China Sea

by David Poyer

  Dan said, “Well, he seems happy enough to be aboard, at least for the moment. Thanks for the warning, about the drug laws and so forth. I’ll have my XO put it out to the men. And thanks for the offer to send the cable. I’ll write that down right now and you can take it ashore with you.”

  * * *

  HE let the starboard watch go ashore at 1300, after warning them along the lines Kingon had laid out. As they trooped up the brow to cross the merchie, boisterous at the prospect of a few hours off the ship, Chief Compline reported that the phone connection was complete. Dan hunched over the little linoleum-surfaced desk in the port-side vestibule and listened to the phone burr at both numbers for the USN contact team. When he tried the home number, a Chinese-sounding female answered. She told him everyone was out. Dan left a brief message saying USS Oliver Gaddis was in port, asking someone to call back as soon as possible, but he wasn’t totally certain the woman understood.

  After which he went out on the fantail and stood irresolutely next to the 40mm tub, wondering if it was going to rain again, wondering what the hell he should do next. He was desperately sleepy but too wound up to turn in now. If he tried, he’d only stare at the overhead for hours. The only answer that suggested itself was to go ashore and get some things done and perhaps take a look around while he was at it. He called down and asked Jim Armey if he had any plans. The engineer said he wanted to visit a marine supply company that might have spare parts for the pump.

  * * *

  “BAN Leong Marine Supply,” Armey told the cabbie, who seemed to be Chinese, as, indeed, most of the people they had seen so far, walking down the pier and then checking in at the port captain’s office, had been. He folded his bony length wearily back into the seat. “It’s in Tuas Tech Park, if that helps.”

  “Tuas Tech Park, Ban Leong, sure, we go there chop-chop,” said the driver. Dan wasn’t sure if he was making fun of them or just speaking pidgin.

  “She’s sure as hell got built up,” Armey said, staring out at the enormous buildings at the city center. They were modern and featureless, geometric and inhuman as electronic components. But closer to ground level, as the cab navigated along painfully clean roads, was the surging life of millions of people crowded onto a tiny island. Their alert black eyes met Dan’s as they edged through the street. He caught the glances of attractive Asian women, their features reminding him of Susan’s. Then the battered but clean old Honda pulled out onto a modern expressway and headed west. And without any urging or anything on his part Armey suddenly started telling him about coming here in the early eighties, when he’d deployed to the Indian Ocean and Westpac aboard USS Sterett, CG-31. “I pulled my first liberties in Singapore and Hong Kong. I was just a kid. I did some stupid things.”

  “Who doesn’t?”

  “I mean really stupid. Things that hurt people.”

  Dan sat astonished. It was the first statement of a personal nature he’d heard out of his chief snipe. Finally he ventured, “I pulled mine in the Med. You’re young, you screw up sometimes. What the hell, Jim—you learned from it, right?”

  Armey didn’t answer, and when he looked at the engineer’s reflection where he had pressed his face against the glass Dan saw, to his amazement, that he was close to weeping.

  When they were done at the chandler’s the taxi dropped them back near the waterfront. Armey had clammed up again by then. He was headed to Arab Street to do some shopping. He’d most likely be there a while. Dan took the hint and said he’d check out Change Alley, have an early dinner, then head back to catch up on sleep. When he glanced back a moment later, Armey was lost in the crowd, gone, which seemed odd; he stood a head above nearly all the Singaporeans. He’d ducked down some side street or into some shopfront.

  Suddenly Dan realized he was alone.

  It was always a shock, after weeks or months at sea. The seaman, the officer, even the commander, who had more privacy than any other aboard, still lived surrounded by others, directed, informed, hemmed in both physically and by the manifold forms of duty. Maybe it was a spiritual discipline. Certainly it chastised the will, for good or ill, because from waking to sleep there need never be any question as to what you “wanted” to do. “You,” as an individual with individual desires, barely existed. Sailors even tended to go “on liberty”—revealing terminology—in conspecific groups, not as individuals, taking the ship with them in microcosm even when ashore. So that now, standing sweating in civilian slacks and light shirt on a street corner on Raffels Quay Road, he felt the same existential dread a marrow cell might, removed from the body and placed in a rich nutrient solution.

