The Man from the 'Turkish Slave'

by Victor Canning

  He moved towards the captain and the two men. His mind was still not working properly, but somehow he had the impression that what went on here was his concern. The men at the rail heard him coming and turned.

  They stood there staring at him. Over the side the dog barked again, and suddenly Peter’s mind cleared. He knew now what this was all about… but it was too late.

  He heard the captain shout angrily and the two men ran towards him. They caught him by the arms, holding him firmly as the captain came up. Peter made no struggle. He had to keep his head and find a way out of this.

  ‘What’s happening?’ he asked, pretending to be puzzled.

  ‘Ferme ta gueule!’ With the words came the blow. The captain’s right fist drove out and crashed against Peter’s face. At once the throbbing machine in his head went wild, clanging and banging, and pain reached down through him dragging anger with it. It was more than he could stand. He shook himself free and struck back. He felt his fists against them, heard a man swear as he toppled back. Then they came at him together. Their bodies crashed and bore upon him.

  From the darkness a hand whipped down and he heard the thin stuff of his shirt part before the knife and felt the blade score briefly and painfully into the flesh of his arm. With the pain, the captain’s fist found his face again and he went backwards. The rope across the gap in the deck rail caught him in the dark, held him for a moment and then sagged, twisting under him like a living thing. He was slewed sideways and flung out a hand for a hold as his body twisted. He felt the rope escape through his fingers and then he was falling. He missed the bows of the fishing boat by a yard.

  The water smacked at his body like the buffet of a great hand.

  When he came up it was to find himself riding gently on the swell from the ship’s wake, the trapped air in his shirt keeping him easily afloat and the stern light of the Turkish Slave drawing dimly away from him. He shouted, but the world had lost interest in him. The ship no longer had shape and its lights were gradually sucked into the darkness.

  Throughout the war, which he had spent as an engine-room artificer in various of His Majesty’s minesweepers and corvettes, Peter Landers had had one horror: that some day he would find himself in the water with no prospect of being picked up. It had never happened to him, although three ships in which he had served had been sunk. Each time it had been possible to abandon ship by boat and raft in comparative order and safety. Never had he found himself in the water.

  He was now. There was some irony in an event occurring eight years after there was any reason for expecting it; but Peter was a man on whom irony was wasted. He was far too practical to waste what little self-detachment he had on anything now except a consideration of the possibilities which might prevent him going to the bottom of the South Atlantic Ocean.

  With a great deal of fumbling he bound the flesh wound in his right arm with his handkerchief. He then kicked off his rubber shoes. After this he lay back and floated gently, using only the barest movements of his arms and legs. There were sharks and barracuda in these waters and there was no sense in drawing attention to himself.

  He was, he knew, about two hundred miles from Brazil, the nearest mainland. The Turkish Slave was due in Santos in two days. The chances of being picked up were remote. The fact that he had seen a fishing-boat alongside the Turkish Slave might well mean that there were others about—though it seemed a long way out for fishing-boats. Thinking of the fishing-boat brought him back to the cause of his own misfortune. He thought about this bitterly. He had been too easy-going, too ready to take people at their face value. If he ever met his captain again … No search would be made for him. He knew that.

  Floating there in the water, he realised savagely that he had lost the chance which Marston had given him. What a fool he had been not to have guessed that the officers of the Turkish Slave would take no risks with him. He had been drugged to get him out of the way. He should have foreseen such a possibility. When he had come round he should have kept out of the way … Damn, he had gone stumbling about the deck like an idiot, asking for trouble. He would go under and the captain would report the loss of an officer … drunk on duty, fell overboard.

  Marston and Rogers would be suspicious when they heard, but they would be helpless against the captain’s word … and the captain would be well paid to keep to his story. And somewhere, making for the mainland, was a fishing-boat with a fat parcel of stolen jewels aboard. She would go into some small port and the Customs people would never even give her a glance.

