South by Java Head

by Alistair MacLean

  Half-standing, half-leaning against the buffet table, the girl was facing them, hands gripping the edge of the table to steady herself. Nicolson and Vannier could see only her profile as they went in, but they could see that she, too, was smiling, the righthand corner of her mouth curving up and dimpling the olive-tinted peach of her cheek. She had a straight nose, very finely chiselled, a wide smooth forehead, and long, silky hair gathered in a deep roll round her neck, hair black with that intense blackness that reflects blue under the strong sun and gleams like a raven’s wing. With her hair, complexion and rather high cheekbones, she was a typical Eurasian beauty: but after a long, long look—and all men would always give Miss Drachmann a long, long look—she was neither typical nor Eurasian: the face was not broad enough, the features were too delicate and those incredible eyes spoke only of the far north of Europe. They were as Nicolson had first seen them in the harsh light of his torch aboard the Kerry Dancer—an intense, startling blue, very clear, very compelling, the most remarkable features in a remarkable face. And round and beneath these eyes, just then, were the faint, blue smudges of exhaustion.

  She had got rid of her hat and belted bush-jacket, Nicolson saw. She wore only her stained khaki skirt and a clean white shirt, several sizes too large for her, with the sleeves rolled far up the slender arms. Vannier’s shirt, Nicolson felt sure. He had sat beside her all the way back in the lifeboat, talking in a low voice and most solicitous for her welfare. Nicolson smiled to himself, sought back in his memory for the days when he too had been an impressionable young Raleigh with a cloak always ready to hand, a knight-errant for any lady in distress. But he couldn’t remember the days: there probably hadn’t been any.

  Nicolson ushered Vannier into the room ahead of him—Findhorn’s reactions to Miss Plenderleith’s request would be worth watching—closed the door softly behind him, turned round and checked himself just in time to stop from bumping into Vannier, who had halted suddenly and was standing motionless, rigid, not three feet from the door, his clenched fists by his side.

  All three had fallen silent and turned to the door as Nicolson and Vannier had come in. Vannier had no eyes for Findhorn and Willoughby—he was staring at the nurse, his eyes widening, his lips parting in shock. Miss Drachmann had turned so that the lamplight fell full on the left hand side of her face, and that side of her face was not pretty. A great, long, jagged scar, still raw and livid and puckering up the cheek where it had been roughly, clumsily stitched, ran the whole length of her face from the hairline of the temple to the corner of the soft, round chin. Near the top, just above the cheekbone, it was half an inch wide. On anyone’s face it would have looked ghastly: on the smooth loveliness of hers it had the unreality of a caricature, the shocking impact of the most impious blasphemy.

  She looked at Vannier in silence for a few seconds, then she smiled. It wasn’t much of a smile, but it was enough to dimple one cheek and to whiten the scar on the other, at the corner of the mouth and behind the eye. She reached up her left hand and touched her cheek lightly.

  “I’m afraid it’s really not very nice, is it?” she asked. There was neither reproach nor condemnation in her voice: it was apologetic, rather, and touched with a queer kind of pity, but the pity was not for herself.

  Vannier said nothing. His face had turned a shade paler, but when she spoke the colour returned and began to flood all over his neck and face. He looked away—one could almost see the sheer physical effort it cost him to pull his eyes off that hideous scar—and opened his mouth to speak. But he said nothing; perhaps there was nothing he could say.

  Nicolson walked quickly past him, nodded to Willoughby and stopped in front of the girl. Captain Findhorn was watching him closely, but Nicolson was unaware of it.

  “Good evening, Miss Drachmann.” His tone was cool but friendly. “All your patients nice and comfortable?” If you want banal remarks, he thought, Nicolson’s your man.

  “Yes, thank you, sir.”

  “Don’t call me ‘sir’,” he said irritably. “I’ve told you that once already.” He lifted his hand and gently touched the scarred cheek. She didn’t flinch, there was no movement at all but for a momentary widening of the blue eyes in the expressionless face. “Our little yellow brothers, I take it?” His voice was as gentle as his hand.

  “Yes,” she nodded. “I was caught near Kota Bharu.”

  “A bayonet?”

  “Yes.”

