THE REFANULT

TWO CAPTAINS of

REFANULT

By Harry Tobin

Ginsberg was not much more than thirty years of his age; he was slim and tall with a pale complexion.

He was a drunkard, and so susceptible for alcohol that after a few bottles of beer, he was unable to make out which color an oncoming ship's navigation was showing.

His body was weakened by alcohol so that he could suddenly, and- without warning-fall over like a person with epilepsy. After a single tumble of this kind, he had hurt his head, and there was an indentation on the right side, just under his blonde hairline.

When sober, he was quiet and tame, but just a glassful of vodka was enough to bring a significant change to his appearance.

In spite of physical and mental lameness, he held the sea captain ticket , and, concerning that merit of rating, he naturally held permission to act, as the master on board any range and any size of vessels.

The document with the honourable title of the certificate of competence had given him pieces of bread then and now.

The last episode took place in the archipelago, in domestic trade when he was making a voyage with a Barge, fully loaded with sand. During that voyage, he had taken a glass or two of vodka then gotten drunk. Then he vanished.

How long he was off the before the dekie' standing at helm got worried after slowing down the engine began hooting and calling after his skipper.

Ginsberg had been hiding in the stern nook of the barge, and there he was asleep.

The deckman who now with bewildered mind began to hail help from the boats of pass by. He had gulped up half a bottle of vodka and was unable to do anything.

For the sake of this case, Ginsberg nearly lost his master ticket.

However, the authorities of the National Board of Navigation - after inquiry, just considered shelving his ticket for a while which didn't prevent him from servicing onboard as an o/s

Ginsberg spent his leisure time in a public bar named Cookie. He sat there among the no seamen. There were two kinds of people, some boasted being once or twice afloat in a vessel of local traffic, and there were men as well, who never been set their foot on the deck of a ship of any kind.

What they shared with themselves was the familiar feeling of drunkards with a deep sense of drunken comradeship.

It was a winter day when Ginsberg had his ticket returned and was going to sign on a ship as the master; the vessel was coaster by her type and bore a biblical name Renault.

The muster occasion took place in a room of the port office. It was a formal and respected occasion for a seagoing crew so that at the end of it, Ginsberg became the official master of the freighter Renault.

His documents in his hand, wearing white-blue jacked he stood by the table of the mustering office. There was no sign of inability in his appearance. Standing there waiting his turn to sign the ship's article, he gave an impression of a reliable seafarer.

It was midwinter when a northern could blow for days causing troubles at the sea and was hampering the shipping business.

There were extreme phenomes over the sea with all kind of change of the weather. It could be frozen hard during night and ice growing on the ship's antennas and rails with white mantle. By the evening the cold was breaking down and then there was the fog, spreading over the sea and coast such conditions were eating the nerve of the seafarers,

MV Renault was a coaster, little more than a thousand tons of capacity and was fitted with old techniques and provided with poor stores. She had her outlook like a rusting hulk with her rusted broadsides.

According to the ship's classing certificates and by the classifications of the vessel, she had licensed to sail near the coast only.

The surveyor ignored these points of safety - and made his engagement for the seaworthiness onto the muster roll by demand of the ship-owner Mr. Hollow, who requested that the ship's documents should be provided with the stamps proving the ship seaworthy for the voyage.

The surveyor was well aware of the limitations. However, the usual corruption, which gave him a permanent asset of the duty-free whiskey and American cigarettes, obligated him taken a less sharp look over the rules.

There was the crew in this muster room ready to join. A man, about thirty, solid build man in his prime was standing there upright with his mate's certificate in his pocket.

One might know that there was a haunting shadow of fear in his young mind; it has a link to his experience at sea. He had been severely traumatized. It truck him during his previous voyage. He has been acting as the third mate aboard a ship named 'Cannibal. Quite well, he remembered that early morning when he had been in charge as the duty officer on the bridge. He could not forget it. There had been a ship in the situation as 'close quarter,' close in a collision, that unknown vessel nearly rammed his ship with her large bows as an axe ready to fall and with the terrible sound of her loud horn.

After this traumatic experience, he had settled onshore, keeping his decision; leave the sea forever. Never accept a job as the mate on board a ship anymore.

Now he was there, waiting for his turn to sign. He was going to the sea again. His mate certificate stood there because the official roll of the crew was short of the license, not short of skilful men. Therefore, he had approved the request of the ship-owner Mr. Hollow - to join the ship, only with a particular clause, which will give him the position and rank on board as an able seaman without any responsibility of the navigation.

"No problem," Mr. Hollow assured him.

"If you wish to be just as a 'metros, 'You can be a metros. 'It's only the certificate of competency I need."

He signed the engagement, which indicated him as an able seaman on board and he firmly pointed out that matter of fact for everyone.

When a man is going to sea, after been living a long time on shore with his lovely wife in their ordinal life, there must be some other reason to go to sea as the sea itself. Perhaps a man long accustomed to living daily life onshore became bored and wanted little more attention for himself. He could then wishing to take a ship and go to the danger of the seas, for, him, as a man, the sea has always been the focus of the hero worship.

There were two men left in the muster room. One was a young seaman, no more than eighteen years of his age. He was going to join as a first trip man. He was a fisherman and had made his living by fishing like a dory man on the inshore water.

The last one who was going to join aboard the vessel Renault - was not quite old either, perhaps less than forty of age. He was a man with sobers look and wealthy outlook. He became the real captain and commander on board the Renault.

