‘I’m sorry,’ he stammered as she lowered her paper, sensing antipathy from the other occupants of the carriage, sober, serious middle-class Japanese in dark kimono and business suits.
‘Okay,’ she said, her accent American. ‘You are English, né?’
‘Yes,’ he replied.
‘But not a tourist, you have not any camera,’ she said, ‘and not army.’
‘No.’ He smiled. Her accent and her deductions, together with her aping of western fashion, reminded him that her contact with westerners was a result of American occupation. He tried to place her age. Ten years his junior? ‘Well, perhaps today I am a tourist,’ he admitted. ‘I am going to see Kyoto.’
‘Ah-so. Kyoto is very beautiful.’ She smiled wistfully. ‘So, I think you come here on ship.’
‘Yes.’
‘And you are the Captain, né?’
‘Not quite.’
She frowned. ‘You are Lieutenant-Number-One?’
He nodded. ‘More or less.’ She shook her head at the idiom. He leaned forward in his seat, aware of the increase in hostility the conversation was generating in the compartment. ‘In a British ship, a cargo ship,’ he added, eager to dissociate himself from all engines of war. Then, inspired, he reached for her paper. ‘May I show you?’
He found the shipping pages and pointed to the announcement that the MV Sir Robert Fitzroy was dry-docked but it was anticipated she would be open for loading in a week’s time and that prospective shippers should contact her agents.
‘Ah-so.’ She pronounced the unfamiliar syllables of the ship’s name. Gently he corrected her.
‘Fitz-roy,’ she said carefully. ‘This is English name, yes?’
‘Yes. Your English is very good. Do you read the Mainichi Times for your work, or to improve your English?’
‘For both,’ she replied, ‘but it is always best I talk to somebody.’
‘Better,’ he said, grinning at her, ‘always better . . .’ He tried to explain the difference between the comparative and superlative.
When he had finished she said, ‘I show you Kyoto.’ Her eyes sparkling, she added, ‘And you talk English to me. That will be good.’
‘What is your name?’
‘Akiko.’
‘Okay, Akiko-san, I agree. My name is John.’
He sat back content, looking at her as she stared from the window. The train raced on. The factories and smoking chimneys surrounded by the tiny, fragile houses of the inhabitants passed in a blur. Already the burgeoning of Japan’s industrial might was rising from the ashes of defeat.
He was never quite certain where Akiko was going that day. He learned later, when they sat in a small tea-house and he asked her about her family, that her only relatives were an aunt and uncle.
‘You have no mother or father, no brothers or sisters?’
‘My father was a soldier,’ she said expressionlessly. ‘He was killed in the war. My mother . . .’ She turned her head and caught the eyes of an elderly couple in drab kimono of brown, her voice faltering. Mackinnon regretted his question.
‘. . . was in Nagasaki, with my brother . . .’
She blinked at him, her dark, almond eyes brimming. Without thinking, without considering the impulse would break the normal barriers of convention, he put out his hand and touched her arm.
What else could one human do for another in the circumstances?
‘Pikadon*,’ he said quietly, and the elderly couple stirred as though a wind had passed through the room.
Looking back over the intervening years Mackinnon could recall much of the day. It had not been cherry-blossom time, though a few petals had burst from the bud to brave the chill March wind. They had exchanged a first kiss as they left the tea-house, a clumsy and precipitate act on his part while he had pulled her coat about her shoulders. He remembered the bright sunlight on the gilded walls of the Kinkakuji pavilion, and her laughter at the squeaking floor that surrounded the Shogun’s palace and upon which it was impossible to move without making a noise.
He explained to her the meaning of the word ‘intruder’, against whom the floor was designed to guard and give warning. And he remembered with painful vividness, how, when he had first entered her, she had squeaked lasciviously in his ear and whispered the learnt word back to him.
They lay that night, and all the subsequent nights until the Sir Robert Fitzroy left dry dock, loaded her cargo and sailed, in a small, discreet hotel off the Motomachi. To his astonishment, she met the ship as it berthed at Nagoya, Shimizu and Yokohama.
