The White Voyage

by John Christopher

  ‘Yes,’ Mouritzen said, ‘I’m sure you will.’

  He ran into a work-party on deck; under Carling’s direction they were, as he had expected, rigging a sea-anchor. He stopped to see how things were going. They were proceeding with as much calmness and efficiency as was possible on the deck of a small ship swept by waves thirty and forty feet high, with a wind at Force 8 or 9. But Carling, he thought, looked strange – stranger than the conditions justified. In emergencies, Carling normally exceeded himself, cursing and encouraging with a zest that appeared to be the greater for the difficulties or danger encountered. Now he was shouting his orders to the men with a curtness that made it seem his mind was on something other than the task in hand.

  Mouritzen stayed to endeavour to give some kind of encouragement himself, but after a time he abandoned the attempt. He felt it was making Carling’s withdrawal more conspicuous. In any case, the work was proceeding well enough. He went back up to the bridge, but did not immediately remove his oilskins. He stood by the door, water dripping from him to form a pool. Olsen had abandoned the wheel and was watching the radar screen.

  ‘Anything from Lauring yet?’ Mouritzen asked.

  ‘A Swedish freighter, the Västervik – about seventy miles west of Esbjerg.’

  Mouritzen glanced at the chart. ‘Getting on for a hundred miles. What’s she making?’

  ‘Seven or eight knots. That’s good, against this.’

  ‘Nothing else?’

  ‘Borkum are ready to send out a lifeboat. I’ve told them there’s no need.’

  ‘No need yet. Are you sure it was wise?’

  ‘They could be here no sooner than the Västervik. It would be a needless risk. In any case, we are in good shape.’

  A wave broke up against the glass.

  ‘We are taking a hammering,’ Mouritzen said. ‘I wonder what shape we shall be in by morning?’

  ‘The same as now – with a few bruises, perhaps.’

  ‘Have the passengers been told anything?’

  ‘There is no need. It would be stupid to tell them, from their point of view as well as from ours.’

  ‘Yes, you are right. It’s a pity, Erik.’

  ‘What is a pity?’

  ‘You would have made a fine doctor.’

  Olsen looked at him coldly for a moment, and then smiled. ‘So I would. And I manage well enough as a sea captain, do I not?’

  ‘Yes. The sea-anchor – you will not pull her round with seas like these.’

  ‘I think not, also. It was the only thing to try.’

  Mouritzen nodded. ‘I’ll go down again, and see how it goes.’

  * * *

  The hours went by while the Kreya lay helpless under the savage fingers of the giant. The gale veered to southerly, and then fractionally into the eastern quarter, but it showed no abatement. The Västervik, on the report that all was still well and that the Kreya was being carried north-east, into the path of British coastal shipping, abandoned the attempt to come up with her, and resumed her own original course for Amsterdam. Help was now being offered by a Scottish cargo ship, but there was little chance of her being on the scene before dawn.

  About one o’clock, with a noise as rending as though the ship itself were being torn in two, the foremast splintered and crashed. Mouritzen drained the coffee which Thorsen had just brought up, burning his tongue, and went forward to look at the damage. Although he went by the relatively sheltered port side, he had to hold the rail as the waves crashed over, and once, misjudging the roll, he was thrown against the hatch cover.

  The mast had crashed down across the forecastle. The result was untidy but did not seem serious. Carling was there with a couple of hands. Mouritzen spoke to Carling but he did not seem to hear. He cupped his hands over his mouth and shouted.

  ‘Nothing we can do about this just now. It will have to wait till things are quieter.’

  Carling made no answer. He stared at Mouritzen, his face wet and bewildered in the light of the torch. Mouritzen heard a shout behind him, and turned to see another of the hands coming up from the direction of the forward hatch. Whatever he was saying was carried away by the wind.

  Mouritzen shouted: ‘What was that?’

  He came up to them. ‘The bear?’

  ‘What about the bear?’

  ‘The bear’s loose!’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Mouritzen demanded.

  ‘She’s down there, on the deck.’

  Carling spoke then, his voice trumpeting over the massed violins of the storm.

