A Ship's Tale (14 page)

Chapter 10

A HUB OF ACTIVITY

As I came within sight of the old vessels, I was dismayed to see the same official car that had visited last week, but then all those official cars do tend to have a sort of shiny resemblance. Nearby stood two bowlered, striped-trousered, black-coated bureaucrats, engaged in a conversation with members of the local constabulary whose workaday police car was drawn up behind theirs. Bowman stood on the deck of the
Bonnie Clyde
watching them. As I came within earshot, the policemen approached Harris who was casually blocking the bottom of the gangway.

One of the policemen said, “Beg pardon, sir, but one of these gentlemen tells me that on Thursday last he was assaulted by you aboard one of these ships, so we've come to enquire into the matter.”

Harris straightened his coat and looked blankly in the direction of the two officials. “Those gentlemen? You mean those pathetic excuses for human beings over there?” he asked in tones of the greatest incredulity, nodding towards the men standing against the car. “Assault one of them? Not likely! If I had, he'd scarcely be standing there neither bruised nor bleeding, and looking fresh as a daisy.”

The officer said, “He told me that you threw him into the Thames.”

“Threw him into the Thames?” Harris exclaimed. “I did no such thing! I was holding him up while he was sitting on the rail. That was after he kicked
me
, quite without provocation, which I admit caused me no small annoyance. He demanded that I release him, so I did. He went into the water entirely at his own request, and all here witnessed the event.” Harris gazed at the officer levelly. “Well, Inspector?”

The constables looked at one another, then over to where the two stereotypical instruments of British bureaucracy stood by their gleaming black car, with suits, hats, and umbrellas all neatly polished and fitted to a nicety. They then looked at Harris, whose imposing figure made a clear argument that had any serious assault taken place, the effects would have been more apparent and more lasting. They were obviously growing uncomfortable trying to make sense of this situation in the absence of tangible evidence, and had little choice but to terminate the investigation.

They returned to the two officials. “Well, sir,” said the officer, “I'm afraid we have no grounds for making an arrest here. It's no more than your word against his, and he has witnesses. I
am
sorry.” Then the policemen got back into their car and left.

The two officials shot back many a black look at Harris, Bowman, and the ship as they got back into their car and roared off.

I daresay we all breathed a sigh of relief as they drove away.

Later, another black car came into view, and I thought at first that last week's officials were again returning to the fray. I joined Harris at the gangway, and we watched as the car rolled up and came to a halt. It was a
second
official vehicle. We watched as two different policemen stepped out. With them were two naval officers, one a full commander. Harris looked up at Bowman, “Heads up Uncle Billy, here we go,” he murmured.

The police followed as the naval officers came over directly to Harris. He and the commander shook hands, so it was obvious that they knew each other. “Well, Harris! It's been some time since I've seen you back at the scrap-yards,” said the commander, gazing keenly at the old ship.

Harris was the very soul of amiable politeness. “Oh, I hadn't much left to do there and I haven't been recalled for another shift, else I'd gladly pop by, Commander.”

“The reason we're here,” the commander began in a cautious tone, “is that it appears as though quite a bit of gear has gone missing from some of the old rust-buckets and war-horses. We thought it best to come and have a look round the area and see what we could find.”

I was horrified. If I wasn't pale before, I surely looked white as a ghost now. Knowing that I could be of little help here, I stood by and kept quiet.

The whole party made their way on board to be met ungraciously by Bowman. “What the bloody hell d'ye want here?” he snapped. That was scarcely more than the typical Bowman greeting.

“Request permission to come aboard,” the commander said in proper naval protocol. “We'd like to have a look around,” he added mildly. “Please step aside.” Once on deck, they walked around, then slid open the hatch and went down the ladderway to explore below. This yielded no more startling discovery than a few empty glasses. They'd little knowledge of the ship's real condition and commented as they came back up the ladderway that it didn't look half bad down there, and surely when she was broken up some of that nice panelling could be salvaged. Wouldn't it look famous in someone's den? Then they walked over to Harris, who was sitting on the hatch of the main cargo hold.