  “One of these notched, ceremonial bayonets, wasn’t it?” He looked closely at the scar, saw the narrow deep incision on the chin and the rough tear beneath the temple. “And you were lying on the ground at the time?”

  “You are very clever,” she said slowly.

  “How did you get away?” Nicolson asked curiously.

  “A big man came into the room—a bungalow we were using as a field hospital. A very big man with red hair—he said he was an Argyll, some word like that. He took the bayonet away from the man who had stabbed me. He asked me to look away, and when I turned back the Japanese soldier was lying on the floor, dead.”

  “Hooray for the Argylls,” Nicolson murmured. “Who stitched it up for you?”

  “The same man: he said he wasn’t very good.”

  “There was room for improvement,” Nicolson admitted. “There still is.”

  “It’s horrible!” Her voice rose sharply on the last word. “I know it’s horrible.” She looked down at the floor for some seconds, then looked up at Nicolson again and tried to smile. It wasn’t a very happy smile. “It’s hardly an improvement, is it?”

  “It all depends.” Nicolson jerked a thumb at the second engineer. “On Willy here it would look good: he’s just an old sourpuss anyway. But you’re a woman.” He paused for a moment, looked at her consideringly and went on in a quiet voice: “You’re more than good-looking, I suppose—Miss Drachmann, you’re beautiful, and on you it looks bloody awful, if you’ll excuse my saying so. You’ll have to go to England,” he finished abruptly.

  “England?” The high cheekbones were stained with colour. “I don’t understand.”

  “Yes, England. I am pretty sure that there are no plastic surgeons in this part of the world who are skilled enough. But there are two or three men in England—I don’t think there are any more—who could repair that scar and leave you with a hairline so fine that even a dancing partner wouldn’t notice it.” Nicolson waved a deprecating hand. “A little bit of powder and the old war-paint, naturally.”

  She looked at him in silence, her clear blue eyes empty of expression, then said in a quiet, flat voice: “You forget that I am a nurse myself. I am afraid I don’t believe you.”

  “‘Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know’,” Willoughby intoned.

  “What? What did you say?” The girl looked startled.

  “Pay no attention to him, Miss Drachmann.” Captain Findhorn took a step towards her, smiling. “Mr. Willoughby would have us think that he is always ready with apt quotations, but Mr. Nicolson and I know better—he makes them up as he goes along.”

  “‘Be thou chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny’.” Willoughby shook his head sadly.

  “Thou shalt not,” Findhorn agreed. “But he’s right, Miss Drachmann, in that you shouldn’t be quite so ready with your disbelief. Mr. Nicolson knows what he’s talking about. Only three men in England, he said—and one of them is his uncle.” He waved his hand in a gesture of dismissal. “But I didn’t bring you here to discuss surgery or to give me the pleasure of refereeing a slanging match. Mr. Nicolson, we appear to have run out of—”

  He broke off abruptly, fists clenching tightly by his sides, as the klaxon above his head blared into sudden, urgent life, drowning his words as the raucous clangour, a harsh, discordant, shocking sound in a confined space, filled the dining-cabin. Two longs and a short, two longs and a short—the emergency action stations call. Nicolson was first out of the room, Findhorn only a pace behind him.

  To the nor
th and east thunder rumbled dully along the distant horizon, sheet-lightning flickered intermittently all round the Rhio straits, on the inner vortex of the typhoon, and, overhead, the half-seen clouds were beginning to pile up, rampart upon rampart, the first huge, tentative raindrops spattering on the wheelhouse top of the Viroma, so heavily, so slowly, that each single one could be heard and counted. But to the south and west there was no rain, no thunder, just an occasional flash of lightning over the islands, half-seen, half-imagined, far off and feeble flickers that left the darkness more impenetrable than before.

  But not quite impenetrable. For the fifth time in two minutes the watchers on the bridge of the Viroma, elbows braced against the wind-dodger and night-glasses held hard and motionless against their straining eyes, caught the same signal winking out of the darkness to the south-west—a series of flashes, about a half-dozen in all, very weak and not lasting more than ten seconds altogether.

  “Starboard 25 this time,” Nicolson murmured, “and opening. I would say it’s stationary in the water, sir.”

