The Leper Ship

by Peter Tonkin

  Cesar watched for an instant, horror-struck. They would ride over the net easily enough. The frail floats and bright plastic posed no threat to the hull. But unless they swerved round the end of it, the net would slide under their keel until it met their propeller. The little fishing boat would in all probability be pulled under the water and torn apart. The propeller would be wrapped in a mare’s-nest of net. The main shaft, trying to turn it, would warp and spring out of its bed. The engine, caught in direct drive, with not even a gear box to fail and relieve the pressure, would overheat. The fires El Jefe was always warning them about would explode into flame. They would be crippled, at the very least.

  Cesar crossed the bridge at incredible speed and hit the button beside the automatic helm, which was the HARD A-STARBOARD button. Then he pressed the switch that sounded the foghorn, as Napoli seemed to leap aside. Vaguely, because his attention was elsewhere, he noticed that the deck cargo was having a hard time in the forces released by the emergency action. One of the containers seemed to have torn loose and was swinging from side to side. No time to worry about that now. He grabbed the engine room telegraph and wrenched the lever across to HARD ASTERN. Napoli had enough way on her, even at ten knots, for the steering command to be effective. The engine command hopefully would give them just that little more time. He hit the siren again. A figure appeared on the afterdeck of the fishing boat and began to wave its arms in a pantomime of surprise. An ants’ nest of fishermen boiled out of the squat bridgehouse to join him. They ran back and started to pull the bright net out of Napoli’s path.

  *

  The four of them sat in Asha and John’s cabin, the sisters side by side under the paintings of Naples, the old friends opposite them. Typically, it had been Fatima who dominated the conversation that was just coming to an end. She had embellished her description of Salah’s isolation and made it the foundation of a plea—John and Asha should do all in their power not only to get the ex-terrorists off Napoli at Liverpool, but to find some way of helping them make a new life away from all association with the Middle East. Further thought had convinced her that political events in the Gulf States and North Africa were simply making it inevitable that a man of Salah’s views, with Salah’s reputation and standing, would die as soon as he went back.

  Salah himself remained silent. He was not surprised by Fatima’s proposition. He was not offended to have himself spoken of in such terms in front of outsiders. He was simply surprised that anyone should care so much about him. If the truth were to be told, he thought little enough about himself. A man of fierce personal pride, enormous courage, and infinite loyalty, he had lost everything dear to him years ago when his wife had been killed in the earliest days of the Palestinian conflict and when, soon after, his son had been tricked, robbed and murdered by the captain of a tramp steamer called Sanna Maru. Salah had met Richard Mariner, John and the rest while he roamed the world on tramps and tankers looking for his son’s killer. It had been aboard the old Prometheus that he had caught up with his prey. He had been trapped aboard for the rest of the voyage after his revenge had been accomplished and he had come to respect and to like the men and women he got to know during that voyage.

  But after Prometheus came to port, he had returned to his roots—an incredibly intelligent, experienced man with nothing left to live for except his first fierce loyalty, and no one left to care for except a friend of his youth now known as Yasser Arafat. And now, where was he? Estranged from Arafat, adrift from his organisation and falling back into the strange old ways of caring and being cared for.

  Fatima was probably right. He was nearing sixty and slowing down. She was half his age and loved him. They could have ten, maybe twenty good years if they were lucky, but if he was going to make the break it must be now—while he still had the time and the energy for a new start.

  A new start: suddenly the idea was very tempting.

  ‘We will see,’ he acquiesced. ‘In the meantime, you have to get this tub across Biscay, and I am sick of being a passenger. Let me do what I am good at. Let me replace Lazar. You will never get Napoli running smoothly without an experienced bosun.’

  John looked around the room. The atmosphere at last seemed to be lightening. Asha was contented and Fatima was positively glowing. For the first time on this cruise it was possible to see the woman beneath the bruising. His calm gaze settled on Salah. ‘You know who the troublemakers are and who will stand by you. You know where to look for help among the officers if you need it. If Richard was here you would probably already be doing the job.’ He slapped the arm of his chair like an auctioneer accepting a bid. ‘That’s it. Let’s go.’

