Sea of Troubles Box Set

by Peter Tonkin

  In the air-conditioned relative quiet of the engine control room, overhanging the three-deck deep hole which contained the huge engine, C J Martyr stood with the statue stillness which characterised the man. He must have heard the surge of sound as Ben opened and closed the door, but he did not move until Ben took him by the shoulder. Then he swung round incredibly fast, as though he were going to fight them.

  His face was absolutely closed. What lay behind that statuesque mask they might learn in time, little by little, but what struck Richard immediately was the cold hostility. Martyr had tremendously expressive green eyes astride a great beak of a nose which overhung an uncompromising mouth extended by deep lines down to his square, grey chin. Only his ears added a touch of levity, sticking out like jug handles, drawing attention to the width of his cheekbones; their size emphasised by the sand-grey stubble of his crew-cut hair. He was six feet four inches tall and as thin as a rake.

  He stuck out a massive hand. Richard looked down as he took it. It was as gaunt as the rest of the man - fingers thin between scarred knucklebones, tipped with great square, black-rimmed yellow nails.

  'How do you do?' In the face of the baseless hostility, Richard spoke stiffly, and then felt very stage-English, as though he were putting on airs to belittle the Colonial. Martyr scanned him from head to toe. The American could look down on the Englishman - just; the blue-black waves perhaps half an inch below the sand-grey crew-cut. He nodded once, coldly, silently.

  It was like a declaration of war.

  Dinner was held back to 20.00 that evening, waiting until the Captain's inspection was complete. Richard had told Ben to proceed with Pour Out while he showered and changed. Although exhausted, he hurried, knowing that the first social meeting with his officers was of the greatest importance.

  At precisely the same moment as Richard stepped out of his cabin door, Martyr stepped out of his a few feet away.

  'Evening, Chief,' said Richard guardedly. 'You've missed Pour Out.'

  'Yeah.'

  They crossed to the lift, shoulder to shoulder, in silence, while Richard sorted out in his mind the sequence of questions he wanted to ask. Martyr pushed the button.

  'What exactly happened in the Pump Room?' asked Richard at once.

  Martyr, his face closed, turned. There was something Richard could not read moving in his glass-green eyes. 'Murder,' he said.

  'Murder?'

  'As good as.'

  The lift came. The doors hissed open. They stepped in together.

  'What do you mean?'

  'Goddamned amateurs,' yelled Martyr, suddenly overcome by the enormity of what had happened. 'You've never seen anything like it in your ...'

  They arrived. The doors hissed open. Martyr's face snapped closed again. Mariner sucked in a breath, then let it out: this was neither the place nor the time.

  The silence between them hostile, they walked down to the officers' bar and entered together at 20.00 precisely. Everyone was there, except the Third Mate and the Third

  Engineer, who had just begun their respective watches above and below. They were rowdy and cheerful. Even young Tsirtos looked blearily happy, holding a pint of beer - clearly not his first - very much more at home with this crew than he had been with the other.

  John Higgins bustled across to them, beaming. 'Evening, Captain. Chief. Would you like a drink, sirs?'

  Richard at least was tempted - Martyr rarely drank - and he hesitated for a second. It seemed too long, all of a sudden, since anyone had called him 'sir' like that. He grinned enormously, feeling all the weariness drop away and an old excitement stir inside him. Then he clapped the Second Mate on the shoulder. 'No, thanks, John. I've kept you all from your meal long enough. Ben, Chief. Let's go through.'

  The meal started quietly because both senior officers were silent; but as course succeeded course, each more excellent than the last, conversation became a hum and then a cheerful buzz.

  An hour or so later they trooped back to the bar, picked up a few more drinks, then proceeded to the lounge. The food had sharpened Richard's mind - the food and a simple joy in existence he had almost forgotten how to feel. He had spent the meal studying his men. He felt able to invest another half-hour in this crucial exercise before retiring at last. He took his beer and followed.

  In the lounge there was a TV, but it could only pick up Arabic stations. There was also a video. 'Where are the tapes for this?' demanded Martyr unexpectedly. He too had been watching the Captain and officers during the meal and he now looked less hostile - perhaps even a little confused. Certainly, this was the first time he had ever come into the lounge with the others. Truth be told, it was also the first time Tsirtos had dared come in here as well. The young Radio officer was as willing to oblige as an excited child.

