ERRORS OF JUDGEMENT

Dawn!

Fearsome masses of ragged storm cloud-breaking away from the horizon in the fury of a master wind-a grey and lurid clearing in the zenith-and under all, the furious sea. Rolling out of the nor’west, white-lashed by the remorseless wind, curling, breaking, crashing into shoal water, splitting on the ridges of rock awash and hurtling skyward in shattered columns of blinding spray. The white furious sea-whelps, unleashed by the great west wind on an errand of destruction.

Amid this, the lone shell of the once goodly Khandalla-a standing wreck, shock face to the bitter seas, - a puny fragment of man’s handiwork to front the strength and majesty of a nor’west gale.

From under the poor shelter of the forecastle head, Day and his wearied crew watched the light grow. At times, a spasm of coughing comes on the old man, bringing the warm blood to his mouth and lips. “There is no doubt about it now,” the doctor says. “The broken ribs must have pierced the lung.” And Day knows that it is only a matter of time with him.

Well! It is better to go off like this, he thinks, than linger on to a life of drudgery in the junior ranks. Thank God that the debt to the Centurion is paid in full! Fifty lives was the cost of his ‘error of judgment’ – here are seventy three souls who, without his action, would now be the sport of the waters that surge over the grisly wreck yonder.  If only the lifeboat would come, and he could see the crowning result of his judgment, it would be easy enough to ‘cast off’.

It will be that hellish sea and tide that is delaying a rescue. Perhaps, now that the flood is making, they might- Near him big Jansen jumps to his feet with a roar of cheer: “A boat! A boat! De lifeboat-and clammers to the standing rigging. “Ja! Ja! De life boat- and a steam trawler towin her out! Close to, Cabtin! Close to! Gott!  Dey rides heavy! All awash Cabtin!”

Calling Sheppard to him, Day gasps out instructions. Nothing must be left undone to hasten the work of rescue. A coil of stout rope is dragged from the weltering peak-hold, sailors’ chests from the forecastle are lashed to it at intervals, and the line paid out a-lee.

Over the sea-line the dripping bows of a Channel trawler heave in sight. Driving her head to the furious sea, under a whirling smoke-wrack , rising giddily, casting the water from her in cascades, dipping anew into the foaming hollows, she lurches grandly on! Astern, the lifeboat staggers in her wake- veiled in driving spray, poised in the sickening incertitude on a towering wave- then sweeping down the windward sloping furrow.

Nearer they draw. The watchers can make out the lettering on the trawler’s bow-the men on her decks, bent and swaying to meet the staggering lurches of their vessel. At last, when perilously close to the broken water, SA 076 casts off her straining burden. Steam can do no more! Now- as a hundred years ago –it is left for brawny arms and stout oars to master the eddying furies of the dreaded Barrels!

The lifeboat scarce seems to make headway. Wind and sea and tide are weighed against her, but her gallant crew ply swift and steady oars. Foot by foot she draws on! They are nearing the bobbing sea chests! But can that furious stroke last? Already the bowmen are pulling out of time. Together again- a last feverish spurt. The wet blades flash, flash, flash against the light-foam flies from their dripping oars-only the crest of a sea lies between them and the line. Hard driven, she rides high and plunges into the foaming hollow. Again she rises to view. A hoarse cheer from the trawler’s men greet her. The bowmen are leaning to the line- the oars at rest-and the stout rope creaks to the weight of the heaving boat.

Now they are hauling in, the cox’n standing up at the stern, gazing anxiously ahead for sign of the black jagged spur that he knows must be but awash. At speaking distance he hollows his hands to carry a hail against the wind. “The wreck A-hoy! How many are ‘oo?”

Sheppard, braced in the rigging, answers…”Seventy –four. “

“Seventy-four!” The lifeboat men vast hauling on the rope and stare, incredulous, at the unsteady figure in the rigging. “Seventy-four!”

They had expected only a few broken survivors of a great disaster. Whose hand had herded seventy-four into that grim shell of twisted plating- the only standing remnant that had outlived a wild night on the Barrels? They think of the stout line drifted down to them-of the sea chests, black and unsightly in the white of broken water! Whose hand? A master hand, whoever…

Excerpt from Broken Stowage by Captain David Bone