The Golden Reef (1969)

by Pattinson, James

  ‘You make it sound like a rest home‚’ Keeton said. He was surprised to find Bristow so cheerful, but when he got close to him and smelled his breath he knew the source of the cheerfulness. ‘Where’d you get the liquor, Johnnie?’

  Bristow grinned. ‘Plenty of it lying around. I found a bottle of Scotch in the chief steward’s cabin. He won’t be claiming it.’

  ‘Looks as if it’s put Dutch courage into you. You don’t seem so scared now.’

  ‘When was I scared?’ Bristow was indignant. ‘You ain’t seen me scared.’

  ‘So you’re just an impressionist.’

  ‘Now cut it out, Charlie‚’ Bristow said belligerently. ‘You keep the clever remarks to yourself, see. I don’t go for that stuff.’

  ‘So you don’t go for it‚’ Keeton said. ‘OK, Johnnie.’

  He sat down on a crate and began to eat fried Spam and potatoes.

  Captain Peterson lay on his bed where Keeton had left him. Keeton went into the cabin on silent feet, as if walking into a church. He spoke softly.

  ‘I don’t know what I can do to help you, sir. I don’t have any medical knowledge. You need a doctor.’ He made a gesture of hopelessness. ‘And I suppose the nearest doctor is hundreds of miles away.’

  Peterson did not move. Keeton walked across the cabin and stood with his back to the porthole. His shadow fell across the bed.

  ‘It’s a queer situation, isn’t it? You and me and that fat slob Bristow; the three of us and the cat. We’ve got food and comfort, and yet we’re all dead men unless somebody finds us.’

  His words dropped into the hot, sickly air of the cabin like pebbles falling into a well, to be swallowed up and lost. The man on the bed made no sign that he had heard. Keeton moved away from the porthole and looked down at Peterson.

  The captain’s eyes were still open but they no longer made the slightest movement. There was no light in them. They were dead eyes in a dead face.

  Keeton touched Peterson’s cheek with the tips of his fingers and it was like touching a coarse brush. There was no greater warmth there than there is in a brush, no greater life. Keeton bent down and put his ear to Peterson’s mouth. There was no sound of breathing; the lips were tightly closed and the thin, pinched nose was waxlike and artificial in appearance, as though it had been the nose of a dummy in an exhibition.

  Keeton stood up and turned away from the bed. It should have made no difference to him, this death of Peterson; the man had been as good as dead for days; the thread of his life had been so tenuous that it had taken scarcely a touch to break it for ever.

  Yet that fine thread had meant something to Keeton; it had meant that the captain was still with his ship even if he could no longer use his arms or his legs or his voice; even if he could do nothing but move his eyes and breathe thinly through waxen nostrils. He had been still the one in authority, and Keeton had drawn comfort from a fact that had at best been little more than a pretence.

  But now Peterson was dead and a phase was over. Now it was just Keeton and Bristow and the cat.

  Chapter Seven

  Tension

  Keeton worked away at the padlock while Bristow watched him. A fine dust of steel fell to the deck of the alleyway as the blade sank deeper into the tempered metal.

  ‘You’re nearly through‚’ Bristow said. ‘Pity we couldn’t find the key. It’d have been easier.’

  Keeton went on sawing and suddenly the blade was through. The strong-room was theirs. They levered off the severed padlock, swung the heavy iron door open and went in.

  Bristow rubbed his hands. ‘Well, here it is, Charlie. Now we’ll really know what kind of secret machinery we’ve got.’ The cases had been carefully stacked, wedged tightly into position, so that the rolling and tossing of the ship had scarcely disturbed them. They eased one of them from the stack, thrust a spike under the lid and ripped it off. Inside were bars of yellow metal – gold.

  Keeton lifted one bar out and laid it on the deck. They both stared at it, fascinated. It lay on the iron floor of the strong-room and the light coming in through the doorway seemed to make it glow with warmth. It held the two men as though it had cast a spell upon them.

  ‘The treasure‚’ Bristow whispered. ‘The treasure of the Valparaiso.’

