The young man turned aside and beckoned to him with a short choppy gesture: he wanted to tell him something which must not be overheard by the rest of the group — or so it seemed. Not that there was any apparent danger, for everyone was talking amiably, the officials in low voices. Money was being exchanged and papers which looked like Bills of Lading. Isaac walked over to the young man who uttered a few words — words so apparently surprising that the old man let the pipe drop from his mouth and only just retrieved it before it fell to the ground. His face had gone blank. He gazed uncomprehendingly at the crates. “Which ones?” he asked hoarsely. The young man licked his lips and answered, “Number Two and Three. They are marked.” Isaac turned upon him with sudden incoherent expostulation. “But, my God,” he burst out, “surely you could have...?” A gesture from the young man silenced him. “There were great difficulties. The Agency had trouble. There was nothing else to be done.”
“Goddammit,” said Isaac, striking his knee. He turned to the “Zion” — the crates had been loaded swiftly and expertly, the formalities seemed to be all but completed. He took one startled look at the young man’s face and began to hurry down the slip towards his boat. At the pierhead he said a hurried farewell to the officials, yelling “Engine-room!” over his shoulder in a voice which earned him a startled look from his engineer. He clambered aboard awkwardly and added: “No time to be lost. Cast off.” This sudden burst of urgency puzzled his crew but they obeyed. The engines throbbed and the “Zion” turned her black snout in a slow arc towards the harbour entrance, her wake beginning to fan out under the screws. Isaac waved incoherently to the group on shore and added croakily: “Full ahead there.” Nadeb remonstrated in a shocked tone. “Full ahead? You’ll spring her plates.” But a glance from Isaac quelled him, and the “Zion” began to throb in every rivet. Isaac whistled and beckoned to three men. He hissed: “Axes and crowbars. And look quick about it.” They looked at him in a dazed fashion but he made a savage, throat-slitting gesture which electrified them into action. Isaac himself unbuckled the heavy fire-axe which was strapped to the thwart beside him. “Nadeb,” he said, “round the first headland we heave-to, see?” Nadeb did not see. “What are we going to do? Break up the bloody ship?”
Isaac beckoned him close and lowered his voice, aware how far sound carries on water. “There are people in two of the crates.”
Nadeb expelled a puff of air with relief — so the skipper had not gone mad after all. Then he too began to look concerned. “People — in there?” He felt a sudden surge of indignation. It was as if a trick in bad taste had been played on them. Why had they not been warned? The little party on the rocky road stared at the “Zion” as she fumed along. “Wave, you fool,” said Isaac, as with his free hand he waved a hallucinated farewell.
The first headland was on them, and now the ship turned sharply east and headed for land again, running in the shelter of the tall cliffs; a convenient cliff lay ahead. Nadeb leaped forward like a cat and muttered to the somewhat listless bearers of axes and crowbars. The news galvanized them. They moved in a cluster to examine the crates in question, carefully noting their perforated sides and the slant of the battens which held them together. They waited in sickened apprehension until the “Zion” switched off and wallowed in the still waters of the little creek and Isaac waved them urgently into action. Then they fell to work like maniacs with the backs of their axes, tackling the yellow crates. Isaac himself ran forward to lend a hand.
Had there been a watcher on the cliffs, he would certainly have concluded that the little group of men had gone mad. They banged and crashed at the wooden crates, tearing and pulling away at them with hammers, crowbars, even their hands, as if their very lives depended on it.
In the brilliant light of the westering sun, the smooth sea gleamed and glittered like a jewel, dark when it was shadowed by the shouldering cliffs. The scene itself was certainly an incongruous one: these men flailing away at the crates, tearing off long strips with their hands and tossing them overboard. The wood floated silently beside the boat in the water, with an air of astonishment, its stencilled markings clear for all to see. They ate into the first crate like gourmets into a cheese, forcing the battens apart, squeezing and pushing. It disgorged a mountain of filthy straw such as might line a stable floor, stinking with excrement, but not a word, not a noise of a human being. They called hoarsely, but no answering voice greeted them. They had virtually dismembered the box now. They threw down their implements and plunged into the muddle to recuperate the human beings they had been told existed beneath all this elaborate packing. At long last they managed to extract the first two occupants, whose bodies lay coiled in that nest of dirty straw like maggots in a cheese. Quickly, tenderly, they were laid upon deck in the brilliant soft sunshine and Isaac clawed at their tattered rags in order to lay his shaggy ear upon their hearts. Behind him he could hear the booming and crashing as the second crate was attacked. “They are both dead,” he said at last, sadly, still crouched on one knee, his wily old face wrinkled a thousand ways.
