Maddon's Rock (25 page)

She nodded. “Good,” she said. “We may just make it in time. I’ve just heard a meteorological bulletin. It’s not so good. There’s dirty weather coming up behind us. The glass is falling too. I’m afraid we’re about due for a blow.”

“Well, we’ve been lucky enough so far,” I said.

She turned suddenly towards me. “You know, Jim, even with the sea like this we may not be able to reach the
Trikkala
. We don’t know what the place is like. Rankin said they’d beached the
Trikkala.
That means
inside
the reefs, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” I said. “He spoke of going in through a gap.”

“And that gap may only be navigable on a really calm day. Don’t forget what that book of mine said—
there are less that a dozen known instances of landings being made on the island.
This is probably quite a calm day for these waters, but the seas are big enough. Right now Maddon’s Rock is probably hidden in a mist of spray and the gap in the reefs made unapproachable by a mad tumble of waves.”

“Don’t forget,” I pointed out, “that they managed to beach the
Trikkala
and get out again through the gap in an open boat that was smaller than this. And from the time we abandoned ship to the time they were picked up near the Faroes was only 21 days. They must have taken the
Trikkala
straight in and come straight out again in their boat.”

“They may have struck lucky with the weather,” she said. “Pray God we strike lucky with it. At best we’ll only have a few days to spare before Halsey arrives with his tug. If we don’t get in before then, well—we might just as well not have come. Well get no proof. And if he catches us inside——”

She didn’t complete the sentence. “Luck’s been with us so far,” I said. “We’ll manage somehow.”

She faced me then. “Jim,” she said, “you’re sure Rankin was telling the truth? I mean, it seems so fantastic, beaching a ship right up here and leaving it packed with silver bullion for over a year. It sounded all right when you told me about it. But that was in Oban. Right up here, in this waste of sea, it seems—well it seems daft.”

“Your guess is as good as mine, Jenny,” I answered. “But at the time I certainly felt it was the truth. It was too fantastic a story for him to have made up.” I
shrugged my shoulders. “Oh, well,” I added, “well know to-morrow—if the weather holds.”

As if in answer, our conversation was interrupted by another meteorological announcement. My heart sank as I listened to it. A gale warning was now in operation in sea areas Hebrides and Irish Sea. From mid-Atlantic to the North of Scotland the weather was uniformly bad with the wind strong to gale force according to the locality. That night the glass began to fall in earnest.

Next morning the sea was about the same, but the wind had risen and was coming in gusts so that the
Eilean Mor
would suddenly heel over and thrust her bowsprit deep into the back of a wave. All that morning the wind was erratic in both direction and strength. The
Eilean Mor
took it all in good part, but it was not easy keeping her on her course. There was no sleet, but the clouds were low and visibility poor, not above two or three miles. The glass continued to fall. Weather forecasts were uniformly bad. I tried to appear unconcerned, but deep down inside me I was scared. The bad weather must be right behind us now and we were approaching an island surrounded by reefs that were only superficially charted. My chief worry was that we should fail to locate Maddon’s Rock before nightfall. By then the gale would be upon us and the idea of running before a storm in these seas with no certainty that the island was behind us, was a frightening thought.

Midday came. Visibility was still not above three miles at the outside. The wind was beginning to whine in the shrouds and the gusts were angry buffets of air that whisked the broken tops off the waves and flung them in great curtains of spray across the ship. We were reefed down, but even so the little ship was inclined to bury her bows under the weight of the wind.

Bert staggered into the wheelhouse with a couple of mugs. “’Ere we are,” he said, “cup o’ char fer the skipper an’ one fer you, mate.” He put the mugs down on the chart table. “Nearly there?” he asked me.

“Any minute now,” I said, trying to appear confident.

“An’ aba’t high time too,” he said with a grin that
failed to hide his nervousness. “Me guts is fair dizzy wiv all this pitchin’ an’ tossin’. An’ Mac—’e says there’s bad wevver blowin’ up. Claims ’e can smell it.”

“He can, too,” Jenny said as she reached for her mug. “I’ve never known Mac wrong about the weather. If he can’t smell it, his rheumatism tells him.”

I drank my tea and went out on to the heaving deck. Visibility was getting worse. I strained my eyes through the leaden murk. There was nothing—absolutely nothing but the grey, gust-torn sea heaving and breaking all about us. Every now and then the break of a wave crest caught us at the gun’l and bathed the ship in spray. Bert came out and joined me. “Fink we’re runnin’ past it?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” I glanced at my watch. It was getting on for one. “It’s possible. Difficult to correct accurately for drift up here.”

