As the line came loose from round his waist Basil slipped forward and fell with a bump on the bottom boards. His eyelids flickered and he came out of black unconsciousness.
He felt ghastly. His mouth was dry and evil tasting, his head heavy and throbbing dully, his eyes were aching in a way that told from experience, without the aid of any mirror, that they must be terribly bloodshot; he was suffering every symptom of a first-class hangover.
That was no new sensation as during the last year or two he had gone to bed in varying degrees of tightness more often than not. However, he was still young and blessed with a good constitution, so his drinking had not yet seriously undermined his health and he knew just what he wanted to make himself his own man again—a good hot bath with its accompanying rituals, and two large cups of China tea. Thus fortified he would normally have appeared spruce, amiable, and ready to talk with reasonable intelligence to anyone congenial.
His eyes had not been open ten seconds when he realised that his chances of obtaining either a hot bath or China tea were about as remote as his coming into another comfortable fortune like that the rash expenditure of which was the prime cause of his being where he was at the moment.
When he had tilted that half-bottle of brandy down his throat before abandoning ship he had been convinced they were all about to die. He remembered feeling strangely sober when they piled into the boat; but shortly afterwards the huge quantity of neat spirit, taken at a draught on top of all he had drunk before, had done its work; he had lapsed into a drunken stupor. Now, it seemed, by some act of God or fantastic freak of chance, the boat had not gone down after all. He was ill, wretchedly ill, but still very much alive—that was quite certain.
De Brissac’s body lay stretched out at full length beside him. During the night someone had tied a handkerchief round the Frenchman’s head and in the dawn light patches of dried blood stood out darkly on it. His handsome face was a chalk-blue and he lay so still it seemed certain he was dead. Basil stretched out a hand and touched him gently on the shoulder.
‘Leave him alone, you young fool,’ growled Colonel Carden. ‘Can’t you see he’s sleeping?’ The old man was wide awake, having only dropped into an uneasy doze just before the dawn. His daughter, in spite of the apparent discomfort of her position, bent over at an angle, was sleeping soundly, with her head in his lap.
Basil murmured an apology, rolled his tongue round his evil-tasting mouth, and lifted himself back on to the seat from which he had slipped. He was already beginning to feel that Fate would have been kinder to allow him to drown while dead drunk on good Hennessy rather than to preserve him for the sort of end he could expect in an open boat at sea. There was, he supposed, an outside chance that they might be picked up, but the unnatural existence he had led for the past two years had veiled his naturally cheerful nature with a pessimistic outlook.
At the sound of Colonel Garden’s growling reprimand, Vicente Vedras sat up with a start. He had been dreaming of all the gold that lay under his brother’s farm in South Africa. In the dream he had already sold his coffee business in Venezuela and returned with the money to Johannesburg. The two of them had bought all the necessary mining machinery and installed it; they were actually drilling the new reef which would make them both multimillionaires. He had been telling his brother how wise he had been to send for him, Vicente, instead of getting the capital, which he needed to exploit his discovery, from strangers. Now they would keep it all in the family. All that rich, red gold that would buy women and cattle and plantations, and women and horses, and yet more women.
Vicente stared across the boat at Synolda, sleeping still. Her golden hair, escaped from under a sou’wester, tumbled about her white face and neck. That one first, he thought, she is lovely—lovely as the Madonna in the painting that hangs in the side chapel of the church at El Perso. Then he shivered in his sodden clothes and wakened to grim reality. His dark eyes became shadowed and he began to wring his hands.
Luvia had stood up to get a wider view and was searching the horizon on every side with his binoculars. At last he lowered them and looked down at the boat’s company.
‘Not a sail in sight,’ Basil remarked before the Finn had a chance to speak. ‘That’s the correct expression—isn’t it?’
‘You’ve said it,’ Luvia snapped, ‘but I don’t see it’s anything to go making wisecracks about.’
Colonel Carden did not like Basil. In fact he and his daughter were at one in regarding the young man as a disgrace to his class, but the old man would not stand by and see one of his own countrymen snubbed without reason.
‘You don’t understand our English character, sir,’ he shot at Luvia. ‘It’s our habit to make jokes when we find ourselves up against it—and a very good habit too.’
