THE CAPTAINS

The covert art from Marek Sarba art

Preface

There are many stories from the sea. From many epoch, from the sails to the steam and the motors, but just one fashion of men, the sea is everywhere the same, the work aboard is the same, the men in the ship are the same.

TWO CAPTAINS OF

REFANULT

By Harry Tobin.

As a matter of principle, I had changed the names of all the characters in this story.

Chapter one

Ginsberg was around thirty; he was slim and tall with a pale complexion. He liked vodka, and he liked beers, he enjoyed every kind of drinks. Those drinks have made him so susceptible that after a few beer bottles; he was unable to recognize which colour an oncoming ship's navigation lights were showing.

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

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

The document and the honourable title of the certificate of competence had given him pieces of bread then and now. However, lost his captain ticket was in danger when he had run into an incident that led to the risk of losing his ticket.

The episode took place in the domestic waters 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 and got drunk. Then he disappeared.

How long time he had been out of the wheelhouse, there is no knowledge, before the dekie' at helm got worried and after slowing down, the engine started with confusing mind hooting and calling in his skipper.

Ginsberg had been hiding in the barge's stern, and there he slept when they found him.

The deckman now with a confused mind hailed help from the pleasure boat around He also had gulped up half a bottle of vodka and could do nothing.

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

However, after inquiry, the National Board of Navigation - considered shelving his ticket, which didn't prevent him from servicing onboard as an ordinary sailor.

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 have 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 shared sense of drunken comradeship.

It was a winter when Ginsberg had his ticket returned and got a sign on a ship as the master; the vessel was a coaster and bore a biblical name, Refanult.

The muster took place in a room of the port admiration. It was a formal and respected occasion for a seagoing crew.

His documents in his hand, wearing his 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 winter when a northern could blow for days causing trouble at the sea offering hard work in the shipping business and the seafarers.

An extreme change could occur over the sea, with all kinds of change of the weather. It could have been freezing hard during night and ice growing on the ship's antennas and rails with a white mantle, by evening the cold could break down. Then there was the fog, spreading over the sea and coast.

MV Refanult was a local coaster owning by a little man named Hollow. She was a bit over a thousand tons of capacity and has fitted with old techniques and provided with poor stores.

According to the ship's classing classifications, she had licensed to sail near the coast only.

The surveyor omitted the safety - making his engagement for the seaworthiness to the muster roll in the shipowner's compliance Mr Hollow who demanded that the ship should be with the stamps proving the ship seaworthy for the voyage.

The surveyor was well aware of her limitations. Still, 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 going to join.

A man, about thirty, solid build in his prime, stood there upright with his mate's certificate in his pocket.

The man was a matron. Despite his gloomy outlook, and fixed stare, which made you think he was angry - he was very obedient to rule. One might know that there was a haunting shadow in his immature mind; it has a link to his experience at sea. He has traumatised during his previous voyage, been the third mate aboard a ship named 'Cannibal.' he well remembered that early morning when he had been in charge as the duty officer on the bridge. He couldn't forget it. There had been an unknown ship in the situation as 'close quarter,' close in a collision, that unidentified vessel nearly rammed his ship with her enormous bow like 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 standing there waiting for his turn to sign. He was going to the sea again. His mate certificate stood there because the official roll was short of the license, not short of skilful men. He had approved the shipowner's request, to join the ship, only with a particular clause that will give him the position and rank on board as an able seaman with no navigation responsibility.

"No problem," Mr Hollow assured. "If you wish to be just as the 'metros, 'you can be the matrons. 'It's only the certificate of competency I need."

He signed the engagement, which showed 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 living a long time n shore with his lovely wife, in their regular life, there must be some other reason to go to sea than the sea itself. Perhaps a man long accustomed to living daily life, onshore became bored and wanted a little more attention for himself. He could then wish 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 hero worship.

There were two men left in the muster room. A young fellow, an ordinary seaman, only eighteen years of his age, would join as a first trip man. He was a fisher and had made his living by fishing on the coastal water.

