Sea Fury (1971) (15 page)

The serang was there waiting for them, other men behind him; dark faces staring out of the poorly-lighted background of the narrow, crowded alleyway; many voices chattering
in a language unintelligible to the Europeans; chattering in excitement and perhaps also fear.

Finch spoke to the serang, striving to keep his voice calm. “The doctor is here. Where is the injured man?”

“In there, sir.” The serang gave a jerk of his head towards a door on his right. “But there is more trouble, sir.”

“What trouble?”

“See.” The serang held out his right arm and they could see the blood dripping from a wound. “The man is mad, sir. He is waked up and now he is mad. The pain in his head perhaps. He draw a knife suddenly. Start to attack us.”

Finch looked worried. Another problem. “Is he alone in there?”

“Oh, yes, sir. We leave quickly. Lock the door.”

They heard a sudden wailing cry from the other side of the door. It sounded more like a wild beast than a human being.

“You must go in and overpower him,” Finch said; but he sounded doubtful.

The serang looked unhappy. “He will kill, sir. He is mad.”

“But something has got to be done.”

Holt could see that Finch really did not know what to do. It was a difficult situation. Perhaps Mr. Finch was wishing that Johansen were still alive and had the handling of it. Perhaps Johansen would have gone in and dealt with the crazy seaman; but Finch was hardly the man for that task.

Surprisingly, it was Menstein who spoke in a calm, controlled voice. “I will go in.”

“You!” Holt said.

Menstein gave a wry little smile. “It is what I came for. I did not cross that deck for pleasure.”

“But suppose this man attacks you?”

“That is a risk I must take. Please open the bag.”

Holt took the bag from his shoulder and untied the lashing. Inside the bag was a small leather case, quite dry. Menstein opened the case and took out a hypodermic syringe.

“This will calm him.”

“If you can get it into him.”

“I can only try.”

“I’ll come with you,” Holt said.

Menstein looked at him. “You are not afraid?”

“Yes. But I will come.”

“I also am afraid,” Menstein said. “But one must do what one has to do.”

“That’s three of us then,” Finch said. He turned to the serang. “Give me the key.”

The serang handed it to him. Finch unlocked the door. They went inside.

There were half a dozen bunks, double-tiered, and the reek inside was almost overpowering. Between the bunks was a long, narrow table, screwed to the floor. At the far end of the table, with his left hand resting on it and the bloodstained knife still gripped in the other, was the crazy seaman.

He was bigger than most of the lascars and he was naked except for a pair of cotton shorts. He was thin and very dark, and his ribs were all visible under the skin of the chest. He had stopped screaming, but he was snarling like an animal cornered by hunters; his upper lip was curled back and his teeth were clamped tight, jawbones bulging and the tendons in his neck standing out like stretched cords.

He looked as though he had been half scalped; a flap of skin and hair was hanging down over his left ear, and above this flap the head looked raw and bloody. When he had regained consciousness it must have been an awakening to such
agony that it had driven him to strike out blindly, at the serang, at anyone who might come in his way. Holt could almost imagine that he saw the tortured brain pulsing just below the surface of the blood-spattered skull.

And Menstein began to talk.

Holt could not understand what it was that Menstein was saying. It could have been Polish or even Hebrew. It just went on, gently, soothingly. The seaman stared at him, eyes wild with pain. Menstein moved forward, reached the end of the table, facing the man across its length. Holt and Finch followed him warily.

Menstein gripped the edge of the table, steadying himself as the ship bucked. They could hear the rudder chains rattling, the groaning of the timbers. Menstein talked on.

He began to advance along one side of the table. The seaman had not moved.

Menstein was within six feet of the lascar when he switched to English. He said, “Drop the knife.”

The seaman appeared to understand, for he glanced down at the knife in his hand. But he did not drop it.

Menstein edged a little closer. “Drop the knife now.”

And suddenly the man began to scream. It was a terrible sound. His mouth just went wide and the scream came bubbling up from his throat. The scream seemed hardly to belong to him; it was like the voice of a devil coming out of a man possessed.

Menstein stopped moving and looked at the knife. The blade was nine inches long, tapering to a point. It looked razor-sharp and there was blood all along the edge.

Menstein said for the third time, “Drop the knife.”

The lascar stopped screaming suddenly. He came round the end of the table and went for Menstein, the knife raised above his shoulder.

“Oh, my God!” Finch cried.

The knife descended in a glitter of bright steel. But, amazingly, Menstein was not there. At the last moment he had moved aside and the knife passed by him, burying its point in the wood of the table.

“Now!” Holt yelled. “Get him!”

