by John Molloy
“There was sir but we’re so low in the water they could easily jump onto the quay wall.”
“I see, but is there not more security outside at the dock entrance?”
“Yes there is, so I don’t know how they managed to get through that.”
The captain finished his grapefruit and laid down his spoon, and then for the first time since the tragedy he smiled - albeit a cynical smile. “They’re not gone far; they’re still hiding out around the silos not a stone’s throw from the ship. You wait and see.”
Henry heard him summing up the tactics the lads had adopted and thought the captain was no fool. You don’t become master of a ship for knowing nothing, he reasoned. He was also relieved that he would not have to leave his planned anonymous note telling the captain where to look for Conrad.
After breakfast Henry locked his cabin door and had a good search through whatever Conrad had left behind. He hoped there might be something that he had overlooked and might connect him to the murders, but he found no more than on his first search. He had just put back his stuff in his locker when he heard a voice outside in the alleyway. He took the catch off the door and he had just stepped back when it opened. Gary Conrad walked in. He closed the door behind him and threw a cloth bag onto the couch. Henry said nothing. His roommate sat on his bunk and put his hands in his head. “Another couple of hours and I’d be free when this tub had sailed.”
“Why didn’t you call me this morning?”
“I was late and the lad who was with me did look out for me and then I did it for him, so we were ok.”
“What happened then, where did you go?”
“We hid in a small house. It’s a power station with all sorts of electrical stuff in it, got down behind some kind of generators and thought how could anyone find us here? Well find us they did and here we are back again. I feel like I’ve been shanghaied.”
“I suppose we all feel like that at times. We just have to make the best of it now. Sailing at midday, at least being Japan it will be a decent port. I hope there won’t be any hitches about going ashore there.”
“Jesus Henry, we’ve had enough hitches for one trip. Not getting shore leave in Japan would be unthinkable.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
It was the first morning at sea; Gary Conrad and the galley boy were hauled before the captain. Both were logged half a day’s pay and fined two pounds for trying to jump ship. And they also received a severe reprimand from stone-faced captain.
The first few days of the voyage east and then round Cape Howe and north east up the Australian coast, were uneventful but the weather was pleasant. Gary Conrad was becoming agitated, uneasy and short tempered. Henry thought it best to confront him. He suspected he might be getting a bit of aggravation from suspicious crewmen for attempting to jump ship.
The evening of their fourth day out both were sitting and listening to the radio.
“Gary is there something bothering you, I don’t want to pry but you seem a bit out of sorts since we sailed.”
“There’s some talk going round that because I tried to jump ship I must be guilty of the two murders. This is serious stuff Henry. Three of those crewmen, acting as self-appointed ‘detectives’, hauled the galley boy into one of the firemen’s cabin and gave him a going over.”
“I thought that if you jumped ship this would be the crews’ reaction. They’re clutching at straws; anything that even looks half suspicious they’re latching onto. So getting caught and having to come back and sail with them is putting you in their sights. Gary, you will have to stand up to them if you’re being intimidated. I will stand by you, but we’ll have to try and get more support.”
“Thanks Henry but who else would stand up to them with me? There’s only the galley boy and he’s shit scared of them.”
“I’m not scared of them and I’ll confront them with you - anytime. Just tell me who the ones are that are threatening you.”
“There are a few groups. You’ve seen them yourself going around whispering and having meetings in one another’s cabins.”
Henry went and opened the door and looked out into the alleyway.
“Thought I heard someone outside. I’m getting paranoid now. But I know the boatswain, one A.B. and an oldish fellow, a fireman are on your case. Even I’ve been getting some nasty looks from them. What did they do to the galley boy?”
“They slapped him around and kept questioning him about going down the hold with a girl in Colombo. Then they went on about Pippa and asked him did he know which cabin she was sleeping in. He was never even up in that part of the ship. They also asked him about me and if he knew why I jumped ship; was it because I was guilty. You see Henry, they’re going to get at me as soon as they get a chance.”
“You just stick around with me, especially when you go forward to the pantry or the recreation room. We’ll see how brave they are when confronted by two.”
Gary was searching through a drawer. “Here got it, it’s not much but better than nothing.” He held a pocket knife in his hand, pulled open the blade and waved it around.
Henry stepped back, “take it easy there you’re not very adept with that and I wouldn’t think it would be much of a match for the knives the deck hands carry.”
“Yeah, you’re right, but those bastard firemen don’t carry knives so it might help to ward off them. We’ll see how they like it if I wave it under their noses.”
Henry pulled out his small knife and compared it with Gary’s.
“Between the two they’re not much but maybe they’ll show we’re intent on not being messed around with.”
Gary put away his knife and was a little more confident.
“If the two of us stick together maybe they might leave us alone.”
“It looks like that’s all we can do. There’s no use going to the higher echelons and complaining because nothing’s really happened yet, and even then I don’t think it would do much good.”
