Mackinnon shouted down to a seaman on the foredeck, summoning him to the bridge. Macgregor came up and took the wheel as Stevenson switched from automatic to manual steering. With her engines slowed and her helm hard over, the Matthew Flinders worked round the wallowing boat.
‘Midships . . . full astern . . . stop her.’ Macgregor and Stevenson obeyed Mackinnon’s commands as he stood on the starboard wing and brought his ship to windward of the castaways. When she finally lost way, the ship lay motionless some hundred yards from the object Stevenson had sighted eighteen minutes earlier.
The Matthew Flinders, beam on to wind, sea and swell, rolled heavily and drifted slowly to leeward. Her greater windage thrust her inexorably downwind towards the junk. From the bridge Mackinnon, Rawlings, Stevenson and Taylor watched the gap between the two disparate craft narrow.
‘East meets West,’ murmured Rawlings.
The wooden vessel was some seventy or eighty feet long with an ugly midships superstructure. The remains of what had once been a tall mast was capped with a single navigation light, proclaiming her conversion to diesel propulsion, but a ragged sail lay collapsed and unused upon the cabin top.
Stevenson took in these details automatically. What impressed his consciousness was the junk’s human deck cargo. It was only later he learned one hundred and forty-six persons were crammed together in that tiny hull. For the moment all he saw were the upturned faces, pale with privation and despair, apparently unmoved by the appearance of the great ship above them.
‘Poor bastards,’ said Mackinnon. Along the ship’s rail similar opinions were being expressed in similar vein. East and West indeed met and in that moment of suspended animation, each adjusted to the other’s presence.
Stevenson watched the gap between them diminish, the heavy leeward listing roll of the old cargo-liner drawing closer to the wallowing, waterlogged lolling of the overloaded junk.
Taylor stood appalled. He felt cold, chilled by so much misery, so many people in a desperate situation like himself, for he was incapable of entertaining any consideration which did not, in some way, reflect his own plight. As he stared down, a very curious thought occurred to him. Since the outbreak of gonorrhea he had wiped any thoughts of Sharimah from his mind, neutralising his memory of her, for fear he should find that attraction he had felt for her turn into hatred. He knew from some primitive instinct that if he let this happen such hatred, cheated of outlet, would introvert. Suicide would disgrace his name. Instead, seeing the upturned faces, he felt a keen and overwhelming compassion for Sharimah in which a measure of self-pity was to be found.
‘Cargo nets,’ said Mackinnon, galvanising his officers. ‘Get some cargo nets over the side, and the pilot ladder for those who can climb.’
Rawlings duplicated the Captain’s orders, shouting down on deck. Turning to Taylor, he said, ‘Come on, Three-O,’ and slid down the bridge ladder to take charge. The staring groups of seamen burst apart, running about the decks in search of the bundled nets and the rolled and lashed ladder by Number Three hatch.
‘Work up a DR position, mister,’ Mackinnon ordered and Stevenson obeyed, glad of something to do.
‘Christ,’ he muttered to himself, surprised at the strength of his own emotional response. There were women and children down there . . . Unaccountably he thought of Cathy, then he dismissed the thought and picked up the chart pencil.
Mackinnon remained staring down at the junk as it crashed alongside the Matthew Flinders’s shell plating. Hull struck hull with a loud grinding, splinters flew and the human cargo aboard the junk shifted away from the point of contact causing it to lurch dangerously, rolling her outboard rail under. Anxiety passed across the faces of the occupants as, from the great ship rolling high above them, they transferred their attention to the dark slick of water suddenly running over their feet. A moment later, squealing with fear, they stared up again.
Mackinnon shook off the appearance of those faces. They haunted him, disturbing old ghosts, reminding him of the faces he had seen in Singapore in 1945. He closed his eyes momentarily and became aware of someone beside him. It was Taylor, standing white-knuckled as he clasped the scrubbed teak caprail. The Third Mate was glaring down into the junk, rooted to the spot, oblivious to Rawling’s order. His face was sallow and oiled with sweat, like a seasick man. Shaken himself, Mackinnon put it down to emotional response, forgetting Taylor’s fault and, in a rare, paternal gesture, he patted Taylor’s shoulder.
