Ocean Prize (1972) (11 page)

Barling questioned Scotton regarding the
Atlantic
Scavenger.
He was still afraid that the tug might steal his prize.

“What’s the latest from them?”

“Nothing” Scotton said. “The last signal I picked up was yesterday. Since then I haven’t heard anything.”

“Perhaps they gave up.”

“It seems likely, sir. I think they’d come to the conclusion that it was a pretty useless quest.”

“Well, let me know if you hear anything,” Barling said.

Scotton took this for a dismissal and went away.

The search continued until the gathering darkness made it useless to go on any longer; then Barling called it off until morning. During the night the wind dropped away almost completely, and dawn came with a thin fog reducing visibility.

“This isn’t going to help the search,” Loder remarked when Barling joined him on the bridge towards the end of the morning watch. “All we needed was fog.”

“It’s nothing much,” Barling said. “It’ll clear when the sun comes up.”

“Perhaps.” Loder was his usual disgruntled self at that hour, unwilling to look on the bright side of anything; unwilling even to admit that there was a bright side.

Barling ignored him; he did not require Loder’s gloomy remarks to depress him; the fog was enough to do that, even though it was thin, even though it might disperse later. It was not enough to prevent them from re-starting the search, but it limited the width of the sections and made the operation that much slower. Still, there was nothing one could do to control the weather; its vagaries had to be accepted. One thing at least was certain: with little or no wind, the
India
Star
would not be drifting so much. If she was drifting at all.

By ten o’clock a hazy sun was visible through the mist, which was becoming patchy. And then, at precisely eleven-fifteen, they found what they were looking for. When probably no one in the entire ship except the captain still had any belief that it could happen, they sighted the
India
Star.

“There!” Mr. Walpole shouted, pointing excitedly. “There, sir! Can you see her?”

She appeared out of the mist like a wraith, her outline blurred and indistinct. Barling looked at the ship, half fearful that it might dissolve and fade into nothing even as he watched. So he was vindicated; he had been right, the others wrong. The prize was here.

Breaking in upon his thoughts came the third mate’s voice: “I didn’t think we’d find her. I felt sure she would have sunk.”

Yes, they had all thought that, and they had all been wrong. Only he had been right. But he did not feel any great pride in that; he had not persisted merely to prove who was right and who was wrong; that was of no importance. What was important was that they should take this ship again in tow and bring her safely to port. He was only too well aware that there was still a long way to go before that goal could be reached.

He gave an order and Walpole relayed it to the helmsman. The
Hopeful
Enterprise
altered course slightly and headed towards the derelict. A few minutes later Walpole, who had been examining the gradually hardening lines of the
India
Star
through his binoculars, gave an exclamation of surprise.

“That’s funny, sir.”

“What is,” Barling asked.

“There’s no smoke.”

It was true. With the mist thinning around the
India
Star
it was possible to see that there was no column of smoke rising from the midships section.

“The fire must have gone out, sir.”

Either it had burnt itself out or the torrential rain had quenched it. At last things seemed to be in Barling’s favour. The gods were smiling.

Half an hour later the
Hopeful
Enterprise
was hove to and number one lifeboat was being swung out under the direction of Mr. Loder. He had decided to take the same boarding party as before—Orwell, Lawson, Veevers and Wilson—and again he felt that spark of enthusiasm leaping up inside him. It had died when they had lost touch with the
India
Star
; he had never expected to see the ship again, and he had thought Barling a fool for going on with the search; but now they had found the prize once more, and once more the idea of taking it in against all the odds roused his spirit.

And this time the fixing of the tow-rope ought not to be so difficult; the sea was calmer and there was scarcely any wind. The
Hopeful
Enterprise
had been able to get in closer, and that meant that there would be less weight of hawser to haul across. Yes, indeed the gods were smiling.

And then they ceased to smile. Or perhaps the smile had turned a trifle cynical.

“Sir!” Mr. Walpole said; and there was something in his tone that caused Barling to swing round quickly.

