Death in the City, page 20
‘Don’t like it much,’ Richardson said. ‘We’re promised a full easterly gale before the night’s out, not much fun with all these bloody sandbanks round the Crouch. Still, there should be a fair bit of water for us in the Whitaker Channel when we get there. As long as we keep off the Buxey Sands we ought to be all right.’
‘In this wind we’ve got to watch out for the Buxey,’ said the Navigating Officer. ‘But it’s the north-eastern end of the bank that changes with almost every tide. We’ll be to the south of it in the Whitaker Channel. Thank God for the echo sounder.’
I looked at the chart with them. It was horrible enough for small sailing boats like mine, and I marvelled at the composure of these men who had to navigate what, to me, were big ships – though, of course, in absolute terms, neither Onyx nor Agnes was really very big. Guarding the entrance to the Crouch are four huge banks of sand – Foulness Sands, extending for five or six miles ENE from Foulness Point, the Ray Sand and Dengie Flat, running north along the mainland, and Buxey Sand, a great dagger of a sandbank, more or less parallel with Foulness Sands, and nearly seven miles long. Between Foulness Sands and the Buxey bank is the Whitaker Channel, the main entrance to the Crouch. There is another entrance, the Ray Sand Channel, between Ray Sand and the Buxey, but this is both narrower and more shallow, and although I could have used it in Joanna it would have been a dicey passage for the frigate, or for the Agnes.
Richardson looked at his watch. ‘Well, we’re not there yet, and we’ve still some hours to go,’ he said. ‘There’s time for a civilised drink before dinner and, I hope, for a decent dinner too. Let’s go to the wardroom.’
He left instructions for him to be told at once of any change of course by the Agnes, and for all Met. signals to be brought to him.
*
The wardroom was a pleasant, homely place. Three or four officers off duty were there, and Richardson introduced them. I thought how young they all were, the men who take Her Majesty’s ships wherever they are told to go, the men whose fathers and grandfathers kept the seas through two world wars, and who would themselves fight just as gallantly – though with sadly fewer ships – should war threaten Britain’s sea lifelines again. I was asked what I would like to drink, and naturally settled for whisky, being delighted to discover that the wardroom offered an admirable straight malt. I don’t know when the Navy last drank rum – for preference, I mean, for there are many occasions when rum is a good friend to man. When I was a subaltern, and was occasionally involved with naval officers on some exercise, they tended to drink pink gin. Onyx’s officers drank brandy and ginger ale. There are fashions in these things, but I have never changed my own habits.
Just before we sat down to dinner a message was brought to Richardson, saying that Agnes had changed course to the north. This comforted me, because if our other reasoning was right, this was what she would be expected to do. It did not follow that she was making for the Crouch, but it did suggest that she was not going to the Netherlands, or the Baltic. When we had finished dinner and were sitting over coffee, another message came to say that she had turned to the west, on a course a little north of west.
This was still better news, and I felt a mounting excitement. Seddon and his police party would be in position now, and I asked Richardson if I could send a signal to them. We had arranged beforehand for radio messages from Onyx to be sent to the Admiralty in code. They would then be telephoned at once to New Scotland Yard, and sent out, again in code, on the police radio network. My signal would, I hoped, encourage them. It said simply, ‘Quarry apparently making for the Crouch. Don’t acknowledge. Good luck. Peter.’
*
It was time to return to the bridge. I had felt Onyx being knocked about a bit by the short, steep waves of the North Sea, but in the comfort of the wardroom I had not noticed it much. It was different on the bridge, and I was shocked by the deterioration in the weather. Onyx was being lashed by a vicious sea whipped up by the wind, and for all her power she seemed almost to be stopped from time to time. There was no moon, but night visibility was not bad, for the wind whipped the spray off the waves almost horizontally, and there was no rain. On Onyx’s bridge we were above most of the spray, which would have been hellish in Joanna.
We were still following Agnes by radar, and I thought it would be as well to close her until we could see her lights. ‘I don’t think it matters much if she can see our lights,’ I said. ‘There’s masses of shipping around here, and one ship more or less won’t be particularly noticeable. We want to know exactly what she is going to do now, and it will be easier to keep track of her if we’ve got her lights in view.’
