The Strode Venturer (36 page)

I had some lunch brought up to the radio shack and just after two Landor was back on the air again. “There’s a blip on my screen—quite a big one—almost due east of you. Hold on while I work it out. From you it bears about one-one-o degrees, thirty miles. Can you see it from where you are? Over.” But of course I couldn’t. Our radar was out of action and visibility, even from the lookout’s position
at the foremast, was little more than five miles. There was a good deal of cloud about. I passed the information on to Deacon and he immediately altered course to the east. “If that’s the island,” he growled, “then the shoal bears about two-thirty degrees, not one-nine-two, which was the course Reece said he steered.”

The truth was staring us in the face then. “And when we steamed north again after the fire it was a true course. We’d nothing to steer by—only the stars.”

“That’s what I mean. His compass must have been out—badly out.” He was staring at me and the same thought was in both our minds. “Christ!” he said. “What a thing to have done to you. And I accused him of lying.”

“You weren’t to know,” I said. “And anyway, if he wasn’t lying, he was certainly holding something back.” I was thinking of the report he had written on the stranding. “I’m quite sure he had his instructions—to use a storm, something—any excuse to get clear of the island and leave us there, isolated for a few weeks. George Strode needed time.”

“I see.” And he sat there with troubled eyes, his head hunched into his shoulders, thinking about it. He didn’t say anything for some time and I knew he was seeing it from Reece’s point of view, knowing what it was like to be under pressure from owners who were prepared to sacrifice their captains. At length I heard him mutter to himself, “Poor sod!” And then he leaned back and closed his eyes, his face grey and drawn under the stubble.

We heard the plane pass to the north of us, but it was hidden by a rain-storm. Landor came on the air to say it was definitely an island. He began to describe its appearance on the radar screen—about six miles by three, a bay on the western side. And then he was shouting that the pilot could see it, a bare island with nothing growing. “We’re over it now—flying very low—two-three hundred feet. There’s a hut—some sort of road—yes, and equipment. It’s your island all right. And we can see men—about half a dozen—waving to us.”

I sat down then, suddenly tired as the tension drained out of me. I was trembling slightly, my body damp with sweat. Rain beat against the deck outside and it was suddenly much darker. To the east of us the Shackleton was clear of the rain and climbing to 4,000 feet heading south-west. Soon they could see the area of shallows where the
Strode Trader
had grounded. “A big oval patch about fifteen miles by ten.”

“What’s it bear from the island?” I asked.

“Bearing two-two-seven degrees.”

I told Deacon and he nodded his big head, slowly, almost sadly. “A compass error as big as that doesn’t happen by chance.” It was what he had expected—what we had both expected. “He’s like his father. No consideration for anybody once he’s made up his mind to a thing. And he’ll get more and more like him as time goes on,” he added in a grim, tired voice.

Forty miles to the south of us the Shackleton plotted the shallows and then made a wide sweep searching for others. But Landor reported nothing—all deep water and the sea empty except for a couple of native boats some twenty miles west-south-west of the shoal, both under sail. “Vedis?” I asked, and he said he thought so. He had taken the Shackleton in low, trying to head them off from the danger area and direct them towards the island. Now he was coming back. He couldn’t stay any longer because of his fuel situation. A few minutes later the big, clumsy-looking aircraft bumbled over us at masthead height. A great roar of engines, an old-maidish waggle of the wings and it was gone, lost in a rain cloud and heading for Singapore over a thousand miles away.

Three hours later we found bottom in just over 290 fathoms. The island was hidden by rain and we stopped engines and lay to. Shortly after six we had a brief glimpse of it, a blurred line seen through a mist of rain at a distance of about three miles. It looked like a great sandbank, bare and glistening wetly. Deacon roused himself from his chair and came out on to the bridge wing to look at it. And
as the rain closed in again and the dim outline of it faded he said, “Well, he’s got what he wanted; an island, a people of his own. He’ll get Strode Orient, too. Or he’ll build another company. He’ll finish up with more power than his father had.” His eyes were staring blankly into the rain. “New men, new ships …” His voice died, his big head sagging between the massive shoulders. He was an old man, lonely now and filled with misgivings about the future. “There was a time,” he murmured, “when I’d have enjoyed a fight.” He shook his head. “Not now, not any …” A fresh downpour drowned his voice and we ducked inside the wheelhouse.

