by Peter Tonkin
Getting back up onto the mid-deck was unexpectedly difficult, especially for Robin who found the night glasses round her neck and the walkie-talkie in her pocket added immeasurably to the weight of the gun in her hand. In the end Sam leaped first and hung onto the outside of the railing there so that she could hurl herself across into his waiting arm. Then, side by side, they scrambled over the top and onto the deck. Running back towards the external companionway, Robin nearly tripped over the sprawled legs of a supine figure on the deck. So it was that she saw the results of her handiwork with the gun for the first time.
Stricken, Robin faltered in her flight, looking down at the dead man, but as she did so, Sam grabbed her by the arm and pulled her into motion once again. It was fortunate that he did so, for as they slipped back in through the door and through to the C-deck companionway they heard, perhaps one deck below them, the sibilant rush of bare feet. Running for their lives they sprinted up the three halfflights of stairs until at the last turning Robin had the good sense to pause. ‘First and third officers coming up! Don’t shoot,’ she bellowed.
‘Yes, missy,’ called a nervous voice from above and the pair of them were in motion once again. At the top of the stairs was a solid-looking wall made of planks of wood, sections of shelving, bits of chairs and heaven knew what else. The captain’s bunk, the chart chest, all the instrument housings and much of the spare shelving from the radio room seemed to have been used. The wall was perhaps a metre and a half high, extending the top step, and looked quite imposing, topped as it was with a motley range of weaponry.
And it was as solid as it looked Robin discovered, as she threw herself up on it and was hauled over it into the relative safety of the navigating bridge. The corridor behind the bridge was clearly designed as the arsenal. Here a range of guns and knives, meat cleavers, rolling pins and ammunition were piled against the low wooden wall ready to hand. Beside the weapons were the packets of flares and the powerful flashlights she had sent up with the radio.
No sooner was she safely in the corridor than she walked down to check that the second barricade was equally solid. It was. And it was equally well manned. Having satisfied herself on that account, she checked on the lift — but someone had been quick-thinking enough to put it out of commission. There was no way for the pirates to get onto the bridge, and no way for the rest of them to get off, for the time being. And in spite of what she had said about intelligence being so vital in this position, she knew that only a lunatic would venture over the wooden walls out into Indian territory tonight.
No sooner had Robin completed her cursory inspection of the defences than the lights died. The auxiliary lighting clicked in at once, glowing dully. Then it, too, died. At once the searchlight beams of the torches speared down through the shadows to the first landing in each stairwell. Robin looked at her watch. It was surprisingly late — after two already. Well, in little more than four hours it would be dawn; then things were bound to look up. Picking her way carefully, she moved onto the bridge proper and crossed to the radio room where Yuk Tso was trying with no great success to raise some traffic on the lifeboat radio she had liberated.
Robin crossed back to the watchkeeper’s chair which held the somnolent form of the captain. Although he seemed to be asleep, he roused at once to her presence and they discussed the limited number of tactical alternatives open to them. In spite of his initial unwillingness to accept the danger of their situation, Captain Sin had taken charge quite adequately during her reconnaissance mission. The sentries had been split up into watches and everyone had some kind of duty to perform somewhere along the line. As the dark hours passed, the watches changed and the trapped men felt that they had some kind of control over their situation, and this boost to morale was important, for the sounds of destruction from below made everybody up here think of treasured or valuable keepsakes which they would never see again. As the hours ticked by, the sounds of the destruction slowly came closer but no one ever put his head round that last little turn of stairway into the torch beams or the fields of fire.
Sometime after five, when dawn was beginning to threaten, Sam Yung shook Robin by the shoulder just hard enough to rouse her from her restless, nightmare slumber full of dark figures spinning slowly away from the deadly flashes of her pistol and gestured towards the nearest bridge wing door. There was just enough light to see that its handle was turning, slowly and silently. The third officer was all too ready to go and interfere with whatever was going on, but Robin held him back. The door was tried, silently, but it would not yield. There was the faintest scratching, as of someone testing whether a lock might yield to a pick; then a slightly heavier scraping, a sound like the blade of a panga might make, testing the strength of hinge and jamb. But these sounds stopped. Whoever was out there gave up and went away as stealthily as he had come.
