The White Voyage

by John Christopher

  ‘Things are better,’ Olsen acknowledged. ‘They may go on getting better; but they may get worse.’ He called to the others: ‘Right! Now we go aft to fetch the second tarpaulin.’

  Jones collapsed on the way back, as they heaved the awkward roll along the deck. Olsen and Mouritzen bent over him together.

  ‘It would do you no good to hit him,’ Mouritzen said, ‘however hard you hit.’

  Olsen nodded. ‘And I have not much strength now to hit hard.’

  ‘Shall we get him inside?’

  Jones was lying on his side, with his head near a pool of water. ‘When we have the hatch secured,’ Olsen said. ‘He does no harm there.’ He stood up and spoke to the others. ‘We continue.’

  Wearily they stooped again to pick up the tarpaulin.

  * * *

  When Olsen was satisfied with the sealing of the No. 1 hatch, he dismissed them to the lounge. Mouritzen and Josef Simanyi picked up Jones and carried him with them. For Mouritzen the burden was almost too much; protecting Jones, he found himself swaying and lurching, his own body cannoning against obstructions as they made their way along the deck. When they set him down on the leather couch, Mouritzen leaned over him for a time, his forearm resting against the couch head, before he could straighten up and turn to the others.

  Sheila Jones came out of the kitchen at the far end, saw Jones lying there, and moved towards him. She knelt down by him, and looked up at Mouritzen.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘The work was too much for him. He will be all right. He needs rest.’

  Jones stirred, opening his eyes. ‘Rest.’ His voice was slurred with weariness. ‘Darling, are you all right?’

  She lifted his head, and sat down so that it rested in her lap.

  ‘Rest now,’ she said. ‘Just rest.’

  Olsen, coming in through the swing doors, examined the scene. Mouritzen, having yielded place to Sheila, had slumped down in a chair, as the other men had done already. Olsen, impeccably upright, put his hands down to the table’s edge, as though he stood to address a public meeting.

  ‘Duty cook,’ he said. ‘Where is the duty cook?’

  Mrs Simanyi put her head out of the hatch between kitchen and lounge.

  ‘It is Sheila and I,’ she said.

  ‘Where is our soup?’ Olsen demanded. ‘We have worked hard, and we must be nourished.’

  ‘Nearly ready,’ she said. ‘In two, three minutes. We have a lot of trouble with the paraffin cooker.’

  Olsen nodded. ‘From now you can use the electric cooker. And the other ladies?’

  ‘Mary is upstairs with the child. Nadya sees to Katerina.’

  ‘That bear,’ Olsen said, ‘– she will not interfere with work. Otherwise I myself throw her overboard.’

  ‘She does not interfere,’ Mrs Simanyi said. ‘You interfere, Captain. I will go back to the soup.’

  It was thick, tinned soup, studded with meat and vegetables. They drank and chewed it with relish, and returned their billycans for more. Sheila sat by Jones, holding the can to his lips.

  Olsen said to Stefan: ‘How is the stomach, Stefan? You have not been sick today?’

  Looking up from his can, Stefan said: ‘Too tired to be sick.’

  ‘Soon you rest.’

  ‘Soon?’

  ‘When the burials are finished. Have you forgotten we carry two dead men?’

  ‘They are patient,’ Stefan said. ‘They will wait till morning.’

  Olsen shook his head. ‘One does not keep corpses on a ship longer than must be. I excuse Jones. Mouritzen, you will take the others and see that the bodies are laid out on the No. 4 hatch, on planks. You can cover each with a sheet. I go now to get my prayer-book. I will see you there.’

  They looked at him apathetically, neither consenting nor disputing. To Mrs Simanyi, Olsen said:

  ‘The ladies need not attend this ceremony. When we return, I want all to be present here. You will see to that, Mrs Simanyi.’

  The two Simanyis went to bring Herning from the forecastle, and Mouritzen took Thorsen down to the engine room to get Møller. Møller’s body lay sprawled, as he had fallen, a few feet from the bottom of the staircase. His arms were flung out, his head turned up as though looking for help. Mouritzen felt ashamed that he had not composed the body, or at least covered it, during earlier visits to the engine room. Thorsen curiously lifted an arm, and let it fall again.

