bridge. He had still not broken radio silence, and could feel his
officers disapproval, silent but strong. Again he felt the need for
human contact, for the warmth and comfort of human conversation and
friendly encouragement. He didn't yet have the strength to bear his
failure alone.
He stopped beside David Allen and said, I have been studying the
Admiralty sailing directions for Cape Alarm, David/ and pretended not to
notice that the use of his Christian name had brought a startled look
and quick colour to the mate's features. He went on evenly, the shore
is very steep-to and she is exposed to this westerly weather, but there
are beaches of pebble and the glass is 90 mg UP sharply again. Yes, sir/
David nodded enthusiastically. I have been watching it. Instead of
hoping for a cross-current to hold her off, I suggest you offer a prayer
that she goes up on one of those beaches and that the weather moderates
before she is beaten to pieces. There is still a chance we can put
ground tackle on her before she starts breaking up. I'll say ten Hail
Marys, sir/ grinned David. Clearly he was overwhelmed by this sudden
friendliness from his silent and forbidding Captain. -And say another
ten that we hold our lead on La Mouette/ said Nick, and smiled. It was
one of the few times that David Allen had seen him smile, and he was
Amazed at the change it made to the stern features. They lightened with
a charm and warmth and he had not before noticed the clear green of Nick
Berg's eyes and how white and even were his teeth.
Steady as she goes/ said Nick. Call me if anything changes/and he
turned away to his cabin.
Steady as she goes, it is, sir/ said David Allen with a new friendliness
in his voice.
The strange and marvelous lights of the Aurora Australis quivered and
flickered in running streams of red and green fire along the horizon,
and formed an incredible backdrop for the death agonies of a great ship.
Captain Reilly looked back through the small portholes of the leading
lifeboat and watched her going to her fate. It seemed to him she had
never been so tall and beautiful as in these terrible last moments. He
had loved many ships, as if each had been a wonderful living creature,
but he had loved no other ship more than Golden Adventurer, and he felt
something of himself dying with her.
He saw her change her action. The sea was feeling the land now, the
steep bank of Cape Alarm, and the ship seemed to panic at the new
onslaught of wave and wind, as though she knew what fate awaited her
there.
She was rolling through thirty degrees, showing the dull red streak of
her belly paint as she came up short at the limit of each huge
penduluming arc. There was a headland, tall black cliffs dropping sheer
into the turbulent waters and it seemed that Golden Adventurer must go
full on to them, but in the last impossible moments she slipped by,
borne on the backlash of the current, avoiding the cliffs and swinging
her bows on into the shallow bay beyond where she was hidden from
Captain Reilly's view.
He stood for many minutes more, staring back across the leaping
