Crude Carrier (9 page)

XII

Even the carpeted stairs pulled at Raiford's sore thighs as he went down to the lower bridge deck. A long soak in a hot shower had washed a lot of pain from his strained muscles, but he knew it was going to take a couple of days for his legs to recover completely.

Not that he was suffering as much as Charley. As he tapped on the open door of the hospital room, Raiford could hear the man's heavy, raw breathing. A single spartan bunk rested atop a chest of wide, gray metal drawers. The room also contained a small stainless steel cabinet with shelves filled by bottles and bandages. Its metal top held a steel washbowl and a well-used copy of the
Shipmaster's Medical Guide
. Except for the panting sailor, the white room was vacant. Charley's skin was as frail and sallow as a plucked chicken's, and the bones of his chest showed in dim shadows. At the sound of the tapping, he slowly turned his head.

“You feeling better now, Charley?”

The pockmarked face twisted painfully into something like a smile that showed crooked teeth. “Thank you, Mr. Raifah. Thank you very much.”

“No problem. Couldn't leave you down there, could we? Might spoil the oil.”

“Thank you very much!” Tears made his dark eyes shiny and wet as he struggled to rise on an elbow.

“Hey, Charley, what are shipmates for?” Raiford's hand clapped on the man's bony shoulder, half spanning his narrow back.

Charley clutched at Raiford's arm as if it could keep him from sinking. “Thank you, sah!”

“All right, all right. That's enough now, Charley. You're wrinkling my skin. Anybody would have done it.”

“Not anybody. You. Not Mr. Hansford. You!”

“Yeah, well, Mr. Hansford went up for the oxygen mask. You still feeling a little sick? Stomach upset?” Raiford made a circling motion in front of his own stomach.

“No, no—feel good. Much better. Go to work very soon. Get up very soon!”

“Glad to hear it. Is there anything you need? Something I can get for you?”

“No—all okay now.”

“Fine. I have to report to Mr. Shockley, now, but I'll come by later, okay? Make sure everything's okay with you.”

“Okay, Mr. Raifah—thank you!”

Raiford drew his arm out of the man's fevered clutch and gave a long sigh as he closed the door. For a minute there, he thought old Charley was going to pry himself off the cot and offer a big fat kiss. It figured that the guy would blow the rescue all out of proportion—it was his life. Still, Raiford felt pretty good about being a hero to Charley. The look in the man's eyes brought back memories of the awe and wonder in the eyes of kids spilling onto the football field for autographs after a game. “Chin strap? Can I have your chin strap?” What did a kid do with a collection of sweaty, slobbery chin straps?

Hansford's eyes had not held awe and wonder. They had been full of terror as he realized that a bubble of gas had drifted as near as Charley and could snare him next. And the engineer had run blindly. He tried, later, to make Raiford—and maybe himself—think that he had scrambled up the ladder for the oxygen mask. But oxygen wasn't needed. They had the Drager gear, they had the resuscitators. And that's what really saved Charley, even more than the long, nightmare climb. No, if Hansford had been capable of thought at all, he had been thinking only of himself, and that told Raiford how much he would be on his own in any other emergency. Still, remembering Hansford's bulging, unseeing eyes, he wasn't going to blame the engineering officer. The only reason Raiford had stayed behind to pick up Charley was because he was too dumb to know better. Maybe if, like Hansford, he'd seen what the gas could do to a human being, he would have had the same ungovernable terror.

While Sam had not said anything about Hansford leaving Charley to die, he had knelt on the hot steel beside the clenched and retching sailor and stared at the engineering officer with openmouthed dismay. And Hansford had escaped into his quarters as soon as possible, leaving Raiford to explain to the first mate in a few exhausted phrases what had happened.

Mr. Pressler, medical officer by virtue of his rank, had not summoned his best bedside manner for Charley. “Right. Well, haul the bugger down to hospital. I'll take a look at him there—too damned hot out here. Shot of paregoric'll have him back to work soon enough. Where the hell do you think you're going, Mr. Raiford?”

“Change clothes.”

“Be damned quick about it. We'll be tying up within the hour. I want you in the pump control room with Mr. Shockley when lading commences, hear me?”

“Aye, aye, Cap'n.”

“I'm not the goddamned captain, you lubber! I'm the first mate!”