However, word somehow reached the officers about the intimidating of some crew members, and the galley boy sporting a black eye was fuelling the rumor. The captain called the senior men from below deck; carpenter, boatswain, cook and donkey man. He warned them all that if any intimidation or violence was carried out against any crew member, he would deal with the culprit or culprits in the severest manner available to him under shipboard law. He asserted his authority in no uncertain terms realizing the consequences of these actions.
As he spoke to the crewmen, the captain was determined to nip the unrest in the bud. “Believe me when I say, there’s plenty of shipboard laws available, including putting all of you on a charge of incitement to mutiny if my orders are not obeyed. Now, I want you men to relay this to all crew under you. To a degree I sympathize with what you are trying to do, but it’s not the right way to go about it. We have to let the authorities deal with it and hope the fingerprinting when completed, will get us a breakthrough. So please men, I don’t want to hear any more about this.”
They left his day room deflated but not altogether unbowed, and later told the men in the mess room a watered down account of what the captain had said to them. The deep resentment and unhappiness of the crew at being treated in such a manner because of one bad bastard was not going to go away so easy.
Gary Conrad and Henry stayed very much together when they were in the mess room for meals or later at night in the pantry for a mug of tea and a sandwich. They didn’t venture very much to the recreation room, but neither did many of the other men. The Rangoon continued to make good progress with brilliant weather up the east coast of Australia, past the Great Barrier Reef and on through the Coral Sea. Sitting out on deck in the glorious tropical evenings was wonderful therapy for the taut nerves and anxiety attacks which were increasingly afflicting Conrad. He now seemed to be becoming less prone to the moodiness and silences that were keeping him shut away in his cabin for long off duty spells. Henry and Gary sat on number four hatch smoking and saying very little.
“Well what do you think? As soon as I give them a rinse now, they’ll be perfect”
Henry looked at the spotless blue jeans.
“Best washing machine I’ve seen, sure beats hand washing.”
Gary went to the laundry room and rinsed out his jeans, but before he could leave, three men walked in. The boatswain was the spokesman with a fireman and an A.B.
“We want to talk to you.”
Gary looked to see if was Henry around, and when he couldn’t see him, his fear heightened.
“What do you want to talk about?”
The boatswain grabbed him by the arm and began to push him into the alleyway; a fireman seized his other arm and they were pulling and pushing him along. He got very agitated and started to struggle, but to no avail. The two strong men were taking him to the nearest cabin which was the boatswain’s.
“Let me fucking go! Get away from me!” he shouted.
Some of the crew came out of their cabins into the alleyway to see what the commotion was. One was Tukola. They just stood there as Gary was being forced into the cabin. Henry then arrived after hearing Gary’s shouts.
“What do you think you’re doing with him?”
“Don’t make this your business mate - just piss off.”
“This is my business. You let him be and take your hands off him.”
Tukola and some other deck hands came closer for a look; they wanted to see if Henry would have the action to go with the talk. At that moment, Henry moved in, grabbed Gary’s arm and tried to wrestle him out of his captors’ grip, but the boatswain pushed him from behind and knocked him against the bulkhead.
“Fuck off, or you’ll be next,” he snarled.
Standing next to him was a deck hand with his knife in its sheath on his belt. Henry saw it and pulled it out he shoved it up under the boatswain’s chin.
“Let him go now.”
They all backed off except Tukola who took out his knife and held it low. Henry had seen the move so he stepped back and pulling Gary from his tormentors’ he turned to Tukola.
“If you intend to use that knife, do so. If not, put it back where it belongs.”
He lifted his own knife to a threatening position and stared Tukola down - testing his mettle. After replacing the knife in its sheath, Tukola turned and walked away. Henry threw his requisitioned knife at the bulkhead and it stuck there quivering.
“Thanks,” he said to the knife’s owner.
They walked away from the bemused crewmen and didn’t speak until they got back to their cabin. Gary was visibly shaken and so was Henry, but he didn’t want to show it. Gary lay back on his bunk and gave a loud sigh.
“Thanks Henry, that was close. I thought you were a goner. I feared the worst from those bastards, they were going to give me a good going over.”
“If they’d had a little more back up, we might not have got away so easy. What do you think of that Tukola putting his oar in? I don’t like him or his attitude.”
“You could be right about him; he’s one man I’d stay clear of. Not that I ever have anything to do with him.”
“Tell me.” Henry paused to focus his thoughts, “what do you really know about him, there seems to be more to him than meets the eye?”
Henry was deliberately baiting Conrad to see if he knew anything about Tukola.
He hesitated before he answered.
“He strikes me as a man who could be dangerous like he was tonight. It was none of his business but he wanted to get involved, and I think he’d use that knife quick enough. By the way Henry, where did you learn to handle yourself like that, and would you have used the knife if you had to?”
“When I was younger I was in the defense forces for a while and they taught us a bit about self-defense - it comes in handy sometimes. I don’t think this will end just yet. They’re not going to give up just like that. As Shakespeare said: ‘we’ve scotched the snake not killed it.’ We’ll have to be careful not to get caught anywhere on our own.”