The older man had a beard of patriarchal cut and snowy whiteness and immensely long, dirty fingernails. The youth could not have been more than fifteen. The smashed and buckled fibre suitcase had a few dirty clothes lolling from it. Both bodies wore small metal identification discs on the forearm, though whether of Nazi provenance or not he could not tell. Isaac puffed grimly at his pipe as he consulted them. “Father and son,” he said under his breath, sitting back on his haunches and looking at them. “Father and son.” Behind him surged the racket of the axes busy upon the second crate. They had been lying as if asleep, entangled in a travesty of sleep, their arms round one another; now, in the relaxation of death, their attitude suggested a helpless and yet somehow triumphant surrender. Sincerely moved, Isaac got up, shaking himself like a dog, and waddled aft for a drink of water. Then he took up an axe and joined his crew in their assault on the second crate which they had already half demolished.
Judith heard them coming, but as if from a very long way off. The crate itself echoed like a gigantic sounding-board to the boom of their implements, so that she imagined something like the distant stampede of a horde of elephants whose foot-falls shook the world. Each axe-blow seemed to land in the centre of her brain, deafening, beheading her. Her mouth she kept pressed to a perforation in the wood which enabled her to drink in air with long, laboured inspirations. Somewhere in the straw beneath her she could hear the voice of the religious fanatic muttering away — like the sound of a bumble-bee trapped in a spider’s web, now faint and distant, now gathering strength again. Outside the confines of this blind world the racket was infernal. But now, gradually, extraordinary strips of blinding sunlight and blue sky appeared, tearing at her eyeballs. It was as if she were an entombed queen hearing the picks and shovels of the archaeologists approaching her. Voices called and she tried to answer, but her lips and throat had swollen — or so it seemed. The hot and rank odour of straw scorched her lungs. A groping hand touched her shoulder and she shrank away with pain, for her body was a mass of bruises. The daylight was pain, the pain blindness; she shrank from her rescuers.
Then with a splintering bang the walls of this stuffy universe gave way and drew back; sweet air rushed in. The blue sky pierced her like a spear. She shut her eyes fast against it and felt herself scooped up and carried, to be laid down somewhere on a hard deck among voices, the lapping of water, and the smell of hot machinery. No, it was beyond belief, she must be dead! But a rough calloused hand raised her head, a hairy face brushed her body and a voice said soberly: “Well, this one’s alive all right.” Alive! The voice itself sounded so incongruous that she wanted to laugh, but in her weakness all she could manage was a tree-frog’s croak and a few thin tears squeezed from under long lashes. The air, the light, were enticing, but still she could not bear to open her eyes.
“Well I’ll be damned.”
“They had no right...
“We’re not a hospital-ship.�
�� Nadeb’s voice rose to a plaintive squeak. But they were busy about some other frantic business, tearing at straw and pulling at strips of crackling wood. She was left for a moment in the oasis of her own thoughts, wheeling and scattering like notes of dust in sunlight. Then she gave a gasp, for someone had emptied a bucket of salt water over her head. The shock seemed to start up her fever again; she began to tremble once more, her teeth to chatter in her head. Isaac mopped her face with a clean handkerchief, swearing softly under his breath. She heard him give an order: “Something warm to drink from the galley.” They stayed like this for a long moment, like a tableau of exhaustion — the old man was breathing as hard as she was. “Hurry up, there!” he cried.
