Redcap

by Philip McCutchan

  It appeared that something was building up; or at least it appeared that way until the morning before the liner reached Colombo. That day the wireless Press News reported that an Official Spokesman had been dug out from some quiet corner in Hongkong and his dictum was: “There is no cause for alarm whatever. The troop movements are entirely in accord with the requirements of the training programme.”

  Which was precisely what Latymer had had to put up with.

  Shaw chucked the Press News sheets away, got up and shaved angrily. Official Spokesman indeed . . . those gentry specialized in lulling the world to sleep, into a false sense of security. The trouble was, so many well-meaning millions of people were always so anxious to believe them—until it was too late.

  It was that same morning that a cable came from Latymer, in response to Shaw’s request for a routine check on Andersson’s standing with the Swedes. His credentials appeared to be genuine, as Shaw had known they would be. Latymer added that this had not emerged earlier because his contacts in Sweden had never heard of Sigurd Andersson. The man’s employment appeared to be very hush-hush, probably because the Swedes, until they’d been approached direct by Latymer, had been reluctant to advertise putting an agent aboard a British ship. But it was none the less genuine for all that; while it complicated things considerably, it did not, however, in the light of recent happenings, lessen the likelihood of Andersson and Karstad being one and the same man.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Shaw was standing at the after end of the veranda deck with Judith Dangan as the New South Wales made her midnight departure from Colombo. It was close, airless; Shaw’s tropic-weight jacket clung to him, his thin shirt and collar were sticky with sweat. The day had passed off well enough, if a trifle boringly. Most of the passengers had gone ashore for a full day’s sight-seeing around Ceylon, going out to Kandy and the Temple of the Tooth, or to Mount Lavinia; and ending up with dinner at the Galle Face Hotel, and then dancing at the hotel’s Gala Ball, looking out from the terraces over the Indian Ocean; and finally, tired but happy, they’d come back by rickshaw to the wharf. There they had gone aboard the tender and out to the huge, lighted bulk of the New South Wales, whose floodlit funnel dominated the harbour as the tender pushed through a fairyland of lights which glittered on the black water.

  Andersson, whose behaviour had been perfectly ordinary ever since that conversation in the tavern bar, had not been one of the landward-bounders and neither, therefore, had Shaw. On his advice Judith too had remained aboard once again, and he was aware that she’d had a pretty dismal day hanging around an almost deserted ship.

  They leaned against the rail, feeling the faint throb of the engines against the soles of their feet, and watching the glimmer of Ceylon’s lights sparkling from beyond the dark line of forest which fringed the port until they faded away behind the streaming, tumbling path of the wake.

  She looked up at him, rather mischievously, studying the strong line of his jaw. There was a dimple in her cheek. Her soft dark hair fanned against his shoulder and he felt her breath on his neck. She looked away then, and they stood like that, silent, as the liner cut through the water; then after a while she looked up at Shaw again, asked: “Isn’t there anything else I can do to help? I’ve convinced everyone long ago that you’re just a plain naval officer. They all believe that now—especially after I passed the word that you got tight in Port Said!”

  He said, “Yes. I’m not sure that was such a good idea after all!”

  She laughed. “What better cover could you have than that?”

  “Well—perhaps you’re right.” He paused, then added: “I’d rather you kept out of this from now on. Really, Judith.” He told a white lie then. “Andersson doesn’t seem to have cottoned on to you, and that’s the way I want it to stay.”

  “But surely—”

  His hand closed over hers, hard. He said curtly, “Don’t ask me any more. Just trust me.”

  She said in a disappointed voice, “Of course, if that’s what you want. . . ."

  “It is.”

  Somehow there wasn’t very much to say after that, and they just stood there, close together, looking out into the night and the dark sea beneath the stars which hung, lantern-like, so low over the whole sky; and then a little later he took Judith down to her cabin.