The last one who would join aboard the vessel Refanult - wasn't old either, perhaps less than forty of age. He was a man with sobers look and a wealthy outlook. He became the actual Captain and commander on board the Refanult.

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. He possesses the advantage of having been brought up to the sea and worth to his employer. Now the ship bound far over the limitation. By the formal, he could declare competent on board as a mate only. His name was Peter, and his friend had nicknamed and called him Peter per mile, and with this nickname, he was well known along the coast and in the seaports. He had gained his reputation as the tug master and was well known to be a cable man and could handle ships and the men in them.

Two days ago the phone rang and the owner Mr Hollow had been online.

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

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

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

In this room were all the bookkeeping documents and all the paper needed to run the ship management, the other room which was the room of the boss and manager; was, almost empty.

There was a calendar hanging 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 skull, a weak chin with small fish eyes and sand-coloured hair.

With his watery grey eyes, he stared at Peter.

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

"Yes, I got it".

Peter sat, saying nothing for a while.

"I am going to put you aboard the Refanult as the Captain. How does it sound to you?" Hollow said.

"I don't know. Boud where?"

"For Sant Malo".

"It's a long way".

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

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

"There will be not a problem," Hollow said."

Let's mix this pack of cards, and you will be the Captain on board Refanult. Formally you are an able seaman, but you are the Captain. You will have the Captain's cabin and all the power."

"I don't know," Peter said. How you guarantee that the boy will agree that all? The boy could draw.

his head full and cancel all my authority and raise 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.l I can't trust the ship to him. The boy had got his bread from here. He will be obedient to that. We here will hold the rule to decide who will be the Captain on our vessels. I will inform every Port you will call. I will let everybody know 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 soil ground, by the birth's way. The boy will serve on the board as the chief mate, and you will have an able seaman as well onboard who holds the mate's receipt if you fall into a problem with the authorities. It's up to you."

The small man' was speech firm and purposeful; there was specific security in his speech like a country preacher's statement who assures that any nasty things cannot touch them, who Lord has authorised.

"I will Do it, all right," Peter said.

"You can go home now, to rest overnight," Hollow added. "I can take care of the loading. There will load 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 you tomorrow."

Peter paced his way along the quayside, then stopped for a while and lighted a cigarette. He could see the Refanult moored at the opposing side of the dock. She stood height with no cargo, and there was a bustle on the quayside as the stevedoring prepared to start the loading. The short northern daylight had turned dark, and the deck lights shone above the deck. A black figure of human appeared in the galley's doorway, and there was a weak glow of a cigarette. The man 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 to think and work out the kinks that worried his mind still didn't find the way out.

The wages were meagre. However, it wasn't the worst thing that worried him. The crew, how they will take and accept the new arrangement.

The crew gets the payments. And the whole thing did not surprise peter m. Sauntering, he came up to his car. He sat while, unable to decide where he wanted to drive to.

He started the motor and got the car moving, driving for half an hour aimlessly. Some thought drew him for the old home, and he nosed the car to the highway.

The house was there on the hill with snow on the porch. A woman with her top-not opened the door.

"You here.?

"Yes, It's me."

"What brought 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 sign of welcome or

kindliness expression, but there wasn't anything like that.

"I will sail tomorrow," Peter said.

"Good. Then you will have for alimony."

The woman went into another room; she was a large blond female with

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. A boy age of five came out of the room, wobbling across the floor, went up to the door and started struggled with the door handle.

"I will have a party," the woman said from the other room. "I have a problem with the babysitter. You are here now, so you can be the babysitter night. Take care of the boy over the night. Cn'n. you?"

Peter nodded, he had a fuzzy feeling, and with a disappointed, he wished to run away - far away, somewhere off from this nerve-wracking ambience in which he strongly felt been as a strange visitor.

When she appeared from the other room, her outlook has changed.

