And The Twain Shall Meet. Jason Hill

there was still enough to engender caution. It was now 10:00 p.m., and all the signs were good. The only thing that was disturbing was the new weather forecast that was calling for a strong possibility of high winds that could impede their progress by midday on Monday. By then, they should be in more sheltered waters. All things considered, they would be fine if nothing else goes wrong.

      It was not long before everything changed. At 10:30, the Sulzer diesel began to labor while trying to maintain power. Hans immediately got the engine room on the intercom, hoping to talk with George Oliver. The man who picked up the line was Norm Bitterman, the last voice Hans wanted to hear. George was on a much-needed break, leaving second engineer, Ken Brown, to keep watch. Norm put Ken on the horn.

      “I know, Cap, we’re losing power. I have no idea why. I’m not sure we can keep up this speed if it gets any worse.”

      “As much as I hate to do it, I guess you’ll have to wake George,” said Hans, trying to hide his irritation. “We have to find out what’s going on. If we get below ten knots, we may not be able to stay on course. There has to be an answer, or we’ll all be in for a long night. By the way, what’s Norm doing right now?”

      “Not much of anything. Just doing his best to look busy. Why?”

      “We don’t know anything about him, Ken. Since he came onboard, inexplicable things have been happening. I told George to keep an eye on him just in case. I’m not accusing anyone of anything, not yet, but all of our problems seem to point in his direction. He has access to some pretty sensitive equipment. What do you think?”

      “I don’t know him either, sir. That puts a new wrinkle on everything. I’ll watch him like a hawk. Oh, here comes George. I’ll let you talk to him.”

      A sleepy-sounding chief engineer was none too happy.

      “Why can’t my life ever be easy? From what I was told, we can’t develop full power for some unknown reason. Give me a few minutes to look over the situation, and I’ll get back to you with some ideas.”

      Hans started to pace up and down at his station while waiting for some sort of explanation from George. Once again, their schedule could take a beating.

      Fifteen minutes later, he got the bad news.

      “Captain,” said the obviously disturbed George Oliver, “There’s nothing I can determine without tearing some things apart. We might have some kind of obstruction in the fuel lines or the trouble could go much deeper. In order to find out we’re going to have to shut down. Good thing there’s no wind at the moment. Maybe you should come down here.”

      Hans called Charlie in the radio room and told him to come up and take over for a while. Passing through the port tunnel, his bile was once again rising. This looked like it was going to be another episode in a badly written soap opera.

      Beneath the afterhouse, George and Ken were working feverishly over the eerily silent diesel. They did not as yet have much to report. They had found some unidentifiable foreign matter in a fuel line, which was not good, but they had no idea how it got there, or what it was, or worse, how far it might have traveled before the slow down had begun. Before they could fire up and get underway, it would be imperative to dig further into the engine.

      While all of this was taking place, two of the wipers, Spencer Kinsman and Alex Flynn (no relation to the second mate), were maintaining tight surveillance on Norm Bitterman, trying not to be too obvious, but never letting him out of their sight. Norm asked to be allowed to help with the repairs. Hans would have no part of that. Norm could be innocent of any wrong doing, but this was not a time to take any risks.

      Another day was slipping away. Again Hans’s hands were tied. All he could do was to wait and fret over where they would be when the weather turned sour and further barred their progress. His thought process brought him back to Miep, wondering when and if he would hold her again safely in his arms.