Ocean Prize (1972) (12 page)

It was the wreckage amidships that drew him first, as it had drawn Loder on a previous occasion. He saw the toppled funnel, and, like Loder, he crawled to the edge of the wide, jagged hole in the decks and peered down. There was no smoke now to obscure the view, and he could see right down
to the engine-room which the explosion had wrecked and the fire had gutted. He caught a glint of something down there, of something moving, and he heard the sound of water swilling back and forth as the ship rolled. There was the reason why the fire had gone out; the engine-room was flooded. He wondered whether this water had all got in from above or whether some of it was leaking in from the bottom; but either way there was nothing he could do about it unless he got a bucket and line and started baling.

Then he saw the impaled head, and it was as much a shock as if he had in fact seen a ghost. It was the unexpectedness of it that touched his nerves; for Loder had said nothing to anyone about what he had seen. It was completely black now, and but for the lank, straight hair, might have been the head of a Negro. Wilson stared at it for a while in fascination, then drew back with a shudder.

As he did so he felt what seemed like an answering shudder pass through the ship. He got to his feet, ran to the bridge and looked towards the bows. The hawser stretched away from the forecastle in a gentle curve before dipping beneath the surface of the water, and two or three hundred yards ahead was the stern of the
Hopeful
Enterprise.
Smoke was pouring from her funnel, and a breeze that had sprung up and had already dispersed the last of the fog was blowing this smoke away in a widening, thinning streamer.

They were on their way.

Wilson looked for the
Atlantic
Scavenger
and found her some distance away on the port beam. He lifted two fingers to the tug and went below.

Everywhere he went he saw the unmistakable signs of a hasty evacuation. There were bunks that had been slept in
and left as they were, the sheets and blankets all in disarray; in the crew’s messroom aft there were plates and cups left unwashed, and dishes that had had food on them were spilled over on to the deck. It looked as though the decision to abandon the ship, when it had finally been taken, had been taken suddenly. Possibly there had been some urging from the master of the
Sargasso
Queen,
and with a fire burning amidships and the weather breaking up, Captain van Donck of the
India
Star
had no doubt decided that he had no alternative. And so the prize had been left for anyone who could take it.

Again, as he explored the ship, Wilson had that sense of eeriness. To him, a seaman, everything was familiar; he could find his way with ease; but it was the absence of any other human being that was so unnerving. He found himself continually glancing over his shoulder, expecting to discover eyes watching his every movement; or, opening a door, he would imagine that someone had just slipped away, avoiding him. And there was the silence: no thump of engines, no sound of voices; only the whisper of the sea moving along the sides and the occasional clatter of something loose moving as the ship rolled and setting the pulse racing.

As Lawson had suggested, he moved into the captain’s quarters; there was no reason why he should not take the best. There was plenty of room, very different from the cramped accommodation he shared in the
Hopeful
Enter
prise.
There was a day cabin comfortably furnished with armchairs and a settee, a desk, bookshelves, even a carpet; all this abandoned to the sea. The inner cabin was smaller. Wilson looked into the wardrobe. Captain van Donck had left his tropical kit and a spare blue serge jacket with brass buttons and four gold braid rings on each sleeve. Wilson took the jacket out and tried it on; it was loose round the
waist, obviously made for a much stouter man. He took the jacket off and put it back in the wardrobe.

Another door opened into a small bathroom, gleaming with chromium plate, glass and white porcelain. Wilson caught sight of his reflection in a mirror; the face looked older, the eyes troubled; it had the traces too of the beating he had received from Trubshaw, but he was not worried about that; if that had been all there was on his mind he would have been happy. If only it were possible to turn back the calendar, to start again from that fatal moment when he had gone ashore with Trubshaw and Lawson and Moir. If only he had been able then to foresee what would happen. But it was too late to think of that now. He was caught; he was in a net from which there was no escape. The haunted eyes stared back at him from the mirror and could see no way out. Except one.

He left the bathroom and went back into the day cabin. He walked to the desk and started opening drawers. There was nothing of much interest to him; it was hardly likely that there would be. Captain van Donck would have seen to it that all papers of any importance were taken with him when he left the ship.

