The Golden Reef (1969) (2 page)

‘I don’t understand. How could you look it up?’

‘It’ s in a book, Ned. The
Valparaiso
was lost in January 1945. Sunk in the Pacific by a Japanese submarine.’

Brett forgot the pipe in his hand; he sat bolt upright. ‘But that’s nearly a year ago and—’

‘And here we find one of the
Valparaiso’
s lifeboats still afloat with a live man in it. It’s a queer do, Ned; a damned queer do. And just too bad that the man seems to have lost his memory. I’d like to hear his story.’

For one who had been so close to death Keeton made remarkably rapid progress along the road to recovery. He seemed to have all the recuperative powers of youth.

‘How old would you say he is?’ Rogerson asked Brett.

Brett stroked his chin. ‘Well now, if you’d asked me that question when we brought him on board I’d have said he was an old man. That’s what privation can do for you. But now that he’s been cleaned up, shaved and had his hair trimmed, you can see he’s young.’

Rogerson nodded. ‘Just a boy. If he’s a lot over twenty I’ll be surprised.’

‘He’s had a tough time for a kid.’

‘And still we know nothing about it. It’s galling. There he is, obviously with the most remarkable story tied up in him somewhere, and there’s no getting it out because his memory’s gone.’

‘Maybe it’ll come back,’ Brett suggested.

But he was doomed to be disappointed; the memory of this man pulled out of the clutches of the sea did not return. Only his body recovered, drawing new strength from the good ship’s food, new energy from rest and sleep. Soon Keeton was sitting up, and his brown, leathery face, shaved of its ragged growth, looked strong and resolute, the hard beak of the nose matched by an angular chin, the mouth between them wide and thin-lipped.

‘He never smiles,’ Rogerson remarked to Brett. ‘I don’t quite like that. Why doesn’t he ever smile?’

‘Maybe there isn’t a lot to make him smile,’ Brett suggested. ‘Maybe when the past is just a blank you don’t find life so almighty amusing.’

The dull look had gone from Keeton’s eyes, and they had
become hard and bright as polished stone. It was difficult to believe that such eyes could not see into their own past; there was so much intelligence in them.

‘I sometimes wonder,’ Rogerson said, ‘whether he does really remember nothing. There are times when you catch some expression, a gleam in his eye – it’s hard to explain just what – but it makes you think he may be hiding something. At least it makes me think so.’

‘Why should he want to hide anything?’

‘Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? Keeton’s been through a bitter experience. Obviously something strange happened to him; how strange we just don’t know. Now, isn’t it possible that he may want to forget that something?’

Brett nodded. ‘Yes, I suppose it’s possible. There’s things I’d like to forget, too.’

‘Exactly, Ned. So perhaps he thinks to himself, here’s a fine chance of rubbing out the past, wiping the slate clean. And the way he does that is to lose his memory.’

‘But he can’t wipe it all out like that,’ Brett objected. ‘We know who he is from the identity discs. He’ll have relations, maybe a wife. They’ll help fill in the gaps. He can’t cut himself off entirely from the past, and that’s why I think your theory breaks down. If you ask me, it’s genuine amnesia.’

Rogerson sucked at his pipe. ‘Well, you may be right. All the same, I can’t get the idea out of my head that he’s purposely hiding something. The question is what?’

‘And why?’

Keeton lay with his arms stretched out along the white bed cover. The arms were dark and thin and sinewy, and the tattooed question mark showed up clearly against the smooth background of the skin. Captain Rogerson, sitting on a chair by the bunk, leaned forward to examine it more closely; he had seen many tattoos, but never that particular design.

‘Where did you have this done?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You can’t remember that either.’

‘I’ve told you. I can remember nothing.’

Keeton’s voice was stronger now; it had a quality of hardness, like the eyes and mouth and the jaw. He might, as Rogerson had said, be little more than a boy, but something had turned him into a man, a tough and possibly a bitter man. Rogerson felt himself to be in the presence of a will that was stronger than his own, and he did not altogether like the feeling. But he persevered.

‘We’ve had a radio signal about you, Keeton. There can be no doubt that you were on board the
Valparaiso
when she sailed from Sydney. The Admiralty have looked up the records and have discovered that you were a naval rating – a seaman-gunner – helping to man the ship’s armament. It seems that only two survivors were picked up – some weeks after the
Valparaiso
was sunk. You and the rest of the crew were believed lost.’

Keeton nodded, but said nothing.

‘Now the question is this,’ Rogerson went on, ‘where were you between January and the time we found you? It’s unthinkable that you could have been drifting about the Pacific in that rotten hulk for nearly a year; so where have you been and what happened to any other men who may have been in the boat?’

‘I can’t remember,’ Keeton said.

