Deck Boy, page 37
A shackle! I ran to the rail above the foredeck. Directly beneath me stood the bitts where I had sat the previous day when we were swimming. A heavy shackle had lain upon them, part of Samuel’s work on the foremast shroud. I had set it down on the deck and spread my towel on the bitts because they were too hot. Ossie had stood where I was standing now. The shackle was gone. The ladder he had thrown over to reach the lifeboat hung close by.
“Ossie!” I shouted at the top of my voice. “Ossie!”
“Poor devil,” Smoky said.
But it was not his intention to end his life by drowning, nothing so simple. Now Ossie grasped one of the oars and rose to his feet. Holding the oar vertically with the blade in the air, he drove it with all his strength against the bottom planking. The thuds reached us across the sea. Six, seven, eight times he smashed it down and at length broke through to the ocean beneath. The lifeboat gave a lurch and began to settle.
Having achieved what he wanted, he laid the oar aside and reached for another object, hidden until that moment. It was a red plastic container. Even at that distance I recognised the petrol can with which an engineer had topped up the tank when we went to the island. He unscrewed the cap and sniffed at the liquid inside. It was a ten-litre can, quite heavy. To the horror of everyone who saw it, Ossie steadied himself and upended the can above his head. The bright fuel splashed to his shoulders and saturated the surplice and pyjamas, making them cling to his body. He flung more about the lifeboat and tipped what remained into the sea.
“Ossie!” Everyone was shouting. “Ossie! No!”
At last he took notice of us and turned to face the ship where twenty or thirty fellow seamen had gathered along the rails. He raised a hand.
“Ossie!”
The men in the lifeboat were rowing hard. I grabbed back the binoculars. Ossie was smiling. In the brightening daylight I could even see the scabs on his forehead. He turned again to face the sun, by this time almost clear of the water, and raised his arms like white wings or a sacrifice.
Then he struck a match.
A blinding ball of fire erupted from the lifeboat, filling my vision. I cried aloud. All along the rail others did the same. The binoculars fell, dangling against my chest. Across the water whatever was happening was hidden by the blaze. A pillar of flame rose high above the lifeboat. The sea was on fire.
The petrol burned out but now that part of the boat that was not flooded was ablaze, the many layers of paint, the tar, the wood, the oars and sail. The sun lifted above the sea. Thick smoke fouled the beauty of the morning.
Of Ossie there was no sign, either then or when the rowers could draw near enough to peer into the glowing, flaming shell. Nothing remained to bear witness of my clumsy friend. He had gone into the sea. The shackle had carried him beyond our reach. A fragment of charred, white cotton floated several metres away and that was all.
Out Like a Light
I FOUND Michael and Barbara in Ossie’s cabin. It was a couple of hours later. The cabin had been stripped. Nothing of our friend remained: boards, candles, clothes, shoes, books, vestments, everything had gone. The locker door hung open revealing empty rails and hooks. The drawers were bare. Ossie had got rid of it all. It was as if he had never existed. Except …
Except for a few playing cards and a scrap of paper on the coffee table. I picked up the paper:
Dear Barbara,
I am so sorry! I do love you. Thank you for being my friend. And Michael. And Ben and the others. You’ve all been so kind.
Ossie B
x x x
I looked at the cards. They were from the tarot: the Fool, the Tower, the Moon and one or two more.
Barbara was watching me, his face wet with tears.
After a while I said, “Why did he do it?”
“He couldn’t bear it any longer, I suppose. He was ill.”
“Yes, but why – you know, the petrol and – ”
“I expect it was the dolls.”
“The dolls?”
He smiled faintly. “Perhaps you don’t remember.”
“Don’t remember? How could I forget? I helped him collect the stuff. That night in Panama. I kept watch outside the cabins while he went raking through their hairbrushes and everything.”
“No, not then, later. That time the bosun kicked his door in.”
“And they had the fight? Yeah, I remember that, but what’s it got to do with – ?”
