by Nick Elliott
DARK OCEAN
Nick Elliott
Seaward Publishing
DARK OCEAN
By Nick Elliott
Published by Seaward Publishing
Amazon Edition
Copyright © Nick Elliott, 2017
The right of Nick Elliott to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, other than that in which it was purchased, without the written permission of the author.
ISBN 978-0-9929028-4-1
Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is coincidental.
Formatted by Jo Harrison ~ Author Assistant
To Liz, Louise and Melanie
“For whosoever commands the sea commands the trade;
whosoever commands the trade of the world commands the riches of the world,
and consequently the world itself.”
Sir Walter Raleigh
Chapter 1
I’d read through the scanned newspaper report that Claire had emailed the day before. It was headed Special to The New York Times and dated 2 March 1944. The headline read: “Japanese freighter torpedoed off Hong Kong”.
The brief dispatch written in the terse, urgent prose of its time, said little more than its headline. But Claire Scott had added a report explaining that it concerned a cold case we were handling and sketching out the facts. Knowing I was already in the region, she was asking if I’d take it on and if so, get myself to Hong Kong as soon as possible. I’d called her saying I’d go. That was the previous day. Now I was sitting in front of my old friend Sammy who had other ideas.
Dressed in his colourfully embroidered native costume he sat impassively, cross-legged on the earthen floor of the hut where we were holding the quarterly meeting of our Sarangani Association, a trust we’d set up to help the B’laan protect their rights to the ancestral homelands they so cherished. We all feared for the depredations they would suffer in the face of the copper and gold mining project that was rapidly unfolding on their doorstep. The mine at Mount Buwan Bundok was not ten kilometres from where we were sitting.
‘Go there, not come back,’ the old man said gently.
‘What do you mean, Sammy?’
‘Go there, you will die.’ He spoke softly but intensely, staring at me with his watery old eyes. The rain hammered onto the thin corrugated iron roof of the hut making it hard to hear what he was saying.
Sammy was the headman of his B’laan barangay, a village high in the mountains of southern Mindanao. He knew nothing of the case I’d just been assigned. But he was a tribal shaman. Apparently he had entered into a state of altered consciousness in order to reach this conclusion about my impending demise. I’d told him that I had to leave the village as I had business to attend to in Hong Kong. Perhaps his intuition or something in my own body language had alerted him and he had decided to warn me. Now I watched as he came out of a trance-like state the likes of which I’d never witnessed. His body convulsed as he muttered strange sounds in this extraordinary ritual that had led him into the spirit world. From there he foretold the future, as well as healing the sick. Sammy claimed to be in touch only with benevolent spirits and not the evil ones that many shamans call upon to bring down misfortune on their clients’ enemies. Every village had its own shamans using their unearthly talents to carry out different forms of ritual curing.
‘Thanks for that, Sammy. I’ll watch out for myself.’ Whether or not I believed his premonition, I nevertheless held the old man in high regard. He and his people had come to my rescue once before and I didn’t want to sound dismissive of his warning now.
Sammy shrugged but said nothing more. He had spoken.
It was late and we had to get moving. I stood up painfully. Like Sammy I’d been sitting cross-legged for the best part of two hours, only for me it was torture. But the meeting had gone well. Belying their simple lifestyle, Sammy and his lieutenants could teach the corporate world a thing or two when it came to formulating a strategy, and sticking to it.
The idea was to form a stewardship whereby the land would give life to the people and the people give life to the land. It was a three-pronged approach tackling environmental, social and territorial issues, all of which were crucial to the B’laan, a peace-loving tribe living in what by western standards would be judged abject poverty, but for them was a natural, healthy lifestyle threatened by the mining companies on the one hand and territorial warfare known as pangayaw with their neighbours, on the other.
Carlos stood as well. Carlos Torres was a co-trustee of the Association who acted as interpreter when necessary and, as a resident of Mindanao, was our principal link with the B’laan. He was also, like myself, a marine claims investigator.
