Fair Game (35 page)

He dunked his bread into his soup. ‘In my dad’s day, he got to spend days in port, sometimes weeks. That’s the sailing that he remembers, when sailors would be a week in Shanghai then three days in Hong Kong and then two days in Colombo and then a week in Tangiers. They got to see the world.’

‘A girl in every port?’

‘Sure, several girls in every port if you believe my dad’s stories. I sometimes wonder how many siblings I’ve got scattered around the world. He sowed a lot of wild oats before he met my mother. And maybe afterwards, too.’

Shepherd sipped his coffee. He wasn’t a fan of instant but Jimmy had made it good and strong and it was surprisingly drinkable.

‘But it’s not about the girls,’ said Janko. ‘It’s about seeing the world. That’s what my dad and grandfather did. Can you imagine how great it must have been to have had a week in Shanghai? Once the ship’s sorted you could just go ashore and hang out. Meet the people, look around. Sleep ashore if you wanted. Hang out with sailors from other ships, swap stories.’ He shrugged. ‘You joined us in Port Klang, right?’

Shepherd nodded.

‘We were there for six hours. During that time the amount of cargo they transferred would have taken three days back in my dad’s day and probably two weeks when my grandfather was sailing. Our next port of call is Karachi and we’ll be there eight hours, maybe ten, then after Suez we’ll be in Tangiers for five hours, max.’

‘So you never get to spend any time ashore?’

‘In some ports you might have enough time to get a cab into the nearest city but that’s about it, just time enough to grab a quick coffee and then back to the ship. Most guys don’t bother.’

‘So you just stay on board, yeah?’

‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘My contract this time is four months and I probably won’t set foot on land once. Same for most of the guys.’ He grinned and dunked his bread in his soup again. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I’m not always complaining like Hainrich and Tomasz. But I’m not planning a life on the ocean waves. I’ll do this for five years so that I understand how the ships work, but then I’ll look for a job in head office. The shipping companies make millions and I want to be part of that. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll have my own shipping company.’ He shrugged again and continued to eat his soup.

Shepherd was pulled from a dreamless sleep by a loud alarm. He rolled on to his back and opened his eyes, then frowned as he realised it wasn’t his portable alarm clock, it was the insistent blast of a siren coming from the corridor outside. The short blast became a much longer blast, then there was a silence lasting just a few seconds before the short blasts started again. He counted the blasts. Seven short ones followed by a much longer one. Shepherd’s heart began to race; it was the ship’s general emergency alarm. He cursed, threw on the jeans and polo shirt that he’d been wearing the previous day and raced up the stairs two at a time to the bridge. He threw open the door and burst in. Dominik was alone on the bridge, a mug of black coffee in one hand and a half-smoked cigarette in the other. ‘Good morning, Mr Oliver,’ he said. ‘Is everything OK?’

‘What’s the alarm for?’ asked Shepherd.

Dominik pulled a face. ‘A drill,’ he said. ‘Didn’t anyone tell you?’

‘Does it look like anyone told me?’ said Shepherd.

The alarm stopped mid-blast. ‘It’s our monthly drill,’ said Dominik. ‘That was for an emergency spillage. There’ll be another in a few minutes for fire. Then we’ll have a boat alarm followed by an abandon ship.’

‘Should I be involved?’

‘It’s only a drill,’ said Dominik. Ash fell from his cigarette on to the control desk and he cursed and wafted it away. ‘You can if you want to. But it’s for the crew really. They’re usually done separately but the chief’s put together a scenario that allows us to run them all at the same time.’

His transceiver crackled and Shepherd heard the chief’s voice. ‘This is the chief officer on the Upper Deck. We have a container leaking liquid. I am sending in a clean-up crew. Over.’

Dominik put the transceiver to his mouth and clicked the transmit button. ‘Master to chief officer. Keep me informed. Over.’ He grinned over at Shepherd. ‘It starts with a leak. That’s the first alarm, when it’s spotted. Then the cleaning crew go in dressed for dealing with hazardous waste. Then the liquid catches fire, which will be when he’ll sound the fire alarm. Then the fire gets out of control and we move to abandon ship. You can go and watch if you like. They’re on the Upper Deck now and the lifeboats are on B-Deck. You’ll be on the port side.’ He took a drag on his cigarette. ‘If you do go then take your immersion suit from your cabin, and your hard hat.’ He shrugged. ‘But it’s up to you, it’s only a drill.’

