South by Java Head

by Alistair MacLean

  “You fool!” Nicolson said quietly. “You crazy little fool!” Roughly he freed his arm, made to speak again, saw the bo’sun, in sharp silhouette against the glare of the searchlight, beckoning frantically from where he stood outside the well-deck rail. Nicolson waited no longer. He turned the nurse round, hustled her across the deck, swung her across the rail. McKinnon caught her arm, stared down at the lifeboat two-thirds lost in the shrouded gloom of a trough and waited for his chance to jump. Just for a moment he looked round and Nicolson could tell from the anger and exasperation on his face that he knew what had happened.

  “Do you need me, sir?”

  “No.” Nicolson shook his head decisively. “The lifeboat’s more important.” He stared down at the boat as she came surging up sluggishly into the light, water from a high, breaking wave-crest cascading into her bows.” My God, McKinnon, she’s filling right up already! Get her away from here as fast as you can! I’ll cast off for'ard.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.” Mckinnon nodded matter-of-fact acknowledgment, judged his time perfectly, stepped off the side on to the mast thwart, taking the girl with him: ready hands caught and steadied them as the boat dropped down again into the darkness of a trough. A second later the for'ard rope went snaking down into the lifeboat, Nicolson bending over the rail and staring down after it.

  “Everything all right, bo’sun?” he called.

  “Aye, no bother, sir. I’m going under the stern, in the lee.”

  Nicolson turned away without waiting to see what happened. The chances of a water-logged lifeboat broaching to in the initial moments of getting under way in those heavy seas were no better than even, but if McKinnon said everything was under control then everything was: and if he said he would heave to under the stern, he would be waiting there. Nicolson shared Captain Findhorn’s implicit faith in McKinnon’s initiative, reliability and outstanding seamanship.

  He reached the top of the poop-deck ladder and stood there with his hand on the rail, looking slowly round him. Ahead was the superstructure, and in the distance, beyond it and on either side of it, stretched the long, lean shadow of the tanker, a dark smudge on the water, half-seen, half-imagined behind the white brilliance of its searchlights. But the lights, Nicolson suddenly realised, weren’t nearly as brilliant or intense as they had been, even ten minutes earlier. For a fleeting moment he thought that the Viroma must be standing out to sea, working her way clear of the shoal water, then almost instantly realised, from the size and unaltered fore-and-aft position of the vague silhouette, that it hadn’t moved at all. The ship hadn’t changed, the searchlights hadn’t changed—but the beams from the searchlights were no longer the same, they seemed to have lost their power, to be swallowed up, dissipated in the blackness of the sea. And there was something else, too—the sea was black, a darkness unrelieved by the slightest patch of white, by even one breaking whitecap on a wave: and then all of a sudden Nicolson had it—oil.

  There could be no doubt about it—the sea between the two ships was covered in a wide, thick film of oil. The Viroma must have been pumping it overboard for the past five minutes or so—hundreds of gallons of it, enough to draw the teeth of all but the wildest storm. Captain Findhorn must have seen the Kerry Dancer swinging head on to the sea and quickly realised the danger of the lifeboat being swamped by inboard breaking seas. Nicolson smiled to himself, an empty smile, and turned away. Admitted the oil all but guaranteed the safety of the lifeboat, he still didn’t relish the prospect of having his eyes burnt, ears, nostrils and mouth clogged, and being fouled from head to foot when he went overboard in just a few seconds—he and young Alex, the soldier.

  Nicolson walked easily aft across the poop-deck towards the stern. The soldier was standing there, pressed against the taffrail in a stiff, unnatural fashion, his back to it and his hands grasping the stanchions on either side. Nicolson went close up to him, saw the wide, fixed eyes, the trembling of a body that has been tensed far too long; a leap into the water with young Alex, Nicolson thought dryly, was an invitation to suicide, either by drowning or strangulation—terror lent inhuman strength and a grip that eased only with death. Nicolson sighed, looked over the taffrail and switched on the torch in his hand. McKinnon was exactly where he had said he would be, hove to in the lee of the stern, and not fifteen feet away.