  Well, thinking about that would not help him now. He was faced with the unpleasant problem of survival with all the odds against him.

  The stir of his arms and legs broke the water into thin trails of phosphorescence, which streamed away from him and then died, proving—though bringing little comfort—that he was drifting with some current. The wallet in his back trouser pocket was rubbing and making him sore. The water moving under the front of his shirt made an irregular little popping sound. It was a friendly noise in the darkness.

  Below him was probably something more than a mile of water. He could feel its menace and attraction along the full length of his back. He lowered his legs, treading water gently. His shirt came free of his trouser waist and floated around him like a small skirt. It was hard to forget that depth of water beneath him. It reached up to his feet now and seemed to be giving them playful, enticing tugs.

  All he had to do was to raise his arms and go under, and that would be the end of Peter Landers. And who, he thought angrily, would care a tuppenny-damn? Nobody. He was unattached. There was nobody. It was just himself adrift in the South Atlantic. He laughed bitterly to himself. He’d mucked this job up. Well, it was the last one. And he had hoped for so much from it. It had taken him four years to understand his own weakness, to see that he’d let himself go because life had disappointed him. He’d lost the thing he’d valued most; his pride had suffered and, out of his unhappiness, he had turned to drink and put on a damn-you-all attitude to life. As though there had been anything special about him! That he was the one man life shouldn’t disappoint! Since that morning with Marston he hadn’t wanted a drink, hadn’t wanted anything except to do this job well and get back on the road again. He’d been happy—for the first time for years. Well … here was the finish to everything now.

  But the end of the second hour found him dourly opposed to the idea that it was going to end like this. In another two hours it would be morning. Something would happen then. Time was a comfort to him. He knew exactly how long he had been in the water. He had looked at his watch—it was waterproof with a luminous dial—just after the lights of the Turkish Slave had disappeared. Two hours ten minutes he had been in the water. One-fifteen when he had fallen overboard.

  Fallen, that was a good word. He had walked straight into it. The thought made him angry, and in his anger there was strength. He was not going to go under. One day he was going to meet the captain. The thought of that moment kept him going. He focused his anger on his captain …

  But it was hard to keep anger going and gradually he found his thoughts slipping off into other channels. How many other ships, he wondered, were involved in this traffic? What happened to the stuff when it reached South America? The insurance man had answered that one. There were plenty of buyers, many of them unsuspecting, for the pieces of jewellery were reset and the stones recut. He remembered the tone of bitter respect which had been in the insurance man’s voice when he had spoken of the unknown brains behind the organisation … Well, there were all sorts of ways of making a living. At the moment his problem was the simple one of survival.

  At the end of the third hour his arms felt like lead and his hands were becoming sodden and pulpy. When he pressed his fingers into his palms the skin stayed dented like fatigued rubber. He was tiring, too. He tried not to admit it to himself, but it was hard to ignore the weariness which was invading his body.

  A slight wind was stirring now. He told himself th
at it was a dawn wind. He remembered the times he had felt that freshness before daybreak, when the darkness seemed to yawn and turn over in bed, and he had waited for the first streak of greyness in the East. The places he had seen that happen … running up the Spanish coast for Barcelona; moving down the North River with the first ferry-boats stirring like sluggish water-beetles and the windows of the Empire State building suddenly gilded; lying alongside at Rotterdam and the friendly clatter of the milk-boy’s clogs coming up the gangplank …

  A tiny flirt of breeze slid through the night and slapped a ripple of water against his face. Without warning, he went under. He went down swiftly as though he had been tugged from below, and he had to fight his way back. He came to the surface, panting, and started to swim. He kept on swimming until the shock was eased out of him, and then he turned over and floated again.

  He knew why he had sunk. Slap in the middle of his thoughts he had gone to sleep, and the weight of his waterlogged shirt and trousers had drawn him under. He could feel the need for sleep with him now. It was like another person alongside him in the water; an enemy who had to be watched.