‘I’ll give it a miss,’ said Shepherd. He looked at the three radar screens on the console. They were all completely clear.

Dominik waved to his right. ‘There’s coffee and tea stuff over there, help yourself,’ he said. ‘And we have cookies.’

Shepherd padded over in his bare feet and picked up a mug. There was a water dispenser with two taps, red for hot and blue for cold, and he half-filled the mug with hot water and then stirred in two spoonfuls of Nescafé and added a splash of long-life milk.

‘Do you want a coffee?’ he asked the captain.

Dominik looked over at him, surprised. ‘The company man offering to make me coffee? What is this, are you offering the condemned man a last request?’

‘Last request?’ repeated Shepherd. ‘You think the company would want to get rid of a captain?’

‘If they could, sure,’ said Dominik. He gestured with his thumb at the controls to his left. ‘We’re on autopilot right now, we are most of the time when we’re at sea. And when we arrive at and leave port, we have a pilot on board. It wouldn’t take much for the company to realise that with a combination of autopilot and port pilots, do they really need a captain on board? But as you are offering, a black coffee with one sugar would be nice, thank you.’

Shepherd spent the best part of an hour chatting to the captain about the various ships he’d sailed on during a career that spanned more than twenty-five years and the ports that he’d visited. Shepherd liked the man; he had a quiet confidence and a gentle sense of humour and patiently answered any questions that Shepherd asked, explaining how the various instruments worked and the rules of the sea that had to be followed by every vessel.

At nine o’clock Shepherd went back to his cabin, changed into a T-shirt and shorts, pulled on his training shoes and headed down to D-Deck. He opened the door to the gymnasium but his heart fell when he saw the running machine. He looked through the windows at the containers on deck, then had an idea. He went back to the stairs and down to the Upper Deck, then along the corridor to the starboard hatchway. The sea was calm and there wasn’t much of a wind so the vessel was fairly stable. He looked left and right and grinned. It would be a bit cramped in places and he’d have to watch out for the valves and pipework dotted around, but the deck still made a half-decent running track.

He started off at a slow jog in a clockwise direction until he was familiar with the motion of the ship, then he upped the pace. He couldn’t go anywhere close to his top speed because of all the equipment and fittings around, but it was still much more satisfying than running on the treadmill. He did five laps and after the fifth lap he stood at the bow doing stretching exercises. As he looked out to sea he saw a grey shape in the water, then another, then one arced into the air and within seconds there were more than a dozen dolphins, leaping and splashing back into the water. Shepherd moved to the front of the bow and watched them for a while, but couldn’t work out if they were feeding or just playing.

He looked port and starboard but there was nothing to see other than the dolphins. No land. No ships. And above, not even a cloud in the sky. And no sound other than the wind whistling by his ears and the deep throbbing of the
Athena
’s massive engine.

As Shepherd headed back to the superstructure he looked up at the containers, towering above him and blocking out the sky. Those on the bottom were raised up off the deck. To get to them he had to climb a metal ladder up to a passageway that ran between the rows of containers. Those on the lower levels were locked into place with metal fasteners that criss-crossed the doors like shoelaces in sneakers. Metal gangways ran across the ship, giving access to the lower levels of the containers, but from the third level upwards there were no gangways or lashings and the containers simply rested on top of each other.

At the top of the ladder were waist-high metal railings, and Shepherd spotted that they were perfect for doing arm thrusts. He stood between the railings, grasped one in each hand and let his arms take his weight. He crossed his legs at the ankles and did fifty rapid press-ups until his muscles were burning. When he’d finished he walked down the passageway to the far side of the ship.

Some of the bottom containers had thick metal legs that meant they were standing some eighteen inches above the deck. It was, he realised, a great place for a stowaway to tuck themselves away.

Halfway along the gantry there were fewer lashings and he saw that most of the containers weren’t locked. There was a bright yellow seal on most of them but there didn’t seem to be any locking mechanism, though several did have large brass padlocks. He found one without a seal and grabbed the two levers that operated the opening mechanism. The two doors swung open. The container was empty, though there were wooden boards on the floor. He climbed in and walked around, realising that it was actually bigger than the first apartment that Sue and he had shared. It made his head spin to think that the container was one of more than five thousand, most of which were packed with goods and materials.

