Magnetic Anomaly by Richard Woodman

Author:Richard Woodman
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: Mystery, Naval, Fiction, Historical, Crime, Thriller
Publisher: Sharpe Books
Published: 2021-03-24T00:00:00+00:00

4

Although neither of us had mentioned it during that midnight hand-over, it was now Christmas Eve. As I turned in I briefly recalled the inscription in Pennington’s copy of Monsarrat’s famous novel. At the very least it revealed that Pennington had served in the Royal Navy, either during the Second World War or the Korean War and that during that time he had done two things of note, for they didn’t give a Distinguished Service Cross and Bar for sharpening the chart-room pencils. Anyway I filed the information away and tried to sleep.

And that miserable bloody night his prophecy proved accurate.

I must have been asleep for about an hour-and-a-half when I was woken up once again with water sluicing over me. The ship was heaving all over the place, rolling heavily but pitching and, worse still, pounding – smashing her bows down into water so solid that not only did it flood out much of the accommodation, but actually set-in the ship’s forward shell-plating an inch, which caused a mirror in the ratings’ wash-place under the flare of the bow, to be sprung out of its fastenings.

Outside, in the long fore-and-aft alleyway several inches of water sloshed up and down, cabin doors were open and their occupants peered out with expressions that varied from exasperation to terror, for it had been the crash and shudder of the impact that had woken some of them.

I dressed and went up to the bridge. Captain Gordon was already up there and Mackenzie too. We had been caught in an enormous cross-sea, for the ship was under way, steering into the wind, but labouring over a swell some fifty degrees to the right of the wind-sea. I could hardly believe the deterioration in the conditions since I had left the bridge. In under two hours the wind had picked up to Storm Force 10 or 11 and it showed no sign of abating. The Old Man and Mackenzie were standing at the wheel-house windows, staring out into the darkness. They seemed idle observers at first; I was to learn differently a few minutes later.

Every few minutes, as the bow dug itself in and the ship shuddered with the effort of throwing off the green seas breaking over the rails, sheets of spray, driven down-wind at speed rattled on the armoured glass.

I made my way quietly into the chart-room. Pennington was at the chart-table putting down a LORAN fix. I looked at the barograph; the inky line of the stylus had fallen almost vertically since that initial movement just before midnight.

Pennington straightened up and looked round. ‘Ah, it’s you…’

‘Yes. You were right.’

‘Yes, I was, wasn’t I? And there’s more bad news,’ he said, manipulating the parallel rules and dividers.

‘Oh?’

‘I’ll tell you in a minute.’ He went out into the wheel-house and I heard him say: ‘One hundred and seven miles, two-three-eight true, sir. Well inside the grid.’

I also heard Duncan Gordon grunt acknowledgement, then Pennington was back behind the door curtain.

‘Your Panamanian,’ he said accusingly. ‘She’s on fire and has retransmitted her Mayday.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.