The second officer was not enthusiastic about having Raiford join him. “Mr. Pressler sent you here?”

“Told me to stick with you. Said you couldn't function without my skill and talent.”

“Damned if he did!” The pudgy man stared in shock first at Raiford then at the dials and lights as the oil flowed into the tanks. Finally, he muttered, “The chief steward tells me you were quite the hero this morning.”

“Shucks, it warn't nothing.”

Another noncommittal sound. Shockley touched the dials in answer to a flicker of red and green lights. “That relay in tank five seems to be working now.”

“Good. Hate to think that little trip was for nothing.”

“Yes.” The second officer kept his eyes on the readouts and dials, glancing now and then at the Sweding machine's load projections. But the defensive angle of his shoulders showed he was very much aware of Raiford. “Where did you say you worked before coming aboard?”

“I didn't. I'd been out of a job for six months. Got laid off, saw an ad that said electrical engineers were needed aboard tankers.”

“So you decided to play jack-tar for a while.”

“It's a job. Free room and board and the pay's not bad.”

“That's what we're all in it for, isn't it? The money.” He fine-tuned another dial and glanced at Raiford. “A river of money, this business. And we all need more. Never seem to have enough, eh?”

Raiford held his gaze. “A man can always use a bit more.”

After a pause, Shockley nodded. “Yeah. We all can.” Then he spoke as much to himself as to Raiford. “Damn right we all can!”

Raiford wasn't quite sure what that exchange had been about. At first he sensed an implied meaning, a vague offer of some kind for some service equally vague. But then Shockley fell silent, turning from Raiford to keep his attention on the display boards. After a long while, the Sweding machine gave a readout and the pudgy man said, “We're reaching ullage on all tanks.”

Whatever made Shockley defensive and sullen began to ebb, revealing a glimmer of the man's pleasure in doing his job well. “Now we leave just enough air space for the cargo to expand when we reach the tropics.” He rattled numbers on the keypad. “Has to be exact—too much space and we go light on the cargo and lose money. Doesn't take much, either. A meter low in each of those tanks adds up to a lot of tons of oil. Owners get damned upset if that happens. Too little space and the expansion could make the old
Aurora
split her seams. It's all programmed in the computer by the chaps ashore, but I like to check anyway. I mean, their arses aren't sitting on all this oil, are they?”

“How long before the computer does it all?”

“And I'm out of a job?” Shockley shook his head. “Damned close now. Endangered species, that's what we are. But nobody's looking after us because of that.” The sullenness returned. “We have to look out for ourselves.”

“So I better not plan on long-term employment?”

“Your kind will do all right. Always do.”

“My kind? What's that mean?”

Whatever Shockley had been about to blurt, he changed his mind. Instead, he said, “Computer whizzes. Electronics specialists. Automation means a vessel can't do without you. Me, I'm just here to keep an eye on the vessel and these bloody machines. Wouldn't know what the hell to fix if one acted up.”

The Sweding machine gave another chuckle and burped out a sheet of printout. Shockley ripped it off. “Here's our final projection and I have to get it up to the bridge. Why don't you go up on deck and watch the port inspector verify the ullage?”

They both found relief in leaving the pump control room and each other. The heat of afternoon had thickened the sea haze. A misty, pearly glare surrounded the
Aurora Victorious
and two far-off tankers at their floats. The shore was seven miles distant and invisible, but at some vague distance, the Ju'aymah oil platform was a dark line pimpled with scattered buildings and linked by causeways to clusters of oil meters and manifolds. Light standards were spaced along the sea island's edges, and a tall mast bearing a flashing red light warned aircraft. The surrounding horizon was lost in the gauzy light. One of the neighboring ships, deceptively small against the milky nothingness where the horizon should have been, rode empty and high. Reflected on the level sea were the red of its lower hull and, in the black paint above, the white of its load lines. Another tanker was nearing full, its black flank standing less than half as tall as the empty ship. Raiford figured his own vessel must look like that by now: the lowest part of the main deck appeared to be almost level with the water, and a lot of the white load markings on her bow had sunk out of sight beneath the ocean's flat surface.

Third Officer Li stood in the shade of the island, dressed in a yellow T-shirt, white ducks, and a sun-faded gimme cap that said
MOPAR
. He greeted Raiford with a smile that hinted he, too, had heard what happened. “Soon we start voyage back—much chipping rust, much painting.”