And that was all. Robin had no doubt that the door to the starboard bridge wing must also have been tried, and the doors at the ends of the corridor, but they did not yield and nothing more came of it. No doubt, too, naked feet went scurrying across the upper deck immediately above their heads, but there was no way in here from up there. And she suspected the lift shaft would have been examined from above and below. But the pirates needed an ingress which they could force in large numbers by surprise and there simply was no such thing. So, in the end, they were content to leave the navigating bridge alone. But that very fact, Robin was to think later, should have alerted them to something.
So much else might have been tried. With the light and power, the air conditioning had gone. It would have been easy enough to build a couple of fires in the stairwells and smoke them out. It would have been dangerous but feasible to swing weights down from the deck above, smash the clearviews and then come in like an army of Tarzans, sliding down ropes. In the final analysis, they could even have got a couple of battering rams and come in through the bridge wing doors the hard way. But they didn’t. And no one thought to wonder why.
After an hour of effort, Yuk Tso gave up on the radio, deciding to conserve battery power until there was more traffic about in the morning and, when Robin blinked herself into wakefulness at a minute or two before eight next morning, the first thing she heard was the radio officer’s monotonous repetition of the distress call. As with any self-respecting radio officer, Yuk Tso kept the radio room well stocked with electric equipment, including a kettle, but without power there was nothing for breakfast except sandwiches and water. For a while it seemed that the worst thing the pirates had done to Robin, apart from the nightmares of the killing, was to rob her of the morning tea without which she found life all but impossible.
With the coming of morning, the crew began to stir and a feeling of battle camaraderie filled the stale, hot air. It was as though they had come through the most testing military campaign together and stood victorious now. Men who had done nothing but huddle down fearfully and sleep fitfully began to move around as though they were heroes and the hum of conversation rose to a confident babble. Over which, a little after nine o’clock, Yuk Tso called exultingly, ‘I have a signal! Quiet please. I have a signal!’
‘Good morning, Seram Queen, this is the coastguard. How can I be of service to you?’
‘Hello, coastguard, this is Seram Queen; handing you over to the captain now.’
Sin took the microphone and pulled himself erect, full of importance, like a victorious general reporting to his emperor. ‘Good morning, coastguard, this is Captain Sin of the Seram Queen. I have to report that we require assistance urgently, please. We were overrun by pirates in the night. There are several crewmen dead and we are barricaded in the navigation bridge without power and propulsion. Can you help us, please?’
‘Of course, Seram Queen. Can you continue to hold out for an hour? We will be with you in an hour at most.’
‘We have held out through the night. We should manage one more hour. I should warn you, however, that there are more than one hundred pirates, according to our best intelli
gence.’
‘That many, Captain? You and your men have done very well to hold out. Congratulations, sir.’
‘So you need to come out fully armed, coastguard.’
‘Very well, Seram Queen. We have a fix on your signal. You are five kilometres south-west of the Wenwei Zhou light. We will be with you in one hour and will warn you of our approach. And we will be fully armed. Over and out.’ Captain Sin put the microphone down and walked with solemn stateliness to the barricade at the top of the stairwell. ‘Do you hear that, you pirate scum?’ he called at the top of his voice. ‘The coastguards will be here within the hour. Cut and run, you bastards, cut and run!’