  The water no longer seemed warm. Now and again his teeth started chattering in swift spasms. He could do nothing about it except raise a hand and bite on his forefinger and the taste of his finger was salt and bitter in his dry mouth.

  His arms and legs were weary and so was his brain, and the dawn was never going to come. The wind was a false wind. Sleep took him again in snatches, but mechanically now he kept his legs and arms stirring, and with sleep came quick, vivid dreams.

  A larger wave slapped into his face and wakened him. The last dream stayed with him. He had been sitting down in the mess of his last naval ship, a bowl of steaming Irish stew before him. The smell was with him still. He breathed deeply, holding it in memory. And then, suddenly, he knew it was not in his memory. He could smell stew. Out here in the waste of the South Atlantic, he could smell stew.

  He drew at the air again and it was there still. The air was loaded with the smell. It came straight down-wind to him, rich, tangy and fantastic.

  At once he was awake, alert and full of hope. He drew himself up as far as he could from the water and looked around, searching for a light, for some sign of a ship, and he strained his ears above the gentle slap and gurgle of the water, hoping to catch the low, steady beat of screws. He could see nothing, hear nothing. But he held on to his hope. Someone was cooking.

  ‘Hullo, there!’

  ‘Ahoy there!’

  He shouted and went on shouting. His voice was surprisingly loud and clear. He put all his strength into his shouts, his voice, roaring across the waters.

  He kept on shouting until his voice went suddenly hoarse and cracked and there was nothing but a croak coming from him.

  The dawn was approaching now. Already the rich black pile of the sky was wearing thin. He kicked himself around in the water, watching the paling night. He knew the signs so well. First this greyness and then suddenly the lip of the sun would flick above the horizon and the sky would be shot with pink and gold. Why didn’t it come? At least he would be able to see.

  He began to shout again, but hope was dying in him. A boat would have to be on top of him before his feeble cries would be heard. He settled back in the water, floating with his legs up. Slowly despair took hold of him. Somewhere a ship had passed him … Somewhere, in some galley, a cook was busy over his pots and there was a rattle of tin plates in the mess … And here he was.

  He shouted again, peering around through the greyness. Then he gave a last croak, and swung in the swell.

  He was not going to be picked up and that was the end of it. He was going straight to the bottom and there would be nothing to mark the spot. There was a singing and roaring in his ears, and he was tired of the whole miserable struggle.

  He lay there and stared at the sky, his hands paddling loosely against the water. The grey sky brightened and he saw the familiar miracle of dawn sweep a great stroke of colour across the heavens, saw the few high clouds suddenly limned with silver and a great wash of orange and pearl-pink stain the wide arch of the East.

  The roaring in his ears increased. He shook his head against it, but it persisted. Without warning, he felt his body lifted and swung forward swiftly. His feet were sucked down and he was spun round violently. Before his eyes there was a mad seething and swirling of water and the black, slime-coated shoulder of a rock lifted lazily from the turbulence and then dropped back.

  The swell took Peter and swept him around the flank of the rock. But in that moment his despair went from him. Ahead of him was land, a soaring sweep of cliff and mountain slope, sharp-shadowed by the dawn light, rocks and grass bright under the young sun. Land! All the while he had despairingly watched the racing colours of morning leap to the sky from the East, it had been behind him.

  New life in him, he began to swim towards it. Ahead of him was a long, confused line of surf, soapy and violent, fanged with rocks from which streamed and coiled long seaweeds as the swell rose and fell. He knew now that the roaring in his ears had all the time been the sound of beating surf. He found a new strength and fought his way forward, seeing, as the swell lifted him at times, the pallid stretch of beach rising beyond the breakers.

