Kolymsky Heights (11 page)

‘Ichiko, what’s so bad about this derrick?’

‘What’s so bad? It cripples you! It belongs in a museum! See how it happened with Kenji,’ Ichiko said, and picked up a piece of pencil and began drawing on the back of the photo.

But he didn’t draw for long and he didn’t explain for long, his animation suddenly expiring. ‘No, I don’t know. I forget. I don’t know anything any more. There isn’t any more.’ He opened the door and the hellish uproar returned. ‘Just stay away from it, I tell you!’

‘Ichiko, a single second!’ He held the man’s arm and tried to close the door but Ichiko resisted. ‘About the greasing again – just once! You said with the greasing –’

‘I don’t know about greasing. I don’t know anything any more. Leave me alone now. Let me go,’ the old man said, and put his muffs on.

Porter followed him down the stairs and through the tumultuous blackness to the slit of sky in the wall.

‘Ichiko, I’m sorry!’ he shouted. But Ichiko couldn’t hear him any more; and at the hangar door when Porter held his hand out he didn’t seem aware of that either, for he put the safety bar on and turned away.

It was still early, not yet eleven, when he got out of the train in Tokyo. He crossed the station forecourt, and made for the side
door of the Lucky Strike. No one inside, and he entered quickly. But the indicator showed the elevator descending, so he took the stairs, and let himself into room 303, with a sigh.

All as he had left it, his business suit on the bed, his wig in the wardrobe. From the wardrobe he took the bottle of rye and poured himself one, and drank it. Then he poured another, and sat and looked at the photograph and at the pencilled markings on the back.

Yoshi wanted him to return tonight. He had promised to call when he got back from Yokohama. Well, he would call; but he wasn’t going back tonight. Tonight he had to think. It suddenly struck him that this was the fourth of the four nights he had booked at the Lucky Strike. A figure produced at random, but the right one. This was somehow an omen.

He drank his whiskey and called the house. Yoshi answered and he told him what he had to tell him. Then he hung up. It was a few minutes to midnight.

At just this moment, as it happened, the
Suzaku Maru
, under floodlights, was slipping out of the dry dock at Nagasaki.

For the first two days of September the
Suzaku Maru
steamed steadily through the Sea of Japan at her customary rate of nine knots. She had left behind the southern island of Kyushu and was hugging the mainland coast of Honshu. The weather was very fine and the bosun took advantage of it to turn the hands to painting ship. The hurried departure had left no time for this in harbour, and he knew her leprous appearance would produce rough treatment from the dockers at Niigata. She was in poor enough shape already.

Eight hours before Niigata the captain radioed his expected time of arrival, 1600 hours, and asked for his berth.

Would he require bunkering facilities?

No, he wouldn’t; he would be refuelling at Otaru.

He was given the berth, and went off watch. He had stood the night watch himself for he intended to sleep the rest of the day. He knew he would be up all night: the loading at Niigata was the main one of the trip and he meant to keep an eye on it.

Also his stomach was out of order. There had been much nervous excitement before he had got out of Nagasaki, and several back-handers to various officials. He knew the ship was not in the pink of condition, but there was ample time ahead to rectify what was wrong and work in both ship and crew before they reached the Arctic.

He had taken breakfast on the bridge. Now he went below to the officers’ heads, the small convenience he shared with the mate, and eased himself before going through to his cabin. He looked over the loading plan before turning in, and also initialled the note left for him by the mate authorising a six-hour shore leave for the off-duty watch.

At 1600 hours, exactly to timetable, the ship nosed into harbour, and an hour later, as unloading of wool commenced, the four off-duty men, in their best rig, trooped down the gangway and set off jovially for Taki’s place. This was the first of a round of places, just outside the dock gates, and it was usual to sink a glass in each before finally tumbling into Yasu’s. Yasu’s was the ultimate place, an enormous cellar, the liveliest and most popular of all among the seamen. Madame Yasu was herself enormous, the widow of a sumo wrestler. In his retirement her late husband had given exhibitions to the clientele, and the establishment was still known for its entertainment. At Yasu’s you could eat, drink, sing along or accompany certain of the girls upstairs, where they served as efficiently as at table: there was always a steady turnover of talent at Yasu’s.

