Jamie Reign

by P J Tierney

  He peered through the rain-drenched windshield, but couldn’t see beyond the next wave. He checked the chart, then the radar, and altered course a few degrees portside, just enough to miss the worst of the weather but not far enough to leave the stranded vessel any longer than necessary.

  Hector must have felt the change in direction because he clambered to the bridge. He looked over Jamie’s shoulder, saw the compass bearing and smacked Jamie across the back of his head. The boy reeled.

  ‘There’s the rock,’ Hector said, jabbing at the chart. ‘What are you doing veering north?’

  ‘The weather,’ Jamie said, gesturing towards the wall of cloud.

  Hector pointed at a series of tiny dots on the chart. ‘So you’re heading us into that instead?’

  Everyone knew the Penglai Islands were trouble. They were a cluster of small islands and rocky outcrops in the middle of nowhere with the reputation of being the Bermuda Triangle of the east. If any vessel went missing, it was a safe bet their last radio contact had been within a three-mile radius of Penglai. Jamie suspected it was the islands’ history as a military training ground then a munitions dump that kept Hector away, not superstition. But in a signal eight typhoon, even Hector had been known to bow three times to the Goddess of the Sea.

  ‘I was going to tack back,’ Jamie said.

  Hector scoffed and pushed him aside. ‘What a princess, scared of a bit of weather.’

  He rammed the levers down and the engines whined. Jamie cringed. Hector turned the little tugboat into the path of the storm and Jamie held on for dear life. The Swift was thrown from the back of one wave into the rising swell of the next. Water broke over the bow and slammed onto the deck, covering it with foam.

  Jamie braced himself against the control panel, ready for each tilt and slam as they crested wave after wave. One wave was so large he was lifted off the ground and flung headfirst into the windshield. He thought his head had broken the glass, but fortunately it was only his forehead that had cracked open. The blood streamed down his face and dripped onto his shirt, but he couldn’t let go of the handrail to stem the flow. He glanced nervously at Hector, who simply shook his head in disgust.

  ‘We’ve got to be close,’ Hector said and flicked his hand at Jamie. ‘Do that thing you do.’

  Jamie stumbled. ‘I-it’s too rough,’ he stammered.

  Hector raised his hand, just high enough for Jamie to see the back of it. ‘Do it,’ he said.

  Jamie had a strange talent: he was able to find things lost at sea. If he closed his eyes and concentrated really hard, he could visualise what they were looking for. It started as a sweeping sensation in the bottom of his stomach, as if he was on a playground swing, and rose up till he felt light-headed. Pictures formed in his mind, as if he was viewing the scene from above. Although he almost always succeeded when searching this way, Jamie was a little scared to do it. It felt like he was split in two, his body in one place, his mind somewhere else.

  Hector squinted through the rain. ‘Which way?’ he demanded.

  Jamie bit his bottom lip and wiped the blood that had dribbled down to his chin onto his shoulder. He closed his eyes, which roused a wave of nausea, but he held back the urge to vomit and concentrated. Just as the sensation came and he felt he was losing his stomach, Hector shoved him. Jamie was startled back to the bridge, like he’d been snatched from the edge of a dream.

  ‘There!’ Hector shouted, pointing at the top of a wave.

  Jamie blinked away his disorientation and followed the line of Hector’s hand. He glimpsed the stern of a boat as it slipped over the wave.

  Hector charged The Swift into the oncoming swell, sending plumes of white foam high into the air. The windshield was doused with thick, swirling foam. When it drained, they saw a white-hulled trawler not eighty feet away. The trawler slid over the next wave and they lost sight of it again, but not before Jamie had seen the crew bailing for their lives.

  Hector’s smile was large and greedy. He jerked his thumb towards the stern, directing Jamie into position, not once taking his eyes from his prize.

  At the stern, Jamie lunged in the same direction as the tilting deck and managed to clip a safety line around him so he wouldn’t be thrown overboard. He laid the coiled salvage line at his feet, held the looped end in his right hand and the slack in his left. Blinking the rain and blood from his eyes, he stood ready to throw.

  Hector swung The Swift in close to the trawler, her stern clipping the larger vessel’s bow and sending the crew tumbling. ‘Do you accept my line?’ he shouted.