‘Nothing? Nothing at all? Isn’t there a gleam of light anywhere?’

There was no emotion in Keeton’s voice; it was flat and expressionless. ‘The past is gone, vanished. Between it and me there’s a blank wall. I can’t see through it and I can’t climb over it. I’ve got no past, only a future.’

‘It’s a pity you have no next of kin,’ Rogerson said. ‘Parents might have helped you to regain touch. But it seems you were brought up in some kind of charitable institution. You have no known relations.’

‘I don’t need any. I can look after myself.’

‘All the same, it’s good to have friends.’

‘I don’t need friends. I’ve got my life. That’s enough.’

‘I can’t understand you, Keeton,’ Rogerson said. ‘You sound bitter. But if you have no memories where does the bitterness come from?’

‘I’m not bitter,’ Keeton said. ‘I’m simply a man who’s had time to think – a load of time.’

‘While you’ve been lying in this bunk? Is that what you mean?’

For the first time Rogerson saw the faintest hint of a smile on Keeton’s face.

‘Of course,’ Keeton said. ‘What else could I have meant?’

The S.S.
Valparaiso
lay alongside the quay in Sydney loading bales of wool while Seaman-gunner Keeton, leaning idly on the rails of the poop, watched other people working.

Keeton was wearing a suit of faded blue overalls with the sleeves cut off above the elbow and very little else. Round his waist was a canvas belt with a wallet in it, a naval jack-knife hanging from a hook, and on his feet a pair of shoes that had once been white. He was nineteen years old but looked older, perhaps because of his dark skin and his lean, bony face. In the gunners’ mess he was known as The Gypsy. He neither liked nor resented the name; he was simply indifferent.

He was still leaning on the rail and watching the cranes dropping their slings into the after hold when Bristow came out of the gunners’ quarters and took up a position beside him.

‘Two more days and they’ll be finished,’ Bristow said. He sucked his teeth loudly. ‘Then we’ll be heading across the great big blue Pacific. Nice long voyage to America and no convoy.’

Keeton did not turn his head. ‘No danger now. The Japs are beaten. As good as.’

‘They’ve still got some subs though.’ Bristow scratched his chest. He was a few years older than Keeton, a thick, fleshy man of medium height. ‘There’ll be no real security until the last one’s been sunk.’

Keeton said nothing. He watched another sling of bales dropping into the hold, twisting as it went.

‘Wool,’ Bristow said. ‘That’s a sight better cargo than some I could name. High explosive, for example. One wallop and up she goes like a flaming rocket. Heavy machinery’s bad, too. I was in a ship once carrying tanks, steel rails, guns, all that sort of junk. Stopped a tin fish half-way across the Atlantic and the old girl went down in less than two minutes.’

‘You told me,’ Keeton said.

‘Did I? Well, that’s how it was.’ Bristow lifted a hand and wiped the sweat from his forehead. ‘My stars, it’s hot. I wouldn’t want to live in a climate like this, not for long.’

Bristow looked as though he felt the heat. His face was soft and lumpy and his hair was red. Wherever his skin was visible, wherever it could be touched by the sun, it was spattered and blotched with freckles. He ran his fingers along the rail and returned to his original subject.

‘Wool, now; that’s a different proposition. A ship with wool in her holds might float a long time after she was hit. Give you time to get away in comfort.’ He took a wad of oily cotton waste from his pocket and dabbed at his face. ‘So you got that tattoo finished. Hurt much?’

‘I wouldn’t say that.’

‘Me, I never did go a lot on that lark. All right for them that likes it. The rope’s good though; I’ll give you that. But why the question mark?’

‘It’s life, isn’t it? A mystery.’

It had been an impulse to have it done. He had thought of it as a kind of symbol – the mystery of his own birth. Now he half-regretted the step; it was pretty silly when you came to think about it.

‘Well,’ Bristow said, ‘if it’s what you wanted.’

Keeton caught sight of Petty Officer Hagan making his way aft, using the starboard side, away from the loading operations. Hagan looked like a man with a purpose.

‘Oh, dear,’ Bristow said. ‘I bet he’s got a job for somebody. I’m making myself scarce.’

He started to drift away, but he was too late; the petty officer had already seen him. Hagan’s bellowing voice was audible above the other noises.

‘I want you, Bristow. And you, Keeton. You can be a bit useful for a change.’

Bristow shrugged in resignation and waited for Hagan to climb the ladder from the main deck.

‘So what’s the trouble this time, P.O.?’

‘You’re for guard duty,’ Hagan said. ‘You’re going to guard some valuable cargo. And you’ll dress proper and all.’

‘Guard duty!’ Bristow said. ‘Well, stone the ruddy seagulls!’

