collision mat. Baker blinked again, then shook his head in disbelief.
That's Hornblower stuff The Witch of Endor/ Nick agreed. So you can
read?
You haven't got pressure to drive it home/ Baker objected. The trapped
air from the engine room will blow it out., I'm going to run a wire down
the ventilation shaft of the engine room and out through the gash. We'll
fix the collision mat outside the hull and winch it home with the wire.
Baker stared at him for five seconds while he examined the proposition.
A sail was fothered by threading the thick canvas with thousands of
strands of unravelled oakum until it resembled a huge shaggy doormat.
When this was placed over an aperture below a ship's waterline, the
pressure of water forced it into the hole, and the water swelled the
mass of fibre until it formed an almost watertight plug.
However, in Golden Adventurer's case the damage was extensive and as the
hull was already flooded, there was no pressure differential to drive
home the plug. Nick proposed to beat that by using an internal wire to
haul the plug into the gash.
It might work. Beauty Baker was noncommittal.
Nick took the second rum at a gulp, dropped the towel and reached for
his working gear laid out on the bunk.
Let's get power on her before the blow hits us/ he suggested mildly, and
Baker lumbered to his feet and stuffed the Bundaberg bottle into his
back pocket.
Listen, sport/ he said. All that guff about you being a Pommy, don't
take it too seriously. I won't/ said Nick. Actually, I was born and
educated in Blighty, but my father's an American. So that makes me one
also. ,Christ., Beauty hitched disgustedly at his waist with both
elbows. of there's anything worse than a bloody Pom, it's a goddamned
Yank. Now that Nick was certain that the bottom of the bay was clean
and free of underwater snags, he handled Warlock boldly but with a
delicately skilful touch which David Allen watched with awe.
Like a fighting cock, the Warlock attacked the thicker ice line along
the shore, smashing free huge lumps and slabs, then washing them clear
with the propellers, giving herself space to work about Golden
Adventurer's stern.
The ominous calm of both sea and air made the work easier,™™™ although
the vicious little current working below Adventurer's stern complicated
the transfer of the big alternator.
Nick had two Yokohama fenders slung from Warlocks side, and the bloated
plastic balloons cushioned the contact of steel against steel as Nick
laid Warlock alongside the stranded liner, holding her there with
delicate adjustments of power and rudder and screw pitch.
Beauty Baker and his working party, swaddled in heavy Antarctic gear,
were already up on the catwalk of Warlock's forward gantry, seventy feet
above the bridge and overlooking Adventurer's sharply canted deck.
As Nick nudged Warlock in, they dropped the steel boarding-ladder across
the gap between the two ships and Beauty led them across in single file,
like a troop of monkeys across the limb of a forest tree.
All across/ the Third Officer confirmed for Nick, and then added, 'Glass
