Deck boy, p.40
Deck Boy, page 40
“I went round and gathered them up, all the ones I could find anyway. Ten boxes – they were evidence. Except – you won’t believe this – one of those thick engineers and the donkey-man, they only went and ate some, didn’t they? After all that.” His eyes opened wide in disbelief. “Ones that were bombed-out before, they started to come round a couple of hours later. Wicked headaches, hung over. I reckon they were the lucky ones.”
“Wish I’d been one of them.” I sucked marmalade off my fingers. “I wouldn’t be lying here with my head stitched up and my toenail torn off.”
“That leader, the one with the machine gun – ”
“Kalashnikov,” I said.
“If you say so. Anyway him, he called you ‘the boy I met in Wellington, the boy with the English accent’. What did he mean?”
“I never told anyone except Charlie,” I said. “He threatened to kill me. Said if I went blabbing he’d cut my throat.”
“What!”
“It was pretty hairy.”
“So you did meet him?”
“Only by accident. I’d gone shopping – with Ossie actually but we went our own ways after a bit. There was this big hotel in a square, the Ascot, and I saw the bosun standing outside. He’s got on his suit and he’s waiting for someone so …”
I told him everything: Ka’tang arriving, the scene in the Albatross Bar, what happened in the cloakroom, the way they slipped out the back to avoid passing me in the foyer.
Michael was horrified. “And you didn’t tell anyone?”
I shook my head. “Except Charlie.”
“You could have told me,” Michael said. “Secretive thing! I always knew there was something funny about that cut on your arm. It didn’t look a bit like a scratch.”
“Well, now you know,” I said.
“And it was definitely the bosun you saw with him? You’re sure?”
“Come on,” I said, “I’m not going to get something like that wrong, am I? He called him a gorilla.”
Michael smiled. “I’ve been thinking: if it’s the bosun took the chocolates out the holdall like you said and put them on the bar table, his fingerprints will be all over them – all over the cellophane anyway. And everyone saw the transmitter, if that’s what it was. Looked like a pretty good radio to me. Maybe he’s still got it in his cabin. Too thick to sling it over the side.”
“Unless the pirates took it.”
“Of course they would, that’s a pity.” He sat forward. “Anyway, what are you going to do?”
“Give us a chance,” I said, “I’ve only just come round. What do you think?”
“Tell Daddy Bell,” he said at once. “You’ve got to. All those accidents you’ve had, you’re lucky to be alive. And now we’ve all been drugged and beaten up and robbed by this terrible gang – and the bosun’s been helping them. There’s an engineer dead! People are badly hurt. The engines have been scuppered, all the registered cargo’s gone, we’ve got no navigation equipment. And now there’s a storm coming up. What’s going to happen next?”
I couldn’t think of anything to say.
Michael helped me out. “It’s enough to make a girl reach for the gin bottle, I’ll tell you that for nothing.”
Interview with the Mate
CAPTAIN BELL was on the bridge and hadn’t left it for twenty-four hours. The tropical storm, which bore every sign of developing into a full typhoon, was strengthening by the minute. Our speed had been reduced, just enough to hold headway into the wind, and our course altered to meet the sea head-on. Visibility was less than a mile. Pacific Trader had no radar and no radio. All the captain’s efforts were concentrated in nursing his ship safely through the atoll-studded waters of the Java Sea; one mistake and we could end up fighting for our lives in the towering waves that bore down from the north-west. At that moment he had no time for a deck boy with a tale to tell, no matter how important.
“See the mate,” advised Tim Nettles who met me at the chartroom door. “There’s nothing the captain can do right now.”
As if to confirm his words, the ship lurched with the impact of a wave and solid spray smacked the windows of the wheelhouse.
I limped back down the stairs that led from the chartroom to the officers’ alleyway. One foot was bare, my heavily-bandaged toe made it impossible to put on a shoe. Michael waited at the bottom.
“I suppose you’ve got no option,” he said when I reported what Tim Nettles had told me. “Either that or wait until the storm dies down.”
I thought about it. “Will you come with me?”