He and Finch jumped at the lascar and bore him to the floor. He was struggling and screaming madly, but they held him there. Menstein stepped forward, plunged the needle into his arm, and in a few moments he was still.

“Now,” Menstein said, “to work.”

When they came out of the after-castle the storm had not abated in the least, but Menstein no longer seemed afraid.

“We have crossed once,” he said. “I know that it is possible. Let us go back. My wife will be worrying.”

Sara was awake when he went in. She took his hands in both of her own. “Saul. Oh, Saul. I have been afraid, so afraid.”

He smiled at her. “I, too, Sara. I, too, have been afraid. But I think perhaps never again. No, never again.”

The wheelhouse was awash with water; broken glass was everywhere. Mr. Prior had seized the wheel, but the helmsman was not as badly injured as they had feared; he had screamed perhaps more from shock and fright than from pain. After a while he came back to the wheel, possibly a little ashamed of himself, and insisted on taking over. Prior was not sorry to be relieved of his unaccustomed task.

Leach said, “We’ve been nicely caught this time.”

“Mr. Johansen had an idea something was coming. He told Finch.”

Leach, remembering that Johansen had also informed him
and had received no thanks from him for doing so, was not pleased to be told about the mate’s forebodings by Mr. Prior. He answered somewhat sourly, “Mr. Johansen won’t be having any more ideas. Not in this world. He’s dead.”

“Dead!” Prior was shocked. “How? When?”

“He was murdered. By that Lycett fellow, I shouldn’t wonder. They’d had a quarrel.”

Mr. Prior was just reflecting that troubles undoubtedly never came singly when, as though to emphasise the truth of this, the engines failed.

T
HE BREAKDOWN
of the
Chetwynd
’s
engines was something that Mr. Henderson had been predicting with monotonous regularity for more than a year. What they needed, according to that gentleman, was a major overhaul, or, better still, complete replacement with new machinery. But the directors of the Barling-Orient Line were strangely reluctant in the matter of major overhauls, and as for putting new machinery in a ship as old as the
Chetwynd,
that was quite out of the question. The Barling-Orient expected its engineers to make do and mend. Economy was the password, but there comes a time when a too rigid adherence to economy can lead to disaster. That time appeared to have arrived for the steamship
Chetwynd.

Not that this would be likely to cause any great distress for the directors of the Barling-Orient, none of whom was on board the ship. If the
Chetwynd
foundered there would be insurance money to draw in compensation, and another ship could always be picked up cheaply to replace the one that had been lost. A pity if lives should be lost too, of course, but people who put to sea in ships must know that they took their lives in their hands. Barling-Orient could not be expected to control the weather.

When Captain Leach rang down to the engine-room to find out what the trouble was he got Henderson himself on the wire. The chief engineer had been there for more than two hours. What with the storm and what with his abiding worry about the engines, he had found it impossible to sleep and had finally come to the conclusion that he might as well do some work as lie sleepless on a wildly tossing bunk. His presence near the machinery had, however, not had any magical effect; the machinery had broken down in outright defiance of its appointed lord and master.

Captain Leach shouted into the telephone, “What’s wrong down there? What’s happened?”

He found some difficulty in hearing the answer above the racket of the storm, and it was doubtful whether he would have understood the technicalities anyway. There was something about overheated bearings, cracked metal, and a lot of other meaningless jargon liberally interlarded with curses. He cut short Henderson’s flow of language with the really important question.

“Can you fix it?”

What sounded like a derisive laugh rattled the earpiece. “Fix it! There is no hope o’ that. I warned you. I warned the owners. There comes a time of retribution. I’m telling you, Captain—”

Leach did not wait to hear what Henderson was telling him. He hung up the telephone and felt the vessel shudder. He heard Prior’s voice.

“What’s the verdict?”

“Bad, Mr. Prior. Very bad.”

“No chance of getting the engines going again quickly?”

“None.”

“Then we’d better say our prayers.”

Leach knew what Prior meant. The ship had been in
enough danger even under power; now she was helpless, a plaything for the wind and the waves. And all their lives depended on the survival of the ship, for in such conditions there was no possibility of launching the boats; and even if launched, no boat could live in that boiling cauldron of a sea.

He noticed that the helmsman was still clinging to the wheel although there was now no steerage way. With the propellor no longer turning, the rudder was no better than a useless slab of metal hanging from the stern.

“If we had had warning,” he said. “we could have avoided this.”

Prior made no comment. Leach turned and faced him. “You think I’m to blame, don’t you? That’s what you think.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then you’re either a fool or a liar. I am to blame. I should have known.”