“I certainly agree with that, but what about your knife, you only borrowed it; the little ones we have are not much good.”
“I agree. Do you know of any place we could get decent knives?”
“We could get them ashore, but not on the ship. You don’t think the steward gives them out with the cigarette issue?”
Henry was indignant, “of course I know he doesn’t give them out, but could you get a couple of table knives and we could point and sharpen them. They’d just about do until we got to Japan where we could get proper ones. If they realize we have nothing to defend ourselves with, we stand no chance.”
Gary opened the cabin door and looked out.
“Thought I heard someone outside.”
“You’re becoming paranoid; they’ve surely more suspects to be annoying besides us two. Do you think we could steal two knives, perhaps one from the officer’s pantry and one from our mess?”
“Yeah, that shouldn’t be a bother. Just leave it to me.”
Two days later carrying their stolen cutlery, they went aft on the main deck to the poop house. It was another beautiful tropical evening. In the poop house there was a bench vice. Henry put Gary on lookout and he went to work sharpening the knives with a small file. Happy with his work he then took a length of light lanyard rope and put it in his pocket. Outside he turned to Gary. “Job completed. They’re not exactly like the knives Robinson Crusoe would have used, but they’re better than nothing.”
Back in their cabin he showed them to Gary who nodded his approval. He pulled out the lanyard. “We’re going to make handles with this. Just bind it round nice and tight and it will give a bit of a grip. Look, you see, they now look like proper knives and should act as a deterrent. After all, we really only want to let the bastards know we can if need arises, defend ourselves. I shouldn’t think we will ever have to use them in a serious way, but letting them know we’re no soft touch is half the battle.”
They carried the knives with them during all their off duty time and never had another confrontation with their would-be inquisitors.
Henry was no nearer to solving this crime when they reached Shimizu than he was when they left Melbourne. Once again he hadn’t had the chance to search Tukola’s cabin; he had nothing new on Sean Sweeney or Gary Conrad and regardless of Vera’s suspicion, he went along with the account from Fokir that Oswyn Welland was away until an hour before sailing from Bombay.
Henry was aware that although a suspect, he was starting to become a little too friendly with his cabin mate, Gary. However, he was also minded of his police training when he was told by an expert in criminal behavior, that some of the most callous killers could come across as the most charming and urbane of people. This he thought, was something he would have to keep to the forefront of his mind if he was to maintain objectivity.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The view of Mount Fuji as they entered Shimizu harbor was stunning; with its white snow cap it looked every bit the sacred mountain.
To their horror there were four uniformed policemen and what looked like two plain clothes detectives standing on the quay. Henry’s heart sank as he thought, not another detention on board, the crew would go wild. Immediately the gangway was put down a policeman was stationed at the end of it. The deck hands were moaning out loud; “here we go again, no fucking shore leave.”
The ship’s agents arrived on board and Henry was hoping for a letter from Danny with some updates of the investigation. It wasn’t long before the shout of ‘mail up’ was heard along the alleyways. Henry received a letter from Danny and Vincent and there was to his delight, one from Vera. There was news from the ship’s agent that their next port was to be Havana, Cuba to pick up a cargo of sugar. And the good news for everyone on board was that the sugar wo
uld be bound for Britain, and at long last they would be going back home. They couldn’t wait to sign off a ship that had become a nightmare.
Gary was disconsolate; he received no mail. His mother hadn’t even bothered to write. He saw Henry with his letters.
“Someone still cares about you,”
He then noticed the Australian stamp.
“Got a friend in Aussie, have ya?”
“Yeah, a relation; writes once or twice a year. Pity I didn’t get to see him on our last visit but that’s the way it goes sometimes.”
“Looks like we won’t get to see any women here either. There’s two policemen, one at the foot and one at the top of the gangway. It’s like a prison ship.”
The hatches were opened and discharging began immediately. The talk was they were going to work around the clock and they’d be sailing in two days. Henry had to wait until after lunch to read his letters. He made it to the lavatory where he knew he wouldn’t be disturbed, and read Vera’s first. She was shocked at hearing about the two girls murdered on the ship. She wrote that every employee of the company was horrified when they heard the news, and they all agreed this brutal animal will have to be apprehended as soon as possible. She asked him which of the four suspects he thought the man was. She was now backing away from her conviction that it was Oswyn.
He took out Vincent’s letter and he read how he and his colleagues received the latest news from Australia with extreme horror and revulsion. He also was hoping the fingerprinting from Australia would turn up some clue. He also wrote that if the ship visited a port with British authority, they could organize intense questioning of the suspects. But knowing the ship was heading for Havana this wasn’t very likely in the short term. Vincent had also heard some news bulletins about the Castro revolution which he hoped wouldn’t cause the ship any problems. He wrote that he hadn’t had any contact, be it letter or otherwise, from Katherine’s widowed husband, Denis. Henry was disappointed Denis hadn’t kept in touch; he was hoping he was somehow coping with his double loss.