  And the moment he spoke, the emergency siren screamed.

  *

  Cesar found he was yelling orders and advice liberally mixed with obscenities at the fishermen. He was still doing so an instant later when the captain burst on to the bridge with the Palestinian one pace behind.

  One glance told John everything he needed to know: it revealed the situation and the fact that Cesar was taking the correct action. There was no one at the wheel. ‘Take the helm,’ he ordered Salah, then he went to the front of the bridge. He noted that one of the containers seemed to have come loose and was mildly surprised, for the emergency manoeuvre, though urgent, was still sedate. At ten knots, it was hardly like being in a swerving Ferrari. The cable must have been weak. The spectral memory of his recurring nightmare rose just below his consciousness. It had enough force to make his hair stir. Side-tracked, he tried to pin down his sudden horror. Then Bernadotte burst on to the bridge yelling an impenetrable jumble of Italian. Cesar swung round to face his captain as though he too was remembering the nightmare. ‘Capitano, Niccolo, the American woman—they are in the loose container!’

  15

  John and Bernadotte ran side by side down the deck, their eyes riveted to the swaying container which each moment threatened to come crashing to the deck. But there was more than one hawser involved here and Niccolo’s care in loading had ensured that, though one had snapped, there were at least three more capable of restraining the restless metal box. Even so, the thought of what must be going on inside the great steel cave made John extremely fearful for the safety of his first officer and their American guest.

  At last they were beside it, looking straight up as though at the underside of a giant swing. The first thing that needed doing was to get up there and try to quieten the movement. ‘Bernadotte,’ John called. Christ! What was the Italian for ‘ladder’? He’d better try ‘steps’ and that one was easy: that opera house was named for its staircase. ‘Bernadotte, la scala.’

  Miraculously, his words made perfect sense to the big man, who caught up the ladder, which had fallen at the first wild swing, and held it against the end of the container, where the movement was least violent. John ran up at once and threw himself flat on the metal top. It was immediately clear to him what the problem was. Niccolo had separated the crates with great battens of wood, and the movement of the huge metal box had loosened one of them so that the container was swinging on the second, like a mad, sideways seesaw on a fulcrum. His weight on the far end should be enough to engage the swinging section with the top of the box beneath and bring the movement to an end.

  He squirmed forward and was gratified to feel the container cant slightly. The next vertiginous swing ended jarringly and abruptly. The containers crashed together and the top one ground to a stop, wedged against the bottom one. John moved back experimentally. The container’s far end lifted, but the wild sideways motion did not begin again. He stood up and walked forward. After the container had settled once more, he moved with more confidence and a great deal more urgency down to the open hatch. Here he knelt, looking down.

  The sunlight revealed less destruction than he had feared. The first step or two remained intact. He would be able to climb in, at any rate. But what good would that do? When he got in there he needed to be able to move things about, quickly and surely. And there was o
nly one way he could do that. He looked up. Hanging above him, swaying slightly, were the falls of the first great crane, the one Lazar had fallen off. At the end of the falls were great slings of webbing. He knew well enough how to work their standard adjusting buckles. They could be set wide enough to lift a container or small enough to lift an individual barrel.

  ‘Bernadotte!’ he yelled at the top of his voice, moving over to the edge and looking down. The massive man broke away from the little group of his day workers he had been a part of and looked up. John had no idea at all what the Italian for ‘crane’ was, so he just pointed forcefully and hoped for the best. The big man lifted a hand and began to make his way forward.

  ‘Niccolo!’ This time his yell was not as loud, as though he was afraid of disturbing a church—or a cemetery. ‘Ms Cable!’ No reply.