The sun set, but we saw it only as a darkening of the rain clouds. Night closed quickly in on us. Another twelve hours to spend keeping the ship to a depth position. Deacon had drinks served in the saloon. He had shaved and put on a clean khaki shirt and trousers. Like the rest of his clothes they had been run up for him by one of the Chinese seamen. He even stayed for the evening meal, a massive, almost paternal, figure at the head of the small table. And afterwards he insisted on standing a watch, sitting alone in the wheelhouse watching the echo-sounder, giving the necessary orders. I went up there just after eleven and stayed with him until the second officer took over. He didn’t talk much, just sat looking about him, his eyes surprisingly alert as though every detail of the bridge was new to him. I put it down to the fact that he was sober. I don’t think I had seen him properly sober before.

As soon as he was relieved he got to his feet. “Just hold her here on the three-hundred-fathom mark,” he told Taylor. He stood there a moment, looking uncertainly round the wheelhouse as though reluctant to leave it. “Who’s relieving you?” he asked.

“Fields.”

He nodded. “Good. Tell him to get under way as soon as there’s light enough. He’s to make straight for the anchorage. He’s not to delay—not under any circumstances.” He nodded good night to us and then he turned
very slowly and walked out of the wheelhouse, his head high, his shoulders no longer stooped—walking with a steady, purposeful gait.

Shortly afterwards I went to my cabin. The rain had stopped, but it was still overcast, the air very oppressive, and I couldn’t sleep. I was thinking of Deacon, wishing there was something I could have said, something I could do to relieve his desperate sense of hopelessness. It wasn’t just the despair of the alcoholic. It was much deeper than that. All those years, all the post-war years nursing an old tramp whilst younger men driving bigger and faster ships passed him on the sea lanes of the world. The bottle helps, but it isn’t the answer, not when you’re a born seaman and living in a world that has no use for you. There comes a time when you don’t fight any more. You give up then.

In the end I got out of my bunk and went along to his cabin. It was just after one. I pushed open his door and stood there listening. There was no sound, the portholes open and a feeling of emptiness. I switched on the light. He wasn’t there and his bunk hadn’t been slept in. It was all tidied up, the few clothes he possessed folded neatly. Two letters had been placed carefully on his pillow. One was addressed to Fields, the other to a Mrs. Chester in England. I hurried aft, across the well deck and up on to the poop. But there was nobody there. I stood for a moment leaning on the stern rail, looking down into the still, dark water below, wondering what to do. In the end I went back to my bunk without telling anybody. He wouldn’t have wanted them to launch a boat and start searching any more than my father had. I only wished I had known him earlier, before he took to drink. To go like that, so quietly, so unobtrusively—and cold sober.

I was up again at five. The third officer was on watch, but Fields was still there and we watched together as dawn broke and the shape of the island appeared like a ghost against the fading stars. As soon as there was enough visibility he got under way, steaming north along the
300-fathom line. The light was increasing all the time, a hot glow in the east that silhouetted the island so that it was a black shape without detail. Only the glint of water beyond the nearest land identified it as the southern arm of the bay. As soon as we had opened up the anchorage he stopped the engines and went to call Deacon. He came back a few minutes later, very white and the letter crumpled in his hand. “He’s gone,” he said, a shocked look in his eyes. He stood there in a sort of daze, smoothing the letter out and staring at the words he’d already read. “The end of the road. That’s what he says. I don’t understand.” He shook his head, tears welling up in his eyes and trickling down his sallow cheeks.

There was nothing I could say. They’d been together so long, and now he was on his own. The depth was decreasing, the anchorage opening up. “You’ll have to take her in yourself,” I told him.

He nodded slowly and his thin body stiffened as though he were bracing himself. “Starboard wheel. Engines slow ahead.” We could see the backs of the shoals gleaming in the sunrise, a great heap of ore stockpiled on the quay and the bulldozer looking small as a beetle on the shelf where the ore had been excavated. The bows swung in towards the anchorage and Fields sent the second officer to get the anchor ready whilst he conned the ship from the starboard bridge wing.

