Deck Boy, page 28
Jumbo Ryland, who sat beside him, looked the clumsy thug he was. This man could have batted him aside, permanently, with scarcely a thought.
A third man was with them, hidden from where I was standing by a tub of New Zealand ferns. All I could see was a long hand holding a cigarette. He flicked it with a thumb nail. As he raised his whisky tumbler, cigarette protruding, a signet ring on his little finger flashed in a stray beam of sunshine.
All this I saw in a matter of seconds. I hadn’t dared go into the Albatross Bar but stood at the entrance, peeping round the doorpost. I would have stayed longer but there was an intrusion:
“That’s your coffee, sir.” The waitress stood at my elbow.
I jumped with fright.
“I’ve left it on the table.”
“Thank you,” I said and came away quickly.
They may have heard but I don’t think they saw me. At least, no one came raging from the bar to confront me.
The coffee was delicious and the motherly waitress had brought a double helping of shortbread. I’d have enjoyed it more if I hadn’t been hiding behind the New Zealand Herald, every second fearing to have it snatched from my hand and the bosun or the scary stranger staring down at me.
I finished my first cup and poured a second. Then, being still unmolested, I put on my sunglasses and returned to the door of the Albatross Bar. The three men sat as I had left them. The only difference was that their glasses had been refilled. The powerful Filipino, if I may call him that – though he could have come from anywhere in southeast Asia or even the Pacific islands for all I know – was drinking cocktails, Ryland beer, the hidden man another whisky.
As I stood watching, Ryland unzipped the holdall at his feet and took out a box of chocolates. Chocolates? He set it on the table. I couldn’t read the lettering but it looked like those we had been given by Captain Bell. Identical in fact. He bent to the holdall again and rooted beneath a number of similar boxes. But it wasn’t chocolates he was seeking this time, and he emerged holding what appeared to be a sturdy portable radio. What was it all about? I was so intrigued that I failed to pay proper attention to the others at the table.
Sensing something, perhaps, the Filipino turned towards me. Just in time I ducked back and hid for a minute but no one appeared. I returned to my seat. Sheltering behind the Herald again, I added cream and sugar to my coffee and ate another shortbread. No matter how I puzzled my brain I couldn’t make sense of what I had seen. Then, needing the toilet, I checked the coast was clear and headed down some broad carpeted stairs.
They led to an elegant basement lobby with a waxed floor and rugs. The gents, or Gentlemen’s Cloakroom, was situated at one side. Like the rest of the hotel, the cloakroom was spacious and spotless. A row of ornate washbasins stood apart. Perfumed soap scented the air. I was drying my hands on a luxurious paper towel when the door opened and the Filipino stranger walked in. For a split second our eyes met in the mirror then I looked down and continued what I was doing.
“I saw you outside,” he checked the cloakroom was empty. “In the hotel garden. You were hiding behind some bushes.”
I was so frightened I could hardly breathe.
He joined me at the washbasins. “Now I see you inside, spying at the door.”
“I’m sorry?” I pretended puzzlement. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t lie to me, I saw your reflection in a mirror.”
“I just came in to get out of the heat, have a coffee.”
“An unusual place for a boy your age to come for coffee.” Those tiger eyes bored into me. “Expensive, no?”
“I can afford it. Anyway,” my heart thudded, “what’s it got to do with you?” I dropped the towel into a wicker basket and turned away.
He gripped my wrist, his fingers so strong I cried out. “It has everything to do with me. I do not like people who spy on me.”
I tried to pull away.
“Who are you?”
“That’s,” I struggled, “none of your business.”
He threw me backwards and the next moment a knife was in his hand. Where it had been hidden in that thousand dollar suit I have no idea.
“I will ask you again.” The knife was very sharp. He pressed the blade against my forearm. “Your name.”
“Billy Wilson.”
“And where do you live – Billy Wilson?”
“Out … out the edge of town.”
“Oh, I believe you. So tell me, Billy Wilson from the edge of town, how is it you’ve got an English accent? Why are your nails broken with hard work? What’s this paint on your wrist?”
“I … I was just …” The knife had me hypnotised.
“Let me tell you what I think.” He pressed the blade harder. “I think you’re not spying on me at all – at least you weren’t to start with. I think you saw that gorilla who met me in the street. I think you recognised him and became curious. Which probably means you’re off the same ship.”
“What ship?” I blustered. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
It was a clumsy lie.
“Yes.” He slid the knife sideways, just a centimetre. A red-hot pain made me cry out. A ten-centimetre cut opened in my arm. Blood ran towards my wrist. I snatched up a towel to staunch it.
“Call it a little reminder,” he said and wiped the blade. “Now, Billy Wilson or whatever your name is, let me give you a piece of advice. You snagged that arm on a wire. You were never here. You never saw me. You never saw your ugly shipmate on the pavement.” He returned the knife to some sheath inside his jacket. “Tell no one about this afternoon and it is finished. Open your mouth – and I assure you a lot more blood will be spilled than that. If the need arises, I will cut your throat. You would not be the first.”
I was shaking.
“Now go,” he smiled. “Perhaps we will meet again, who knows?”
