by Jase Kovacs
I think we've done the FISH part of FISH and CHIPS for a while. Until we get into the hold at least. So now it's time to Create Havoc In Public Spaces.
The boy is an asset. He knows the ship, he doesn't ask stupid questions, he does what he's told and he has boundless energy. The first problem I face is shifting the cable itself. The hook weights a good twenty kilos, but there is a stabilising weight on it that weighs another hundred so it doesn't swing around when unencumbered. And that's not even counting the weight of the cable itself.
I explain my problem to Blong. "I want to take this cable, run it through the shackles holding this deck hatch closed and then run it forward to the next deck hatch." He looks down where we are standing, over the hatches to Hold Four. We both know this hatch well; it is the one with all the holes, where I climbed up yesterday and where he lay to throw tools at me when I shot his father. Beneath, we can hear a deep constant rustle and hissing, as if the hold is a cave full of snakes. Somehow, we can both put this out of our minds and focus on the problem at hand.
Thankfully, he doesn't ask why I want to do this. I don't have the time to explain. If I had a block and tackle (I had a couple of Voodoo but they're smoke now) I could drag the heavy hook across the deck to the next hatch, over Hold Three. So I need something that can do the same job. Blong nods, thinks and grabs my hand. Follow me!
He takes me over to a red cabinet on the side, marked with an icon depicting flames. I open it to find an axe, several blue and red fire extinguishers and a big drum mounted firehose. He points at the drum, almost jumping up and down with excitement.
"Good idea, kid."
I go back to Hold Four's deck hatch. It opens lengthwise, with an iron loop on each side like a doorknob, where the crane could be hooked to open it. I take a length of chain and shackle these loops together, with the cable running under the chain. Then I tie the rope I brought up from Voodoo to the hook. I run the firehose out, cut it off and tie the other end of the rope to the drum. Its axle is stiff but, with a bit of elbow grease, I reel in the rope like a giant fishing line. While doing this, I send Blong off to fine a long metal pole, like the one he brought me yesterday, and a sledge hammer.
I run the rope around a pipe on the forward side of the third hatch, so that when I reel it in with the firehose wheel, it will drag the hook across the Hatch Four to Hatch Three. Blong is back by the time I have finished this, dragging the heavy tools across the deck with all his might. He's energised by what we are doing even if he doesn't understand why.
I spin the firehose drum to take up all the slack. It goes tight and I punch the pole into a hole in the drum so I can lever it around. I put my back into it yet again and hear a heavy scrape behind me as the white and blue multibraid rope come into the wheel.
"Matty, its working!"
I've dragged the hook half a metre. Maybe twenty to go. Okay. This is working.
This is working.
I shift the pole and rotate and I do it again and do it again and do it again.
I get the hook to Hatch Three where I leave it by the rings. I look up, at where the hook on the third crane hangs, smoke wisping from the crane's body. "Blong, you know what we call big hammers on yachts?"
"No, what?" He's grinning. He's loving this.
"Persuaders." I heft the sledgehammer. "Let's go persuade that crane to give me its cable."
***
The whole job rolls smoothly once we done the first crane. Once we've worked out our method. I hose down the burning crane with fire extinguishers - two red CO2 extinguishers don't work but the blue chemical ones do - then climb up the top and smash the clutch and winch brake with the sledgehammer until the hook drops to the deck with a deep satisfying ring that echoes through the ship like a hammer striking an anvil.
Each time it happens, I imagine the marys trapped in the hold looking up, fretful, wondering what is happening. Are they afraid? I hope so. I hope they fear. But what does he do? Does he console his children? Reassure them? I doubt it. That doesn't strike me as part of his character. Instead, I think he broods. He sulks in his room, atop his throne. He certainly has been quiet since I got to work.
I probe him a couple of times. Think: hey, you're being quiet, having a nap? And: I bet you're just dying to know what I'm up to.
No response.
