Crude Carrier

by Rex Burns

  Julie’s shoes shuffled in the autumn leaves littering the sidewalk. Downhill and around a slight bend, a pub’s genteel sign glowed warmly: the CROWN AND FEATHER. A hand-lettered notice beside the entry stated the pub hours—traditional ones, here, of course—and the mahogany and brass interior had the slow feel of just having reopened for the evening trade.

  “Yes, miss?” A smiling, heavy-faced man wiped his hands on a bar cloth as he popped through swinging doors that led to the kitchen. “What’s your pleasure?”

  Julie ordered a shandygaff, watching the publican pull two or three times on the pump handle and drain off a half mug of foam before filling it with ginger beer. Five-pounds fifty, a price tailored to the local incomes as well as eliciting the fifty-p tip that would not be reported for tax purposes. “This is a very attractive area—very nice homes along here,” she said.

  “Thank you, miss—quite lovely, everyone says, and I won’t argue with them. Canadian, are you?”

  “American. And looking for a house to buy or rent.”

  “Ah, well, couldn’t do better than Hampstead. Especially if you intend to work in London. Mind you, there are other nice areas. But I’m partial to this one. A very settled feel to it, miss. Comfortable, like, and quite safe for young ladies living alone.”

  Julie nodded. “I suppose the homes don’t often go on the market?”

  “Ah, as to that I couldn’t say. But any estate agent could assist you. In fact, one usually stops by of an evening. Retired now, I believe, but he still knows all there is about the area. If you’d like, I can point him out when he comes in.”

  “That would be lovely! Please do.”

  “My pleasure. I have seen notices posted toward West Hampstead. Not quite up to this area, of course, but still very comfortable. Have you looked there?”

  “Well, I do like being near the heath. The husband of an acquaintance bought a home just up the street a couple of years ago. She has nothing but high praise for the neighborhood.”

  “Well, there you are: they do come up for sale now and then.”

  “I suspect they were very fortunate. His name is Boggs—a sea captain. Lives at Willow House. This must be the pub they’ve spoken of. His wife said they’ve spent some very pleasant evenings here.”

  “Ah, thank you, miss. That’s lovely to hear. Boggs … Boggs … Willow House … sea captain …” Julie guessed that the man’s off-season trade was primarily neighborhood residents and his success depended on his ability to recall their names. “Yes—tall chap, I believe. Rather thin. Thought there was something of the military about him. Each December, for a week or two, he and his missus dine here a number of times. Then they’re off to their finca in Spain. Sea captain, eh? That tells me why we don’t see him the rest of the year, don’t it?”

  “Captain of an oil tanker. He’s done quite well. Must, to afford Willow House.”

  “Indeed. Lovely home, that.”

  “And another house in Spain? A finca, you say?”

  “Near Alicante, it is. My wife and I make our pilgrimage to Majorca every January, and I remember talking with the Boggses about Alicante. Very nice home, from what his missus mentioned. Overlooking the sea. Private bit of beach. Away from the usual tourist haunts.”

  The early trade began to drift in. The publican excused himself to greet and serve. The barstools and small booths began to hold a smattering of men in their fifties and older. Wearing casual but expensive tweed, they spoke quietly together or exchanged a friendly word with the publican and then drank alone. Their eyes occasionally drifted toward Julie in cautious assessment. None of them, Julie supposed, had exchanged names with anyone else when they first started coming here twenty or thirty years ago, and they still weren’t about to invade one another’s privacy without a proper introduction. Like cats, they seemed at home in their favorite corner, and their animal comfort lent contentment to the room. Near the fireplace with its flickering gas log was the dining area. Another sign in hand-lettered script indicated a family room and patio in the rear—where children would be welcome. Beside the fireplace, a chalkboard listed the day’s menu. A portly woman in her forties—probably the bartender’s wife—took dinner orders and gave directions to two young, overworked girls who hurried to do the serving and bussing.

  Julie sipped a second glass—a detective’s lot didn’t always have to be an unhappy one, even at five pounds per drink—and was finally introduced by the publican to an elderly, tweed-coated gentleman who said his name was Andrew and that he would be delighted to talk about local estate properties, or, really, anything else she wished to discuss. A wrinkled hand lifted its glass of whiskey in a chivalric toast to Julie, and Andrew settled onto the booth’s other bench.