There was no reply; in fact there was no sign of life at all. Within fifteen minutes, the bridge wing doors were open and the first crewmen were creeping carefully out into the bright morning, eyes everywhere, ready for attack. But the bridge wings were clear. And, from the vantage points of their outer edges, it seemed that the forward and the poop decks both were clear also. With mounting confidence, Captain Sin asked Robin to lead a small commando of heavily armed men down to get things ready for the coastguards when they came aboard. Reluctantly, she agreed. The barrier was raised and, accompanied by Sam Yung armed with the ship’s old Webley Scott six-shot service revolver and two others armed with rifles, she went slowly down the stairwell, step by step. In the bright sunlight, it was hard to see the faint red dot, but she followed it nevertheless in an agony of suspense. The bridgehouse was a mess. Everything which could be stolen seemed to be gone and anything which remained had been smashed. Although they tried to move silently, their feet crunched on broken glass and splintered wood. Absolute quiet was impossible. The four of them stuck to the corridors, keeping well clear of the wrecked rooms. Coming out of the C-deck door, they ran onto the after deck in the shadow of the funnel and looked down onto the poop, which was empty, and away across the seemingly empty sea. There were no boats to be seen and no pirates either. Even the corpse of the man Robin had shot last night had disappeared.
She put the walkie-talkie to her lips. ‘Captain?’
‘Wai?’
‘No sign. Looks as though they might have gone.’
‘Good. Coastguards here in fifteen minutes, they say. You let down ladders portside.’
‘Very well, Captain.’
With increasing confidence the four of them went down onto the main deck and did as they were told. The white coastguard cutters were well in sight now, and Robin wondered whether she should wait at the head of the boarding ladder to welcome them aboard. But even as she wondered this, Captain Sin himself came bustling out onto the deck. Behind him came the rest of the crew. It was all so natural, so inevitable, that something about it made Robin very nervous indeed. ‘Wait here, Sam,’ she ordered, and ran up the deck towards the approaching men. ‘Captain,’ she called urgently. ‘Captain, take care!’
‘What is, missy?’
‘You’re all being too quick about this. We haven’t searched. The pirates could still be aboard!’
‘What we care? Coastguards come now.’
‘Yes, but —’
The conversation was cut off by the thud of the first coastguard cutter thumping against the ship’s side. At once Captain Sin thrust Robin aside and strode off down the deck bursting to welcome the coastguard aboard and explain their heroic actions to him. The rest of the crew surged after him. Robin stood back, her breath bated, and watched them go. And nothing happened. No screaming horde of pirates came out from behind the containers. No wave of cunningly concealed boarders broke up over the edge of the deck. Only a tall, white-uniformed coastguard came up onto the deck with a line of white-kitted men behind him, all armed to the teeth, as the captain had suggested.
You stupid woman, said Robin to herself, turning away to go back into the bridgehouse. And as she did so, she heard the one sound she was not expecting. The sharp snap snap of a squad of automatic weapons being cocked. She whirled round in the doorway looking back. She was just tall enough to see Captain Sin’s head beside the coastguard’s. Then there was a loud report and the captain’s head was gone. She whirled again and took to her heels as the crisp report of the firing squad echoed that first shot. The sound of the firing loosed all hell. Behind her, she heard yelling and screaming, and more shots. The regular controlled firing of well-drilled soldiers firing into a body of ill-prepared men.
She came round the corner of the stairs up onto C deck and bumped into her first pirate. He was stepping in through the door from the deck which she had visited last night and this morning. He was dressed in jeans, trainers, a bright red T-shirt and a balaclava. He had a long panga which he raised as soon as he saw her. Then as she stood, frozen, he charged down the corridor towards her. She raised her gun. If he saw it he did so too late to stop his charge. But his shirt was red and she could not see the dot. She blinked once, trying to focus her terrified eyes, then pulled the trigger because it was far too late to do anything else. The detonation, in the enclosed space, made her ears ring. She did not close her eyes this time, and in the brightness the flash was by no means blinding. She saw the man’s solid body, which at one instant had been hurling towards her, reverse its course magically and fly backwards along the corridor, arms and legs waving. Then he sat down. His shoulders hit the wall behind him. His eyes burned fiercely through the hole in the balaclava and then they rolled up.