Meanwhile her fellow-stowaway had been disinterred from the crate which smelled like a carnivore’s cage, and disposed upon the grubby deck. He too was alive, but he presented a strange picture to their startled sight. His long bony body was topped by a fierce hawk’s head dressed in a tangle of greasy ringlets falling to his shoulders. His pale blue eyes had the glare of delirium in them and his lips moved incessantly. He still had his voice, though it had been worn down in long patches to a mere whisper. It was not easy to say whether they had a case of extreme fatigue to deal with, or one of insanity. His eyes roved madly here and there, as if searching for something. From an occasional passage of croaks and whispers, they gathered that the subject-matter of his impassioned monologue was religious; he was reciting holy texts. He drank thirstily, slobbering water all over himself, and then suddenly took fright, drawing himself away from his rescuers, sliding along the deck on his long yellow palms like a seal. He found a thwart and pressed his back against it in terror, shouting “Keep away,” and extending a long bony finger at them. They watched him with an exhausted and mutinous curiosity. He stayed thus for a long moment with yellow teeth bared. Then, as suddenly, he joined his hands upon his soiled and tattered waistcoat and in a small, plaintive voice, like a sick child, added: “I am Melchior.” And at once fell into a deep sleep.
At the sound of his voice the girl opened her eyes on the trembling sky; a chain of images floated incoherently across her mind, evoked by the voice and the terror in it. They scorched her mind. She saw, but very indistinctly, Isaac leaning over her with a cup of tea — only he was wearing a Nazi uniform and his eyes were glaring as fiercely as her own. She raised an imploring hand and turned her head away. The shadows of men fell on the deck, she counted them. They were men in uniform and their footsteps on the hollow decks of the “Zion” sounded like the tramp of feet in jackboots.
“Ah!” she said in a desolate ringing voice full of resignation, “So you are taking me back.”
“Yes.” Isaac’s homely voice sounded like the rasping of a professional storm-trooper. “Back.”
They had already rigged up a bunk in the evil-smelling forecastle and she allowed herself to be carried down to it, speechless with fatigue. The hot drink was delicious and she would gladly have drunk more of it, but she fell asleep on the second mouthful. As for her companion, they did not move him, but put some blankets over his sleeping form with a pillow for his head. This done, the crew sat down in exhausted attitudes all over the ship and swore with surprise at being saddled with such unusual passengers; without a word of warning, too! They scratched their heads, gazing at Isaac.
He, for his part, was thinking in terms of extra rations and the hundred and one hazards they still had to face. The possessions of the refugees lay about the deck and he started to gather them: a smashed fibre suitcase, again with its entrails extruding like a squashed bug, a small haversack with the end of a cracked mirror sticking out of the side. That must belong to the girl. He carried it down to her and watched her sleeping for a moment in the uncomfortable bunk. From time to time she was shaken by a sudden gust of short breathing, like a child after crying itself to sleep. Her features were well formed; her forehead was high and white and her closed eyes framed by broad serene lashes. But she was filthy. Her hair had been cut off in a clumsy series of rats’ tails and all down one side of her neck ran the livid line of some skin infection. She smelt of the concentration camp.
Isaac shook his head and went on deck again, calling out “Engine room!” in his hardest tones, recalling everyone to their senses again. There would be time, he told himself, to smash up the other crates and dispose their contents in the hold once they were on their way. But he must not ignore the exacting timetable which alone might give them an even chance of breaking the night blockade.
“Zion” snorted and shook and lifted her bows towards the outer sea, which was already taking on the gold and peacock tones of evening. “About five hours,” said Isaac, looking at his watch. Their landfall that night would be another deserted harbour off the long spit of Famagusta in Cyprus. Somewhere out there on the opalescent horizon, the ships of the blockade cruised, restless as greyhounds. A faint evening sea-breeze, damp with the promise of mist, was slowly rising from the east. He took it on his cheek with satisfaction as he consulted a compass bearing. It was beautiful, it was calm — as deceptively calm, perhaps, as the two figures which lay side by side on the prow: the dead man and his son. Isaac went forward and sat by them for a while with Nadeb, gazing at their stillness and pallor as he loaded another pipe. They looked, he thought, as if they were listening for something. He was possessed by a great calm, a great resignation as he felt the slow swell of the sea under “Zion’s” keel. The sun was sinking into a deserted horizon. A couple of gulls hovered over them with curiosity, crying shrilly. He turned to Nadeb. “What do you know about burial at sea?”