  A shrine he entered increased his unease. It was thronged with Chinese in bright yellow T-shirts banging gongs and setting off firecrackers. Through the noise and heat and smoke, the smells of gunpowder and incense, joss sticks and sweat, a pudgy man was slicing his flesh with a pair of swords before a statue of a scarlet-faced, grinning god surrounded by a forest of flickering red candles. No one objected to Dan’s presence, but he left hastily and headed back toward the waterfront, through twisting streets that became steadily narrower and more thronged. Till he reached the oldest section of town.

  Change Alley was an irregular roadway lined on either side with shop houses, two or three merchants selling watches, cameras, boom boxes, small cabinetries, porcelain, carpets from the same open storefront. The streets were nearly impassable with human beings, spilling off the sidewalks into the roadway despite the rules. He priced some toys, thinking of Nan, then remembered: She was in junior high now. A diminutive saleswoman chattered to him in Dutch, tying brightly colored silk scarves around his wrists. After prolonged bargaining, he settled on a teak jewelry cabinet inlaid with mother-of-pearl.

  Then he stood with the wrapped gift under his arm, staring about at the black-haired river. The Singaporeans had obviously overcome any need for personal space between human bodies. Evening was arriving across the sea. Beyond expressways and the spindly inverted Ls of gantry cranes, standing like watchful herons above building sites, the sky was gradually darkening, the night stealing toward them out of the East like a black falcon spreading its wings over the earth.

  * * *

  HE was having dinner in a storefront restaurant in Little India, eating a flame-hearted curry off banana leaf, when a white-bearded man in a rumpled lightweight suit dropped at an adjoining table with a grunt. Pale blue eyes surrounded by sun wrinkles surveyed Dan and the package at his feet. Then the man muttered gruffly, almost unwillingly, as Dan wiped his fingers, “A brass bird cage is my guess. Arab Street.”

  “Actually, it’s a jewelry chest. For my daughter.”

  “Sorry to interrupt. Shouldn’t. Bad habit.”

  “Not at all.”

  “You’re the skipper of that Yank tin can, are ye not?”

  On his assent the other leaned forward, crimping his fingers in a hard salutation. “Eric Wedlake, master of MV Marker Eagle. I’m the white ro-ro just forward of you. Was inspecting my deck stowage as you slipped in this morning. Saw ye on your bridge. Have not seen your ship before, though, and I’ve spent a good deal of time out here. And where are you in from?”

  Dan invited Wedlake to join him, and they fell into conversation. Wedlake advised him on the murtaba, and they ate companionably for a time, the Britisher alternating between asking him about Gaddis and telling him about himself. He’d been born in a small port in Somerset called Watchet-on-the-Mud, on the Bristol Channel, taking in esparto grass and pulp for a paper mill and exporting iron ore to South Wales. The very town, he said, on which Samuel Coleridge based “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”

  “You probably know how the antihero shot the albatross, et cetera, et cetera, and how he lived to retell the tale at a wedding at the ‘church on the kirk,’ or something like that. When I was young, I used to sing in the choir of that same church. Then when I was a bit older Mum moved to the Pembroke Dock–Milford Haven area for a while. Had a stint in the Royal Navy, on submarines e
ast of Suez. And then Mr. Eden decided we had no business here and left it to you. Which perhaps you haven’t done all that badly, though Vietnam was unfortunate.” He stopped himself. “Perhaps I shouldn’t say that, considering, no doubt, that you served there.”

  Dan pulled out his wallet and tried to convert Singapore dollars to U.S. “I was on the east coast then, at the tail end of it. The Atlantic coast.”

  “I do recall running ammunition in to Saigon, under a Captain Surtees. Captain Surtees surely loved his whiskey. Sailed with a barricade of crates of it, around his desk. Will never forget old Surtees. So you’re here to protect us against the godless communists?”

  “Actually, we’re supposed to be linking up with an antipirate task force.”

  Wedlake beamed, mopping his shining brow with a napkin. “The U.S. Navy, fighting pirates in the China Sea. And about bloody time someone did! I’m headed back to the cow, myself. Care to stop up for a scotch? Maybe I can pass on some information you’d not mind knowing. Since you’re new to these waters.”

