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82     ABBOTT'S MONTHLY

Alden was outside in the open. The wind screamed and tore round the great teak structure, as large as a big cottage, and made it shudder and vibrate as we rolled in the seaway. There was an intermittent thrashing of rain and ice flurries against the thick glass windows. There was little light; a faint glow, a little above the level of the Quartermaster's eyes as he stood at the wheel, illuminating the ring of they gyroscopic compass. I remember feeling faintly amused at the tiny instrument, and the light brass wheel, which guided the path of the sixty thousand tons of steel and wood beneath our feet.

The steersman nodded to me and shifted his eyes back to the compass ring. Everything else was immobile, the big standard magnetic compass inside its brass binnacle, the dull yellow faces of the engine room telegraphs, the revolution counter, and, only mechanical sound, the clicking of the course recorder as it inked down our path on a roll of squared paper. The place was full of queer shapes and bright steel and brass instruments faintly reflecting the glow from the compass spot. They signified to me man's temporary but splendid domination of the Earth, the skill and brains that made this enormous ship to drive through the brutal fury of a great gale while the passengers slept safely below. Deep down in the depths of the ship, beside whirling masses of steel, men worked and sweated to give us power and speed; here their efforts were reduced to the flicker of a little needle over some figures.

The Junior Third should have been on the bridge with Alden, but had apparently been sent away for something. It transpired subsequently that Alden had sent him aft to take the reading from the patent log. I could just see the outline of Alden's figure far out on the starboard side of the bridge, where he was to windward of the sheets of icy spray cracking like shot against the wheelhouse as seas broke against our starboard bow. The lee side of the bridge was thick with ice and a mass of flying icicles as the spray froze. I peered carefully round the corner of the wheelhouse and gazed ahead. 

God! What a hellish night. There was an air speed of fully ninety miles an hour on the bridge. It took my breath away and for a minute blinded me as it tore over the bridge guard with a deep-throated thrumming roar. We were rolling through sixty degrees, and the black 'V' of the bow sank every minute into a tearing black mass of water, broke it into a white curdling mass, and lifted it sullenly up onto the foredeck, on which a man would have been pounded to pieces.

I turned my head to look aft; I could only just see the towering bulk of number four funnel, while the after bridge was an indistinct shape in the inky darkness. The vast size of the funnels and our tremendous length made me catch my breath more than the gale had made me. Only in that wild place, I felt separated from anything that could be gentle and uncruel. 

I turned again, and dodged behind the visor of an automatic screen.

There are two of these screens on each side of the bridge. They are big visors, or cowls, of steel, behind which one can place one's head and be protected from the blinding gale and spray. In the front is a circle of thick glass kept spinning fast by a little motor; you look though [[through]] the top half of the circle and a set of brushes keeps the spinning glass wiped clean. It is the only way you can see ahead in a brain flurry, when your eyes can't face it. 

Peering ahead, I could see nothing. I searched the tortured blackness for a sign of Bishop's Light, but could see nothing. Alden was a few yards from me, peering through the other screen and so steadfastly that he didn't see me. There is a constant stream of shipping coming out of the Channel, you understand. And we were doing our regular twenty knots--more than a third of a mile a minute. The visibility was variable; now it would be two miles, now half a mile, as a rainstorm swept down upon us. I knew Remus must have had half a mind to ease her dow, and yet again I remembered his driving courage, the making of a great liner Captain. 

Suddenly a little shift to the wind brought a drenching stream of spray and ice right over the windward side of the bridge. I was drenched in spite of the visor, and hastily stumbled into the wheelhouse. The steersman, intent on the compass, scarcely glanced at me. I took off my cap and blinked my eyes clear and caught my breath again. Ah! I am getting too old for the sea.

I looked out suddenly along the bridge and beheld a sight that completely paralyzed me. Clinging to the top of the starboard stairway, her feet and skirt lashed by the driving flurry, but the upper part of her behind the windbreak of the bridge, was Miss Compton. How had she got there? All passengers had been kept below; she must have bribed some one to let her up on deck. She was muffled in a big coat.

Under no circumstances whatever are passengers allowed on the bridge at any time, who ever they might be. It is the iron rule of passenger ships. Yet here at nearly midnight, in a howling gale, this girl calmly climbed on to the bridge of one of the most famous liners afloat.