We said our goodbyes and headed for the door. Sammy had risen too; this small, leathery skinned old man, bent with age yet dignified. He touched my arm.
‘Don’t go.’
What could I say? I wasn’t superstitious, or was I? ‘Don’t worry, Sammy. I’ll take care.’
***
‘Tomorrow’s flight leaves at ten,’ said Carlos as we drove off heading south to General Santos. ‘Good connection in Manila. You’ll be in Hong Kong late afternoon. All booked.’
‘Thanks, Carlos.’
It had taken us over an hour just to walk back along the narrow muddy paths to where Carlos had left his car. To one side were little fields of maize, sugar cane and pineapple, but on the other was the jungle: hot, humid and smelling of putrefying vegetation. The raucous cacophony of the forest’s birdlife accompanied us as we headed down to where we’d left the car.
Now, as we drove south towards GenSan, the clamour of the jungle was replaced by the chaos of the road. As we came closer to the city the traffic grew heavier – cars and trucks, jeepnees, tuk-tuks, tricycles, livestock and pedestrians all vying for space on the narrow road, which by now was in darkness. But Carlos was a careful driver – by local standards.
‘What do you think of what Sammy said?’ he asked, ’I mean his warning about Hong Kong?’
I’d been mulling it over. ‘Maybe what he saw was my past, Carlos. My family perished in the landslide there. So did I, very nearly. Then there was my near-miss at Buwan Bundok last year. Maybe it all got muddled up in his dream, his premonition.’
‘I hope you’re right.’
‘Look, it’s a cold case’ I said. ‘The Club want me to review a claim that goes back to the war. The ship sank in 1944, over seventy years ago. Where’s the danger in that?’
‘Tell me more about the case.’ Like all claims investigators, Carlos had an acute sense of curiosity.
I settled back in my seat trying to ignore the growing bedlam in front of me. ‘You’ve heard of Sinclair Buchan, right? Old Scots family business. They’ve been around the East since the middle of the nineteenth century. Shipping, rubber plantations…’
‘Opium?’ Carlos interjected. He knew about the trade between India and China and the opium wars that resulted in the ceding of Hong Kong to the British back in the eighteen forties, around the time Messrs Sinclair and Buchan, a couple of wayward merchant adventurers from the north of Scotland, were seeking their fortunes in the East.
‘Sure, that too. Anyway, by the outbreak of the war they were running thirty odd ships. Cargo passenger liners mostly – remember them? And the Lady Monteith was the pride of the fleet, delivered from one of the Clydeside yards in 1937, just before the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War. So by then things were already h
otting up in this region.’
‘You’re not kidding. So what happened?’
I was reciting what Claire had told me now. ‘She was placed on a regular liner service between Bombay and Hong Kong calling at a dozen or more ports in between. But the British government requisitioned the entire Sinclair Buchan fleet at the outbreak of the Pacific War and the Lady Monteith became involved in transporting war materials and troops around Southeast Asia.
‘In 1941 she was attacked by two Japanese destroyers as she approached Hong Kong. It happened on the eighth of December, the day the Japanese invaded the territory, and the same day they attacked Pearl Harbour. 7th of December in Hawaii, but the 8th in Hong Kong, this side of the date line.’
I stopped talking as Carlos swerved to avoid a pothole that was about to swallow the car.
‘Carry on,’ he said, unconcerned.
‘The destroyers escorted her into Junk Bay out in the New Territories. She became a prize of war. Eventually she was repaired, renamed, repainted, re-flagged and used by the Japanese as a hospital ship. Only she wasn’t a hospital ship.’
‘She was a POW hell ship, right?”
‘Right, that’s what they became known as, hell ships. Thousands of POWs were shipped to Japan on them, sealed into the holds. The ships were supposed to be marked with the red cross on a white background to protect them from attack. Presumably the Lady Monteith was not, because in 1942 she was used to carry British POWs from the Sham Shui Po prison camp in Hong Kong, on to Japan.