  ‘Stiff,’ he said. ‘It will not be easy.’

  Mouritzen went to the stand-by generator and examined it. It seemed to be running all right still. He took a can of diesel and topped the tank up. That would hold it for three or four hours.

  ‘Shall we call for the others?’

  ‘Others?’ Mouritzen said. ‘Why?’

  Thorsen pointed. ‘We’ve got to get him up those stairs.’

  ‘We can manage. I’ll get him on my back. You can support him from behind.’

  It was a nightmarish, struggling business, holding the cold, bony wrists, feeling the cold dead flesh pressing against his neck. This is one of your quiet times, Bernard, he thought – I have never known you so quiet, nor so intimate. Who hath honour now? He that died of Tuesday. It was a brave thing, a stupid thing; unless he had not known Stövring had a gun. If so, it was an accident. But whether an act was brave or stupid or accidental was itself an accident. God help us, he thought, to deceive ourselves.

  When Olsen came down, they had the two bodies on planks, side by side on the hatch, and Thorsen was wrapping a sheet round Møller. The sheet had to go well over his head to cover the arms.

  Olsen gestured. ‘Untidy.’

  ‘A man cannot always die,’ Mouritzen said, ‘and leave his body tidy.’

  Olsen stared at him. ‘That was not what I meant.’

  ‘We could break the arms, perhaps,’ Mouritzen suggested, ‘– tie them down to his sides?’

  Olsen looked as though he was considering this. Then he gave his attention to his prayer-book.

  ‘The service for the burial of the dead at sea,’ he said.

  Standing by him, Mouritzen said in a low voice: ‘Do we need the whole service? Neither was a churchgoer – Bernard was an atheist.’

  ‘We will do what is usual.’

  Darkness was well-nigh complete; they stood like shadows around the white-sheeted figures that alone had substance and a positive shape. The sea was still running high, but for the most part did not break inboard. The wind remained strong, and howled through every hole and channel as though the ship were honeycombed. Olsen held the book in his left hand, and directed a light on to it with his right.

  He reeled off the sonorous Danish phrases in a clear sharp voice, It was not possible, owing to the rolling of the Kreya, to hold the planks on the gunwales throughout: at the appropriate moment Olsen halted his reading and ordered the others to bring the bodies up. They had to time the bestowal to coincide with the bottom of a roll. The sheeted figures slid down to the dark, heaving waters and the Kreya, as though in revulsion, rolled away from them.

  In the lounge again, Olsen paused for a while and surveyed them all before speaking.

  ‘We have done well,’ he said at last. ‘The Kreya still floats. She is dry again. The hatch is covered, and the storm is abating. Now it is only necessary to wait until we sight another vessel, or are sighted.’

  Nadya said: ‘Where are we? Are we near Copenhagen?’

  ‘I do not know where we are, except that we are in the North Sea. The gale has been carrying us to the north-west. If we sight land, I think it will be Scotland.’

  ‘And if we get driven on to the coast?’ Josef asked.

  ‘We will face that, if we come to it. For present, we man a ship that is sound, but rudderless and powerless. We cannot call for help. There is nothing we can do but wait. I warn you that the waiting may take longer than you think, because the seas are wide and ships, like men, do not stray far from the paths of their fellows. If we are in, or if the winds drive us in
to such a path, then we are lucky. If not, we may drift for two days, three days, more, and see nothing. There need be no anxiety. We have plenty of food and water. The hard time is over. Now there is only the waiting.’

  ‘Katerina,’ Nadya said.

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘Can we put her in a cabin in the forecastle, until her cage is fixed? Here she may keep people awake, if she is restless in the night.’