  ‘The first sign!’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘The first sign …’ Carling roared again, ‘– the beast walks free!’

  Mouritzen considered, as clearly and rapidly as he could, the two new factors. Of the two, a crazy C.P.O. seemed to him to constitute the greater nuisance.

  He shouted: ‘Get Carling below, and look after him. And send Herning up to the bridge for orders.’

  He saw the men clustering round Carling, talking to him, and raced down to the well-deck, getting down the steps during the ship’s slow roll to port and hanging on at the bottom while the next wave smashed across. Then he made his way to the bear’s crate. The securing ropes had broken and the crate had been thrown up against the forecastle. In doing so it had shattered, and the door of the iron cage within had sprung. In the light of his torch, Mouritzen saw it gaping open, and empty. He flashed the light around, but there was no sign of the bear.

  He kept a look-out on his way to the bridge, but found nothing. Olsen looked up from the chart as he came in. Fatigue and strain had made his face pale, giving him the appearance of an intelligent child under pressure. The deepness of his voice, when he spoke, was incongruous.

  ‘Well? How is it?’

  ‘The port rail is smashed. Nothing serious and nothing one can do now. But there’s another complication. The bear’s loose. Her cage has been cracked open and she’s wandering free.’

  Olsen asked sharply: ‘Where?’

  Mouritzen shook his head. ‘No sign of her, but I’ve not made a thorough search.’

  Olsen made a gesture of despair. ‘Animals are worse than passengers! I’ve got two men down below seeing to those cursed horses as it is – both very reluctantly.’

  The door opened with an inrush of wind and spray, and Herning entered. He ranked next to Carling and was a quiet, earnest man, with prematurely white hair and a slight limp, from an injury to his knee when his ship was torpedoed during the war. He had stood for years in Carling’s shadow, and during the latter’s increasing moroseness and withdrawal of the past year had shown no signs of being able to step out of it.

  ‘Reporting, sir,’ he said to Olsen.

  Mouritzen explained quickly: ‘Carling’s having some kind of a brainstorm. I got some of the men to take him below and asked them to send Herning up here.’

  ‘A brainstorm?’ Olsen looked incisively from Mouritzen to Herning. ‘Where is he now? How is he?’

  ‘He’s below, sir,’ Herning said.

  ‘In his cabin?’

  ‘They’re persuading him to go there.’ Herning looked uneasy. ‘He’s not dangerous, but he’s rambling a bit.’

  Mouritzen said: ‘He was shouting something about the bear and the first sign.’

  ‘It’s a bit queer,’ said Herning. ‘It’s these spiritualists he goes to in Dublin. They told him there was going to be trouble on this trip, and they said that the beast would go free. It’s queer, sir. They weren’t to know we’d be carrying a bear.’

  ‘Perhaps they weren’t to know,’ Olsen said, ‘but Carling knew. He probably told them about it.’

  ‘He says he didn’t.’

  ‘And is he to be believed, the state he’s in? He’s probably invented the whole thing. Are you fool enough to give any credence to a man who’s raving?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘He’s not dangerous?’

  Herning shook his head. ‘No violence at all. The
y got him down quite easily. He’s just talking a lot, about signs and all that.’

  ‘In that case we can concentrate on the bear. Do you think it might have got washed overboard?’

  The question was addressed to Mouritzen. He said:

  ‘No way of knowing. I should think the odds are against it, though.’

  ‘So should I,’ Olsen said. ‘Well, we have enough to contend with, without that.’ He left the bridge to go to his cabin, and came back shortly afterwards with his automatic pistol. He threw it to Herning. ‘Take a party, find the bear, and shoot it. All right?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  When Herning had gone, Mouritzen said: ‘It seems a pity. It’s not the bear’s fault.’

  ‘Fault,’ Olsen said, ‘fault! What has fault to do with it? Do you suggest that in conditions like this I can accept responsibility for a bear running loose?’

  ‘No, of course not. Shouldn’t we notify the Simanyis, though?’

  ‘You can, if you want to. If you think it’s worth while waking them up.’