  “As near as makes no difference.” Findhorn lowered his binoculars, rubbed aching eyes with the back of his hand, and raised the glasses again, waiting. “Let’s hear you thinking aloud, Mr. Nicolson.”

  Nicolson grinned in the darkness. Findhorn might have been sitting in the front parlour of his bungalow at home instead of where he was, in the eye of a typhoon, not knowing which way it would break, with a million pounds and fifty lives in his hand and a new, unknown danger looming up in the darkness.

  “Anything to oblige, sir.” He lowered his own binoculars and stared out thoughtfully into the darkness. “It might be a lighthouse, buoy or beacon, but it’s not: there are none hereabouts, and none I know of anywhere that have that sequence. It might be wreckers—the gentlemen of Romney, Rye and Penzance had nothing on the lads out here—but it’s not: the nearest island is at least six miles to the south-west and that light’s not more than two miles off.”

  Findhorn walked to the wheelhouse door, called for half speed, then came back beside Nicolson. “Go on,” he said.

  “It might be a Jap warship—destroyer, or something, but again it’s not: only suicide cases like ourselves sit out in the middle of a typhoon instead of running for shelter—and, besides, any sensible destroyer commander would sit quiet until he could give us the benefit of his searchlights at minimum range.”

  Findhorn nodded. “My own way of thinking exactly. Anything you think it might be? Look, there he goes again!”

  “Yes, and still nearer. He’s stationary, all right … Could be a sub, hears us as something big on his hydrophones, not sure of our course and speed and wants us to answer and give him a line of sight for his tin fish.”

  “You don’t sound very convinced.”

  “I’m not convinced one way or the other, sir. I’m just not worried. On a night like this any sub will be jumping so much that it couldn’t hit the Queen Mary at a hundred feet.”

  “I agree. It’s probably what would be obvious to anyone without our suspicious minds. Someone’s adrift—open boat or raft—and needs help, badly. But no chances. Get on the intercom to all guns, tell them to line up on that light and keep their fingers on their triggers. And get Vannier to come up here. Ring down for dead slow.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.” Nicolson went inside the wheelhouse and Findhorn again raised his night glasses to his eyes, then grunted in irritation as someone jogged his elbow. He lowered his glasses, half-turned and knew who it was before the man spoke. Even in the open air the fumes of whisky were almost overpowering.

  “What the devil’s happening, Captain?” Farnholme was irate, peevish. “What’s all the fuss about? That damn’ great klaxon of yours just about blasted my ears off.”

  “I’m sorry about that, Brigadier.” Findhorn’s tone was even polite and disinterested. “Our emergency signal. We’ve sighted a suspicious light. It may be trouble.” His voice changed, subtly. “And I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave. No one is allowed on the bridge without permission. I’m sorry.”

  “What?” Farnholme’s tone was that of a man being asked to comprehend the incomprehensible. “Surely you can’t expect that to apply to me?”

  “I do. I’m sorry.” The rain was beginning to fall now, faster and faster, the big fat drops drumming so heavily on his shoulders that he could feel the weight of them through his oilskins: yet another soaking was inevitable, and he didn’t relish the prospect. “You will have to go below, Brigadier.”

  Farnholme, strangely, did not protest. He did not even speak, but turned abruptly on his heel and vanished into the darkness. Findhorn felt almost certain that he hadn’t gone below, but was standing in the darkness at the back of the wheelhouse. Not that it mattered: there was plenty of room on the bridge, it was just that Findhorn didn’t want anyone hanging over his shoulder when he had to move fast and make fast decisions.

  Even as Findhorn lifted his glasses the light came on again, nearer, this time, much nearer, but fainter: the battery in that torch was dying, but it was more than strong enough to let them see the message being flashed: not the steady series of flashes of the last few times, but an unmistakable S.O.S., three shorts, three longs, three shorts, the universal distress signal at sea.

  “You sent for me, sir?”

  Findhorn lowered his glasses and looked round. “Ah, it’s you, Vannier. Sorry to drag you out into this damned deluge, but I want a fast hand on the signal lamp. See that signal just now?”

  “Yes, sir. Someone in trouble, I take it?”

  “I hope so,” Findhorn said grimly. “Get the Aldis out, ask him who he is.” He looked round as the screen door opened. “Mr. Nicolson?”