She must have spoken, for Alden whirled round, and leapt to the head of the ladder. The faint light from the wheel house just illuminated their faces. I saw her lips moving. And Alden stood closer, towering over her by a good foot. I saw him point down. They were both unconscious of any eyes. The angle of the door prevented the helmsman seeing them, and I stood motionless in the deep shadow. Alden glanced hurriedly along right at me, but evidently saw nothing. He bent over her again, and unmistakably ordered her down. She looked up at him calmly, with the most slow, provocative, wanton smile, the like of which no painter could equal. She was reveling [[revelling]] in the elemental glamour of the setting. Remus' hand, which had caught her arm roughly as he ordered her off the bridge, curved back and he bent slowly over her. Her lips were parted. I caught the gleam of her white teeth, her wide-open eyes, the carven lines of Remus's rough face as he bent towards her. I had the sensation of dreaming, of watching some lay of the immortals, as I saw these two stare deep into each other's eyes in the wild place amid the howling, implacable fury of the gale.

Suddenly stung to action by realization of Alden's perilous position--Officer of the Watch, alone on the bridge--the Captain might come up--if he even looked out of his port he would see them--the Junior Third might come stumbling along the deck; then Remus Alden would be under arrest in five minutes, and ruined for life--suddenly, stung to action, I stepped abruptly forward. 



for JANUARY, 1931            83

As I did so Alden bent lower over the girl, and she put up one hand onto his neck. Their lips nearly touched. As if hypnotized, I stopped. Then--

What made me whip round I don't know. I had heard nothing, seen nothing. But some amazing instinct bred by the sea made me turn my head sharply, to have my senses stunned for a brief moment by the sight of the side and masthead of a big ship (it was our sister ship, outward bound to New York) dead ahead of us and barely eight hundred yards away, hazy through the half-blinding rain and ice--driving directly at us. At the same second that my ear caught the boom of her siren, Alden heard it too and was at the bridge rail in one bound. Realize--both ships were doing over twenty-three miles an hour--were approaching each other at forty-six miles an hour--were less than half a mile apart. In forty seconds we should meet.

Forty seconds!

Then Remus Alden gave a magnificent exhibition of seamanship. Without a perceptible second's hesitation, his shout cut through the scream of the wind and electrified the helmsman into feverish motion.

"Hard aport, helm. Full astern starboard engines!"

Remembering simultaneously that the Third was off the bridge, he drove past me like a whirlwind, and crash, the telegraph handles swung to "Full Astern" as he wrenched them. Like a flash he was back at the siren lanyard and sounded two piercing blasts: "Am turning to starboard."

The little telegraph bell tinkled as the engine room answered. The helmsman had the wheel hard over to port and was straining at it as if to force the gigantic rudder yet more over by force of will. Fascinated, I watched the vast shape ahead tearing down on us. Our bow began to swing minutely, as if she would never answer the helm and engines. Remus now had her full ahead on the port engines and full astern on the starboard. It seemed as though nothing could save us and the seconds were agonizing. 

Then I felt the bridge under me rock and tremble as the great ship answered the tremendous pull of engines and rudder. She gave a rolling lurch that nearly threw me off my feet with the violence of her turning. I saw the bow flung over in a steady drive to starboard. I wonder the ship didn't split in two--you cannot realize the terrific strain of such a sudden and violent turn. The wind-drive abated a fraction as our speed decreased. The sister ship's lights changed angle, and her big sharp bow began to swing away from us. Would we miss her? I caught my breath and thought of the thousands asleep below on each ship. No boat could live a minute in the raging sea, no steamer would have dared approach near us, even rafts would have been smashed to splinters. In silence, except for the wind, grim tragedy stalked the black seas and, like the voice of Death, chilled my very brain.

The bows of the two ships swung apart. We were almost on top of each other. The bows would miss, but could we straighten back far enough to prevent the other ship shearing through our stern? It was a case for the most intricate and delicate judgment. Turn too soon, and we should ram the other ship--turn too late,--and her great bow would cut through our stern like cheese. 

Alden's voice rang out again, strong and steady, as calm as the death that faced us all.

"Keep your head, Quartermaster. Stand by, now." The bows of the two ships were nearly abreast and not fifty yards apart.

"Helm, midships!"

"Helm, midships, sir!"

Alden jerked the starboard telegraph to "Stop!"

"Star-bo-ard Ten!"

"Starboard ten, sir."

"And Ten!"

"And ten, sir."

He rang the telegraph to half ahead. We swung and I saw the black sea ahead of us again, open sea. It was a consummate piece of seamanship--a desperate gamble with the grim fate of the sea that is implacable in its ageless waiting. But, upon the narrow bridge eighty feed above the water-line, a man's brain had triumphed,--even over himself.

Alden rang full speed again.

"Resume course, Quartermaster," his words were quiet, and his inflection steady. I marveled [[marvelled]].

"Aye, aye, sir."

Alden brushed past me as if I had not existed, back to the head of the companion. The girl was still there. 

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