Richardson agreed. Onyx increased speed slightly, and in a few minutes we could make out the lights of a vessel ahead of us, proceeding about west by north. We kept a little south of west, as if we were making for the Thames, but as soon as Agnes’s lights began to disappear we made enough northing to bring them back again, following her on a somewhat zig-zag course.
‘If she’s making for the Crouch, it’s time she started heading for the Whitaker,’ Richardson said.
It was indeed. She ought now to be going south-west, but instead she seemed to change course still more to the north, as if to pass the entrance to the Whitaker Channel altogether, and clear the north-eastern edge of the Buxey Sand.
Richardson had his night glasses on the distant lights. ‘What the hell is she doing?’ he asked. ‘She’s cleared the Whitaker Channel now – she can’t be going to the Crouch.’
*
I felt a horrible emptiness in my stomach. If she did not take the Whitaker Channel, then all my reasoning was wrong. She might be making innocently for Harwich, or Grimsby, or the Tyne. I’d wasted Seddon’s time, the Navy’s time, put the River Police to a great deal of trouble – all for nothing.
Suddenly my mind went back to the visit that I had made with Seddon to Andrew Stavanger’s flat. I remembered his neatly kept desk, the tidy set of Admiralty Pilot books on his shelves. And I thought of something that I’d noticed at the time, without taking it in. There was a gap in the shelf of Pilots – yes, I had noticed it, and the books were so neatly arranged that I knew which volume was missing. Volume I and Volume II of the North Sea Pilot were there, in my mind’s eye I could see them vividly. But Volume III wasn’t – and Volume III was the one I used on Joanna, because it had details of the buoyage and of both entrances to the Crouch.
Why the mind’s memory-storage system, infinitely more complex than the most elaborate of computers, acts as it does from time to time, I don’t know, and I doubt if the most brilliant psychiatrist or brain surgeon ever will know. I had had this thought of the missing Pilot book at the back of my mind ever since I’d left Stavanger’s flat, but I hadn’t bothered about it, and it had meant nothing to me until now.
‘Make for the Whitaker,’ I said to Richardson, ‘and go through the channel as slowly as you can. I think I know what she’s doing, but I must have a look at the chart.’
It was not a night for dawdling between Foulness and Buxey Sands, and I blessed Richardson for asking no questions. He rang through to the engine room to reduce speed, and ordered a course to take Onyx into the fairway of the Whitaker. ‘I’ll stay here,’ he said. ‘You know where the chart table is.’
I found the Navigating Officer puzzling over the chart. ‘The skipper’s taking us through the Whitaker,’ he said, ‘but God knows what the target’s doing.’
‘She’s making for the Ray Sand Channel,’ I said.
‘Then she’s taking a hell of a risk, and how on earth do you know?’
‘I can’t know, but I’m prepared to gamble on it. I wouldn’t ask anyone to take a frigate through the Ray Sand on a night like this, and I’ll accept full responsibility for temporarily abandoning the chase. I’m sure we’ll pick her up again. Look, once through the Whitaker we must keep station somewhere near the West Buxey buoy. It’s at the junction of the Ray Sand and Whitaker channels, and we can’t miss it even on a filthy night, because it’s got a flashing light, showing two flashes every ten seconds. We’ll meet Agnes there.’
‘And what happens then?’
‘There’s not much she can do except go on into the Crouch. You’ll see.’
The Navigating Officer shrugged his shoulders, and I went back on to the bridge.
Richardson was staring unhappily into the night. ‘I have orders to put myself at your disposal, but this is a hell of a place to be disposed of,’ he said.
‘I’m pretty sure we’ll meet Agnes by the West Buxey buoy,’ I said. ‘If not, you can find an anchorage in the Crouch. I’m as sorry as you are to have come here, and if I’ve guessed wrong I daresay I’ll lose my job. But I won’t let anything happen to you. You’re a grand seaman, and you’ve been damned loyal. Everything else is my responsibility.’
‘I’m still responsible for the ship.’
‘Yes, and Onyx will be all right. Even if I am going to lose my job I’ll stand you breakfast at the best hotel in Burnham in the morning.’
