Anger flared up in Wilson. What made them think they could manipulate him like this? It was an insult.
“Get off my ship.”
That really amused them; their laughter jarred on Wilson’s hearing; the big man was almost doubled up.
“Your ship?” Creegan said. “That’s rich, that is. And who gave it to you, for Pete’s sake?”
“I’m in charge here.” Wilson was conscious that his voice was rising almost to a squeak, try though he might to control it. Who were they to laugh at him? “I’m telling you for the last time: get off my ship.”
Creegan was losing patience. “That’s enough, sonny. You’ve had your joke. Now let’s get on with it. Paddy, cut that hawser.”
The man called Paddy lifted his axe, Wilson darted forward and got the windlass between himself and the four men. He rested his arms on the windlass, gripped the revolver in both hands and pointed it at Paddy.
“Stop, or I’ll kill you!”
Something in Wilson’s voice made the big man stop again. He turned to face Wilson, and saw the revolver.
“Bejasus, he’s got a gun!”
None of them had noticed it before. They all stared at it, not moving.
“Now,” Creegan said, speaking slowly and carefully, “don’t do anything silly. We know you wouldn’t really shoot. You’re just fooling. Maybe you’d better give me that gun.” He took a cautious step towards Wilson and stopped as the barrel of the revolver moved to cover him.
“Come any nearer,” Wilson said, “and you’ll see if I’ll really shoot.”
Creegan hesitated. “I don’t believe it’s loaded,” he said; he sounded none too sure of it.
Wilson said nothing. He could hear the faint slap of water against the bows and the sound of the motor-boat bumping against the side as it was dragged along by the ship. There was moisture on the iron of the windlass and he could feel the chill of it through the sleeves of his jersey.
The three other men were looking to Creegan to make the first move. He had to do something or admit defeat. He took another step forward. Wilson aimed low and fired.
It was impossible to tell where the bullet went, but the screech of the ricochet indicated that it had struck the deck, possibly quite close to Creegan’s feet. He jumped back as though he had trodden on a snake.
“Now do you believe it’s loaded?”
“You’re crazy,” Creegan said. “You might have killed me.”
“So I might. And if you don’t get to hell out of it I might still do just that. Now are you going?”
It was the big man who broke first. “Sure an’ I’m not standing here to be shot at by a nutter. I’m away back to the boat.” He walked to the ladder and went down it quickly, as though fearful of a shot in the back. He was still carrying the axe.
It was the signal for a general retirement. The two who had said nothing suddenly decided to follow the big man. They walked away hurriedly and were jammed briefly at the head of the ladder; then they were gone.
Wilson made a gesture with the revolver. “Now you.”
Creegan seemed to be choking. “You’ll pay for this. It’s—it’s illegal. It’s—”
Wilson fired again, to the right of Creegan. It was enough for the mate of the Atlantic Scavenger; he turned and ran. Wilson emptied the revolver, spraying the shots wildly. By the time he had finished Creegan was already scrambling over the bulwark. Wilson stuck the revolver in his belt and followed at a more leisurely pace.
When he reached the place where the Jacob’s-ladder was still dangling over the side the men in the boat had cast off and had started the engine. The boat dropped astern of the India Star and headed back towards the tug. Wilson rested his elbows on the bulwark and watched it go. Then he reached down and began hauling in the Jacob’s-ladder. He did not think the men would try again, but if they did they would not find it so easy to get on board a second time.
The encounter with the boarding party had given Wilson a feeling of exhilaration. He had driven them off; it had been one against four and he had mastered them; he had proved himself equal to the emergency. He really was master of this ship; he and he alone.
But the brief elation had already begun to subside even before he got back to the cabin; and when he lay down again on the bunk it had given way to a mood of black depression. What was it to him that the boarders had been repulsed? He had another, heavier matter on his mind, and that was something you could not drive away with a gun; something that nothing could drive away; something that would be with him as long as he lived.
He buried his face in the pillow and groaned.
THIRTEEN
RUSSIAN ROULETTE
The lookout on the poop of the Hopeful Enterprise had neither seen nor heard anything of what was happening on board the India Star. He had seen the lights of the tug and had remarked to himself that they seemed to be rather closer than usual, but had thought nothing of it. Once or twice he had detected something that might have been the faint sound of a motor-boat, but he could not see one and had come to the conclusion that he must have imagined it. The India Star was just a dark shape in the moonlight and the tow seemed to be going well. At the end of his spell on watch he reported nothing unusual and went off to his bunk to sleep far more soundly than Wilson was able to do in considerably more luxurious quarters.
As daylight spread over a cold, grey sea, Captain Barling was pleased to see the other ship still following astern, still joined by the long tow-rope to the Hopeful Enterprise. One more night had passed without mishap; a few more miles had been lopped off the total; the odds against the venture’s succeeding had been slightly reduced. It was something.
Scotton came to him, again bubbling with excitement. “It’s getting to be a big story, sir. Really big.”
Barling looked at him with raised eyebrows. “What is?”
“This.” Scotton’s right hand made a flapping motion. “This operation.”
“You make it sound like something surgical. But I take it that you mean this towing job.”