  “Willow House?” Andrew’s frayed white mustache stretched in a wide smile. “Yes, of course! Belonged to the Brierlies for a number of years. Always liked that: Brierlies and Willows. Two different species of plant, eh? Strikes one as droll, eh? Smythe-Rogers before that—no pun there at all. Oakley. Now that would be a good one: Oakley and Willow, eh? What’s that? Price? Price and Willow … ? Don’t really see … Oh, you mean price of the house! It would be up there. All the homes around here cost a pretty penny and go up in value every year. Damned labor government. Haven’t met your Captain Boggs. Boggs and Willow—Willow Boggs! Might make something of that, eh? But Brierlie wasn’t one to sell a cow for a calf—knew the value of his property, he did. If your Captain Boggs paid his price, he paid a-plenty. Wouldn’t do otherwise, would it? Values go down, blacks move in, neighborhood goes to ruin. Can’t have things end up like East London, eh? No doubt your Captain Boggs could sell it tomorrow for more than he paid, but he’d have the devil’s own time buying another. Unless he had the cash, of course, and didn’t mind parting with it. Always someone’s got the eye out for a good profit—discreet inquiries only, you understand. No one wants it known that they must sell. Don’t know of one right off, though. Might ask Mellers—he was the estate agent transacted the Brierlie sale, I believe. Yes. Mellers. Offices in Hampstead—should be in the directory, eh? It’s the man’s job to be located, eh? Mellers—sellers, a bit droll, eh?”

  When Julie finally left the pub, the chill night air cleared her smoke-stung eyes and made her wish for one of the heavy knit sweaters that a number of the pub’s customers wore. The lights of the large homes were hidden behind shrubbery and walls, and scattered streetlamps only intensified the darkness. London’s high latitude—level with the southern tip of Hudson’s Bay—meant that autumn nights came early and, despite the Gulf Stream that blessed the land, cold. In a sky clear of the day’s haze, the northern constellations looked hard and bright and close. The giant W of Cassiopeia’s Chair and the tiny North Star it circled were almost overhead. Julie took a moment from her brisk stride and her thoughts about Boggs to admire the icy glitter of the sharply etched stars.

  And that was when she was hit.

  A squeaking whisper of rubber soles warned her an instant before the black shape exploded at the side of her vision. Reflexively, she pulled back, feeling more than seeing the blur of a dark arm whip toward her face. A tug at the sleeve of her light jacket, a burning sting along her forearm. The dim gray of pavement showed the shadow of legs and Julie dropped to her unwounded arm to scissor her feet hard and catch a knee between her swinging heel and toe.

  A grunt as the vague shape fell awkwardly and Julie rolled away, her momentum carrying her over her own shoulder and up to her feet to face what she now saw was a scrambling figure dressed in black with a black cloth covering its face. In front of that cloth, the hard glitter of a stiletto wove back and forth like a snake’s head. She aimed a hard kick at his groin but he was expecting that and hopped back.

  Her eye on the steely gleam, Julie moved sideways from the knife, forcing the man to attack across his body. The arm struck out and Julie grabbed behind the blade, her fingernails digging into a wr
ist as she thudded the heel of her other hand savagely against the back of an elbow.

  “Gawd—!”

  The hairy wrist twisted from Julie’s grasp. The blade whistled sharply past her ear in a vicious swipe at her throat.

  Desperately, Julie kicked out. The side of her shoe caught something solid that sent the shape stumbling back into the street. Julie, arm now burning deeply, gasped for breath and moved in again, searching the blackness for the flicker of the knife.