  'There are some tapes in the library, I think,' he offered at once.

  'Try and get a good movie, son,' demanded Martyr.

  Tsirtos vanished to obey.

  Martyr seemed to have reached a decision. He crossed to Richard's table and sat, uninvited. Richard swung round until his back was to the screen, facing Martyr. The Chief put his great scarred hands on the table and leaned forward above them. 'Richard Mariner,' he drawled. 'Do I know that name?'

  Richard knew when he was being tested. He had no idea of the stories which had circulated, anticipating his arrival, and would have been surprised to hear half of them. He thought instead of the collision; the explosion ... He sat quiet, watching his adversary. The cheerful hum of conversation continued unabated. That was good, he thought; he didn't want this clash of wills to be too public, or the authority of one of the combatants must inevitably suffer, no matter what the outcome.

  'Captain Richard Mariner ...' The American drew it out, apparently using the sound as a goad on his recalcitrant memory.

  Suddenly, with breathtaking vividness, Richard saw three hundred feet of pipe-forested deck rolling back towards him as he stood, unbelieving, in his bridge. Three hundred feet of steel plate, rolling like a carpet. Like the top of a sardine can with an invisible key turning.

  His whole body jumped and flinched. Martyr's eyes focused on him sharply at once, but Tsirtos unwittingly saved the situation by bustling back importantly, holding a handful of black videotapes. Martyr swung towards him, a glimmer of interest lighting his bronze hatchet face. 'Anything good? Any Westerns?' he asked almost wistfully.

  'I don't know what they are, sir. No labels.'

  All the officers turned back into their little groups. Martyr tuned back towards Mariner, the temporary distraction over. The test began again. 'Mariner. Now I'm sure I know that name ...'

  Richard ran out of patience. He opened his mouth to tell the Chief to play up or get out of the game, but caught his breath in shock. At the very moment he looked up, Martyr's face changed.

  The eyes blazed. The thin lips drew back from marblewhite teeth. Nostrils flared. Ugly veins wormed their way across his broad forehead.

  At the same time, all conversation stopped, stunned into silence. Discordant music blared. Richard swung round, knowing a crisis when he found one.

  Tsirtos was kneeling on the deck, checking the video machine as it ran. Above him, on the screen, a young girl was hanging from the branch of a tree. Her legs were lashed to pegs, wide spaced in the ground. She was utterly naked.

  As they watched, in stunned silence, a hooded man appeared, and began to beat her with a stick.

  She looked sixteen years old, if that.

  'Tsirtos!' snapped Mariner, but his voice was lost in Martyr's roar. The table rose in the Captain's face as the Chief launched himself forward. Richard toppled to one side, rolled over and came up just as Martyr hauled Tsirtos to his feet. Holding the boy's shirt left-handed at his throat, Martyr launched a murderous right hook low to his belly. Another.

  Captain and First Officer leapt forward as one, each catching an arm. Martyr dropped Tsirtos and pulled free, swinging round. He drew back his fist, eyes completely mad. 'Ben!' called
Richard, at whom the blow was aimed. Ben caught Martyr's wrist and turned the blow. Richard stepped back, kicking away the table and chair.

  'Right! That's all. Look after the boy.'

  His whole stance change. The English stiffness went out of his back and shoulders. His heels left the floor and his knees bent slightly. His chin tucked down towards his chest. 'Come on, then,' he said quietly. His voice and face had changed too. When he raised his fists, they were surprisingly big.

  Martyr, far beyond control, threw another huge haymaker at the icy Englishman. Mariner rocked back slightly and let the blow pass within an inch of his nose. Then he leaned in over the Chief's guard, hooking a vicious right to the angle of his jaw. Martyr staggered forward and Mariner danced behind him delivering a crisp combination of rightleft-right jabs to his kidneys. Martyr answered with a right hook to Mariner's ribs concealed by his turning body and delivered like a landslide. The Englishman hissed and staggered back a step or two before starting to dance again, using the movement to swing a left of his own back over Martyr's guard to the side of his head.

