by Rex Burns
Li giggled. “You pay for everything except quarters and three meals a day.” He added, “And coffee—owners still supply coffee.”
“Though how bloody long that will last, who knows. Bloody crew even has to pay for their television. Entertainment fee, the sods call it, and blasted few of the films are in Chinese.”
Laughing as if it were a joke, Li agreed. “Owners give you money and take your money. Sometimes more take than give.”
“Ya—and Li, you poor sod, you’re ripped off worse than we are.” Hansford rubbed a finger down his long nose and winked at Raiford. “Li’s new aboard—they got him for half the pay of the previous third officer. A real bargain, our Li is, aren’t you, lad?”
“They tell me take the job or leave it.” He laughed again. “I take it.”
“Got taken is more like.”
“You’re Rossi’s replacement?”
Hansford looked sharply at Raiford. “Knew him, did you?”
Raiford guessed that the second officer had been talking. “No. His parents phoned me in the States. They asked me to find out what I could about his accident.” He shrugged. “The owners didn’t tell them much about it, I guess.”
Hansford grunted and studied the toe of his shoe.
“They also wanted anything personal he might have left. You know, some souvenir of their dead son.” A violin in the background would have been helpful. “Any idea where his personal effects might be stored?”
Hansford’s voice was abrupt. “If Rossi left anything personal, the captain would have sent it to the home office for forwarding. Any clothes he left are probably in the slop chest by now.” The mate crossed bony knuckles around one knee and leaned back against the pull of his arms. “Li, here, never met Rossi. I knew him, though. Many a time he sat right there where you’re sitting and I sat right here. We tossed down our share.”
“Did you see his accident?”
“No. But I was at the funeral—nice one. You can tell his parents that. All hands at services, even the Muslims, and Captain Boggs reading Psalm 23.” Hansford added, “Had to use the Liberian flag, though. But that’s close to the Stars and Stripes, right? Guest of honor didn’t seem to mind, anyway.”
Raiford had to agree that the substitute flag made little difference to Rossi. He stared at the black circle of coffee in his mug. It tilted very slightly first one way and then the other. The motion was almost imperceptible. Except for the trembling of the deck, Raiford would not know they were under way. “Was the weather rough when he fell?”
Hansford tugged at a lock of his curly dark hair as he thought. “Can’t recollect.” He called across the wing of his chair. “Mr. Pressler—Mr. Raiford here wants to know was the weather rough when Rossi had his accident.”
The lounge was suddenly and silently alert. The squat man, a highball glass dwarfed in his meaty fist, slowly looked up from the magazine he leafed through. “Rough? Neither rough nor calm. Average, I’d say. Why?”
“Says he wants something to tell Rossi’s parents.”
“Well, Mr. Raiford, tell them it was a day like any other.” The man’s lips stretched in a grin that showed stubby teeth with wide gaps. “That’s how people die, right? On days like any other?” Then, “Speaking of which, you ready to go down in the tank tomorrow morning? Solenoid’s out on one of the relay switches. Mr. Hansford, there, can show you the way.”
“Me? Bloody hell!”
“Yes, you, Graham me lad. The job calls for an engineer to accompany, and Chief Engineer Bowman gave me your name. So direct any complaints to him. Besides, it’s time someone from engineering did some damned work around here—earn your bleeding pay, like.”
“Gawd, I hate going down in the tanks.”
“Don’t know anybody likes it. But we can’t have our brand-new electronics specialist croak off, can we? You keep him out of trouble. And while you’re at it, you can look over the plates for cracks. Have your work party at the hatch of number two center tank at oh eight hundred. With Drager gear.”
“Oh, gawd.”
Raiford drained his cup. “I’d better do some reading.”
“So you should, Mr. Raiford.” Pressler smiled again. “You want to be ready—don’t want to spend time fumbling about down there. Mr. Li, speaking of time, it’s nearing eight bells. Haul your arse up to the bridge.”
“On my way, sir.”