One drawer was locked. Wilson searched for a key but without success. He shrugged; it did not matter. He moved away from the desk, but illogically the locked drawer drew him back. Why had it been left locked when none of the others were? Had it simply been overlooked or had it purposely been left like that? Yet why would anyone bother to lock a drawer in a ship that was going to sink anyway? But of course there had been no certainty that the ship would sink. And it had not done so.

The question nagged at Wilson; key or no key, he had to open the drawer and see for himself what was inside.

It was was surprisingly easy to force the drawer; he had only to insert the blade of his knife and exert a little pressure. Inside were a .38 calibre revolver and several boxes of ammunition.

B
arling
was
not altogether happy when Loder returned from the
India
Star
without Wilson. It seemed to him a grave risk to leave the young seaman on board the other ship.

“He wanted to stay,” Loder explained.

To Barling that appeared hardly sufficient reason. Perhaps Wilson did not fully realise the danger, but Loder should have done so, and should not have allowed him to stay.

“I don’t like it.”

“You want that ship, don’t you?”

“Of course I want the ship, but that’s not the point.”

“I think it’s very much the point,” Loder said. “The tug is going to shadow us; you can count on that. And if the
India
Star
goes adrift again they’ll maybe get in quicker than we can. Wilson is our insurance against a take-over.”

Barling could see that without its being spelt out to him. Indeed, with a part of his mind he was glad that Wilson had been left behind to guard the prize, though he would not admit as much to Loder.

“It’s risking a man’s life.”

Loder’s mouth had its sardonic twist as he asked: “Do you want us to go back and take him off?”

Presented with a straight question like that, Barling was forced to make his own decision; obviously Loder was not
going to let him shift the responsibility. He hesitated a moment before answering: “No. Since he’s there, we’ll leave it like that for the present. But get one of the engineers to look at the engine in that boat.”

“I was going to do that.”

“I may decide to take Wilson off—later.”

“Yes,” Loder said. “Later.” But his eyes seemed to be saying that it would be much later, that he did not believe Barling would decide on anything of the kind. Wilson was the insurance, and it was too valuable a piece of insurance to throw away.

Trubshaw, lying on his bunk in the hospital with his head aching and his neck hurting him, listened to the sounds of the ship and tried to deduce from them what was going on. When the engines stopped he wondered whether they had broken down again; but then he heard the sounds of the boat being lowered and he guessed that the
India
Star
had been sighted. It was not until the second steward came in that he heard about the
Atlantic
Scavenger.

“You mean the tug’s ’ere?”

“That’s right,” Tricker said. “It was touch and go whether she got in first, but we beat her to it.” He sounded complacent, as though he personally had won the race.

“You mean we ain’t goin’ to let ’er ’ave the tow?”

“After all the trouble we’ve taken to get it? You must be joking.”

Trubshaw groaned. “We should’ve let it go. We should’ve let the tug take it. It’s ’ers be rights.”

“Not the way I heard it,” Tricker said. “You take a ship what’s been abandoned, it’s anybody’s to take in tow what can. And it’s first come, first served.”

“We oughter let it go.”

“What and lose all that salvage money? There’s a whisper going round that we’ll all get some. Nice work, I call that.”

Trubshaw felt the vibration as the engines started to turn over and knew that the
Hopeful
Enterprise
must be taking up the slack. He groaned again.

“I’ll never get no money. I’ll be dead.”

Tricker looked at him with a sharp, calculating eye and came to the conclusion that Trubshaw could just possibly be right; he certainly did not look at all well. Not that he, Tricker, was going to lose any sleep over it. It was someone else’s worry: Trubshaw’s.

Wilson took the revolver out of the drawer and examined it. There was a thin film of oil on the surface of the metal to protect it from rust, and the barrel was about six inches long. On the side of the barrel he could read the words: Smith & Wesson. He had never before had a real pistol in his hands, and he felt a thrill at the touch of it, at the dull gleam of the dark metal. It looked as deadly as a cobra; two and a half pounds of compact lethal machinery. Wilson gripped the butt in the palm of his hand, curled one finger round the trigger and eased back the hammer with his thumb. He held the revolver at arm’s length and pressed the trigger. The hammer tripped forward with a sharp click.