The third mate was pointing again. Barling followed the direction of his outstretched arm and saw what it was that had caught his attention. It was away on the starboard bow, and he did not need to use his binoculars; he knew only too well what that shape was just emerging from the thinning mist, and he knew why Walpole had said “Sir!” in that particular tone of voice. It was a small, squat, unmistakable vessel, and it was the vessel he least desired to see in that precise place at that precise moment of time.

“The tug,” Walpole said.

The
Atlantic
Scavenger
had not after all abandoned the search.

M
r.
L
oder
swore briefly. So it had become a race. But it was a race that they must surely win, for the tug was at least a mile away.

“They’re too late,” Orwell said. “They’ll never catch us now.”

Loder snapped an order: “Man the boat.

The tug would come up fast when her master had sized up the situation. There was no time to lose.

On the bridge Barling and Walpole caught the flicker of an Aldis lamp sending its message across the intervening stretch of water. They both read it.

“Leave her to us.”

Barling spoke calmly to Walpole, and the third mate picked up an Aldis lamp and sent back an answer.

“We were here first.”

More flashes from the tug. “We are going to tow her in.”

An answer from the
Hopeful
Enterprise
: “No. We are.”

From the tug: “Do not interfere.”

And finally from the
Hopeful
Enterprise
: “Go to hell.”

“Lower away,” Loder ordered.

The lifeboat dropped a little jerkily towards the water as the falls were paid out, and a few moments later it was
moving away from the side of the ship, its engine pulsing and exhaust fumes puffing from the stern. The
Atlantic
Scavenger
was still more than half a mile away from the boat, but they could see her bluff bows and the compact bridge and funnel.

“She might as well give up,” Lawson said. “We’ve got her beat.”

It certainly looked like it. The boat had only a hundred yards to go and would reach the
India
Star
in less than a minute. But Lawson had spoken too soon; perhaps tempting fate. Indeed, he had scarcely finished speaking when the engine of the lifeboat stammered a little, seemed to choke once or twice, and then fell silent. The boat began to drift.

They tried to re-start the engine, but without success; it remained obstinately unresponsive to all their efforts, and the tug halved the distance between them. They could hear the rushing sound of its bow wave coming rapidly nearer.

“Man the oars,” Loder snarled. “Look lively.”

They had to depend on their own strength now. They slipped the crutches into their sockets and took up the heavy oars. They took up positions on the thwarts and rested the oars in the crutches.

“Together, pull!”

They began to row. The boat moved sluggishly forward and the
India
Star
seemed to be farther away. Loder, still with his hand on the tiller, glanced over his shoulder and saw that the tug was near.

“Put your backs into it.”

The men pulled with a will. It was a personal affair with them all now. The tug was the enemy and they meant to beat it; they and Loder were in full agreement on that point.

But there were still fifty yards of open water separating them from the
India
Star
when the tug overhauled them. It
came in at an angle, slanting across the line on which they were moving, and it seemed scarcely to slacken speed at all.

“By God!” Veevers shouted in sudden alarm. “They’re going to run us down.”

Loder saw the danger at the same instant. It seemed incredible that the tugmaster should take such drastic action, but he could see a valuable prize slipping through his fingers, and that was enough to make any man desperate.

“Back together!”

They backed water, pushing on the looms of the oars, and the tug swept past within a few feet of the boat’s bows. Loder could see faces peering down from the bridge of the little ship; hard, grim faces under peaked caps. He felt like shouting at them, cursing their inhumanity; but it would have been pointless. And then the bow wave hit the boat, and it was tossing about and twisting round, with water spilling over the gunwale; and for a few moments there was utter confusion as the men strove to hold on to their oars and regain control.

It was possible that the tugmaster had intended doing no more than this, hoping that the subsequent confusion in the lifeboat might give him time to get his own boarding party on to the deck of the
India
Star.
But the very speed of his approach militated against the success of the manoeuvre, for he could neither draw alongside the derelict nor launch his own boat until way had been taken off the tug. And by then Loder and his crew had regained control of the lifeboat and were well on the way to closing the last few yards of water between them and the Jacob’s-ladder still hanging down from the bulwarks of the
India
Star.

