Liam's Story

by Ann Victoria Roberts

  Hardly knowing what to make of the letter itself, Zoe read the last sentence with grim disbelief. She took a respected daily newspaper and could hardly avoid the BBC news, either by radio or television. Misplaced or not, her faith in such institutions was not easily broken. Only a few days before, a journalist reporting from Dubai had helpfully analyzed the score of shipping hit in the preceding three years, and of those 227 ships, most were tankers, and most, like Stephen’s, were registered in Liberia. The total of merchant seamen dead was equally devastating, especially when one considered that this was supposed to be a local war, the merchant ships unarmed and their crews ‘just doing a job’. In the interests of world trade – and somebody’s fat profit, Zoe thought bitterly – 211 non-combatant merchant seamen had lost their lives.

  The article did not list the numbers of maimed and wounded. It did, however, report that many ships’ masters were breaking international law and the rules of safe navigation by running close into the coast of Oman and the United Arab Emirates: two fully-laden tankers had recently gone aground in their attempts to avoid attack by Iranian gunboats.

  It did not make reassuring reading, and with those figures buzzing in her head as she pored over the latest international news, Zoe wished she had remained in ignorance. Pushing the newspaper aside, she cleared her breakfast things and set out the morning’s work. The radio was playing a track from a Dire Straits album, one of Stephen’s favourites, and she smiled, remembering; but at the following news announcement she felt herself tense, as always now, expecting the worst.

  Another bomb had gone off in Belfast, killing two soldiers, but even as she winced, wondering whether Ireland’s problems would ever be solved, the voice ran on, outlining Washington’s plans for protecting American-flagged ships in the Gulf. And in the Gulf itself, Iranian gunboats had launched missile attacks on two tankers sailing out of Kuwait. The detached, unemotional voice of the newsreader went on to state that the Chief Engineer of one ship had been killed, two crewmen injured on the second.

  Poised over her drawing board, listening with every nerve and muscle tensed, Zoe was still unsure of what she had heard. Doubt crept in. Had they really said Scandinavian, or was it Liberian? The news had been brief and no names announced. Perhaps they had made a mistake, perhaps only one ship was Scandinavian, and the other...

  Abruptly, she pushed back her chair and reached for the telephone; got the number from enquiries and dialled the BBC. Eventually she had the names of both ships, neither of them Stephen’s. Trembling like an aspen, she went up to call on Polly.

  ‘Oh, God, I can’t stand this,’ she whispered, following her friend into her tiny kitchen. ‘I can’t work, I can’t sleep – after three weeks, I’m a nervous wreck. What am I going to be like after three months, for God’s sake?’

  ‘Stop listening to it – cancel the papers.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You must,’ Polly said practically, lighting a cigarette. ‘Put it out of your mind, Zoe, it’s the only way.’

  ‘That’s easier said than done! I’d have to be a stone wall, for heaven’s sake, to ignore what’s happening out there, when Stephen’s part of it.’ She hugged her body, rocking back and forth as though in physical pain. ‘Oh, hell!’ she exclaimed, ‘if anything was ever guaranteed to make me start smoking again, this is it!’

  ‘Well, you’re not having one of mine,’ Polly declared. ‘Have a glass of water, instead – it’s supposed to dull the craving.’ Turning on the cold tap, she doused her cigarette and opened the window. Filling a glass with water, she stood over Zoe until she drank it down. ‘There now – better?’

  ‘No,’ Zoe grinned, but she was just as anxious. ‘What if anything happens to him? What will I do?’

  ‘Nothing will happen to him – and if, God forbid, it should, you’ll help nobody by worrying yourself silly anticipating it. Look, why don’t you ring that auntie of his? Or that couple you stayed with? You know – didn’t you meet the wife aboard Stephen’s ship? She must be worried sick, too – maybe she’d appreciate a call.’

  Zoe nodded. ‘Yes, yes, I will – I’ve been keeping in touch with Joan, but I haven’t spoken to Irene for weeks. I’ll give her a ring this evening.’

  ‘That’s the thing. But in the meantime, turn off that bloody radio, and listen to some music. Forget the news!’