  A flash of automobile lights swung uphill behind her. Their glare showed the black gloves covering his hands, the black balaclava over his face, and his eyes momentarily blinking against the headlights. Julie lunged, one hand ready to deflect the knife, the other aiming at the glint of eyes. But the man turned and ran into the dark past the rapidly approaching car. Julie staggered back onto the sidewalk as the vehicle swerved to miss her. The dim glimmer of a face, smudges of wide eyes, a gaping mouth turned toward her. Then the car accelerated in fright up the hill. In the silence, Julie crouched and listened and searched the dark. The only sounds were her own heavy breath and, somewhere toward the lightless expanse of the heath, the distant rustle of busy vehicle traffic. On her forearm, she felt the spreading fire of cold air on gaping flesh, as well as the tickle of blood. It seemed as if Julie’s ploy of distracting attention from her father was working—better and more quickly than she had planned.

  XVIII

  Raiford no longer took his coffee in the wardroom. After supper, he helped himself to a soda pop from the vending machine on the main deck and carried it up to his quarters where he read until he finally dropped off to sleep. So it was a surprise, after several nights, to hear a scratch on his door. At first he thought the faint noise was at a neighboring cabin. But it came again, and, shrugging on one of the ship’s heavy bathrobes, he unlocked the door.

  “Mr. Raifah—your coffee, sah.” The deck steward held a covered tray on his shoulder, face impassive.

  Understanding, he stepped back so the man could carry the tray in. “Took you long enough, Woody,” he said loudly as he closed the door.

  It really was coffee, and the steward busied himself serving as he spoke quietly. “Sam is very sorry for the trouble he makes for you, Mr. Raifah. He wants me to tell you.”

  “He didn’t make the trouble, Woody.” His voice, too, was low. The uninsulated steel bulkheads between cabins carried sound easily and were the cause of occasional witticisms by neighbors of officers whose wives had come aboard.

  “His fault, he says. Very sorry.” Woody clattered the cup and saucer loudly over the murmur of his voice. “First Mate kick him very hard. Very …” He searched for the word, eyes turning toward the ceiling for inspiration. “Hurt—skin all dark.”

  “Bruised?”

  “Bruise—yes. Very bruise. Any more kicks maybe break something and he cannot work no more. Sam say thank you very much.”

  “Tell him I hope he’s feeling all right now. That sort of thing happen a lot?”

  “Sometimes. Depends. Sometimes First Mate very angry alla time. Sometimes not. Nobody likes him. You are a good man, not same as him.” Woody frowned as he poured the coffee, eyes on the smoking stream. “First Mate is very dangerous. You please be careful, sah.”

  “Is that what happened to Mr. Rossi? He had a fight with the First Mate?”

  “No. He fall overboard.”

  “Was another ship alongside when he fell?”

  “Oh, yes. Little tanker. Mr. Rossi reach way out for line to secure hose. Too far. Fall down between.” The man’s slender hand made a rolling motion. “I see him—call ‘man overboard.’ First Mate tells me shut up and we leave Mr. Rossi. First Mate says keep off-loading—keep working. Never mind Mr. Rossi.”

  “He was still alive and they didn’t stop for him?”

  “Yes. Mr. Rossi wave his arms, try to swim.” Woody clattered his silver-plated serving dishes together so that Raiford barely heard his words. “Leave him sink behind ship.”

  Raiford sighed a long breath. Then he murmured, “What happened to Rossi’s personal effects? Letters or clothes or other gear?”

  “In his footlocker, sah.”

  “What happened to it?”

  Woody shrugged. “Maybe went to slop chest.”

  “Everything?”

  He bobbed his head and shuffled nervously. “Man die, all the good stuff goes to the slop chest. Cheaper than send it home—makes money for ship’s store, too.” He added, “Rest of his stuff …” and ended in a shrug.

  Raiford could be wearing Rossi’s plimsoles.

  “I must go—Mr. Raifah, you be very careful, please. First Mate your enemy now. Much danger for you.”

  “I will, Woody. Thanks.” Raiford leaned into the passageway to call after the tinkling tray, “And next time don’t take so damned long getting here—I like my coffee hot!”

  Silent, but ready to hand any tool needed, Alfred stood at Raiford’s side. Much of the electronics work did not require an assistant, and given the small number of crewmen, it seemed Alfred could have served better chipping paint or helping with the ceaseless maintenance in the engine room. But the sailor was less aide than guard, and the man’s presence kept other crewmen from talking to Raiford.