  Any of these blows would have destroyed lesser men, but the Captain and the Chief were hardly slowed. Martyr, his turn stopped by the simple physics of Mariner's counterblow, put his head down and charged. After two steps, he gathered the Englishman to his shoulder, but Mariner twisted before the American's grip could tighten and, taking that great cannonball head under his arm, he ran forward, using the Chief's own weight and the force of his charge, guiding the blind man into the door.

  He had closed the heavy teak door behind him as he had entered, last of the officers a few minutes ago. Now he opened it again with the top of Martyr's head and his own shoulder. Not so much 'opened' as 'demolished'. And the massive force of the movement, centred on the top of Martyr's skull, knocked him unconscious at once.

  Richard let go as they exploded through the door and spun away, catching at the handrail along the wall, saving himself from falling, turning back at once to see Martyr landing face down like a dead man. Then in motion once more, stepping back over his adversary through the splintered door. There was a cheer, quelled instantly by the look in his eyes.

  Tsirtos was on his knees, puking weakly and swearing viciously in Greek. Suddenly the Radio Officer looked less boyish. His brown eyes were hard. His face vicious. Making Richard remember, inconsequentially, that it was the Greeks, not the Sicilians, who invented the vendetta.

  The video picture had changed. Its subject matter had not. 'Switch that off!' snapped Richard Mariner.

  There was a click. The screen went mercifully dark.

  'Sweet Jesus!' said somebody.

  Mariner glared around the room, suddenly overcome with absolute fury. 'Quiet!' he snapped. Even Ben Strong quailed before his gaze.

  And Richard really began to remember what it was like to be the Captain of a ship.

  Chapter Six

  A short while later, Richard was standing on the bridge by the helmsman, looking past his reflection and the twinkling lights on the console before him into the black velvet of a Gulf night. There was no moon. The dancing stars were like the huge, misshapen pearls they collected from the shallow seabeds here. He was thinking of a dawn five years ago. Of a beautiful, spoilt woman lying alone in her berth rigid with loathing for him. Making her plans for a messy, painful divorce; looking forward to hurting her husband and her father as much as she possibly could, out of pure childish spite.

  She was in his thoughts almost constantly, this woman wasting the last seconds of her life on hatred.

  Slope was behind him to his left, looking down into the green bowl of the Collision Alarm Radar. In those days the Gulf was too busy to let the Prometheus do everything for herself. There were always dhows up to no good, smuggling guns, pearls, slaves; small tankers and cargo ships; VLCCs; the odd ULCC, twice as big; SMBs; sandbars; rigs; tiny, uncharted islands; heaven knew what else. It was almost as bad as the Channel and no place to be sloppy or off-guard. There were lookouts with night glasses on the bridge wings and in the fo'c'sle head.

  As First Officer, Ben was also acting Medic. After they had cleared the mess in the officers' lounge, Richard had sent the others to their cabins and closed the bar; detailed John Higgins to go through the rest of the videotapes and ordered Ben to report to the bridge when he had seen to Tsirtos and Martyr.

  Now he shook himself mentally and cleared his mind of its ghosts. He had more immediate problems. He started pacing the bridge, head forward, hands clasped behind his back, trying to focus clearly on the jumble of events at whose centre he stood. It seemed obvious that the previous officers had, to put it mildly, been a strange lot. And they had met a pretty strange end. Martyr probably knew more than he was saying - but he was strange himself, and there was no guarantee he would confide anything to his new Captain - especially now - beyond the accounts which bore his decided signature in the logs and the Accident Report book.

  Why did he seem to regard the others, and Richard in particular, with such suspicion? Why, if he held the dead crew in such contempt, had he been persuaded to join them? Was there something going on, or was it just that sort of mild lunacy which sometimes breaks out at sea?

  But they had only been at sea for six hours.

  Ben and John came up together. 'Did he, by God?' Ben was saying. 'I'd like to see that.'

  'Any time you like, Ben. That and all the rest. But watch out for the Chief.'

  'All the rest, John?' snapped the Captain as they came round the great bank of instruments standing like a low wall across two thirds of the bridge. John nodded, his open countenance twisted with disgust. His gaze flickered across to the young Third Officer's back, then up to the Captain again.