When at last the vessel left the Japanese coast for Hong Kong, he knew the anguish of a broken heart. Akiko returned to her job as an industrial interpreter and never had the holiday she intended at her aunt’s and uncle’s house in the hills.
A wise man would have let the affair die; but Mackinnon was not wise. He had also been eight months from home when he next called at Yokohama. The anguish of conscience accompanying his reunion with Shelagh was short-lived, as he thought, for he loved his wife and had left her pregnant, though neither knew it at the time. Nor did he get her letters, for the disrupted schedule of the ship was due to the Suez crisis and Eastern Steam, not slow to capitalise on world instability, had picked up a rival’s conference schedule from Australia to maintain the service and keep the butcher’s shops of Britain stocked with frozen lamb.
It could only have been fate that decreed another docking at Kobe. He had spent two nights with Akiko when the news of his parenthood reached him. Now his remorse overwhelmed him and he knew he had only shelved it, buried it in the sensuous delights of his marriage bed.
He told Akiko. They spent a weeping night which he dismissed afterwards in a pathetic attempt at bravura. Ashamed, he returned to Shelagh and the wonderful joy of their child. Months later he learned of the child’s death. Its mysterious cause troubled him. Fate had demanded a price for his affair with Akiko.
Perhaps he had directly contributed to it. The descent into drunkenness followed.
Mackinnon stirred at the bridge window, his belly rumbling uncomfortably. He looked at his watch; it was almost noon and he had only the haziest notion of where they were. Ahead of the ship the wall of cloud grew, darkening the horizon. Already her motion had eased, the swell coming down from the north-east was predominating, superimposing itself in a regular wave formation.
‘Nearly out of the typhoon’s eye,’ he remarked, turning and speaking to the man at the wheel.
Beside Able Seaman Braddock stood Macgregor.
Mackinnon grunted. ‘What are you doing up here?’
‘Come to take the wheel.’
‘I said you were relieved of that duty,’ Mackinnon said curtly.
‘They’re all kickin’ up fuck down below, Cap’n, because ah’m no pullin’ me weight. Ah’ve come to take the wheel.’
Mackinnon shook his head. ‘No, you’re not. She’ll be all right on automatic pilot now. In another hour or two this’ll be no more than a Force Eight gale.’ He bent to the Arkas, ordered Braddock to put the helm amidships, and switched over.
‘Carry on, Braddock,’ he said, and the seaman turned to go below. His glance of contempt at Macgregor was not lost on Mackinnon.
‘D’youse want me tae keep lookout then?’ Macgregor asked truculently.
‘Bugger off,’ Mackinnon growled. He wanted to be alone, whatever the regulations said. His train of thought and the memories of Akiko had stirred too much in his mind to want even the silent company of a lookout to distract him.
For Captain Mackinnon wanted somehow to make amends.
The smell in the accommodation was asphyxial and Stevenson choked on the nauseating stench. The ship’s gyrations had reduced the refugees to a supine state. They stretched out inert, moving only involuntarily in response to the ship. He looked in on Tam. She lay with her eyes closed but was not asleep, for she pulled a strand of hair from her mouth, then replaced her hand protectively over the sleeping baby.
As he wen
t forward towards the main stairway he met Rawlings.
‘Just going to see the patient,’ Rawlings said breezily, as if he had occupied the entire forenoon in such busy errands. ‘Motion’s getting easier,’ he went on, one hand on the spare cabin door handle. ‘We’ll be out of it soon and be able to ventilate this pigsty.’ He smiled and threw open the door as the Matthew Flinders rolled away from him. The smile vanished from his face.
‘Jesus Christ!’
She had been flung from the bunk and her stumps had struck the deck, rupturing the ligatures. The haemorrhage had been enormous, the square of carpet adorning the spartan room squelched darkly under their feet. Both men bent over the woman, gasping as the stench of gangrene rose from her imperfectly debrided wounds.
