Night Passage - Uneventful.

This story relates to a rescue at sea. Many lives were lost.

Night Passage - Uneventful

While my crew went about their duties, I sat in my cabin and tried my hardest to write my report. Two days ago, I sailed into an event best forgotten.

         Truth is stranger than fiction, but I do not expect a living soul to believe it. I now understand that strange things can happen for no logical reason.

         On 6 September 1983, I was the Commanding Officer of Her Majesty’s minor warship ‘Brave’ on passage from Rosyth Naval Base to Hull. It was a three-day event, including two nights at sea, with junior officers’ navigation training as the main task.

         The barometer rose during the day but fell late in the evening. Through my cabin window, high ripples of cirrus clouds decorated the sky, little streaks that mean much to a sailor. The storm was due to arrive within the next twelve hours. I reminded the officer of the watch to listen to and log the shipping forecast.

         The cadets needed more instruction to complete their task books. I decided we should transit at ten knots from the Farne Islands to Blyth and back overnight with junior officers plotting our position every fifteen minutes.

         At the end of a long and busy day, I took a final glance round the bridge. After a quick check of the charts, my bunk beckoned. Sleep overtook me and, when the telephone beside my bunk shrilled into life, I cursed.

         I dressed in my foul weather gear and raced to the bridge. When I arrived, I asked, “Problems?” 

         “The vessel at green four-five, sir.” He pointed. “I see it, but it does not show on our radar.” 

In the black of night, its non-regulation navigation lights glowed

         Our position on the chart showed we were two miles south of the Farne Islands with plenty of sea room. I wanted to go to bed, but something was wrong.

         Wide awake, I increased speed to twenty-five knots and closed the vessel from astern.

         My first shock was that she was a paddle-steamer, under sail. I imagined it must be the Waverley, an old Clyde steamer. In an instant the squall from hell struck. Brilliant flashes illuminated the sky like star shells. A fork of lightning chased the clouds. The vessel’s name: ‘Forfarshire’. I’d never heard of her. In the next flash of lightning, it made sense. Its paddle wheels were damaged and useless, her sails in shreds. She rolled through sixty degrees, her beam broadside to those huge seas. With no power, she drifted helpless with the tide pushing her towards the Harcar Rock. 

         Then the sea changed. Short, angry seas hammered both vessels. Static erupted from the radio speaker. Any hope of salvage vanished. Could I remove the passengers and crew before she struck the rocks? With no options left, I went for it. The wind increased to storm force eight.

         The distressed ship rolled and pitched as she neared the rocks. I had to get close to help. Something was wrong. Neither my engines nor the rudder responded.

         My position remained unaltered as if frozen. Farne Lighthouse lit up the scene. The ‘Forfarshire’ struck and appeared to dance with her head high. Massive waves slammed on her exposed stern as St Elmo’s Fire played along her masts. In desperation, men tried to lower boats suitable for calm seas. A giant wave grabbed, swamped, and tore them away. 

         Helpless, we watched. The sea surged along her decks and swept away women clutching children. They vanished as rag-dolls in the foam, to reappear moments later dashed on the rocks. What remained washed away as if they had never existed.    

         From nowhere, a small cutter appeared. Across an angry stretch of water, a man rowed as a young girl steered. The wind shrieked, the noise incredible as it flung foam and spray into the air. Together they reached the lee side and took men and women from the deck.

         The lightning and thunder intensified until, with an almighty crash, the storm vanished, the sea fell flat, and we surged ahead. A full moon reflected on wet rocks.

         “Starboard twenty,” I roared, as I pulled the throttles back.

       For the next hour we searched for survivors. My crew scanned the sea with our searchlight. There was no wreckage and no bodies. Nobody spoke much during the search. Orders were acknowledged, and every man seemed reluctant to be the first to mention what we had seen.

         One of the cadets approached me on the bridge wing. In the pale light before dawn, his face looked drained of colour.

         “Sir, did we actually see that?”

         I opened my mouth to answer and found I could not.

         Every crew member witnessed the same thing. Nobody joked. Nobody suggested tiredness or an optical illusion. Sailors are practical people. We trust charts, compasses and radar, not ghost stories.

         “The radar plot shows nothing unusual,” the navigator said quietly.

         I studied the screen. He was right. No recorded contact ahead of us. No vessel crossing our track. No emergency transmission. No indication that, for a few impossible minutes, another ship had occupied the same stretch of sea.

         The cadets gathered around the chart table. Their fixes, taken every fifteen minutes throughout the night, were accurate and consistent. Our position never placed us anywhere except where we should have been.

         I said little as the sun rose. From time to time I glanced astern at the distant outline of the Farne Islands. The sea was calm now, almost innocent, giving no hint of the violence we had witnessed.

         Yet one detail still troubled me.

         When the storm was at its height and lightning lit the paddle-steamer from stem to stern, I clearly saw faces looking toward us. Not faces pleading for rescue, but faces filled with something closer to recognition, as though they could see us as plainly as we could see them.

         Farne Lighthouse remained bright in the early morning sky. I turned the ship south and resumed our course.

         The captain’s daily log is a compulsory document and should contain relevant facts. I stared at the blank page. Finally, I wrote, “Night passage uneventful, Cadets fixing the ship every fifteen minutes by radar and visual points.”

         The Forfarshire sank on 6 September 1838 due to engine failure and a storm. There were 18 survivors from 63

         Later that year, I visited the Grace Darling Museum, where a painting by a Forfarshire survivor is on display. As she clings to the rocks, a light grey streak is visible in the foreground, which may well be another vessel.