“Any sign of the Rock yet, Jim?” Jenny called from the wheelhouse.

“No,” I shouted back. “Not a sign.”

“Gawd luv us, it’s cold a’t ’ere,” Bert said. “Got a nice drop o’ stew on when yer want it. ’Ullo, Mac, yer old misery.” The Scot lifted his nose to the weather as he emerged from below and sniffed at it like a bloodhound coming out of its kennel. “Come up ter ’ave anuvver sniff at the wevver,” Bert went on. “’E’s bin bellyaching aba’t is rheumatics all this mornin’.”

“Aye, there’s dirrty weather on our backsides.” The Scot gave a cackle. “Ye’ll see. Ye’ll no be worrit aboot yer stew then.”

“Nice cheerful bloke you are, I don’t fink,” Bert answered back. Then suddenly he seized my arm. “Hey, Jim! Wot’s that? Straight ahead. Come ’ere. Yer can’t see it fer the jib.” He pulled me a few paces to the side so that I had a clear view for’ard. “There yer are. Looks like a bad patch, don’t it?”

Straight ahead of us, about a mile distant, the sea was all broken up and thrown about as though it were in the grip of a tidal race. I yelled to Jenny. But she had seen it. “Ready about!” she shouted.

“Gawd!” exclaimed Bert. “Look at that sea breaking.”

The broken water was hidden in a great patch of white foam from which the wind whipped a grey curtain of spray. I knew what it was then—submerged rocks. “Come on, jump to it,” I shouted at Bert. A moment later the
Eilean Mor
came round, canvas slatting violently in a gust and we were running due east with our port gun’ls awash and the wind on our starboard quarter. The submerged rocks were away to port now, a flurry of foam-flecked water in the grey misery of the sea. And then, beyond that patch of foam, something showed for a second, black and wicked in a gap in the curtain of driven spray. “Did yer see that?” Bert asked.

“Yes,” I shouted back, as I fixed the jib. “Rock.”

“It’s gone now,” Bert said. “Idden in a beastly great sheet of spray. No, there it is again—look!”

I straightened up and followed the line of his outflung arm. For a second the veil of spray was drawn back. A great rock with sheer cliffs several hundred feet high stood out of the water which writhed and foamed at its base. Then a wave curled high and flung itself at the rock face. A great burst of white water billowed up the cliffs like the explosion of a depth charge. The next instant the wind had carried the spray of it across the rock and there was nothing there but a leaden curtain of mist.

“It’s gone again,” Bert cried. His voice was pitched high with excitement and awe. “Did yer see that wave ’it it? Seemed ter break right over it. Reck’n we bin led up the garding pa’f. Nobody wouldn’t beach a ship there.”

The shock of that sight was like a blow below the belt. It took all the strength out of me. “Doesn’t look like it,” I said. No ship could live in a place like that. And this was a relatively quiet day. What in God’s name was it like in a storm? I thought of the gale that was mounting behind us. “You two stay here,” I told Mac and Bert. “And watch out for reefs. I’m going to relieve Jenny at the wheel.”

“Aye,” said Mac, “an’ ye’d best tell Miss Jenny to shorten sail an’ rin clear of the area whilst we can still see what we’re running into.”

“Bloomin’ pessimist, you are,” Bert shouted. But his face looked small and scared.

I went into the wheelhouse. Jenny stood close against the wheel, her legs braced, her body taut. Her head was lifted slightly as she watched the sails. “I’ll take over for a bit, shall I?” I said.

She handed me the wheel and took up the log book. “I suppose that is Maddon’s Rock?” she asked doubtfully.

“I think it must be,” I said.

She nodded and wrote:
Monday, 29th April. 1.26 p.m. Sighted Maddon’s Rock. Wind rising. Expecting gale.
She closed the book and straightened herself, peering out through the glass windshield. “Do you think there’s any chance of a ship existing there for a whole year?” she asked.