“Nothing. I’m not religious.”
“Nor am I. We’ll have to do something, read something.”
“Well, you have a Bible.”
“What about weights?”
“There’s some pig-iron in the ballast. The boy shouldn’t need so much. But there’s no spare tarpaulin.”
“We’ll use some flags from our collection. Not likely to see a use for the Latin Americans, are we?”
The two men sat smoking and deliberating as the “Zion” plunged on towards the outer sea. Nadeb finally leaned forward and, with a sharp movement of the wrist, snapped off the small identity discs. He sat holding them in his hand.
“Identity,” he said reflectively.
“Yes,” said Isaac shortly and surprised himself (for he was not, as far as he knew, of a philosophic turn of mind) by adding “It doesn’t seem to matter, to make much difference when you are dead, being a Jew or not. It’s while you’re alive, my boy.”
Nadeb grunted and busied himself in disposing the limbs of the corpses, lashing their ankles together and passing a cord round their breasts to pinion their arms securely. “About time,” he said sombrely. “The rigor is beginning to set in. Here, knot this one.”
They stood for a moment gazing down at their handiwork. The shaggy prophet from his nest of blankets amidships gave a sudden quavering cry and moaned: “And the Lord shall recognize his own.” They looked at one another and smiled grimly.
“We must move him below,” said Isaac slowly. “We can’t have him screaming once we are off the coast. Nadeb, there’s some morphia in the medical kit — it would give him some sleep. I’d like to radio the Agency about them, but I don’t see how we dare. We might give our position away.”
He padded back to the locker and busied himself with sorting flags. Nadeb called for a sail, needle and twine. “Well,” said Isaac at last, having made his selection. “One can be Brazilian and the other Chilean. It will puzzle their Creator. What else to do?”
They waited until darkness before performing their perfunctory and awkward ceremony and consigning the bodies to the sea. Then they carried the gaunt figure of the prophet below. Lastly, all hands fell to breaking up the remaining crates and shipping their contents — automatic weapons in glistening water-proof covers. That, at least, was a job with which they were familiar.
Night had fallen.
3
&
nbsp; Arrival in Darkness
For two days and nights she lay in a pleasurable doze of exhaustion, lulled by the swing of the sea to healing sleep, or woken by the sudden shutting off of the engines and a silence punctuated by the thud of feet on the decks and the hoarse voices of the crew about their business. She had begun to recover not only her reason, but her self-possession: Isaac no longer wore a Nazi uniform when he came down to give her food by the dim light of a pocket torch. At first he had had to feed her, but now she could even sit up in the evil-smelling bunk, although she ached in every limb. The old man asked her no questions, though from time to time he placed a rough hand on her brow to reassure himself that she was no longer feverish. The touch of his calloused palm was delicious and reassuring. For her part, she only showed concern for the fate of her haversack, and a deep relief when Isaac turned the torch on it. “Give it to me,” she said in a hoarse but melodious voice, and placed it behind her head like a pillow. Isaac tended her silently and with concentration, like a gardener, and his pains were rewarded sooner than he had expected, for by the end of the second day she was able to reach out a hand and say: “I want to try and stand. Will you help?” To his delight she could not only do so, but could also walk.
“Nothing broken?” he asked anxiously.
“No. Just bruises. I must be blue all over.”
“They’ll go.”
“I know. When do we... arrive?”
Isaac gave the small ghost of a chuckle.
“Tonight. Very late.”
“Tonight?” She opened her dark eyes very wide and gazed at him. Isaac nodded.
“We are through the sea-blockade and on the coast now. Unless we are picked up by a patrol-boat we should... But he was too superstitious to complete the sentence, and simply contented himself with touching wood.
Judith Page 6
