Solomons Seal

by Hammond Innes

  I asked him why he wouldn’t stand a night watch or navigate out of sight of land. He hesitated a long time before replying. Finally he said, ‘Mr Sling’by, believe me, I can do it.’ His deep voice was suddenly urgent. ‘But I do not have confidence when the Captain is all time watching me. In the islands he know I am a good navigator, but at night, or on a long voyage like from Louisiade Archipelago to Sandy Cape, he has no trust, so I am afraid I don’t do it right and make some very abominable mistake.’ He looked at me then, his black, broad-nosed face reflecting a deep-felt sense of wrong. ‘It is a long time since you serve in a ship like this, but he does not watch over you.’ He said it almost accusingly.

  Looking into his face, I realised that beneath that black, markedly different shell was a very proud man. ‘Would it help,’ I said cautiously, ‘if you shared a night watch with me? Later in the trip.’ And I added, ‘It would certainly help me if you did. I don’t know these waters, and I’d appreciate having you check my navigation.’

  He hesitated, his large brown eyes fixed on me intently. Finally he nodded. ‘Yes, I do that.’ And suddenly he was smiling at me, a great broad smile that had extraordinary warmth in it. ‘I think you understand.’

  I left him then to find the wardroom empty, breakfast already over and the table littered with the remains of the meal. I was tired and didn’t feel like food anyway. I slipped down the companionway to the main deck, got a mug of tea from the galley and took it to my cabin, turning in straight away. Holland was having a long lie-in in preparation for the night ahead, and I was due on the bridge again at noon.

  Luke called me a little before twelve so that I had time to eat before going on watch. There was nobody else in the wardroom, and Samson, the big, burly steward, served me in lonely splendour. When I finally joined Luke in the wheelhouse, I found the weather had deteriorated. There was no sign of the coast now, visibility down to about 2 miles. ‘This evening I think it rain,’ he said.

  ‘You’ve got a new forecast, have you?’

  He shook his head, laughing. ‘Don’t need forecast to tell me what this weather will be. I know.’

  I was to discover that in this, and in many other things, his instinct was infallible. But he knew nothing about sorcery, or pretended not to, though he admitted it existed and that it was still practised in the islands. Talking to him, I found him a complicated mixture of pride and diffidence. He was also one of the most likeable men I had ever met.

  He relieved me again at four, and by then there were rain clouds building up to the east of us. ‘Compass course is due north,’ I said, ‘and the radar shows the coast six-and-a-half miles off. Have you had some tea?’

  ‘No, I have coffee.’

  I got some tea from the galley and took it up to the wardroom. There was nobody there, and when I had finished it, I started on a tour of the ship. It was the first opportunity I had had to look around. I started with the engine-room. They were still clearing up after the overhaul, but already the copper and brasswork gleamed and the whole hot mass of machinery had a cared-for look. The chief engineer was from Rabaul, an old grey-haired man who introduced himself as Ahab Holtz. Of mixed German blood, and German-trained, he was a cheerful, friendly man, and his regard for his engines was in the nature of a love affair. The others in the engine-room were different. They were from Buka, and I was unpleasantly conscious of the sullenness of their manner.

  Outside of the engine-room the ship was in a poor state, dirt and rust everywhere and no sign of anything having been painted for a long time. Even essential gear looked neglected, and nothing seemed to have been done to clean up on deck after the period in dock. The galley on the main deck of the bridge housing was far from clean, and in the crew’s mess for’ard I sensed that same sullenness. They were most of them from Buka, and the coxs’n was there with them, a squat bearded man, the skin of his face so glossy black it looked like polished ebony. He said his name was Teopas, and when I asked him why he didn’t stick to his own mess aft, he affected not to understand, though I learned later he had been to school at a Marist Mission and spoke quite good English. I told him to come with me and check some of the things that urgently needed attention, but he just stood there staring at me with surly insolence, not saying a word, and the devil of it was there was no way I could enforce the order.

