by B M Gill
The companion-way was short and steep. Fleming followed behind Brannigan and Hammond. The rail was wet under his hands, whether from the other men's sweat or his own he didn't know. The smell of the deck was of tar and carbolic.
Hammond explained, "There are three hatches. The one forrard is beamed. The tarpaulin was on this one as it is now. The other – where David fell – is just below the poop deck." He led the way.
His attitude was almost casual. "That's the one. There's no cover on it. There wasn't then and there isn't now. You might be able to screw damages out of the Maritime Museum for not covering it." He noticed Brannigan's expression and didn't care. The right words eluded him. A speech of sympathy at this point would be like offering milk to a cobra.
Fleming went over to the hatch and looked down into the darkness of the hold. It went down about fifteen feet.
David had stood here – or hereabouts – wearing a blindfold. The edge of the hatch would have come up to his thighs. An unwary step wouldn't have toppled him over. He had either climbed over or been pushed over.
The words that had been battering at the back of his mind for days came out as a whisper. "I don't understand." He repeated them to himself. I don't understand. Brannigan, as grey-faced as he was, looked at him in silence.
Only Hammond appeared cool. "After the accident, I climbed down into the hold – down that iron ladder. It's not well lit, but I have a torch. Do you want to go down?"
Fleming turned to him. "Accident? Did you say accident? Look at the height of the hatch side. I only have your words his hands weren't tied."
"His hands were -not tied. He could have rested them on the side of the hatch – perhaps have been doing handstands. Small boys don't have a sharp sense of danger – they're full of bravado. He could have been acting out some scene of daring from his imagination. He was imaginative."
"Was he? What else was he?" Very quiet – very level.
"I don't understand you."
"Was he sick? Disturbed? Unhappy? Frightened?"
"You're referring to the sketch?"
Brannigan said quickly, "I explained about it. I think, perhaps, its significance…"
Fleming interrupted him. He went on addressing Hammond. "I don't know what happened to my son – but I mean to know. Imaginative, you say. A circus act on the edge of the hold. Do you honestly believe that? Can you stand there now and look at me and say you believe that?"
Hammond made a helpless movement with his hands.
Anything I believe won't carry any weight with you at all.
You're determined to think the worst. I'm sorry David died.
I've said that before. If I say it a hundred times again it won't shift your prejudice against me."
"Too right it won't. His safety was your responsibility. Where the hell were you when you should have been right here?"
"I was looking after three small boys and trusting the rest to do as they were told."
"And David was told to do what?"
Hammond indicated the poop deck. "To get up there and make notes on the rudder machinery."
"That's asking a lot of a twelve-year-old."
"A twelve-year-old, an eight-year-old – they produce according to their ability."
"The sketch showed a regression to six. At what age level was the work you set him on the rudder machinery?"
Some of Hammond's aggression left him. "It wasn't done. He made no attempt to do it. I suppose you'll suggest now that he made a suicidal leap because I set him an impossible task."
"So you've dared use the word suicide at last. Be careful – you might become indiscreet."
Brannigan interrupted with some forcefulness. "We're not gaining anything by this. None of us knows what happened to David. We're here to try to reconstruct the scene – as far as we know it – and with the help of the other boys. Shall we get on with it? Or do you want to go down the hold?" • "I want to go down the hold." He added, "On my own."
Brannigan held Hammond's torch while he made the descent. Hammond went over to the rail and looked down at the water. The sun was edging the waves with silver. There was a sour sickness in his mouth and his chest felt tight as if Fleming had kicked him in the ribs; but still he was aware that the sun shone and the shadowed waters at the harbour edge were a deep cobalt.
He tried not to think of Fleming in the hold.
He tried not to think of Fleming's child.
The hold smelt of salt and seasoned timber and rope. The hatch above was a square of light. The light, like spilled water, flowed thinly and trickled off into a deep darkness.
Fleming bent down and touched the timbers almost directly under the hatch. His mind refused to see David lying dead. Complete identification with him wasn't possible. His own id protected him from what he couldn't take. He had reached the limit of his own separate existence and he couldn't over-step that limit. David had died. He himself was inexorably alive. As an act of contrition for his own limitation he wanted to lie on the timbers where David had lain, but he stopped himself. Brannigan was up there somewhere in the light. The private agony had to be contained in the mind.
When he climbed up the ladder again he surprised Brannigan by appearing so calm.
Brannigan helped him over the edge of the hatch. "Are you all right?"
"Yes." "Then let's get back to the boys."
The boys, like abandoned guests at a macabre party, stood uneasily where they had been left. Brannigan felt a twinge of conscience that he had let them in for this. An interview up at the school would have been less traumatic. There, in their own environment, they had appeared adult enough and tough enough to be here – now he was less sure of them.
Hammond looked to him for a lead and when one wasn't forthcoming took command himself. "You all remember where you were on the day that David fell. We'll start with you, Stonley. The engine-room, wasn't it?"
"Yes, sir."
"Take Mr. Fleming there."
Brannigan said that he would go along, too. "You don't object?" This to Fleming.