By seven-thirty the jovial four had arrived there. The place
wasn’t yet crowded and a table was promptly found for them. It was found for them by the very latest talent, and they took an immediate interest in her. For one thing she was a pert and pretty little thing, and for another she had taken an immediate interest in them, eagerly hurrying forward as they stood grinning and swaying on the entrance balcony. She efficiently took them in tow, shepherded them down the steps, and got them seated.

Madame Yasu watched the young woman’s work with approval. She liked enthusiasm in a girl, and this one was very enthusiastic. Following house etiquette, she first of all gave her own name, which was Toyo, and then invited theirs as she whipped round the menus. And she was coquettish. She avoided the groping hands but still managed a playful pat for each of them as she took their drink orders. But in serving the drinks, as Madame Yasu noted with a frown, she was less than perfect, for in announcing the names and setting down the glasses she managed to upset one, leaving a disconsolate sailor without. She rectified the accident quickly enough, and gave him an extra big one, together with a contrite little peck on the cheek while he drank it, so everything passed well enough. All the girl needed was more experience.

From the off-duty four there were no complaints. Toyo was a little beauty – not unfortunately available for duties upstairs but very willing in all other departments. The place was famous for its seafood, and she swiftly served up helpings of
sashima
, all fresh, raw and glistening, with seaweed and noodles, and rice amply drenched in soy sauce; together with several more drinks, not one of which the bright little girl spilled again.

By a quarter to eleven, in good heart and voice, the off-duty men were staggering back inside the dock gates and wending their way to the
Suzaku Maru
. She was bathed in floodlight and loading was in full progress. On the bridge the captain watched the containers swing aboard. On the deck the bosun watched his paintwork.

By ten o’clock next morning she was at sea again and settling to her stately nine knots. Not too much damage had been done to the deck works, so the bosun put the men over the side. His best chance of getting an Arctic sea coat on her lay between here and Otaru, two days away. It couldn’t all be done in the time, but beyond Otaru the weather would worsen, so he kept them at it for long hours, ignoring all grumbles; except, in the late afternoon, from one of the hands who had to be pulled up in his cradle on the grounds of feeling dizzy and unwell.

The bosun looked at him as he came up. ‘Dizzy and unwell? Of course you’re dizzy and unwell, you prick. You got pissed last night.’

‘I got pissed last night,’ the man allowed, ‘but it isn’t that. I’m not right, bosun.’

‘What’s up with you?’

‘I’m just not right.’

He wasn’t right. And he didn’t look right. He looked green. His teeth were chattering. The bosun told him to turn in for a spell. But over supper, with the engineer, the bosun was again called to the man. He had fallen out of his bunk and was shaking about so much it was a job to hold him back in it.

The bosun went to see the mate.

‘Who is he?’ the mate asked.

‘Ushiba. Seaman first class. He was ashore last night.’

‘What did he eat there?’

‘Fish. Shellfish.’

‘Ah. Food poisoning.’

‘All the others ate the same.’

‘Yes, it’s chancy, seafood. Give him castor oil.’

The effect of the castor oil was to throw the man into convulsions, and at ten o’clock the captain was sent for. By then Ushiba was vomiting black and his colour had deepened. He was still shaking violently and in a high fever. The heat could be felt radiating off him from a distance.

The captain returned to his cabin and reached for his Mariner’s Medical Dictionary. He went slowly down the list of fevers until he found the matching symptoms. At these his eyes bolted. But he read doggedly on through the rest of the fevers before returning to the fateful one. Then he reached for the voicepipe and asked the mate to step below.

‘Where’s this fellow been to?’ he asked.

The mate failed to understand the question until he too read the symptoms. Then he got out the crew records. Ushiba had last been in Java waters – East Timor. Two other members of the S
uzaku Maru’s
crew had been there with him. All three of them had been drunk and disorderly, and Ushiba had fallen into the harbour. The ship’s captain had paid a hefty fine for them all before being allowed to leave port the same night, 28 July.