The bridge itself was empty. Through the clearview, she could see down the length of the main deck to where the disciplined squad of white-uniformed coastguards were dumping the bodies of the crew over the side. One glance was enough, then she was in motion again, her mind racing wildly, wondering what in hell’s name she was going to do now. Some deep instinct drove her higher still. She ran out onto the starboard bridge wing, on the far side of the bridgehouse to the coastguard boarding party, and hopefully out of their sight. At the aft section of this bridge wing was an exterior companionway leading up to the deck above the navigating bridge itself. Almost blindly, she ran for this and swung onto it, her breath given ragged, panicked voice by the terrified sounds her throat was making. She went up the steps two at a time and ran out onto the topmost deck. And into the arms of the pirate at the top of the stairs.
Robin hit the pirate so hard that she knocked him back two steps and this gave her some respite. She whirled away from him and bounced off the railings like a pool ball rolling along a cushion. The deck beneath her reached out into the metal awning above the starboard bridge wing and she found herself rattling down this dead-end pulpit while the pirate, overcoming his surprise, prepared to come after her.
At the end of the awning, Robin turned again with the railing across the small of her back and beyond that a fifteen-metre drop into the sea. She forced her eyes to look at the man who was advancing towards her and she gasped in recognition. It was the younger of the two survivors from the sampan. He was wearing a loose pair of shorts and a bright shirt that was too small for him. Grimly, Robin took in the peacock colours of the shirt: the last time she had seen it, Fat Chow had been wearing it. She raised the gun. ‘Stop there,’ she said. He raised his hands and smiled accommodatingly. But he continued to move forward. ‘Stop!’ she said again. His grin widened slightly. He stopped. But he was positioned exactly across the end of the pulpit. There was no way past him. Almost all the shooting and screaming had stopped below now and she knew she was running out of time. In her mind, she started swearing to herself, more and more viciously and obscenely. Her eyes flickered away from him, searching desperately for a way out. But there was no way out. And when she looked back at him he was closer still.
Suddenly, unaccountably, she found that she was crying. Perhaps it was shock. Perhaps it was rage. The pirate took her tears for defeat, and as soon as she blinked to clear them from her eyes, he charged. He had taken three steps and he was on top of her. She pulled the trigger at once.
One second he was so close she could smell him, the next he was sitting, stunned, again
st the uprights of the deck rail. His face was absolutely white. On the breast of Fat Chow’s shirt were three small red dots, she noticed. Then he rolled onto his side. She walked across to his hunched body. Behind and below it, the sea stretched anonymously. She put her foot against his shoulder and pushed with all her might. He rolled under the lower rail and fell outwards into the water. He didn’t even leave a bloodstain.
Robin turned and looked up at the radio mast, her mind racing wildly. She had to have a plan. It was her only chance for survival.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Outside the Supreme Court it was bedlam. The street was full and everybody in it seemed to want to talk to Richard. Richard, however, had been galvanised by Daniel Huuk’s words and all he wanted to do was to get down to the sea and into a boat which would take him out to Robin at once. Huuk and Lee vanished and there was no doubt in Richard’s mind where they had gone. He burned to go with them but he was held back by the crowds. At last, wild with frustration, he turned to Andrew. ‘Where’s your car?’ he yelled.
‘Down in the official car park.’
‘Let’s go.’
‘Where?’
‘Wherever I can grab a fast boat or a helicopter. I have to get out to Seram Queen. Robin’s aboard her!’
‘I know that. But you’re … Well, you’re not well enough!’
‘Then we’ll take Tom too. For Christ’s sake, let’s get moving!’
Such was the intensity of his client’s command that the solicitor found himself pulling Richard through the crowd. Head and shoulders above everyone there, Richard had no trouble in spotting Tom, and by good fortune they had to push their way past him to get to the car.
The psychologist didn’t take too kindly to being grabbed by the shoulder, but conversation was impossible and so the three men just linked up like a kabaddi team and pushed on through. The security guard on the car park gate let them through into the relative calm of the car park and it was possible to have a bellowed conversation as they ran across towards the great crouching shape of the Aston Martin.