  She turned at the foot of the stairway, turned her serious small face up to his. He looked at her and saw her eyes wide, the pupils dilating, sensed a kind of strain in her, heard the sharply-indrawn breath. Suddenly, Shaw took her face in his hands, bent and kissed her on the forehead. She came into his arms and seemed about to speak, but instead she drew away again, giving him a gentle little push with her hands, and then she turned and ran quickly along the alleyway.

  She was gone. He hard the light tap-tap of her shoes and then that too faded.

  Shaw swung away and walked along to his own cabin, frowning and troubled. She’d come to help, and he hadn’t let her, he’d turned her down. He knew he couldn’t have acted otherwise, but he was desperately sorry for the girl.

  The following evening he booked a table for two in the restaurant on the boat deck. It would, he decided, be a change from the dining-room and it was time Judith had a little fun. After a drink in the tavern, they went up to the small tables tucked right away by themselves in a corner at the after end, where they could watch the pale, phosphorescent wake creaming away behind them until it was lost in the remote, star-filled night. Shaw ordered clear soup, fresh-frozen crayfish mayonnaise, steak, a bottle of Rheingold. Later, with the coffee and liqueurs, he lit a cigar and sat back, smiling across at Judith.

  She said, “Quite the bloated capitalist.”

  “Doesn’t hurt, once in a while! I like a bit of high life now and then.”

  She said musingly, “Life’s funny, isn’t it. . . . I expect most people think it’s all high life in your line.”

  “Yes, I expect they do.”

  In a faraway voice she said, “Daddy used to say that was one of the hard parts. People didn’t know who you were, so you couldn’t tell them what a lousy, rotten life it was. You know what I mean—the people who used to see films and things about agents, and think how wonderful it must be, how exciting. The result, according to daddy, was that you could never let yourself go and get rid of the tension, let off steam. It gave you a kind of shut-in, isolated feeling.”

  He said quietly, “Forget things, Judith. Just try and enjoy yourself.”

  “That’s what I want to do.”

  There was something in her tone which made Shaw look at her sharply. She hadn’t seemed quite herself all the evening, now he came to think about it. Of course, she must still be suffering from the shock of that terrible night in France. He felt a rush of sympathy for the girl, and he reached out across the table and took her hand. He asked gently, “Judith, what is it?”

  She looked at him quickly and then turned her face away. She said, “Oh, nothing.” Then she added, “It’ll all be over soon—all this.”

  He started. “I’m not sure what you mean by that. But let’s just pretend this is an ordinary voyage, just for this evening, anyway.”

  “I didn’t mean anything special except what I said—that the voyage’ll soon be over.” She pushed at her coffee cup on the starched white cloth, kept her eyes down. “That’s all. And it’s you who’s on duty all the time—it’s you who needs to relax. Not me.”

  He said, “Now, that’s not fair and you know it. I happen to feel that my job’s pretty important. If things don’t work out right, all this may be over soon. Literally.”

  She stubbed out her cigarette fiercely, didn’t look at him. She said, “Oh, I know you’re right, of course I do. But why keep on about it?”

  “Because—if you must know—there may not be many days left now. Next stop Fremantle, don’t forget. Nearly journey’s end. Time really is running out.”

  “Then for God’s sake why not let’s do as you said and enjoy ourselves?” There was a catch
in her voice, and a hint of hysteria.

  Shaw said, “That’s exactly what I meant to do this evening, my dear. Doesn’t seem to have turned out that way, though, does it?”

  She smiled at him then, but he caught a glitter of tears in her eyes. She said softly, “I’m sorry.” She reached out impulsively for his hand, and he had the feeling that her gesture was symbolic, that she was reaching out for something else and didn’t know quite how far she ought to go, or even just how she ought to go about it. He finished his brandy, said abruptly:

  “Come on, Judith. Let’s go out on deck.”

  “All right.”