“Of course I will, try to stop me. You’re not going by yourself, that’s for sure.”
The mate’s cabin held unhappy memories for me. I had been given a spectacular bawling-out there for helping Trish with the praying mantis. His curtain swung far out as the ship rolled heavily. I tidied my clothes and knocked.
“Come in.” A relaxed voice came from within.
I made a face at Michael and pushed the curtain aside.
“Oh! It’s you, Bennett.” The pleasantness evaporated. “Always you, the ubiquitous deck boy. What is it this time? If you’ve got any business that needs my attention, tell the bosun, you know that. You are not, repeat not, to come bothering me in my quarters.”
“It’s about the bosun we’ve come to see you, sir.” I stepped into the cabin with Michael at my heels.
“Oh, you’ve got Goldie with you. So it’s we this time, is it?”
“Well, it’s mostly me, sir.” I staggered, trying to save my foot as the ship rolled far over. “But Michael knows all about it.”
“Oh, he does? Well bully for him.” The mate sat in a wooden armchair. His cheek was bruised from the punch Ka’tang had given him on the bridge. He wore patterned swimming shorts and a blue shirt unbuttoned to the waist. He had been drinking. “Well, soon I’ll know all about it too, so we don’t need him here, do we?”
I looked at Michael. “No, I suppose – well, not really but he can corroborate everything if – ”
“Corroborate, no less. My goodness, deck boys do use big words. Well, if we need corroboration we’ll send for him. But right now I’m tired, I’ve got a headache and the weather’s bloody awful. So get out, Goldie, sling your hook. You’re not needed.”
Michael hesitated.
“Did you hear what I said?”
Michael gave him a blue stare and turned away. “Wait for you outside,” he said softly and retreated through the curtain.
The mate sipped from his whisky glass. “Right, Bennett, something you want to tell me about the bosun.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You do realise that Mr Ryland might be annoyed, you going over his head like this.”
“Yes, sir, but I don’t see what else I can do.” I staggered again and knocked my toe. The sudden pain made me gasp.
The mate watched me coolly; he didn’t invite me to sit down.
“All right, what is this vital piece of information?” He reached for a cigarette and stretched out his legs. His shirt fell open and I saw a thin red line across his chest. I realised this was the wound he had received up on the bridge when Ka’tang draw his knife and I had thought he was going to be killed; the wound that had bloodied the front of his shirt. To my surprise it was nothing, barely skin-deep, little more than the cut on my arm. Already, in less than two days, it was healing over.
The mate saw me looking and pulled his shirt across. “You were saying, about Mr Ryland.”
So I told him, just as I had told Charlie, Aaron and Michael: all about the Ascot Hotel, and Ka’tang in his Armani suit, and the bosun, and the third man, and the chocolates, and the senior cadet distributing them around the ship, and the radio, and what had happened in the hotel cloakroom, and Ka’tang’s remark about the boy I met in Wellington. And going back to the start of the trip I told him about Tony stealing the snorkelling gear from number five hold, and the bosun taking the whisky. But I didn’t tell him about the sextant, binoculars and other things hidden in my cabin and how Charlie and I had dumped them over the side.
The mate listened attentively. “Well,” he said as I finished, “full marks for imagination. I never heard such a farrago of lies and ridiculous accusations in my life. You’ve really gone to town this time, Bennett.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You don’t expect me to believe all that?”
“But it’s true, sir. Every word.”
“Oh, yes? And what’s your verification? Where’s the proof? Who, apart from you, can vouch for any of it?”
“Well, Charlie Sunderland that had the appendicitis, Michael Goldie, Aaron Scott, they know.”
“And who told them?”
“Well, I did. But it was right when it happened. I was the only one there so it had to be – ”
“Precisely, you were the only one there. At the – what did you call this hotel?”
“The Ascot.”
“Sir.”
“Sir.”
“So, the only one who saw Mr Ryland at the Ascot Hotel, the only one who saw Fanshott-Williams raid the cargo, the only one – ”
“But it’s true!” I said again. “Sir.”