He had served his time as limited skipper trade that entitled him to act as a master on board for the Baltic Sean with his home trade certificate. Now the ship bound far over the limitation. By the formally, he could declare competent on board as an able seaman only. His name was Peter, and he was nicknamed and called by his friend, Peter per mil, and with this nickname, he was well known along the coast and in the seaports. He had earned that kind of epithet by his habit to Wight a man's ability. "No worth of his salt", was heard him saying, or "it's for three per mil of man".

He had gained his reputation as the as tug master, and was coming to know as a cable man and would be able to handle ships and the men in them.

A couple of days ago the phone had ringed and the owner Mr.

Hollow had been online.

"Would you like to drive a trip by the ship little?" Mr. Hollow asked. That; trip-by ship 'sounded odd to Peter's ears. He has always thought that navigation is something else than a ride.

There was a little barrack-like hut standing nearby the dock, It was the office of the well-known ship-owner Hollow, and there was the company's arm,

The arm was there, decorated on the outer wall aside from the exterior door. The picture was made with white paint on the plate with a blue background; at once anyone could find it' been made with very dubious hands and there was curious tableau of ship's anchor with a tangle of cable, It was indefinite tangle and in the center of the figure it read, written in white letters;

"The ship-owner Mr. Hollow."

The hut was small, and so were the rooms in it.

Peter entered the small room. The room was divided into two equal portions by the inner wall. In the first room were two pale-faced women in their daily duty of the bookkeeping.

The second room was the room of the Boss.

There was a maritime calendar on the wall and a writing pad on the table.

Mr. Hollow lifted his head and waved Peter to sit down opposite the table.

Mr. Hollow was a short, lean, tiny man. He has a narrow shaped gull, weak chin with small fish eyes and sand-coloured hair. These details made him look like a commonplace doker.

.

With his watery grey eyes, he stared at Peter.

"Sit down and take off your hat. You got my ring?"

"Yes, I got it. And as you see, here I'm".

Hollow say nothing for a while. Then said:

'' I'll put you as the captain aboard. How does it sound to you?

"I don't know. Bound where?"

" For Sant Malo".

"It's a long way to go".

"If you don't want to embark, say it now. If you are not satisfied, say it now, and I will find some other".

"I have just the home trade certificate, not enough to sail out of the Baltic Sea".

"There will be not a problem at all," he said." Let's mix this pack of cards, and you will be the captain on board the Renault. Of course, formally you are an able seaman. But as I said, in practice, you act as the captain. You will have the captain's cabin and all the power."

"I don't know," Peter said with a hesitated mind.

"It sounds odd. How could you warrant that the boy will agree that all? The boy could draw

His head full and cancel all my authority, and rise one hell of a row."

"He must." the voice of the boss was firm. "The boy has been a long time here, and I know him. I cannot rely on him, nor rust the ship to him. I know the boy. The boy has had his bread from me, and he is obedient for that. We here will hold on to the rule to decide who will be the captain of our vessels.

It is me here who inform every port you will call. I will let everybody know-all agents there - that you are the captain on board. If there will arise any conflict between you and the boy, I can give my word that you can send the boy home along the ground. The boy will serve on the board as the chief mate, and you will have an able seaman as well onboard who hold the mate's receipt if you fall into a problem with the authorities. It's up to you."

The speech of the mall man was firm and purposeful; there was specific security in his speech as at the statement of a country preacher who assures that any bad things cannot touch them, who had been authorized by the Lord.

"I do it, All right". Peter said.

"You can go home now, rest overnight," Hollow added. "I can take care of the loading. There will be loading the granite up to the nine a hundred tons and timber on it five hundred tons. You come then tomorrow afternoon. The loading ought to be ready then."

Peter rose, and went out. When he closed the door behind him, he heard Hollow shouted after him. "See tomorrow!"

Peter paced his way along the quayside; he stopped for a while and lighted a cigarette. He could see Renault moored at the opposing side of the dock. She laid height with no cargo; there was bustle on the quay as the stevedoring prepared to start the loading. The short northern daylight had turned dark and the deck lights burned above the deck. A black figure of human appeared in the galley's doorway, standing there and smoking. The figure remained for a while in the door, then the cigarette blew over the side, and the human shape disappeared from the deck.

Peter continued his walk; he wanted to walk a little a bit to think, and it sounded no- good, still did not find the way. He felt a light longing for home, well knowing that he was not home anymore.

He started the motor and got the car moving: been driving for half an hour aimless without

Some thought drew him for the old home, and he nosed the car to the highway.

The house stood on the hill with snow on the steps. A woman top-not opened the door.

"You here.

"Yes, It's me."

"What spring you here?"

"I was driving past and though I could see in."

"Come in then," the woman said and held the door open.

Peter went in and tried to find out some sings of welcoming and

Kindliness expression, but there was not anything like that.

"I will sail to-morrow," Peter said.

"Good. Then you will have money for alimony."

The woman went into another room; she was a large blond female by her alto tone.

Peter sat in the kitchen while she made her up before the mirror.

There was neither coffee nor the air of familiarity.

"I'm going to have the party," the woman said from the other room.

"I have a problem with the babysitter. You are here now, so you can be the baby-sitter to-night. Take care of the boy over the night. Can you?"

