“It’s all a question of what you get used to. It’s worse in my cabin. Nearer the engine-room, see.”
“I’m not interested in your cabin.”
“No? Pity. If you were, I’d be only too pleased to show you round. No etchings, mind; but you can’t have everything, can you?”
“I think you’d better get on with what you came for and then leave,” Moira Lycett said tartly.
She turned her back on him and began to write again in her diary. The insinuation in his words angered her. She would have got up and left the cabin, but that would have been a kind of triumph for him which she refused to concede. She heard him chuckle softly as he opened the tool-box. After that there were other sounds as he operated on the fan. She felt certain that he kept glancing at her as he worked, but she did not turn her head. Nevertheless, the mere fact of his presence made it impossible for her to write coherently; her pen moved, but what appeared on the paper was little better than gibberish, and this made her only the more angry with the engineer and with herself.
After a time she heard him say, “Well now, that should have fixed it.”
Then there was the click of a switch and the sound of the fan whirring, and she could feel the air blowing on the back of her neck.
“Is that better, Mrs. Lycett?”
“Yes,” she said. “Thank you, Mr. Perkins.” But still she did not turn. She waited to hear the sound of the door as he left the cabin.
But she heard no such sound. Instead, she felt something warm touch her neck where it curved towards the shoulder, something warm and soft and slightly moist.
She was so amazed at his audacity that she did not even move. He must have taken this lack of reaction for acquiescence, for she felt his hands exploring and heard his voice whispering in her ear. She was nauseated by the odour of bad breath and stale sweat that came from him, and she tried to slip away sideways off the chair. But his arms were round her, his hands cupping her breasts, and he was stronger than she would have imagined.
She could feel his mouth on her cheek now, moving down along the curve of her chin to her throat. She raised her feet and pressed them against the bulkhead under the hinged table, then straightened the legs abruptly, thrusting hard back on the chair. The sudden move took Perkins by surprise; the wooden back of the chair dug into his stomach and caused him to loose his grip. Moira Lycett took advantage of this loosening to wrench herself free. She turned to face him, flushed and raging.
“You filthy little swine!”
She lashed out with her hand, striking him on the left cheek with her open palm. He moved hastily back out of range, crestfallen. He put his fingers to his cheek where her sharp nails had drawn blood.
“Now, Mrs. Lycett, there was no call for that. You don’t have to put on the outraged wife act, not for me. We both know you like having a man around.”
“A man! You flatter yourself.”
An angry glitter came into his eyes and a sneer into his voice. “Maybe you like them a size bigger. Bigger and boneheaded. Is that the trouble?”
“Get out.” Her voice was low, trembling slightly with suppressed fury.
He took his fingers away from his cheek and looked at the blood on them with an evil lopsided grin. “You’ve got sharp claws. Maybe I’d better give somebody who’ll remain nameless a friendly warning. Tell him to watch out for himself because the cat can scratch.”
“Will you go?” she said. “Or must I call for assistance and have you ejected?”
“Oh, I’ll go.” He picked up his tool-box. “I’ve done what I came for.” He opened the door, then turned and again gave the lopsided grin. “I like to give satisfaction, Mrs. Lycett.” He went out of the cabin and closed the door softly behind him.
Moira Lycett gripped the side of the upper bunk with both hands and let the stream of air from the fan blow on her face. She felt dirty, soiled by Perkins’s touch and by his insinuations. Did she look so easy that even a creature like that might try his luck?
The current of air gradually cooled her, gently stirring her chestnut hair, fanning her heated cheeks and brow. Perkins’s words repeated themselves in her mind: “Maybe you like them a size bigger.” So others had taken note of her conversations with Carl Johansen. On board ship there were always eyes watching, tongues wagging. Well, let them wag. Perhaps she would really give them something to wag about. If she already had the reputation, why not have the pleasure also?
She looked down and saw the cockroach that Lycett had crushed, still sticking to the woodwork. With a shudder of disgust she turned away from the bunks, moved to the basin and began to wash. She had to wash away the imprint of Perkins’s mouth, the contamination from her skin.
