by John Molloy
The lackey grabbed hold of him and pulled him away, saying they must leave before the police arrived. Then her body was shoved into a space between two shacks and he placed her bag underneath her.
Ever since Oswyn had tried to erase this whole episode from his mind but it still remains to haunt him.
What was now concerning Oswyn was did the ordinary seaman see him bending over Nilima’s body, and if not, was the person the seaman alluded to, the man who murdered the girl at the dock? If it was the latter, the seaman would be damned in the eyes of the murderer who would surely like to silence him.
Oswyn thought long and hard and decided there was little he could do to protect the ordinary seaman. And even if the seaman came clean to the detective and the captain, not knowing who the murderer was, they wouldn’t be able to protect him either. Oswyn concluded that there was only one thing to do and that was to keep a close eye on the ordinary seaman - although he knew it was going to be an uphill battle and he felt a foreboding that seemed to hang around him like mist. Hopefully they could get to Havana without mishap and something might sort itself there.
There was a welcome return to pop music as they neared Hawaii and the lively music along the alleyways helped to lift some of the doom and gloom which had permeated through the crew’s quarters. There was news on the hour every hour - typical American radio. Castro was reported to be moving nearer the major city of Cienfuegos and Batista’s army was retreating.
“Bloody hell, Gary, I wonder, are we heading straight into a revolution and will Havana be under siege when we get there!” exclaimed Henry.
“I don’t care as long as there’s shore leave and a few dusky beauties to screw. That is if we get any shore leave.”
In a less enthusiastic voice Henry sighed, “I suppose you’re right there could be a curfew there. We just have to expect the worst which can’t be a lot worse than what we’ve had, but maybe hope for the best.”
“Yes Henry, but I’m so looking forward to walking down the gangway onto good old British terra firma and I’ll put that discharge book away for a long-long time.”
“Maybe I’ll join you in that.”
They decided to go on deck for some fresh air and to take in the sunset.
“Look! There’s fishing boats,” exclaimed Gary.
A few miles on their starboard beam were four fishing boats; their silhouettes outlined against the purple and red of a tropical sky. The seabirds were circling around them like flaming darts in the fiery sky. The turquoise sea was now a river of dazzling ruby.
“There’s enough beauty here to overload the picture book of your mind. Every sunset seems to be more beautiful than the previous.”
“Life could be so good and wonderful if it wasn’t for those who want to make it miserable for everyone. Seriously Henry, you have an opinion, so who do you think the murderer on this ship is?”
Henry was taken by surprise by the question and couldn’t gather his thoughts for a brief instant. He must make a sensible reply now. It was paramount to keep some credibility with Conrad. He looked around to make sure there was no one within earshot.
“We should approach this from a cool and impartial perspective, Gary. We have thirty eight crewmen, so we’ll start at the top and begin eliminating those who we believe are not suspects.”
“Right said Gary, but the captain and the officers, radio operators and engineers; I wouldn’t eliminate all those, would you?”
“No, not all of them. The older ones yes, as I believe this fellow is comparatively young, so out of all those pick the younger ones.”
“Jesus Henry, by the time we get to the galley boy we’ll still have twenty odd suspects if we go on ages.”
“Yes, that’s what I think; there doesn’t seem to be anything to pick out one or two above anyone else. All we have is what the ordinary seaman saw, and that’s crucial. We’d come under the suspects list just as much as the rest. How different are we to any of them?”
“For fuck sake Henry, you know I’m not him and I know you’re not him. The night Pippa was murdered we were both in our bunks all night. I woke a few times, once to go for a piss and you were snoring. Whoever killed her is surely the same person who killed the boat girl from Colombo, would you think?”
“Yes, I would think that and you say you saw someone go forward with a girl down in the tween decks, and was it the same man you saw roughing up the black girl?”
“Will you forget I ever said that? Look where that kind of talk has gotten the ordinary seaman?”
“I suppose you’re right but you can tell me, I’m not going to say it to anyone.”
“I’ll tell you when I think it’s safe and not before. As I said, I don’t want to end up with a knife between my ribs and being dumped over the side.”
The Hawaii Islands were a sight to behold as they sailed past next day. The sun shone from a cerulean sky on a sea of glass that was streaked with every color imaginable from amethyst to viridian. The sleek yachts with sails limp and slack, waiting for a light breeze; their wealthy passengers, some in bikini’s, lazing beneath awnings sipping cocktails.
Gary turned an envious glance to Henry, “That’s the life, how could a fellow get a job on one of those beauties?”
“You’d have to move in the same circles as those yacht people, ever so grand you know. I’m not so sure about the Americans, but certainly that would be the British code.”
They gazed at the island with its abundance of green vegetation and silver white sandy beaches, a filigree stretching between the green and blue.
“Look Henry, a whale!”
A pair of great majestic whales swam close together and one blew a cloud of white misty spray high into the air and then dived; his big scaly back humping over the sea and his tail slapping the surface as he disappeared below. His mate followed suit and left a ship’s crew silent at the wonder as they stood around the bulwarks gazing across to the island and Honolulu hidden in Pearl Harbor, a Pacific paradise.