“Yes, sir.” Scotton sounded a little impatient. What else did the Old Man think he could have meant? “Seems it’s caught the imagination of the British public. The newspapers are blowing it up for all they’re worth. They’re calling it a tense drama of the sea.”
“They would,” Barling said disgustedly. He was none too pleased about the publicity; all that ballyhoo. It meant that there would be no chance now of slipping in quietly without fuss, as he had originally hoped to do. And of course Bruce Calthorp would have heard about it; couldn’t help doing so. He wondered what Calthorp was thinking; whether he would guess the reason for his partner’s action, guess that this was snatching at a straw. Probably. But it made no difference.
“There seems to be some argument going on about the legal situation, sir. I mean about whether you were acting within your rights in preventing the tug’s crew going on board the India Star.”
“Did you put that story out?” Barling asked sharply.
“No, sir.” Scotton was quick to disown responsibility. “It must have come from the tug.”
“H’m!” Barling gave Scotton a long, searching look before apparently accepting the truth of this statement. “And what seems to be the general opinion on that point?”
“That the action was legal, sir, if our men were in fact first on board.”
“If! There can’t be any doubt about that.”
“We can’t have any doubt about it, sir, I agree. But people who were not present might have if the skipper of the tug were to put out a different version.”
“He’d never get away with it.”
“I hope not, sir.”
Barling hoped so too. The possibility had not crossed his mind until then, and it did not please him. He saw a possibly long drawn out legal dispute ahead even if they got the India Star in. It was just one more thing to worry about. Damn the tug! Why did it have to turn up? And just at the wrong moment.
“It seems,�
�� Scotton went on, “that the journalists are making Charlie Wilson into something of a national hero.”
“Hero?”
“Well, it’s the sort of thing they love, isn’t it? Young seaman alone on ship of death. Makes a good headline.”
“Balderdash!”
“It’s what people like, sir. I think Wilson’s in for a big welcome when he steps ashore. Could be on television and all that.”
Barling gave Scotton a sudden hard stare. “How did they get hold of his name? Did you tell them that?”
Scotton shifted uneasily. “Well, sir, you did say there was no reason to keep radio silence any longer.”
“I didn’t tell you to set up as a gossip column of the air.”
“I’m sorry, sir. Of course, if I’d known. But I don’t see what harm there can be in it.”
“Harm!” Barling said, and then stopped. Scotton was probably right. The news was out now, and there was no point in trying to hide any part of it. So why not let young Wilson have his glory? “Very well, Sparks; very well.”
Wilson himself, alone on board the India Star, was unaware that his name was in the news, that indeed he had become a popular hero. And if the newsmen had known that he had repulsed a nocturnal attempt to take over the ship by firing a revolver at the boarders, his heroism might have been blown up to an even greater size. But that was an incident that was unlikely to be revealed over the tug’s radio and was unknown to anyone in the Hopeful Enterprise. However, even without that titbit, the affair was intriguing enough to stay in the forefront of the news; the uncertainty regarding the outcome was a guarantee that interest would not slacken, and some of the big betting firms had even opened books on the result.
The struggle of the three ships far out in the Atlantic was a story that could not be allowed to die until it had reached its conclusion. And what that conclusion might be was anybody’s guess, depending as it did on so many imponderables: the engines of the Hopeful Enterprise, the strength of the tow-rope, the buoyancy of the India Star and, above all, the weather. It was the weather that might have the last word.
Wilson had had a bad night. He had slept a while, but the sleep had done him little good, for it had brought the most terrible nightmares. Again he was strangling the woman, but she would not die. His hands were at her throat and she was laughing in his face, laughing, laughing, laughing, as if in mockery of his futile efforts to kill her. He squeezed more tightly, but the neck was too big; his fingers could not encompass it; it was fat and slimy, so that he could not get a grip on it. He was cursing the woman, cursing and weeping; he had to kill her, though he did not know why; he just knew that he had to.
Then, suddenly, the flesh seemed to melt away in his hands and he was holding only bone, a skeleton, the empty sockets of the skull staring at him, the mouth still wide, still with the mocking laughter coming from it. And then the arms of the skeleton were round him, drawing him close, and the mouth was coming towards his lips in the travesty of a kiss. He turned his head away, struggling to free himself from that ghastly embrace, and awoke drenched in sweat, and screaming.
He slept no more, but lay there in the darkness waiting for the day to come.
They saw him from the Hopeful Enterprise moving about the ship, on the bridge, on the forecastle. He made no signal to them, and they assumed that all was well with him. They knew nothing of the turmoil in his mind, the torment that never left him now. He was a hero, wasn’t he? What had he to worry about?
The hero sat that evening in the captain’s cabin, held the revolver to his head and squeezed the trigger. There was a metallic click as the hammer fell on an empty chamber. He lowered the revolver and let it rest in his lap. He had won again. Or had he lost? What stake was he playing for? Life or death? Even he could not answer that question.
After a while he picked up the revolver again and twirled the cylinder. There was one round in it; one loaded chamber and five empty ones; one chance in six of death, five of life. Perhaps he had made the odds too great; perhaps later he would make them more even; another round in the cylinder; two more.