The mate looked at the calendar. It was now 4 September and he counted the days from 28 July, He made it thirty-eight. Then he looked at the Mariner’s Medical Dictionary again. Under
Yellow Fever
(
Jav
) (
rare
) the captain’s finger still held the place:
Incubation period
–
14 to 42 days: highly
infectious
. At thirty-eight days the sick man was within the incubation period.

By midnight, Ushiba was locked up in the after heads. This tiny toilet and shower, shared by the bosun and the engineer, had the advantage of being over the engines, so not much noise could be heard from it. None at all was now coming from Ushiba. He had been injected with a strong sedative. The mate and the bosun had waited for the crew to go to sleep before strapping him to a stretcher and carrying him through the fore ends.

There was not enough room for Ushiba to lie flat in the heads so the stretcher had been wedged at an angle, with his feet under the shower and his head over the toilet hole in the floor.

An anxious conference had taken place between the captain
and the mate. Nothing seemed wrong with the other two men who had been to Java, but only Ushiba had actually fallen in the harbour. Obviously, he had to be put ashore in Otaru. But just as obviously the ship must not come under suspicion there – the shortest delay could abort the entire voyage.

At a further meeting, joined by the bosun and the engineer, some other matters were agreed. The latter men would now of course have the use of the officers’ heads. There was no need to alarm the crew over a case of food poisoning. For Ushiba’s comfort, and theirs, he had been removed to the convenience of his own heads. If still unwell he could go ashore for medical treatment in Otaru.

For the same reason, there was no need to alert Otaru yet. After refuelling had been completed, and if he was still indisposed, Ushiba could be put ashore just before sailing. Meanwhile it would be a good idea to have his bunk disinfected. The bosun should attend to this himself, preferably at a time when the crew would all be above deck painting. It would also be a good idea to have a replacement standing by in Otaru in the event that Ushiba did elect to go ashore there.

These matters took time to resolve, and it was the early hours before the captain at last climbed into his bunk. He took his Mariner’s Medical Dictionary with him. There were details there that worried him and he wanted to read them again.

The disease was viral, he saw; ‘
water-borne v
.’ And unlike the constipation of normal yellow fever, the variant was ‘
commonly accompanied by diarrhoea, excessive perspn
.,
dehydratn., & blood in vomit (black v.). Dvlpmnts: jaundice
,
convulsns
.’ Yes, Ushiba had all those. ‘
Patient shd be
restrained, washed frequently, kept out of light. Treatment
:
saline solution, rice water, vitamins (inject, only); no solids
.
Duration of fever: 2 to 4 days, frequently fatal
.’

The captain got out of bed and looked in the medical chest.
Vitamins, but no saline solution. Rice water was not a problem. And in the snugness of the after heads, restraint was not one either. Nor were the requirements for washing and reduced light. There was a light switch there, and also a hose.

But the brief duration and frequent fatality of the disease worried him. Otaru still lay thirty-two hours away, and a further six would be spent in the port. Total thirty-eight hours. If Ushiba had been ill for twelve hours without knowing it – and the intensity of his symptoms suggested this – then his fever would have run fifty hours before they got out of Otaru. If he should prove one of the forty-eight hour fatalities, he could be dead before they left port. In which case they wouldn’t be leaving port …

The captain stroked his chin. His present ETA at Otaru was 1000 hours. An increase of speed could get him there earlier. But this would give time for inquiries. It would be better to cut the time in port. Ideally he should cut it to two hours. That would allow him to leave at 1200. With Ushiba going ashore at, say, 1145. Still only forty-six hours into his fever. And in no position to give any details of it.

Yes, that was the best thing to do. He was not clear at the moment how to do it. But after a sleep his head would be clearer. He looked at the bulkhead clock as he switched the light off. Two a.m. fifth of September.

At 2 a.m. in Tokyo, Porter was also switching the light off. He had spent the last three hours alone on a final check of his notes. Since leaving the Lucky Strike he had slept every night at the Theosophical Society, the last two of them with Machiko; but this one he spent on his own. It was the last.