He laughed. ‘Who’d sell a farm and go to sea! Well, we get some queer jobs, but even this will come to an end sometime.’
I saw the flash of a buoy. ‘If that’s the West Buxey there’ll be two flashes every ten seconds,’ I said. ‘You count the flashes, I’ll count the seconds.’
It was the West Buxey buoy all right. That meant that we were more or less through the Whitaker Channel, and had reached the south-western tip of Buxey Sand. The channel widens towards the Crouch, and we had sea-room of perhaps a mile and a quarter between Foulness Sands to the south and the Buxey bank north of us. The Ray Sand Channel, between the great sands off the mainland and the Buxey bank, runs almost due north and south. We were at the southern end of it. I peered northwards, but could see no lights approaching us. I was bitterly disappointed, until I realised that there couldn’t be any sign of Agnes yet: we had come straight through the Whitaker Channel, whereas she – if in fact she was making for the Ray Sand Channel – would have had to go at least three miles farther north to clear the north-eastern point of the Buxey bank, and then steam along the whole northern edge of the bank. She was, of course, ahead of us, and we had come through our channel slowly, but even so, she had a good way farther to go. And if she was using the Ray Sand entrance, she would have to be navigated with the utmost delicacy.
Richardson, good seaman that he was, stood in a little towards the Foulness Sands, which, though they were covered now, still broke the force of the sea a bit. He went a little way towards Foulness Point, then brought Onyx round skilfully – no easy matter in that wind – and steamed back.
Then we saw the lights coming towards us from the Ray Sand. ‘God, Colonel, you seem to have guessed right,’ Richardson said. ‘I wouldn’t have believed that anyone in his senses would take a presumably laden ship through the Ray Sand on a night like this. But he seems to have done it. Or – has he?’
The lights which had been moving steadily towards us seemed for a moment to hang in the air. Then they lurched over sickeningly. With the noise of the wind and the sea we heard nothing, but it was clear that the other ship had gone aground. ‘She’s gone on the Buxey spit. We’ve got to go in,’ Richardson said. He ordered Onyx to steer for the mouth of the Ray Sand Channel, called up the Radio Officer and told him to try and make contact with Agnes, and to send out a call to the Lifeboat Service. ‘Tell her master that we’re quite close, and will do what we can,’ he said. ‘But when it comes to taking off the crew it will be a lifeboat job – she can get in where we can’t. Let’s see – the Clacton boat will be the nearest, I think.’
There was no need to hide our movements now. Onyx sent up a powerful flare, dazzling against the darkness, and before it died out we could see a blue and white steamer hard aground to starboard. She got little shelter where she was, because the easterly gale still had some north in it, and she was taking a fierce pounding. Richardson ordered all the glass screens of the bridge to be opened, and the wind roared in like a wild animal suddenly released from a cage. Richardson had to shout to make himself heard. ‘We can go in a scrap nearer,’ he said. ‘I want continuous depths called from the echo-sounder. We’ll go in dead slow. Quartermaster, keep her steady as she goes, and stand by to swing hard to port if I tell you to. Let’s have the searchlight on.’
We stood in till we were barely two cables off the wreck. She was lying on her side, and we could see a little group of men huddled aft. ‘Have to clear out now,’ Richardson said. ‘Useless to attempt the loud hailer.’ He spoke to the Radio Officer on the intercom. ‘Tell her we’re not deserting her, but we’ve got to go out a bit or we’ll be on the sand ourselves.’ Richardson beckoned me to come close to him. ‘Do you want to speak to the master?’ he shouted in my ear. ‘There’s an R/T on the bridge here, but in this din you’d do better to go into the radio room.’ I nodded, and went off. The Radio Officer handed me a telephone. ‘He’s coming through all right,’ he said, ‘and you can get him on this. It’s simplex, remember, which means that you have to take it in turns to speak and listen.’
‘Understood,’ I said. I pressed the button on the receiver. ‘HMS Onyx to Agnes. Can you read me? Over.’
‘Reading you loud and clear. Very grateful for your assistance. Don’t think we can last the night.’