The commander looked expectantly at him. “I hope you'll pardon me, Harris, if I have a look inside there.”

“Whatever for?” said Harris, appearing surprised.

“Now don't be coy with me. You know I need to see what's inside. Oddly enough, the inside hatches seem to be jammed.”

Harris slid off the hatchway and rose to his full height before the commander. “Yes, sir,” he replied in a flat voice giving a crisp salute, and then turned away towards me. I knew what they'd see in the main hold. It was a bo'sun's gold mine and virtually everything we'd need for the voyage. When they looked in that hatchway and discovered everything, we would be lost!

They wasted no time throwing back the hatch cover. They looked in, I looked in, and we all looked in, and then at one another as a terrible smell drifted out. I was astonished, as were they. For the entire hold was filled nearly to the top with the most putrid, evil-smelling rubbish I had ever seen or smelt in my life! How on earth had my shipmates put it all in?

The commander walked over, pushed his swagger stick into the reeking mess and gingerly stirred it about.

“Harris, this is nothing more than a damned old rubbish scow,” he said, holding his nose and shaking off his stick. “Ugh, look at it! Here, close this up,” he said to the police officers, who did so with all possible haste, while trying to hold their breath.

“Well, what did you expect, the bloody Queen Mary?” growled Harris. The other naval officer spoke up, grimacing. “So this is what you lot do, just bung all your muck in there?”

Harris smiled, “Would you feel better if we'd thrown it into the river and had it wash up somewhere? The ship's already condemned. What could it matter?”

“What indeed!” the commander agreed. “Well, let's look at these other hulks.” He turned and led his party onto the centre vessel, but there was nothing to be found. A glance was sufficient to show that the sunken coal barge beyond held nothing of value. “Very well, Harris, I've seen your little exhibit. But I know those things taken from the yard went
somewhere
.”

Harris pointed out that there were plenty more docks at Sheerness and plenty more men there who also worked in the scrap-yard. The commander shook his head. He was certain that Harris was either in possession of some of the missing items, or at least knew something about where they had gone, but this served him no good purpose. They weren't where he'd expected to find them, and he was not going to devote much more time to hunting for articles that had been marked for scrap.

“A good day to you, Harris,” he said with a wry look, “till we meet again.” And he led his little entourage away while Bowman glowered. Harris made no reply, but waved cheerily as they left the ship. He said not a word as they got into their car. As they backed away, his smile turned to a snarl of defiance. “You bloody Admiralty bastards, may you rot in seven shades of hell!” he muttered.

I turned to him, baffled. “How did the hold get filled with rubbish since yesterday? And what's become of all our line, tackle, and the lot?”

Bowman was laughing now. In fact, I don't believe I'd ever seen him laugh so wholeheartedly before. Edward emerged grinning from some corner. Harris joined in and was slapping Bowman on the back as they stood laughing and shaking hands, obviously congratulating themselves. I stood by feeling very left out. “Here, will someone please tell
me
what's going on?”

“Aye,” said Bowman. “Have a look here, lad.” As Harris opened the hatchway again, he took a very small belaying pin out of the rails and used it to stir up the rubbish. The stench was overpowering. “Ye see, it appeared to me that if ye wanted to make this sort of arrangement convincing, it would have to be deeper than an Englishman's riding crop, or swagger stick, if you will.” He then replaced the pin in the pin rail and brought out a stick nearly as tall as himself. “But,” and he poked it down through the rubbish, “no deeper than a Scotsman's walking stick.” He tapped. I could clearly hear the hollow sound of a wooden surface under the rubbish. A false bottom. What a bloody great trick!

“Now then,” said the old man, “We've got to move this nasty lot into the hold of the other ship so they'll deep-six it along with her. So, lend me your backs, boys! Let's have at it.”

I balked at this. “Now? But I've been moving rocks all day…”

“Oh come now, Flynn, it'll be done in no time,” Harris cajoled. Done in no time usually meant that
we'd
do it, and he'd supervise. I'd not let him get away with it this time.