  The torch snapped off and quietly, without haste, Nicolson turned away from the rail and stood in front of the young soldier. Alex hadn’t moved, his breath came in short, shallow gasps. Nicolson transferred the torch to his left hand, lined it up, snapped it on, caught a brief glimpse of a white, strained face, bloodless lips drawn back over bared teeth and staring eyes that screwed tight shut as the light struck at them, then hit him once, accurately and very hard, under the corner of the jawbone. He caught the boy before he had started falling, heaved him over the taffrail, slid across himself, stood there for a second, sharply limned in a cone of light from a torch new lit in the boat—McKinnon had prudently bided his time until he had heard the sharp thud of the blow—crooked an arm round the young soldier’s waist and jumped. They hit the water within five feet of the boat, vanished almost silently beneath the oil-bound sea, surfaced, were caught at once by waiting hands and dragged inside the lifeboat, Nicolson cursing and coughing, trying to clear gummed-up eyes, nose and ears, the young soldier lying motionless along the starboard side bench, Vannier and Miss Drachmann working over him with strips torn from Vannier’s shirt.

  The passage back to the Viroma was not dangerous, just very brief and very rough indeed, with almost all the passengers so seasick and so weak that they had to be helped out of the boat when they finally came alongside the tanker. Within fifteen minutes of his jump into the water with the young soldier Nicolson had the lifeboat safely heaved home on her housing on the patent gravity davits, the last of the gripes in position and had turned for a final look at the Kerry Dancer. But there was no sign of her anywhere, she had vanished as if she had never been; she had filled up, slid off the reef and gone to the bottom. For a moment or two Nicolson stood staring out over the dark waters, then turned to the ladder at his side and climbed slowly up to the bridge.

  FIVE

  Half an hour later the Viroma was rolling steadily to the south-west under maximum power, the long, low blur of Metsana falling away off the starboard quarter and vanishing into the gloom. Strangely, the typhoon still held off, the hurricane winds had not returned. It could only be that they were moving with the track of the storm: but they had to move out, to break through it sometime.

  Nicolson, showered, violently scrubbed and almost free from oil, was standing by the screen window on the bridge, talking quietly to the second mate when Captain Findhorn joined them. He tapped Nicolson lightly on the shoulder.

  “A word with you in my cabin, if you please, Mr. Nicolson. You’ll be all right, Mr. Barrett?”

  “Yes, sir, of course. I’ll call you if anything happens?” It was halfquestion, half-statement, and thoroughly typical of Barrett. A good many years older than Nicolson, stolid and unimaginative, Barrett was reliable enough but had no taste at all for responsibility, which was why he was still only a second officer.

  “Do that.” Findhorn led the way through the chartroom to his day cabin—it was on the same deck as the bridge—closed the door, checked that the blackout scuttles were shut, switched on the light and waved Nicolson to a settee. He stooped to open a cupboard, and when he stood up he had a couple of glasses and an unopened bottle of Standfast in his hand. He broke the seal, poured three fingers into each glass, and pushed one across to Nicolson.

  “Help yourself to water, Johnny. Lord only knows you’ve earned it—and a few hours’ sleep. Just as soon as you leave here.”

  “Delighted,” Nicolson murmured. “Just as soon as you wake up, I’ll be off to my bunk. You didn’t leave the bridge all last night. Remember?”

  “All right, all right.” Findhorn held up a hand in mock defence. “We’ll argue later.” He drank some whisky, then
looked thoughtfully at Nicolson over the rim of his glass. “Well, Johnny, what did you make of her?”

  “The Kerry Dancer?”

  Findhorn nodded, waiting.

  “A slaver,” Nicolson said quietly. “Remember that Arabian steamer the Navy stopped off Ras al Hadd last year?”

  “Yes, I remember.”

  “Identical, as near as makes no difference. Steel doors all over the shop, main and upper decks. Most of them could only be opened from one side. Eight-inch scuttles—where there were scuttles. Ringbolts beside every bunk. Based on the islands, I suppose, and no lack of trade up round Amoy and Macao.”

  “The twentieth century, eh?” Findhorn said softly. “Buying and selling in human lives.”

  “Yes,” Nicolson said dryly. “But at least they keep ’em alive. Wait till they catch up with the civilised nations of the west and start on the wholesale stuff—poison gas, concentration camps, the bombing of open cities and what have you. Give ’em time. They’re only amateurs yet.”