Peter nodded; he had an indefinite feeling to-morrow he will be far away. When she appeared, her outlook was changed.

She now masked with a colored makeup like a harlot of

Babylon and was dressed in a black tight fitted skirt, that made her looked good, when she walked past by the table, Peter by impulse, tried to catch her, but she made an evasion. "Teak

It easy," she snapped. Peter sat and felt himself being like a residue of the past in the kitchen.

By the next day afternoon. The loading had complete, and the cargo hatches were

Closed. The vessel was lying deep in the water she seemed lies by her nose. ; twelve feet on the mark.

Upon arriving, Mr. Hollow greeted him with hail:

"You see. The ship is ready for sea. Go and tell them to be ready to start the engine. I will cast off the mooring lines so that we can pare the expenses."

When boarded Peter found a lot of lose gears laying there and here on the deck, and in the passage. There were numerous cardboard duty-free exports for the ship's crew to be used at the open sea only.

Among these gears, men were running back and fro. Peter had no time to surprise the eagerness with which Mr. Hollow arranged the departure of the ship.

"Stand by!" bawled Hollow. "Not waste time, Captain. Out she is going, and out she shall go!"

Peter climbed up to the bridge, where the helmsman stood at the wheel. He gave a command to lose the mooring and took her out from the harbor and getting underway; there was no critic nor did protest from Ginsberg who seems to approve the rule of the play.

The day was one of a northern winter day the natural daylight was gone and was replaced by electric light.

The first part of the voyage was through the western archipelago. Peter took Renault to a particular the passage cried out a specialized knowledge and was thereby obligated every outbound, and inbound vessels to keep a pilot aboard to ensure the ship's safety travelling. Peter knew that cardinal rule.

However, the waters and the passage both were familiar to him. With her steady speed on eighth knot, the ship proceeds toward the open sea.

She was loaded with the cargo of granite rocks bound for St. Milo in France, and this port of destination now lies beyond four days run.

The passage was frozen, and there was a sound of ice floes rumbling against the bow as she ran.

The young fisherman was standing at the helm on his first journey abroad. He was firm with muscle and bone, and he was as tall as sailors want to be. He held the wheel with blacksmith's hand and watched the compass with watchful eyes. Peter stood beside him, keeping an eye the channel that was looming out of the white and black field of loses ice.

In the pale dawn breaking the ship reached the open sea and the grey waves began to lift and fall her in a saw motion, making her also roll from side to side and sometimes sipped water through the scuppers to the deck.

Ginsberg took over at six o'clock in the morning; Peter remained on the wheelhouse until the daylight, and when she was clearing the last land's mark he went down into the captain's cabin to rest.

The bows nosed towards the empty grey sea ahead. The compass indicated her running almost dual south.

The forecastle head was low, and there was noise as rattle each time as the bows fell against waves and every time there could be seen a small spout as the seawater burst up from the nostril of the anchors.

Ginsberg had his watch on the bridge from six to twelve.

After the first sea day, the weather got milder, and the fog appeared, stealthily and inconspicuously as a thief in the night. Now there was one more risk, the fog blanking the sea around the ship, so tight, that the sea and the sky had plotted out and half of the ship's forecastle out of vision.

If you ever have sailed in old ships, owned by second-hand ship-owners, then you have also met a ship's brownie. It's seaman as well; usually, a low rate seaman, like an ordinary seaman or an oilier, ruined by alcohol and homelessness. In each old ship, carry in her a brownie.

Onboard, the motor vessel Renault this kind of brownie was the engine assistant. He was a pitiful man, full of woe rejected by life, inconceivable dirty and emollient by the alcohol. He was moving about by oneself, doing something in the engine room and cooking something in the ship's galley.

He was a refugee of the sea. The ship gave him refuge with the regular meals and the portion of duty-free, and in return, he had given his name to the crew list and filled the gap which prevented the ship become short-handed. Indeed-pitiable would have been a more accurate description of this man, who was unseaworthy like the ship herself.

Just like all every drunkard, he had discontent of his position aboard. By his own account, he has been long enough onboard the vessel that he should have better payment, and a better place in the internal competing hierarchy on board which are based to the rank of the man and was seasoned to the bidding of the next man above.

With her bow down the ship ran into the fog like a ragged ghost upon the calm sea, laden with blocks of rock and timber. Sure enough, there was an ominous similarity between the ship itself and the crew in her and the unique nature of the cargo as if these stones in the cargo hold were lowered there to ensure the destiny of the ship and the crew to be sure that the sea will have them before they see their home port again.

There were two men aboard this small floating world; they were two human beings with the social power and resolution of their own.

They were Peter and the fisherman to be able to resist the course of events on board. The fisherman was a man with good sociable sense and humour. He was perfect contrary for the others crew member. He performed all his duty in time and without complaints. He did not stand on the side of anybody against someone else. He was independent and courageous, what he didn't know, he asked and studied. The basis of his genotype must have been well; otherwise, he could not have been as he was.

The fifth member of the crew was the engineer. He was a man of nearly forty years of his age with a massive bulk, sluggish and flat-faced, and there was something incompatible in his attitude, there was something phlegmatic and restless at the same time. According to his 'resume,' he had been working before as a digger contractor. How he had got into a business like ship's engines, it is another story. He seemed to suffer some later identity crisis of puberty, and his body was all the time restless, and he suffered from compulsive movements.