‘Right-oh, Colonel, joke away if you want to—and welcome.’ The tall young Finn shrugged his broad shoulders and began to check up the boat’s company. Some had oilskins, others not, but all of them looked blue with cold, miserable and dejected.
He was the only officer in it, but he had Jansen, the ship’s carpenter, and four other Swedes—Bremer, an elderly reliable man; red-headed Steffens; young Largertöf, and Hansie, the lounge steward; also a half-caste seaman named Gietto Nudäa. The passengers were Colonel Carden and his daughter, Basil Sutherland, Vicente Vedras, Captain Jean De Brissac, and Synolda Ortello. They also carried four stokers from the engineroom. That made a total of fifteen men and two women, but two of the men were as good as useless—old Colonel Carden with his gammy leg and the wounded De Brissac.
As he glanced down on the comatose French Army Captain, Luvia frowned. He felt it a particularly evil stroke of luck that the falling oar should have knocked out the man who was so obviously best fitted to be his right hand during the hours or days of terrible uncertainty and appalling strain which lay ahead.
The breeze was dropping rapidly and the boat rocked idly on the long, gentle swell, drifting mainly with the current. Best try and warm them up a bit, Luvia thought, and raising his voice he shouted to the crew in Swedish.
As the men roused and got out the oars he tapped Colonel Carden on the shoulder. ‘Did you understand what I said, Colonel?’
‘No—er—I—er don’t speak any foreign languages.’
‘That’s just too bad, because we Finns like to pull one now and again when we’re in a spot, as well as you English. I’ve just told the boys they’d best put their backs into it or we won’t make the coast of South America by lunch time.’
Basil managed a sickly grin. ‘You mean by Christmas. With eleven months to go we might manage that.’
The Colonel grunted but turned to his daughter who had been woken by Luvia’s shouted orders. ‘Well, Unity, how’re you feeling?’ he asked with forced cheerfulness.
She gazed round, her grey eyes dull with great purple shadows beneath them. ‘Not too bad,’ she replied a trifle hoarsely, and she began to tidy herself as best she could.
Synolda had woken at the same moment. She was staring at her face in a little mirror she had taken from her bag.
‘Oh, God!’ she exclaimed miserably, and rubbing the brine from her face with a rag of handkerchief she set to work to repair the ravages of the storm by heavy application of powder, rouge and lipstick.
Basil’s teeth began to chatter. He remembered now having given the suit of oilskins that he had been wearing when they left the pumps to Synolda just before he passed out. His clothes were soaked through from the spray that had driven gustily over them all night. He was chilled to the marrow of his bones and had a thirst on him which he felt could hardly have been quenched by the contents of the Great Tun of Heidelberg,
‘Go get on to one of the oars,’ said Luvia. ‘That’ll put some warmth into you.’
‘All right,’ Basil lurched to his feet. ‘For God’s sake give me a drink first though. Got any brandy in the locker you’re sitting on? If not, rum’ll do.’
The Finn’s fair-skinned, freckled face set grimly.
‘I’m afraid you’ll have to cut out the drinking for a while. I’ve had no chance to examine our stores as yet, but if there’s any spirits they’ll be held for medicinal purposes. Maybe you’ll get a half-cup of water when I issue the morning rations.’
‘Thank you, my brave Viking. There’s no need to be so darned pleased and pious about our lack of civilised liquor though. I’m a medical case at the moment if ever there was one. Come on, give me a swig of something to pull me together.’
‘You heard me!’
‘I heard you talking like a pussyfoot schoolboy who doesn’t understand the needs of a grown man.’
‘Sir! You forget yourself,’ Colonel Carden interposed sharply. ‘Mr. Luvia is the officer in charge of this boat. To his skill in handling her, his example, and the manner in which he kept his men at bailing her out all night, while you were in a disgusting, drunken sleep, we owe our lives.’
‘Oh, Lord, defend me from these thy heroes,’ muttered Basil: upon which the Colonel’s face turned a bright brick red.
‘Now, Daddy, now!’ Unity exclaimed, clutching at the old man’s arm as he began to struggle to his feet. ‘Don’t take any notice of him—he’s not worth it.’