“Bang!” Wilson said. “You’re dead.”

After a little manipulation he found how to get at the cylinder for loading. He took six rounds from one of the boxes and filled the cylinder. He felt a desire to fire the gun; he was like a child with a new toy and could not wait to use it. Well, what was there to stop him? On board this ship he was master; he could do what he liked and there was no one to tell him not to. So he would fire the revolver.

He put a box of ammunition in his pocket, and with the
revolver in his hand, left the cabin. He did not want to risk attracting attention from the
Hopeful
Enterprise,
so he made his way to the poop and took up a position on the starboard side of the deckhouse where he was also screened from the view of anyone on board the tug. The stern of the
India
Star
was lifting and falling, so that he had to steady himself with his left hand on a stanchion while he lifted the revolver, sighted on a fleck of foam on the surface of a wave and pressed the trigger.

He was surprised by the kick of recoil; it jarred his hand. The barrel jumped and he had no idea where the bullet went. He realised that accurate shooting with a pistol was not quite as easy as it looked on the films.

He tried again, gripping the butt more firmly and keeping his arm as rigid as possible. This time he did in fact see where the bullet hit the water, though it was not quite where he had aimed. The third and fourth shots he lost altogether, but the fifth he again saw flick the water. The sixth was nowhere.

That completed one loading. He ejected the empty cases and refilled the cylinder. The crack of the revolver sounded quite loud in his ears, but he doubted whether it would be noticed in the other ships; the wind would carry it away. He continued firing until he had used up the box of ammunition; then he returned to the cabin, cleaned and oiled the gun, and put it back in the drawer.

He had had nothing to eat since breakfast, and he suddenly realised that he was hungry. He searched around and found a steward’s pantry stocked with food. There was a sink and a small cooker with a cylinder of gas connected to it. He cooked himself a meal and drank three cups of sweet, milky coffee.

When he went back to the bridge he saw that the sky
had cleared and that a pale sun was throwing shadows on the deck. The shadows moved as the ship rolled, and the wind seemed to have turned colder, though it had not increased in strength. There was a slight swell, but nothing to worry about; if it got no worse than this, Wilson reflected, they would make it easily. And then what? The police waiting for him? His heart sank. What future was there for him?

Scotton came to Barling with information early the next day. He seemed excited about it.

“The cat’s out of the bag, sir.”

Barling, who with so many things on his mind had not slept well, looked at him sourly. “What do you mean? What cat?”

“The news, sir.”

“What news? For God’s sake, man, out with it.”

“About us, sir. About us snatching the
India
Star
from the tug. They must have sent a signal from the
Atlantic
Scavenger
about it.”

“Yes, they would. It was to be expected.” Barling thought it over. It made no difference of course; the situation remained the same; it had simply become common knowledge, as it had been bound to sooner or later. “Well, much good it’ll do them.”

“I suppose, sir, there’s no need to maintain radio silence any longer?”

“What? Oh, no, not any more.” There had been no point in it from the moment when the tug had sighted them, but he had forgotten to tell Scotton; there had been so many other matters to think about. “Back to normal.”

“Yes, sir.” Scotton sounded pleased. Now that the ban had been lifted he would be able to give the other side of
the story. There would be people in England eager to hear something from the
Hopeful
Enterprise
, and he would satisfy them. He might even get his name in the papers. It looked like being a big story.

Barling, as though able to read what was passing in Scotton’s mind, applied a little cold water to the flames of the radio officer’s enthusiasm. “Nothing sensational, you understand? No playing this up as some kind of piracy on the high seas. Just the bare facts and no embroidery.”

Scotton went away slightly deflated but consoling himself with the reflection that even the bare facts were pretty sensational. They hardly needed any embroidery.

The second day on board the
India
Star
passed rather slowly for Wilson. He felt restless. Like Captain Barling, he had not slept well, and for a similar reason: there was too much on his mind; though what was on Wilson’s mind was very different from what was on Barling’s. At first light he was up on the forecastle examining the hawser where it passed through the fairlead. There were no obvious signs of wear or strain. He had thoroughly greased the wire the previous day and it was making very little noise.