When he stood, his legs alternated restless all the time their place.

When he sat, he jiggled his legs under the table. When he wandered

about the bridge, his fingers ran unconsciously over the clutch of

Connectors. He had a periodic of melancholia, and then he did not

Answer to a question. The feeling of nobody has tortured him through

His whole life and rotten his manhood. Everywhere he had sought a

the position where he could be better than another, and he had

continuous desire to be the boss and the commander, he felt proudly

whenever someone calls him as Chief, by the title which belongs

to the ships' chief-engineers, then he lifted his chin and was visibly

pleased for this title.

The confused internal relations of the command aboard the vessel

were well known among the crew and it was a suitable substrate to raise the oncoming problem aboard.

By the evening Peter came up on the bridge and took over the

watch. The clock was ten to six; it was already dark as it is in this

season within these latitudes. There were swells, long and low, running

from the west, Peter noticed the rolling movement of the ship, the centre of the gravity was shallow; it caused the vessel continually rolling to the right

and left like a pendulum clock.

The Matros stood at the corner of the wheelhouse; he was standing

there as a lookout, Peter could see his dark figure against the

window. Matros stir, it was just subtle movement, and he continued

to stare out of the window. There was nothing to be seen in this fog

and darkness outside the ship.

The routine on the bridge continued day and night with the same routine.

The ox-eye lamb above the chart table illuminated

the surface of the navigation chart on the table.

The grey dusk of the day had turned into the darkness with fog and

the night was pitch dark. Having written the events of the watch in the

logbook Galsber draw a small cross with pen on the chart to mean

the position the ship. After that, he stretched oneself up to see the

navigator set on the wall above the chart table. He inspected the

route-points, which he has entered there. Then he restored the navigation set to be operating on the coordination display which he well knew Peter's was going to use, with that observation he concluded that

Peter probably not want use the route-point sailing

system.

Crossing the wheelhouse, Galsber glanced at the

gyrocompass and announced the course the ship steered on, after that he went down by the ladder. Peter took over and checked the radar.

The flasher showed no ship or obstruction on the radar screen, and

then he took a look at the steering compass and stood beside it

watching it for a moment.

Outside the ship, there was anything to be seen but the waste emptiness of the sea and the fog, there was no benchmark to the human eyes, not a light neither. Peter made his routine watch form six o'clock to midnight. A few minutes later when he returned to the radar he found two pips on the screen, there were two pips of unknown ships, far ahead, the pips were faint and still in reasonable distance. He picked up the binoculars and walked out to the port wing of the bridge. The tendency for the binoculars was hard to find without the visible horizon to be fixed the binoculars through the darkness Peter couldn't find out anything. However, there was two vessels conveyance by a human.

The weather was bitter cold, and the fog got tighter and tighter. The motor vessels Aku make her way in this wet emptiness through the mist and water. Upon the calm sea, the fog and the black night and the sea, these three distinct elements became interlocked together as a single one.

During the next night, the vessel passed a bright point glowing on

the radar's display unit, it was the beacon off the southern tip of the

´Soda Udder´.

In that cold moisture nighty fog far out of the human eyes -

Out there were several small grafts on their way, to steering on a variable course, the 'pips' of them showing up like shine spots of flash

on the screen. It seems as if all the fisherman had set off

to start their work at sea at the same time. By the evening and during

the followed night those consistently place changing ´pips´ flamed up

and died as a restless swarm of fire beetle on the radar's screen. Peter

was aware that it could emerge out a blur agitated lights of an unknown vessel, then

it was too late to tell which way she was hearing any moment from this immobile blindness night

By the morning watch, the fog still exists, then a brisk breeze rose, and before high noon the area was clear. The air became clear and

visibility excellent, and there was uninterrupted sight over the sea.

After disappeared the fog there were turned out coastline with a whitewashed lighthouse and rocky shoreline in front of it, eastward the offing opened, and there could be seen clusters of fishing vessels with

their complex combinations of many colour lights still burning in a vertical file as the lights of a Christmas tree, there were the mast light of the cargo

ships as well, and somewhere down there could be seen

an exhausted flash of a buoy.

MV Refanult made her way across the busy trafficked area and the traffic pouring out of the noise of the VHF and talks between the vessels, and it was occupied by many radio messages and calling of the unseen ships. It was living life, and it means that there were people in the vicinity.

It was all right.

.

In the daily rhythm, the watches comes and goes through the

mess-room down to their cabin to rest, and back to the bridge, they

came. During the next day, MV Refanult avoids a shallow off the cape of the Geatser in which the chart showed just water deep of three meters. Then joined the line of the westbound ships made through the canal between Germany and Denmark.

The pilot of the Osteen channel sipped his café and ate his sandwich the

vessel proceed along the canal and ground either side the channel was

grey and brown and the air mild after fog and there wasn't the white coldness of the Northern shores .

"What cargo you are carrying?" the pilot asked, watching

attentively the vessel in ahead.

"The stones," Peter said. "Granite. Nine a hundred tons for St.

Malo."

The pilot shook his head. "It's a bad place this time in a year, indeed.

It was a few years ago as we lost our both anchor out there in a storm;

It was blowing directly from the Atlantic. It was a horrible night out

there."

This saying he rose and glanced forward, "She seems to be a little bit

on her nose down. Way?"

"The cargo placed too much fore," Peter answered.

