گردباد برخورد می‌کنه

CHAPTER FOUR

The typhoon hits

Jukes knew that at a time like this, a ship’s officer must not show his feelings. He started to tell his men to fasten anything on the ship that was moving. He wanted them to see in him a man who was not afraid of some bad weather, a man who knew that this typhoon was coming from the beginning.

But with every minute, Jukes understood that this typhoon was much bigger, and wilder, than any other usual storm. Great waves fell noisily onto the deck, covering the Nan-Shan in water from top to bottom.

She was still rolling heavily from side to side, but now she began to move up and down wildly in the sea, too, like an enormous animal worried sick with fear.

‘I’m not sure that we’re going to live through this,’ thought Jukes. He felt happy that Captain MacWhirr was there, for it was the captain who had to decide what to do in difficult times. And saving the crew’s lives was the captain’s job, not his.

MacWhirr did not feel so comfortable. He knew that he and his crew could all die in this typhoon, and he knew that he must decide what to do very carefully. It was now a question of life or death.

He looked in front of him, trying to understand how the typhoon worked, like a man looking deeply into the eyes of a dangerous enemy.

But all was dark around him. He could see nothing, not even the ship under his feet. He felt like a man who has lost the power to see, and who doesn’t know where he is.

Standing next to him, Jukes said: ‘I think that we’ve sailed into the worst part of the typhoon.’ But this was not true: the worst part came a few minutes later, and it came suddenly.

The typhoon exploded around them with dangerous power. It seemed that the wind and the waves wanted to break the ship into hundreds of pieces. Many sailors tried to grab some part of the ship, but couldn’t do it in time. The waves sent them flying down the deck.

Jukes was thrown onto his back. It seemed to him that all of the China Sea was trying to drown him. It threw him wildly from side to side, and he heard himself shouting, again and again: ‘My God! My God! My God!’ Hurrying to find something to hold on to, his hands touched a boot, then two boots.

He held on, and then he felt Captain MacWhirr’s strong arms around him, pulling him up. They stood for a short while, holding onto each other, but then the water knocked them onto the deck. At last they found each other again, and this time they held on to the ship’s railings.

The typhoon was now pulling the lifeboats off the ship. One by one, they went into the angry waters of the China Sea.

‘Our lifeboats have gone, sir,’ shouted Jukes. Because of the noise of the wind he couldn’t hear MacWhirr’s answer very well:

‘Can’t help. had to happen. some things. left behind.’

The captain’s words surprised Jukes. Was that all that MacWhirr had to say? Again, he found the Captain’s way of thinking strange.

The first mate looked at the waves loudly hitting the deck, and tried to decide if the Nan-Shan would survive the typhoon. If the engines kept going. if the waves didn’t break the deck. if not too much water went into the hold. But then he thought, more or less without fear: ‘No, she won’t survive.’

At the same time that he was thinking this, he felt Captain MacWhirr’s heavy arm over his shoulder. He replied by putting his own arm round MacWhirr.

‘Will she live through this?’ he asked the captain. At first there was no answer, only the angry noise of the wind and the sea against the ship’s side. But then he heard MacWhirr’s voice: ‘Going to. all right. good ship.

everything will. for the best.’ Jukes wasn’t sure if this was more of the captain’s slow but sure way of thinking, or if the ship really would be all right. But it was good to hear MacWhirr’s words.

‘Where are. crew?’ asked Macwhirr.

‘What. say, sir?’ Jukes couldn’t hear his question.

‘Where. all the men?’ said MacWhirr.

Just then Jukes felt a hand touching his boot, then a second hand, and then he felt both these hands pulling on his trousers. A man was on his knees, trying to stand up. He was using Jukes’s body to help him. It was the boatswain. He was a little man, with short legs and long arms, who usually smiled a lot.

‘Is that you, sir?’ he said to MacWhirr.

‘Yes, boatswain. What have you come to tell us?’ replied MacWhirr.

‘It’s about the Chinese labourers, sir.’

‘Well, what about them, boatswain?’ said Jukes.

‘The sea has taken them all, sir.’