“I blame no one,” Prior said. “It’s the will of God.”

“I don’t believe in God.”

Lightning streaked across the sky, revealing in its white-hot glare the expanse of tormented water. The invisible wind screamed in insane fury.

“At times like this,” Prior said. “I cannot help believing in God. Or the Devil.”

Finch decided to go and see whether Lycett had returned to his cabin. He found Moira Lycett still alone and distraught with terror.

“The major hasn’t come back then?”

“No. No one has been here since you left me.” She noticed his drenched condition; he was dripping water on to the cabin floor. “You’ve been out on deck? You’ve been looking for him there?”

“I’ve been on deck, but not to look for him. One of the seamen has been injured. I had to take Dr. Menstein to the poop to attend to him.” He felt rather proud of himself. It had been an ordeal at the time, but now it was something to look back on with satisfaction. He had proved equal to the the test. He chose to forget how nearly he had come to refusing to go.

She said, “It’s bad, isn’t it? It’s very bad.”

“It’s not good,” Finch admitted.

He could see the fear in her eyes. “We are in danger. We are.”

“No, Mrs. Lycett. You’ve got to get that idea out of your head.”

“I can’t,” she said. “I’m afraid.”

The cabin rose, leaned over at an angle and seemed to go sliding down into a pit. Moira Lycett gripped the side of the bunk and gave a cry of horror. The cabin stopped falling and began to move in another direction.

“Oh God!” she moaned. “Oh, God, help me!”

Finch put his hand on her arm. “Listen.”

She was silent, staring up at him, waiting for some new revelation of disaster. Finch waited for a moment or two in order to make quite certain, but there could be no doubt about it.

“The engines have stopped.”

Grade noticed it too. Holt was changing his clothes, getting into something drier.

Grade said. “Now we are in trouble. Real trouble.”

“Unless the engineers can fix things.”

“You ever tried fixing engines in a ship dancing about like this?”

“I’m not an engineer.”

“And engineers aren’t miracle men. You ask my opinion, chum, we’re all for the high jump.”

“Now you’re being gloomy. It’s the seasickness.”

“It is not the seasickness. I’m just using my head, and my head says when the engines of an old tub like this go crook in a storm like this you don’t have a first class formula for survival. You’re not A.
1
at Lloyds, if you get me.”

Holt thought Grade could well be right. It was not a pleasant thought. He was young and he had no wish to die; there was too much in life to look forward to. But other men had died young, countless millions of them, not wishing to do so. Death had no respect for man’s wishes.

“Ships don’t sink that easily,” he said.

“If the sea gets into them, they sink. Suppose some of those hatch-covers get ripped off and the sea gets into the holds. Just one hold. What then?”

“No reason to think the hatch-covers will be ripped off.” He did not wish to think about such things, and he wished Grade had not mentioned it.

“They could be though,” Grade said. “You bet your boots they could be, chum.”

He seemed to be in a very gloomy mood indeed, Holt thought. Well, maybe it was the seasickness.

“Forty thousand dollars’ worth of heroin,” Grade said. “And it’s never going to get to the customers. Hell.”

Leach and Prior were both surprised when they saw Maggs clawing his way into the wheelhouse. They were even more surprised when Maggs announced that he had repaired the radio.

“Do you want me to send out a distress signal, sir?”

Maggs had in fact done nothing whatever in the way of repairing the radio for the simple reason that the apparatus
had never been in need of repair. The truth of the matter was that, having by the suppression of the storm warnings brought the
Chetwynd
to her present perilous situation, he had now become thoroughly alarmed. He had never imagined that any storm could be quite so appalling, and now that death seemed to be more than a mere possibility he discovered, rather belatedly, that he had after all no great wish to die. He feared he might have left it too late to avoid that unfortunate outcome, but there was perhaps still a small chance of averting utter disaster, and he had to clutch at that chance, slender though it might be.

It came into Leach’s mind that this was the first time he had seen Maggs since that disgraceful episode in his cabin when he had struck the radio officer with his fist. He ought never to have done that; he had lost his temper. Unfortunate. Most unfortunate.

Just how unfortunate it had been for the entire ship he had no way of knowing. Only Maggs could have told him that, and he was not likely to reveal the secret.

“I had the devil’s own job putting it right,” Maggs said. “But I managed.”

“Good for you, Sparks,” Prior said.

Leach added a grudging word of commendation. Perhaps he had misjudged Maggs. At least the man had not given up. He had probably been sweating away at that radio for hours.

“Yes, we’d better send out a signal. Come into the chart-room and take it down.”