  Olsen closed his eyes, shutting them tight as though to force tiredness away. When he opened them again, he said:

  ‘I have had enough of the bear. That can wait till morning. Listen. Lieutenant Mouritzen remains my First Officer. He is my deputy, and acts for me when I am not present. Mr Thorsen, as the only other ship’s officer, is next in command. When I am not there, gentlemen, you will take orders from one of these or the other. But I do not wish to lay on them the task of controlling the ladies. So, just as Mr Mouritzen is my right-hand man, I will have a right-hand woman. Mrs Simanyi, you are that woman. Under me, you will be responsible for the other ladies, and also for the cooking and cleaning. You are no longer passengers, remember, you are crew. Mr Thorsen will not have time now to look after you. Is all this clear?’

  He stared at them, accepting their silence as consent.

  ‘For the moment you may rest. Get some sleep. Niels, you will come with me.’

  Mouritzen followed Olsen to the bridge. There was an uncanny feeling in going up there to find it empty, silent, the useless wheel unattended. He felt as though they were intruders on a derelict.

  Olsen said: ‘Fortunately we have plenty of oil. We can carry lights and we can put the scanner back in operation.’

  Mouritzen said doubtfully: ‘The scanner is a heavy load for that generator.’

  ‘We will run it when the ladies are not cooking. Tell them they are to notify me when the cooker is in operation.’

  Mouritzen looked out through the glass towards the bow light and the invisible sea.

  ‘Do you think we run a risk of piling up on the Scottish coast?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I guess we have been driven well north in the last twenty-four hours. The Shetlands, maybe.’

  Mouritzen yawned. Olsen looked at him critically.

  ‘I will not keep you long. I will wake you at midnight. Then you wake me for six o’clock, unless there is an emergency first.’

  Mouritzen yawned again. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Other matters we can discuss in the morning. Go and sleep now, Niels. Tell the women to bring me up some black coffee.’

  Mouritzen emerged to some extent from his cocoon of drowsiness.

  ‘You are taking this watch by yourself?’

  With irony, Olsen said: ‘Do you want to take it?’

  ‘All I want is sleep.’

  ‘With me, desire is never so simple.’ He looked angry for a moment, and then smiled. ‘Go and get your sleep, Niels.’

  * * *

  Mouritzen hesitated by the door of his cabin and then, rousing himself, turned away and went down the steps to the passengers’ deck. He knocked at the door of Mary’s cabin, and she called to him to enter.

  Annabel was in the bottom bunk, but not asleep. Mary sat on the edge of the bed, dressed and wearing her overcoat. There was, of course, no heat in the pipes with the engines stopped.

  Mouritzen said: ‘I have had no chance to speak to you. Are you all right?’

  Mary smiled. ‘Yes.’

  ‘And little Annabel?’

  Annabel said: ‘I thought the ship was going to sink, but it didn’t.’

  Mouritzen smiled at her. ‘The ship will not sink.’

  She said accusingly: ‘You said that when I woke up we would be in Amsterdam.’

  ‘The storm blew us the wrong way.’

  ‘Are we nearly in Amsterdam?’

  ‘We were blown a long, long way. It may be a little time before we find our way back.’

  Annabel looked at him. ‘I know something.’

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘The bear is in the cabin we were in first.’

  ‘That is exciting – to have a bear in a cabin. Do you think she sleeps in the top bunk or the bottom one?’

  Disappointed, she said: ‘I think you knew already.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you weren’t surprised. I thought you would surprised.’

  ‘She is a clever bear, that one,’ Mouritzen said. ‘That is why I am not surprised. Her grandfather was the big bear who decided he would live like a man. I will tell you that story some time.’

  Annabel sat up. ‘Tell it now.’

  Mary said: ‘Not now.’ She made the child lie down. ‘Mr Mouritzen has been working very hard, and he’s very, very tired.’

  Annabel nodded. To Mouritzen, she said:

  ‘Good night. You can kiss me good night, if you want to.’

  ‘Very much.’

  In the extremity of fatigue, movements were dream-like and unreal. He walked to the bunk, bent down, and kissed the child on her forehead, between the darker brows and the silky golden hair.

  ‘Sleep well,’ he said.

  ‘You, too.’