"Ah, I see."

Refanult was laying engine stopped for an awhile secured in the clock gate waiting for the flood change. Standing on the bridge, Peter saw how someone was moving on the deck below. Peeping down over the edge of the

windbreaker he saw Galber accompanied with the engine assistant,

coming along the main deck. They have been on the quay and were now

on the way back to ship; they carried something between them. Without question, Peter knows the contents of that case, sure

enough, there was a lot of problem in it.

Off the estuary of the Elbe river, You encounter the flat muddy coast to

the northward, and the other side of the extensive mouth of the

river unfolded to the south, and there is the bank between the Elbe and

the Wesser, running westward with the regular flat landscape, during the

Slow water with the mud covering beaches. Within this extensive

Delta of two rivers there could be those sifting sandbanks on the seabed, fog, tide stream, and dense traffic. When the weather gets bad and the Northwest to blows it makes choppy and high sea off the coast

and there is no refuge for seafaring, like in the Baltic sea wherein

spite of howling blizzard and moving field of ice, an excellent seaman who know well the coastal waters, could find shelter and lee shore anywhere along the west coast of Baltic sea.

Peter took Refanult out of the clock and joined the

outgoing queue of the ships. There were incoming and outgoing ships

on their way, small and large ones, from every continent, flying

flags of all nationals. Some of the vessels came near enough to read

their name, and one came up to stern keeping close company, 'Sea

bird'Peter read the name of a ship on astern; there was also a big

one lining among the oncoming ships, it was an old-fashioned 'Victor', a turbo steamer with her every boom hoisted and rigged up. Peter surveyed the ship on the river. She was a magnificent sight with her hight funnel and the staunch masts, a view from those years when the Orient still was the mystic east, and the ships could lie there for weeks loading and unloading their cargoes.

The Victor was in ballast riding high up of water. Peter was

watching this magnificent ship, as there were footsteps in stair and the

engine assistant appeared in wheelhouse moving with falter

steps, staring into space ahead leaned forward supporting himself

against the console panel.

"It's hell, that I must every time come up to deck" he began

grumble, "I am the engine man, a man from the engine room, not 'deckie'.

Whenever this ship arrives a dock or a lock, someone comes

down and rouse me up, and turned out, to tie up the ship. It's no my job. You are the captain. Aren't you, or not? Do something for that, and say them that they mustn't come to disrupt me any more."

"She is flying the Panamanian flag," Peter said, watching the

the ship, without paying any attention at the engine assistant.

By the afternoon, the wind veered to the south-west and strengthened, causing more seawater over the bow. It was this time as Peter used his captain's power onboard giving the order little before supper, that all that

stuff boarded in the lock gate - must be brought into captain's

cabin, to be shut there in the cupboard. There was a debate when

Peter was out of sight and out of ears shot. The engine assistant said:

"What this is? Are we children whom after he have a look? I've ever

heard anything like that."

"But he is the captain," the fisherman said.

"He is the captain today," the engineer said. "Better, if we take

the command from him. We have Galsber, and I prefer him." the chief engineer said.

Rests of the crew present in meeting remained silence; Galsber sat

among them saying not a word. But he protested against the new

rule, by smelling of alcohol in his next watch on the bridge.

Spite of these protests, along the day, there were gathered heap

of bottles with colours label in the captain saloon.

I was at midnight; just when Galsber was ended entering his route-points into his so loving and so devoted navigator set, the light went out.

Briefly, after that, the loud din of the main engine cased and there

was no more the struck of the propeller to be felt under the soles. The

silent decanted over the ship. Mack, the main engine, the iron heart of the ship has stopped.

Silence came suddenly and without warning. There was now another kind of noise to be heard.

When your ears have accustomed to the noise of the main engine, there is no possible heard the sea.

Now there was the sound of the seas, and of the helpless ship, the sound of the wind and plashing of the water and moaning of the hull.

Within a few minutes, the living ship had turned into a drifting hulk.

All these natural sound of the sea sounded eerie and strange into the ears of the motorship mariners.

The bow was walling off the wind, and she began to make

heavy rolling and to drifting same time to leeward. The wind struts through the open door into the wheelhouse. Peter returned to the bridge.

"What happen?" he asked.

"Blackout," Ginsberg said.

Peter glanced at the clock, and it was twenty past eleven at midnight.

A noise of the bows waves of an unknown ship sounded from the

dark sea.

"We must hoist up the oil light 'The ship is not under Command'.

From below trough of the skylight from the unlighted

the engine room came the rash sound of the hand pump.

"Bloody fool, they are forgotten filled the day tank".

After fifteen minutes, the light comes on; the main engine now

started with a dull cough. A hundred revolutions at first, then two

hundred, the indicator in the wheelhouse showed how the needle

stands up to two hundred and fifty revolutions. The hull began to shake

with a familiar pulse, and the bow nosed the course. The ship was

returned to her orbit pushing by the rotating screw.

The engineer came on the bridge; he was breathless and without

saying any word he went through the wheelhouse out to the

starboard wing, after a moment he was back into wheelhouse. His

fat face glistened with sweat," It 's no good," he said.

"He gave me an empty day tank. Bloody Brownie." he didn't speak, particularly to nobody.

