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CHAPTER FIVE

We need light

‘What do you mean, the sea has taken all the Chinese labourers?’ MacWhirr asked the boatswain.

‘I saw an enormous wave. it took them all. together in one big group.’

‘Are you sure about that, boatswain?’ Jukes asked. He didn’t think the boatswain was very clever. He never understood why Captain MacWhirr believed that he was good at his job.

‘I saw it happen with my own two eyes, sir,’ said the boatswain. He then told them everything that happened from the time that the typhoon struck:

When the boatswain and the rest of the crew saw that they were in a typhoon, they ran from the deck, and looked for somewhere drier to escape from the worst of the storm. Many of them went to a dark room under the bridge. Here, the ship rolled as much as it did on deck, but there was less water.

It was very dark, and the crew were in the middle of a typhoon for the first time. Most thought that it would be their last time too. Fear made them start shouting, and with every wave that hit the deck, their shouts became louder. One of them said that they needed a light. If the ship was going to sink, at least they could see around them before they died.

‘I don’t like the idea of drowning in the dark,’ he said.

‘Well, if you want a light so badly, why don’t you get one yourself?’ answered the boatswain. This made them shout even more, for not one of them wanted to go out into the storm. The boatswain didn’t want to go and look for a light either: outside the room that they were in.

anything could happen. And the nearest place to find lights was far away. But then he remembered that there were six lights in the hold, where all the Chinese labourers were. He decided to go to the hold and bring one back.

Outside, the ship was rolling wildly from side to side. The wind, the powerful waves hitting the deck all around him, the moving ship - all seemed to be doing their best to kill him. With every step that he took, he was afraid that he would fall overboard into the angry China Sea below him. He fought his way to the hold, falling many times.

The typhoon was breaking the ship into pieces, and he often had to avoid pieces of thin metal that the sea and the wind threw at him. The noise of the typhoon was terrible to hear.

The wind was screaming at him: it was a noise halfway between fury and pain. But underneath the screaming wind, and the noise of metal hitting metal, there was something strange and new that he could hear: a deep thumping noise.

Was it coming from the hold? It seemed that something very large and heavy was rolling from one side of the ship to the other.

The boatswain couldn’t understand it - there was nothing large and heavy in the hold that could make that noise. But as he came closer to the hold, the thumping noise became louder and louder.

At last he arrived at the heavy metal door to the hold, and pulled it slowly open. What he found inside was terrible to see. The typhoon was throwing the Chinese labourers from one side of the hold to the other.

There was nothing for them to hold onto, so they could not stop themselves. When each new wave hit the ship, they rolled into a big pile on one side; then they all rolled back into a big pile on the other side. The hold was full of their shouts and screams.

The boatswain also saw many little pieces of wood all around the hold, together with many round pieces of bright metal. Suddenly he remembered the labourer’s boxes: now they were all in pieces, and the money that was once inside them was falling all over the hold.

It was like a great storm inside the ship, but a stormy sea of arms, legs, and terrified faces - not of wind and waves. And so it was that the sea took them!

Forgetting the lights, which were why he went on his journey to the hold in the first place, the boatswain hurried out of the room and closed the heavy door behind him quickly. He had to tell the captain about this!

Crossing the deck, which had sea water all over it, he thought a number of times that the ship was sinking. There were no ladders up to the bridge now, but he half rode the waves and half climbed up to the wheelhouse. Outside he found the second mate, lying by the door.

‘Where’s the captain?’ asked the boatswain.

‘Overboard, like the first mate, and like we’ll all be soon,’ said the second mate, laughing strangely.

On his hands and knees, the boatswain moved along the bridge away from the man, and it was then that he found Jukes and the captain.

After MacWhirr heard the boatswain’s words, he was silent for a while. He asked himself what was really happening down in the hold. Were the Chinese labourers on the ship, fighting, or in the sea, drowning? After thinking about it for some time, he turned to Jukes.

‘You must go down to the hold with the boatswain. If those Chinese labourers are fighting over their money, you’ll have to stop them. But be careful. If anything happens to me, the ship will be under your command. See what’s happened down there, and then use the speaking-tube in the engine room to tell me.’