  The strong swell took him into the surf and rocks with a violence that swiftly turned his strength into a puny scrabbling to avoid being pounded to death. He was thrown up on to a slippery shelf, sucked back, rolled over and over and dragged deep down. He came up and was hurled forward down a smooth, marbled slope of sea and smashed into a boulder the size of a cottage. He had a glimpse of the beach, so near, and yet knew that even now the sea might claim him. Fresh, he could have made it. But his strength was sapped and in a few moments he was fighting desperately. He gripped a rough ledge, fighting the withdrawing sea, and then was snatched from his hold and went under again. The roar and beat of water was like the thunder of passing trains in a tunnel.

  He came up and a long, beautifully yellow glow of light rimmed a shoulder of gentle cliff beyond the surf. His body was slammed against a rock that surfaced, a cascade of white water pouring from its shoulders. He reached out, twining his pulpy fingers into the fronds of seaweed that fringed the shining pate of the rock. He hung on through two waves and then the third battered him and drew back, taking him with it. As he went he looked up, through a hissing spray of mist and foam.

  And then he saw the girl. She stood on a rock away to his left, a rock taller than the others, its crest stained white and yellow with lichen and seabirds’ droppings. I’m delirious, he thought, sliding back with the sea.

  He went under and was swept down. He let himself go, weak and limp, and the sea, finding no sport in one who no longer resisted, contemptuously spewed him to the surface. He looked up and saw the girl again. She was running towards the edge of the rock. She dived, a flash of brown and white against the strengthening morning light, and then was coming towards him with sturdy, splashing strokes. She grabbed him, and then a wave took them, rolling them under in a confusion of arms and legs, a madness of churning green water. They came up and he felt her hands under his shoulders. The past few minutes had beaten the last of his strength from him. There was nothing he could do, except let her take him. He heard her panting, felt the strong pull and tug of her arms and vaguely knew that she was working him towards the beach, fighting the waves and skilfully using the long rolling swell as it set inshore.

  A few minutes later he was lying on the beach, dragged just clear of the water. He lay there, all-in, his eyes shut, his head spinning, sucking at the air which his hungry lungs demanded. He heard the clatter of stones as the girl moved away. He wanted to lie where he was for ever, to drift off into deep sleep … Only now, when he was safe, did he realise just how weak he had become. A wave rolled in and swirled close to his feet. He heard the clatter of stones again.

  With a great effort, he sat up, opening his eyes. The girl stood by him, the water rolling from
her arms and legs. She was just fastening the top of her skirt, which was awry. Her white shirt clung tightly to her, and a red ribbon that had held her dark hair back was loose and trailed across her neck.

  She said something in Spanish or Portuguese which he could not catch, and pointed behind him. Then she reached down and helped him up. At first he wanted to manage by himself, but a few steps made him grateful for her arm.

  They climbed a little path running up the cliff-side and came out on a narrow grass plateau. A small tent was pitched to one side of it, and beyond the tent a flock of sheep lifted their heads and watched them curiously. Two dogs left the sheep and came to sniff at Peter’s wet trouser legs as he stood by the tent. There was a fire outside the tent and over it hung a black pot from which came the rich, familiar smell of stew. The girl went into the tent and brought him a blanket. He stripped off his shirt and trousers and wrapped himself in the blanket. He sat down and his eyes kept closing and his head dropping forward.

  The girl held a deep tin full of stew towards him.

  ‘No, thank you … I just want to sleep.’

  The tin was thrust into his hands.

  He began to eat, and at once found he was ravenously hungry. The girl took his shirt and trousers and spread them on the grass. She came back and sat watching him.

  ‘You are English or American, senhor?’

  He looked up, surprised.

  ‘English.’

  With a touch of pride in her voice, she said, ‘I speak English well because of my father.’

  ‘Good…’ He was not really with her. The hot food and the weakness in him had brought a mist of sleep over his eyes.

  She reached for the tin and took it from him as he nodded forward.

  He smiled at her. He would have started to say something to mark his gratitude, was searching for the right words when sleep came down like a curtain. He had a hazy sensation of the girl putting something under his head and one of the dogs sniffing at his face … and then he was away.