He pressed the cold muzzle against his right temple, his index finger tightening on the trigger. Once more the hammer tripped forward with a dull click.
Wilson lowered the gun with a shaking hand. There was sweat on his brow and his head throbbed. He stood up, put the revolver away in its drawer, then walked to the settee and lay down. The thudding inside his head was almost unbearable. There was a shaft of sunlight coming through the scuttle. He watched it moving as the ship rolled.
On the fourth day the engines of the Hopeful Enterprise broke down again. Both freighters drifted, rolling in the swell, and the gap between them narrowed. The slack in the towing-hawser was winched in and Captain Barling looked with misgiving at the bows of the India Star. There could be trouble if the two ships came together.
The tug moved in close and her master addressed Barling through a loud-hailer. “You want some help, Captain?” The mockery in the question was not even veiled.
Barling replied briefly that he did not.
“We could maybe take the pair of ye in tow. Just say the word.”
Barling declined to say the word. Every man in the tug seemed to be on deck and looking towards the Hopeful Enterprise. Mr. Loder, observing with his binoculars, could see that most of them were grinning. Obviously they thought the prize was going to fall into their hands now.
“No! To hell with that!” Loder muttered. “They’re not having it now. Not after all we’ve done. Damn those engines!”
Madden was damning them too; toiling in his oily dungeon below decks with the other engineers. He knew how much depended on getting the machinery moving again, the great shaft revolving. His whole future depended on it. He drove himself and he drove the others. They were surprised; they had never known the chief to be so tough, to snarl at them with such ferocity. They were a trifle awed too; it was as though they had discovered that what they had always supposed to be a St. Bernard had suddenly become a wolf.
The second steward, looking in on his patient, found Trubshaw in low spirits.
“We’ve broken down again,” Trubshaw said. “Well, what did they expeck, towin’ that other bleedin’ ship? Now maybe they’ll let the tug take ’er. Should’ve done in the first place.”
Tricker shook his head. “We’re not letting her go yet. While there’s any chance of hanging on to her you can bet your boots the Old Man’s going to hang on.”
Trubshaw groaned. “The bastard’s crazy. An’ I’ll tell you what—’e’s killin’ me. ’E don’t care a damn abaht me. ’E’s jus’ goin’ to let me die.”
“If you’re going to die,” Tricker said with a sly glance at Trubshaw’s pale, unshaven face, “I don’t see how the Old Man can stop you. He’s not God.”
Trubshaw looked venomous. “You know what I mean. I oughter be ’ome, in ’ospital. An’ ’ere we are, ’angin’ arahnd arter this bleedin’ tow-rope job. It’s bleedin’ madness.”
“I like the madness,” Tricker said softly, and began straightening the covers on Trubshaw’s bunk. “We could all get something out of it.”
“All I’ll get’s a bleedin’ coffin.”
“If you die at sea,” Tricker said, “you may have to make do with a few yards of canvas.”
He went away silently on rubber-soled shoes, leaving Trubshaw to think about being sewn up in a few yards of sail-cloth.
As the Hopeful Enterprise rose and fell, rolling a little, her engines silent, the two ships drifted gradually closer together. Wilson went up on to the forecastle of the India Star and gazed across the narrowing gap. He could see Mr. Loder and the bosun and a few seamen clustered at the stern of the Hopeful Enterprise and working on the hawser. Eventually the distance shrank so much that it was possible to shout across from one ship to the other. He heard the mate’s voice and was just able to catch the words.
“Are you all right, Wilson?”
Wilson made a megaphone w
ith his hands and shouted back. “I’m all right.”
“Got all you need?”
“Yes. Everything.”
“You’re happy where you are then?”
What a question that was! Happy! As if he could ever be happy again! Could a haunted man be happy?
But he shouted a second time: “I’m all right.”
Loder was satisfied. He had other things to worry about, chief of which was the possibility of the India Star ramming the stern of the Hopeful Enterprise or drifting ahead. With the same forces acting on both vessels, it might have been expected that they would remain in the same relative positions; but this was not so; slowly but inevitably they were closing with each other while the crew of the tug looked on, waiting and hoping.
“Come on, Jonah, come on,” Loder muttered. “Get them moving, can’t you?”
As if in answer, he heard the sound he had been waiting for. Madden had done it again: the engines had come to life.
“Good for him,” Rankin said. “Now we’re on our way.”
They paid out the hawser again and the gap widened. The tug, robbed once more of its prize, drew away, and Wilson left the forecastle of the India Star. The towing job settled down into the old pattern.
On the sixth day the weather turned on them: the wind strengthened, there was rain and there was sleet, and the sea was troubled. The decks of the Hopeful Enterprise ran with water as she ploughed heavily on with spray bursting over her forecastle. Even more disturbing, the list to port had perceptibly increased; as the ship rolled she was dipping far deeper on her port than on her starboard side, and that was something Captain Barling did not at all like to see.
Loder was characteristically gloomy. “We didn’t want this just now. We’d be in trouble even without that load on our tail.”
Barling said acidly: “Are you suggesting we should cut the tow?”
Ocean Prize (1972) Page 15