  Today’s schedule called for a calibration check of the temperature sensors, those that monitored each section of the old boilers as well as those watching over the condenser and turbine. The lower levels of the engine room, dim with spotty lighting and intricate shadows, were hot and damp with steam. It was here that Raiford’s claustrophobic dislike of ships grew intense, and here that the age of the Aurora was most evident. Steam leaked in tiny plumes around valves and fittings crusted with years of mineral deposits or slick with beards of slimy brown rust. The second engineering officer, Henderson, had told Raiford that the ship was one of the few still powered by steam rather than diesel engines, and its age forced them to lie idle for a day every three months so the accumulating leaks could be tightened up. “If we didn’t, we’d lose our steam and the old tub would up and die. Steam runs everything: steerage, electricity, your precious computers, pumps and loading systems, everything. Not so bad if it comes when we’re in port waiting to load. Damned expensive at sea. Lose a good fifteen or twenty hours at over five thousand dollars a day.” He added, “Then the captain pushes her at flank speed to make up the bleeding time and that starts the leaks all over again.”

  Water distillation was another nagging problem for the engineering officer. The steam leaks, though small, added up to a loss of thirty tons of distilled water a day. The evaporation unit produced freshly distilled replacement water at only thirty-five tons. A five-ton margin was, Henderson said, almost no margin at all. The large boiler making the steam that turned the turbine and its single massive propeller shaft used distilled water that had to be absolutely clean. Impurities would dry and cake against the boiler’s steel wall and cause uneven heat. The resultant hot spots could burn through the side of the boiler in a matter of hours, and that made the heat sensors and Raiford’s job all the more vital.

  “As for the condenser, don’t ask.”

  Raiford promised he wouldn’t, but Henderson wanted him to understand how important maintenance duties were. The condenser was a pipe system that cooled the steam back into water after it had run through the turbine. “Has to be water when it goes into the boiler, right? Otherwise, the fire burns through the bottom just like your granny’s teapot when it’s empty.” Seawater, used for cooling the condenser, was drawn in through the ship’s hull, circulated around the steam pipes in the condenser chamber. Then the seawater was pumped out in a steady warm stream above the waterline. But seawater corrodes metal, and old metal corrodes faster, and the engineering officers had a constant battle to keep the cooling seawater from leaking into the condenser’s steam pipes and contaminating the pure water used for the engine. “Another reason
why the heat sensors are so important, right? Warning light on the monitor board lets us know if the bloody condenser unit’s sprung another leak. Gives us a chance to shut down and patch up before any harm’s done to the boiler.”

  As Raiford and Alfred worked their way down a narrow catwalk along the shuddering flanks of the towering boiler, the clank of tools and high-pitched voices cut through the humming throb of burners and pumps, turbine and screw. A glare of bright light from the level below showed the engineering shop where three crewmen stood pounding at a length of pipe clamped in the vises of a metal worktable. One was Sam, who, glancing up, stared for a long moment through the grill of the catwalk toward Raiford and then turned quickly back to his work. The voices dropped beneath the engine room’s rumble. Raiford tested the readings of sensor fourteen and, squinting against the fiery glare and heat spilling from a small vision port, recorded the test date on its inspection tag. Then he moved to the next unit. At number eighteen, he shook his flashlight and thumped it against the heel of his hand.

  “Alfred, me lad—the electric torch is out. Can’t read the meter. Go up to ship’s stores and trade these for new batteries­.” He tilted the flashlight over the man’s hand and let its batteries slide into the open palm. “Just like these, got it? Battery—electric torch—chop chop. Got it?”

  The man’s black eyes narrowed slightly and he nodded once. Raiford watched through the steamy air as the dark coveralls flickered away in the patches of light along the catwalk. When Alfred was out of sight, Raiford swung quickly down a ladder way toward the three seamen.

  Sam saw him first. A startled look crossed his face. He peered past Raiford then scanned the catwalk along the tall side of the boiler. When he did not see Alfred, Sam smiled widely, “Mr. Raifah—thank you! Thank you!”

  “How you feeling, Sam? Everything okay?”

  “Everything okay—and you, Mr. Raifah—you are treated very bad now, yes? Very sorry,” he said, still grinning.