She now masked with coloured makeup like a harlot of Babylon and dressed in a black tight fitted skirt, that made her looked promising. When she walked past 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.

It was already past high noon as Peter drove his car back to the Port. The loading had completed, and the cargo hatches closed, the Krimson's mark sunken in water. She seemed to lie by her nose and the white-painted draft marks' just looming above the water. Arriving in the Port Mr Hollow greeted him.

"You see. The ship is ready for sea. Or perhaps Hollow knew nothing about such a task as loading the cargo. The ship wasn't sea-shape at all. When boarded the ship Peter could see a lot of loose gears laying there and here on the deck, and in the passage, and there were on the floor of the Captain's cabin there was plenty of stuff,many cardboard cases from the ship-chandler which contained the duty-free export for the ship's crew to use 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 the ladder up to the bridge. He gave a command to lose the mooring. The Refanulta cast off and backed away from the gauy and took around and out from the harbour; there was no critic during that operation, no protest from Ginsberg who seems to approve the play's rule. She headed between the mainland and two small islets and continued across the little offing.

The day was one of those northern winter days when there is not enough natural light to see the lane in ice, and the lamps must burn night and day. The initial part of the voyage leads through the icy western archipelago.

A passage through the rocky archipelago demanded special knowledge and obligated every outbound and inbound vessels to keep a pilot aboard to ensure the ship's safety. Peter knew the cardinal rule. However, the waters and the passage were familiar. He knew the way. With the steady speed of an eighth knot, Refanult proceeds toward the open sea, loaded with the cargo of granite rocks bound for St. Malo in France, this Port of a destination now lies beyond four days run.

There was a sound of ice floes rumbling against the bow as she puss her bow through the water.

The young fisherman had had the first wheel watch 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 a blacksmith's watching the compass with watchful eyes. Peter stood aside, keeping an eye on the channel that loomed out of the white and black field of loses ice.

In the pale dawn, the ship reached the open sea, and the grey waves lifted and fell 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 in the wheelhouse until the daylight, and when she was clearing the last land's mark, he went down into the Captain's cabin for rest. The bows nosed towards the empty grey sea ahead.

The compass was showing her running almost dual south.

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

Gingerg 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 surrounding sea so tense, 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 an old ship, owned by second-hand shipowners, then you could have met a ship's brownie. It's a seaman, usually a low rate seaman, an ordinary seaman or an oilier ruined by alcohol and homelessness. Almost in every old ship carries in here a ship's brownie.

Onboard, the motor vessel Refanult, this kind of brownie was the engine assistant. He was a pitiful man full of woe, rejected by life, inconceivable dirty and emollient by drunkenness and smokiness. He could move about there and her doing something in the engine room and sometimes cooking something in the ship's galley.

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

He was the dweller of the ship. And just like all drunkard, he was discontent in his position aboard.

By his own account, he has been long enough onboard the vessel that he should have received better paid and a better position in this internal competing hierarchy on board - that occur and haunt in all this kind of establishment in which malcontents spend their time with their mutual proportion and where all the social relations are tied to the official rank of the man and was deferring to next 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 a sinister similarity between the ship itself and the crew and the unique nature of the cargo as if these stones in the cargo hold to ensure the destiny of the ship and the crew in her, 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. Two human beings with social power and by the will of their own, so it might be enough to save the biblical cities of Sonoda and the Gomoda from their destruction.

They were Peter and the fisher.

With resolute minds and by sheer will of their own, they could resist the course of events on board. The fisherman was a healthy mind and solidly built. He was contrary the other crew members. He did all his duties 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 learn. The basis of his genotype must have been well; otherwise, he couldn't 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 massive bulk, sluggish and flat-faced, and there was something incompatible in his being. It 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's another story. He seemed to suffer some later identity crisis like puberty, and his body was restless, and he sustained compulsive movements.