They took in their oars and the boat nudged the side of the ship. Lawson grabbed the Jacob’s-ladder, and Loder swarmed nimbly up and jumped down on to the deck. He
turned and saw the tug some distance away, hove to, a boat being launched. He grinned sardonically. They were too late. He was in possession now and, do what they would, they could not shift him.

Orwell came up over the bulwark and made fast the painter. The other men followed. They could hear the muffled beat of the engine in the boat that was now drawing away from the
Atlantic
Scavenger.

“We’re going to have visitors,” Veevers remarked.

“No one,” Loder said, “is to be allowed to set foot on this deck. Is that understood?”

Lawson nodded. “Understood, sir.” He began to climb back over the bulwark.

“Where are you going?” Loder demanded.

“Won’t be a moment, sir.”

Watched by the others, Lawson went quickly down the Jacob’s-ladder, picked up a boat-hook from the lifeboat and returned with it in his hand.

“Prepared to repel boarders, sir.”

Veevers gave him a pat on the back. “Good for you Aussie.”

“I think we could have persuaded them without that,’ Loder said.

Lawson grinned. “It’ll strengthen the argument. If they try any tricks I don’t mind giving ’em a jab with the sharp end of this. They gave us a nasty minute or two out there and I haven’t forgotten it. Things like that stick in my gullet.”

They stood by the bulwark and watched the other boat. They waited in silence as it eased alongside the lifeboat. There were four men in it. One of them stepped over the gunwale and across a thwart of the lifeboat and began to climb the Jacob’s-ladder. He was a chunky man and the
life-jacket he was wearing made him look even chunkier. His face looked like a slab of raw beef with a couple of indentations in it to accommodate his eyes, a blob for a nose and a slit for a mouth. The whole thing might have been dashed off by an amateur sculptor on a bad day.

Loder allowed him to get half-way up the ladder and then said: “You can stop there.”

The man stopped. He said: “I’m the mate of the
Atlantic
Scavenger.
Name’s Creegan.”

“My name’s Loder, and I’m mate of the
Hopeful
Enter
prise.
What do you want?”

“I’d like to come on board, Mr. Loder.”

“Sorry, Mr. Creegan; that won’t be possible.”

“To hell with that,” Creegan said, and he started climbing again.

Lawson leaned over the bulwark and prodded him with the boat-hook. Creegan stopped.

“So that’s the way it is.”

“That’s the way it is,” Loder said.

“You know we’ve come out to bring this ship in?”

“That won’t be necessary. We’re bringing her in.”

Creegan glanced back at the
Hopeful
Enterprise
and then up again at Loder. There was an expression of disbelief on his beefy face. “You’d never make it.”

“Think not?”

“I’m bloody sure not.”

“If you stick around,” Loder said, “you can watch us try.”

Creegan hung on to the Jacob’s-ladder and appeared uncertain what to do next. It was obvious that he was reluctant to go back to the tug and report failure; yet, with Lawson holding the boat-hook ready, there was no hope of forcing his way on board the
India
Star.

“You can’t be serious about this.”

“I’m not joking.”

“But you’d never be able to tow her in.”

“What makes you think not?” Loder asked. “We towed her for nearly two days before the hawser parted in the storm.”

Creegan’s eyes narrowed. “So that’s how she got here. That explains it.”

“You’ve been wondering about that?”

“You bet we’ve been wondering about it.” Creegan sounded exasperated. “You’ve given us some trouble finding this baby.”

“Well, now you’ve found her you can shove off,” Loder said. “We’ve got work to do.”

“You really mean to go ahead with this, don’t you?”

“We do. You can go back and tell your skipper that.”

Creegan hesitated. As if to help him make up his mind, Lawson reached over the bulwark and prodded him again with the boat-hook, none too gently. Creegan took the hint and went back to his boat. They heard him snarl an order, and the boat moved away and headed for the
Atlantic
Scavenger.
The four seamen on the deck of the
India
Star
gave a mocking cheer to speed it on its way and added a few rude gestures for good measure.

“That’s enough,” Loder said sharply. “We’ve no time to waste on courtesies. Get moving.”