  Keeton wiped the sweat off his forehead and his hand shook. He looked at the ingot at his feet and he looked at the cases piled in the strong-room. He began to count them, but gave it up. The thought of how much they might be worth made his mind reel. His voice was hoarse.

  ‘It’s gold all right. Gold.’

  Bristow stooped and drew his fingers along the bar, caressing it.

  ‘It’s a fortune. And it’s ours, all ours. We’re rich, Charlie. We’ve got enough here to live on in luxury for the rest of our lives. No more work for us – never.’

  Keeton’s mind cleared; he shook off the effect of that slab of yellow metal lying on the cold iron. He forced himself to look at the facts.

  ‘You’ve forgotten two things, Johnnie.’

  Bristow stopped fingering the gold and looked up at Keeton. ‘What things?’

  ‘First, the gold doesn’t belong to us. Second, even if it did, we’ve no means of carrying it to a place where it would be of any value. Here it’s worth no more than the coral of that reef outside.’

  Bristow straightened up slowly. ‘You’re right. Damn you, Charlie, you’re always right.’ He still could not take his gaze off the ingot. ‘Just the same, it ought to be ours. We was the only ones to stay with the ship. I reckon we’ve got a moral right to it, you and me. What’s the law of salvage say?’

  ‘I don’t know; I’m not a marine lawyer. Anyway, it makes no difference. Right or no right, how could we get it away? And if we did, where could we sell it?’

  ‘There’s countries where you can sell anything and no questions asked.’

  ‘There’s still the problem of getting to them.’

  ‘Oh, God‚’ Bristow said. ‘To think of all that lovely stuff lying there for the taking and us not able to take it. It’s enough to make you weep, straight it is.’

  ‘Maybe we’ll find a way‚’ Keeton said. ‘Maybe we’ll think of something.’ He turned his back on the gold. ‘And for a start we’ll fix that boat.’

  They worked on the boat for three weeks. There was no need for haste. They did not lack tools; the carpenter’s equipment was theirs for use. They cut boards and clamped them over the big hole in the boat. They made plugs for the smaller holes; they found pitch and oakum to caulk the seams; and they painted the whole boat with grey paint.

  ‘Looks like new‚’ Bristow said when they had finished. ‘We’re pretty good at this game, Charlie, though I say it myself.’

  ‘We don’t know yet if it’ll keep the water out.’

  ‘I bet it will. I’ll lay you two to one in gold bars it won’t let in a drop.’

  Bristow was right. When they tested the boat in the water, using small tackles on the falls to help them with the weight, it floated perfectly and appeared thoroughly sound.

  ‘There you are‚’ Bristow said. ‘We could sail round the world in that beauty.’

  ‘Maybe we could‚’ Keeton said, ‘if either of us knew how to navigate. How are you up in that business?’

  ‘I don’t know the first thing about it. Do you?’

  ‘I don’t yet, but maybe I’ll learn.’

  ‘Learn? Who’s going to teach you?’

  ‘I’ll teach myself.’

  The idea had already occurred to him, and it was part of a much larger idea, one that made his heart beat faster when he thought about it.

  ‘I’ve found some books. You can learn a lot from books.’

  It was the books that had given him the idea. There were manuals of navigation, volumes on meteorology, everything. And he had found Peterson’s sextant. Mathematics had always come easily to him and he did not doubt for a moment that with these textbooks to aid him he would eventually master the science of navigatio
n. He had all the time in the world for study.

  Bristow was staring down at the boat. ‘You aren’t really thinking of going off in that shell, are you?’

  ‘Not yet. Might be forced to in the end though. For the present I’d say we were better off here. We may be picked up.’

  But already he had begun to wonder whether he really wanted to be picked up, for that would spoil the plan that had begun to germinate in his mind.

  It was no easy task to haul the boat out of the water and back on deck even with the extra tackle, but they managed it. Bristow was panting and sweating.

  ‘I wouldn’t want to do that too often. I never did go a lot on boat drill.’

  ‘You won’t need to do it often‚’ Keeton said.