“How everything seemed to come true: Steve with his twisted ankle, Rat’bone’s horrible abscess, the bosun’s arm red raw with the chip fat. Then the bosun burst into his cabin all bandaged up and blazing drunk, remember, and found him with the dolls lying there on his bunk and went mad. Pulled out all the needles and made this big ball of wax with a tuft of Ossie’s hair in it – and his watch and comb and that picture of him with his mother and whatever else. Turned the voodoo back on him. Stuck it on the end of his marlinspike and melted it in the candle flames, everything on fire and smoking and dripping on the dresser? Go on, burn! he said, remember? Burn! Then he threw it out the porthole into the sea. I hope you drown! he said. And Ossie screaming and going out of his mind.”
I hadn’t been there but everyone had told me about it. “So do you think that’s why he …?”
“Well, it was Rat’bone and the others drove him to it, but it’s what he did, isn’t it, set fire to himself and – ” His voice choked. “Can you think of any other reason?”
Michael comforted him.
“Not really,” I said when he had calmed down a little “It’s just, well …” I picked the cards from the table.
“The tarot, you mean? I don’t know anything about that. Not more than messing around and having a few laughs.” Barbara sniffed noisily. “Ossie did though, you’re right, it was important to him. Could have had something to do with it.”
“I’m sure it did,” Michael said. “It’s all tied in together: the voodoo, the tarot, his mother’s ashes, those clothes he wore … Then after they threw his pills over the side …”
I had seen it all – the dolls, the candles, the incense, the needles. I had played with his tarot cards and he had been going to tell my fortune but somehow we’d never got round to it. Some were scary: Death, the Devil, the Hanged Man. One was the Fool, another was the High Priestess. Was that how he saw his mother and himself?
“I don’t like it,” I said, “all that black magic and stuff. Not when it gets serious.”
“Didn’t do Ossie much good,” Michael said, “that’s for sure.”
Which made us remember the petrol, the match, the exploding lifeboat, and we were silent for a long time.
Later that morning, after photos had been taken from every angle, the blackened lifeboat, which had remained afloat and been brought alongside to prevent it drifting, was towed to the island and dragged far up the shore. It was a pity to defile so beautiful a spot but in time the rainstorms and typhoons that swept the Java Sea would strip it bare and it would become a home for crabs and a nesting spot for seabirds.
The engine repairs were taking longer than expected. A message came down from the bridge that we could expect to weigh anchor around breakfast time the next day. In the meantime, work would continue as normal but finish at three so that anyone who wished to visit the island again or swim from the foredeck would be free to do so.
To take my mind off the terrible events of the morning, I did both.
My mattress had lain on the funnel deck all day, baking in the sun, and that evening, taking my seaman’s knife and a metre-long cudgel of two-by-two in case of intruders, I went to bed early. It was dark up there by the lifeboats and engine-room ventilators. Covered by my blanket, I gazed up at the stars. It was impossible to stop thinking about Ossie and for a time I came close to tears. Those who had been there coped in different ways: a few stayed in their cabins. Others sat drinking. Most appeared to have got over it very quickly and gusts of laughter reached me from the bar.
There were snatches of music too, carried intermittently on the breeze. The bosun, possibly missing the company of Rat’bone, had taken his radio to the poop and settled himself in a deckchair with a beer and a paperback. I had seen him there at lunchtime and again when we finished for the day. Now he sat with fresh cans, reading by floodlight. Perhaps even beasts like the bosun liked solitude sometimes. Yet something felt wrong. Although he was half a ship away, I didn’t like it and made sure my cudgel was ready to hand.
I had taken a chance on a few minutes but there was no way I could risk spending the whole night up there by myself. I had tried to persuade Aaron to join me but he reckoned he wouldn’t sleep very well and preferred to stay in the cabin. Kevin, however, who had been my companion the night before, had enjoyed it and promised to join me as soon as he’d finished his drink and a game of darts.
“You’ll not be long?”
“Ten minutes tops,” he said. “See you up there.”
A loud belch announced his arrival. “God, look at those stars!” He threw down his bedding and flopped beside me. “Brought us these.” He set down a couple of cans and offered me something wrapped in a screw of paper torn from a magazine.
“What is it?”
“Chocolates.”
“Where’d they come from?”
He shrugged. “Box in the messroom. Want one?”
“No thanks.”
“Come on.” He urged me.
“No, really, just brushed my teeth. Still taste the toothpaste.”