He went back to the bridge and searched for the tug with the aid of a powerful pair of binoculars that he had found in the wheelhouse. He discovered the
Atlantic
Scavenger
away on the horizon on the port side. The night had passed and nothing had changed. The weather was dry, the wind fresh, just enough sea running to make the ship roll, visibility good.

Wilson was observed from the
Hopeful
Enterprise
when he came out on to the wing of the bridge or went up to the forecastle. Barling himself had a look at him through binoculars and was somewhat relieved. His qualms of the previous day concerning the young seaman’s safety appeared
now to have had little foundation. Wilson was obviously all right; probably enjoying the experience. It would be an adventure to him, something to talk about when he went ashore.

But Wilson was not looking upon it as an adventure that he would talk about ashore. Drawn irresistibly by that gruesome blackened head impaled on its iron spike, he returned to the boat-deck and peered down into the hole. He heard the dark water swilling back and forth at the bottom and imagined that he heard the cries of the dead men. He looked at the head and wondered what kind of man this had been in life. One of the joking kind perhaps. He was not joking now, unless this was in itself a joke, this head caught up on the iron and staring blindly at nothing.

He saw the rats then, a dozen of them, creeping along some broken decking, only dimly discernible in the half-light. He could hear them squeaking, and they disgusted him, turned his stomach. He hated rats.

On a sudden impulse he stood up and ran to the captain’s cabin and fetched the revolver. He lay down at the edge of the hole and saw that one of the rats had succeeded in climbing up to the head. It was gnawing away at that grim relic, and Wilson could hear the sound of its teeth grinding into flesh and bone. He steadied the revolver with both hands, took careful aim, and fired.

The sound of the shot was followed by an immediate scamper of small feet as the rats fled to safety. The bullet had missed the rat that had been gnawing the head but had struck the head itself, wrenching it from the spike and sending it plummeting to the bottom of the ship. Wilson heard the splash as it hit the water; it was like the sound of a large stone dropped into a well.

He was angered by his failure to kill the rat. “Damn
you!” he shouted: “Damn you, you stinking brutes!”

He fired the revolver again, and the sound of the shot echoed hollowly, the bullet whining as it ricocheted from metal to metal. He emptied the cylinder, cursing the rats as he did so. “Damn you! Damn you! Damn you!”

When the hammer clicked he drew back from the hole. His hands were shaking and his head ached. He took the revolver back to the cabin, put it away in the drawer, and lay down on the settee.

The day passed without incident on board the
Hopeful
Enterprise.
She was still listing slightly, but the list did not appear to have got any worse. The weather was being kind and the engines were on their best behaviour, so that by nightfall the ship was a good hundred miles east of the spot where the
India
Star
had been recovered.

Barling knew, however, that it was too early for any complacency. There were still between seven and eight hundred miles of ocean to be passed, and even if all went well that meant another nine or ten days of steaming at the speed they were making. In that time all kinds of undesirable things might happen, and he was very much aware of the tug, never far away, prepared to take advantage of any mishap. He would not be able to relax until both ships were safe in harbour.

Madden, too, was still worrying. The engines had been patched up once, but he was far from confident that they would not break down again. He confided his fears to Loder, but got little encouragement in that quarter. The mate was in one of his sardonic moods and seemed to take a mischievous pleasure in depressing the chief engineer’s spirits even more.

“You’d better keep that heap of old scrap-iron working.
If not, we’re going to be in trouble with our tow. We might have to turn it over to the tug. They’d be pleased.”

“Barling wouldn’t do that.”

“He might have no alternative. You can’t tow another ship if your own is incapable of pushing herself.”

Madden looked gloomy. “If we hand over to the tug there’ll be no salvage money.”

“Unless they feel like giving us a share—for our good work. Which is about as likely as a heat wave at the South Pole. And if we lose the salvage money you know what happens.”

Madden’s troubled eyes searched Loder’s face for any spark of comfort, and could find none. “You really believe B. and C. will go into liquidation?”

Loder put a hand on Madden’s shoulder and gave his most malicious grin. “I’m sure of it, Chief. Dead sure.”