“Damn this for a game of soldiers,” Grade said. “I need a drink. If I’m going to drown I may as well drown happy.”

“I thought you were seasick,” Holt said.

“Somebody once told me there’s nothing like brandy for seasickness. Can’t remember who it was, but somebody.” He climbed out of his bunk and began to dress while the cabin behaved like a cake-walk.

Holt sat on the lower bunk and watched Grade dressing. It was quite a performance; Grade fell over four times in putting his trousers on; but he finally succeeded.

“You coming, Nick boy?”

“The bar will be closed.” Holt glanced at his wrist-watch. “Do you realise it’s half-past four in the morning?”

“This is an emergency, chum. If the bar isn’t open we open it. Are you coming?”

Holt got up from the bunk. “All right. The drinks are on you.”

“The drinks are on the house, chum, on the house.”

Grade opened the cabin door and a rush of water came in, swilling across the floor. The alleyway was a river with the current flowing first one way, then the other.

“This is nice,” Grade said. “I just hope it hasn’t got into the brandy.”

They clawed their way along the alleyway, clinging to the handrails. From the passengers’ bathroom came a noise like somebody going berserk with a sledge-hammer in an ironmonger’s shop. The water came sometimes up to their ankles, sometimes almost to their knees. Holt wondered where it had got in and whether there would be more.

They went up a short stairway, turned right and came to the door of the lounge. They went in. The lounge was very small; there were a few chairs and tables and a compact little bar on the left. The chairs had all fallen over, but the tables were screwed down and immovable. Lights were on and the Eurasian chief steward, Dai Jones, was behind the bar, as though he had been expecting them. He had a glass in his
hand. The glass was half full of rum and it looked as if Jones was also.

He welcomed Grade and Holt with a wave of the glass. “Come in, gentlemen, come in. What can I get you? We have a most fine selection of liquors. Oh, indeed yes. Most fine.” With a magnificent sweeping gesture he indicated the bottles in their racks, and almost fell over, only saving himself by dropping the glass and clutching with both hands at the mahogany bar counter.

“Gimme a brandy,” Grade said. “The biggest you’ve got.”

“Brandy, sir? Yes, indeed, sir. In one moment.” Jones made a grab at the brandy bottle, missed and fell down behind the bar. He made one or two futile attempts to get up and then apparently came to the conclusion that it was really not worth the effort. “Good night, gentlemen. Good night, good sirs. Good—” He closed his eyes and began to snore.

Grade lifted the flap in the counter, stepped carefully over the sleeping Jones, and grabbed a bottle of Napoleon brandy. “Like I said, Nick, drinks on the house. Catch hold.”

He passed the bottle across the counter to Holt and fished up two tumblers. “Fill ’em up, chum.”

Holt did so. He put the bottle down on the counter. The counter began to tilt steeply and the bottle went sliding away, crashed to the floor and broke.

“Careless,” Grade said. He lifted his glass and drank.

Holt was just about to do the same, but staggered as the ship performed one more of its wild dances. He just managed to save himself from falling by clutching at the counter, but half the brandy slopped out of the glass.

“Come back behind the bar,” Grade said. “It’s safer.”

Holt went behind the bar and Grade found another bottle of brandy. They sat down, wedged in with the snoring steward, and began some serious drinking.

Holt was not sure how long they had been there. He was not sure of anything any more, except that warm feeling inside. There was a hellish clatter going on all around, and Grade had been sick more than once over the steward. The steward had stirred a little in his sleep and had muttered something that sounded very much like “Very much obliged indeed, kind sir,” but he had not opened his eyes. He continued to snore gently.

And then suddenly the bar seemed to be going down, and all the chairs came sliding towards it, sliding down the ever-increasing slope of the floor. There was a tremendous rattling and clinking of glass, and a series of violent shudders were passing through the ship; and still the slope became steeper and steeper. Holt looked up and the world seemed to revolve dizzily overhead. He thought hazily: This is it, this is the big one; this is the one that brings down the curtain. But he was not worrying terribly, because there was that warm feeling inside, and he was really very, very tired; so perhaps it was all for the best.

“Here we go, Tom,” he said. But Grade was not listening. He was being sick again over the steward. This time the steward said nothing; he just went on snoring.

The ship groaned. This was surely the agony of death. She lay over on her side and could not right herself. And then there was a sound like a river in spate; it was a hungry, devouring, engulfing sound; the sound of vast quantities of water, uncontrolled and uncontrollable. This water burst upon the ship and swept over her. She lay under the weight of it and could not rise. She groaned with the straining effort to right herself and could not do so. She was helpless, beaten, buffeted into submission.