A Ravel of Waters Read online

  A Ravel of Waters

  Geoffrey Jenkins

  Geoffrey Jenkins

  A Ravel of Waters

  PROLOGUE: War, 1980s Style

  Classified: Top Secret. Red Code. Office of Issue: Task Force 24, Atlantic Fleet HQ, Norfolk, Virginia.

  Monitored exchange of final signals between Orion T-3 on maximum-range search of Southern Ocean and Commander, US Naval Securities Group Activities, South Atlantic, Sector T-G-F South (Tristan da Cunha). Location of missing aircraft: Uncertain. Last position and intended movement reported on entering Southern Ocean Air-Launched Acoustical Reconnaissance Zone SSI on an effective air path of 220 degrees (true) between Lat. 440 South and Long. 140 West, approx. 850 sea miles SSW Tristan da Cunha. Time: 21’2’81 Mission: Top Secret. Acoustic Intelligence. Crew: 12 Report Orders: Special visual flight rules. Air reports in plain language. Weather at time of loss: Force 9 gale, severe maritime polar air mass (analysis by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency). Course, directional controlled automatic meteorological (special Antarctic compensations). Visibility, poor. Intercept Tracking and Control Group: Detached unit, US Naval Securities Group Activities, Tristan da Cunha. Surface Observation Report immediately prior to loss: Yacht in full sail, mysterious type of rig. No Mayday Evaluation of loss: Possible enemy underwater-to-air missile.

  MONITOR: Tape input begins. The following is a verbatim reel of the cockpit tape of missing Orion T-3, the last flight deck conversations between Captain Bill Werner and his crew, as well as verbal reports by Captain Werner to Commander, US Naval Securities Group on the island of Tristan da Cunha, South Atlantic. Reel commences…

  'Hello, NSGA, Bill Werner reporting, Orion T-3. Do you hear me?'

  'I hear you. Bill. Readability, strength and tone okay. Shoot.'

  "Fine. "

  "Fine. Time 0100 GMT. Estimated position 850 miles south-southwest of Tristan, approximately 600 miles south-southwest of Gough Island.'

  'What the hell's wrong with your navigation. Bill? Can't you do better than that? Be exact. You could be anywhere.'

  'Maybe I am, fellah. You should be here. I'm flying blind, dead blind. I reckon the top of the overcast could be anything up to 30,000 feet. There's a 50-knot gale. I'm plugging right into the teeth of it. Air speed is down to 200 knots — plane's guzzling gas.'

  'What's your visibility?'

  'Nil. I couldn't see another plane if it came into me. It's nine hours since take-off-and this ship can stay in the air for seventeen. Not at this rate though.'

  'You're not going to crap out of the mission because of that, are you, Bill?'

  'Who said I was crapping out? You should be here to see for yourself. This is one hell of a cockamamie search — acoustical reconnaissance, Jeez! All the acoustics I can hear is the sound of the goddam gale!'

  'Nothing on your anti-sub plot? No malfunction of your electronic data-gathering gear? No intercept?'

  'You're making my co-pilot piss himself laughing, fellah. I said, you should be here. This sort of flying is poker with everything wild. There isn't a damn thing from here to Cape Horn. Not a ship, not an island — nothing! It's all sea and gale and icebergs. As for a Red sub…!'

  'What is your estimated time to the turn, Bill?'

  'Could be anything. Depends on how much gas she consumes how far south I get. I'm at 10,000 feet now. I've been right down to 2000 and up to 20,000 looking for easier conditions. It don't make much difference to the gale. Hey, wait a moment…!'

  MONITOR: Crew report. Surface radar and navigation operator to pilot. Pilot's voice resumes.

  'I've got a surface intercept on the radar! Can you believe it! Out here!'

  'You sure, Bill? It's not a radar angel — an iceberg?'

  'No. We're holding the image. It's a ship, for sure! Looks like a small one.'

  'Maybe it's a sub sail, Bill?'

  'I'm going down to investigate. Keep the line open, fellah!'

  'For sure.'

  MONITOR: This section of the tape has been shortened. It covers the descent of the Orion through heavy overcast with nil visibility and Force 9 gale to zero altitude above sea surface. There are no reports of instrument or mechanical failure from the aircraft. Pilot's voice resumes.