When he stood, his legs restlessly shifted their places all the time. When he sat, he jiggled his legs under the table. When tumbling about the bridge, his fingers ran unconsciously over the clutches on the panel. He seemed suffering of periodical melancholy, and then he did not make an answer to a question. The feeling of nobody has tortured him through his entire life and had rotten his manhood. Everywhere he had sought a position where he could be better than another, and he had a continuous desire to be the boss and the commander. Whenever he was called 'Chief', he felt proud of the title.

These internal relations of the commands aboard were among the crew, and it was a suitable ground to raise the oncoming problem aboard.

During the next evening of the departure, Peter came up on the bridge and took over the watch. The clock showed ten to six; it was already dark as it is in the wintertime on these latitudes. There was a long and slow westerly swell running, making the ship heavily rolling.

Peter noticed the ship's rolling movements, the centre of the gravity was shallow; it caused the vessel to continually rolling to the right and left like a pendulum clock.

At the watch changing time, the Matros stood at the wheelhouse's corner; he stood there as a lookout man, his black figure against the window. Matros stir, it was just a subtle movement, and he kept on

staring 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 in the same way. Above the chart table, the ox-eye lamb made an illuminated patch on the cart's surface on the table.

The grey dusk of the day had turned into the darkness with fog, the night was pitch dark. Having written the watch's events in the logbook Ginsberg draw a small cross with a pen on the chart to mean the position of the ship. After that, he stretched 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 restores the 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 could not utilize the waypoint sailing system. By the window. Matros stired, it was just a subtle movement and he continued to stare out of the window. There was nothing to be seen in this fog and darkness of the route-point sailing system, a conclusion like that affirmed his self-esteem and his position aboard.

Pacing across the wheelhouse, Ginsberg glanced into the gyrocompass and announced the course kept on, after all, that he went down by the ladder.

Peter took over and begun the watch checking the radar. There were no flashers showing ships or obstruction on the radar screen. he looked at the steering compass and stayed beside it watching it for a moment.

Outside the ship, there was anything but the waste emptiness of the sea and the fog, there was no benchmark to the human eyes, not a light. Peter made his routine watch form six o'clock to midnight.

A few minutes went, when he returned to the radar now there were two pips on the screen, those two pips of unknown ships, far ahead, the pips were faint and still behind of 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 horizon to be fixed the binoculars through the darkness Peter couldn't find out anything. However, there they were two vessels hidden in the night, The weather felt bitter cold, and the fog got tighter and tighter. Refanult make her way thought this wet emptiness across the mist and water the black night and the sea, these three distinct elements 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 moisture nightly fog, far out of the human eyes - out there were several small grafts on their way, steering on their variable course, the 'pips' of them showing up like shine spots of flash on the screen. Fishing boats, fishermen had set off to start their work. During the followed night those constantly changing ´pips´ flamed up and died like a restless swarm of fire beetle on the radar's screen.

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 offering good visibility, and there was now uninterrupted sight over the sea.

After disappeared of the fog there was turned out westward the coastline with a whitewashed lighthouse and rocky shoreline, eastward the offing opened, and there could be seen clusters of fishing vessels with their complex combinations of multi-colour lights still burning in the vertical file, there was the mast light of the cargo ships as well, and somewhere down there could be seen an exhausted flash of a buoy.

Refanult made her way, cutting across the busy trafficked area, the traffic pouring out of the VHF with talks between the vessels. It was watery 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, Refanult avoids a shallow off the cape of Geater in which the chart showed just water deep of three meters. Then joined the line of the westbound ships through the strait between Germany and Denmark.

Chapter Two.

The pilot of the Osteen channel sipped his café and ate his sandwich while Refanult proceeds along the canal. The ground on either side of the channel was grey and brown and the air mild after fog and there wasn't the white coldness of the Northern shores to be seen..

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

attentively the vessel in ahead.

"The stones," Peter said. "Granite. Nine a hundred-ton for St. Malo."