  Mouritzen hung on to a support as the Kreya rolled to a new impact.

  ‘I doubt if they will be sleeping very heavily,’ he said.

  He left his oilskins on the bridge, and went down the inside stairs to the cabins. He knocked at the door of the cabin which the two male Simanyis shared and was answered by an inconclusive groan. Opening the door, he found Stefan lying in his bunk, his face buried in the pillow and a bowl beside him. The other bunk was empty.

  Mouritzen asked him: ‘Your father – where is he?’

  His mouth muffled by the pillow, not looking up, Stefan said:

  ‘They are downstairs – in the saloon.’

  Mouritzen found all the rest of the family down there, fully dressed, sitting in the end alcove, in front of a table that held a half-empty bottle of whisky and a number of ginger ale bottles, some empty and some still unbroached. Josef waved to him.

  ‘You have time for a drink, Mr Mouritzen? Can you get a glass?’

  Mouritzen shook his head. ‘Not just now. I have some bad news for you. Katerina’s cage has been torn loose by the waves.’

  ‘Torn loose?’ Josef said. ‘She is not drowned?’

  ‘She has got out of the cage,’ Mouritzen explained. ‘The Captain has given orders for her to be found and shot. There is nothing else to be done. She cannot be allowed to roam loose on the ship in this storm. It is better for her, too.’

  Josef stood up, holding on to the table as the ship rolled.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘You cannot shoot that bear.’

  ‘The order’s already been given. I am sorry.’

  ‘But they haven’t found her yet?’ Nadya said. She was wearing jeans and the yellow sweater. She looked tired; her eyes were darkly underlined. ‘I will go and find her.’

  ‘There’s nothing you can do,’ Mouritzen said.

  He stood in her way as she came towards the door. Josef, after a moment, followed her. She looked at Mouritzen, shaking her head a little.

  ‘Tell Captain Olsen we will see to the bear.’

  ‘It is no sense your going out there,’ Mouritzen said. ‘You could not do anything, and you might easily be hurt – killed even. The storm is getting worse all the time.’

  Nadya took his arm and pushed him to one side; he was admiringly conscious of her great physical strength, hardly inferior to his own.

  ‘There is no time to waste in talking,’ Nadya said.

  ‘At any rate, you must get some kind of waterproofs on,’ Mouritzen said. ‘In two minutes you will be drenched to the skin.’

  She went out of the swing doors without replying, Josef following her. The ship lurched, and by the time Mouritzen had followed them, Josef was going out to the deck. Mouritzen hesitated, undecided as to whether he should go up for his own oilskins. But there was not enough time. He plunged after them, fending the door open as it closed on him, and was soaked immediately by a wave breaking right across the ship.

  There was a flash of torchlight from the after deck, and the Simanyis headed for it, with Mouritzen behind them. It was possible to see that there were four of five of the hands at the other side of the hatch. Josef shouted to them, bellowing against the wind. As they got nearer, one of them heard and looked round.

  Mouritzen came up with the Simanyis. ‘Please go back inside,’ he said. ‘You must not interfere with the running of the ship.’

  Herning was there, carrying the automatic.

  ‘Have you killed it?’ Mouritzen shouted at him.

  Herning shook his head. ‘It’s hard to get a proper shot, with the ship rolling as it is. And I did not want to wound the animal.’

  Someone flashed a torch. It showed Katerina huddled up beside an oil-drum in the lee of the poop-deck. She was wet and bedraggled. She was shivering and she cowered away from the light.

  Nadya, without comment, pushed the men aside and went up to the bear. She knelt down and put her arms round the furry neck, lowered her head and whispered in Katerina’s ear.

  Herning said helplessly: ‘What do we do now, sir?’

  ‘Stand by,’ Mouritzen told him. He advanced towards Nadya and the bear. ‘Nadya!’ he called.

  ‘Keep away,’ she said. ‘She is all right with me, but she is frightened and does not know what she is doing. It is not safe for you.’

  He knelt beside them. ‘Be reasonable,’ he said. ‘There’s no way of securing her again, and she can’t be allowed to go loose. You will be compensated for the loss.’