* * *
Mr. Finch was half-way through the first watch and not at all happy. It was not his duty that was worrying him—not at this particular time; it was a pleasant evening, acceptably cool after the heat of the day, there was no wind to speak of, and the Indian Ocean was as smooth as any ocean could ever be. One of the small dark seamen was at the wheel and Finch had just checked that he was keeping the Chetwynd on her correct course. The latest weather report that Maggs had brought gave no indication of any change for the worse and it looked as though the ship would have an uneventful run to Fremantle.
And yet Finch was very far from happy.
He stepped out of the wheelhouse on to the starboard wing of the bridge and looked at the sky. No clouds dimmed the brilliance of the stars shining in the infinite blackness of space; ahead the Southern Cross sparkled brightly, pointing the way the ship must go, and all around those other astral aids to navigation glittered like precious stones embedded in a vast slab of pitch.
Mr. Finch let his gaze fall to the bows of the ship, and he could detect the sudden surge of phosphorescence as the iron ploughshare thrust aside a myriad tiny living things that had the salt water for their home; creatures from which this strange luminosity emanated that seemed like liquid fire flowing past to port and starboard until it was quenched and lost in the fading wake of the ship.
Mr. Finch saw no beauty in any of these natural phenomena. He was interested in the stars only insofar as they had to be studied for the purposes of navigation, and though he had, times without number, seen the phosphorescence in the water, he had never once bothered to inquire what was the cause of it. On this night especially he was too deep in his own thoughts, his own worries, to be much concerned with anything else.
For the plain fact of the matter was that Mr. Finch was in love.
And of course it was Maggs whom he had to thank. If Maggs had not suggested going to that house he would never have seen the girl and it would never have happened. He still could not understand why on earth he had gone ashore with Maggs; after all, he didn’t even like the fellow. It just happened that they had got to the head of the gangway at the same time, and as they were both obviously going ashore alone he felt almost compelled to invite Maggs to have a drink with him.
Maggs himself seemed not at all keen on the idea; Finch had noticed before how unsociable the radio officer was; but after thinking it over for a moment or two he accepted the invitation.
So they went to a bar and the drink expanded into two and then into three, and finally more than he could remember. It was well on into the evening by then and suddenly Maggs, quite out of the blue, said he knew a house where they could have some congenial female company and why not go there?
“You mean girls?” Finch said. His mind was not working quite as quickly as usual and things took a little time to get through. “Girls?”
Maggs nodded his head wisely. “What else would I be meaning?”
Finch also nodded. “Could be the very thing to complete the pleasure of the evening.” And he had to speak the words very carefully because they had a way of becoming slurred.
Maggs stood up. “Okay then. Let’s go.”
“Let’s go,” Finch said.
Her name was Ah Mai or something of the kind. She spoke a f
unny kind of twittering English and Finch could understand only half what she said. But what did that matter? She looked wonderful with those mysterious black, slanting eyes and that mysterious, half-shy, half-inviting smile which made Finch’s heart beat faster whenever she turned it on him. She was wearing a long Chinese dress of green silk, tightly fitting, high at the throat, and with a slit in one side that revealed her leg up to the thigh. It was the kind of leg that was worth revealing.
Finch thought she was far better than the girl Maggs had got. Maggs’s girl was shorter and dumpier, and she had a wider, coarser face. She was not really in the same league as Ah Mai. But Maggs seemed satisfied.
“You’ve been here before then?” Finch said. He had been in the same ship with Maggs for a couple of years and he realised now that he still knew nothing whatever about him.
“A few times,” Maggs admitted.
They had more drinks. There was music coming from somewhere, a kind of juke-box with oriental overtones. A few couples were dancing—if you could call it dancing; they hardly moved, just seemed glued to one another, swaying a little. The room had embroidered hangings, alcoves here and there, a lot of bamboo; and there was an indefinable odour which Finch, for no reason at all, immediately associated with the smoking of opium. He had never smelt an opium pipe, but that was what he was sure it would have smelt like if he had.