“Repetition doesn’t alter facts, Bennett. Shouting isn’t proof. You’ve got a grudge against the bosun, had it from the first day you stepped aboard this ship. And it’s a bit underhand, not to say convenient, to start accusing the senior cadet the second he’s been abducted by those damned savages.”
I heard footsteps in the passage. Someone, Philip I think, stopped to speak to Michael.
“You’ve got a tip about yourself, Bennett,” the mate went on, “got a chip on your shoulder. You see yourself as different from the rest of this crew – seem to think you’re somehow superior. So you come up on the bridge and try to ingratiate yourself with the second officer, I’ve seen it myself. Pal up with one of the cadets. And when the bosun cuts you down to size you don’t like it. First chance you get, you invent this tissue of lies.”
“That’s not right,” I said. “It’s not fair. And they’re not lies.”
He drew on his cigarette. Smoke stung his eyes. He assessed me through it.
“I don’t like you, Bennett, I can’t speak more plainly than that. You’re a bloody nuisance. I think you wouldn’t know the truth if it jumped up and bit you on the arse.”
There was no point in arguing, no point repeating myself, plainly I was getting nowhere. “I’m sorry if you don’t believe me, sir. All I can do is tell you what I saw and I came to report it.” Struck by a thought I added, “And when the captain asks for statements and the police come aboard, I’ll tell them exactly the same thing.”
“What?”
“There’s bound to be an enquiry, sir, surely. There’s a man dead, people kidnapped. All the crew have been – ”
“My God! Who the hell d’you think you are? D’you think I don’t realise all that?”
Angrily the mate sprang from his seat and crossed to a little sideboard that doubled as a bar. The bottle clashed against the tumbler as he replenished his whisky. The water in a jug was warm and he went through to the bathroom. I glimpsed an enamel kidney dish beside the washbasin. A hypodermic syringe lay on a cloth. Was this the shot Barbara had stopped him from giving me? It sent a shiver down my spine. The mate saw me watching and pulled the curtain across.
I checked in the alleyway. Michael stood by the door. I beckoned him in.
For a couple of minutes the mate was gone. I told Michael what he had said and looked around the cabin. To me it appeared much the same as the last time I had been there but Michael, who was the officers’ steward, said:
“Do you see his wife’s picture’s gone?”
“What?”
He explained: the photo torn in half and planted in my cabin had been replaced by another. It was no longer there. Nor, when I thought about it, were her gold sandals, her hairbrush, her lipsticks, her bottles of lotion and underwear that had littered the mate’s cabin. Within two days every trace of silly, sexy, kindly Trish had been removed. Even the bed now had a plain blue cover and the air, which had been fresh and perfumed, was heavy with the male odours of whisky and cigars.
“Nothing to do with me,” Michael said. “He stuffed it all into a bin bag and dumped it in the bottom of the wardrobe.”
The mate returned, glass in hand, leaving the bathroom curtain open. The kidney dish and its contents had been removed.
“Oh, you’re back, Goldie.” He wasn’t pleased. “Very well, I’ve been thinking about what you told me, Bennett, and I think we’ll have Mr Ryland up here. See what he has to say about these accusations of yours.”
“He’ll deny it, sir,” I said, emboldened by Michael’s presence. “What else can he do? But it makes no difference, he was there. I know what I saw.”
“Yes, yes, so you keep saying. Incidentally, that knife the leader – what did you say his name was – ?”
“Ka’tang.”
“That’s right, what was that about some knife he dropped?”
“He didn’t drop it, sir, he gave it to me, told Barry Crisp to pass it on. It’s in the cabin.”
“Dropped, gave, whatever. We’ll need that for evidence. When you come back bring it with you. Now go down and tell the bosun I want to see him.” I turned to leave but he called me back. “You still in the pilot’s cabin?”
“Yes, sir, but now I’m feeling better I thought I’d go back to – ”
“Stay where you are for the time being. I’ll send for you when I want you. Goldie, we’ll not be needing you, I’m sure there’s work you should be getting on with.” He sipped from his glass. “Right, on you go.”
