief and anger. 'I should have gone forward myself. I should never have sent anyone without a safety harness.'

À stanchion broke off,' Frank said as if in defence of Neil.

'The sea will always break a stanchion if you give it a chance,' Neil replied. 'Never, never, never let her go . . .' he muttered.

For another minute they all stood in the darkness staring forward.

`She's gone,' Tony said softly, flatly.

Ì'm sorry, Tony,' said Neil, tears finally falling down his cheek. And then his grief was dampened by sudden fear: Vagabond's easier motion meant - that cracking noise when the wave hit 'The daggerboard's gone,' Neil said harshly, the anger at the forces overwhelming them again mingled with grief. Tony then told them that he hadn't made any progress when the wave hit - the twelve-foot daggerboard must have broken off flush with the bottom of the boat.

'The ocean's way of correcting a captain's error,' Neil added bitterly.

`Will we still clear the end of the island?' Sheila asked.

A minor, casual, life-or-death question. And if we cleared St Thomas there was still St John's and Flanagan Island to dear.

Ì doubt it,' said Neil. 'Which anchor did you save?' `The CQR,' Frank answered. It would never hold. It didn't matter. Three anchors wouldn't hold in this. And the coast of the islands he was trying to clear he couldn't even see, wouldn't see even at the moment Vagabond first began smashing herself to pieces.

'We may not clear the end of the island,' he said, talking as much to himself as to the others, trying to clear his own mind. It was a no-win situation. If you tried sailing more into the wind you'd slow down and make three times as much leeway. If you continued on this reach your course was so close to the

end of the island that the waves would still put you up on the rocks. And though they might clear the rest of St Thomas, sticking out further south was Dog Rocks. Dog Rocks: what a place to die.

Ì'll shift the battery over so we can use the depthmeter,' Frank said gently to Neil and disappeared below. `Can you reef the mizzen?' Sheila asked.

`Yes. Why?' asked Neil.

Ìf we have to . . . to try to tack offshore, the mizzen could help us come about.'

Come about! In this! With no daggerboard! Neil felt like crying. Ì don't think I could even get Vagabond in irons, much less bring her about,' he said quietly.

`Then it's in the hands of the Gods,' said. Sheila softly. `He's sure as hell a better sailor than I am,' Neil commented bitterly, thinking again of Katya. And so they sailed on. Using the depthmeter and a chart of the waters that Sheila had brought over to Vagabond with the gear from Doubloon, Neil made a guess at when they had cleared the end of St Thomas and what their course needed to be to clear Dog Rocks. He sent Tony forward to listen for the surf breaking ahead. Frank brought up the ship's twelve-volt spotlight to search ahead occasionally too. Neil turned the wheel over to Sheila so that he could concentrate all his weary and spent resources on determining Vagabond's probable speed, leeway and direction, plotting her movements on Sheila's chart and ordering the minor course changes that might let them make a little more progress to windward.