  The crew, all Chinese, pretended they didn’t hear. They kept bailing. One man, the captain, stumbled to the bow, both hands on the rail to brace himself. The decks were awash and water sloshed to his calves. The vessel tilted precariously, and when she finally righted herself, she was sitting frighteningly low in the water. Jamie was counting the waves; that was the seventh, the biggest in the set. The crew had a momentary reprieve to bail as much water as they could before the pattern repeated.

  Hector yelled again. ‘Ahoy, do you accept my line?’

  The captain wiped at the water that streamed down his face and looked from Jamie to Hector. ‘We could do with some help!’ he shouted over the noise of the storm.

  ‘I’m not here to help!’ Hector yelled back. ‘Do you accept my line?’

  Jamie could see the desperation in the trawler captain’s face. The man tried to stand tall but stumbled as the boat rolled beneath him.

  ‘We are taking water and our pump has failed!’ he yelled, his voice breaking with the effort to be heard.

  ‘You might want to get that fixed then!’ Hector shouted back. Jamie could see his smirk through the sheeting rain.

  The captain turned to Jamie and spoke in Cantonese. ‘Please, son, can you help us?’

  Jamie’s heart was breaking. He turned to his father to remind him of the spare pumps on board, but one look at Hector and he knew there was no pity to be had there.

  ‘Just accept the line,’ Jamie said to the captain, but not in a mean way.

  ‘I only need a pump,’ the captain pleaded. ‘Just a pump. I can pay.’

  He reached into his pocket and removed a gold medallion — round and flat and the size of a small plate. It had a hole in the centre and an intricate pattern on top. He held it out to Jamie and the rain beaded on its surface, refracting and reflecting light like a kaleidoscope. Jamie was dazzled.

  ‘What’s he saying?’ Hector yelled, and the Chinese captain slipped the medallion back into his pocket. ‘Tell him it’s the line or nothing.’

  The crew bailed faster as another wave bore down. Without power, the trawler was helpless; it was broadside to the swell and vulnerable. It was only a matter of time before she took on so much water that she wouldn’t be able to right herself. Jamie glanced at the storage cage on The Swift; there weren’t enough lifejackets for them all.

  The next wave hit the trawler side-on and Jamie caught his breath. The boat tilted as she filled with water, but somehow managed to roll back, her side rails only just breaking the surface. The trawler was wallowing now and her side was fully exposed. The crew watched the oncoming wave take form and screamed directions at each other. They stumbled and slipped and bailed with whatever they could find. They invoked the Goddess of the Sea as they worked, their cries like daggers through Jamie’s heart.

  ‘Dad!’ Jamie screamed in desperation.

  ‘Last chance!’ Hector yelled and revved the engines to reinforce it.

  The captain looked at the oncoming wave and then to Jamie. It was the fifth in the set.

  ‘Two more,’ Jamie said. ‘You’ll never make it.’

  He tensed to throw the salvage line. It would have to be a good throw; there would be no second chances.

  Hector yelled, ‘You wait, boy!’

  ‘But, Dad!’

  ‘He has to say it.’

  The captain clung to the rail as the sixth wave hit.

  ‘Take the
line!’ Jamie screamed at him, his voice cracking. ‘We’re your only hope.’

  The captain watched the next wall of water loom. The crew threw their buckets aside and clung to the rails.

  ‘I accept your line,’ the captain said.

  But Hector wasn’t through. ‘What did he say?’

  Jamie yelled up to the bridge. ‘He said —’

  ‘Make him say it,’ Hector cut in, thrusting his chin towards the captain. ‘I want to hear it from him.’

  ‘Dad!’ Jamie screamed as the white crest started to bear down.

  ‘Say it!’ Hector yelled.

  The Chinese captain sucked in his breath, stuck out his chest and shouted, ‘I accept your line!’

  Hector threw his head back and laughed, a deep maniacal sound.

  Jamie threw the salvage line to the captain who, in one deft movement, flicked it around the bow lugs and snapped it back on itself. The line had barely caught before it was yanked tight as The Swift swung around, dragging the trawler to meet the wave head-on. The Swift, then the trawler, climbed the face of the massive wave. Jamie clung to the rail, holding his breath and praying his safety line wouldn’t snap.