  An hour later, Zoe left. But she could not get Stephen out of her mind, and while it was a comfort to talk to Irene that evening, to hear her calm, sensible voice saying much the same as Polly, once she had put down the phone, Zoe was racked by nerves. Worried for him, wanting him desperately, she almost wished they had never met; she certainly cursed herself for falling in love with such a man.

  She spent a poor night and slept late the next morning; it was with misery dogging every movement that she washed and dressed in jeans and an old shirt, and went down to see whether there was any post. The airmail envelope with Karachi on the postmark sent her spirits soaring.

  Clutching the letter like a lover, she ran back upstairs, set the kettle to boil and reached for a chocolate biscuit. Had there been a box of chocolates in the flat, she knew she would have eaten the lot.

  His letter was in answer to hers of three weeks ago, the first, stilted words of its beginning bending, almost reluctantly, she thought, into tenderness. Zoe’s personal history seemed to have touched some chord in him that he could not disguise, as though having known a largely happy childhood, he could not bear to think of her endurance through unhappy years. His concern touched her, to the extent that she half-regretted that outpouring of old sadness – he had the power, even with a word, of making her so happy, she found herself wondering what all the misery had been about.

  What he thought about Philip Dent, Stephen did not say. Other than to tell her to forget the incident, he made no reference to that half of Zoe’s letter, and she was left wondering whether too much had been divulged. It was hard to judge if her honesty had caused him pain, or whether he was pleased to know that Philip no longer posed a threat. His reticence nagged at her, chilling the warmth she had felt initially. She read the letter again, looking for evidence of coolness, and managed to find something in his suggestion that she should get out and about more often, see friends, and spend less time on the past.

  Was he saying she must not rely on him, not bank on that mutual interest at the expense of other possibilities?

  She wished so much that she could make him understand that a wholesale takeover of his life was not on her agenda; that she valued her own independence sufficiently to respect his. She wanted to share his life, not own it.

  Dogged by uncertainty she returned to her desk, automatically switching on some music she had been playing the day before. It was Richard Rodney Bennett’s film score to Far From the Madding Crowd, the introduction washing over her like the gentle rain it simulated, suggesting dripping trees and country lanes, and reminding her – as it always did – of the very first time she had heard it, that night in Stephen’s flat. They had stood together, looking out at the floodlit Minster, talking about that night in the mist. Remembering their closeness, then and afterwards, she found herself longing for Stephen with a passion which shook her, and was suddenly tempted to write, at once, telling him all that she felt, her growing conviction that they were destined to be together.

  Evocative of time and place, the music seemed to epitomize Hardy at his most poignant, gentle, plaintive melodies overlaying violent passion beneath; and interspersed throughout the score, the country ballads with their telling words. Laying Stephen’s letter down, Zoe was about to set pen to paper when the words of one particular song stayed her hand.

  I overheard my own true love

  His voice did sound so clear:

  ‘Long time I have been waiting for

  The coming of my dear.’

  Sometimes I am uneasy

  And troubled in my mind

  Sometimes I think I’ll go to my love

  And tell
to him my mind.

  But if I should go to my love,

  My love he will say nay;

  If I show to him my boldness,

  He’ll ne’er love me again.

  Old-fashioned words, she thought with a sudden surge of bitterness, but in spite of feminism and the lip-service paid to equality, had very much changed between men and women since Hardy’s day? She thought not. Let a woman talk of love and commitment – and by implication, children, too – most men would back away. It was not selfishness particularly, nor was it immaturity; it was simply the way they were made. Crawling up the ladder of civilization might have refined a few things, but the basic differences were still there.

  On that thought she experienced a moment’s pity for Stephen’s ex-wife, and knew that in spite of her own love of independence, basically she wanted the same sort of commitment. She wanted to know that Stephen loved her, that he wanted to father her children; because to Zoe the thought of children, of continuation, was becoming increasingly important. But not just any man’s children: Stephen’s.