  ‘Stand away,’ Nadya said. ‘Tell those others also to stand away.’ She called to Josef: ‘Papa, bring the lead for her.’ He went, and she spoke again to Mouritzen. ‘If you get them to stand clear, no one will be hurt.’

  ‘The cage is broken,’ Mouritzen said. ‘There is no point in putting her back there.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘You cannot stay there, and you cannot walk her round the deck in this storm, and she cannot go in the hold because of the horses. Where do you think you will put her?’

  ‘In our cabin,’ Nadya said. ‘We can sleep in the lounge.’

  ‘But even if you could get her there,’ Mouritzen protested, ‘she would wreck it!’

  ‘She is a quiet bear.’ She smiled sardonically out of the darkness. ‘And we will compensate for the loss.’

  * * *

  Olsen said: ‘My God! I have never given you credit for outstanding intelligence, Mouritzen, but I would not have expected you to bungle things like that.’

  ‘What could I do – order the men to put her and her father in irons? They wouldn’t have been easy to cope with under ordinary circumstances, but in present conditions it was out of the question.’

  ‘They should not have been allowed to go out on deck in the first place.’

  ‘I couldn’t stop them. She’s as strong as I am, and he’s considerably stronger. Besides, they were out before I realized what was happening.’

  ‘And you should have had the sense to make sure the job had been done before you told them of it.’

  ‘I didn’t expect them to react that way.’

  ‘Damnation to your psychological expectations!’

  ‘Does it matter very much, anyway? She got the bear to the cabin all right and they’ve locked her in there. Any damage she may do will be less costly than replacing a trained circus bear would be.’

  ‘It matters that when I give an order it should be carried out. All right. There is nothing we can do now. But the report goes into the log in full, with you named as responsible for non-compliance with my instructions. Is that understood? Do you have any objections?’

  Mouritzen shook his head. ‘No objections.’ There was silence for a time, apart from the unending crescendo of the gale, and the groaning counterpoint of the Kreya’s resistance to it. ‘She was incredible,’ Mouritzen added. ‘A magnificent woman.’

  ‘Yes,’ Olsen said. ‘But I haven’t much liking for masterful women. When, in school history, I
read of Joan of Arc, I detested her. I thought it fitting that she was executed, although I did not approve of the method.’

  ‘What kind of women do you like?’

  ‘Those that can be bought. The purchase removes the possibility of sentiment.’

  ‘So you hated your mother,’ Mouritzen said, ‘as well as worshipping your father. You are the anti-Oedipus.’

  Olsen looked at him with cold anger. He began to say something, but checked the words before they could make sense. A smile came to his face, broadening slowly.

  ‘You are a clever man, Niels. I am fortunate in having you as First Officer. A better officer might well be a more stupid one, and I would not care to have to live with stupidity.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘But it is not true that I hated my mother. Hate is a large thing, and what I felt for her was small.’

  ‘You would call it indifference?’ Mouritzen said.

  He realized that he had allowed some of his scepticism to manifest itself in his tone of voice. Olsen plainly noticed it, but merely smiled.

  ‘You think I do not know myself, Niels? I am a man without insight, ruled by his prejudices and obsessions. That is how I appear to you, is it not?’

  ‘Not quite like that.’

  ‘The same brush blackens you,’ Olsen said. ‘Although you are clever, you have not seen this. Find a seaman and you find a man who, deep down, is indifferent to women. He may pursue them, he may even marry, but that does not alter things. No true lover would tolerate so frequent and such long separation from that which he loves. No woman of sense marries a seaman, except for convenience.’

  ‘You have strong views,’ Mouritzen said. ‘And you put them well. But they are still nonsense.’

  Olsen laughed. ‘Does it come too close?’

  ‘It comes nowhere near me. It’s a matter …’

  He broke off as the telephone bell rang. Olsen picked up the receiver.

  ‘Captain speaking.’

  Mouritzen watched him as he listened, observed the slight narrowing of the eyes.

  ‘Mr Mouritzen will be coming down right away,’ Olsen said.

  ‘More trouble?’ Mouritzen asked.