Woody, the Taiwanese deck steward, had pulled heavy drapes across the windows to prevent light from escaping forward. The day couch was now a large, freshly made bed with sheet and light blanket neatly turned down at one corner. A pitcher of cold water stood sweating next to an upturned glass behind the rail of the small table. The lamp glowed softly, promising rest, which, Raiford was aware, he needed very much.
Setting his travel clock for two forty-five, Raiford put himself quickly to sleep by reading wiring diagrams and specifications for the loading control system. When the alarm gave its muffled rattle beneath his pillow, he dragged himself to a sitting position and rubbed his thumbs into puffy eyes. Then he opened his door slowly. The corridor was illuminated by low-wattage bulbs in wire cages placed every twenty feet or so along the walls. The pungent odor of oil was gone now, though the protective strips were still laid over the green carpets. In the stillness, he felt more than heard the engine’s throb far below. But except for an occasional slow creak of metal or the steady wash of the ventilation system, there was no sound. Hansford had said they were steaming at a slow twelve knots—“mooring point won’t be clear of traffic before thirteen hundred hours”—and it would take three hours more to tie up and bring the hoses to the manifolds before they could start filling tanks. “Gives us the whole morning to check out the relay switches. We won’t stay in the tank that long, though. Beastly place!”
Raiford’s feet were silent on the carpeted stairs leading down to the lower bridge deck and its wardroom. In the dimness, the coffee urn’s light glowed red, warning that someone would probably come by for a cup before the second watch reported for duty at 03:45.
Directions for use of the Inmarsat-A telephone were taped to the set. Turning it on, Raiford let the satellite telephone warm up for a few seconds as he read his new calling card with its directions for use. From this corner of the world, his voice would be transmitted through at least two satellites. Figure ten or eleven hours’ difference. Using the time-chart hanging on the bulkhead, it was hard to tell exactly where the hour line ran through the Gulf. But it should be around five or six in the afternoon in Denver, and Julie could be working late. But the only response was a digital voice that apologized and told the caller to please leave a message.
He did: the Indian Ocean Region Code and the seven-digit ship ID number. Then he dialed again. This time he spoke to Julie’s personal answering machine. “Hi, Julie—it’s knight-errant father. Here’s the calling code in case you need to reach me.” He repeated the numbers, then dialed a third time. This was to Julie’s mobile telephone, and, after several rings, her voice answered, “Hello?”
“Hi, Julie.”
“Dad! Is it you? How are you?”
“Fine. How are things in Denver? Anything new?”
“I’m in London—got in yesterday.”
“London … ! Hercules Maritime’s offices?”
“Yes. They didn’t give me much, but I do have a lead to one of their clerks who might help. I’ll try to set something up with him this evening.” She didn’t mention the man who had followed her. Her father would have enough on his mind without worrying about that. Besides, she could take care of herself. “It seems like you’ve been gone for ages.”
“Yeah, it does—only another thirteen days, six hours, and thirty-four minutes to go, but who’s counting? Still, it’s good I came—there’s something here. I ask a question about Rossi and people get tighter than a lawyer giving free advice. See if you can locate Rossi�
��s footlocker. The captain thinks it was sent to the home office to be forwarded to his parents.” A movement in the passageway caught his eye. “Can’t talk much now but here’s the ship’s calling codes if you need to reach me. Can’t rely on my cell phone. For backup I’ll use e-mail or fax to the office.” He was repeating the ship’s numbers when Shockley, not surprised to see the Inmarsat in use at this hour, came in. Raiford said a tender good-bye to Julie—not entirely for Shockley’s benefit—and nodded hello as he hung up. “Calling my daughter. Let her know I arrived okay.”
The pudgy man yawned and nodded. “Spend half my bleeding pay on calls to me family.” He rattled in the breadbox for a stale roll to go with his coffee. “Don’t forget to log your calls in the book, there. Purser gets huffy if the user log don’t square with his record of calls.”