“You should, they’re good.”
“Only got one filling, want to keep my teeth.”
“Always get falsers.” He shone his torch and chose another. His breath smelled of beer and chocolate.
“Whose are they anyway?”
“No idea. There’s boxes all over the place. Another one in the bar. Engineers’ rest room. Saw Tony Fanny Whatsit taking one up to the bridge. Reckon the old man sent ‘em down to cheer us all up a bit after what happened.”
He spread his blankets and slipped beneath. For a while we talked. The smell of chocolate was very tempting.
“I’m tired. Been a long day.” He yawned. “Hey, hear the one about the woman teacher and the trapeze artist?”
It was very smutty but a good joke. I laughed. “Charlie tell you the one about the elephant in the Garden of Eden?”
He didn’t reply.
“Kevin?”
He was sound asleep, out like a light. Too much beer.
The ship grew quiet. I lay for a while then turned on my side. My thoughts returned to Ossie. Where was he now? Had octopuses found his body? The Garden of Eden – was there a heaven? Gran said there was. But I was tired too. Little by little the day slipped away.
If I’d known what lay ahead I would never have closed my eyes.
Ka’tang
ONE SECOND I was asleep, the next I was wide awake. My skin prickled. I gazed across the moonlit deck, stared into the shadows.
Nothing moved.
What had wakened me? I listened. Silence. Then a patter of feet on the deck below. Whispers.
I pushed down the blanket. “Kevin.”
He did not stir.
I reached across and shook his arm. “Kevin!”
Still nothing.
“Kevin! Wake up!”
He lay like one dead. I crawled across. “Come on! Wake up!” I shook his shoulders. Shook him till his head wobbled.
No response. A wet snore. A slobbery intake of breath.
What was wrong? Was he drunk?
More running. In T-shirt and underpants I crept to the for’ard rail where a lifetime ago we had peeped down on Trish in her bikini. The funnel deck was at the same level as the bridge. Between them and one deck lower lay number three hatch with open wooden deck at either side. I could see as clear as day because apart from the bridge and the funnel deck – the two topmost decks – the ship was lit like Christmas from stem to stern, deck lights as well as floodlights, in case of any attempt to board us.
A man appeared below me. He was not one of the crew. I shrank back and watched. He was Asian and thin with a bare chest and bare feet, a dark red sarong, his wild black hair bound up in a scarf. He carried a rifle, worn and businesslike. The light caught the whites of his eyes. He terrified me.
A second man appeared, also Asian, at the opposite side of the hatch. He had a long face and a glint of gold in his teeth. This man wore jeans and a loose shirt. He carried a machete.
One signalled to the other. Agile as cats, they flitted up the steps to the bridge, one port, one starboard, and vanished into the shadows. A sudden scuffle, a cry, a thud. Then silence. I glanced at my watch. It was after midnight.
A light went on in the chartroom, another in the wheelhouse, flooding out through the open doors. It illuminated a figure lying on the deck. It looked like Philip. The man in the sarong prodded him with a foot. He did not stir. Was he dead?
Directly beneath the bridge lay the deck officers’ quarters. More lights were switched on: the rest room, the cabins, the radio room. I heard voices, one loud and complaining. It was Tony, the senior cadet. Wearing boxer shorts, he appeared in the doorway, driven backwards, gesticulating. The man in jeans slapped him across the head, struck him with the flat of his machete, knocked him down.
Now a third man appeared, accompanied by a boy. I recognised the man at once, even though he was dressed very differently from the last time I had seen him. It was the man I had met in Wellington, the educated native, if I can call him that, with a high cupid’s bow, high cheekbones and animal eyes; the man who had cut my arm and threatened to cut my throat. The beautiful suit was gone, now he wore a sarong and a loose native shirt. They suited him better. He carried two weapons: an ornate dagger on a cord round his neck and a Kalashnikov rifle slung across his shoulders. It was plain that he was the leader.
Though he looked no more than thirty, I took the twelve or thirteen-year-old boy beside him to be his son. He had his father’s broad face, golden-brown skin and blue-black hair, only where the man’s thick hair was brushed straight back, the boy’s hair hung in a fringe. Like his father he wore native dress but his weapons were different: on one hip he carried a sheath knife, on his other hip a worn and empty holster. The pistol was in his hand, not a shiny plaything but a battered, military-type weapon that looked as if he shot things with it.