‘Clacton lifeboat on its way and should be with you in less than an hour. Meanwhile, we’ll stand by. Where were you bound?’
As I waited for his reply I could almost sense a tension beyond that of shipwreck. There was a longish pause. Then, ‘Felixstowe,’ he said.
‘What on earth brought you here?’
I felt that he wanted to say, ‘What brought you?’ What he did say was, ‘Had trouble in the engine room and didn’t like the gale. Thought I could get some shelter inside of Colne Point, and perhaps lie up in Mersea Quarters. But I was too far south, and couldn’t make it. Thought I might get into the Crouch instead, and nearly did. Got carried out of the channel.’
I didn’t believe a word of it, and as navigation it seemed wholly mad. But that didn’t matter at the moment. Help was on its way to the wrecked vessel, and the important thing now was to get a signal to Seddon to tell him that no ship would be arriving at Winter Marsh that night, and to take such action as he might think fit to raid the place. My radio message to Seddon, via the Admiralty, duly went off, and I returned to the bridge. Richardson took me into the little chart room, where at least we could hear ourselves speak. I told him what I’d learned from the master of the Agnes – if it was her master I’d been talking to. Richardson was more concerned with the immediate situation for Onyx. ‘Whatever he was really doing will come out at the inquiry, I suppose,’ he said. ‘The sooner we can get out of this hellish place the better. We’ve got to stand by until the lifeboat comes – not that there’s much we can do. Our searchlight will probably help the lifeboat, though.’
The next half hour was an anxious time. Onyx was superbly handled, but the strain on everyone was telling. Richardson considered whether to send one of his own boats across to the wreck, but quickly decided against it. ‘They don’t seem in any desperate danger for the moment, and to launch our own boat would simply risk the lives of more men. If the lifeboat doesn’t turn up we may have to do it, but the lifeboat’s on its way, and they’re much better equipped for the job than we are. We must just carry on like this for a bit longer, and see what happens.’
Although the waiting seemed endless, it wasn’t really long before we picked up the lights of the lifeboat coming towards us. Low on the water, they disappeared completely as the boat went into a trough, climbing steadily upwards as she rose out of it. The men watching on Onyx gave a cheer as the lifeboat came up, though I doubt if anyone on board heard it.
Richardson got her coxswain on the R/T. ‘Master of HMS Onyx to coxswain of lifeboat. Congratulations,’ he said. ‘I’ll keep my searchlight trained on the wreck. Tell me if you want me to give any other help.’
The lifeboat’s handling was masterly. Designed for just this sort of rescue from the vicious sands of the East Coast, she could get within fifty yards or so of the wreck. Then she fired a line to the wreck, and followed the thin leading-line with a much stronger line capable of taking the weight of several men, and equipped with a running harness, or breeches buoy. One by one the Agnes’s men came off, getting a sad soaking as the line was swept by waves, but safe, and quickly hauled on board the lifeboat as they got to her. ‘Crew all off, only master left to come,’ the coxswain reported to Richardson.
Then there seemed to be some sort of hitch. No one else appeared at the rail of the Agnes’s afterdeck to harness himself to the lifeline. The line itself went slack as the lifeboat, with great gallantry, went in still closer to the doomed Agnes. In the beam of the searchlight we could see the coxswain standing up with a loud hailer, but he seemed to be getting no response. Then the lifeboat had to pull away a bit to avoid being carried on to the wreck, and as she did so a huge sea carried away the lifeline. Again the lifeboat went in, and fired another line to the deck. But no one took it.
Moving a little farther out for safety, the coxswain called up the frigate on his R/T. ‘The crew tell me that the master says he won’t leave the ship,’ he said. ‘One of them is rather badly hurt – broken leg and I think some broken ribs – and I ought to get him ashore to hospital. It would be murder to try to get any of my chaps on board. What do you advise?’
‘Have one more go at firing a line,’ Richardson said. This was done, but again no one took the line.
‘You’ve done all you can, and I think you should go back,’ Richardson said. ‘There may be some other ship in distress tonight which will need you. And you’ve got to think of the injured man. I’d take him on board gladly, but it would probably kill him to try in this weather. The only thing is for you to get back.’