‘God . . .’ Rawlings backed off, puked, and put a hand to his mouth. A stream of vomit spewed through his fingers splashing Stevenson as the two of them bumped in the doorway. The Second Mate gagged as they both retreated into the alleyway. Rawlings grabbed the handrail that ran along the bulkhead as the ship began a long upward pitch. Stevenson closed the door.
At that precise moment the Matthew Flinders dropped from the crest of a wave and rolled to port. The forward port teak door, its hinges already weakened, tore from the frame. Water burst into the end of the alleyway, funnelling down it in a torrent and swept them to the deck.
Stevenson got to his feet and assisted Rawlings to recover. Macgregor was splashing towards them, grinning at the spectacle of the two wallowing officers.
‘We’re out of the bloody vortex then,’ Stevenson remarked grimly.
‘But not out of the shit, eh, Sec?’ And Macgregor shoved past them still amused.
‘Insolent bastard,’ said Rawlings, wiping his mouth and trying to recover his dignity. ‘I say, Alex, is that the Old Man’s pistol you’ve got there?’
Looking down at his flapping shirt tail, Stevenson realised his belly was exposed and the gun butt stuck from his soiled waistband.
‘I understand,’ said Rawlings with a hint of reproach that he had not been informed earlier by the Captain himself, ‘we are now bound for Shanghai, sir.’
Tired, Mackinnon shifted at his window. ‘Yes.’
‘I do think, sir,’ Rawlings ploughed on, ‘I might have been told.’
‘You were asleep at the time,’ Mackinnon said irritably, ‘besides, Stevenson was quite capable of handling things.’
‘So I believe, sir,’ said Rawlings. ‘I notice he enjoys your full confidence to the point of toting your automatic.’
Mackinnon swung round. ‘What the hell d’you mean?’
Rawlings elaborated and Mackinnon realised Stevenson had helped himself to the pistol before searching for the weapon he believed the Vietnamese to have brought aboard. He found he did not mind, that he applauded Stevenson’s lèse majesté, regarded it favourably as initiative and preferable to Rawlings’s petty-mindedness.
‘Oh that,’ he said dismissively, ‘he was only doing his job. That isn’t a threat to your manhood is it, Mr Rawlings?’ He threw the barb and enjoyed seeing it strike.
‘There is something you don’t appear to have considered, sir,’ Rawlings countered.
‘Oh? What’s that?’
‘Apart from the dead woman, we’ve Ernie York and Taylor. We can’t shove them over the side without the consent of their families,’ Rawlings said roughly, enjoying the look of real anguish which passed over Mackinnon’s ravaged features. ‘As for landing them in China, well . . .’ Rawlings ended the sentence with a shrug.
Mackinnon heaved himself out of his corner, Rawlings was right. Dead British bodies in Shanghai would embroil him in a bureaucratic nightmare, whereas burial at sea . . .
Outside the wind was no more than force nine or ten. Their ears no longer popped in the gusts and although the air was full of spray and the sea white with spume, they were making nine or ten knots to the north-north-east. He could not commit poor Ernie or the unfortunate Taylor to the deep in such conditions, for the ship continued to roll and pitch, sluicing green seas across her decks. His relief at knowing the ship had survived the worst was tempered by Rawlings’s reminder of the officers’ fate.
‘You’ve got a point,’ he said. ‘I’ll send a signal.’
‘I suppose if Dent insists on Shanghai we can always bury them when this lot moderates,’ Rawlings temporised, waving his hand at the view beyond the wheelhouse.
Mackinnon paused, remembering Rawlings’s loyalty to his clan. ‘I’m going below for a spell,’ he said. ‘You can take her. I’m relying on you obtaining a fix at twilight. Course o-two-five.’
It was time the bugger pulled his weight, Mackinnon reflected as he first made his way cautiously aft to find Sparks. Besides, it was only in fiction the Captain stood on the bridge for a week without a bloody break . . .