  'All right, Mr Slope,’ said Richard. 'You can slip down to the officers' pantry and make yourself a coffee. Take ten minutes.’

  Slope hurried off, not too happy about missing the gossip.

  Richard turned to Ben first and received a brief report on Tsirtos's bruises and Martyr's abrasions. Tsirtos had accepted aspirin. Martyr had not. As far as Ben could tell, they were none the worse for their experiences.

  'I see,' said Richard, turning away. 'John. What about the rest of that stuff.'

  'It's all the same. Most of it worse.’ His voice was hoarse; emotion pulling his Manx accent into prominence.

  'Oh come on,’ erupted Ben. 'Blue movies on a supertanker - and all this fuss?'

  John swung on him. 'This isn't just blue, for God's sake. This stuff's sick. Some of it looks like snuff.’

  'Snuff?' asked Richard, startled into thinking of Regency gentlemen sniffing tobacco powder from silver boxes. 'What's that?'

  'That's where they actually kill people, right in front of the camera,’ said Ben, soberly. 'Jesus! Are you sure?'

  'How can I be? But that's what it looked like to me.’

  'Jesus! That's no joke. Sorry.'

  'I looked in the library too.' John held out a pile of books and magazines. One glance told Richard they were companion pieces to the videotapes.

  Tankers' libraries are usually stocked with old books brought aboard by previous officers and crews. Prometheus had had three crews recently. A skeleton crew who had brought her out of mothballs in Valparaiso and sailed her to Lisbon for refitting. Another, who had brought her from Portugal to the Gulf. The only full crew she had had in recent years had died soon after coming aboard, leaving only Tsirtos and Martyr. Yet, judging from tonight, neither of them had known what was in the library.

  Wearily, Richard filed a few more questions to be asked in the morning.

  Slope sidled back at that moment. 'OK, John,' said Richard. 'That's enough for tonight. Lock all that stuff in the library and then turn in. It's late and you have the next watch.' He automatically glanced at the two brass chronometers above the helm. One read 20.30, the other 23.30. GMT and Gulf Times respectively.

  Richard had reached the end of his strength.

  As he turned to go, however, Ben said, 'Dick
!' in an urgent undertone.

  'Yes?' Richard turned back.

  'I wasn't going to bring this up, but that porn has put my teeth on edge.'

  'What is it?'

  Ben motioned Richard round to the chart table where he opened a deep drawer to its fullest extent. He lifted something out of the back and handed it over. It was a bottle of ouzo, half empty. 'Makes you wonder, doesn't it, Dick?'

  It did indeed. All the way to the blessed oblivion of his bunk, Richard's mind was filled with the nightmare vision of Prometheus under Levkas's command sailing up the Channel on a black night with the off-watch officers below enraptured by the torture and murder of pretty young girls, and the on-watch officers getting blind drunk on ouzo.

  He could hardly have been expected to know it, but his fears were almost identical to those of Captain Levkas. Except that Levkas had known Prometheus would never reach the Channel.

  ***

  02.30. The ship was absolutely quiet, except for the gentle grumble of the engine. Even the ghostly strains of the flute which usually moved through the empty corridors at night were still.

  And desert boots, soled in crepe rubber, make no sound on thick, soft-padded linoleum.

  The figure moved in absolute silence up to the library door and paused. He looked right and left, then gently tried the handle. No doubt of it. The door was locked. But it wasn't much of a lock. The door jamb had no depth to it: the door sat square in the frame. He had no trouble in sliding a credit card in behind the lock. A little gentle working, and the door swung silently open.

  The lights were on!

  He jumped back, fearing discovery, supposing the lights to be on because someone else was in there.

  But no. The place was empty.

  He closed the door behind him and went to work, sorting through the tempting pile of books and magazines for those he found most exciting. There was sweat on his face in spite of the air-conditioning. His hands were shaking. It was the fright he had given himself on finding the lights on. The memory of it made him rush. He glanced at covers; flicked through one or two. Settled on half a dozen in the end: a selection of magazines in small and large format; a couple of books. He stuffed them into his shirt and turned.