“Ka’tang.” The man in jeans dragged Tony to his feet. “Ka’tang!”
The leader looked towards him. They exchanged words in some foreign tongue. Tony was flung back down and threatened with the machete.
I crawled back to Kevin and shook him again. He did not wake. I slapped his face. He swallowed, gave a little moan and slept on.
A screw of paper fell from his blanket. The remaining chocolates scattered across the deck. Without thinking, I popped one into my mouth and crunched down. Cherry creme. The flavour flooded my mouth. Then – chocolates! Instantly I spat it out, a chewed lump. I sucked the saliva from my cheeks and drooled it on to the deck. Sucked it from around my teeth. Hawked softly and spat again.
How could I have been so slow, so stupid? Jumbo Ryland and this man called Ka’tang meeting by appointment at the Ascot Hotel; boxes of chocolates, identical to those Captain Bell had given us, lying on the table; the black holdall full of them; suddenly the whole ship awash with chocolates; and Kevin lying unconscious at my feet with chocolates by his trailing hand. No wonder there had been no alarm. No wonder these raiders, pirates, whatever they should be called, had met no resistance as they boarded us. No wonder they went about the ship unchallenged. The chocolates had been spiked with some powerful drug, and heavily spiked it seemed. Who wouldn’t help himself to a chocolate or two if a box was left open invitingly and they were there for the taking? Perhaps not everyone but nearly everyone. The watch and lookouts, I guessed, were out cold, dead to the world. Even if the alarm had been raised, how could the remaining sailors have resisted these armed brigands? Ka’tang was free to do whatever he wanted, take the whole ship if he felt like it, once the engines had been fixed.
Once the engines had been fixed! That explained the sabotage.
In a second the whole plan became clear. It was so simple, so audacious. All it required were a few boxes of chocolates, a seaman to scatter them around, an engineer who would take a bribe – and the ship’s position.
But how could they know the position? It was impossible to know in advance where the overheated bearings would bring us to a standstill. And even if Pacific Trader was lit up like a beacon, that didn’t help the raiders if she was ninety miles away, hidden below the horizon. They needed a D.F. radio bearing. I remembered the second object I had seen in the Albatross Bar – a portable radio. But not principally a radio for entertainment, I guessed, a compact and powerful transmitter. As Ryland had sat at the stern listening to music, he had not been missing his friend, the abominable Rat’bone, as I too generously thought. Far from it, he had been signalling to these cutthroats who had come aboard while the crew lay in a drugged sleep, and now swarmed about the ship.
I looked down at my tangled bed. There wasn’t much I could do about the mattress, but I threw my blankets on top of Kevin and arranged the pillows to look as if he was alone up there, then crawled back to the rail.
Ka’tang and his son had gone. So had the man with the rifle and a scarf round his head. Tony had crawled to his knees. He was trying to explain something to the pirate who stood above him. The man took little notice, perhaps he did not speak English. When Tony tried to stand, he kicked him back with a bare foot and raised the machete. I saw the metallic glint of his smile.
Voices came from aft. There was a shuffle of feet. I pressed deeper into the shadows. A number of the crew – I counted nine – had been rounded up and were herded on to the open deck alongside the hatch. These men, I guessed, had not eaten the chocolates. I saw Michael, Smoky, Steve Petersen, the alcoholic Chippy, some engineers, the donkeyman and Jumbo Ryland. Tony was beaten along to join them.
Seven of Ka’tang’s men stood round. All were armed. They were a mixed bunch in jeans, shorts, sarongs, some bare-chested, some in ragged-T-shirts, some with cloths twisted round their brows. They lounged or stood easily, weight on one foot. Except for one, yellow-haired and restless, who seemed in the grip of some drug or illness, constantly touching his face, his chest, plucking at his clothes. If any of the crew attempted to escape, I had little doubt they would be hacked down or stopped in some other terrible way before they had gone a dozen paces. These men, particularly the twenty or twenty-five-year-old with tight yellow curls, might enjoy it.