The pilot shook his head. "It's a bad place this time in a year. A few years ago we lost our both anchor out there in a storm; It was blowing from the Atlantic making huge waves. 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 stayed with the 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. Looking down over the edge of the windbreaker he saw Ginslber, accompanied by the engine assistant,

coming along the deck. They have been on the quay and were now on the way back to ship; they carried something between them. Without question, Peter known the contents of that case. Sure enough, there was a lot of problem with it.

Wherever you are going to sail out of the estuary of the Elbe river, You will encounter the flat muddy coast to the northward, and the other side of the extensive mouth of the river unfolding to the southward with the bank between the Elbe and the Wesser, running now westward with the regular flat landscape. When the

Slow water the waterfront is covered with mud. Within this extensive

Delta of two rivers there could be also those notorious shifting sandbanks on the seabed, the fog, the tide stream, and the dense traffic running all the time eastward and westward. When the weather gets bad and the Northwest begin to blow it raise the choppy, 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 coast water could find a shelter and a lee shore anywhere along the west coast of the Baltic sea.

Peter took Refanult out of the clock joining 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 the tern. 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 secured 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 had 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 the wheelhouse moving with falter

steps leaned forward to supporting himself against the console panel.

"It's hell, that I must every time come up to deck" the oiler began to grumble, "I am an engineman, a man from the engine room, not like 'deckie'. Every time this ship arrives a dock or a lock, someone comes down and rouse me up, and turned 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 to disrupt me any more."

"She is flying the Panamanian flag," Peter said, watching the ship, without paying any attention at the present of 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 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.

It raised a debate among the rest of the crew when Peter was out of sight and out of ears shot. The engine assistant said:

"What this is? Are you like green whom after he is looking? I've ever heard anything like that."

"It's the captain's order", the fisherman said.

"He is the captain today," the engineer said. " We better take the command from him. We have Ginsberg, I prefer him." The chief engineer said.

Rests of the crew present in the meeting remained silence; Ginsberg sat among them saying not a word. He protested against the new rule by exhaling a light fume of alcohol in his next watch on the bridge.

Despite these protests by the next evening in the captain's cabin was a heap of collection of bottles. Few minutes past the midnight when Ginsberg was 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 strikes of the propeller to be felt under the sole. The silent decanted over the ship. Mack, the main engine, the iron heart of the ship has stopped.

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

The ears accustomed to the mechanical noise of the main engine, there were not possible to hear the noise of the sea, now there was the noise of the helpless ship, sound of the wind and plash of the water, moan of the hull, in a few minutes the living ship had turned in drifting hulk. All these natural sound of the sea were quite eerie and strange for motor ship mariners.

The bow was walling with the wind, and she began to make a 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, it was twenty past at midnight.

A noise of the bows waves of the unknown ship was heard from the dark sea. There was taken past by some vessel.

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

From below trough of the skylight from the unlighted engine room was heard the rash sound of the hand pump.

"Bloody fool, they have missed the day tank".

After fifteen minutes the light comes on and the main engine started to run with a dull cough. A hundred revolutions at first, then two hundred, the indicator showed how the needle stands up to two hundred and fifty revolutions. The hull began to shake with a familiar pulse and the bow nose and took 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.

" The oiler gave me an empty day tank. Bloody Brownie." he engineer didn't speak, particularly to nobody. Then he said.

"I must mention the matter to Mr Hollow. Here need a real man, not a berry picker. Then he glanced presents. "Yes, here you are standing and steering about, but there in the engine room is the work to be done, that I will say. Without the scale of ranks, we here toil away. Of course, the captain on board is next to God, but without an engine, the ship does not move anywhere. You get nowhere without the engine. I am the man who takes care of engines. I take care of them more than I have t care of myself." This saying he went town angrily, letting behind him the strong smell of diesel oil.

"Dam the ship and dam 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 was looking through the open door out to the open limitless sea, where grey waves rise and fall, in their endless motion. There was the wintry North Sea and Waves were breaking over the bow.