"I must mention the matter to Mr Hollow. Here need a real man,

not a berry picker. Then he glanced presents. "Yes, here your standing

about, but there in the engine room is the work to be done, that I will

say. Without the scale of ranks, we toil away. Of course, the captain

on board is next to the God, but without engine the ship not move

You're nowhere without the engine. I am the man who takes care of engines. I take care of them more than I have taken care of myself." This saying he went town

angrily, letting behind him a strong smell of diesel oil.

"A curse is following this ship and the men here too." Peter

murmured.

Twenty past seven in the morning, Peter sipped coffee from a

porcelain mug, supporting oneself on the edge of the chart table. He looked

through the open door out to the limitless open sea, where grey

waves rise and fall, in their endless motion. There was the wintry North Sea.

Waves were breaking over the bow.

The bow was more sunken. Peter knew the reason for it ;

The chain lockers were flooding; they were full of the spatters of water coming in through the pipes. Those should have closed and secured before the ship got off the port. He cursed himself for having been so careless. Now it was too late. He got the idea set the speed in slow and to turn the crew out to make empty the lockers with a bucket. Still, then he remembers the command relations which dominant on board the ship, and it was the matter which alarmed him more than anything else, and he saw the headline: An a/b acting as captain.

A/B captain with no certificate of competence appointment by the company.

There was a big container at a distance of about half a mile. She was

hearing on the parallel course pushing her way through the seas with high speed

Peter picked up the phone and turned the VHF on 16 then called

the container,

" What I can do for you?" was the answer, the voice

clear and purposeful.

"The weather report," Peter said. "I would like to check

the weather forecast. Could I have the last one.?"

"Just a moment. Here it comes."

The male voice pronounces the weather report. The report was delivered with the words clear like a newscaster at the TV set; the voice told that during nearest hours, there would be expected to be increasing Nw. up to seven, with the Gale warning. Showers. Visibility medium.

Peter tanked the officer on the bridge of the passing ship and hung

up the phone.

There was a presentiment in his mind. He felt worried about the

oncoming nigh. The weather wasn't bad, no even foul, but he thought that

worse was coming. The ship's company and the disrepair of the ship,

all these things get subject to thinking, he knew by instinct that there

would be difficult before the ship arrives in the destination.

A ship was coming distance at four miles, Peter bowed down over

the autopilot and altered the course to starboard. The metros from the lookout position gave him a surprised look. "You give way so early."

"Yes better give way too early than too late," Peter said.

"Ginsberg let a ship to come close, in a range of two miles. Then

to turn, not until they are close enough to read the name on their bows ." the metros said and kept on the lookout.

"It's his habit and very dangerous, if you get some awkward position it will be too late to do anything to avoid the collision," Peter said.

"May by," the metros said in a slow voice. Then added "When it happened to

me, then I even don't saw the ship, until she was on the port side, too

close to do anything."

Peter leant his forehead against the window and looked down to

the deck, he was tired in the legs, he glanced the at his watch: it was

half pat twelve, he had been on the bridge know nearly twelve hours,

twelve-hour more and there will be the ETA and Port of destination.

The voyage, however, it had gone rather fast; although the first part of voyage was badly fogged.

.

The north-west coast of France belong to there area of European

where exist unusually large tide variations and within these areas were

calculated 12-13 m altering changes. The sea off the west coast of Calentin on the Cherbourg peninsula in Normandy, France percipience man sprin tidal ranges of 9,3 -11,4 m.

The Channel Islands embankment is cut by several small estuaries locally called 'harvest' in the Chanal Islands embankment. The tidal waves propagating eastward from the Atlantic Ocean is reflected by the north-south orien coast of Cotentin generating a standing tidal wave within the Mouth St Michel Bay where the maximum pring tidal attains up to 15 m.

There could exist powerful whirls, and the tide streams change the direction by the daily schedule. The highest spring tide will occur after

full or new moon, which is in perigee near the Equinoxes of December.

The wind was strengthening and blew now with damp

from Atlantic against the coast. It was twenty-seven day of the lunar

month and ebb was turning to rise.

Peter switched off the light of the

cart table; he turned around to look outward through the

square window. His glance directed over the ship's head. He

saw there before his eyes a weak reflex of the function light of the radio

attracted on the back wall of the wheel-house. When his eyes accustomed into the darkness, he could see a white subtle undulating stripe above

the bow. He thought them being the seagulls which usually wheeled

in the air above the ships in the vicinity of the coast. The gulls seemed to risen more up. Then there was the undulating brush of the wave to be seen clearly through the window.

With the beating heart, he rushed towards the power adjustment control.

"Half speed" he exclaimed!" Half speed!"

At the same time out of the corner of his eye, he could see how

the white surge submerged the bow; the crash slung his against

the fisherman who stood at the wheel. By the power of the bump, the

door of the wheel-house burst off from its hinges and as if a sing of the

last-judgment, it was slung with a terrible noise down on the deck,

added to the deafening chaos of sound. Within those past speeding seconds, more by his instinct than by his knowledge, Peter knew that the ship's bow was getting down,

dangerously down,-She is going under like a submarine, a fearful

thought stuck in his mind.

The wave rushed over the deck, tumbling over the cargo hatches

and splashed against the aft structure.

Faces appeared in the companion fearful faces. "What the matter up there?" a voice cried. Under reverse thrust of the wave the ship was slowing nearly to a stop, she made no headway.

"The 'spring'," Peter said, "Tide wave", he felt how his mouth became dry.