  'Three hundred feet — two fifty — two hundred — cloud's clearing — it's clear — Holy Mother of God!'

  'What is it. Bill? What is it, man!'

  'It's enough to blow your mind — I've never seen anything like this!'

  'Bill! Report, for Chrissake!'

  'Sorry. It took my breath away. I'm at 200 feet. As far as I can see the water looks like calf slobber — there are icebergs everywhere! Like huge meringues! Every goddam iceberg you ever saw! Whole clusters of 'em! There's also one hell of a berg — yeah, it's all one berg — it goes back clean to the horizon…'

  'You're crazy. Bill! One berg that big!'

  'I'm flying alongside it now — it's higher than our altitude — the top of it is lost in the overcast…'

  'What do you estimate its size to be. Bill?'

  'I can't.'

  'Whadderyemean, you can't?'

  'See here, fellah, I've never seen a sea like this. The whole ocean's like a vast Shivering Liz pudding made out of icebergs — the sea's all slushy in between — it's steaming mist and fog — and I'm manoeuvring round the shoulder of this great berg now — there it is! Surface observation, visual! It's a sub sail… no, hold it! It is a boat! A yacht! A yacht, do you hear? Here! She's travelling fast, too. She's planing down the waves like a rollercoaster — I can see her wake — I'll be over her in a moment. Say, there's something wrong! I can spot the sea through her sails — they're not ordinary sails — they're sails with slits in 'em — looks like a kinda Venetian blind turned wrong way up…'

  MONITOR: What follows is a flight deck conversation between pilot and crew.

  'Captain! Captain! Visual! There! Starboard! Coming up out of the sea… ‘

  'Captain here! Missile alert! Stand by everyone! Emergency evasive drill! Underwater-to-air missile tracking radar on! Jesus! It's too late! We've bought the farm! It's going to catch us right up the ass…

  MONITOR: Tape returns to zero. No further contact.

  Chapter 1

  Windeater. That should have been her name.

  Her sails were six pairs of lips, parted now like a woman's in passion. Six on the main, six on the jib. Each pair seemed to drink in the wind, swallow it and, by some magic of aerodynamics, regurgitate it as energy to thrust the yacht's lean hull through the sea at speeds unheard of by conventional rigs.

  Both sails, the main and the jib, were, unlike any others, split into segments lengthwise to the top of the mast. Each strip had transverse battens fixed at intervals to make for easy handling.

  This was a space-age rig. Named the Venetian Rig, in memory of the Venetian Republic's great sailing past. Into the design of the wind-filled dacron segments above my head had gone all that man had learned of aerodynamics. Solar energy, in the form of wind, was being converted into thrust in a way which made the conventional sail as out of date as the Wright Brothers' first aeroplane compared to a Concorde.

  Those dozen cross-battened strips of dacron had gunned me from Cape Horn to the Cape of Good Hope in record time for a single-handed sailor: 4200 sea-miles in twenty-six days — an average speed of seven knots.

  Now Albatros and I were at the end of our journey. At about 10.30 in the morning, I looked up, the way I had checked those newfangled sails a thousand times during my race across the world's wildest ocean. Suddenly, the high rocky cliffs of the coast-line, backed by bush-covered hills, opened like a gate. About a mile away, bearing about ten degrees, was my landfall, my home-coming from an epic journey. These were the Heads of
Knysna, entrance to the small port on the Cape's southern coast where Albatros had first taken the water. She was the third sailing ship to carry the famous name. The first had been a schooner which had brought a family of boat-builders, the Thesens, from Norway to Knysna over a century before. The second had been a Cape-to-Rio yacht race winner. But my Albatros had proved to be the fastest sailing boat afloat between Cape Horn and the Cape.

  The narrow, dangerous entrance needed all my concentration. It would not have done to pile Albatros up on her home cliffs. Ahead lay a tricky outer and inner bar to negotiate, further complicated by the peculiarities of the Venetian Rig. Its principal virtue was excellence in heavy weather. Below the towering cliffs the sails would be blanketed from the fresh southeaster and I marvelled again, as I had done so many times on the voyage, at the paradoxical sight of Albatros's burgee streaming in one direction, forward, while tufts of rope in the lee of the sail streamed in the opposite direction, against the wind. It was the embodiment of the aerodynamic magic of the Venetian Rig.