  He was busily unfastening the clamps which kept the bigger trap door closed. The small inspection hatch was all very well for popping in and out, but he needed light and a hole big enough for the crane to operate through. The last one sprang open and with a bellow of ‘Look out below’ he heaved, sending almost a quarter of the top clanging on to the deck.

  Once the section was gone, it was relatively easy for him to scramble down on to the first step made out of firmly lashed drums.

  ‘Hello!’ His voice echoed eerily and was answered only with silence and the queerly distorted sounds from outside. He began to climb downwards into the deeper recesses of the container. With the quarter section off above, the whole interior was flooded with light so that he had no difficulty in seeing what had happened further down. Here the regimented rows of the barrels very quickly became a treacherous jumble, as though there had been a sort of avalanche. He went as far down as he dared, and even then he was stopped not by fear of personal injury but by the lively awareness that the two missing people he was here to help could well be underneath the very barrels he was walking on.

  He looked up towards the brightness. Across the great square of haze-silvered sky swung the black arm of the crane, the falls uncoiling as it moved and the slings of webbing coming down towards him at surprising speed. Just before the buckles bashed him on the head, they stopped, jerking in the air and making clapping noises as though applauding their own performance. John looked back along the skeletal arm above his head. At its shoulder with the upright hung the controller’s cab and here, just visible through the glass, Bernadotte was standing, leaning forward over the controls so that he could see what was going on in the container.

  As John looked another black outline was chopped out of the sky. Asha had thrust her head over the edge of the container. ‘John?’

  ‘I’m OK. Just getting these barrels moved.’

  ‘Need help?’

  ‘One-man job. No room for more. Can’t have people tramping around down here. God knows what they’d step on.’

  ‘I’ll stay up here then. Marco is down with the gang on the deck now.’

  ‘Leave him there.’

  John had reached up and taken one of the slings in practised hands, checking it as he talked. It was set wide, for lifting containers. A swift adjustment not only made the sling more suitable for slipping round a barrel but also gave him an extra length of webbing. It was the work of only a moment more to adjust the second sling. Then he was pulling them impatiently down towards the first barrel he wanted to move. The barrels were like massive beer kegs, with ridges running round them a quarter of their length in from each end. The ridges, designed to strengthen the barrels, also had the effect of making them easy to handle. Even when they were lying on their side, as this first one was, it was easy to slip a sling round each end because the ridge raised them clear of the floor.

  John tightened the webbing in place and stood back. Bernadotte saw his movement and the barrel swung upwards. It was only when the thing was hanging, whirling slowly, just above his head, that John realised how stupid he had been. He had not checked to see whether the drum had been damaged by the fall; he had no idea whether or not it was leaking. And he had trusted Bernadotte, the man who, controlling the barrel just above his head, was the one most likely to drop it on him. But then his second thoughts were overridden by the sound of a groan somewhere near his feet and he crouched down to look among the jumble surrounding the barrel he was standing on. The urgent sound of his ‘Hello?’ drowned the swish of the barrel above him being lifted up and out on to the deck.

  ‘Who’s there?’ It was Ann Cable’s voice; she sounded woozy, shocked.

  ‘John Higgins. Where’s Niccolo?’

  ‘Here, I think. I can’t seem to be able to see or to move. The last thing I remember is Niccolo pushing me under a batten by the wall and diving on top of me.’

  ‘Well, he is Italian.’

  ‘Pardon me?’

  ‘A joke. Passionate.’

  She gave a dry chuckle which surprised him; his jest wasn’t exactly well timed. ‘Yeah. But not even Neapolitans work that fast.’

  Looking up, he saw Asha’s outline. ‘Ann Cable’s here,’ he called, but more than that he did not want to say. Her voice was coming from beneath a pile of barrels which was a wild reflection of the steps coming down from the hatch. Heaven knew what things were like under there.

  He stepped off his safe barrel on to its lower slopes, rocking uneasily on a curved, unsteady surface. ‘Tell me if there’s any movement which looks dangerous,’ he said, and could have kicked himself for choosing the wrong word: she had said she couldn’t see. She might be blind. ‘Did you get hit on the head?’ he asked innocently.