"No. The boys are your responsibility." It came out heavy with innnuendo.
Brannigan's lips tightened and he said nothing. Stonley skipped down the steps into the engine-room with some ease, but once there seemed to freeze into stillness.
Fleming with sudden compassion tried to get it over quickly. "How long were you down there?"
"I don't know. I didn't notice the time. I was making sketches."
"Did you see David at all?"
"Not since we arrived. We had our different jobs to do."
"Did you hear him call out?"
"No."
"Did you hear anyone call out?"
"No."
"When did you know that David had fallen?"
"I heard voices up on deck. I guessed something was wrong."
"Did you go anywhere near the hold yourself?"
"No." Stonley's hands were in his pockets. He took out his handkerchief and a half-smoked cigarette fell out. He put his foot over it.
Brannigan saw, but didn't comment. Stonley hadn't set the Maritime Museum ablaze – yet. One crisis at a time was sufficient. He looked enquiringly at Fleming. "Is there anything else you want to ask?"
Fleming thought – yes, but he doubted the wisdom of asking it. Stonley would probably freeze even further into the machinery and find no words to answer him. He tried the question: "If you had to describe David in a word or two – how would you describe him?"
"I don't understand you, sir."
"I know he was a few years younger than you, so you might not have had much contact. Can you be objective enough about him to say how he impressed you – or didn't you particularly notice him at all?"
"Oh, yes, I noticed him, sir." Stonley's foot drew the cigarette stub back towards him and he stood more com fortably. "He struck me as being…" he paused, looking for the word, "I don't know how to say it – one off from the herd, not a pack animal."
"You mean he ran alone – tha
t the other lads disliked him?"
"No. They liked him. He played around with the other twelve-year-old kids – but sometimes he'd be alone and not seem to mind."
Fleming thought, you noticed him pretty intently – and was perturbed.
The other boys' answers to the same question were more superficial. Welling in the navigation house on the bridge said, "Happy and cheerful, sir," and added "absolutely" for good measure.
Masters, in the captain's cabin, blushed crimson with embarrassment and came out with a strangled "All right."
Neither boy had seen David fall.
Durrant, on the fo'c'sle deck had been the furthest away from the hold and he was the last of the boys interviewed.
He leaned back against the windlass as Fleming and Brannigan approached. Their footsteps were quiet on the deck but he magnified them in his imagination so that the thumping of his heart became the stamping of jackboots. A thrill of anticipation, almost orgasmic, prickled through his flesh.
He turned a suitably grave face towards Fleming and completely ignored Brannigan. "You want to ask me some questions, sir?"
Fleming on a sudden impulse tried a different approach. The situation – with this particular boy – was different. He said brusquely, "Tell me about it."
Durrant felt the impact of the challenge like a blow. His muscles tightened and then he slowly breathed out. "I wish I could tell you about it, sir, but I wasn't there so I don't know."
The waves were making soft little slapping sounds against the bow and there were far-off voices in the wind.
"Tell me what you were doing from the time you came here on your assignment until David fell."
Durrant looked past Fleming's head. The blue arch of the sky darkened in his mind and metamorphosed into a flat low ceiling of steel. The salt air became fetid and difficult to breathe. The winch behind him held the cold menace of torture. An exquisite pain flowed through his wrists where they touched the ropes.
"Are you all right?" Brannigan's voice.
He looked at the second inquisitor with ill-concealed disdain. "Oh yes, sir -just a little upset when I think about it, sir."
"You haven't answered me yet." No softness in this voice.
He reorientated himself. "My assignment was to make a sketch of the fo'c'sle deck and the windlass. I'm not good at drawing so I couldn't do it very fast. I hadn't done very much when I heard David shout."
This time it was Fleming who felt the physical impact of shock. None of the other boys had heard anything.
"The hold is at the stern – the other end of the freighter – how is it you could hear from here?"
"The wind carries sound, sir. If you listen now you can hear that party of Swedes talking on that freighter over there."
It was true. The other boys had been in enclosed areas.
"Go on. You heard him shout. What did he shout?"
"You don't shout anything when you're falling, sir. It was a muffled sort of scream." He looked to see if he had drawn blood and saw with satisfaction that he had.
Fleming, white-faced now, thrust on. "What did you do then?"
"Well, naturally, sir, I went to see. There was enough light to see David lying down in the hold. His head looked wrong on his shoulders. He wasn't moving."
"And then?"
"Mr. Hammond arrived. He told me to stay where I was. He went down to look. When he came up again he went over to the rail. I thought he was going to be sick."
"Did he speak to you?"
"After going to the rail? He must have, sir, but I can't remember. When you've had a shock nothing you say makes much sense. I think he said something about fetching a doctor – or that might have been Mr. Sherborne."
"Mr. Sherborne?"
"One of the other housemasters. His boys were on the next ship – that one over there where the Swedes are now."
Fleming looked over at the other vessel. "So there were three of you standing near the hatch almost immediately afterwards?"
"No. Mr. Sherborne was amongst the people who began to come. It's like that with an accident, sir. There's nobody, and then there's a crowd. You don't notice them coming, but somehow they find out and they come."