  Breakers threw up a menacing line of white between the towering head-lands guarding the entrance channel. In a moment I was among them. The strong thrust of the wind disappeared below the cliffs. It became fluky, bouncing from high point to high point. I held on, however, and then I was over the inner bar to where the narrow channel led into the lagoon beyond.

  I was in the process of lining up the yacht's sea-stained white hull for the last turn into the anchorage when I was deafened by the blast of horns. Hundreds of cars which I had not noticed before because of my concentration lined the eastern head-land and the road flanking my route. It seemed as if the whole population of Knysna had turned out — hooting, shouting, waving, cheering. Then a fleet of motor-boats appeared from nowhere. Men and women in holiday wear came alongside shouting congratulations and gawping at Albatros'*s sea-swept cockpit and the salt stains trailing from the sail battens, mute witnesses to half a dozen furious encounters with the Roaring Forties. In my dark clothes and my unkempt month-old beard, I felt like the Flying Dutchman himself.

  The motor-boats began sheep-dogging Albatros down-channel past Leisure Island, a paradise of luxury homes and gardens standing among dark milkwood trees. It seemed to me that not only Albatros's home port but the whole country was waiting when I stepped ashore on the jetty at Thesen's Yard, where Albatros had been built. There was a barrage of press camera flashes, TV and movie cameras. Microphones were thrust in front of my face; I was assaulted by scores of questions. The Venetian Rig — what was its secret? Speed? Best day's run? From all the shaking of well-wishers' hands my arm felt as if I had pumped out Albatros's bilges for a week.

  Then, after a brief respite, Knysna's pride in Albatros and its hospitality overflowed at an official luncheon. More interviews. Endless handshakes. The blur of friendly, anonymous, admiring faces. Inevitably a local beauty queen found her way into a picture pose with me.

  Finally, in the late afternoon, I was the house guest of the reception committee's chairman, a yachting enthusiast named Don Mackay. I was thankful to be whisked away from the never-ending congratulations to his home on the summit of Eastern Head from which I overlooked the entrance channel I had sailed through that morning. Don was apologetic about the place.

  'It's only the old Pilot House,' he explained. 'But I wanted the view. When the harbour was still functioning commercially, it used to be the spot from which the pilots could see what ships were approaching Knysna — from any direction.' It had a wood-panelled room whose octagonal sides consisted entirely of glass as high as the waist. The panorama of ocean and mountain landwards was stupendous. A telescope on a stand, clipper ship prints on the walls, a full-rigged model in a glass case, mounted scenic charts of the coast, and a flagstaff on the so-green lawn beyond the windows made the Pilot House comfortably suburban-nautical.

  Don's whisky felt good. I was exhausted. I felt more like ninety years old than twenty-seven. Every muscle, every nerve-endings was tired. My mind was as flat as a sail in the doldrums.

  Don, a sunburned, red-headed giant of a man, held out the whisky bottle for me to inspect. 'Like it?' he asked.

  I looked at the label in surprise. 'I thought it was genuine Scotch.' *No, South African. Good as the original heather brew. "Three Ships" — the name seemed appropriate for the occasion.'

  'I hope the occasion's done. I couldn't stand much more of it.' I wanted more than anything to be alone, like a drunk with his bottle.

  I said gruffly, ‘I hope you're not throwing another party for me now.' Don looked uncomfortable and glanced at his watch. 'Not a party. Just one other guest.' 'Friend of yours?'

  Don hesitated. 'His name is Axel Thomsen. He jetted in early this morning and motored over to Knysna from the airfield at George. He collected a speeding fine on the way because he was so keen not to miss your arrival. He got here literally in a jib-boom ahead of Albatros.9 'What's the rush?' Don was cagey. 'He'll tell you himself. He's late.'

  Sheila, Don's wife, appeared and saved him from further questions. Any woman looks beautiful after you've been a month alone at sea but Sheila didn't need that distorted view to boost her good looks.

  'Peter,' she said to me, 'I'll show you to your room if you'd like to clean up before Mr Thomsen arrives.' 'My room?' 'You're staying, surely?'