‘Your servant, Madam,’ Basil bowed unsteadily, ‘and my congratulations on your perspicacity.’
As he turned away he felt a touch on his elbow. Snyolda was holding out a small flask which she had taken from her bag. ‘It’s Van der Hum,’ she said. ‘I can guess what you must be feeling like. Go ahead.’
He took the flask, swallowed two medium-sized gulps, and, screwing the top on again, handed it back to her. The rich tangerine-orange flavoured South African liqueur brought new life to him. It warmed his inner man and sent the blood coursing more rapidly through his veins. He smiled down at the girl who looked like a rather shop-soiled Marlene Dietrich.
‘That was darned decent of you. I’m very, very grateful.’
She pursed the full lips of her now reddened mouth, and shook her head. ‘It was decent of you to wrap me up in your oilskins last night. I should have died of cold if you hadn’t, and one good turn deserves another.’
‘It very seldom gets it though. Anyhow, you’re a darling!’ Cheered by that brief, friendly encounter in this little crowd of people made unnaturally hostile by misery and dejection, he stumbled forward across two thwarts and sat down on the third, next to Hansie, the fat barman.
There was ample room on the thwarts for two men to pull at each of the big oars, and all six were already in motion. Basil had chosen to double bank Hansie because, as the barman’s best customer on the seven days’ run from Cape Town, he had come to know him well.
‘Glad to see you with us, Hansie,’ he remarked, grabbing the oar as it swung back in the tholes, and lending his weight on the next stroke.
‘Glad ter be here, Mister Sutherland. ‘Fraid I can’t offer to fix you an eye-opener this morning, though.’ Like most Swedes, the little man was multilingual. He had served in many ships and his English had an indefinable accent, something between that of a Bowery American and a London Cockney. ‘How d’you figure we’ll make out?’
‘Lord knows! There’s not much shipping in this area.’
‘And no islands neither.’
‘Where does the Second Engineer think he’s taking us, I wonder?’
‘Sun’s in yer eye, so we’re moving due west, seein’ it’s only just risen. If we keep pulling long enough we’ll hit the coast of South America.’
‘If?’ Basil repeated sceptically. ‘We’re a thousand—perhaps fifteen hundred—miles from land. Allowing for winds and currents we couldn’t row that distance in a month. We’ll be sunk by another storm or dead of thirst long before that.’
‘Sure, Mister Sutherland, sure. We’re in pretty bad unless we get picked up.’
‘What sort of stores do these lifeboats carry?’
‘Keg of water, jar of rum, tinned beef and biscuits. That’s about the usual in most freighters where I’ve done stooard; though I’ve never had to quit ship before.’
‘The more I think about this party, the less I like it.’
‘I like it so mighty little I’m jus’ not thinking about it at all. I’m lying doggo and saving my strength for when the real trouble starts.’
‘You mean when the water runs short?’
‘Ai—an’ worse as a result of that.’
‘Just what are you hinting at, Hansie?’
The barman lowered his voice. ‘Keep the soft pedal on the organ, Mister Sutherland. All these fellars understand a bit of English, knocking around in all sorts of ships as they do, an’ the stokers come from the Southern States. It’s them I’m scared of. We got a sight too big a coloured quota in this outfit. You see, we lost the Third Officer last night; besides a Quartermaster, a white seaman and an apprentice, who should be with us, bein’ dead ‘fore we quit the ship. That puts the Negroes’ odds up considerable, seein’ one of the seamen’s a mulatto too.’
‘Oh, come,’ Basil protested. ‘There are only five of them including the half-caste, whereas we’ve three white A.B.s, the carpenter, Mr. Luvia, Mr. Vedras, you and me. That’s eight without counting the old Colonel and poor De Brissac, who seems to have passed out. They’d be crazy to start anything when we outnumber them by practically two to one.’
‘Sure, Mister Sutherland, sure. They wouldn’t risk a beating-up as long as we’re awake, but we’ve got to sleep sometimes. What’s to prevent them rushing us when most of our bunch is having a shut-eye in the middle of the night?’