For most of the time he had been speaking Korean with the girl; the Pusan dialect of Korean, which was Sung Won Choo’s. In this dialect he had repeated his legend, recited the parts of the derrick, and also the parts of the ship. She had used a pointer on the ship, and he had given all the alternative routes for getting from one place to another. Machiko was now satisfied with his accent and his knowledge of Sung Won Choo. And he was quite certain he knew the ship from one end to the other.

Their knowledge of the
Suzaku Maru’
s movements had become increasingly refined. Everything had gone as planned at Niigata, and they knew to the hour her timing in Otaru. She would dock there on the seventh, at 1000 hours, and leave six hours later: 1600. Apart from refuelling, there was only a single cargo to load and the remainder of the wool to unload. He would present himself at the dock soon after 1500 and be away by 1600. There were no uncertainties any more, and he didn’t plan to study any more.

He switched the light off and went to sleep.

Next morning, over a leisurely breakfast, Yoshi gave him a final briefing. There was no change in arrangements. The
Suzaku Maru
was keeping to her timetable, and Porter would keep to his. His kit was waiting in Otaru, his accommodation confirmed at a rooming house there, and his name and particulars lodged with the port office.

‘So that’s it,’ Yoshi said. ‘No problems?’

‘No. No problems.’

This leg, he had insisted, he would do by himself. He felt better by himself, and Yoshi had been forced to agree.

At nine-thirty he said goodbye to Machiko. Then with his single piece of luggage, an executive attaché case, he got into the car with Yoshi, and they took off to Haneda domestic airport. There Yoshi shook his hand and wished him luck, the car left, and he was on his own.

To Sapporo, the provincial capital of Hokkaido, it was 600

miles, and the 11.30 plane landed him there just before one o’clock. He took a cab to the railway station and bought a ticket to Otaru. The port was only forty minutes away and he arrived there, his last planned destination in Japan, exactly on schedule, 2.55. An arrow pointed to the toilets, and he locked himself into one and changed his clothes.

Out of the executive case came the jeans, shirt and rope-soled shoes kept back for this occasion; and also a folded canvas grip. Into the grip went his wig, and then every trace of the identity of James B. Peterson. He added the executive case itself, zipped up the grip, and went out to the left luggage office. There he deposited the grip, took a receipt, and in the station mailbox posted it off back to Tokyo in the prepared envelope he had brought with him. Somebody would be picking up the grip within forty-eight hours.

Now it was almost 3.30.

He had half an hour to wait.

He had a cup of coffee in the station tearoom and kept an eye on the left luggage office. The two men there had been on duty since 8 a.m. and were due for relief. At four the new shift would come on until midnight when the office closed; they would have no knowledge of a man who had just deposited a grip. All this had been scouted out for him.

At four the new shift arrived, and five minutes later a Korean seaman presented a grubby receipt from his wallet. The attendant looked sourly at him, shuffled among the racks and cursed as he hefted the heavy kit over the counter.

Porter shouldered the kitbag, lifted the bulging strap-bound case, and went out to the cab rank. In twenty minutes he was pulling up at the rooming house.

It was a shabby, run-down place, close by the docks. The proprietor was drowsing on a stool outside. He didn’t bother getting up for the Korean seaman but confirmed that he was booked in and told him where to pick up his key in the lobby. Room 11, first floor.

Porter took his gear up and let himself into the decrepit room. Not a sound in the building. No one else seemed to be in it and he wondered if the phone worked. He had seen one, on the wall, in the passage below. He went down to find out.

‘Phone? Help yourself,’ the proprietor said. ‘It takes tokens.’

There was a push-button light in the dark passage. He read the number on his piece of paper, shoved a token in, and dialled the port office. The light went out twice before he had the right department, and he had to put another token in the phone. But they had his particulars and the man at the other end was irritable. They had been given them that same morning, he said. Why inquire again? There was nothing new. No long-haul ship in. Maybe one would come, in a day or two. They had his number. He got them to repeat it, and found they had it wrong. He gave them the right one, and smiled grimly. Yoshi had told him just to wait. Keep to the plan and wait, he said. Well, it was on just such details – as with the derrick – that the best plan could come adrift. Check everything. He hung up and went back to his room.
Now
he could wait. Tomorrow; after 3 p.m.