  “Yes, sir. Ready as we can be, sir. Everybody lined up with their guns, and everybody so damned edgy after the last few days that I’m only afraid that someone may fire too soon. And I’ve got the bo’sun rigging up a couple of floodlamps, starboard side, number three tank, and a couple of A.B.s—all we can spare from the guns—getting a scrambling net out over the side.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Nicolson. You think of everything. How about the weather?”

  “Wet,” Nicolson said morosely. He pulled the towel more tightly round his neck, listened to the clack of the Aldis trigger and watched the beam lancing its way whitely through the sheeting rain. “Wet and stormy—going to be very soon. What’s happening and where it’s going to hit us I haven’t a clue. I think Buys Ballot’s law and the book on tropical storms are about as useful to us here as a match in hell.”

  “You’re not the only one,” Findhorn confessed. “We’ve been an hour and fifteen minutes now in the centre of this storm. I was in one, about ten years ago, for twenty-five minutes, and I thought that was a record.” He shook his head slowly, scattering raindrops. “It’s crazy. We’re six months too early—or too late—for a real hurricane. Anyway, it’s not bad enough for that, not for a real force twelve job. But it’s far out of season and a complete freak in these waters at any season, and that must be throwing the book of rules out of kilter. I’m certain that we’re at the point of recurvature of the storm, and I’m almost certain that it will break north-east, but whether we’ll find ourselves in the dangerous quadrant or—” He broke off abruptly and stared at the tiny pinpoint of yellowing light winking mistily through the pouring rain. “Something about sinking. What else does he say, Walters?”

  “‘Van Effen, sinking’. That’s all, sir—at least I think it was that. Bad morse. The Van Effen.”

  “Oh, lord, my lucky night.” Again Findhorn shook his head. “Another Kerry Dancer. The Van Effen. Who ever heard of the Van Effen? You, Mr. Nicolson?”

  “Never.” Nicolson turned and shouted through the screen door. “Are you there, Second?”

  “Sir?” The voice came from the darkness, only feet away.

  “The Register, quickly. The Van Effen. Two words, Dutch. Fast as you can.”

  “Van Effen? Did I hear someone say ‘Van Effen’?�
�� There was no mistaking the clipped Sandhurst drawl, this time with an overtone of excitement in it. Farnholme’s tall shadow detached itself from the gloom at the back of the wheelhouse.

  “That’s right. Know any ship by that name?”

  “It’s not a ship, man—it’s a friend of mine, Van Effen, a Dutchman. He was on the Kerry Dancer—joined her with me at Banjermasin. He must have got away on her boat after we’d been set on fire—there was only one boat, as far as I can remember.” Farnholme had pushed his way through the screen door now and was out on the wing of the bridge, peering excitedly over the canvas dodger, oblivious to the rain thumping down on his unprotected back. “Pick him up, man, pick him up!”

  “How do we know it’s not a trap?” The captain’s relaxed, matter-of-fact voice came like a cold douche after Farnholme’s impatient vehemence. “Maybe it is this man, Van Effen, maybe it isn’t. Even if it is, how do we know that we can trust him?”

  “How do you know?” Farnholme’s tone was that of a man with a tight hold, a very tight hold on himself. “Listen. I’ve just been talking to that young man in there, Vannier or whatever his name is—”

  “Get to the point, please,” Findhorn interrupted coldly. “That boat—if it is a boat—is only a couple of hundred yards away now.”

  “Will you listen?” Farnholme almost shouted the words, then went on more quietly. “Why do you think I’m standing here alive? Why do you think these nurses are alive, these wounded soldiers you took off the Kerry Dancer only an hour ago? Why do you think all of us you picked up, with the exception of Miss Plenderleith and the priest, are alive? For one reason only—when the captain of the Kerry Dancer was scuttling out of Singapore to save his own skin a man stuck a pistol in his back and forced him to return to Singapore. That man was Van Effen, and he’s out in that boat now: we all owe our lives to Van Effen, Captain Findhorn.”

  “Thank you, Brigadier.” Findhorn was calm, unhurried as ever. “Mr. Nicolson, the searchlight. Have the bo’sun switch on the two floods when I give the word. Slow astern.”