He was now more than a little drunk and he kept pulling out his wallet and giving out paper money as though he were dealing a hand of cards. Maggs for his part seemed to be quite unaffected by the alcohol he had consumed; now and then Finch noticed the radio officer looking at him with an expression that might have been described as one of malicious amusement, not unmixed with contempt. Even with the haze of intoxication clouding his susceptibilities, he still knew that he really did not like Maggs and that Maggs most certainly did not like him. The fact that they were out on the town together did not mean that they had suddenly become bosom chums; it was a purely fortuitous excursion that would probably never be repeated.
“Enjoy yourself,” Maggs said. “Throw away all restraint. Let your bloody self go.”
Ah Mai’s room was up a flight of stairs and along a corridor so dimly lighted that it was like going into a cave. Ah Mai went on ahead and Finch caught exciting glimpses of her thigh breaking through the slit in the green silk dress. She came to the room, opened the door, switched the light on, smiled at Finch.
“You come in?”
Finch went in and Ah Mai closed the door. The room was not really big enough for the bed; it left very little space for the other furniture, even less for people. The girl stripped quickly with sinuous, wriggling movements. Finch thought of a snake casting its skin, but there was really nothing snakelike about Ah Mai.
She had a lovely soft, resilient body, golden yellow skin as smooth as satin and small, firm breasts with impudent little nipples. She seemed to have one thought only—to give him pleasure. Lying with her on the big bed, Finch gave himself up to sensual delight. He would have liked to stay there for ever, caught in this honeyed dream of infinite sweetness, never to return to the ship, to Captain Leach’s biting tongue, to all the worries, the responsibilities of his hated job. He kissed her mouth, her throat, her breasts. Her limbs twined themselves about him; her tongue made playful, darting explorations; they scarcely spoke a word. Oh God, dear God, he thought, let this last for ever and ever, Amen.
But it could not last for ever. He had to get back to the ship, to the cold, sober realities of life, to his own incompetencies as a sailor, to the searing criticisms of Captain Leach and the brutal scorn of Mr. Johansen. He had to go back from heaven into hell.
Nevertheless, Finch had returned to the house another night —without Maggs; he had gone back to Ah Mai. And after that he had gone to her many more times while the Chetwynd remained loading in Hong Kong; and there could be no doubt about it—he had fallen deeply, irrevocably in love with this utterly enchanting Chinese girl.
He talked with Ah Mai on these later visits and he believed that she loved him too—unless she was simply playing a game with him. That was what plagued his mind now that so many hundreds of miles of sea divided them—the thought, indeed the fear, that she had just been playing with him; that and the knowledge that while he was away there would be other men with her, other men enjoying her. When he thought about those other men with Ah Mai Finch’s mind squirmed with agony; it was mental torture. And every day and every night he tortured himself again and again with pictures of Ah Mai, his darling Ah Mai, in the brutal arms of other men.
Finch did not hear Maggs approach. The radio officer wore rubber-soled shoes and had a habit of creeping silently about, as though intent on taking people by surprise. Finch gave an involuntary start when he became aware of the other man’s presence, and this was not lost on Maggs.
“Well now, Third,” he said. “Keeping a sharp lookout like you’re supposed to do? Not dozing off in the balmy night air, eh?”
“What do you want?” Finch demanded, his voice edgy.
“Nothing. Do I have to want anything? Can’t I just come to pass the time of day—or night?”
“I didn’t know you were so sociable.”
“Don’t you like my company?”
Finch did not answer. He rested his elbows on the bleached teak rail in front of him and stared ahead. He could feel the muted throbbing of the ship’s engines coming up through the superstructure, and now and then he caught the acrid tang of fumes drifting from the funnel. He did not want Maggs’s company. He wished the fellow would go away and leave him to his dreams of Ah Mai.