  Secretly Keeton believed that it was unlikely that any ship would sight them. Vessels were sure to keep well clear of the reef, since it was bound to be a known danger to shipping. After being disabled the Valparaiso could well have drifted far away from the regular trade routes and it might be many months, years even, before the wreck was discovered. This, he now felt, was all to the good; the plan, as yet only vaguely worked out, would require time; it could not be put into operation while the war continued. For the present, therefore, he was content to stay on board the Valparaiso, biding his time.

  So he struggled with the mysteries of navigation and gradually mastered them, so that the day finally came when he was able to mark on one of the charts in the chart-room the exact location of the reef on which the Valparaiso was lying. He did not tell Bristow this, but kept it to himself, checking and re-checking, and then imprinting the longitude and latitude on his memory until they became as unforgettably fixed there as his own name.

  Bristow found his own amusement. Much of it came out of a bottle. There were enough bottles to keep him going for quite a time, and the fumes of alcohol took his mind off the subject of their hazardous situation. He offered to share the liquor with Keeton, but Keeton drank only sparingly; he had no wish to clog his brain with rum or whisky.

  Bristow amused himself in other ways also. He practised gunnery with the Oerlikons. He fired at projections of coral when they showed above the water. The guns chattered, flaring tracers hissed along the surface of the sea and the shells exploded in red bursts of flame. Bristow loved it.

  ‘Why waste the ammo?’ Keeton said. ‘Suppose a Jap plane came over. We might need it.’

  Bristow scoffed at the idea. ‘You won’t get any Jap planes coming over here. If they did they wouldn’t trouble to bomb a wreck. They’ve got more important things on their plate.’

  He played with a rifle too. He threw bottles and empty tins overboard and shot at them. The crack of the rifle broke in upon the soft hiss of surf on the reef and the lapping of water against the ship’s sides.

  Keeton was sick of Bristow, of his drunkenness, of his gluttony, of everything about him. He preferred the cat for a companion. He carried it on his shoulder, and when he lay in his hammock in the sun the cat would curl up beside him and go to sleep.

  ‘That cat‚’ Bristow said. ‘I reckon it’s fallen in love with you.’ He sounded almost jealous, as though he resented the cat’s liking for Keeton. ‘It’d better not get in my way. I’m allergic to cats.’

  ‘You leave it alone‚’ Keeton said.

  ‘I’m not touching it. But it had better not get in my way.’

  ‘The cat won’t get in your way. You’ve got the whole ship, haven’t you? Isn’t it big enough for you?’

  ‘Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t‚’ Bristow said darkly. ‘I’m just giving you fair warning.’

  ‘And I’m warning you, Johnnie. Keep your hands off that cat.’

  It happened two days later. Keeton saw the cat when he went out on deck. It was lying on number four hatch. He thought at first that it was asleep; but then he realized that no cat ever slept in that kind of position. Its forepaws were stretched out on the hatch and its hind legs were dangling over the edge, its tail between them.

  Keeton ran towards the cat, but he knew before he reached it that it was dead. There was a wound in its head and the fur was matted with blood. Keeton’s anger almost blinded him. It was such a pointless thing to do; destruction for destruction’s sake.

  Bristow was not in sight, so Keeton went in search of him. He found Bristow on the forecastle with the rifle in his hands, taking aim at a bottle bobbing up and down in the sea.

  Bristow fired and missed, the bullet kicking up a jet of water a foot to the right of the target. He was wearing nothing but a pair of dirty shorts, and the sweat glistened on his soft, plump body with its peeling skin and its host of freckles.

  Keeton dropped a hand on Bristow’s shoulder and swung him round.

  ‘You bastard!’ Keeton said.

  He lifted his right hand and struck Bristow on the cheek with the open palm. The sound of the blow was almost as loud as the report of the rifle. The blood flamed in Bristow’s cheek.

  ‘You shot my cat‚’ Keeton said; and he struck Bristow’s other cheek.

  He wanted Bristow to hit back; he wanted to goad Bristow into retaliation so that he could really hurt the man. Unless Bristow fought back it would not be possible to punish him as he deserved to be punished.

  Bristow said: ‘What the hell are you talking about? What are you hitting me for?’

  Keeton could tell that Bristow had been drinking again. He was not drunk, but there was the smell of spirits on his breath. His eyes looked bloodshot and the two stinging smacks on his cheeks had brought tears into them.