The Rangoon plowed on across the broad expanse of ocean her wake a straight line fading into ripples as though she had never passed this way, like hundreds of ships before her.
Henry was looking forward to Panama and the great canal and also a chance to do his search. As day followed day he didn’t again broach the subject of the murderer to Gary. He stayed waiting and watching for a chance to get the information from him without having it look too suspicious. Another altercation with the whispering groups might be enough to loosen his tongue, he thought.
The forward holds were finished and the deck hands were working in number four and five holds; they worked until twenty hundred hours most nights. Henry would stand at the hatch coaming on his off duty after dinner, looking down to see what type of work they were doing. He also took note of the different gangs working together and what the ordinary seaman was doing. When the grain feeders were down and the hatch boards in the tween decks stripped off with the cross beams removed and lashed at the ship’s side, it made working conditions very dangerous. There was only a light rope running through the eyes of small stanchions about three feet high, fitted around the low hatch coaming as a safety barrier to stop men falling to the bottom of the hold. Even in relatively calm conditions this seemed inadequate, but if the ship was rolling in a heavy sea it would be totally dangerous.
The weather was considerably warmer now as they got nearer to the canal and most of the men worked stripped to the waist. Tukola was on deck hauling up buckets of old moldy grain and dust that was being swept up in the lower hold, he then threw it over the side and lowered the bucket down again. Henry watched but didn’t get near enough to him to cause an altercation. He took note of the menacing looks being thrown his way, and a show of muscle power as he hauled up the heavy buckets.
Gary came on deck and he handed Henry a mug of tea and a sandwich.
“Thanks, you’re a decent lad.”
“It’ll be your turn tomorrow night.”
They wen
t and sat on the bollards aft of the housing and Gary looked out over the sparkling red tinted sea as if he could see the coast of South America.
“I just took the third mate his smoko and I asked him what was out E.T.A. for Panama. We’ll be going through the day after tomorrow was his reply.”
Henry rested a leg on a fairlead.
“So at long last we’re getting there, how long then to Havana?”
Gary took his gaze away from the ocean and as if he was calculating, “about four days he reckons.”
“Does he know how long we’ll be there; especially with the trouble going on. Could we end up being tied up for a few weeks?”
“He said nothing about how long it takes to load a cargo of sugar. And I didn’t ask him, but I will tomorrow.”
Henry threw the dregs of his tea over the side. “He probably hasn’t a clue anyway.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Henry was doing the ‘smoko’ on the bridge the next afternoon. He went out into the wheelhouse and the second mate was out on the wing of the bridge. He brought his tea to him. Henry liked to be on the bridge, it seemed a different world from below decks. He took his time looking around for the empty cups from the earlier smokos, he walked past the senior A.B. on the wheel silently doing his job steering a true course. There was a bit of commotion on the wing of the bridge; an A.B. had come running up the ladder onto the wing of the bridge. He was talking in a loud, panic stricken voice to the second mate. The second mate went to the voice pipe and blew hard. A minute went by before the captain answered.
“Yes sir, an accident in number three hold.”
He waited for a reply, “yes sir, I’ll tell him right away.”
He looked down onto the foredeck and saw the chief officer and a gang of deckhands. He spoke back into the voice pipe.
“He knows sir, I see him on the foredeck now.”
Henry ran down to the pantry and saw the place deserted, and then he went out onto the foredeck where nearly all the crew had assembled. The crew men were taking the hatch boards off number three hatch. Then the captain had arrived and ordered the boatswain to get one of the derricks lifted. He told the chief steward to get a stretcher ready and prepare the bed in the hospital. When the first boards were lifted the captain and chief officer went down the hold. All hands were up trying to get a look down the hold.
Gary came over to Henry.
“Who is it?”
“I don’t know.”
One of the deck apprentices was standing alongside and Henry asked. “Who is it down there?”
The apprentice looked at him as if he had never seen him before and reluctantly replied, “the ordinary seaman.”
They could now see down to the bottom of the hold; the officers were standing over the prone body. The captain was kneeling down with his hand on the man’s neck feeling for a pulse.
The chief officer shouted up, “lower down a stretcher and a hatch board.”
The derrick was directed over the hold and a hatch board and stretcher made fast together and lowered down. Down in the hold they placed him on the stretcher, the captain ordering the men not to move his back or neck. They then placed him on the hatch board and the captain supervised how he should be secured with firm lashings to the board. The chief officer shouted up for two slings to be lowered down; these were made fast at both ends of the hatch board and the order was given to heave away slowly. When he was lowered onto the deck willing hands carried him aft through the alleyway to the hospital. The captain was up on deck and followed on to supervise taking him off the stretcher.