  “Cynicism, young man, cynicism.” Findhorn shook his head reprovingly. “Anyway, what you say about the Kerry Dancer bears out Brigadier Farnholme’s statements.”

  “So you’ve been talking to his Lordship.” Nicolson grinned. “Court-martialling me at dawn tomorrow?”

  “What’s that?”

  “He didn’t approve of me,” Nicolson explained. “He wasn’t backward about saying so either.”

  “Must have changed his mind.” Findhorn refilled their glasses.

  “‘Able young man that, very able, but—ah—impetuous.’ Something like that. Very pukka, the Tuan Besar to the life.”

  Nicolson nodded. “I can just see him stuffed to the ears, stewed to the gills and snoring his head off in an armchair in the Bengal Club. But he’s a curious bird. Did a good job with a rope in the lifeboat. How phoney do you reckon he is?”

  “Not much.” Findhorn considered for a moment. “A little, but not much. A retired army officer for a certainty. Probably upped himself a little bit in rank after his retirement.”

  “And what the hell’s a man like that doing aboard the Kerry Dancer?” Nicolson asked curiously.

  “All sorts of people are finding themselves with all sorts of strange bed-fellows these days,” Findhorn replied. “And you’re wrong about the Bengal Club, Johnny. He didn’t come from Singapore. He’s some sort of businessman in Borneo—he was a bit vague about the business—and he joined the Kerry Dancer in Banjermasin, along with a few other Europeans who found the Japanese making things a little too hot for them. She was supposed to be sailing for Bali, and they hoped to find another ship there that would take them to Darwin. But apparently Siran—that’s the name of the captain, and a thoroughgoing bad lot according to old Farnholme—got radio orders from his bosses in Macassar to proceed to Kota Bharu. Farnholme bribed him to go to Singapore, and he agreed. Why, heaven only knows, with the Japs more or less knocking at the gates, but there’s always opportunity for sufficiently unscrupulous men to exploit a situation such as exists there just now. Or maybe they expected to make a quick fortune by charging the earth for passages out of Singapore. What they didn’t expect, obviously, was what happened—that the Army should commandeer the Kerry Dancer.”

  “Yes, the army,” Nicolson murmured. “I wonder what happened to the soldiers—McKinnon says there were at least two dozen—who went aboard to see that the Kerry Dancer did go straight to Darwin, and no funny tricks?”

  “I wonder.” Findhorn was tight-lipped. “Farnholme says they were quartered in the fo’c’sle.”

  “With one of these clever little doors that you can only open from one side, maybe?”

  “Maybe. Did you see it?”

  Nicolson shook his head. “The whole fo’c’sle was practically under water by the time we went aboard. I shouldn’t be surprised. But it could have been jammed by bomb burst.” He swallowed some more of the whisky and grimaced in distaste, not at the drink but at his thoughts. “A pleasant little alternative, drowning or cremation. I should like to meet Captain Siran some day. I suspect a great number of other people would too … How are the rest of our passengers? They got anything to add?”

  Findhorn shook his head. “Nothing. Too sick, too tired, too shocked or they just don’t know anything.”

  “All sorted out, washed up and bedded down for the night, I suppose?”

  “More or less. I’ve got them all over the ship. All the soldiers are together, aft—the two really sick boys in the hospital, the other eight in the smoke-room and the two spare engineers’ cabins on the port side. Farnholme and the priest are together in the engineers’ office.”

  Nicolson grinned. “That should be worth seeing—the British Raj breathing the same air as the dusky heathen!”

  “You’d be surprised,” Findhorn grunted. “They have a settee each there, a table between them and a bottle of whisky, almost full, on the table. They’re getting along very well indeed.”

  “He had a half bottle when I saw him last,” Nicolson said thoughtfully. “I wonder—”

  “Probably drank it without coming up for air once. He’s lugging around a great big gladstone bag and if you ask me it’s full of nothing but whisky bottles.”

  “And the rest?”

  “The what? Oh, yes. The little old lady’s in Walter’s room—he’s taken a mattress into his radio room. The senior nurse, the one that seems to be in charge—”

  “Miss Drachmann?”