I lifted the towel and saw my blood, vivid against the snowy paper.
“Here,” he handed me another. “It’s not deep, the bleeding will soon stop.”
I looked him in the face, a face I would never forget, and made my way across the cloakroom. As I reached the door it opened and an elderly guest came in. He held it for me to pass. Scarcely knowing what I did, I crossed the downstairs lobby and climbed the staircase. The remains of my coffee and shortbread lay on the table. I collected my small bags of shopping and left the hotel.
“Hey! Hey!” The porter ran after me. “You paid for that coffee?”
“What? Oh!” I returned to the foyer. “Sorry, I went to the toilet.”
“And forgot, I suppose. Well, we’ll see what the manager has to say. Rowena,” he called to the waitress. “This lad you were serving. Tried to slip off without paying.”
She hurried across. “Let go of him, Eddie. It’s only a cup of coffee.”
I didn’t feel too good.
“You all right, dear? You’re white as a sheet. What’s wrong with your arm?”
“Nothing, just a bit of a cut. It’s opened up again.”
“Let me see. Come on, sit down over here.” She took my elbow. “I’ll fetch a plaster.”
“No, it’ll stop in a minute. Thanks.”
“Are you sure?” The red had soaked through. “Looks nasty to me.”
“No, really.” I turned away and doubled the towel. “How much do I owe?” Awkwardly I pulled out a small wad of notes.
“I’ll get your bill.”
Just at this time there was an influx of guests and amid all the activity I lost sight of the Albatross Bar. By the time they had dispersed and I’d paid my bill – eight dollars for a coffee – the three I had been watching had gone. I looked through the door and the barman was wiping their table. They hadn’t crossed the foyer and gone out through the main entrance, I was pretty sure of that, they had left by a different route.
I returned into the sunshine and stood wondering: what was Ryland up to? I had met the Filipino but who was the third man? Was he off the ship? A New Zealander? Perhaps another Asian – certainly his hand was brown. But then my own hand was brown. Although I had been badly frightened, I was curious.
I ran down the steps to the pavement, still pressing the towel to my arm and feeling a bit sick, and along a leafy side street to the back of the hotel. They were nowhere to be seen. Somewhere an expensive car engine coughed into life. I looked towards the sound and the black limousine emerged from an entrance between vine-covered pillars. It turned towards me. Hastily I pushed through a gate into someone’s back garden. The limousine purred past. Had I been seen? Were three pairs of eyes turned in my direction? I stared through branches but the person or people inside were invisible behind the smoked windows.
Cargo Lights
“SINGAPORE, COLOMBO, Naples and Liverpool,” Charlie said.
“Sounds good,” I said. “Have you been there before?”
“Liverpool, not the others though. I like the sound of Naples.”
“Oh, Naples is gorgeous,” Michael said. “Pavement cafes, lovely wine, all those scrumptious dark-eyed boys.”
“Hey!” Luigi turned on him. “I thought I your scrumptious dark-eyed boy. We go Napoli, I show you Napoli.”
They were our ports of discharge. I had seen them chalked on the side of freezer wagons.
“You from round there then, Luigi?” Aaron said.
“My village in the mountains, fifteen kilometres. I go to school’a Napoli.”
“Family still there?” I said.
“Si, my mother, my father, my brothers, my – ”
“Sisters?” Aaron said. “Got any sisters, yeah? Dusky Marias, figures like – ” he sketched them with his hands.
“You think I introduce you to my sisters?” Luigi said. “A dirty Don Juan like you? You touch’a my sisters, my brothers they kill you. They chop you into little pieces and send you home to mama.”
It was a joke but only half a joke.
“All that Latin blood,” Barbara said. “It’s just like an opera.”
“Come on, Luigi,” Aaron persisted. “You’ve been around a bit, you’re not like that are you?”
“Me? No, I stab you in the heart, cut out’a your eyes, chop off your – ”
“All right, all right,” Aaron said. “I get the picture. Dear, oh dear! … How about cousins?”
Loading continued full steam ahead throughout the weekend and well into the evenings, but because of some dock dispute there was to be a strike on Wednesday. The bosun waylaid me as we knocked off at teatime the day before. Covered in paint, my gloves black and hair streaked, I waited for a blast of ill-humour or some filthy task to stop me going ashore. To my surprise the blast never came and the task was easy enough.
“It’ll count as overtime so put it on your sheet.” He nodded amicably. “The cargo lights are bashed to buggery, mate wants the whole lot bringing up on deck. This strike tomorrow, gives the leckies a chance to get them serviced. I want you to fetch ‘em up out of four and five holds, cadets are doing the rest. Obviously the wharfies need ‘em while they’re still loading so you’ll have to wait till knocking-off time. Shouldn’t take long.”
I was pleased at the chance to earn some extra. “Thanks, Bosun.”
“Put down a couple of hours.” He patted my shoulder. “I’ll OK it with the mate.”