The bow was more sunken. He knows the reason for it the chain lockers were flooding, they were flooded with spatter of water through the pipes, those should have closed and secured before n 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, but 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 headlines: An able-sailor acting as captain. A/B captain with no certificate of competence appointment by the company. It sounded goos such a piece of news.

There was a big container at a distance of about half a mile. She was keeping 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, it was uttered with the words clear like a newscaster at the TV set, the voice told that during nearest diurnal, there will be expected to be increasing Nw up to seven, and Gale warning, showers. Visibility medium. That all.

Peter tanked the officer on the bridge of the passing ship and hung up the phone.

There was a presentiment in his mind, he was worried about the upcoming nigh. The weather wasn't bad, no even foul, but he felt 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 will be difficult before the ship will arrive in her destination.

A ship was coming distance at four miles, Peter bowed down over the autopilot and altered the course to starboard. The metros at the lookout gave him an astonishing look. "You give the way so early."

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

"Ginsberg has a habit to let them come close, in a range two miles, then to turn, not till they are close enough to read the name on their bows ." the metros said and kept on his lookout.

"It's his habit and very

dangerous one too, if you get some awkward position it will be too late to do anything." Peter reply.

"Maybe," the metros said in a slow voice. "When it happened to

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

close to doing nothing."

It was fours night since the departure of the loading port. Peter rest his forehead against the window and looked down to the deck, he felt tired in the legs, he glanced t his watch: it showed

half pat twelve, he had been on the bridge know nearly twelve hours, twelve-hour more and there will be the destination.

The voyage, however, had gone rather fast; although the first days were plagued with the fog.

Chapter Three.

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 alternate variation surface of the sea. It could exist with powerful whirls, The tide streams change their direction by the daily schedule. The lunar and solar differential forces vary to some small degree with the declination of the Moon and Sun; they are greater than average when the Moon and the Sun have low declination, and vice versa. The greatest spring tide will occur after a full or new moon, which is in perigee near the Equinoxes. When two or more events happen at the same time on the same axis,

it is a conjunction of events. This kind of coincidence was forming ahead on the route of the motor vessel Refanult int that night twenty-seven of December.

The wind had strengthened and blown now with damp from Atlantic against the coast. It was twenty-seven day of the lunar month and the ebb was turning to rise.

Peter switched off the light of the cart table, he turned around on his heel to look outward through the square window. His eyes were directed over the ship's head. He saw a weak reflex of the function light of the radio attracted on the back wall of the wheel-house giving a light reflection on the wheelhouse windows. When his eyes were accustomed into the darkness he saw a white fine undulating stripe above the bow. He thought them being the seagulls which usually wheeled in the air hovering above the ships in the vicinity of the coast. The gulls seemed to rise

more up, and when he saw the undulating brush of the wave stunned main and beating of heart he rushed towards the power adjustment control.

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

the same time out of the corner of his eye, he could see the bow was covered with the white surge, The Crash slung his against the fisherman who stood at the wheel. By the power of the bump, the wheelhouse's door burst off from its hinges and as if a sing of the last-judgment, it fell with a terrible noise down on the deck, making chaotically sounds. 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 entirely 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

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

more.

Men were coming up and gathered in the wheel-house. Ginsberg began to set his route point into the navigation set.

"We are going eastward," he said.

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

is the tide running against the wind; there is severe swell out there." Peter said.

She lay with a list to starboard. The starboard side was now the weather side, and over the lowered rail, the sea tumbled and swept the deck. There was a solitary light in the night, it was a light of a lighthouse, far

away on a high cliff

"There is water in the cargo hold," said Peter. "She has taken water a lot of water, I think.

Somebody must go down below.." He tried to dispossess out of the thought

that the ship will sink underwater, and the crew will sing with the ship into the cold sea, fighting for their life, and finally, their spiritless body will be found

somewhere on a muddy bank.