  I went aft then to what had been the sergeants’ mess, which was where he should have been. The only occupant was the bos’n and when I asked him about the attitude of the Buka men, he said, ‘Buka bilong Solomons. No laikim Papua Niugini gavman. Buka pipal laik ind’pendence. Bougainville tu.’ He was from Kieta, and he said something about his father’s having been killed by the Australians during the war. At least, I think it was that. He said, ‘Papa bilong mi and ol Australia maikim dai.’

  Finally I went up to my cabin feeling distinctly uneasy. A ship with a political bombshell ticking away in its guts, that wasn’t what I had been looking for when I had come out to her in Darling Harbour. As I lay on my bunk, thinking about it, it was hard to realise it was only thirty-six hours since I had come on board.

  I was back on the bridge at 20.00 after a greasy, overdone steak, apple pie and coffee. Holland was there, pacing restlessly back and forth. Nobody else except the helmsman. ‘We’re closing the coast now,’ he said. ‘I altered course about an hour and a half back, shortly after we came on to the continental shelf. I’m not sure, but I think I’ve got the loom of Double Island light fine on the port bow. We’re in sixty-five fathoms at the moment. When you get below thirty fathoms, put the engines at Slow Ahead and give me a call.’

  ‘What’s your ETA at the beach?’ I asked him.

  ‘Between midnight and o-four-hundred was what I told them. I guess we should be there about o-one-hundred, probably a little before.’ He went over to the chart. ‘That’s our position.’ He had pencilled in a cross with 20.00 against it. ‘When you raise the light keep it fine on the port bow, and whatever the depth call me at twenty-three-thirty. We should be less than an hour’s run from the beach then.’ He turned to me with a quick, nervous smile. ‘I hope you’re enjoying yourself. It’s a great help to have you on board, and I’m grateful.’

  I nodded. ‘Glad I’m of use.’ I turned to him then, and the smile faded as I said, ‘There’s just one thing. Those two trucks you’re lifting off the beach, what’s in them?’

  ‘I don’t think that need concern you.’ His tone was abrupt, slightly defensive.

  ‘That depends,’ I said. ‘You’re loading off a deserted beach at night, no Customs Officer present, and if it’s contraband …’

  ‘The cases will be Customs-sealed, papers, everything dealt with.’

  ‘Yes, but what’s in them?’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you that.’

  ‘Does that mean you don’t know? You’re accepting cargo off a deserted beach and you don’t know what it is?’

  He stared at me uneasily, then turned away. ‘It’s simply to save them trucking it all the way down to Sydney.’

  ‘You could have picked it up at Brisbane.’

  ‘I don’t know why they chose this method,’ he said irritably. ‘I didn’t fix it. But I need that extra cargo to cover my fuel bills.’

  ‘If you didn’t fix it, who did?’

  ‘My partner.’

  ‘Through your agents in Sydney?’

  ‘It’ll be on the manifest. I don’t know what agent he used.’

  ‘And you don’t know what the cargo is.’

  He turned on me then. ‘Look, Mr Slingsby, either you’re a passenger on my ship or you’re acting first officer. Whichever it is, you’re under my orders. The cargo is nothing to do with you. But if you feel there’s something wrong, then there’s nothing to stop you going ashore as soon as we’re on the beach and the ramp down.’ He was facing me, his head down, his voice trembling on a high note. ‘It’s up to you,’ he added, and went quickly out as though afraid I’d persist with my questions.

  I stoo
d there for a moment, staring at the chart and thinking over what he had said. I was certain that there was something illegal about those trucks. All the time I had been questioning him I had sensed his doubt. But, as he had said, no reason why I should be a party to it. I was free to walk off the ship as soon as we reached the beach, except that I had radioed that message to his sister. ‘Kepten!’ The helmsman was pointing. ‘Lukluk, Kepten. Double Island lait.’

