Kolymsky Heights

by Lionel Davidson

  He turned over and drifted off to sleep. The dumb insolence had been designed to bring it sooner. Soon enough now the ice would come.

  Two days later, five hundred miles north, the ice came.

  Despite her economical rate, the ship had now chugged almost three thousand miles from warm Nagasaki into the approaching Arctic winter. From the Bering Strait, still some days off, a howling blast of wind and sleet had them pitching in heavy seas. Since early in the forenoon the hands had been securing the cargo. First down in the holds; then on deck, sliding about as they checked the container locks and cables.

  They were warming themselves over mugs of coffee when the bulky figure peered down the companion way.

  ‘Sung! Matsuda! On top now. Smartly.’

  The two men bundled up again and went on top. The bosun was waiting for them, hanging on by the gangway. ‘Derricks icing – get your gear. And start with number three. You’ll need harness, she’s pitching.’ He was already clutching a safety harness himself, and moved away at once.

  Cursing, Matsuda led the way to the lockers. ‘The bastard derricks can be steamed off! Who needs them now?’ He had fallen foul of the bosun the day before. He was a little wizened fellow with a wall eye. Right away Sung knew he was not having him on brake. They got the gear and the harnesses and staggered slowly through the uproar of wind to the bosun. He had secured himself to a bollard amidships; number three derrick was close by.

  ‘Okay, hook up!’ The bosun had to shout above the wind. ‘Matsuda, you’re on brake!’

  ‘Bosun,’ Sung said. ‘I haven’t greased in these conditions.’

  ‘Good. Now you can learn.’

  ‘I’ll be better on brake. I’m stronger than Matsuda.’

  ‘Ah, strong man! No – you grease, strong man.’

  Sung shook his head.

  ‘It’s an order,’ the bosun told him cheerfully.

  Sung leaned over. ‘Fuck the order!’ he said into the bosun’s ear. ‘And fuck you.’

  The bosun looked pleasurably at him, and then around, scenting the freezing wind. The lights were on in the wheelhouse and the wipers were going there. Behind the wipers he could see the mate looking down, and beyond him the dim shape of the wheelman.

  ‘Matsuda, go below for a while, I’ll call you,’ the bosun said, and began unhooking himself. ‘Step aft, Sung.’

  Sung stepped aft, his heart beginning to thump. Aft, behind the wheelhouse, was where scores were settled, and he prepared himself to move fast. But they were still below the wheelhouse, and he was unprepared, as his head was jerked sharply back. The bosun had come swiftly on him, yanking his pigtail with one hand and smashing the other into his face. He went over backwards, his feet sliding, but was not allowed to hit deck. His pigtail was still held, and his face still being smashed, two, three, four times. Then, still shocked, his feet still scrabbling the icy deck, he was being swung round and dragged by the pigtail farther aft, before the bosun let go and fell on him.

  The bull of a man landed with his knees, knocking the breath out of Sung’s body, the attack so sudden and so ferocious he was utterly stunned. He was still stunned as the bosun began pounding his head on the deck. His only thought was to get out from under, but with the bosun leaning his full weight forward he couldn’t move his body. He brought his hands up and went for the man’s eyes to get him to lean back, but the bosun evaded them easily and butted him for good measure. He felt the sharp crack in his nose, and knew his face was already running with blood, and through the shocked pain felt sudden raging anger as the bosun hawked and spat in his face. He had not been angry before. The fight had been coming, and he knew and accepted it. But now he was angry.

  He clutched at the butting head as it came down again, and hugged it fiercely, using every atom of strength to draw it closer and closer until the bosun, straining, twisted his head to try and release it, and brought an ear within range, and Sung sank his teeth in it. He hung on tight and savaged the ear, shaking it from side to side, and heard the bosun swear; the man leaned sideways to ease the ear, and with the weight shifting on him, Sung came out from under.

  He slithered fast on the icy deck and was on his knees, in a position now to go on top. But that was not his idea. The man had caught him – okay, he had relied on a sudden attack, and on his weight and toughness. What he had to learn was that with all his weight, with all his toughness, on level terms, or any other terms, he could never win. Never! That he was simply entitling himself to a hard time, and that this time would come to him not by any fluke or momentary disadvantage, but always, every time, whenever he chose to have it.