Under the foaming water was loomed out the frames of the cargo hatches

and there came up the main deck as well, with a hissing noise, seawater

Poured through the wash-ports, back to sea. The ship was afloat her

bow more lean down, but she remained afloat with her new waterline

just a little under the main deck line, there was not freeboard any

more.

Men were gathered in the wheel-house. Ginsberg began to set his

route point into navigation set.

"We are going eastward," he said.

"Yes I know, there is a current. Keep steady as she is going. There

is the tide running against the wind, there is severe swell out there."

She lay with a slight list to starboard. The starboard side was now the

weather side, and over the lowered rail, the sea tumbled and swept

the deck. A solitary light was seen; it was a light of a lighthouse, far

away erected on a high cliff.

"There is water in the cargo hold," said Peter. "Lot of water, I think.

Somebody must go down there." He tried to dispossess out of the thought that the ship will sink under the water, and the crew get into the cold sea, fighting for their life, and finally, their spiritless body to be found somewhere on a muddy bank.

"Must check the hold?" he said,

the idea goes down into the gloomy flooded cargo hold did not inspire

much nobody. Peter found the torch and went down to the main

deck. The wet wind hit his face and jerked his parka. He advanced

cautiously along the deck, keeping an eye the over rail breaking

waves. Following by the side of the cargo hatches, he made forwards. Having

checked the secured of hatches he lighted the edge, there were all

ok. A roaring wave came from darkness breaking over the rail to

deck; he took hold of the chain which shackled the hatches together.

Although he has been out at sea almost all his life, or therefore, being

stooped, folded doubly, seeking shelter against the seas and the water

sweeping over the deck, he couldn't resist the fear that creeps upon him.

It was more than likely that the ship and the crew were in danger.

The waterline of the hull was just beneath the main deck line, and

the waves were regularly washing the deck, but he knew there was

still buoyancy. The sprays swept the deck, and the wind howled. The bow lifted and wall.

Even where he stood, he could be heard the heavy was of

water in the cargo hold.-A horrible menacing sound.

Between the comings of the cargo hatches at the fore-end the aft structure, there was the small high collar man's shutter, this small man's hole gives access to the cargo hold and through this hatch lead a vertical narrow iron ladder below into cargo hold. Peter

opened the hatch and let himself, through the shutter down into the dark

hold. Standing on the weed deck, he lighted the dark cargo hold in

front of his, in the pale light of torch was seen the cargo: these big blocks

of stones laying on the bottom of the cargo hold. The top of the rocks reached hardly up to the level of the weed deck. The floor was flooding; there was a black water wiring between the s blokes. It

was seawater, a lot of water. The flooding streas through the cargo, from left to right rushing with high wave back and forth. It was a terrifying sight.

Standing there a while, he could hear the waves beaten over the

deck above his head. He could listen to a dull bang when the wave hit over

hatches and every time water was running into the hold by small

cascades.

Peter directed the spotlight upward the cargo hatches, there was a leak, between the hatches.

The ship heeled to the board side, the water in the cargo hold tumbled to the left, the rain fell to the amidships and from there right. Then the ship straightened and pounded the bow against a new wave; the water splashed and buzzed.

From this, Peter was sure that the centre of gravity was low so, that if the ship will go down, she would go down upright.

Standing there in the dark cargo hold, he felt passing panic willing to retreat and give some else to take care of the ship and the lives on her, he had the feeling like a people get lost in the fire and smoke, didn't find the way out, and urge came to him; to hide himself. But he climbed up and went to the bridge. "There is

water in the hold," he said. "It must pump out. Where's the

engineer?"

"Here" was heard from the obscure corner of the wheel-house."

For a man who usually slow to obey orders, the engineer was made

off now with remarkable hurry. There was heard a doors slam below

as he goes. After fifteen minutes, he was back. He was smudging his

face with dirt, and he reported that there was no possibility to pump water from the cargo hold" It's will no go," he said." There must be some blockage because there is in pipe enough but it will not to run."

"Did you tried from the fore well."

"Yes I've done all there, but nothing comes out from there. She is

doomed."

Peter thought the matter over. "There are empty ballast tanks

under the cargo hold, he said." On the tank top there are the hatches,

one of them is far enough in the aft, and there is no cargo above the hatch there.

must get open the man- hatch and the water must let go into tank from the hold, it's

tank number three, and we pump it out by the ballast

pump."

"Who will get there," the engineer asked. "not me at least."

Galster seemed not to understand Peter's idea, for pumping the

water via deep tank.

"I am the decision-maker...I make the...have to call help, to

somebody must come" he was got drunk, and his voice was thin and

high-pitched. The half bottle of vodka was still on the chart table. All

men standing in the dusk wheelhouse were struck by the

typical passive which tends giggled them who got in this kind of

emergency and which is rather common at a disaster at sea. And there was a smell, unusual smell, it' wasn't only smell of human sweat, it was more; it was the smell of the fear.

"Who will come with me?" Peter asked.

"I will," said the fisherman.

With tools, they get down into cargo hold. Peter went ahead down,

on the bottom, the storm-tossed water touch up his waist. He

saw how the fisherman behind him descended steadily into water. It

was cold, and there was drifting stuff on the surfaces of the water as

a part of the wooden floorboard, and the buoyancy of water lifted loose litter. Peter tried to feel the underwater hatch's cover by his feet,then his right foot hit on a regular-shaped column of bolts. He bowed deep down, tried now to feel it by his hand. There was around him

the dark large cargo hold like some morbid tunnel, with all those noises; booms

of waves stir of water, which sounded like a warning of a future event.