The valuable cargo came aboard in wooden boxes which might have contained small arms or ammunition. The boxes had rope handles at each end and the stevedores stowed them amidships in an improvised strong-room with bare steel sides and a padlocked door. At first Bristow had counted the boxes going in, but he had soon lost count. Now, irked by stiff white trousers, gaiters, webbing belt and sheathed bayonet, he leaned back against the locked door with his hands resting on the muzzle of his rifle.

‘You’d think it was the crown jewels in there. Two armed guards. What are they playing at?’

‘You heard what the P.O. said – valuable machine parts – very secret.’ Keeton spoke cynically. He wondered whether even the petty officer himself believed that story.

‘Who’s going to nip in and pinch secret machinery here?’ Bristow grumbled. ‘They’ve been reading too many thrillers.’

It was close and hot in the alleyway outside the padlocked store-room. Down that iron passage came the oily smell of the engines. They were below the water-line, and it seemed as though no breath of fresh air had ever penetrated so far into the confines of the ship.

‘Roll on four bells,’ Bristow said. ‘Somebody else can take over then. Thank God we’ve only got two-hour watches, not four. Four hours of this and you wouldn’t see me for grease.’

A steward came down the alleyway and paused to stare at the two naval ratings. He was wearing black trousers and a short white jacket with soup stains on it. He had a pinched-in face and no chin to speak of, sleek, oiled hair and a black moustache that was like something that had crawled out of his nose and expired on his upper lip.

He gave a lopsided grin that did nothing to improve his appearance.

‘What you two boys all dressed up for? Armed and all. My, my! Expecting boarders?’

‘Hop it, Gravy Boat,’ Bristow said.

‘The name’s Smith, if it’s all the same to you.’

‘All the same to me if it’s Florence Nightingale. Nobody’s allowed to loiter in this alleyway. You included. That’s orders.’

‘What they got in there, then? Treasure?’

‘I’ll give you treasure, you flipping bottle-washer. Beat it.’

Bristow picked up his rifle and tapped Smith’s shins. The steward gave a yelp, jumped back and struck his head on a fire extinguisher.

Bristow laughed. ‘Now do what I told you. Get moving.’

Smith glowered venomously at Bristow; then he limped away, rubbing the back of his head. At the end of the alleyway he turned and fired a parting insult at Bristow. ‘You fat slob, you. Playing at soldiers. When you going to grow up?’

He made an obscene gesture. Bristow hauled the bayonet out of its sheath and made a rush at him. The steward disappeared very smartly and Bristow came back to his post grinning.

‘Put the breeze up him. Stewards!’

Keeton had taken no part in this horseplay; to him it seemed childish. Bristow slipped the bayonet back into the sheath and was silent for a few minutes. Then he said: ‘I been thinking.’

Keeton grunted.

‘About what that little blighter said – about us guarding treasure. Maybe he was right. Maybe it is treasure in there. Maybe it’s gold.’

‘I never thought it was anything else,’ Keeton said. ‘Nobody but a dim-wit like Hagan would swallow that secret machinery guff. It’s gold all right. We’ll dump it in Uncle Sam’s pocket and then we’ll catch an Atlantic convoy and take the wool to England.’

Bristow scratched the back of his neck, his eyes bright.

‘What a lovely little fortune, hey? Must be thousands of quids’ worth. Suppose it was ours, Charlie. Just suppose it was ours.’

‘You can suppose what you like,’ Keeton said. ‘But it never will be.’

They steamed out into the South Pacific with the morning sun glittering on the water. They left behind them the great steel bridge and set their course eastward for Panama, a long and lonely haul between the islands and the coral reefs, over the carcasses of dead ships and the white bones of long forgotten mariners.

A light breeze was rustling the Red Ensign when Keeton went on watch at noon. He climbed the steel ladder from the gunners’ quarters, went down from the poop and crossed the afterdeck which was now washed clean of the garbage that had accumulated in dock. He was carrying his life-jacket slung over one shoulder and he was wearing a pair of khaki shorts and a khaki drill bush shirt that he had bought from one of the army gunners. He did not believe that he would ever have cause to wear the life-jacket, but he carried it because Petty Officer Hagan was fussy about such things.

The
Valparaiso
was armed with two 20-millimetre Oerlikons, two .50 calibre Browning machine-guns and an old 4-inch breech-loader on the poop. Keeton had never fired a gun in anger. Since stepping on board the
Valparaiso
he had not seen a single enemy plane and had never heard a depth-charge explode. He had fired guns in training, but at this late stage in the war he did not think he would ever be called upon to do more than that. Everywhere in the Pacific theatre the Japanese had been pushed back and on the other side of the globe the Battle of the Atlantic had been won. Keeton would go on watch because that was what he was ordered to do, but his private belief was that gun watches were now no more than a token, a hangover from that time when the war at sea had been fierce and bloody and merciless.