‘But she was attacked again, shortly after she sailed, this time by an American submarine just south of Hong Kong. She sank and most of the POWs went down with her. Some escaped and were picked up by Chinese fishermen, at great risk to themselves. Others were shot by Japanese guards on the ship as they tried to escape. Most though drowned, trapped in the holds where they’d been kept for days before sailing, awash in their own vomit, urine and faeces. Many were suffering from dysentery, diphtheria, beriberi – all sorts.’
‘Jesus! These stories of the war. Even things that happened right here where we’re driving now; terrible things.’
We were sharing the road with a variety of livestock and Carlos was having to repeatedly sound his horn to dissuade cows and water buffalo from wandering out in front of us. I thought about closing my eyes but decided against it.
‘I know, Carlos. But that’s not what this case is all about. Apparently, the ship had performed just one voyage between being commandeered by the Japs and taking on the POWs. She’d been ordered to Rangoon, Bangkok and Beihai in southern China to load cargo for Japan. Just what cargo is a matter of speculation. Whatever it was, Montague Buchan, who’s the incumbent taipan at Sinclair Buchan nowadays, is laying claim to it as reparation for the loss of not just the Lady Monteith, but all the other ships he lost in the war; and for properties lost in Hong Kong and China and a host of other assets too.’
‘If he thinks the cargo value will cover all that it must be something pretty special. Gold is it?’
‘I’m sure that’s what he thinks it is. Whether he’s got the proof, or the means to salvage it is another matter. He’s got no cargo documentation of course.’
‘There’s said to be billions in gold bullion buried here in the Philippines and at the bottom of the South China Sea,’ said Carlos warming to the subject. ‘Marcos got his hands on a good chunk of it. But there was gold in sunken wrecks too. The Awa Maru was one - another so-called hospital ship sunk by a US sub. They say she had, or has, forty tons of gold ingots on board, diamonds too. But China Salvage said they spent six thousand man hours searching the wreck and found nothing of value.’
‘Do you believe them?’
’Who knows? That was back in 1977. Then there was the Japanese cruiser, the Nachi in Manila Bay, scuttled by a Japanese sub. She had gold on board too. Both ships were carrying looted treasure back to Japan towards the end of the war.
‘But the mother-load was the Op Ten Noort. She had 2,000 tons of gold on board - or so the treasure hunters would have us believe. She was a Dutch passenger vessel commandeered by the Japanese, renamed the Hikawa Maru No. 2 and run all around the Pacific and Southeast Asia as a hospital ship. Finally ended up being scuttled in Japan. They say when the wreck was found twenty five years ago, they recovered thirty billion dollars’ worth of gold, platinum and diamonds from her. Never verified though.’
‘I had no idea you were an authority on all this, Carlos.’
‘I’m not. It’s just what I’ve read – and what’s commonly believed in these parts.’
‘So it seems there's more to this than just Monty Buchan replenishing the family coffers,’ I said. ‘When I talked to the office about it, Claire Scott told me they thought Buchan wasn't the only one after whatever was down there.’
What I didn’t tell Carlos was that she’d confided her sense of something far more sinister than a disgruntled shipowner trying to hoard a cargo of gold that never belonged to him in the first place. ‘Only a hunch,’ she’d said.
’Well, good luck to your friend Mr Buchan with his claim, eh?’ said Carlos. ‘And to you too. Sounds like you’ll need it.’
Chapter 2
Nowadays Hong Kong’s airport is on Chek Lap Kok, a little island off the north western shore of Lantau, itself the largest of the territory’s outlying islands. Once a tranquil retreat for Buddhist monks, fishermen and expats seeking a bit of peace and quiet from the bustle of the city, now they had to share it with the noise of the aircraft and a nearby Disneyland.