He took her in much closer than Reece had taken the
Strode Trader
and the sweat shone on his face as the depths decreased and the nervous tension built up in him. When he finally gave the order to let go the anchor the echo-sounder was reading eighteen fathoms. He had done what Deacon would have done and from that moment my opinion of the man began to change.

A boat had already been swung out and I left immediately for the shore. Peter met me at the loading quay where most of the shore party were already gathered. He was wearing nothing but a sarong and sandals, his bare torso burned black by the sun and so thin every bone and sinew
showed. Standing there on that desolate shore in the bright morning light he looked native to the place, a wild, strange figure with his beard unkempt and his black hair grown down over his ears. “Where the hell have you been?” His teeth showed in his beard and the whites of his eyes shone in the dark tan of his face. He was angry, a driven bundle of nervous energy that had been badly frightened by lack of contact with the outside world. “What’s Reece think he’s playing at?”

“Did you monkey around with the compass?” I asked him.

“The compass?” I saw his eyes go blank. “What’s the compass got to do with it? We’re half starved, food rationed, the fuel almost exhausted. You’ve been gone damned near a month and——”

“Well, did you?” I demanded, remembering the shallows and how the lightning had struck, that poor devil burning like a torch.

His eyes slid away from me and I knew then that we’d been right. It wasn’t Reece’s fault. “You stupid fool!” I said. “You nearly cost us all our lives.” I was remembering what Deacon had said, that he’d get more and more like his father. Despite the growing heat my body was cold with anger. “You’ve only yourself to blame.”

“Never mind about that,” he said. “Where the hell has the
Strode Trader
been all this time?”

“That isn’t the
Strode Trader
out there,” I said. “It’s the
Strode Venturer
.” And I told him briefly what had happened. But it didn’t seem to register, his mind half unbalanced by lack of food and the solitude of this lonely island. “You must have been crazy,” I said, “to fool around with the magnetic field of a ship’s compass. Three men dead, four injured and the ship gutted by fire.”

He had the grace to say he was sorry then. “But it can’t be helped. It seemed the only thing to do—at the time. I didn’t trust Reece and to have the position of the island——” He shrugged his shoulders. “Well, everyone knows where it is now, I suppose. That Shackleton——”
He leaned towards me, his eyes staring and luminous in the hard light. “Did you see Don Mansoor? Did he tell you when he was sailing?” There was a nervous urgency in his voice.

“The Shackleton reported two native craft twenty miles to the west of the shoal area,” I said. “I imagine they’re Don Mansoor’s vedis.” The creak of oars sounded behind me and I turned. It was Fields coming ashore in the other boat.

“Where’s Deacon?” Peter asked. “Is he on board?”

“Deacon’s dead,” I said. “Suicide.”

He stared at me, shocked. That at least meant something to him. “I’m sorry,” he said. And then again, “I’m sorry.” The anger, the nervous energy, all the driving vitality seemed to leave him then. He looked suddenly very tired. “And the
Strode Trader a
wreck, you say?” He passed his hand wearily over his face.

And then Fields was ashore and facing us, his body tense, his mouth trembling. “You knew he’d gone, didn’t you?” He was staring at me, his long, sallow face reflecting a personal tragedy. “On the bridge, when I told you—you weren’t surprised. You knew.”

“Yes,” I said. “I knew.”

I thought he was going to hit out at me, blame me for what had happened. But all he said was, “Why? Why did he do it? I don’t understand.”

The tears were coming back into his eyes and I felt sorry for the poor devil. “He couldn’t go on, that’s all. Like my father,” I said.

He nodded slowly as though the mention of my father helped.

“It’s your ship now,” I said and he stared at me, his eyes wide and the tears running unashamedly down his face. Finally he turned away, still crying, and stumbled blindly back to the boat. I called to him to take as many as he could of the shore party off to the ship and send the boat back for the rest. My own boat was already pulling away with about half a dozen Pakistanis in her. “So they may be
here to-day?” Peter said and I realized his mind was still on those two vedis.

I looked at the sea, shining blue to the horizon. The zephyr of a breeze touched my face, scattering cat’s paws over the bay’s calm surface. “With luck,” I said and we walked slowly up the road together towards the hut. It was then that he explained his urgency, his desperate need for them to arrive before anybody else from the outside world.