"And then what happened?"
"Mr. Hammond didn't seem to know what to do so Mr. Sherborne took charge. He made Welling responsible for us as he's the most senior boy. He told Welling to take us into the cafeteria until one of the other masters could take us back to the school. We sat around a couple of tables and waited. We heard the siren of the ambulance – or it could have been the police. We couldn't see from where we were. One of the younger boys went over to the door to see if he could see anything and Welling belted him around the ear."
"When you looked down the hatch into the hold – before Hammond climbed down – could you see David's hands?"
"Yes, sir."
"Were they tied?"
"No."
"How was he lying?"
"On his stomach – his arms flung out on each side of him. Like this." Durrant went down on his stomach and demonstrated. He lay for less than a minute, but long enough to smell the tar of the deck and feel a rough splinter rub his jaw. He pressed his face into it and closed his eyes. The terror-dark engulfed him. He swam through it valiantly. The aperture of the escape hatch was closing razor sharp on his neck. He rolled over and his head touched Brannigan's fawn suede shoe.
He got up clumsily. "That's how he lay, sir."
"You're sure about his hands?"
"Absolutely sure."
"There's not much light in the hold. How clearly could you see?"
"Clearly enough to see that. He was a shape. Black against grey. His handkerchief was around his eyes. If someone is being executed then his hands are tied."
The knowing eyes looked at Fleming and measured with satisfaction the degree of pain that the image inflicted.
Brannigan expostulated, "For God's sake!"
Durrant turned to him. "Well, that's what his father thinks, sir."
Fleming asked quietly, "What do you think happened to him, Durrant?"
"I think he got bored, -sir – so he began to play around. If you put a blindfold on you get muddled about heights and distances. He could have leaned over the hatch side and overbalanced." He smiled suddenly and his face became suffused with purity and simple gentleness. "I really do think that's how it happened, sir."
Fleming turned from him and began walking away.
Brannigan caught up with him. "Satisfied? His explanation was plausible."
Fleming glanced over his shoulder to make sure Durrant was out of earshot. "What's the matter with him?"
"What do you mean?"
Fleming wasn't sure what he meant, but he knew what he sensed. During some parts of the interview Durrant was a fairly typical fifteen-year-old boy – during other parts he wasn't there at all.
He wondered if Brannigan had a drugs problem at the school, but kept the thought to himself. Durrant certainly wasn't high – and the withdrawal was intermittent and for very short periods.
He tried to answer Brannigan. "He's not like the other lads."
Brannigan, knowing it to be true, refused to admit it. "No two lads are alike. Durrant hasn't a very stable background. It may reflect in his attitude."
"How does he behave towards the other boys?" Brannigan answered with truth. "As far as I know, quite properly. No-one has ever complained."
Hammond was awaiting their return on the boat deck. He didn't ask anything about the boys' responses and it was Brannigan who volunteered the information. "The only one who heard anything was Durrant."
"Yes. As I told you at the time." Hammond took out a packet of cigarettes and lit one.
Brannigan mentioned Stonley's cigarette stub. "I didn't say anything. I leave it to you. He's probably having a quiet smoke down in the engine-room now."
"The least of our troubles."
"That's what I thought." Brannigan offered to round up the boys himself. "While you and
Mr. Fleming have a talk – if that's what you both want to do?" Hammond shrugged. "It's the object of the exercise. We can winkle Masters out of the captain's cabin and have a talk there."
The cabin was full of polished mahogany and red plush. Everything was battened to the floor. Masters who had been fantasising about a voyage in the China seas took himself off with some reluctance and joined Brannigan and the other boys.
Hammond went and sat on the bunk and Fleming took the ornately carved Spanish mahogany chair near the flap-down table. Hammond's cigarette was Turkish and heavy. He shook his head as Hammond offered him one. "So you and Durrant were the first on the scene?"
"Yes. We arrived within a few minutes of each other. It was a traumatic experience for the boy."
"I imagine he could take it better than most."
"If you were a schoolmaster, Mr. Fleming, you would be careful not to make snap judgments. You can't sum up a lad's character quite that fast."
"I take your point – but we're not here to discuss Durrant. How well did you know my son?"
"Obviously not well enough to read his mind." Fleming thought, 'You smooth, uncaring bastard… He forced down his anger. "You spoke to him sometimes?"
"Naturally. I'm – I was – his housemaster."
"Earlier, you said he was imaginative. In what way?"
"Each House puts on its own Christmas entertainment. His contribution to ours was commendable. We didn't use all his ideas, but we used some."
Fleming had a vague recollection of David's mentioning a Christmas play. Jealousy that this man knew more about it than he did stung him, wasp-like, and he had consciously to brush it aside. "I've read his essays. There was one about being a research scientist. What field of research?"
Hammond was surprised. "Good God, I don't know! Is it relevant?"
"To killing himself? No. To knowing him – yes. You spoke to him. He was in your care."
"As you keep saying."
"And will keep on saying."
Hammond thought, What do you want of me, Fleming – my own blood, too?… He felt very tired.