As we left the cabin Michael said at once, “Did you see? His wedding ring’s gone as well.”
I hadn’t noticed.
“It’s as if he couldn’t wait to be shot of her.”
“When he says he’ll not be needing you – you’re not going to leave me alone up here?”
“Course not. I’ve got to get Daddy’s tea and tabnabs but one of the others will come up instead. You’ll not be on your own, I promise you that.”
There were two staircases in the officers’ quarters, the narrow flight leading up to the chartroom, and a broad flight leading down to the dining room and crew accommodation. I descended to fetch the bosun, clinging to the rail to save my toe, and found him in the petty officers’ mess.
“Oh, it’s you.” He had been laughing, a can of lager in his massive paw. The laughter turned to a snarl. “Not dead then, more’s the pity.”
“Thank you, Bosun. It’s nice to know you care.” I’d never have dared say it if Lampie hadn’t been there as well and Michael at my back.
“Why, you cheeky – ” He tried to rise, gripping the arms of his chair as the ship heeled far over.
Lampie bared his gums. “You asked for that, Jumbo. Lad’s got spirit. Look at him, head split open, toe wrapped up like a mummy. How’s it going, Ben boy?”
“Fine, thanks.” I looked at the unshaven Ryland. “The mate wants to see you, Bosun. In his cabin. Sent me down to tell you.”
“Right, now you’ve told me. So get out.”
I did as I was told.
“Bloody deck boys,” I hard him say to Lampie. “I can’t stand ’em.” His shout pursued me down the alleyway: “Always sticking your nose in where it’s not wanted. I’d like to tear your bloody arms off!”
I followed Michael to the galley. I was shaking.
“Oh, Ben!” He put a hand on my arm. “You will be careful. He wasn’t as bad as this even on the Star of Bengal. And with this weather… I couldn’t bear it if anything happened. I just couldn’t bear it.”
The Third Man
DESPITE MICHAEL’S reassurance, I returned to the pilot’s cabin alone. Smoky and Samuel had promised to follow me up, but when Philip arrived with the mate’s summons they had not yet arrived. Carrying Ka’tang’s knife, I followed him along the alleyway.
The mate’s door, which previously had been wide open, was now on the hook, a few centimetres ajar. My head had started throbbing again. I knocked.
“Come in.”
I lifted the little brass hook and pushed through the curtain. No sooner was I inside than the door slammed shut and the bosun seized me by the shirt-front.
“What’s all these lies you’ve been tellin’ the mate about me? Little rat! I’ve a good mind to knock your block off.”
I stumbled back. My bandaged toe struck his shin. It was agony. I flung a hand out in self-defence and accidentally stuck a finger in his eye. He gave a bellow of pain and fury.
The mate pulled us apart. “Stop this! Stop it! How dare you, in my cabin. Let go of him, John – I mean Ryland. Let go! His union’ll have half the ship out.”
The bosun released me. Tears ran from his twisted eye.
My toe was on fire.
“That’s enough, the pair of you.” While I was below, the mate had changed into his full white uniform, brushed his hair, become a stern figure of authority.
“He’s the one started it. Look, he’s torn my shirt.”
“Be quiet, Bennett. As I recall, it was you who started it, telling lies about Mr Ryland here. Slanderous falsehoods that could land you in a lot of trouble. Accusing him of consorting with criminals.”
“Murderers,” the bosun said. “My best mate killed by that loony messman, yeah? Now he says I’m knockin’ around with pirates, sending ’em signals. I’m tellin’ you, Chief, you search my cabin, go on, see if you can find a transmitter.” He wiped his eye. “An’ how am I supposed to have got down the engine room, fixed them bearings to run red-hot? Anyone see me down there? You want to watch who you’re accusing, Mr bloody deck boy Bennett.”
I was silent, wondering if Smoky and Samuel had turned up yet.
“Well,” the mate said. “What have you got to say for yourself? You weren’t so quiet half an hour ago.”
“Sorry, sir, I haven’t got all the answers. But what I told you, everything, was absolutely true.” I drew a deep breath. “The bosun’s lying.”