  ‘You know damn well what I’m talking about. You know why I hit you. You killed my cat.’

  ‘Your cat? Since when has it been yours? I’ve as much right to it as you.’

  ‘You had no right to shoot it.’ Keeton’s voice was flint hard. Anger was burning in him and he wanted to crush Bristow, to beat him to pulp. He hated Bristow at this moment as he had never hated anyone in his life.

  ‘It was just a bit of sport.’

  ‘I’ll make you pay for your sport. I warned you.’

  ‘Ah, what’s one cat more or less? They’re filthy devils, anyway. I did right shooting it.’

  Bristow’s voice was defiant, the liquor making him bold. Keeton slapped him again, harder. Bristow still had the rifle in his hands; he swung it up, striking at Keeton’s head. Keeton caught the rifle and wrenched it out of Bristow’s grasp. He flung it away and it fell with a clatter on the deck. He clenched his right fist and struck Bristow between the eyes. Bristow’s head jerked back and Keeton hit him again, in the throat. He heard Bristow choking and he hit him again, twice, in the stomach. It was like hitting a boiled pudding; the flesh seemed to close round his fist. Bristow doubled up, retching, and collapsed on the deck.

  ‘I ought to kick your teeth in‚’ Keeton said. But there was no more to be done. If he got a rope’s end and flogged Bristow the cat would not be brought back to life. He would simply be working off his own anger, and there was not enough resistance in Bristow to give satisfaction; it would have been no better than flogging a mattress. He felt cheated, robbed. ‘You’d better keep out of my way, Johnnie. You’d better do that.’

  He turned away and walked to the ladder leading down from the forecastle. He did not look back.

  His hand was on the ladder rail when he heard the breech bolt snick. He turned slowly and saw that Bristow had picked up the rifle and was aiming it at him. Bristow was on one knee and the rifle butt was against his shoulder. The barrel was not very steady, but it was pointing in the general direction of Keeton’s chest.

  ‘Put it down‚’ Keeton said.

  Bristow’s nose was bleeding and the blood had made a bright red stain on his mouth and chin. Drops of blood were falling on to his chest.

  ‘I’m the one that gives the orders now‚’ Bristow said.

  Keeton stood with his hands against his sides and his back to the ladder, staring into the muzzle of the Lee-Enfield.

  ‘You give no orders to
me, Johnnie.’

  ‘I’m going to shoot you‚’ Bristow said. He was breathing heavily and he looked half-mad, half-scared.

  ‘You’re not, Johnnie. You’re going to put that gun down. You’re going to put it down on the deck.’

  The sweat was pouring from Bristow’s face and the blood was running down from his nose. Scared or not, he was dangerous. He had enough liquor inside him to give him some courage, enough to blunt the edge of his fear and blind him to the consequences of his actions. Keeton knew this; he knew that Bristow had been hurt by the blows that he had received and that the desire to strike back was driving him. Keeton knew all this when he began to walk towards Bristow.

  ‘Keep back‚’ Bristow shouted. ‘You keep back, Charlie; else you get it.’

  ‘Put the gun down, Johnnie.’

  ‘I’ll put it down all right‚’ Bristow yelled. ‘I’ll put it down your bloody throat. Stop, d’you hear? Stop where you are.’

  Keeton continued to walk towards Bristow, his gaze fixed on the rifle. He saw Bristow’s finger curled round the trigger. Bristow shouted something but the report of the gun extinguished his words. Keeton saw the butt kick back against Bristow’s shoulder and something whined past his ear so close that he felt the wind of it passing.

  Bristow was working the bolt of the rifle. The empty cartridge case shot out of the breech and rang as it fell to the deck. It rolled a short way and stopped, glinting brassily in the sun.

  Keeton was on to Bristow before he had time to ram the bolt home again. The breech of the Lee-Enfield was open when he hit Bristow. Bristow went down and the rifle fell from his hands. Keeton hit him again; the bullet had scared him and he wanted to get the fear out of his system; perhaps he could beat it out by smashing Bristow.

  Bristow began to howl. There was blood on Keeton’s knuckles; he did not know whether it was his own or Bristow’s. He did not care.