Shortly after a hurried breakfast, Raiford jogged down the long deck toward Hansford and two seamen standing near the hatch. The sun, which had been gigantic and scarlet as it shouldered through the mauve band of dust and haze that was the morning horizon, was turning into a white glare that stung Raiford’s eyes. Even this early, the green deck rippled with heat, and he felt as if he trotted down a long runway—broad, empty, hot—toward the cluster of men, equipment, and bicycles near the rail. Every hundred feet or so, a fire hydrant straddled the central piping, and here and there tubes, cleats, and access hatches erupted from the level surface of the deck. Beyond the pipes of the loading manifold, a low steel barrier crossed the deck in the form of a shallow V whose angle was aimed forward. Farther down toward the bow was another. Breakwaters, he had been told, to shed seawater that might plunge over the bow during storms and wash down the lengthy deck to crash into the island. But it was hard to imagine any wave big enough to rise above the ship’s wide bow.
As Raiford neared the three men and the pile of gear at their feet, he saw a small, oblong access hatch laid back. Its underside, like the belly of a frog, shone dull white. A shaft of sunlight angled through the opening into a vast cavern and died out before reaching the bottom.
“How deep is that thing?”
“Thirty meters straight down.” Hansford checked out Raiford’s rubberized coveralls and green Wellington boots. They were the largest in ship’s supply, but they were all too tight. “You look like ten kilos of potatoes in a five-kilo bag. Gloves? Got your gloves?”
“Right here. They’re small, too.”
“On you anything normal would be. Wearing any metal? Necklace, earring, wristwatch, whatever?”
“No.”
“Good, then. Won’t do to have a spark. Tank’s been cleaned—all of them get washed on the ballast leg of the voyage and it’s supposed to be gas-free. But they’re never really safe. Look clean and peaceful and then blow up in your face over nothing.” The engineering officer winked at one of the waiting crewmen, an Asian whose wide face had been badly scarred by smallpox. “Like a woman, eh, Charley?”
The man laughed and covered his mouth politely.
“This is Mr. Raiford. Charley. Sam. Both are named Wang. Cousins or some such. Most of the crew’s named Wang and most are from the same village, so we just use the first names. Right, lads?”
More laughter and smiles.
“Which of you is going down with us?”
The pockmarked man bobbed his head. “I come.”
“You’re single and Sam’s not, is that it?”
A grinning nod. “Sah!”
“All right. Let’s check out the gear and get this over with.”
Sam helped the three sweating men into cumbersome breathing tanks, hoses, and resuscitators. Then they loaded up with rubberized bags of equipment and vinyl-coated tools. Easing through the narrow hatch, they climbed slowly down the rungs welded to the bulkhead.
“Gawd, I hate it! Pressler knows it, too, that arse crawler. Makes damn certain the chief engineer chooses me to go down every time. I’m the one with the most experience, he says. Damn right I am. Nobody else gets a chance at any. Whoo!”
“If this is the kind of ladder Rossi fell down, I can see how it would spoil his weekend.”
Hansford paused and squinted up at Raiford, mouth twisted. “Why don’t you lay off Rossi? He had an accident and the poor sod’s dead. For God’s sake, let it go.”
“I’m only asking because—”
“Because his mum and dad want to know. I understand. But what good will it do them, eh? He’s dead. That’s that. Dead and gone. Just leave it, can’t you?”
Silently, Hansford started down again. Raiford and Charley followed, one slow step at a time.
The farther down into the fading light, the larger the vast cavern seemed. Above, a row of open Butterworth plates in the deck gave the only illumination. Raiford could see Sam’s head, a black bump at the edge of the nearest circle of sky, peering down. He lowered a spare oxygen mask on a long line to dangle a third of the way down the ladder. The ports receded until they were dots of glare far above the gloom. Around the men loomed shadows of pipes and valve housings. The hull’s gigantic transverse beams were as large as cathedral buttresses. Bayonets of tank washing machines rose twenty feet from the ship’s bottom. They reminded Raiford of wire sculptures made of cast-off rods and piles of scrap.