  But he must come to her. He must be the one to speak of love and unity, he must be willing to acknowledge the ties that bound them. She was sure he was aware of those ties, but as yet they could be broken. And with such physical distance between them, they might simply drift apart. And in this situation – oh, God, this situation – death could intervene in one swift stroke, leaving her here, in Georgina Duncannon’s flat, stranded and alone.

  That thought chilled her.

  Polly was right: she must not think of these things. Abruptly, Zoe switched off that haunting music and went out for a walk in the park.

  Having loaded a mixed and highly flammable cargo of aviation spirit, diesel oil and motor gasoline, the Damaris was ready to sail in the early afternoon. With no intentions of leaving before nightfall, Stephen left watchmen posted and told his officers to get some rest. He went below himself but found it difficult to sleep. When he did eventually doze, it was to dream again of Liam Elliott, lurching towards him out of the mist. Although he had experienced the same dream two or three times before, it was no less disturbing: Stephen woke in a cold sweat.

  ‘For Christ’s sake,’ he muttered into the gloom, ‘what are you trying to say to me?’

  Glancing at the clock, he realized he had slept for not much more than an hour. There was no point in trying again: it would soon be time for dinner, and he must eat. Lighting a cigarette he went through into the dayroom to make a pot of tea. It was hot and sweet and refreshing, and he began to feel a little better. A long, cool shower completed the process of dragging his reluctant body into wakefulness.

  Pulling on a pair of shorts, his eye caught Liam’s diary lying innocently on the bedside chest.

  Sighing, he said aloud: ‘I can’t think about it now. I haven’t time.’

  Like an unexpected reply, the telephone rang, startling him. He snatched at it, his answer terse. ‘Yes, I’m awake – I’ll be down in a minute.’

  He reached for a clean shirt, fastening the epaulettes with their four gold stripes to the shoulder tabs. For a moment he stared at the mark of rank, wondering whether ambition was worth it. Minutes later he was down in the saloon, sipping at a glass of iced water. With a long night ahead, Stephen ordered soup, salad, fillet steak and chips, and cheese to finish. He was not ravenously hungry but forced his way through everything: for the next twelve hours he would exist on black coffee and cigarettes, with perhaps a sandwich to take him through to breakfast.

  He exchanged a few words with the Mate and then they went together up to the bridge. It was Johnny’s watch, but until they cleared the Straits of Hormuz in something like seventy-two hours’ time, Stephen would remain on the bridge, resting in the sea-cabin behind the wheelhouse during the necessary anchorages. Safe anchorages, supposedly, but in the Gulf safety was a relative term: anchoring close to neutral territory, a centre of population or major oil installation, simply made the risk of air attack by day less likely. In the daylight hours helicopters were buzzing around and Iranian jets screaming back and forth; while at night gunboats crept out, hiding amongst the fishing fleets of Arab dhows. Less than a month of running the gauntlet every week, and already the strain was making itself felt.

  The tugs were away just before seven. Stephen telephoned the engine room. ‘Right, Mac, let’s get this show on the road. Full revs as soon as you can.’ He gave a short bark of laughter at the Chief’s answering comment. ‘Too bloody right – we don’t stop for anything. Particularly small boats wearing missile launchers!’

  The last lingering glow of light over the desert was soon gone, and at full dark the ship was making sixteen knots away from the Kuwaiti terminal and directly out into the Gulf. Apart from the narrows at Hormuz, this was one of the worst stretches, the vast oilfields off the Kuwaiti and Saudi coasts making it impossible to hug the safety of neutral territory. At the furthest point, before turning south for Ras Tannurah, they were only sixty miles from the Iranian coast, frighteningly close to the place where the Scandinavians had been attacked a couple of nights before. The gunboats were getting bolder.

  Stephen checked charts and radar constantly, and with the changing of the watch at eight, had the Third Mate on the port bridge wing and a seaman to starboard. He moved all the time between the two, every nerve stretched taut, carefully plotting every blip on the radar, identifying each approaching ship through night glasses.