  She got up; there was a seductive frou-frou of material, and for the first time he realized she’d made a special effort with her appearance to-night. She was, in fact, disturbingly attractive and desirable. He took her arm, and they went out, away from the peculiar tang of the air-conditioning and out into the velvety clutch of the warm, soft tropic night. There was a pleasant breeze made by the ship’s movement as they walked over to the starboard rail and leaned against it; there was a dance going on below and the boat deck was almost deserted. They stared down into the dark water swishing past the liner’s hull so far below, the hull which dipped almost imperceptibly to a gentle deep-sea swell. Music drifted up. His arm went round her shoulder and he felt her body stiffen momentarily. They remained very still for a long time; Shaw could feel the beat of her heart against his side, and he felt the blood thrusting through his veins, pumping in his temples. His mouth tightened; here they were, aboard a luxury liner out at sea, in a small isolated world of unreality where no one else knew them or their affairs, or the pattern of their shore-side lives, a world which, as Judith had said at dinner, would vanish when the New South Wales raised Sydney Heads and came up the harbour of Port Jackson to turn beyond the bridge into the Pyrmont berths. A world in which, when that happened, all that had gone before would be forgotten, and whatever he and this girl might do in the secrecy of an Indian Ocean night would be forgotten with it as soon as they returned to day-by-day normality and picked up the ordinary threads of life again. If ever they did.

  And Shaw knew, up there on the boat deck, knew for certain from the pressure of the girl’s body against his own, that she wouldn’t deny him anything he asked of her tonight, or any other night.

  Who would it hurt—who could it hurt? The girl herself, if they came out of this. He mustn’t do that.

  Shaw released her, stood back, said quietly: “Judith, let’s go down. Let’s dance.” His voice sounded forced, distrait; and she didn’t move. He said awkwardly, “You like dancing, don’t you? Come on.”

  She still didn’t move and she didn’t answer; she remained leaning over the rail. He repeated, “Come on.”

  She turned then, and he saw the sparkle of tears, a very slight tremble of her lips. Then, suddenly, she was in his arms, her head on his shoulder, and she was shaken with sobs. He rumpled her hair, held her very close and tight, but could find no words in that moment. They both knew . . . and then, just as suddenly, she pushed away from him. She turned and went quickly aft to the companionway and down to the veranda deck. Shaw didn’t follow her. He stayed where he was, puzzled and unhappy, looking out over the sea under the low-swinging Southern Cross which hung like a pattern of lamps to light the way for this great ship which vibrated beneath him ... in spite of everything it was still good to be back aboard a ship, at sea again, after all these years. To feel the wind on your face once more and the surge of the sea for music in your ears, and the lift of a deck beneath your feet again . . . after a while Shaw lost himself in a nostalgic remembrance of the past, of the war days when he’d been an ordinary junior watchkeeper in a destroyer rolling her guts out in the North Atlantic and enjoying, so far as his stomach condition had allowed him, calm and storm, sunlight and shadow and clear blue days. . . .

  It may have been simply the fact that he had been thinking back to the War which made him listen, as he pulled himself together and turned away from the rail at last, to a distant throbbing, a very far-off regular beat of what sounded like engines.

  He walked aft, stared up into the sky. The sound seemed to be up there. Aircraft engines passing . . . drum-drum, drum-drum. He could see no navigation lights. Of course, these days, they mostly went too fast for the eye to follow, but this didn’t sound all that fast—it was more like an old-fashioned propeller job. However, some less up-to-date airlines than B.O.A.C. and Qantas no doubt sent their flights over here.

  Shaw yawned, clattered down the ladder, went below to his stateroom and turned in. The throb overhead, strangely enough, went on and on and it seemed to be circling the New South Wales so far below.

  Partly because he was troubled by thoughts of Judith and partly because his subconscious was telling him that those aircraft sounds hadn’t been altogether normal, Shaw had half an eye open. So, when two hours later the phone buzzed beside his bunk, he was wide awake on the instant.

  He grabbed the handset. “Shaw here.”

  The Captain’s voice came through, abrupt and worried. “Sorry to wake you—but I’d like you to come up to the bridge right away.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Shaw threw his clothes on quickly and went up top.