Keeping busy helps me not think about Voodoo. That's for later. But, I know this is going to sound perverse, but in a way I'm relieved. As if a great burden has been lifted from my shoulders. It makes me feel guilty, to think that way, but I can't help it. And if there is one thing I've learned in this world, it's not to obsess about things I can't help.
The second and first cranes, behind unburnt, are easier to free up. I disengage the clutch manually and jam the automatic locks with a few whacks from the persuader. In the end, it takes just over an hour to daisy chain the hatches together. I've got the fourth crane running down to its hatch, under a chain linking the two doors together, then forward to the third crane's cable where it's clipped off. The third crane's cable does the same thing, runs under a chain holding the hatch doors together, then forward to the second hatch and so on. The first crane, the forward one, the last one in the chain, runs forward to the forepeak where I've anchored it off.
All in all it only takes me an hour to do. Blong looks at the chain of cables, running across the deck, with satisfaction. Then he looks at me and goes, "Now what?"
I look to the busted and cannibalised generator in the first crane. "Now we get that bastard running."
Chapter 31
Blong crouches with me as we examine the diesel generator at the base of the first crane. He touches the open pipe leading from the heat exchanger, where the hoses have been cut away and fingers the toothed edges of the flywheel where the starter motor is supposed to engage.
"Looks broken, lady," he says with great solemnity, like a doctor delivering a diagnoses of cancer.
"Shows how much you know, kid. What does the cooling system do on a diesel?"
He gives me his best what look, which I'm starting to realise he enjoys employing far more than he should. I push on, knowing that I'm questioning a shipwrecked orphan just as a way of showing off. "Okay, look, diesels get hot. You need a cooling system to keep the parts from expanding and seizing the engine. But I don't care about that. I only need it to run for two, three minutes. Same with the fuel system, the fuel filters and oil lubrication and everything else. They're only needed to keep the diesel running. I don't need to keep it running. Just start it. But for that, well, then you need fuel, air and compression." I tap the bottle of clean diesel I brought up from Voodoo. The five litres saved from a decade of jealous hoarding. "We've got clean fuel. And there's plenty of air about. Now we need compression."
"Hmm," says Blong, considering this. He looks around, at the deck lockers and the hatches. "I don't got that."
"Yeah, kid." I point to the space where the starter motor should be. "That's what should be there. The start motor gets the cylinders turning, the fuel injector injecting, gets the machine running. Some smaller diesels, you can start them by hand, by spinning the flywheel. This one is a little big though."
Blong looks at the edge of the flywheel. He's learned what I want when wheels need turning. "You want a big pole?"
"Not this time, kid. I want you to find a whole bunch of heavy stuff."
He sighs. More heavy work for poor Blong he says with a simple shrugging of his shoulders. And then he runs off, on task.
***
Before I go any further, I do my prep work. I bypass all elements of the diesel fuel filter system. Instead I just run a fuel line from the bottle of clean diesel into the fuel pump. I prime it by hand, cracking the nuts on the fuel injectors and pumping until diesel flows, bubble free, out of every one.
I go up to the cabin and sit in the operator's chair. Thankfully, everything is labelled. One joystick moves the jib, the long arm from which the hook and cable falls. A rocker switch on the joystick w
orks the winch, letting out or bringing in cable. Foot pedals rotate the whole crane left and right. Above the window is a string of LEDs, first green, then yellow, then red, called the Load Moment Indicator, which tells me if I'm pushing the crane too hard.
I hope to get it all the way into the red.
I get up on top of the cabin, where the jib reaches up, and examine the drum carefully. This is the only crane where I haven't smashed the clutch and brake open - I need this crane to work, to be able to winch in its cable and lift and maintain tension. The cable drum turns fine, its axle caked in a thick slather of grease.
What I need take the time to do, and do properly, is check the electrics. Electrics are always the problem. They are the weakest link in this crazy stupid plan I've got. I carefully look at the terminating ends of the thick cables running up the gantry and into the drum winch motor. As I do so, I try to ignore the sun, how it's falling out of the sky with alarming speed, how little time I have left.