  At midnight, with the arrival of the Second Mate it was time to change course away from the centre of the Gulf, back towards the Saudi coast. After that he took a short break for a sandwich and a cup of coffee before resuming his pacing. His mind was clear, concentrated totally upon surveillance; he did not allow himself to wonder what he would do in the event of an attack. He had to trust himself and the years of experience behind him; had to trust that his reactions, which had never failed him yet, would be the right ones. To doubt that would be to fall apart.

  With the Mate’s re-emergence at four, and the anchorage at Ras Tannurah no more than a couple of hours away, Stephen felt able to relax a little. Once Johnny had taken over the watch Stephen eased himself into the high pilot’s chair, aware of aching knees and ankles.

  Lighting a cigarette, the last of a packet opened just before dinner, he said: ‘Did you sleep?’

  ‘After a fashion.’ Silhouetted against a faintly greying sky, Johnny was following the movements of three tankers, like themselves all running for the safety of the anchorage. He checked their courses against the radar plot, then said: ‘I kept thinking about those poor bloody Scandinavians.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Quiet night?’

  ‘Plenty of tonnage going up, and we overtook a couple coming down.’

  ‘No nasty little men in boats, then?’

  ‘Well there was a bunch of fishing boats just before we changed course – made me sweat for a while, I can tell you. But nobody asked us to stand and deliver, so we just kept going.’

  Johnny grinned and continued his surveillance. Stepping down from the pilot’s chair Stephen made some coffee, relieved, after eleven hours of solid concentration, to let it lapse a little, to know that his senior officer was alert and capable. The worst of the night was over, and in the east the first glow of dawn was spreading like the fan of a peacock’s tail. The sun rose rapidly, shooting a path of gold across the sea and casting long, dramatic shadows from the ships ahead. They were drawing closer to the three tankers now, with another, very slow-moving pair ahead of them. But were they tankers? Stephen wondered, trying to discern shape and form through the glasses.

  Impossible: another ship was in line of sight. He studied the radar and thought it might be one ship under tow. ‘Never mind, they seem to be heading for the anchorage – we’ll see them soon enough.’

  He glanced at his watch. Six o’clock and he was hungry, more than ready for the breakfast that would be waiting once they were in position and securely anchored. One by one the ships ahead of
him altered course and slowed for their approach, and as Stephen prepared to do the same, he noticed the furthermost vessel holding its original course. Once again he studied it through the binoculars, and the thing, whatever it was – an enormous barge, Stephen thought at first – was attached to an ocean-going tug. It took several seconds for him to register what he was seeing, and when he did, his hunger disappeared.

  ‘Have you seen that?’ Johnny murmured, and there was horror in his voice.

  ‘I have indeed.’

  The two vessels were travelling so slowly, the Damaris was soon abreast of them, perhaps half a mile distant. With the glasses pressed to his eyes, Stephen was only dimly aware of Mac joining him on the bridge wing. The ‘barge’ was a stricken tanker, her name and port of registry just visible beneath burned and blistered paint on the stern. Other than that, Stephen thought, she was barely recognizable as a ship, more an obscene caricature with plates ripped and curled, and pipes twisted across the remains of her foredeck. There was no superstructure, no accommodation, no bridge; only two bent uprights that had once supported the wings.

  In the Gulf these days, damaged ships were commonplace, most with holes in either bows or stern, temporarily crippled and waiting at every anchorage for their turn in the crowded repair yards. But Stephen had never seen anything like this. Whatever had hit her, either Exocet or high-explosive shells, had hit the after-end accommodation, and presumably fire and a series of explosions had done the rest. Had anyone survived? Had there been time to jump clear? It seemed unlikely that there could have been chance to man the boats. When had it happened? And where? They had heard nothing during the night, and no word had come during their two days in Kuwait. It was a mystery but not one on which he wanted to dwell.

  They were all subdued after that, and Stephen nosed his own ship’s 870 foot length carefully between a motley collection of the world’s shipping, to find a comfortable space where the Damaris could swing around her anchor with ease. There were tankers of all sizes and all ages, Greeks, Kuwaitis, Japanese, Norwegians and at least a dozen carrying the Liberian flag. Some were in a sorry state, dented and battered, but none like that stricken thing on its way down towards Bahrain and ultimately the knacker’s yard.