  He had to explain this to the bosun, but his head felt scalped from the dragging and was splitting from the battering, so he thought he had better disable the man first. He let him stumble to his feet and begin his rush, and even backed and got his hands up to defend himself and swung one back to strike, and when the bosun swung himself, he nimbly sidestepped and used his greater agility to kick the bosun in the crotch. He kicked him as hard as he could, and when the man grunted and held himself, he chopped him in the neck and kicked his feet away, sending him crashing to the deck again. Then he jumped on him with both boots. Then he knelt beside the bosun.

  ‘Bosun,’ he said humbly. ‘Leave me alone. I’m a hard man. I fought many fights, very dirty, and I always win. Pick on me, and I’ll cripple you for life. You’ll never work again – I swear it. And I don’t want that. I’ve got my own problems. They say I’m maybe crazy. Okay, I’ve done crazy things and I’ve done time, it’s there in my papers. But it’s only when people pick on me. I can’t take that, bosun. You understand me?’

  The bosun didn’t say if he understood him. He was crooning and gurgling in his throat as he held himself, his head down. This seemed to enrage Sung who took both of the bosun’s ears and shook them savagely, bringing the bull head up and staring into its eyes. ‘You no talk to me? Only spit in my face? Ah, you better fucking answer, man! I tell you, you better or I tear your fucking head off. You don’t treat me like shit! Understand? Understand me?’

  The bosun’s head was shuttling so violently that his eyes were squinting. His mouth was still contracted in its painful crooning circle, but through it he grunted his understanding.

  ‘Well, that’s good. I’ve got things to say to you, bosun. Look, give me orders, make me work. It’s okay. I’ll do what I should. But something I don’t want to do, or I can’t do, you figure it out, and I don’t do that thing. Okay? Because you try to make me, I cripple you. I don’t care, see. Just don’t make me mad!’

  The bosun was recovering slowly, and he shuffled himself into a sitting position. ‘Sung, you’re a crazy bastard,’ he said, ‘and you don’t know what you’re doing. I’ll break you.’

  ‘How you do that, bosun?’ He wasn’t sure if he was coming on too strong with the broken Japanese, and his impediment had slipped. But the general craziness was working, he could see. ‘You want to put me in irons, you want to lock me up? And explain why. Go to the captain, say, “Captain, this man too tough for me.” Or get help from the crew. What you need with that, bosun? Look – you beat me up, you mark my face, anyone can see. I didn’t mark your face. What I say? “Hey, I beat up the bosun”? Everyone laugh at me. I no say that. I no say anything. I just want you off my back.’

  These arguments, he could see, were getting through to the bosun, who was slowly pulling himself together.

  ‘Sung,’ he said, ‘you’re going to be sorry for this. It’s a long voyage, and you’re going round the world. And you know what you’ll get out of it? You’ll get fuck-all. Not a yen. I’ll have every bit of pay docked. I’ll get you for one thing after another. See how you’ll like it, big boy.’

  Sung stared at him and his eyes glowed. ‘You think about that, bosun. You think again, eh? You do that to me, I come wherever you are. I find you. I’m crazy? Okay, I put your eyes out. I break you up. I break your bones, your knees, your hands. You no step on a ship again. Say l
ike now: I want to stamp on your balls, I do it. You walk bad for days. I don’t do that. But I give you something, so you remember, eh? Give me your hand, bosun.’

  The bosun wouldn’t give him his hand so he jumped hard on the bosun’s thighs and as the man jerked in agony chopped his bull neck so that the head crashed back again on the deck.

  ‘Sit up, bosun. Give me a hand. Right hand.’

  The bosun gave him his hand, and he carefully picked the little finger, and showed it to the bosun, and broke it. And then with the man gasping in agony he helped him to his feet.

  ‘Don’t ride me, bosun,’ he said simply. ‘I no hurt you any more. See what a face you gave me. I go below and show that face and everybody see. You beat me up – all right? Just rest your hand and remember. You do something to me I don’t like, I come and find you. Wherever you are, I come and find you!’