He did not go directly to his cabin after sending the message. Instead he made his way down through the accommodation, putting his head into the saloon, unregarded by the inmates. They did not know who he was. Passing on towards the smoke-room he discovered for himself the corpse of the woman. Holding his breath he knelt beside her for a moment, touching her lifeless thigh in a small gesture of regret at his failure.
In the smoke-room only the baby seemed awake, its dark eyes focussed on him. He felt a compulsion to pick it up, but drew back as its forehead wrinkled and it began to sob. Hurriedly he backed out.
‘Ah, sir, there you are,’ Stevenson came towards him. ‘I’ve just come from the radio-room, sir. There’s a message coming in.’
‘Very well. You’d better get the woman’s body into the fridge.’
Stevenson swallowed. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘And, Mr Stevenson,’ Mackinnon said, stepping closer and lowering his voice, ‘have you still got my gun?’
‘No, sir. I put it back.’
‘Good. I presume you found nothing.’
‘I’m afraid not, sir.’
Mackinnon left the Second Mate to his gruesome task and clambered up to the radio-room via the open ladders at the after end of the superstructure. The air was still thick with spray, but breathable now, no more than a strong gale on their starboard bow and diminished in speed by the retreat of the typhoon.
Mackinnon opened the radio-room door. ‘Can I come in?’
‘Ah, perfect timing, sir.’ Sparks peeled off his headset and stood up, handing the Captain a message form. Mackinnon shut the door and took the fluttering pink chit. ‘Dent hasn’t wasted any time getting back to us,’ Sparks said.
‘What a bloody nerve!’ Mackinnon muttered and read the signal through again aloud.
‘Pilot ordered for 0800 local time Wednesday Yangtze Bar stop all necessary clearances made stop Immigration procedures a formality stop Native crew to pay off locally stop Hong Kong Chinese to travel by train stop Non native crew ditto to pay off Hong Kong stop Arrangements to effect fifty-fifty Hong Kong stroke US dollars stop UK flights arranged local stopover likewise stop Reference your last please commit to deep am contacting nok stop Kind regards James Dent ends.’
‘This is insufferable.’ Mackinnon was flushed with anger. He read it through a third time, punctuating the stuffy air with his outrage:
‘Eight o’clock Wednesday – doesn’t the bastard know we’ve been caught in a typhoon? Necessary clearances . . . immigration a formality – good God, has he bought off the incorruptible Maoists? No choice for the poor bloody Shanghai Chinese and as for non-native crew – does the cunt mean British officers?’ He looked up at Sparks, angry Dent’s patronising signal had made him sound like an anachronistic imperialist. ‘As for this fifty-fifty pay-off deal, I’d like to know how much that saves Dentco on the exchange market.’
‘Good of him to book us a flight home, I suppose,’ remarked Sparks drily.
‘And he made sure we knew it was the Chairman and Managing Director himself who made these sumptuous arrangements for us. Christ, Frank,’ said the Captain, using the Radio Officer’s Christian name in
a rare moment of fraternity. ‘I’ve never in all my life seen so cynically manipulative a piece of, of . . . Jesus, I don’t even know what to call it! As for disposing of poor Ernie York and young Taylor before contacting the next-of-kin.’
Mackinnon had exhausted himself with protest. The postscript appalled him.
‘Sign of the times, I’m afraid, sir,’ consoled Sparks.
‘Yes,’ Mackinnon agreed, staring out of the single window giving on to the outside world. The grey, streaked escarpments of the sea seemed suddenly familiar, preferable, for all its miseries and endless challenge, to the shore. ‘Yes, sign of the times.’ He was about to add, sotto voce, that perhaps two could play at the game, but Sparks had not yet finished with him.
‘He did send his kind regards, sir, and there’s another one. Personal.’
Mackinnon took the sealed brown envelope, smiling at Sparks’s diehard professionalism and thinking what fools they were to continue these charade-like touches when their world was falling about around them. He tore open the envelope. When he had read it he handed it back to the Radio Officer.
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