A good sleep and a calm morning watch had cleared the captain’s mind, and he now knew what to do. The load to be picked up at Otaru was a broken cargo of canned tuna – 126 tons of it, salvage from a container ship, gone overboard and declared unfit for the Japanese market. The Russian Trade Mission had snapped up this bargain, for delivery in Murmansk. The crates had been reassembled on several hundred pallets, and were due to go in number one and number two holds.

This cargo, as a further reading of his orders confirmed, was ‘at captain’s discretion’. It was a late booking, and the Russians had squeezed a cheap rate. He decided he would exercise his discretion. A pity, but the fiddling job involved much crane work and would take hours; certainly three.
Three hours gained. That left only an hour to dispose of. Not so bad. He would think of something.

He took what he needed from the medical chest, and went aft to inspect Ushiba. He unlocked the door of the heads, switched on the light, and relocked behind him. The man’s sweating face was going to and fro on the stretcher and his eyes fluttered dazedly in the light. He was quite secure, however; firmly pinioned; couldn’t hurt himself. It was hot in the tiny compartment and he was naked. The bosun had hosed him down a couple of times but the place still smelt very bad.

The captain held a handkerchief over his nose. ‘Ushiba, how do you feel, man?’ he asked nasally above the rumble of the engines.

Ushiba’s mouth opened and closed but only gurgling came out of it. He had been doing this for some hours. His lips had a white crust; probably from the rice water. It had stopped him vomiting, anyway. His colour was the same.

‘Ushiba, I’m going to give you another injection,’ the captain told him. ‘It’s very good for you.’

He tore open a new needle package and a vitamin ampoule. Ushiba jerked a little as the plunger went home. The book had recommended buttocks but the captain was not anxious to pick about Ushiba’s underparts: he chose a thigh.

‘There we are.’ A little blood, not much. He stuck a dressing on it. ‘Keep your spirits up! Bosun will be seeing to you soon.’

Bosun was at that minute seeing to Ushiba’s mattress, over the stern rail. Nobody was working there. He had scrubbed out the bunk with antiseptic, and now peeled off his rubber gloves and sent them after the mattress, into the Sea of Japan.

Before turning in, which he did very late again, the captain discussed final plans with the mate.

Otaru was not a busy port and would not need much advance warning. They would need
some
warning, of course. For one thing, he wanted a fast turnaround, and for another they had to be told that he was not picking up the tuna. Since
the cargo had been specially assembled, and was waiting for him, this could cause irritation in Otaru, and quite possibly requests for confirmation, from the freight forwarders or the ship’s owners. This would not be a good idea.

A much better idea was to leave it to the last moment, a moment when Otaru would not be in a position to ask silly questions but would still have time to make the arrangements he wanted. The arrangements were only to dump his wool and take on oil. Two ship movements involved, it was true – for the refuelling dock was not a cargo dock – but quite possible to do it within a turnaround of two hours. And also possible, since he was expected anyway, for them to arrange it at three hours’ notice. This would mean radioing them at seven in the morning.

The mate agreed with the reasoning and the captain asked for a shake at 6.30, and at last got to his bunk. Two a.m. again.

But the anxious moments ahead robbed him of sleep, and his temper was not good when he spoke to the seven o’clock idiot at Otaru.

‘
No
loading. Just
un
loading,’ he barked. ‘And oiling. I want to discharge, oil, and leave by 1200 hours. Have you got that?’

‘Captain, you can’t discharge and oil at the same time.’

‘I know that! I’ll discharge
first
. I’ll discharge and
then
oil. And there’s one thing more. Are you there?’

‘Yes.’

‘I want another deck hand.’

‘Yes.’

‘I want you to
get
another deck hand.’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you understand all that? I want to discharge, oil, and board another
deck hand
. Are you there?’

‘Captain, I can’t get you a
deck hand
at seven in the morning.’