‘Have you got any grounds for the mutiny bogey you’re trying to scare me with, Hansie? Any of them say anything during the night to make you suspicious? Or were the officers having trouble with the engine-room staff before we left the ship?’
‘You’ve guessed it. Don’t go looking over yer shoulder now; but later on take a squint at the big buck who’s pulling bow. That’s Harlem Joe. Used ter be in the boxing racket they tell me, but got slung out because he did some bigger fellar dirt. Next heard of doing a stretch for homicide in a jail down Missouri way. Broke prison during the 1937 floods and got signed on in the stokehold of a Dutchman outward bound from St. Louis. He—’
‘Half a minute,’ Basil muttered. ‘How d’you know all this?’
‘Picked it up from the other fellars in the fo’c’sle. Harlem’s the boastful kind an’ he knows no one’d do a split.’
‘D’you mean to tell me, that knowing you had an escaped convict on board, none of you had the guts to report it to your officers?’
‘Sure, Mister Sutherland,’ Hansie’s voice was as low and even as ever. It only just reached Basil’s ear, and was drowned for the others by the constant tapping of the oars as they moved in the tholes. ‘Life’s not easy for poor sailormen. Plenty of fellars before the mast have records that wouldn’t show too good if they was looked into, but they may have been unlucky and be decent scouts all the same.’
‘Yes, I understand that; and naturally you hang together. But in a case like this … well, homicide’s murder, isn’t it?’
‘That’s so. All the same, the unwritten law holds and anyone who goes back on it ‘ud be asking for a knife in ‘is ribs from one of the others the next dark night he went ashore.’
‘D’you think he’s got the others under his thumb?’
‘I certainly do. He’s one of these wise guys—considers himself educated because he’s lived in Noo York. When he hands out the dope about all men being brothers and gives them the Communist angle on equality they just lap it up. Them three buddies of his, Lem Williamson, Isiah Meek, and the one they call Corncob, eat right out of his hand.’
‘That may be, Hansie; but what are you afraid they’ll try anyway?’
‘Why, Mister Sutherland, I can’t rightly say. But some of us may get a knife in our ribs should Harlem get it into his nob that he’ll stand a better chance himself if he can seize control of the boat.’
‘Does Mr Luvia know any of these bedtime stories
with which you’ve been trying to cheer me up?’ Basil asked quietly.
‘No, he wouldn’t know anything, ‘cept that Harlem’s been making trouble in the engine-room, and there’s nothing much unusual in that.’
‘Well, I’ll tip him off to be on the look-out. Don’t worry, Hansie; with the odds so much in our favour we’ll be able to take care of ourselves all right.’
The sun had now risen well over the horizon. Its rays were not yet strong but carried a welcome warmth. Several members of the party took off their sea-soaked jackets and spread them out to dry. The sharp work at the oars was getting the men’s circulation going, and they were already more cheerful than they had been a quarter of an hour before.
In the stern, Juhani Luvia had been making an inspection of the emergency stores, which proved considerably better than Hansie had led Basil to suppose. They consisted of a six-gallon cask of water, a half-gallon jar of rum, a canister of tea, three pounds of sugar, three tins of condensed milk, eight of corned beef, and a large supply of ship’s biscuits. In addition there was a primus stove, methylated spirit, paraffin, a kettle, and a small medicine chest.
Basil was horribly out of condition, and a quarter of an hour’s pulling proved as much as he could manage without suffering acute discomfort. He left Hansie and scrambled back into the stern. Vicente had taken his old place next to Synolda and, puffing like a grampus, he subsided on her other side.
Unity was busy with the primus and her father was helping to measure out the water for the kettle. Synolda was cutting thin slices of corned beef from a square block out of one of the tins.
‘Feeling better now?’ she asked Basil as he sat down.
‘Yes,’ he held his breath; ‘warmer, anyway. You’re looking fine—just as though you enjoyed this sort of thing.’
Actually, she was looking awful. Having made up her face for the day without any of her usual facilities, the cosmetics with which she had daubed it, lacking ground-work, stood out harsh and crude in the strong light of the morning sunshine; but he had lied deliberately, knowing that a compliment on her appearance was the best possible way to cheer her.
Uncharted Seas Page 4