“That's what we do on the way back?”

“Oh, yes. Maintenance schedule must be followed. Shore office sends it out, tells us what to take care of now, what to do tomorrow. Always, with a full ship, we clean and paint.” He explained, “Full tanks are much safer than empty ones for chipping and sanding—not so much fumes.”

Far down the green deck shimmering with heat, the tall figure of Captain Boggs, the squat one of Pressler, and two or three crewmen watched a kneeling shape reach an arm into an open Butterworth plate.

“What's that guy doing?”

“Oil terminal inspector. Measures empty space above the level of cargo—learns how much oil exactly in each tank.”

“All the computers and electronics and flow gauges we have, and that guy still has to measure the oil with a dipstick?”

Li laughed. “Shipper's final check. Not too easy to give false reading on a stick. Also tells Captain Boggs how much oil to jettison in bad weather.”

“Why's that?”

“Heavy seas. If a vessel rides too low, no freeboard. Can ship water into boilers, can break apart. Very dangerous, too much load in heavy seas.” He pointed to the high-riding tanker on the horizon. “You see the freeboard lines and Plimsoll mark on that bow over there?”

Raiford spotted the short white horizontal load lines that made little ladders above and below a white circle that was bisected by its own longer horizontal line. “What do you call that? The Plimsoll mark?”

“Yes. Look at that other ship. Almost all its freeboard lines are under water. Plimsoll mark's right at water. Very loaded vessel, like us. Top is load line for tropical seas. Next line, just at water, is load line for summer seas. Below is load line for winter seas. Before, we use winter load line going around Cape Town. Now we use the summer line to carry more oil. Good for owners but not so good for a safe ship.” The slight man's shoulders rose and fell with an acceptance of his fate and of decisions out of his hands. “It's a gamble. If the sea gets too rough, we jettison enough oil to stay afloat. Maybe five hundred tons, sometimes a lot more.” He laughed and covered his mouth. “A lot of money. But Confucius say, better half a load than no load at all.”

“Confucius said that?”

Another laugh. “Maybe.”

It was a glimpse behind the man's reserve to a humor that Raiford had not suspected. It told him that the third mate had, indeed, heard of the morning's adventure and was now willing to admit this giant Westerner into a level of acquaintance generally denied other round-eyes. “Well, it's nearly October. What's that, springtime in the Southern Hemisphere?”

“Yes. Not so bad as July and August. We have a good northern monsoon down to the equator and calm seas. But below Madagascar maybe storms. Big waves—big!” His gesture motioned toward the island towering above them. “So big they break the glass on the navigation bridge!”

Raiford looked up the tall face of white steel with its tiers of square, sun-glinted windows. “That's fifty feet up.”

A happy smile. “Oh yes.”

“You have seen a wave that high?”

“Oh yes. First trip when I was a cadet. Scared me very much!” He pointed toward the bow and made a rolling motion with his hand. “Came over the bow, bam! Smashed glass in the bridge. Killed the helmsman. Hell of a mess.”

“This was on a tanker like this?”

“Oh yes.
Aramco Sheik
.”

Raiford looked up again. Maybe fifty. Forty feet for sure. With him on this tub? Suddenly, despite its size and solidity, the tanker did not feel so large and safe.

The cluster of men began to separate. The inspector, the captain, and a crewman headed for the ladder that hung over the side down to the landing platform and a motor launch moored to it. The first mate strode quickly toward the island. Other hands began closing and dogging the inspection plates, and another mounted his bicycle for a sprint toward Li and an exchange of rapid Chinese.

“We drop lines now,” said Li. “Get under way.” He seemed eager to have the ship free of its moorings. It was a mood that the rest of the crew shared. Almost imperceptibly, following a brief scramble of crewmen, bleated commands from the Tannoy, and a splash of heavy mooring lines, the ship, with a deep blast of its hoarse whistle, began to swing through the flat sea. It created a heavy bulge of water that gradually turned into a deep wake fanning away from the moving hull in oily undulations. As the massive craft turned, Raiford could make out through the haze on the western horizon something congealed that drifted past in dimly marbled patterns. Sometimes it was white, sometimes pale brown. Then he recognized it: sand and rock where the desert came down to the water's edge. It was all he saw of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.