‘Best to do as the Mate says, Mr Taylor. You’ll get over it. Nip down and lend a hand.’
Taylor gazed blankly at the Captain. ‘Aye, aye, sir,’ he said mechanically. As he went below the Captain’s words echoed in his head. Would he get over it? Would this anxiety and guilt ever leave him? For Taylor had not been seeing the seven score faces as he stared down. For him they had fused into the half-closed eyes of Sharimah, Sharimah bucking in sexual ecstasy beneath the urgent thrusting of his own body with an enthusiasm that had both surprised and pleasured him. It had rarely been like that with Caroline, especially lately . . .
But the pleasure was short-lived, and cold comfort to him now, for the Malay girl had chilled as soon as she ignited, had used him as he had used her, and left a legacy of their mutual self-abuse. He felt no personal animosity to her; but the thought that she herself might have sought her own revenge on him, that the source of her disease was someone like himself, made him feel ill. His palms sweated afresh as he stumbled down the ladder to the main-deck, and he fastened his mind on the Captain’s advice to assist the Mate with a desperation no longer rational.
The cargo nets had not been over the side more than a minute before Mackinnon realised they were useless. To Rawlings and his men it was quickly obvious that the occupants of the junk were too weak to attempt the fifteen-feet climb to the Matthew Flinders’s deck. Braddock and Taylor scrambled over the side to help and clung like monkeys by one hand, the other extended to assist at the point at which the junk ceased her upward surge, before she fell back into the trough of the swells. None of the Vietnamese moved; they stared impassively at the well-muscled and bronzed white men. Braddock began shouting encouragement and the exasperated words floated up to Mackinnon fifty feet above.
‘Come on, you daft buggers . . . come one! ’Ere you, missus, for Christ’s sake give us the kid . . .’ Braddock’s free hand beckoned frantically.
The woman moved forward slowly. Others helped her, passing her forward until she was on the edge of the crowd. A foot or two separated her from Braddock’s outstretched hand. Swaying uncertainly she held out her baby.
Mackinnon could already see what was going to happen.
The junk rolled inwards. The woman was propelled two steps forward, losing her balance. She cannoned into the steel wall of the ship’s side. Braddock had anticipated it too; with surprising agility he moved sideways and leaned down. He caught the child as the woman found her footing falling away from under her. He wrenched the tiny bundle from her arms before she was even aware what was happening and was too busy recovering himself and his prize to see her dragged down the ship’s side. Her hands scrabbled and caught in the netting. Taylor moved across to help her. Her feet had left the junk’s deck before it reached the bottom of the swell. Taylor, stretching across the net, could not get her to let go one hand and seize her wrist as he descended as far as he dared. He reached out to grasp her arm, but she reacted violently, twisting and screaming before the rising junk caught her legs. The wild cry of fear turned to a piercing screech of agony as her feet were crushed. Mackinnon shouted a futile warning while the crowd on the junk, watching helplessly, seemed to draw a corporate breath. It was all they could do, for the thing happened so quickly.
The woman lost her grip and fell back on to the junk’s deck. Alongside the Captain, Stevenson, alerted by Mackinnon’s shout, could see her lower legs were a bloody wreck.’
‘This is no fucking good,’ muttered the Captain, then he raised his voice: ‘Mr Rawlings! This i
s useless! I’m going to stand off. We’ll have to use a boat. Get the motorboat away as quickly as you can!’
Rawlings had to shout at Taylor to get him back inboard. The Third Mate seemed transfixed, staring down at the injured woman alone on the bare patch of deck while splinters struck from the junk’s gunwale fell about her and the other refugees remained motionless. Eventually Rawlings got him on deck and they followed Braddock and his bundle aft.
On the bridge Mackinnon turned to Stevenson. ‘You take the boat, mister. Don’t overload it, for God’s sake. We’ll hoist you up with each load.’ Mackinnon glanced up at the sky. ‘I don’t think we’ve much time.’ He strode over to the telegraph and rang full astern, then rubbed his forehead, an expression of extreme perplexity playing over his face. ‘Wait here a moment and keep an eye on that junk.’