  As he went across the deserted boat deck, where the lifeboats, triced up high to the davit-heads, stood out sharply in the hard moonlight, he heard the same throb of engines that he had heard earlier. So far as he could judge, the plane was somewhere astern; and then, as he reached the foot of the ladder leading up to the bridge, it sounded as though it was turning to come down the liner’s port side, though still a long way off.

  It was an eerie, flesh-creeping sound now, that distant throb in the otherwise silent night.

  Sir Donald, a blue uniform jacket over his pyjamas, met him at the head of the ladder, asked: “Hear that, Shaw?”

  “Yes. It was buzzing about when I turned in, if it’s the same one.”

  The Captain said, “I don’t know if it’s actually the same one, but I rather think it must be. It’s been up there on and off for a couple of hours, anyway. My officer-of-the-watch has been listening out.”

  Shaw walked to the for’ard rail, stared up into the night. He asked, “Do you know if many of the scheduled flights cross the track here, sir?”

  Sir Donald shook his head. “Not all that many, anyhow. Certainly I’ve never had anything like this before, and I’ve been on the run a good many years. However, the officer-of-the-watch apparently didn’t think there was anything particularly suspicious, not enough to call me—until the radio office reported a few minutes ago that the aircraft was making signals.”

  Shaw frowned and rubbed the side of his nose. “What sort of signals?”

  The Captain shrugged. “They couldn’t identify them.”

  “Funny . . . was the plane getting any reply, any acknowledgement from anywhere?”

  “Apparently not. None that the radio people could pick up, that is. What d’you make of it, Shaw?”

  “I don’t know. It’s certainly odd.”

  The two men exchanged glances, and Shaw felt a cold shiver running up his spine. That throbbing noise above as the liner slid so silently through the night had suddenly got him very much on edge. The Captain said, “You know, it’s almost as though we’re being shadowed. D’you remember those aircraft during the war, shadowing the convoys?”

  “Do I not!” Shaw drew in breath sharply. “Always just out of range. Reports to the sub-packs and all that. But I don’t quite see what this chap can hope to do to us, all the same.” He ruminated for a moment, then he added half to himself: “Or do I?”

  “How d’you mean?”

  “I’m wondering if he could be . . . well, homing something on to us.”

  Sir Donald stared at him, looming vast in the moonlight. “How—what?”

  “Well, I don’t know, sir.” He laughed uneasily. “Maybe there’s just something about unexplained sounds in the night that gives me ideas!
But this could be the threat, couldn’t it? Some attempt, perhaps, to seize REDCAP. Even seize the ship.”

  “But good God, man—they couldn’t do that!”

  “They could, sir, and very easily too.”

  “But—a damn great ship like this—with all those people aboard! That’s a fantastic notion, Shaw. It’d be an act of war.”

  “The whole of this threat is by way of being an act of war,” Shaw said grimly, “at least it will be when it materializes. I don’t believe they would hesitate to interfere with the ship if they wanted to. Remember we did even suspect they might try to blow us up.”

  Sir Donald nodded, big shoulders hunching as he rammed his fists into his jacket pockets. He said heavily, “Quite, but that wouldn’t necessarily have looked like an act of war. It could have been put down to a fault in the reactor. This is quite different. Nevertheless, if there is any concrete danger developing, I’ve got my passengers and crew to consider. For that reason, I’d just as soon turn around and head back for Colombo.”

  “I understand that, sir. But I think, before we make any fresh decisions, it’d be better to report this.”

  “Who do we report to?”

  Shaw wrinkled his brows. “There’s a man in Sydney I’ve been told to contact on arrival. He’ll be the one for this. With your permission, sir, I’ll report this myself. I’ll cypher a signal and tell him what’s going on and ask for a search of the area. He’ll take any other action he thinks necessary—I hope! That all right with you, sir?”

  “Yes, indeed. Thank you, Shaw.”