  20

  On the nineteenth of September the Suzaku Maru negotiated the Bering Strait, rounded Cape Dezhnev and radioed her arrival in Russian waters. The captain had his notification acknowledged, and set himself to wait in patience.

  He regretted the loss of the tuna cargo for Murmansk and was hopeful that something might turn up at Green Cape. He thought it very likely. From radio traffic he knew that fish in the area had been plentiful. His refrigeration capacity was limited but if the stuff was boxed and ready-palleted he would lift it.

  In the matter of instructions the Russians were not so much tardy as crafty. They waited till the last moment to catch you. They knew it would cost him nothing, except a few hours’ loading, to carry the stuff along to Murmansk. On the other hand, he knew that nothing else was going his way. All the Russian vessels were now going the other way, to the ice-free ports of the Pacific; his, certainly, was the last foreign ship of the season. He could wait.

  His charts showed him at roughly three and a half days’ steaming from the mouth of the Kolyma river; which was where he suspected they would have the stuff sitting in barges. Foreign vessels were seldom allowed upriver to Green Cape itself; and crewmen were not allowed ashore at all. God alone knew what the Russians feared: that foreigners might seduce their citizens, tempt them to smuggle the gold and diamonds of the area. No. They were simply Russian: suspicious by nature, crafty.

  That he had no cargo for Green Cape did not at all displease him. No trudging there and back up the Kolyma. He had been keeping close watch on the weather reports, and they were not good. The storms of the past few days had abated but in the frigid calm the icepack was spreading rapidly from the north. He wanted to be away and out of it, Murmansk well behind him, before the whole sea froze. They would know this in Green Cape. They wouldn’t delay long. They’d call him.

  But by the next day, when he was again on watch, they still hadn’t called, and the captain hummed to himself. Cat and mouse. He was evidently supposed to call. Any fish you want carried? Nice price. Well, he wouldn’t. Let them call. It was growing colder and the wheelhouse windows were on permanent defrost. The new crewman, Sung, brought him up a flask.

  ‘What’s this?’ he asked.

  ‘Hot soup, captain.’

  ‘M’hm.’ He hadn’t asked for it but the man was showing willing, a welcome change from his surliness in the first few days. His face was badly marked, one eye black, the nose swollen, mouth cut about and puffy. The bosun had evidently taken him in hand. The captain had noticed the bosun sporting a bandaged finger himself and had tactfully refrained from inquiry; a too-enthusiastic collision with the Korean’s face, he saw. The bosun had to keep order his own way, and a heavy hand was sometimes needed with the scum they had aboard. The captain kept himself above it, preferring to regard them as criminal children – simple-minded ones, very often. This one was now gaping all about him, the view here much better than from deck.

  ‘First time north?’ the captain asked him gruffly.

  ‘First time, captain, first. Is it Siberia?’

  ‘Yes. Chukotka, this region.’

  ‘Near Murmansk?’

  ‘Three thousand miles near.’

  He saw the fellow gaping again, but realised after a moment that he was doing it over his shoulder. ‘Look, captain, look! They’ve got aeroplanes!’

  The captain turned and saw a small one rising above the ice strip at Cape Schmidta, now going astern on his port beam. He studied it through his glasses for a moment and as he turned away noticed with astonishment that the Korean was bending over the chart table; that he actually had the impertinence to be tracing with his finger the pencilled positions of their track. The captain had not long before added the last point reached: Cape Schmidta: 1648 hours.

  ‘All right. That’s enough,’ he said curtly, and watched the man go. Simple-minded idiot! He watched the plane a little longer, and commenced humming to himself again. From Cape Schmidta it was under 420 miles to the Kolyma. They had less than forty-eight hours to call him now.

  Sung, going below, knew that he himself had less than four hours now. He didn’t know how much less. As well as Cape Schmidta he had seen Wrangel Island on the chart, directly north. When the cape and the island were in position, he had been told, there were 420 nautical miles to go to his destination. The time of arrival depended on their speed.