"Must check the cargo hold?" he said,

the idea goes down into the gloomy flooded cargo hold inspired much nobody. Peter found the torch and went down to the main deck. The wet wind hit his face and tugging his parka. He advanced cautiously along the deck, keeping an eye on the over rail breaking waves, by the side 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 the deck; he got 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 water swiped 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 hull's waterline was just beneath the main deck line, and the waves were continually washing the deck, but he knew there was still buoyancy. He stood on the spray swept the deck, and he looked ahead the wind howled over the black vast. The bow lifted and wall at the interval. Even where he stood, he could hear the heavy was of water in the cargo hold.-A dismal menacing sound.

Between the comings of the cargo hatches at the fore-end, the aft structure, the small high collar man's shutter, these small hatches give access to the cargo hold and through this hatch lead a vertical narrow iron ladder down into cargo hold. Peter opened the hatch and let himself, through the shutter down into the dark cargo 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 flood of black water wiring between the s blokes. It was seawater, a lot of water, the flood streams 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 soft bang when the wave hit over cargo hatches and every time water was running into the hold by small cascades. Peter directed the spotlight to the under-side of the cargo hatches, there was a leak, between the hatches and the edges. The ship lean-to board side, water in the cargo hold tumbled to the left,

in a little while the water fell to the amidships and then to the right side. Then the ship straightened and pounded the bow against the new wave; the water splashed and buzzed. From this

Peter was sure that the centre of gravity was so down below that if the ship goes down she would go down upright. Standing there in the dark

the cargo hold, he felt odd passing panicky, aspire to retreat and give some else to take care of the ship and the lives on her, he had the feeling like of a people lost in the fire and smoke, didn't find the way out, and the urge came to him; to hide. 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."

The engineer was made off now with remarkable hurry for a man who usually slow to obey orders. There was overheard a doors slam below as he goes. After fifteen minutes, he was back. He was smudging his stout face with dirt, and he reported that there was no possibility to pump 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 run."

"Did you tried from the fore well?"

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

Peter weighed the situation. "There are empty ballast tanks", he then said, "beneath the cargo hold, 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 the tank from the hold, it's tank number three, and then we will bumping it out by the ballast pump."

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

Ginsberg seemed not to understand Peter's idea, to pump the water out thought the resonant tank.

"I am the decision-maker...I make the... we have to call help, to somebody must come" he was 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 relatively common at a disaster at sea. And there was a smell, rare smell, it's wasn't only smell of human sweat, it was more; it was a smell of the fear.

"Who will come with me?" Peter asked.

"I will," said the fisherman.

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

On the bottom, the storm-tossed water touches up his waist. He saw how the fisherman descended steadily into water. the water was cold and there was drifting stuff on the surfaces of the water as a part of a wooden floorboard has loose litter were lifted by the buoyancy of water.

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 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 noisy; booms of waves stir of water, which sounded like a warning.

There was continues undulating motion in the water. His hand didn't reach the bolts. "They are twenty-two millimetres," he said to the fisherman behind him. "Pass me the spanner." He joined the

extension arm to the tool, then he stayed waiting for the wave rolling towards, then he bowed down and adapted the spanner to the first nut, it was the last moment before the water came back and 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, 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 rubbish. Suddenly the cargo hold took a swing, and the water escaped with hell for leather, first to left and then to the right, involuntarily the fisher directed the light towards the eery noise. Peter ceased his work and looked at the unusual stir. In the eerie cargo hold, he tried to avoid facing the fisherman, he was afraid that the fisherman could know or see something that he couldn't see, but nothing happens, 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 and pushed the diver between the batch's cover, and the coming edge. He hatched it up, and there was a small motion. After a brief moment, he straightened himself. "No, succeed. There is a heavy metre

About the Author

 Harry Tobin, pen name Martin Latimeri, went to the sea at early age and sailed fist steamships and cargo carried sailing schooner as an ordinary seaman, the become able seaman and bosun, after several ships, he took the seagoing tugs as master and after short experiences about the fishing at sea he returned to merchant navy acting as master.