  “That’s her. She and the child are in the apprentices’ cabin. And Vannier and the Fifth engineer have doubled up with Barrett and the fourth engineer—two nurses in Vannier’s cabin and the last of them in the Fifth’s.”

  “All accounted for.” Nicolson sighed, lit a cigarette and watched the blue smoke drift lazily up to the ceiling. “I only hope they haven’t exchanged the frying pan for the fire. We having another go at the Carimata Straits, sir?”

  “Why not? Where else can we—”

  He broke off as Nicolson stretched out for the ringing telephone and put it to his ear.

  “Yes, captain’s cabin … Oh, it’s you, Willy … Yes, he’s here. Hang on a minute.” Nicolson rose easily to his feet, vacating his seat for the captain. “The second engineer, sir.”

  Findhorn talked for perhaps half a minute, mostly in monosyllabic grunts. Nicolson wondered idly what Willoughby had wanted. He had sounded almost bored but then nobody had ever seen Willoughby excited about anything. Ernest Willoughby never found anything in life worth getting excited about. A crazy, dreaming old coot—he was the oldest man in the ship—with a passion for literature matched only by his utter contempt for engines and the means whereby he earned his livelihood, he was the most honest man, and the most completely unselfish, that Nicolson had ever met. Willoughby himself took no pride in this, and was probably unaware of it: he was a man who had little, but wanted nothing at all. With him Nicolson had little in common, superficially at any rate: but, almost as if by the attraction of opposites, he had formed the greatest liking and admiration for the old engineer, and Willoughby, unmarried and with only a threadbare bed-sitting-room in the company club in Singapore, had spent a good few evenings in his home. Caroline, he remembered, had thought the world of old Willy and had usually made a point of seeing that the best meals and the longest, coolest drinks were always waiting for the old engineer. Nicolson stared down at his glass, and his mouth twisted in bitter memory … Suddenly he became aware that Captain Findhorn was on his feet, looking down at him with a peculiar expression on his face.

  “What’s the matter, Johnny? You feel all right?”

  “Just wandering, sir.” Nicolson smiled and waved a hand at the whisky bottle. “A great help, this, when you’re taking a walk around in your mind.”

  “Help yourself: take another walk round.” Findhorn picked up his hat and turned for the door. “Wait here for me, will you? I have to go below.”

  Two minutes after the captain had gone the phone rang again. It was Findho
rn speaking, asking Nicolson to come below to the dining-saloon. He gave no reason. On his way below Nicolson met the fourth officer coming out of the wireless operator’s cabin. Vannier was looking neither happy nor pleased. Nicolson looked at him, an eyebrow raised in interrogation, and Vannier glanced back at the wireless operator’s door, his expression a nice mixture of indignation and apprehension.

  “That old battleaxe in there is in full cry, sir.” He kept his voice low.

  “The what?”

  “Miss Plenderleith,” Vannier explained. “She’s in Walter’s cabin. I was just dropping off to sleep when she started hammering on the bulkhead between us, and when I ignored that she went out to the passage and started calling.” Vannier paused, then went on feelingly: “She has a very loud voice, sir.”

  “What did she want?”

  “The captain.” Vannier shook his head incredulously.

  “‘Young man, I want to see the captain. At once. Tell him to come here.’ Then she pushed me out the door. What will I do, sir?”

  “Exactly what she asks, of course.” Nicolson grinned. “I want to be there when you tell him. He’s below in the saloon.”

  They dropped down one deck and went into the dining-saloon together. It was a big room, with two fore-and-aft tables with seating for twenty. But it was almost empty now: there were only three people there and they were all standing.

  The captain and the second engineer stood side by side, facing aft, giving easily with the rolling of the ship. Findhorn, immaculately correct in uniform as always, was smiling. So was Willoughby, but there all resemblance between the two men ended. Tall, stooped, with a brown, wrinkled face and a thick, unkempt shock of grey hair, Willoughby was a tailor’s nightmare. He wore a white shirt—what had originally been a white shirt—unpressed, buttonless and frayed at the collar and half-sleeves, a pair of khaki duck trousers, wrinkled like an elephant’s legs and far too short for him, diamondpatterned plaid socks and unlaced canvas shoes. He hadn’t had a shave that day, he probably hadn’t had a shave that week.