Stevenson looked over the side again. With a shudder the ship gathered sternway. Seeing the two white men disappear with the baby, and left with the unconscious body of the unfortunate mother bleeding on the deck, the hitherto motionless refugees suddenly began to surge towards the nets. One or two leaped upwards, but most faltered, the violent motion of the junk dissuading them. Then the Matthew Flinders began to back away, her greater windage forcing her down upon the junk, while her stern swung into the wind. The frail junk disappeared under the flare of the bow, the terrified occupants wailing piteously at their apparent abandonment.
Stevenson, expecting the junk to reappear on the other bow in a capsized state, was relieved to see her still upright but the anguished cries of the refugees left him in no doubt as to the dangers of swamping once he got alongside in the motorboat. He rang stop engines as Mackinnon puffed back on to the bridge.
‘Here.’
The Captain nudged him furtively, masking something from the helmsman with the bulk of his stocky body. ‘Keep it out of sight. It’s loaded. That’s the safety catch. Tuck it inside your life jacket and don’t use it unless you have to. We don’t want to antagonise those people.’
Stevenson failed to grasp the significance of Mackinnon’s last remark. He was staring at the cold object pressed into his hand.
‘The Mate’s nearly ready,’ Mackinnon said. On the boat-deck below the bridge a crowd of officers and men were mustered to swing out the motorboat. ‘If they look like swamping you a shot in the air should do the trick, but if it doesn’t work,’ Mackinnon sighed, ‘I leave it up to you . . .’
‘You mean . . .?’
‘Yes, of course I bloody mean it,’ Mackinnon snapped. ‘I can’t tell you to use it, but I want boat and boat’s crew back in one piece, mister.’
The Welin-Machlachlan davits rumbled down their trackways and threw the swaying motorboat outboard until, tamed by the tricing pennants, it swung with a bump alongside the edge of the boat-deck.
‘Go on, son. Get on with it.’
He watched Stevenson leave the bridge, saw him vanish for a moment, then reappear with an orange life jacket.
‘Second Mate’s taking the boat, Mr Rawlings,’ he roared.
Three or four men jumped in. The Fourth Engineer’s greasy boiler suit bent over the engine. A moment later Stevenson hung over the boat’s stern, forty feet above the sea, and shipped the rudder.
They had done well to man the boat so quickly, Mackinnon thought. Their compassion had lent speed to their actions. The Captain waited anxiously, wondering if the engine would let them down. The humped backs over the crank jerked in unison and a cloud of thick black smoke belched from the exhaust, then died. Three times the cloud appeared before a shattering roar sounded from the boat. Rawlings held a thumb up towards the bridge.
‘Lower away!’
The tricing pennants were slipped as the Matthew Flinders rolled to starboard, the boat swung outwards and began to descend, crashing inboard as the rolling ship heeled to port. The motor lifeboat struck the ship twice more before she slammed into the water, shaking her volunteer crew.
A swell picked the boat up and the falls hung slack.
‘Unhook! Into gear . . . give her full ahead . . .’
The boat sheered out from the ship’s side, her crew dodging the swinging hooks and a moment later was clear of the protecting mass of the Matthew Flinders. The immensity of the sea was born in upon Stevenson as a physical reality rather than an intellectual consideration. The flat familiarity of the distant horizon was gone, replaced by the rearing crests of the waves and the physical onslaught of the rising wind. It was no longer a benign cooling agent, but the implacable, unseen force generating the huge irregularities of the sea’s surface.
A wave burst on their bow and their thin cotton clothes were instantly saturated. Stevenson felt suddenly, shockingly cold. Astern of the motor lifeboat, the Matthew Flinders, which only a few moments ago had loomed over them, was lost behind the swells, vanishing as both lifeboat and ship fell into the hollow troughs. She diminished in size with startling rapidity as they drew away from her. From the bridge fifteen minutes earlier, it had seemed to Stevenson no more than a short distance to the junk; now it appeared much greater.
Mackinnon’s sense of urgency and this feeling of isolation twisted a worm of apprehension in Stevenson’s belly. He leaned on the tiller, cleared his throat with an assumption of authority, and bellowed instructions at his crew.
‘Whatever happens,’ he concluded more confidently, ‘we mustn’t let them swamp us. We’ll have to make several trips.’