I go down the crane and open the inspection hatch in the operator's cabin. It's a maze of red and black wiring in there, all neatly organised but as complicated and daunting to understand as the sewer system of a major city. No way I can test everything here. I'd need days to be assured there are no faults. But it looks clean, it looks tidy. No big patches of rust.
A series of big breaker switches stand like gatekeepers on the cables coming in and out. They're there to cut off the current if the system threatens to overload. To prevent it doing damage to itself.
I tape them down, so they can't close. I pull out all fuses and replace them with screwdrivers, bridging the contacts. No way for them to burn out and shut down the system in case of overload.
Blong has built a sizable pile of heavy stuff by the time I return. More pipes, another sledgehammer and a couple of fire extinguishers are stacked by the gantry, next to the ships rail. I lean over the pile and pick up a heavy cardboard box. It holds a brand new circular saw, the packaging never touched. "Where did you find that?"
"Over there!" He points to the containers, the ones I quickly searched yesterday and found were full of kitchen whitegoods.
"Where?! Which one?"
Instead he runs off, aftwards and comes back dragging a couple of steel buckets that scrape and clatter on the desk. Focused on the job I've already given him. "Hold up kid, that's enough. Show me where you found this saw."
He leads me forward, to the shipping containers and wades into the drift of spilled boxes that I had written off as useless kitchen whitegoods. Pushes over a pile of microwave ovens and there it is, a stack of tools, both hand and power, fresh from the factories of Ryobi and Hitachi.
"You stupid bastard!" I shout, delighted, and he cringes, flinching as if I was about to come down on him with a raised hand. I shake my head, trying to smile. "Sorry, kid, not you. I'm just an idiot. Didn't check things properly."
He pushes boxes out of the way. There are more random storegoods behind the first layer of boxes. I see the ends of PVC piping and a palette of plastic crates holding hardware.
Alright.
***
I ignore the falling sun. I have a time limit, I know, but fretting will only make me clumsy, uncertain, slow me down. I need to focus on task. I check through the remainder of the cabling leading to the generator. Need to be thorough.
It's in pretty good shape, all things considered. The thing is, with generators there's not much that can go wrong - but when it does, it can be catastrophic. So, like most things in this plan, this stupid mousetrap contraption plan I'm putting together, it either will work and we'll live or it won't and we'll die.
Not to put any pressure on myself or anything.
After an hour, I realise I'm starting to triple check connections just because D-day is coming closer. I'm not being diligent any more, I'm just procrastinating. Putting off that moment where I stop checking and throw the switch and put everything in motion. That's the worst moment, the one before you commit yourself, where you discover whether all your best laid plans were for naught. Whether I wasted the last afternoon of my life.
That second comes. It's time to roll the dice.
Two hours have passed. The sun a couple of hands above the horizon. Late afternoon. The shadows are lengthening on deck. My doubt nags at me. I've left this too long. If I get the hatches open, they won't be in direct sunlight. The marys will still be shadowed, down in the hold, where they can hide until night comes. If this was noon, when the sun was over head, then it would work - you could fry them up, no matter where they cowered. My whole plan is pointless.
I can't trust my thoughts. Are these seeds he is planting? His insidious instructions? Doubt is a snake in my stomach. I've come too far to stop now. Yes, it's not far from dusk. Yes. The shadows are long. A journey I started before I had a destination in sight. But I remain convinced this is the way forward.
Hell. It's all I have.
Blong shares no such fears. "Is it time, lady?"
"Yeah, kid. Its time."
***
What happens next must happen quickly. The day is ending. Once he realises what I am doing, once it begins to play out, that's when I think he will come. I have been thinking about his nature. About what everything he has done tells me. And I think I understand his character, alien and diseased though it is.