  He turned from her to see Mary looking at him. With the same sensation of being in a dream, he reached towards her and kissed her on the lips. Her lips were warm, accepting, not responding.

  Mouritzen stood away from her.

  ‘There is a compensation,’ he said.

  ‘Compensation?’

  ‘For the storm. By now, you should have been in Amsterdam, beginning your new life, already forgetting the Kreya and those you met on her.’

  She frowned. ‘He will be worried for us.’

  ‘Your Dutchman? Not too much, I think; you are nothing to each other.’

  ‘I won’t have you talking like that.’

  ‘It is true. One cannot rise above the body – our souls live within us. A touch of the hand means more than a hundred letters of passion. To him, you are an abstract thing, a photograph, as it might be a photograph of a film star. But I have kissed you, and you are the woman I love.’

  She smiled then. ‘Go to bed, Niels. You are drunk with tiredness.’

  He went to the cabin door and opened it. Looking back, he said:

  ‘Yes. With tiredness and love. Good night.’

  * * *

  Jones moved restlessly in his bed, and after a time Sheila got up from her own and sat by him.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing. I’m tired, but I can’t sleep. Thoughts race round my head.’

  ‘What kind of thoughts?’

  ‘This is a front-page story – do you realize that? A ship lost and drifting in a storm, the crew mutinying and abandoning ship – sensations and murders – wherever we end up the reporters will be waiting for us.’

  She nodded. ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Our pictures in the papers – on the television newsreels. Someone is going to recognize us. And when that happens, we’re finished.’

  ‘No.’

  He looked up at her. ‘I promised you a lot, didn’t I?’

  ‘Only one thing that mattered.’

  ‘How long will I get? Seven years – ten? I should have looked it up. Or you should have looked it up for me. Part of the secretarial duties.’

  ‘Try to rest.’

  ‘Will you wait for me?’

  ‘If there were need, I’d wait.’

  ‘No need.’ He spoke with unhappy conviction. ‘She’ll be waiting. First she’ll try making up the deficiency with her own money again; but she’ll realize it’s too serious to get away with like that. She’ll brief the very best counsel. All through the trial she’ll sit in the front row, a brave little figure in sober, elegant clothes. She’ll smile courageously at me as sentence is passed – with any luck she’ll be worth a couple of years’ reduction. And then she’ll set about getting things ready for the day when the gates clang shut behind me. A new life, maybe in Canada or Australia.’

>   ‘If all that happened, would you go with her?’

  ‘What else? This was my last throw, and I left it late. Even in three or four years’ time I couldn’t start again.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You’re young enough to ask that. You wouldn’t understand if I tried to explain.’

  She asked him: ‘Do I matter to you at all – except as a part of getting away from her?’

  ‘You matter. You matter more than anything.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘One loses the things that count – strength, youth, faith. And love. It’s not that they don’t matter. It’s just that a time comes when you know you’ve lost them, and there’s no point in going on pretending to yourself.’

  ‘Is that what you’ve been doing – pretending?’

  He stared at the cabin ceiling. ‘I suppose I have – about some things anyway.’

  ‘About us?’

  ‘Yes. Pretending it was possible.’

  There was silence for a time, except for the sound of wind and waves, and the ship’s creaking. Then Sheila said briskly:

  ‘No.’

  He looked at her. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’re with me now, not with her. I won’t have you talk like that.’

  He lay without speaking. She looked and saw that there were tears in his eyes. She knelt beside the bed.

  ‘Darling, darling. You’re tired and miserable now. You’ll feel better when you’ve had some sleep.’

  ‘By yourself,’ he said, ‘you’d be all right.’

  ‘Hush.’

  ‘She’ll have you vilified. In court, in the press. I should have thought of that. I could have made the dash on my own, and you could have followed if it was safe.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have let you.’

  He began to say something, but stopped. ‘It doesn’t matter now anyway.’

  She put her head against his chest. ‘How would you manage without me? Who would do all the planning? Look at you now – ready to give up because there may be some reporters waiting when we get back on dry land.’

  ‘And photographers, and the television people.’