The broken hawser was still hanging from the fairlead in the bows, more than a hundred fathoms of it stretching down into the water beneath the ship. They had to jettison it before starting to haul the new one across, and throughout the whole operation the tug stood by, keeping an eye on things but making no move to interfere.

“Why don’t they piss off?” Veevers said. “There ain’t nothing for them here. Not now.”

“There could be,” Orwell said.

“How d’you mean?”

Orwell pulled thoughtfully at his beard. “Suppose the tow was to part again. If they was still hanging around they could nip in and snap up the jackpot. My bet is they’ll tail us.”

Loder had already come to the same conclusion and he was not altogether happy about it. “What we really need is a salvage crew to stay on board. Nobody could take her then. Just a couple of men would be enough.”

Veevers looked doubtfully towards the bridge. There was admittedly no smoke rising now, but that was not to say that the fire would not break out again or that there would not be another explosion. And there was that list too; a little worse than it had been before.

“You ain’t asking any of us to stay on board, are you, sir?”

“No,” Loder said. “It was just a thought. But of course it would not be reasonable to ask anyone to do that. Too risky.”

And then Wilson said quietly: “I don’t mind staying.”

Four pairs of eyes turned in his direction, and under that combined stare he looked slightly embarrassed.

“You?” Loder said.

And Veevers said: “You’re barmy. You won’t get me to keep you company.”

“I don’t want anyone to keep me company.” Wilson looked at Loder. “I suppose one man would be enough, sir? It’s just a legal point, isn’t it?”

Loder rasped his chin. “I suppose so. But it’s out of the question. I couldn’t leave you behind.”

“But I want to stay.” There was a strange eagerness in Wilson’s voice that puzzled Loder. The young seaman actually seemed to be afraid that he would not be allowed to remain on board the
India
Star.

“You want to?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. It’s just something. This whole ship to myself. I’d like it.”

“Barmy,” Veevers muttered. “Proper barmy.”

Loder was silent, thinking it over. It was a risk; but, after all, the
India
Star
had proved herself seaworthy by coming through one storm, so there was no reason why she should sink now. And there was that tug standing by like a damned vulture. Loder hated the thought of losing the prize now, and if Wilson was prepared, even eager, to provide a little extra insurance, why stop him?

“Very well,” he said, “if that’s what you really want to do. You won’t be short of food; there’s bound to be plenty of that on board.”

“And you can sleep in the captain’s cabin,” Lawson said. “You’ll be moving up in the world.”

“All right,” Loder said. “That’s enough. Back to the boat.”

Orwell, Lawson and Veevers climbed over the bulwark and went down the Jacob’s-ladder. Wilson could hear the wooden rungs tapping against the side of the ship as they descended. Loder turned for a final word.

“If you’re in trouble you can always signal us.”

“I’m not a signaller, sir.”

“Well, just stand on the fo’c’sle and wave some flags, any flags. If it’s dark you can flash a light.” He did not add that if Wilson was in trouble it would probably be impossible
for anyone on board the
Hopeful
Enterprise
to do anything about it. There was no point in discouraging the volunteer.

He walked to the bulwark and climbed over. He gave a last nod to Wilson. “Good luck, then.”

“Thank you, sir,” Wilson said.

He watched them rowing back to the
Hopeful
Enterprise,
and he had an impulse to call them back, to say he had changed his mind; but he did not do so. The deck moved under his feet and a pulley-block rattled. There was no other sound. He turned away from the bulwark and looked towards the bridge. No one there; deserted; dead. He shivered, sensing for the first time the eeriness of this silent ship. He remembered that men had died in her; their bodies would still be there unless the fire had burnt them. Perhaps their ghosts would haunt the
India
Star,
lurking in the cabins and gliding along the alleyways where in life the men had moved.

But that was nonsense. He had better keep that kind of stuff out of his head. There were no such things as ghosts, and if there were, it would not be dead seamen who would come to haunt him; it would be the woman he had left dead in Montreal. And she did haunt him—in the mind. Waking or sleeping, she was there, never to be shaken off.

He took a grip on himself. There was no point in just standing there; he had to be doing something. And the first thing to do was to make a survey of what was to be his home for several days at least.