  Dan considered. He was sleepy, but not so far gone he couldn’t put it off for another hour. That would still get him in the sack by eight. At last he said, “I’ll pass on the whiskey, but I wouldn’t mind seeing your ship. I did just want to stop by Gaddis for a moment, see if any orders have come through.”

  * * *

  DOOLAN, who had the command duty, said there was no news, no orders, and no one had returned any calls. The duty section was at work, painting over the Pakistani numbers at the bow with haze gray, but they’d discovered they were out of white paint to put their former hull number back on. Dan told Doolan to add it to Zabounian’s shopping list ashore, then recrossed the breakbulk and joined Wedlake on the pier.

  The rain resumed as they headed up the broad concrete pier toward the Marker Eagle. Seen from astern, the roll-on, roll-off looked huge. She was fairly new but less meticulously kept than a warship. Rust streaked bloody tears down from the stern chocks, and her hull paint was pocked with black half-moons where tugs had lipsticked her. Her stern ramp was angled in to serve as a wide gangway. As they reached the shelter of her hull, Wedlake nodded to a black-bearded Sikh in a turban, who sat tilted back in a chair, barely glancing up from a portable TV that was showing a soccer match. His hairy legs bulged from Bermuda shorts; basketball socks sagged above greasy high-tops. An aluminum baseball bat leaned against a sheave. Dan followed the master’s vigorous bulk up ladders and through deserted hot passageways painted off-white, then down an access corridor.

  A portrait of the Queen hung in a lobby area, above a cap table with a silver dish. Dan eyed the dish with regret. A chance at last to leave his calling card, and he hadn’t brought one. A welcome chill met them past a steel door with patches of fresh paint along the hinge area.

  Inside the roomy sea cabin an air conditioner hummed its self-absorbed om, dispelling the smell of cooked metal. Dan noted carved teak furniture, a large modern-style oil of a harbor by night screwed to the bulkhead, and a side door, no doubt leading to a sleeping area. Wedlake’s suede bucks whispered on carpet. He pulled back a curtain to reveal rain trickling down what was very nearly a picture window, protected, outside the glass, by vertical steel bars. Beyond it spread the strait, islands dark on the horizon, passing ships gray shadows in the rain. “Wife will be back shortly,” he said, noticing Dan eyeing a woman’s sweater hanging on the back of a chair. “Wanted to get her hair done properly. One thing we can’t do aboard, though we had a chap from Thailand who did a decent job. Lost him in Hong Kong, unfortunately. You married, Lenson?” His voice became hollow, and Dan, turning, saw his head ducked into a dry bar, the gleam of glass and chrome.

  “Was once. I’m seeing a woman in Washington now.”

  “Now, that will be with ice if I’m not mistaken. Don’t tell anyone, but I favor Suntory.” He held up a bottle labeled with a bright red flower. “Japanese, but somehow when they make this they give the impression they wear kilts.”

  “A Coke would work. Or ginger ale. I’ve had to taper off on the drinking.” As he always did around Britishers, Dan heard his own diction changing.

  A refrigerator door sucked closed; ice shattered. “Takes a wise man to know that. Haven’t had that problem myself, but seen it in far too many. At sea and not. Happen to have Schweppes; will that do?… Well then.” Wedlake handed Dan the glass and plumped down on one end of a sofa. “To pirates. You’ll have to excuse me; as well as being an old China hand I’m something of a history buff. Have you ever heard of Rear Admiral J. R. Hill? Met him in London. Wonderful man, did a fine book about privateers and pirates. Had an encounter with them myself.”

  “You have?” Dan said, but Wedlake was off.

  “Course, there’ve been pirates in the China Sea for centuries. Most any fisherman will turn pirate, if the opportunity offers. In my view. Plenty of inlets and channels to hide in along the coast. So strong now and again they could dictate terms to the imperial government. We battled them all through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. One of my forebears was at the Battle of Tylo Bay. Which no doubt you recall.”

  “Sorry, can’t say I do.”

  “Eighteen-fifty-five, and odd you never heard of it; the U.S. Navy was there along with us, USS Powhatan.”