  The wave broke and slammed down, pummelling Jamie into the steel rail. Blinded by white swirling foam, spluttering salt water, Jamie hoped that the crew behind him had found something to hold on to. Finally the water was sucked back into the ocean, leaving The Swift and the fishing trawler drenched, battered, but miraculously afloat.

  The trawler and her crew were saved, but in accordance to international maritime law, by accepting the salvage line the Chinese captain had handed over ownership of his prized trawler to the captain of The Swift.

  Hector laughed all the way back to Sai Chun Bay.

  It was only later, after the captain and crew had been offloaded, that it occurred to Jamie what a strange time of day it was for a fishing trawler to be out.

  Chapter 3

  While Hector celebrated with the remainder of the single malt whisky, Jamie scrubbed The Swift’s decks under the drizzling sky and washed the salt from the windows. He coiled the lines and checked the safety lanyards, shut down the batteries and checked the fuel. Then he started on the trawler. She was named The Seabird and was in good condition. Jamie thought the insurance company should pay handsomely for her return. Her nets looked new and the fish holds were exceptionally clean. The only equipment that looked well used was the dive gear. There were four full sets, each with three or four spare tanks. Jamie suspected these fishermen preferred to dive for lobsters and abalone rather than dragnetting for fish. The former was far more profitable, albeit illegal at this time of year.

  With his chores done, Jamie would have liked to go down to the cabin, but Hector was still drinking down there. It was miserable on deck in the rain so he went ashore. The door to the Leungs’ courtyard was closed, which meant they were out, but the lights in Feng Chow’s room above the noodle house were on. Although Feng Chow was a lot older than Jamie, they were sort of friends. When the village children were at school and the fishermen were at sea, Jamie and Feng would spend hours watching kung fu movies and dreaming of a life beyond Sai Chun.

  Feng was almost an expert on Wu-style kung fu, which was a highly complex form developed by the legendary Master Wu. Master Wu was famous the whole world over: he’d starred in films, written books and toured the world. His style of kung fu made him difficult to hit and all but impossible to beat. He seemed to dissolve around a punch or fold around a kick. His moves had been analysed by experts and kung fu schools for years, but he had disappeared just when his fame was at its highest. Some people thought he had died from an injury sustained in a fight. Others thought that he had obtained such perfection in being at one with the Way that his physical body had simply dissolved. Others swore he owned an electronics store in the New Territories. Of all the theories Jamie had heard, that last one seemed the most unlikely.

  Feng was Master Wu’s biggest fan. He could recite word for word any scene from any of the films, and he wasn’t too bad at replicating the moves either. He’d often try out the sequences on Jamie. Although Jamie often came out worse for wear, he didn’t mind too much. It was the only way he’d ever learn kung fu because he knew there would never be enough money for proper lessons. Feng was convinced he was going to be the next big martial arts movie star. Jamie thought he had the moves but maybe not the looks to achieve it. Besides, Feng was turning twenty-four this year and he was still here in Sai Chun. Sometimes Jamie wondered how long someone could hold on to a dream without the courage to actually pursue it.

  Jamie held the hood of his raincoat up against the drizzle and ran across the village square. The storm had left everything a slippery, glossy mess. Dirt and debris had washed down from the escarpment and across the square, forming an undulating line at its furthest reach. Jamie leaped the puddles and dodged the mess, hunched over and leaning into the rain.

  He rounded the corner to Feng’s verandah, took the first two steps in one stride and was committed to the next two before he looked up. He froze. On Feng’s verandah, seated around a large circular table, was the entire male population of Sai Chun.

  Jamie’s sudden appearance stopped the conversation short, an unfinished sentence left hanging in the air. Everyone looked at him, and he in turn glanced nervously at the trawler moored alongside The Swift. In a fishing village, where lives and fortunes were lost on the break of a wave, a salvage claim was as bad as piracy. He didn’t have to wonder what they were all talking about.