He never mentioned the pad of lint and sticking plaster on my arm. I’d bought some first-aid stuff in a chemist’s on the way back to the ship and Charlie helped me with the dressing. I had told him about my frightening encounter the moment I got back, but stopped short of telling the mate, who was responsible for the well-being of the crew. The memory of that knife against my arm and the threat of what might happen if I reported it were more than enough to ensure my silence. Unlike the bosun, the mate spotted the dressing when I was working on deck and enquired in a concerned way, which surprised me. I told him, as I had told everyone except Charlie, that I had scratched myself on a wire as I walked into the city. He took me to the sick bay to examine it, but since by that time the cut was scabbed over and there was no sign of infection, there the matter rested.
And so, a bit after seven on that Tuesday evening, I pulled my working gear back on, collected a heavy-duty torch and headed down the hatches. Loading was still in progress but I could make a start with the cargo lights that were obviously broken. The bosun was right, they were in a bad state.
A working hold contained about eight. The wharfies shifted them from deck to deck and port to starboard, wherever light was needed. Each consisted of a domed metal shade about fifty centimetres across with a 150 watt bulb protected by steel mesh. They had handles but were normally lugged about by long electric cables that plugged into sockets in the holds. At every level I found at least one damaged, either hanging useless or kicked into a corner.
The cold was intense. Like the dockers, I had to wear gloves or my hands would stick to the metal rungs of the ladders. Number five hold, situated on the afterdeck, had three levels: starting at the bottom these were the lower hold, which was by far the biggest, the lower ’tween deck and the upper ’tween deck, in all about fifteen or twenty metres from top to bottom. Number four hold, situated at the after end of the crew deck, had a non-refrigerated shelter deck in addition.
I began my work, unplugging the broken lights, unhooking them, carrying them to the ladders, heaving them up by the cables – deck by deck, one at a time, clattering against the manholes – finally depositing them in a corner of the afterdeck ready for the electricians.
A klaxon sounded. Eight o’clock, they were knocking off early. Time for the wharfies to start plugging up, closing the holds so they could be frozen down during the strike day. I hauled out the lights they had been using but though I worked like a slave, it wasn’t possible to keep up. Before I could finish, the working holds were plugged, the hatches were covered, the canvases were heaved on top, and the wharfies were streaming across the quay on their way home, or to the nearest pub.
Still, my work was more than half done. I descended into the lamplit darkness. It was spooky down there, pillars all about me, thousands of carcasses, shadows leaping as I carried the lights from hook to ladder. It grew colder. Fans which could not be turned on when the wharfies were working, filled the holds with arctic blasts.
I heaved the last light from number four hold, dropped the refrigeration plug in place and closed the lid of the booby hatch. Daylight was almost gone, the last streaks of sunset darkened above the city. Orange lights illuminated the quay. Deck lights shone from the mast and bulkheads.
Only number five hold to finish. I grasped the sides of the booby hatch where so long ago I had watched Tony Fanshott-Williams emerge with the snorkelling gear, and descended the ladder into the shadows.
The lower hold is a single, enormous space, seven or eight metres high. The ’tween decks are much lower and may be a single space extending the full width of the ship, or may be divided into two huge lockers, port and starboard, with an open section between. This was the case with number five hold.
The wharfies, knowing my task, had left the manholes open. I descended to the upper ’tween deck and continued down to the lower ’tween deck. They had been loading the starboard locker, lamb above butter, destined for Liverpool. I was surprised to see the insulated door stood ajar, emitting a shaft of light from a cargo light that had been left inside. I put down my torch to leave both hands free and heaved the door wide. The ’tween deck was bitterly cold, the locker even colder, sparkling and smoking with frost. As I laboured, my breath condensed in white clouds.
The walls of the locker were permanent wood, the deck covered in deep sawdust beneath wide-spaced battens – five-inch planking. The cargo light had been hung from a frame that protected the overhead refrigeration pipes. I could not untangle it wearing my clumsy gloves and set them aside on a carcass of lamb. As I picked at the wire it stuck to my fingers.
It was while I was engaged in this that I heard a little sound, and looking round saw the locker door swing shut.
“Hey!” I shouted. “Who’s that?”
It was a joke, I thought, Charlie was having a bit of fun at my expense.
“Hey!”
There was no reply.
“Hey!” I stumbled across the awkward battens. “Charlie? Philip?”
Still no one replied. I felt a twinge of fear .
“Come on! Open the door!”
Then I saw that, far from opening, the thirty-centimetre-thick door was squeezing shut, nipping the electric cable. Whoever was outside was tightening the clamps, big screws turned by an iron lever. It was necessary to have an air-tight seal when the temperature would be dropped to minus fourteen.
I hammered on the metal-strapped wood. “Open up!”
Another centimetre. A squeak of wood on wood. The door was almost flush with the bulkhead.
“Come on! Come on, who is it?”
The movement stopped. The door was screwed fast shut.
“Hey!” Again I hammered, kicked it with the toe of my trainers.
From the far side there was a mocking tap.
“Open up!” Twice I beat on the wood with the flat of my hand.
Tap – tap!
Then silence.
I gazed around my smoking, frosted, half-loaded prison. Ice crystals glittered in the cargo light.
Now truly frightened, I almost broke my fist beating on the door. “Hey-y-y-y!” The walls and carcasses deadened my shout.
The cold air bit my neck. I turned up my collar.
“Hello-o-o-o!”