  Obviously enjoying himself, Wedlake replenished his glass, then launched into a long tale about a punitive expedition in the Zhu Jiang in which the U.S. and Royal Navies had cooperated. One Sir Castlemayne Hellowell had been part of the expedition, which had recaptured several merchant ships, killed one Lee Afye, the pirate chieftain, and dispersed those pirates who had not been shot, blown apart, or drowned in the action. Dan caught himself starting to yawn, disguised it just in time as a cough.

  “But now the White Ensign’s gone from these seas. More’s the pity. I should have been glad to have them about when we were boarded last February.”

  “You were boarded? Where?”

  But just then heels tapped outside. Wedlake rose as a wan-looking woman in a light cotton dress burst in. She was no longer young but was still striking, with spindly arms and ankles, a pointed chin, a quick sparrow’s way of moving, and an expressive, mobile mouth. “I’m back, and they said there wasn’t any such thing as a—” Then she saw Dan. “I didn’t know you had a guest. A handsome one, too.”

  “Darling, this is Captain Lenson, from the destroyer just aft of us. Let me introduce my wife, Bobbie.”

  Her hand was cool and firm. “Great haircut,” Dan said. “What do you call that?”

  “Why, thanks. This is my street-urchin look, I’m afraid.”

  “Midwest?”

  “Abilene, Kansas. My grandpa grew up with Ike Eisenhower. You?”

  “Pennsylvania, but I’ve spent life since hopping around from one navy base to another.”

  “Bobbie and I met in New York some years ago and kept up our acquaintance. At last I persuaded her to join me.”

  “When my former husband decided he preferred the company of men,” Bobbie said. “Though Eric would never reveal anything that personal. He’s the quintessential stuffed-shirt Brit. As you already noticed, I bet.”

  “Actually, he was holding my interest. Said you’d had a run-in with boarders.”

  “You told him about the boarding?”

  “Just getting to it, my sweet. Shall I fetch you a gin-and, and let you start?”

  “Just a short one—actually, just ice water would be better; it’s dreadfully hot out there. The boarding. Eric can tell you exactly where; I just know it was somewhere east of here. The first thing we knew was when they appeared on the bridge. Ugly, jabbering little men with guns. They wanted the safe. Once Eric opened it, they duct-taped him. He was rolling around on the floor. Then they wanted the crew’s valuables. Once they had those, off they went.”

  “I was under way at about ten knots, slowed for the changeover in the traffic scheme. Obviously they knew that. I remember passing through a group of lights. I thought they were fishermen
.”

  “They weren’t?”

  “Rather clever, actually,” said Wedlake. “The way they got aboard. Two small boats, a few hundred yards apart. A floating line from one to the other. I steam between, picking up the line on my stem. The small craft are pulled into my shadow, just below my quarter. From there they reach up with long hooked poles and skinny up them, onto my aft deck.”

  Dan said, “In the Strait of Malacca? A ship was out of control there last night. Came across the dividing line and plowed straight through the eastbound traffic.”

  “May well have been pirates on the bridge. There are a lot more incidents than get reported. The Russians have it the worst. Their navy has evaporated, and they typically carry plenty of cash. Since no one will take their cheques anymore.… Smaller craft, yachts and fishermen, of course, if they are taken over, one might never know, if the crew’s killed and thrown overboard. But to cargo shippers, time is money. We can’t linger over to make reports, give evidence, and so forth. The demurrage charges alone would kill us.

  “But there’s sort of a conspiracy of silence about it. So it’s only a matter of time before we have some enormous disaster. A liquid natural gas carrier goes astray and rams a passenger liner and explodes. Then we’ll see some frantic finger pointing. Till then, the shipowner buys the drinks, and the crew takes the risks.” Wedlake sucked his cheek for a moment, then picked up Dan’s glass. “Refill?”

  “Thanks.”

  “Since then we’ve taken a few precautions. When Marker Eagle was laid down, no one thought about security. But I’ve welded steel bars over all the windows and put in extra-heavy doors to the bridge. When we’re under way I have cables rigged over cargo hatches and I secure the hinge pins on the weather deck doors. At night a motion sensor turns halogen lights on over the ladders. When we’re at anchor, I keep my pumps running to the fire hoses and drill my crew in blasting intruders off the ship with the high-pressure jets. Those will only help if they’re unarmed, though.”