“Take that mattress off the bed and place it on the deck here. I want four men to lift him gently and place him on the mattress, you take his head. Chief, will you go and get some dressings for the head wound and do the best you can.” He turned to a deck apprentice. “Sonny, you and your three mates are being assigned watch duty here; start a twenty four hour watch and divide it up anyway you want, but just make sure there is one of you here at all times. If not you will be answerable directly to me.”
The captain left and told the chief officer, chief engineer and chief steward to come to his cabin as soon as possible.
He was already sitting at his desk when the three men arrived.
“Sit down gentlemen; I’m just writing up a report on this accident which I have yet to have verified from the deck hands and the boatswain. Did any of you hear anything I should know?”
The chief officer pulled his chair a little closer to the big desk. “I spoke to the boatswain and asked him what was the ordinary seaman doing in number three hold when they were working number four hold. He said he sent him forward to get some cluster lights as they hadn’t enough when working late tonight.”
“Did he go forward alone?”
“That sir, I don’t know. I didn’t have time to question him further.”
The chief steward spoke in a quiet and subdued tone; it was obvious he was suffering from shock. “I have nothing to contribute sir, I only know what I’ve seen now of the poor chap.”
The chief engineer was also visibly shaken. He told the captain he hadn’t witnessed the incident.
The captain spoke to all three.
“I will want you all to read this report and sign it with me before I send it off to London. At least we should have the young man in hospital in Panama City by tomorrow. Now, I want to question all the men that were in the holds today when this happened. Can you arrange that for me for nineteen hundred hours? Tell them to assemble outside the officer’s smoke room. I’ll need you both to assist me with this questioning.”
Gary and Henry served the saloon for dinner in a quiet and somber atmosphere where officers spoke in whispers to one another.
After dinner Gary followed Henry out onto the fore deck; they both sat smoking in silence. The second cook joined them, grim faced and solemn. He looked at Henry with haunted eyes and said what everyone else was thinking.
“Would you say he was pushed?”
“It’s a possibility, but unless he regains consciousness we will probably never know.”
“I agree,” said Gary forcibly, “None of those bastards are going to spill the beans on the other.”
“Why would anyone do something like push a man down the hold? Surely he must have tripped and fell,” puzzled the second cook, looking incredulous.
Then Gary chipped in. “There’s a bad bastard on this ship and because of the talk going around about what the ordinary seaman saw in Bombay, he’s covering his tracks. What about the other two murders, and who’s next? I wish I could pay off in Panama tomorrow, wouldn’t you two as well?” His fear stricken eyes looking to Henry and the second cook for some confirmation.
Henry tried to show some calm.
“It’s a good thing we’re arriving in Panama tomorrow. At least the young man can get some hospital treatment - if he’s not dead by then.”
They stood around the foredeck looking out to sea as if they could will the sight of land and a bit of civilization back into their lives again.
Up in the officer’s smoke room the captain and his assistants had questioned half of the men mustered outside, but had not come up with anything to suggest it was anything but an unfortunate accident.
The boatswain was visibly nervous as the captain summoned him to come in and sit down.
“You gave the young man the order to go forward from number four hold where you were working at the time, to go to number two hold to get cluster lights.”
“Yes sir that’s correct.”
“Did anyone go with him?”
“No sir, he went on his own.”
“The passage to the forward holds was dark and the hatches were closed, did he have any kind of light?”
“No sir, he had some light from the open number four hatch which would be enough for him to see where he was going and we had life lines rigged around the hold.”
“Tell me who were working in the tween decks at the time.”
> “Tukola was working on deck hauling up the buckets of sweepings. The four apprentices were working in the tween decks two with my gang, and two with the carpenter. The two with the carpenter were getting the spaces ready to stack the feeders in number five hold.”
“You saw no one leave their work and go forward with or after the ordinary seaman?”
“No sir, as far as I know I didn’t miss anyone from their job.”
“But you must admit that some of the men could have left their station, perhaps to use the lavatory and there wouldn’t be anything untoward thought of it?”
“That’s true, someone could have gone for a few minutes and I wouldn’t have missed them.”
“Right boatswain, if you think of anything that might be of any help along those lines, please let me know.”
He stood up to go - relief showing on his face.
“By the way boatswain was there any animosity being shown towards the ordinary seaman by certain members of the crew. Because of the strain we all find ourselves in over the terrible happenings on this ship, are there some crew members trying to take matters into their own hands?”
He looked perplexed and his speech when it broke from his lips was rasping.
“I haven’t seen anyone taking matters into their own hands sir, but the sooner whoever killed those girls is caught, the better for everyone.”
“I couldn’t agree more and the police in Panama will investigate this latest happening so I want as complete a picture as possible as to what could have happened.”
“Yes sir.”
The next to be questioned were the four apprentices. Their stories tallied with what the boatswain told except for Oswyn who was taking down the numbers of the feeder boards in number four hold and saw the ordinary seaman go forward.
He related to the captain that he saw the ordinary seaman, and then the boatswain asked him to see what was keeping him so long. He said he saw the lights at the edge of the hold and then, looking down, he could just make out prone figure below.