They climbed over the crest of a wave, the bluff bow of the boat throwing spray out on either side. The white foam broke around them with a seething hiss and a fulmar petrel swept out of the wave trough, turned neatly on rigid wings and quartered their wake, otherwise unperturbed by their presence.
Then, on the next wave crest, hard-edged against the sky, Stevenson saw the overcrowded hull of the helpless junk. He put his free hand inside his life jacket. The steel butt of the .38 calibre Smith and Wesson dug uncomfortably into his stomach muscles.
Taylor had delivered the message given him by Rawlings and stood beside Mackinnon, watching the progress of the boat.
‘The saloon’s fine,’ the Captain said, absently approving the Mate’s dispositions and intentions. Recollecting Taylor’s earlier nervousness he added, ‘You and Braddock did well down there.’
Taylor was exhilarated. He envied Stevenson’s command of the boat, but there was no denying he had enjoyed the sensation as he had swung outboard with Braddock in a futile but gallant attempt to assist the refugees aboard. Somehow their failure added to his heightened sense of achievement, for he had been there, at the point of action, his disease quite forgotten in the thrill of it. He felt for the unfortunate woman, of course, but some primitive instinct had been undeniably assuaged by her injury, for the sudden red of blood conferred upon the incident a savage reality.
As the motor lifeboat closed with the junk, a profoundly shocking realisation hit Taylor: he had forgotten his own chronic dilemma in the acute agony of the woman’s pain. It was a quite irrational, inexplicable thought, the kind a man can never publicly admit to, schadenfreude of a most private type. It was not himself that was hurt; someone else was in pain. Suddenly the indifference of the woman’s companions was comprehensible.
While he waited alongside Mackinnon, Taylor realised he had discovered something important. His illness, debilitating and reprehensible though it was, was a result of life; he could not deny an intensity of feeling as this realisation occurred to him. He quite suddenly understood that he had, in his expectations, calculated his entire future in terms of safety, and his disease threatened this stability. His ruined marriage was seen thus when set against the expectation of perfection he had thought it should produce. It was, he now realised, extremely foolish, based entirely upon the arrogant assumptions made by civilised and sophisticated western man.
This, he realised, staring about him from the Olympian height of the bridge at the white dot of the motor lifeboat as it ploughed through the deteriorating conditions, this was ad
venture, an enterprise of hazard, an exciting and stimulating experience. He felt a surge of new-found confidence, aware he had caught an echo of the past, in tune with the intrepidity of his ancestors, excited by his proximity to risk and death. Such sentiments, he was convinced, came to him as of birthright. He was piqued Stevenson had command of the boat, but a typhoon was in the offing, and the sea state and sky promised far worse was to come. Like a hound he sniffed at the wind, seeking opportunity.
As to his present predicament, it was no more than bad luck.
Standing on the windswept bridge-wing he resolved with quixotic intensity to see Sharimah again. He could, no, he would travel home via Singapore, use his leave up if necessary, for there could be no denying the warm passion of the girl, her own affliction notwithstanding. It almost made him laugh to consider the disease might draw them together. It was shaming but curable
The resolution, once formed, was irrevocable. He braced himself, drew the rising wind into his lungs and felt full of vigour. The venereal infection was a temporary embarrassment. Great men had suffered thus and it had not affected their achievements. Caroline was forgotten, dismissed as she had long ago dismissed him in the moment of his departure.
Raising his glasses he observed Stevenson with a critical eye as the motor lifeboat bumped alongside the junk.
Stevenson wished he had had the foresight to bring one of the Chinese with him to act as interpreter, but they had melted away when the boat was being prepared. It occurred to him that he did not know whether or not Cantonese and Vietnamese were mutually comprehensible, then concentrated on bringing the lifeboat alongside.
The refugees surged across the junk, their faces alight with expectation; the waterlogged craft wallowed dangerously.
‘Ease her, Tony,’ he called to the Fourth Engineer and the engine note dropped. A crescendo of excited jabber rose above the hiss of the sea and the noise of the wind. They were to leeward of the junk as it rolled, drifting towards them. He ought to get the injured woman off first, Stevenson decided, his heart thumping as he measured the rapidly closing distance by eye.
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