Hansford had told Raiford to let him know immediately if he started to feel a bit tipsy or sleepy, or had any numbness on his skin. “Gas bubbles float about. We use the Drager gear where we can, but there’s no way we can do a proper job without taking it off.” Only two or three breaths of the odorless and tasteless hydrocarbon gas would knock a man out, Hansford said. Raiford should not be shy about speaking up if he felt any of the symptoms of gassing. Without a resuscitator, a man would have six minutes to get up to the deck before dying. Looking at the almost invisible top rungs of the ladder, Raiford knew no one could ever make it.
“All right, Mr. Raiford. This is the relay switch that wants looking after. Charley, you give an anchor to that fitting. I’ll get the damn housing loose.”
Hansford’s voice was loud in the absolute silence of the steel cavern. Raiford could smell oil, but he saw none—the washing machines had scoured every angle of the dim struts and beams, steel plating, ladders and catwalks. Even any color had been washed out to leave only the hue of dead ash. And the ship’s vibration, felt everywhere else, was dead here, too.
“How much oil does this tank hold?”
“Eighteen thousand tons. Want to get the clip off that lead?”
Hansford held the insulated flashlight while Raiford worked in the circle of its beam. The electrical connections to the unit were basic: circuit and grounding wires, or “earthing” as the British diagram named it. But the solenoid was crammed behind complex shielding. It had to be guaranteed against the slightest possibility of an electrical spark when the current switched on to operate its valve.
“All right, Charley. He’s got it. Hand me the new unit, and for God’s sake don’t drop the bloody thing or we could all be cinders.”
Even deeper recesses were below them. From the lifeless gray where they worked, dark caverns led into almost total blackness. A small walkway ran across the tops of the transverse beams, and ten or twelve feet below that was the final steel plating of the double hull that held out the sea and gave support to the network of pump hoses and siphons.
The only sound was the scuffle of Wellies or the whisk of rubberized cloth. Raiford tied off the electrical leads and tightened their clamps, careful not to drip sweat from his face onto the connections. Then he held the light while Hansford replaced the shockproof housing over the unit.
“Good—let’s give her a test.” He unclipped the portable VHF radio from his belt and keyed the transmit button. “Mr. Bowman? Give it a try, sir.”
There may have been a faint click from the replacement unit, but Raiford couldn’t be certain. The only noise he was conscious of was the thud of his own he
artbeat in his ears.
A tiny voice said, “Well done.”
“All right! Let’s get the hell out of here.” Hansford quickly but carefully placed his coated tools into the rubber bag. “Charley—stow your gear and … Charley?”
The man, head lifting slowly at his name and mouth sagging open, gazed dully at Hansford with glassy eyes.
“Jesus! Gas!” Eyes stretched with fear, Hansford jammed his mouthpiece between his lips and stumbled for the ladder, leaving Charley to waver and sag against the beam. As the mate climbed frantically, Raiford, sucking on his own air tank, crammed Charley’s rubber mouthpiece up to the man’s lax jaw and slung him over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry.
Thighs straining against the tightness of his coveralls, he raced after Hansford. At first the seaman’s weight wasn’t much. But with more steps he felt heavier and heavier until Raiford’s legs burned with every lunge. The mouthpiece constricted his breathing until it strangled the gasps of air he sucked frantically through the narrow hose. And he could use only one hand on the rails. The other clamped Charley’s breathing tube into the now-unconscious sailor’s mouth. As Raiford slowly rose above the steel plates and beams, he stared at his hand to will its accuracy as it quickly released and slapped for the next rung. His body clenched tighter and tighter against the outward pull of the weight across his shoulders and against the thought that his hand, clumsy and sweaty in its ill-fitting glove could reach for a thin steel bar and miss. And, as if malignantly reading his thoughts, his fingers stubbed on the next rail and he felt himself flail backward and grabbed wildly with his other hand. The breathing tube slipped from Charley’s mouth, but Raiford—jerked straight-armed and off-balance over the darkness below—clung motionless for a long instant. Then, curling his chest and stomach muscles against Charley’s weight, he blindly pulled back close to the ladder and stuffed the mouthpiece back into Charley’s face. Then he started up again toward the oblong glare that was still so small and distant.