I glanced away to port where the Rock showed momentarily through a gap in the spray. “Well,” I answered, “if they did beach her there, they must have had a reason to think it was safe.” Again a glimpse of the Rock. It was smooth and black like the back of a seal. It was shaped like a wedge; high cliffs to the west rising straight out of the sea and then sloping away to the east. We were running along the southern flank of it. I should say it was about three miles away. The nearest reefs at any rate were a good mile, probably two. “What about getting in a bit closer?” I said. “Mac’s worried about the weather. Says we ought to get clear of those reefs before it closes in and begins to blow. He’s right, too. I suggest we edge in as close as we dare to the reefs, run the length of them and if we can’t find the gap, or if it’s impassable, drive east before the wind.”

“Okay.” She took the wheel again whilst we went about and stood in towards the reefs. When we had closed to within half a mile of the boiling surf, we turned east again and began to run down the line of the surf eastwards. When we were fully abreast of the island
we could see it quite plainly. Why it was called Maddon’s Rock, heaven knows. It should have been called Whale Island, for it was shaped just like a whale—a hammer-head with its blunt nose facing to the west. Above the sound of the wind, we could hear the perpetual thunderous roar of the surf along the reefs. Visibility had improved a bit and we could see them stretching in a line parallel to the island and far beyond it to the east. It was as wicked a patch of sea as I have ever seen. The rocks that formed the reef seemed much of a height, as though they were formed by a ledge that had been tilted back by some disturbance of the earth’s surface. They were practically submerged, but now and then we caught a glimpse of black, surf-worn rock from which the water poured only to be lifted back by the next wave. I picked up the glasses and searched the Rock itself. It was absolutely smooth, as though worn by a million years of ice and sea.

Bert came into the wheelhouse then. “Fair awful, ain’t it?” he said. “Mind if I ’ave a look fru them glasses?” I handed them to him. “It’ll be dark in two or free hours,” he muttered. “Don’t yer reck’n we oughter do as Mac says? I mean, this spot ain’t the Ra’nd Pond. Yer can’t just anchor up for the night.” He was looking through the glasses now and I suddenly saw him stiffen. “Hey,” he cried excitedly. “Wot’s that on the far side—a rock? It’s sort o’ square, like a shelter or summat. Square an’ black. ’Ere, you ’ave a look.” He passed me the glasses. “Just where it slopes into the water.”

I picked it up at once, low down to the east of the island as though it were the tail fin of the whale. “I’ve got it,” I said. “It’s not a rock. It would have been worn smooth like the rest of the island if it were.” And then I realised what it was. “By God!” I cried. “It’s the top of a funnel.” I thrust the glasses into Jenny’s hand and took the wheel. “It’s the top of the
Trikkala’s
funnel. She’s beached on the other side of that shoulder that slopes down into the sea.”

All thought of the impending gale and of the danger
of our position was lost for the time being in the excitement of watching that distant square lengthen into a funnel as we ran down the reefs. Soon we could see one of her masts and a bit of the superstructure. It was incredible, but there she was, no doubt of that.

The reefs stretched eastward in a strip, like a long fore-finger. It took us half an hour to double the tip and then, close-hauled, we drove northward. We were about two miles to the east of the tail-end of Maddon’s Rock. We could see the whole of the
Trikkala.
Through the glasses we could see her, lying high and dry on a little shelving beach like a stranded fish. She was heeled over at a crazy angle and red with rust. Two shoulders of black, sleek rock enclosed that little beach, sheltering her from the prevailing winds. Curtains of spray poured across the back of the island, spume thrown up by the waves dashing against the high cliffs at the western end. Every now and then this curtain blotted out ship and island.

It was less than two miles away now—an anchorage under a lee shore, a 5,000 ton freighter and half a million in silver bullion. And no sign of Halsey’s tug. There was the evidence we wanted, almost within our grasp. But between us and that sheltered beach was a band of raging surf. The reefs seemed to encircle all but the sheer western side of the island. But here to the east they were not a regular, half-submerged line, but a jumble of jagged, blackened teeth amongst which the waves tumbled in a riot of unholy violence.

When we were within perhaps half a mile of this mad chaos of water we saw the gap. Perhaps I should say that we saw what we thought to be the gap, for it was so smothered in foam that it was impossible to be certain. It was then shortly after three. To the east of us the sea looked clear of reefs and we decided to press on to the north to check whether there was any other break in the reefs. By four we were heading nor’-west following the line of the reefs round the island. We had seen nothing that looked like a gap and the
Trikkala
was slowly being hidden from view by the northern shoulder of the Rock. We went about then and struggled back with our head
almost in the teeth of the wind along the vicious line of tumbled surf. No doubt about it, that was the gap right opposite the little beach on which the
Trikkala
rested.