  It was too late to pretend he was going somewhere else, so Jamie stood on the steps of the verandah and waited for one of the men to make a move. He saw Bohai sitting beside his father, then his attention was drawn to the other side of the table by the flicking of a cigarette lighter. Low See Fut sucked in one long breath until the end of the cigarette glowed, then he blew smoke out and gestured towards the empty stool opposite him.

  Jamie felt a net closing in. He sat beside Feng Chow and smiled weakly at Bohai. From across the table, Low See Fut’s glare burned into him. Low See had the fastest boat, the loudest laugh and the crudest mouth, which made him a sort of leader among the fishermen. The name Low See Fut could be roughly translated as ‘cranky old bastard’, and he wore the name as if it was a medal. He was big too, a solid mass of muscle built up from years of hauling nets and bracing against the sea.

  Low See dragged on the cigarette till it was burned to the stub, then broke the awkward silence. ‘Saw you dragged in a fishing trawler.’

  Jamie nodded, a small timid motion. He knew he was on very dangerous ground.

  Low See’s glare intensified. ‘Salvage,’ he said quietly as he ground the stub of his cigarette with his thumb, leaving a brown-edged hole in the plastic tablecloth. ‘You’re worse than sharks, circling us like we’re prey.’

  The fishermen round the table shuffled nervously. None of them disagreed with their large colleague, but none thought Jamie was the right target.

  Jamie looked around the table. Mr Leung met his eyes, but he was the only one who did. Bohai squirmed.

  ‘We saved six,’ Jamie said, resenting the tremor in his voice.

  Low See slammed his hand down, sloshing tea across the table. ‘You took his boat,’ he said. ‘A man’s boat.’

  Jamie tried again. ‘We rescued them. They would have drowned.’

  ‘You could have helped them,’ Low See said. ‘If you’re such a hero, you could have helped them fix their boat. Not thrown your salvage line on board.’

  A salvage line was a currency all fishermen resented.

  Jamie couldn’t respond to Low See because he didn’t entirely disagree with him. He bit his bottom lip and thought of the look the trawler captain had given him when he knew he was about to lose everything. At least the captain had that gold medallion, he thought. It was probably worth a lot of money.

  Old Mama Chow swung through the restaurant doors, a tiny woman swept along by the momentum of her enormous t
eapot. She was midway through a strong opinion when she saw Jamie. She stopped and flushed bright red, before putting down the teapot. She placed a teacup in front of Jamie and arched her eyebrows at her grandson. Feng averted his eyes and became absorbed in lighting his own cigarette.

  Old Mama Chow leaned over Low See’s shoulder, wiped at the spilled tea and refilled his cup. Low See double-tapped the tabletop with his index and middle finger, a sign to say thank you.

  She moved her pot to the next cup and Low See leaned towards Jamie and narrowed his eyes. ‘I bet that gweilo father of yours even had a spare pump on board.’

  Jamie opened his mouth to defend his father against the term and the accusation, but the lie wouldn’t form. Hector was indeed a gweilo, a white devil, and as to the spare pump … Jamie’s gaping silence was answer enough.

  Low See stood up so fast his plastic stool flipped over. He thrust his chest out and drew breath, but before he could release his tirade, Mr Leung stood too.

  ‘Sit down, Low See,’ he said firmly. ‘It wasn’t the boy’s choice — we all know that.’

  Low See swatted at Mr Leung’s hand. ‘It’s all right for you,’ he said, ‘safe and dry ashore. We have to go further and further offshore to try to find fish. We’re fighting storms that get worse every season. The waves are bigger, the fish are smaller and it gets more and more expensive to fill our fuel tanks.’ He jabbed his finger at Mr Leung. ‘You’ll never have to choose your life over your livelihood at the hands of scavengers like this.’ Low See flicked his hand at Jamie as if he was dislodging something unpleasant.

  ‘You’re right,’ Mr Leung said. ‘It’s a tough way to make a living.’ A small smile formed on his lips. ‘I bet you wouldn’t trade it for my safe and dry desk job at the museum, no matter how slight the chance that the next haul might be the big one.’

  A smile threatened the corner of Low See’s mouth. Eventually he huffed, ‘Me at a desk? I’d look ridiculous.’

  There was a sense of relief around the table as Low See righted his stool and sat down.