  I tried to laugh off their disappointment. 'A fakir likes to get back to his bed of nails. I think I'd rather sleep aboard Albatros tonight. I'll come some other time5 if I may.' 'We'll keep you to that,' she said. Just then a car drew up on the driveway. There was something in the glance that Don shot in my direction which puzzled me. 'Here comes Axel Thomsen. I hope you'll like him.'

  He came forward, and without any preliminaries, took my hand.

  'Congratulations, Captain Rainier’ he said. He had the most compelling pair of eyes I had ever seen. He held my hand in a strong grip. There was power in it, power about the man himself. He would draw people to himself like iron filings to a magnet. His scrutiny of me was as keen as a wind off the Drake Passage. He was of medium height only, and looked about forty. The clothes he wore — light blue casual slacks and a kind of matching battle blouse — emphasized his leanness. A Chinese white silk choker was secured at his throat by a yellow diamond pin. He seemed to miss, or simply override, my resentment.

  'I was in one of the boats that came to cheer you on completing your magnificent feat. I saw you bring your ship through that tricky entrance. I didn't think it possible to manoeuvre any craft with the mainboom centred without adjustment to the sheets.' ‘I hope you're now satisfied that it's possible,' I retorted.

  ‘I think it must be because there are vents from the high pressure to the low pressure sides of the sail at such short intervals that the air flow turns round the back and still gives a high degree of lift even when it's well beyond what would be the stall angle in a normal sail.'

  I realized how near the limit of fatigue I was when I heard myself rasp, 'What are you trying to prove?'

  Thomsen threw me a keen up-and-under glance. His reply was conciliatory. 'Nothing — except one must understand what one is up against. I have a rig which works better.'

  Chapter 2

  Thomsen stood there, rocking on the balls of his feet as if inviting me to hit him verbally. His eyes were searching mine, assessing me. Then he pulled out a gold and black pack of Perilly's Private Blend and offered me one, lighting it and his own with a tiny gold lighter in the shape of a dolphin.

  I answered him, repeating it by rote -1 was too tired to be original — 'The Venetian Rig is the first major advance in sail design for centuries. It was invented by Dr Glauco Corbellini, an Italian engineer…*

  Thomsen made an impatient sweep with his cigarette. 'I know all that. What I want to know is, how does it work?5

  'The answer is on the board — twenty-six days, four thousand, two hundred miles.' 'That doesn't say how.’

  'It handles easily. It's ideal for one man sailing alone. It is simple. It is fast. I
t is highly efficient — in strong winds.' 'How fast?'

  Thomsen had a curious empathy which made me continue. Now I explained. 'I'll tell you. Right at the beginning of my run I struck a lucky slant just east of the Horn

  He seemed to draw the story out of me. 'What do you call a lucky slant?’

  Sheila, who had been present for the introductions, slipped away when the conversation became technical, Don stood by, drinking it in.

  'A gale sprang up out of nowhere, as it does near the Horn. It hit fifty knots before I realized what was happening. It was the first big test for the Venetian Rig. It turned out to be a winner. Albatros was going like a bomb, surfing up to twenty-five knots on the bigger rollers. I shortened sail, which was easy, even in those conditions, because each sail is a separate strip and there are quick-release expansion buttons to facilitate things — no reefing like ordinary sails. The anenometer touched sixty knots shortly after. That's its maximum calibration. It was, in fact, gusting higher — seventy-five knots, perhaps. So, in order to make the best time, I took Albatros through the Strait of Le Maire. With the wind and tide-rips in her favour, I managed another four knots over the ground. Albatros was really moving. However, I had to get clear of the Strait before the tide changed or else I'd have been in trouble. As it was, I made it by a whisker. I managed with half an hour to spare.'

  Thomsen was still eyeing me. 'The Strait of Le Maire is the most bloody dangerous place in the world. In any craft. Most of all in a small yacht.'

  It may have been the whisky, or perhaps the way Thomsen seemed to relate to Albatros's achievements, but I continued to talk, describing how I'd cut through the Jasons and the prevailing conditions which I admitted were fairly rough. The man was showing so much interest in my account, often interrupting me to put a very knowledgeable question to me, that he began to intrigue me — as did the reason for his presence. I was particularly intrigued as to why he should know so much about the Falklands and about a short cut through a group of remote, gale-lashed islands at the other side of the earth, of interest only to penguin fanciers and environmentalists.