A Twist of Sand

It is in moments like this that the sailor feels his rapprochement with his craft. The mould of iron, the grain of wood, takes on life as the sea seeks to wrest from it the stuff of its being which man has fashioned. The sea,on its remorseless anvil seeks to redesign. The sailor, and the sailor only, is the witness of that elemental forging, the fight for a new pattern. The man of the sea expresses it simply: "She was like a thing alive." The whip of strained steel, the near-breaking strain of rope and recalcitrant wood challenge the sea. It is a titan's battle. In those moments a man's love of his ship is born and he hears with pain the rendings of that dreadful accouchement.

A brief glimpse showed me the aftermast canted over and buckled about five feet above the deck. John, up to the chest in water, was hacking at the wire and rigging screws which, fortunately, were secured on the bridge abaft the funnel. The stern tilted, but it seemed to have more life in it. Above the din I heard the thuds of the axe. If only the stays would part!   The mast would then go overboard and she might right herself.   From the foredeck came screams and shouts from the crew. The axe thudded. With a twang like a huge banjo-string the last of the stays parted. It was followed by a rending, tearing, sickening noise which seemed as if half her stern had gone with the mast.  Through my hands on the spoke I felt the slight lightening of Etosha's burden of death and then a living movement as the powerful screws thrust. The bow was angled high and the list seemed beyond human power to right.  A second later, by the great power of the diesels, I felt she might live if she could only shake herself free.   I knew then how my great-grandfather had felt -- the story had come down to me as a boy -- when the fine-lined clipper he was driving round the Cape of Storms under a great press of sail put her yacht-like counter under the wild seas and he alone had saved her as the water towered over her mizzen chains by cutting adrift the halliards and rigging with his own hands.

Like a cork out of a bottle, Elosha leapt free, shedding astern the debris of the mast, stays, boats and stern fittings. Sea and spray cleared. But we had not escaped. Dead ahead, not more than fifty yards, lay a smoking, new-born islet. Beyond was the open sea. The waves out there were white-crested, and, dear God! under them was deep water. A welter of white broke over the shoal -- astern. No power could save Etosha now. Her gallant fight for life with the huge wave had not saved her. But as the sickening realisation hit me, I saw in a flash that the smoking islet, steam-crested, was not the one I had originally noted when Etosha made her great bid for safety. It was new, reared in the few minutes of our travail. As far as the eye could see to starboard now Etosha was hemmed in, cut off from the sea by the advancing, inexorable, ever-growing number of islets. The coast had laid a deadly trap.

Etosha checked and I was thrown forward against the wheel and fetid heat rose about me. I waited for the strike which would rip her plating like calico. But it did not come. She lurched slowly ahead, losing speed. Strangely-coloured flames rose and I saw the paint blister. Another lurch -- ú she was cutting through the soft, red-hot mud, as yet un-hardened in the sea! Through the steam, a ship's length away, lay open water. She slowed more and struggled tiredly. The heat and the steam nearly suffocated me. I saw a wave sweeping in from seawards. Etosha was almost at a standstill. Then her bows lifted under the sea. The screws screamed as they rose out of the viscous, turgid mud and bit into water -- blessed, salt scawater. She surged clear of the nauseating embrace towards the open sea.

Automatically I rang the telegraph -- "Half ahead."

Etosha made her way west -- to safety.

John joined me at the wheel, grinning, axe in hand.

"Fried fish for dinner," he said laconically.

"We'll have to open up the hatches and see how much is spoiled," I replied. But I intend to get clear of this bloody part of the world first."

"She was magnificent," said John warmly.

"Much damage astern?" I asked.

"A complete shambles. The mast and boats are gone and the davits are as curly as a Hottentot's topknot."

"Where's Jim?" I asked. "Take the wheel a moment while I see how the crew's fared."

John's face clouded. "Crew!" he sniffed. "Bloody lot of frightened savages. Do you think one of them stirred a hand to help me? They hung on to anything they could find and prayed for their souls -- if they have such a thing."