I took the Airport Express to Central and grabbed a taxi to my hotel in Western District. The air was warm and humid. Mist covered the Nine Dragons, the hills from which Kowloon takes its name. Victoria Peak on the island was the same, shrouded in thick mist. I couldn’t see The Peak but I felt its presence, looming over this town whose only god was Mammon. It was my first time in Hong Kong since I was a child. I remembered very little about the place. Traumatised by the horrors of the landslide that killed my parents, my sister and our amah, and buried alive for days, I’d avoided Hong Kong ever since.
As a child, my initial reaction to the death of my family was to close it off, at least at the time. The wave of disbelief, the struggle to understand the finality of death, the memory of the panic I’d felt, the yawning chasm of abandonment - these emotions came later.
But in my line of business, avoiding a place like Hong Kong wasn’t always easy. Despite competition from its neighbours in the rest of China, it was still one of the world’s busiest ports, and still home to some of the world’s biggest shipowners. The grandly named Caledonian Marine Mutual Protection & Indemnity Association, which was the major source of my business, had a dozen or so member shipowners here providing them with third party liability insurance cover under the arcane but effective system of mutuality. And it was one of these owners I’d come to see.
Like Carlos Torres down in Mindanao, marine insurance claims investigation was my business. I ran it out of Piraeus looking after CMM’s Greek clients. The Greek merchant fleet was the biggest in the world by a mile. The CMM wasn’t the biggest P&I insurance ‘Club’ by any means, but they were my bread and butter and I’d made a reasonable living from them over the years.
But Hong Kong was a city of ghosts for me and despite the lights, the noise and the frenetic energy of the place, I was overcome by a melancholy as impenetrable as the mists cloaking the surrounding hills. By the time I’d checked into the hotel it was too late to call Sinclair Buchan’s offices so I ordered room service, downed a couple of beers and watched the news. My mood lightened a bit. Tomorrow would be better. I was glad to get away from Mindanao and back to the work I knew best. The prospect of this case gave me the lift I needed before I turned in for the night.
***
‘This way, Mr McKinnon. Mr Buchan is expecting you.’ The young woman led the way down a thickly carpeted corridor. On the walls either side were photographs of the many ships that made up the Sinclair Buchan fleet, pa
st and present. I stopped when I noticed the Lady Monteith. The old monochrome print had turned sepia with age but showed the ship when she was on her sea trials, fresh out of the yard and cutting through the choppy open waters west of the Clyde.
The woman paused beside me. ‘That is why you’re here, I believe?’
‘Yes, I believe so.’ She was Asian though not Chinese I sensed.
The door at the end of the corridor was faced with padded red leather dotted with brass studs and surrounded by a rosewood frame. It would have been impossible to knock on such a door and sure enough there was a buzzer. We waited for a green light to come on beneath it and the woman pushed the heavy door open ushering me in before leaving me to survey the room and its sole occupant.
Montague Buchan got up from behind a large rosewood desk and walked across the vast expanse of deep pile navy blue carpet to greet me, his hand outstretched.
Claire Scott, one of the CMM’s syndicate claims directors, had met Buchan and when she’d given me the case briefing speaking from the CMM’s headquarters back in Leith, I’d asked her about him.
‘The kind of man a lot of women would find irresistible, actually,’ she’d said.
‘But not you, right?’
‘Not my type, darling. You know the kind of man I find irresistible.’ Claire and I had history which we were both pretending to put behind us.
‘He’s the kind of silver fox I find a bit off-putting. And to be honest, I’m not too sure of his business acumen either. I can understand why he’d want to pursue these claims but to us they look like non-starters. It’s more a personal crusade, and of course he’s trying to dig the company out of a hole. His fleet’s ageing now and he hasn’t been very adept at playing the sale and purchase market. He could learn a lot about timing from your Greek friends, Angus. Chartering-wise he picks up time and voyage fixtures as and where he can but it’s all a bit ad hoc – no sign of a proper strategy. So I suppose if he could get his hands on a whopping pay-out, it would help him revive the firm’s fortunes.’