Finding the Captain was the key. The true Captain, that man who chose to go out from this world with his dignity intact. Who recognised his battle was lost and decided to retreat on his own terms, leaving a message, a warning, in the only way he could. The creature down in the hold - the First Officer, although I don't think him worthy of that title - is a beast without honour or humanity. He lacks even a quantum of the true Captain's integrity. For all his preaching, and talk of prophets and gods and his undeniable power, he is simply just another mary, a monster twisted by infection, wearing the mantle of a better man. Smarter than the average bear, as Katie once said. But a beast none the less.
Still, he is a dangerous adversary. I am a long way from victory and I do not kid myself of this fact. But the creature, the pale king as he styles himself, is defined by his hubris.
And that is how I will end him.
Blong has one job. He understands it. He stands by the base of the first crane, ready.
I take the sledgehammer and walk aft.
I leave my rifle, my kit, my dry bag behind. Nothing to slow me down. I carry only the sledgehammer and the pistol, jammed into my belt. The time of preparation is over. Speed is the key.
I reach the aft hatch. The big steel doors sitting in their frame. Locked down in the middle with mechanical locks I can't free, sealed with hydraulics I can't get at.
What I can get at are the hinges. The hinges that have pins as thick as my wrist. They're held in with cotter pins - well, they were held in with cotter pins but I had Blong go around and remove all the pins while I was troubleshooting the crane. Four holds, eight hatches, sixteen hinges, sixteen pins. I stand side on to the hinge and spread my legs, hefting the sledgehammer like a lumberjack squaring off against a mighty redwood. I take a deep breath.
Okay, Matty. It's time to do this.
I raise the sledgehammer, calling my aching arms to their task and then swing it in sideways with all my strength. The hammer hits the end of the bolt. It connects with a solid, satisfying slam which sends shivers of shock up the shaft and through my arms. The pin shoots out like a rocket and crashes to the deck. I revel in the sudden violence, the surge of satisfaction that comes to see the pin free, the hinge open.
I turn and run to the next hinge. Smash it too and it comes out. I'm sprinting, no hurt, no pain in my legs or chest, wings carrying me across the deck, to the third and fourth hinges, felling them with a few deft blows.
MATAI WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
If there is anything he could have said to embolden me, it would have to be that. No magnificence, no arrogance in his words. Instead, he sounds petulant. Confused. As if wondering, how could it come to t
his? How is she still going? I answer his unanswered question, not what are you doing, but how am I still going?
Drills. Drills, routine, skills drummed into me to keep me alive. So I never give up.
My last gift from my parents.
MATAI YOU FORESAKE ME. YOUR TIME HAS PASSED.
Now he's sounding pissed. His hurt manifesting in anger. Good. Rage. Suffer. Rant. I want you to hurt. Hurt for what you and your kind has taken from me.
YOU ARE ON AN EBB TIDE MATAI. YOU AND ALL YOUR PEOPLE. I WILL WELCOME YOU TO THE SEA. THE DARK SEA OF DEATH.
Third hatch, working my way around now. My breath laboured, the fire in my chest and arms, but it's a good fire, it's a good hurt, it is good work I'm doing. Slamming the hammer down, sending the pins flying. The hatches now held down only by their own weight. The locks secure, but all they do is hold the hatches together, so they couldn't pivot up on their hinges. The hinges that I'm systematically demolishing.
FOR WHAT, MATAI? FOR WHAT? YOU THINK YOU CAN OPEN THESE HATCHES? AND IF YOU DO? THERE ARE SHADOWS AND POOLS WHERE YOUR SUN CAN NEVER REACH.
See, as I said before, all ships built after 1991 need to have double hulls, improved hatch locks and a whole raft of other innovations. This was because there was a whole glut of ships lost in the late eighties. Twenty went down in 1990, due to deficiencies in design, in hull maintenance, in hatch failures. Particularly hatch failures, in heavy storms, when hatches would open and the holds flooded. Ships from before that time were forced out of the main trade routes. Relegated to backwaters. Much like this one. And I know this ship is from before that time. Because the log book may have been in Chinese but I could understand the commissioning date written in the foreleaf: 1982.