He climbed out and closed the doors, then walked back along the deck, passing two Filipino seamen in overalls and hard hats who looked at him curiously and then talked in their own language. He heard them laughing as he went back into the superstructure and started climbing the stairs two at a time. He went up to the gym and spent half an hour hitting the punchbag and half an hour on the exercise cycle and then did a hundred sit-ups and three sets of fifty press-ups. By the time he’d finished he was aching all over and bathed in sweat, but feeling better.

He went back to his cabin, showered, changed into clean clothes, and went up to the bridge. Hainrich was there, in shorts and a sweatshirt, and there was a Filipino seaman scanning the horizon with binoculars.

‘Did you see the dolphins?’ asked Hainrich as he checked out a tanker on their starboard bow.

‘Yeah, amazing,’ said Shepherd.

‘You only see them in good weather,’ said Hainrich. ‘They don’t like too much spray, it gives them pneumonia. Today’s perfect for them, good weather and lots of fish.’ He looked across at Shepherd. ‘You take your life in your hands, running on the deck,’ he said.

‘You saw me?’ Shepherd looked down through the bridge windows but all he could see was containers. There was no way that anyone on the bridge could see anything happening on the deck far below.

Hainrich laughed. ‘I had three seamen radio me to tell me there was a crazy man running around. What would we do if you fell overboard?’

‘Come back and get me?’

Hainrich laughed again. ‘Come back for a company man? In your dreams. Do you have any idea how many health and safety regulations you’re breaking by running around the deck?’

‘I hate treadmills,’ said Shepherd, shrugging. ‘I always feel like a hamster on a wheel.’

‘Everyone hates treadmills,’ said Hainrich. ‘What’s to like?’ He patted his waistline. ‘But exercise and diet, you have to do both or the weight stays on.’

Shepherd stood looking out over the vast sea ahead of them. There was a large container ship off to the left, almost on the horizon, and an oil tanker to his right, just behind them, but other than that the sea was empty. There was something calming about the way the ship was just carving through the water, the only sound the throb of the massive engine far below his feet. The sky above was also empty, not a single bird and not even a vapour trail from a passing jet.

Shepherd realised that although the ship was totally stable, with barely any sense that they were travelling across water, it was leaning to the side. It was only a few degrees but it was definitely not level.

‘Answer me a question, Hainrich,’ said Shepherd.

‘If I can,’ said the chief officer.

Shepherd pointed to the bow. ‘See how we’re listing there,’ he said. ‘The port side is higher than the starboard side, so we’re leaning to the right. Is that because of the wind?’

‘It’s because of the ballast in our tanks,’ Hainrich said. ‘We are slightly heavier on our starboard side.’

‘Why’s that? Why aren’t we level?’

Hainrich sighed. ‘The captain’s shower,’ he said.

Shepherd turned to look at him. ‘Huh?’

Hainrich shrugged. ‘The outlet for the captain’s shower is on the starboard side. So if we are higher on the port side the water in his shower drains away. My shower, however, is on the port side, so I have to use a squeegee to push the water towards the drain.’ He waved at the bow. ‘That, my friend, is why we list to starboard. And why every time I use the shower, I have to use the squeegee.’

‘You’re joking, right?’

Hainrich looked at Shepherd over the top of his spectacles. ‘Do I look as if I am joking, Mr Blackburn?’ he said solemnly.

Robbie Fox hurled the stick as far as he could and his two spaniels ran after it, barking happily, their tail stumps wagging furiously. Fox smiled as the two dogs play-fought over possession of the stick. It was a game they never tired of.

He heard a car driving down the track and he turned to see Lisa O’Hara at the wheel of her Land Rover. She parked and climbed out, dressed sensibly in a Barbour jacket and green wellington boots. ‘Hi, Uncle Robbie,’ she called.

She walked over and hugged him, kissing him affectionately on both cheeks. The dogs came running back, sharing the branch between them. Fox took it and threw it again.

‘I’ve good news for you, Lisa,’ said Fox, walking towards a copse of trees, the wind at his back.