  He sat down again to the letter he had been writing. He had left it open on the fore ends table, and saw from the grinning faces around that one of the Koreans must have read it out to them. The salutations and loving sentiments were exceedingly high-flown and imaginative. So was the account of his heroism in recent icy storms. He hadn’t mentioned being beaten up by the bosun. Now the storms were over and they were sailing seas no one else dared sail and going fast as the wind. He paused a little over the last words.

  ‘How fast we going?’ he said.

  The man opposite hid his smile and listened for a moment to the engines. ‘The normal. Nine knots,’ he said.

  ‘Only nine?’ Sung said, disappointed, and wrote on.

  Nine knots into 420 nautical miles came to just under forty-seven. Forty-seven hours to go. Or rather forty-seven hours from the last marked timing, which was 1648. It was now after 1730. He had less than three hours. He had less than two and a half. It would have to be at 2000; eight o’clock.

  At eight o’clock he went to the heads and locked himself in. He unzipped his jeans and produced his penknife. The small bulge was in the waist of his long johns and he carefully unpicked the stitches. The capsule was wrapped in a tiny polythene envelope and he removed the envelope. To ensure complete and rapid ingestion he had been told to bite it; in which case it would take twenty hours to work, as it had with Ushiba. Ushiba’s dose had been much bigger, to secure a spectacular and unmistakable result. He wouldn’t be as ill as Ushiba, but he would be very ill indeed.

  He put the capsule in his mouth and bit it. There was the faintest taste, vaguely clinical, and then it was gone. Twenty hours to wait; until 1600 tomorrow.

  He didn’t relish the hours ahead. In particular he didn’t relish being in the hands of the bosun.

  Between 1600 and 2000 the watches were split into two-hourly shifts, the first and second dog watches. Next day the captain took the second dog and came on at 1800, very fractious.

  The ship was off Cape Shelagskiy and swinging wide, to stay well clear of Chaunskaya Bay. Some kind of military base was in there, at Pevek, and the Russians were suspicious – as ever – of anyone coming near it.

  The mate handed over the ship and went below, and the captain stood at the chart table, humming. Still nothing from Green Cape. What the devil was up with them? He was barely twenty-two hours away. Either they had no fish, or they were playing games with him. Well, to hell with them! They could keep the fish. Or send it by air. Yes, very good, let them try that. He wouldn’t call, anyway.

  He brought the ship’s head round after half an hour and kept distance with Ayon Island, steadying his course. No more compass changes now till after the Kolyma. He would sail right past. He wouldn’t stop now if they
begged him.

  The mate came hurriedly into the wheelhouse. ‘Captain,’ he said softly, and motioned him away from the helmsman, ‘there’s some trouble below.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘The new hand. Sung. He’s in a bad way.’

  ‘The bosun been at him again?’

  ‘No, no. He has a fever. He’s vomiting badly. In Ushiba’s bunk.’

  The two men stared at each other, and the mate slowly nodded. ‘I think you’d better take a look at him,’ he said.

  The captain went below. He found Sung being held by two men as he hung out of his bunk and vomited into a bucket.

  ‘Captain, sir!’ The bosun anxiously drew him aside and explained.

  It seemed that Sung had tried to turn out for his watch, the first dog, but had kept falling over. The bosun, recalling that the man had somehow banged his head on the deck a few days ago, had thought this might be a delayed reaction and had told him to take a spell off. But then he had started being sick. ‘And shaking. And turning green,’ the bosun said, peering into the captain’s eyes.

  ‘How long has it been going on?’

  ‘Over two hours. First dog! At first I thought nothing of it. There didn’t seem any need to −’

  ‘Was it like this with – with –’

  ‘The same. Teeth rattling.’

  The captain thought for a moment.

  ‘You destroyed the mattress?’

  ‘Mattress, cover, blanket, everything. All fresh, from the stores.’

  ‘And scrubbed out the bunk?’

  ‘With my own hands. Antiseptic. A whole bucket of it.’

  ‘Captain, captain!’

  He was being called, hysterically. Sung was calling him.