He met Hagan at the foot of the ladder amidships. The petty officer was coming down from the accommodation deck and he looked at Keeton with the sour expression of a man who is always prepared to discover a fault.

‘Where’s your tin hat?’ Hagan asked.

Keeton said: ‘I left it in the cabin. I didn’t think I needed it.’

‘You didn’t think! Let me tell you something, my lad you’re not paid to think. You’re paid to obey orders and orders says you carry a tin hat on watch, see?’

‘I see.’

In Keeton’s opinion Hagan was a jumped-up little Hitler. Just because he had crossed anchors on his sleeve he threw his weight about as if he owned the ship. Keeton would have liked to tell the petty officer just what he thought of his orders, but there would have been no sense in doing so; it would only have meant trouble for himself.

‘I’ll let it pass this time,’ Hagan said, as though he were conferring on Keeton an immense favour, ‘else you’ll be late relieving. But another time remember it.’

Bristow began to grumble as soon as Keeton stepped into the Oerlikon box on the starboard wing of the bridge.

‘You’re late. It’s gone eight bells.’

‘The P.O. stopped me,’ Keeton said.

‘All right for him. He don’t do watches. What did he want?’

‘Chewed me up for not bringing my helmet.’

‘He wants his nut seeing to. What’s he afraid of – sun stroke?’

‘You’d better ask him.’

Bristow went away and Keeton settled down to the long boredom of the afternoon watch. Astern the coastline of the Australian continent had vanished below the rim of the sea; ahead the ocean stretched away into the blue and placid distance. A seabird floated down out of the air to settle with a brief flutter of wings on the truck of the foremast.

Keeton rested his elbows on the edge of the gun-box and stared vacantly at the water. Behind him the barrel of the Oerlikon pointed at the empty sky, its metal gleaming darkly with oil.

It was the second mate’s watch. Mr Jones was a round-shouldered young man with a perpetual worried expression. He seemed to have very little confidence in his own abilities and appeared to be in a permanent state of apprehension that something might go wrong.

To Keeton it seemed that Captain Peterson was inclined to
share Mr Jones’s misgivings, since he would frequently appear on the bridge during the second mate’s watch, as though to keep an eye on the way things were going. Peterson, a small, thin man with the haggard look of a martyr to chronic ill health, had a talent for moving about the ship almost as silently as his own shadow. On this occasion Keeton was unaware of his presence until a sudden gasping cry made him swing round just in time to see the captain suddenly collapse like a man struck down by a blow.

Keeton jumped out of the gun-box and bent over Peterson. He could hear a strange low whistling noise which after a moment he realized was the captain’s breathing. He put a hand on Peterson’s shoulder and could feel the bone under the drill shirt; there seemed to be very little flesh.

‘What’s wrong, sir? Are you ill?’ he asked; and felt immediately the stupidity of such questions.

There was no one else on this side of the bridge. Keeton ran to the wheelhouse, shouting for Mr Jones.

The second mate looked more worried than usual when he saw Peterson. He pulled nervously at his lower lip. ‘What happened to him?’

‘He just collapsed. Seemed to have some kind of attack.’

Mr Jones knelt down and tugged at Peterson’s shoulder, rolling him over on to his back. Peterson’s face was ghastly; although his eyes were open they seemed to be unfocused.

Mr Jones looked at Keeton. ‘You’d better fetch Mr Rains.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Keeton left the bridge quickly and went in search of the mate, aware that Mr Jones wished to shift responsibility to the shoulders of his superior. He found Mr Rains in his cabin smoking a cigarette and entering figures in a notebook. The mate was heavily built with a short, thick neck, lank black hair, a dark chin, and cheeks pitted with pockholes. He had a blustering manner and was not popular with the crew. Keeton detested him.

‘Well, gunner, what do you want?’ he asked.

‘Captain Peterson’s been taken ill, sir. On the bridge. Mr Jones would like you to come at once.’

Rains inhaled smoke from the cigarette and allowed it to
escape slowly. He seemed to be in no hurry.

‘Would he now? And does Mr Jones think I’m a doctor?’

‘I don’t know what he thinks,’ Keeton said. ‘I’m only giving you his message.’

The mate got up from his chair and crushed out the cigarette. ‘All right, all right. I’ll come. You run along now and tell him I’m on my way.’

Mr Jones looked relieved when the mate arrived on the bridge. Rains stared down at Captain Peterson and made a low hissing noise with his lips. Then he said softly, almost as though speaking to himself: ‘He looks like a goner to me.’