“Boris!” Harris roared down into the hatchway. “Give us a hand here with the rubbish.” Boris raised his head through the hatch. “Sahmi nagadili, sahmi ubirayte. Yah ne sobirayus vam pomogat!
Nyet
!” (You made this stinking mess, you clean it up yourself. I'm not going to help you with it.
NO
!), he yelled and disappeared just as quickly.

“What was that?” I asked.

Harris looked at me. “I don't know, but that last bit,
nyet
, was no!”

The rest of us set to work together at this unsavoury task, trying our best to avoid breathing deeply. The afternoon sun shone down upon us with unseasonable heat, which of course brought out the full bouquet of this vile “cargo.” One had to admit that Bowman knew what he was about doing when he thought of this. It was the perfect deterrent to a further exploration of the hold.

Luckily, Bowman thought to lay out a sizeable tarpaulin before loading in, so once we'd taken off half the stuff, the rest could be gathered up into one great malodorous bundle and hauled out. As we tugged and wrestled with the beastly thing, I fancied I could hear the faint sound of a man singing from underneath. I turned to Harris. “Listen! What's that?”

He cocked an ear for a moment, then poked his head into the hatchway and shouted down through the half-exposed false bottom, “Boris, give over that noise!”

Quite a wealth of muffled words in Russian came back in reply, none sounding like an expression of delight. Harris shrugged. “Well, no matter now,” he chuckled, “I'm just thankful he wasn't singing when the Navy officer was here. Silly old sod, he does enjoy singing.”

After all the rubbish had been loaded into the cargo hold of the other ship, I sat down to chat with Harris.

“Here, what's this? Sitting down?” he cried. “You get yourself up straightaway and get back to work!”

“Damn your eyes, Harris, I've
been
working all day. You've been giving more orders than working yourself. You're forever interrupting any rest I'm trying to get. You're a bloody insomniac!”

“Oh, I'm the bane of your existence, poor fellow. I'm sorry, Flynn, I know I do go on a bit, but there's so much yet to do,” he said.

I sighed. “Well, what's it to be now?”

“Ah! Since you ask, that lifeboat over there is fair rotted out and collapsed. Let's see how much of that we can pitch onto the next ship. Whatever we can't toss over there will have to go over the side and piled on shore for burning.” He rose and stretched his giant arms.

We set to and found we could manage no more than to simply drag the thing about. There was no way of lifting the lifeboat over the gunnels. It turned out to be more difficult than Harris had anticipated, since the old boat was disintegrating in our hands. At last, we were able to fling the better part of it onto the
Auld Lass
.

It was getting dark, and we'd done enough for now. It was interesting that the patch of deck where the lifeboat had lain showed no trace of decay. It had been part of the stage setting, carefully arranged to help make the ship seem in far worse shape than she really was.

“The Navy was certainly repulsed by your little show,” I remarked, “and weren't you the centre of attention with the men in uniform today?”

“Oh, you should've been here a week ago when Fleet Street had a go at us. Uncle Billy gave those reporters an earful,” Harris laughed. “Called them spies and libellers. Told them, ‘Go write yer story and be damned, ye dirty muckraking scribblers!' Let's hope he's not quoted verbatim in the press. I found out from one of them that he has a local acquaintance—Martin from the pub no less. I suggested he keep in touch with Martin just to see how things go with the scuttlings.” Harris paused as if in thought. “Actually, for a newspaper-man he wasn't half bad. I hope we can rely on him later for some good stories.” He added sombrely, “We'll need as much good news as we can get when the Navy and Whitehall start filling people's ears with half-truths and lies.”

I had seldom seen Harris so serious. It was obvious that this whole venture was of great importance to him. I realised that everyone considered this a sacred cause. I was now drawn in closer to this improbable venture and to the men committed to its successful outcome.

We washed our hands and wolfed down some bread and cheese. That brought to mind a certain issue at hand. “So, Harris, who do you fancy as ship's cook?” I asked casually.