“Nice weather,” Maggs said; and he gave a low chuckle, as though the very idea amused him. “Maybe it’ll stay that way. Maybe.”
“Is there any reason why it shouldn’t?” Finch asked.
“Reason? No; no reason. No reason at all.”
He began to walk away.
“Sparks,” Finch called.
Maggs stopped, came back. “Well?”
Finch looked at him, looked away, drummed on the rail with his fingers.
“Out with it,” Maggs said. “If you’ve got something to say, say it.” He sounded impatient.
“That girl,” Finch said.
“What girl?”
“In Hong Kong. Ah Mai.”
“Oh, her. What about her?”
Finch hesitated. Should he confide in Maggs? He hesitated, decided not to after all. “Nothing.”
Maggs drew closer, stared up into Finch’s face in the dim light. “Hey now; don’t tell me you’ve gone and fallen for that little whore. No, that would be too rich. Not that little yellow whore.”
Finch rounded on him in sudden fury. “Don’t call her that.”
“Whore? Why not? That’s what she is, isn’t it?”
Finch could not deny the fact; which made it all the worse to hear Maggs bringing out the word with that kind of gloating relish.
“Well, well, well,” Maggs said. “Just one night and she’s got you hooked.”
“It wasn’t just one night.”
“No?” Maggs sounded surprised. “So you went there again? Without telling me. You sly devil.”
“Why should I tell you?”
“No reason, I suppose. Still, I did introduce you. So now you’re in love. Well, you’ll be able to see her again when we get back to Hong Kong. She’ll be there waiting for you at the end of each trip. That end anyway.”
“I want to get her out of that place,” Finch said.
Maggs stared at him. “Have you gone out of your mind? Even if there were no other obstacles, what makes you think she’d come?”
“I think she would. I think she loves me.”
Maggs gave a derisive laugh. “The trouble with you, Finch boy, is you’ve got a romantic soul. Maybe you’ve been reading too many love stories.” He put his hand on Finch’s sleeve. “What do you think she’s up to while you’re away? This very minute maybe.”
Finch was silent. He could
imagine only too vividly. It was that which was torturing him. And perhaps Maggs guessed as much and took a sadistic delight in turning the knife in the wound.
“I’ll give you three guesses,” Maggs said, and sniggered. “Though really you shouldn’t need more than one.”
Finch shook the hand off his sleeve. “Go away.” His voice rose to a squeak. “Go away and leave me alone. I’ve got things to do.”
“You’ve got things to do all right,” Maggs said. But he went away. Finch could hear him humming a tune as he went. The revelation of the third mate’s unfortunate love affair seemed to have cheered him.
“Damn him!” Finch muttered. “Damn him to hell!” He regretted confiding in Maggs. It had been madness to do so. It had done no good. All it had done was to give Maggs a laugh. And now perhaps he would broadcast the story all round the ship, so that everybody could have a laugh. Damn him! Damn him!
But in fact Finch need have had no fear that Maggs would tell anyone else. Maggs was quite content to keep the information locked up securely in his own mind. He had no desire to share it with anyone.
Finch was still turning over in his mind ways and means of getting Ah Mai away from the house in Hong Kong when he handed over the watch at midnight to Mr. Prior, the second mate.
Edward Prior was nearly sixty and the chief reason why he had never risen any higher in the Merchant Service was that he had never had any desire to do so. He was reasonably competent, but he was too easy-going, inclined to be slovenly in his dress, and utterly lacking in ambition. He was a bachelor, about medium height, rather plump, slightly stiff in the left leg, grey-haired and rosy-cheeked, and equipped with such a badly fitting set of false teeth that they made a clicking noise like castanets whenever he happened to be eating. Captain Leach once remarked sourly that all they needed was a guitar and they might have some Spanish dancing. Far from being offended, Mr. Prior laughed more than anyone, which was rather unwise, because when he laughed the upper set was always in danger of dropping out.
Sea Fury (1971) Page 7