  ‘Not hard enough to affect my sight.’

  Lord! She was quick. Sharp as a tack. He remembered that it was her obvious intelligence which had impressed him when they first met.

  ‘Good. You should begin to see some light soon, then.’ He stepped back on to the steady barrel and the second one swung up and out.

  ‘Anything?’ called Asha’s voice from above.

  He repeated the question more quietly. ‘Anything?’

  ‘No. But I think I’m facing the wall. I think Niccolo’s sort of on my back.’

  ‘OK. I think you must be wedged right in there under the batten. Can you feel anything wet?’

  ‘No. If there’s blood I wouldn’t be able to smell it either. Everything down here stinks of metal. But if there’s any stuff leaking out of the barrels, I’d surely know about that, I guess. Though judging from what they say about Captain Fittipaldi, I might not be able to feel it.’

  His grunt of laughter at her grim humour coincided with the arrival of the sling.

  ‘So,’ he said as he worked on securing the next barrel, ‘Asha tells me you work as a journalist as well.’

  ‘Yeah. It’s not unusual. Greenpeace is as much a state of mind as a profession.’

  ‘Is that what you’re doing here, looking for a story?’

  ‘What do you think, Captain?’

  ‘I think CZP and Disposoco were mad to let you aboard.’

  ‘Yeah. But we had them over a barrel.’ That dry chuckle again. John felt his lips twist in an answering smile. The next barrel swung up and away. Bernadotte was doing a good job. He had great hands. Gigantic but great. John went further on to the pile of barrels so that he could secure the one immediately above the place her voice seemed to be coming from.

  ‘So,’ he said conversationally, ‘why did you join Greenpeace?’

  ‘I have to know you a bit better before I tell you that story, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Fair enough. You freelance out of Rome?’

  ‘As a journalist? Yeah. Usual thing. A little magazine work, research. A little newspaper work. Stringer for Reuters. Trying to break into television.’

  When the webbing cradle came back, he attached it with more care than ever to the barrel he had been checking out as he talked: the one immediately above her. He raised his hand, heard Asha’s call, watched the way Bernadotte eased it up.

  And this time he was rewarded: ‘Hey! I see the li
ght, Captain. I see the light.’

  He smiled to himself and said nothing, but he flashed a ‘thumbs-up’ to Asha.

  The next barrel uncovered the batten they were under and the fourth revealed a piece of white overall. Progress slowed for a minute then, for he had to move some of the lower barrels. One or two of them, leaning across others, were neither upright nor horizontal. These he simply wrestled round until they stood back in their places, giving him room to step down on to the floor. He was assessing his next move carefully—the barrel he had been standing on seemed to be supporting a slope of horizontal barrels like a stake holding back a pile of logs—when he heard a masculine groan.

  ‘Hey!’ cried an outraged Ann instantly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘He moved.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Good for you, maybe. You don’t know what he moved.’

  ‘He’s stirring,’ John called up to Asha.

  ‘Is he all right?’ Her voice echoed down strangely, as though he were hearing her through a faulty radio.

  ‘Too soon to say. I think I’ll need some help down here now. Marco and two men.’

  While he waited, he sent up another barrel but getting to it made the batten under which Ann and Niccolo lay creak worryingly. Niccolo groaned again. This time Ann said nothing. ‘Is he still moving?’ asked John anxiously.

  ‘Yes,’ she snapped.

  ‘Capitano,’ called a voice from above, and Marco came scrambling down the barrels with all the youthful energy he expended on most of the things he did. The container began to shake again, a worrying movement which was exacerbated as his men climbed down behind him. John was heartily thankful he had asked for only three helpers. Any more would have toppled them on to the deck. ‘Put these barrels back in place.’ He gestured at the barrels which were lying about. ‘Not that one! No!’ This last to Marco who was thoughtlessly reaching for the one that held all the others safe.