  I picked up the glasses and went out to the bridge wing. The night was very dark. Away to the north a flash of lightning lit the low cloud base. It was some time before I saw it, picking up the flash as the old tub crested a swell. It was too low on the horizon for positive identification, but it couldn’t be anything else. During the next half-hour the echo-sounder recorded a gradual decrease in depth, finally steadying at between 39 and 34 fathoms. By then the light was very clear. But during the next hour it became increasingly difficult to see as rain came in from the north, very heavy at times so that it even blurred the trace of the coast I was getting on the radar screen. At 23.30 I called Holland. We were then in 32 fathoms, the indistinct radar trace showing us 6 miles off.

  I got him some coffee, then stayed with him in the wheelhouse, but we didn’t talk. He was completely absorbed in his navigation. However, when we were barely 2 miles off, at a point when I would have expected the ship to have his full attention, he came across to me and said, ‘I think I should tell you something. When we bought this ship, it was a question of survival. It still is. I’ve never been much of a businessman. It was Hans who saw the advantages of landing craft that could bring copra and coffee cargoes direct from the plantations. He bought a war surplus RPL and traded with it so successfully that within a year he had bought another. He’s over in England now, arranging finance for this new ship. That’s the sort of man he is, and when he puts something my way, I know it will be to my advantage and all the details thoroughly worked out.’ He looked at me sideways. ‘I’ve been thinking over what you said, and I felt I ought to tell you the position.’

  I thanked him, not sure whether this explanation wasn’t in part to convince himself. ‘Of course, mostly the cargoes are arranged by Mr Shelvankar. He does it by radio. All the isolated plantations have radio now; some of the bigger ones even have their own airfield.’ He reached for his oilskins. ‘Think I’ll con us in from the upper bridge. It’s not going to be too easy to see the track down to the beach in this muck.’ Dressed, he tightened the strings of his hood. ‘Hope I’ve set your mind at rest. I wouldn’t want to lose you just as we’re starting the long haul across to the Solomons.’ His smile was friendly but tense as he pushed back the door and went out into a drenching downpour of rain.

  The rain was so heavy now it had completely blotted out the scanned outline of the coast. The upper bridge telegraph rang for Slow Ahead, and the revs died to a sluggish beat. We were half a mile from the shore and nothing visible, the circling illumination of the Double Island lighthouse no more than an intermittent glimmer in the darkness. Ahead of us was nothing, only blackness. A few minutes later he signalled Slow Astern and called the crew to stations on the ship’s loudspeakers. We backed and filled with constant alterations of course. Luke came through the wheel-house on his way to the upper bridge, barely recognisable in his oilies, and for’ard I could see oilskin-clad figures flashing torches as they got ready to open the bow doors and lower the ramp. I heard the stern anchor let go, and almost immediately afterwards the gleam of headlights showed through the rain. The telegraph rang for Stop Engines, and a moment later there was a slight lurch as the ship grounded.

  There was an oilskin coat and sou’wester hanging on a peg at the back of the wheelhouse. They were too small for me, but at least they gave some protection as I climbed down to the tank deck. By the time I reached the bows the doors were open and the ramp was being lowered. Fortunately the sea was calm, flattened by the rain, for we were grounded at least a dozen yards from the shoreline, and the ramp, when it touched bottom, was half under water. Holland waded out to the end of it with the water up to his knees as he tested the bottom with his feet. Apparently it was firm, for he signalled them to drive on with his torch.

  There was no difficulty with the first vehicle. The driver took it slowly in low gear and four-wheel drive, coming up the ramp without a check and parking himself neatly against the steel side of the hold, nose right against the wheels of the first Haulpak. He didn’t get out of his cab, and when I went over to him and asked whether he had seen anything of a young woman, he said, ‘Sure. That beach is crowded with them, all in bikinis.’ He had a broad-brimmed hat on his head and a hard-bitten face. ‘You think I carry a harem around with me, an’ in this weather?’ He grinned down at me. ‘You expect a lot with this sort of a consignment.’ The second vehicle was already coming down the beach, and I had to move out of the way. It came too fast, had to check at the ramp, and the engine died. After that it was a winching job.