‘I don’t want one at seven in the morning. I want one when I get there!’ the captain howled. ‘You’ve got my ETA. Have you
got my ETA? Hello – Otaru? My ETA is 1000. Please confirm my ETA. Otaru, can you hear me?’

This taped conversation, greatly enjoyed by the next shift, was subsequently ordered to be kept under lock and key; but that was for a Board of Inquiry and some time later.

Meanwhile the
Suzaku Maru
ploughed on, and at 0830 rounded the point and entered Ishikari Bay. Just a little later, peering through his glasses, the captain discerned the cranes of Otaru, and decided it was time to go below and have a look at Ushiba again. He invited the bosun to step below with him.

Ushiba, to the captain’s eye, looked much the same. His head was going to and fro and he was gurgling. The bosun thought he was worse. He said he was no longer keeping down the rice water, and he hadn’t slept. He had not been hosed much in the past few hours, but there was not much to hose. His strength was going, and without the rice water he probably needed more vitamins.

The captain made no comment, but he took a different view. It seemed to him (and he had it confirmed by the mate at the subsequent inquiry) that despite failing strength Ushiba was still too vocal. Better than a vitamin injection would be a sedative one. A sound sleep would do Ushiba more good than vitamins, particularly while being landed and stowed in an ambulance.

‘It was my honest opinion,’ he said. And he acted on it as they entered harbour. But he was back up on the bridge as they tied up, which was at 1000 hours precisely.

A hammering on the door woke Porter at half past ten in the morning. The proprietor had insisted on his sharing a bottle of cheap shochu the night before and his head was thick.

‘Phone for you – the port office,’ the man called hoarsely. He was cursing.

Porter scrambled down the stairs in his underpants. The phone was swinging in the passage.

‘Sung Won Choo?’

‘Yes.’

‘A ship needs a deck hand – long haul, through the Arctic, you interested?’

‘I might be. When is she in?’

‘She’s
in
. Half an hour ago.’

On time then. Bang on time. ‘What ship?’ he said.

‘
Suzaku Maru,
a tramp.’

‘A tramp. Well, I’ll think about it.’

‘There’s no time. If you want her, go right there – I’ll let them know. She’s sailing in ninety minutes.’

Sailing in ninety minutes? He couldn’t understand any of this but he went rapidly back upstairs. Give them less than an hour, was the plan. He’d barely
have
an hour. He took a shower, yelled for the proprietor to call a taxi, dressed, paid up and departed with his breakfast in his hand.

For an extra 250 yen the driver took him on to the dock, inquired for the berth and drove him right to it. The berth was vacant, and much confusion was going on in the wake of the ship’s apparently rapid departure. In the confusion it took time to discover where she was now. She was now evidently at an oiling wharf. But for another 250 yen, the driver said, he would take him there, too.

The oiling wharf was also in a state of confusion. Hoses throbbed as fuel was pumped into the
Suzaku Maru
. Everywhere hands were busy clearing up tufts of wool scattered from bales broken open in the hurried discharge. In the wheelhouse the captain anxiously watched. Almost 11.30 and no new hand had shown up yet. On the dockside he could see the ambulance, its doors open. He could just make out the ambulance men themselves, on the deck. Ushiba was on a stretcher there, in a patch of shade. He had been inserted into a pair of pyjamas and was now quite peaceful, eyes closed, a clean sheet tucked up under his chin. The ambulance men seemed unsatisfied about something. The captain drummed his fingers and looked at his watch.

On the deck the ambulance men were talking to the bosun.

‘He’s a funny colour for food poisoning,’ one of them said.

‘Isn’t he? It’s his liver. Masked by the booze, you see,’ the bosun explained. ‘Came back aboard pissed out of his mind and in the morning he was like this – shellfish.’

‘They don’t usually go to sleep, though.’

‘No, you’re right. He couldn’t. Throwing himself about. Captain thought the best thing was, give him a sedative.’

‘Well, that wasn’t the best thing. Hard to say
what’s
up with him now. Still, they’ll find out in hospital.’