There was continues undulating motion in the water. His hand didn't

reach the bolts. "They are twenty-two millimetre," he said to the

fisherman behind him. "Pass me the spanner." He joined the

extension arm to the bush ring, then he waiting for the wave

rolling towards bows, then he bowed down and adapted the spanner

to the first nut, it was the last moment, before the water came back,

buried him deep into the water, yet he was able to revolve the nut and

he felt by his fingers how the nut moved off under the water.

Then the nut slipped off and Peter changed-over to next. The fisherman behind him saw Peter half-buried in the water. The water in the spotlight looked like a dingy drain and there on the surface were floating rubbish. Suddenly the cargo hold got a swing, and the water escaped with hell for leather, first to left and after-wards to the right, involuntarily the fisher directed the light towards the noise. Peter ceased his work and looked the unusual stir there in the eerie cargo hold, he avoid faced to the fisherman, he was afraid

that fisherman could know or see something that he couldn't

know, but nothing happened and they resumed the work, decide to ignore any more the course of events around.

"Twenty-fourth nuts," Peter said. "It's the last one" he felt how the

cold water pushed and bulled back and forth his legs, and the flowing water made numb his hands. "Now," he said" It should get open" he spoken slow, calming for the nerve

of himself and the fisherman, he kept talking. "Usually it's tight, and now

there is water above it, top of it. Pass me the driver" the fisher handed

the diver over. Peter felt about by hand and found the edge there below he pushes the diver between cover, and the side of the coming. He felt it up, and there was a small motion. After a brief moment, he straightened himself. "No, succeed. There is a heavy metre of water

on top it. Go up to ween deck and find a spade There in the rear of ween-deck should find spades. Get it here." The fisherman started to climb up to the half-deck and there was heard the creak of metal against the deck plates and from

that Peter knew that the fisherman have found the spade. The fisherman plodded through the water, his pale face's expression was earnest.

He asked nothing he obeys each command of Peter without

question trusting his master blindly. "To take up your positions here,

opposite me." Peter guided him. "Then we will together at the same time,

to wrench the hatch open. Are you ready? It must get out from the

bolts at same time, there is a hell of a counterforce."

They struggled against the suction power, tip of spades slipped,

then there on the surface was seen small dell and there was born a

swirl on the surface. "Its open now. Let go from here."

They hurried up and went to the bridge. There were no one, the

wheel-house was empty of men. They paced through the

command bridge still didn't found nobody.

"Where have all they gone?" Peter said in wonder. "To check

there below" The fisher went down. For a while he dashed by the

ladder back up to bridge, " No one there below".

"What a hell."

There was life saving box on the floor, it was open. The general

picture of the case began perceived to Peter. The bumps of a wave

reach his ears from the deck. "We haven't the time now think about

that. Keep her as she is going. I must get down into the engine room."

In the engine room the light were on and the six cylinders main

engine ran slow, the huge engine's valves follower raised and fall in

weaving rhythm. Peter descented down along the iron ladder. Easily he

found there the switchboard of the pipe and pumping lines and, he

started the ballast pump, then he found up the distribution panel of the

pipe lines. There were many valve control with brass plate, read the

plates and he found tank No 3 there were two calves, one for in pipe and

one for out, without delay he opened both two. The indicator above

the pipe line bounced up, the quivery finger indicated vacuum in the

in pipe tube, but not drop of water in there. On his knees

he began followed the pipeline along by hand he followed it until it

rose up to the outer edge there was a valve. The valve was closed.

When the valve was open he could felt how tube became cold, there

the water speeded by from tank to sea. He make sure that the water really ran out , then he return to the bridge. "Its work, the pump will

working full one and a half thousand litre water out" The fisherman

looked at the boat deck, then gave him a worried look "They have

taken the life raft," he said.

"Yes I see, they had fall into panic and abandoned the ship.

"But the life raft was only one. What then if.... "

"Don worry" Peter said calming. "The pump is working the

water out, it will be all right here after couple hours."

"Some one there was call us by radio, during the time you was

there in the engine room."

Now when the situation there aboard was under control

Peter began to think this new situation. "We have let they know there

in the rescue centre that we had lost the men."

He picked up the VHF. The rescue centre came on line

immediate: What is going there aboard? A German ship reported picking

up you men from life raft. All them so drunk that only one was able

to stand. One of them to insist being the captain. How many men you

have there aboard now?" Peter glanced at the fisherman. "Three" he

said, "Here is everything all right."

"Are you sure?" The rescue centre asked."We have send a copter there"

"Yes. A am. Our ETA will be early in the morning"

"Thank you for information. The chopper and tug is on the way,

keep in touch with us."

"We don need any tug here" Peter said with impatient.

"In any rate they are on the way."

The ship made fast progress. The course through the waves was

now decidedly lighter hour after hour.

"Did I hear rightly. They said, there was picked up three men?"

Peter asked suddenly.

"You don't mean to say that-" the fisherman look at Peter.

"Yes I mean to say that one of them could be somewhere here.

Get down and check the downstairs."

The fisherman was back within five minutes.

"You are right, the matros is sleeping in his cabin in dead drunk.

The end