  It took the better part of half an hour, winching and manhandling, to get it positioned. Finally it was done, and the two drivers waded ashore to the backup car that was waiting for them at the top of the beach. No sign of Perenna Holland. Either she hadn’t been able to make it or she hadn’t got my message. Maybe Shelvankar had never sent it. I went up to the signals office and asked him again, but he assured me he had sent it at once, looking offended that I should doubt his word. He was busy checking the papers the drivers had brought on board. ‘What’s the cargo?’ I asked him.

  ‘Japanese outboard engines.’ He showed me the manifest. ‘You see. They are all cleared by Customs.’ I had already checked that myself. The trucks had been stacked with heavy wooden crates, each crate wired round and sealed with a little leaden seal. Back in the wheelhouse I found the bow doors closed, the ramp up and the ship already moving astern as Holland hauled her off the beach on engines and stern anchor winch. Ten minutes later we had recovered the anchor and were headed out to sea. He came down then from the upper bridge.

  ‘Went quite well really.’ He looked tense, the muscle on the side of his jaw twitching slightly, his oilskins dripping water. ‘Rain’s taking off now.’ I could almost feel him trying to unwind. ‘Didn’t like it running in. Lot of tide around here. Not too sure of the chart. Conditions didn’t help either.’ He was pulling off his oilskins. ‘What about some coffee?’

  ‘I’ll go and see about it,’ I said.

  ‘Thanks, and put something in it. You’ll find a bottle of Scotch in my cabin.’ He was already at the chart table, leaning over it and at the same time keeping an eye on the echo-sounder. Luke was standing by the helmsman.

  ‘Coffee?’ I asked him, and he nodded.

  When I got back with four mugs, some sandwiches and the bottle of whisky, the rain had almost stopped and the light on Double Island Point showed as a distant flash low down on our starboard quarter. Our course for the gap between the Saumarez and Frederick reefs took us close inshore the whole 100-mile length of Fraser Island. Only when Sandy Cape was abeam would we be in deep water. Holland drained his coffee, put the mug on the chart table and turned to me. ‘I’ll relieve you at four. That all right with you?’

  I glanced at the clock at the back of the wheel-house. ‘That gives you barely two hours’ sleep.’

  He nodded. ‘Can’t be helped. It’s the same for both of us. Just keep your eye on the depth and the radar. Call me if you’re in any doubt. The Double Island light gives you a perfect back bearing, and if the rain holds off, you should have it in sight until just before I relieve you.’

  It gave me a certain sense of satisfaction that a man who spent his whole life navigating the island-infested waters of the South West Pacific should have sufficient confidence in my navigation to leave me in charge of his ship running close along the shore of an island I had never seen before. ‘Just don’t go to sleep, that’s all,’ he added as he went out.

  I sent Luke to check that the bow doors had been properly secured. He was gone a long time, fina
lly reporting that he had had to root out the crew again and oversee the job himself. ‘They don’t think it important.’

  ‘And you?’ I asked.

  He shrugged. ‘We never do it before.’

  ‘That’s because you could always run for shelter under the lee of an island. This voyage you can’t.’

  He stayed with me for the first hour of my watch. It was a help, for once the effect of the coffee had worn off the whisky in it took over, and I began to have difficulty keeping my eyes open. The rain, the constant strain of peering into the darkness, the nervous tension of the beaching and the fact that I had been on watch now for almost seven hours, all in a climate that was quite different from England, had made me very sleepy. I was sorry when he finally left me. We hadn’t talked much, but his company had been comforting.

  Alone, I paced back and forth, thinking about Holland’s problems, wondering where his sister was, vague fantasies flitting through my mind. Oddly enough, it was those damned stamps and the fate of the Holland Trader that were the recurring theme of my thoughts. There had to be some connection, some connection that was relevant, not just to what had happened in 1911, but to now, to this ship, to Jona Holland, Perenna, that wretched arrowhead, all those masks and pictures in the Aldeburgh house.