Ocean Prize (1972)

by Pattinson, James

  “I may decide to take Wilson off—later.”

  “Yes,” Loder said. “Later.” But his eyes seemed to be saying that it would be much later, that he did not believe Barling would decide on anything of the kind. Wilson was the insurance, and it was too valuable a piece of insurance to throw away.

  Trubshaw, lying on his bunk in the hospital with his head aching and his neck hurting him, listened to the sounds of the ship and tried to deduce from them what was going on. When the engines stopped he wondered whether they had broken down again; but then he heard the sounds of the boat being lowered and he guessed that the India Star had been sighted. It was not until the second steward came in that he heard about the Atlantic Scavenger.

  “You mean the tug’s ’ere?”

  “That’s right,” Tricker said. “It was touch and go whether she got in first, but we beat her to it.” He sounded complacent, as though he personally had won the race.

  “You mean we ain’t goin’ to let ’er ’ave the tow?”

  “After all the trouble we’ve taken to get it? You must be joking.”

  Trubshaw groaned. “We should’ve let it go. We should’ve let the tug take it. It’s ’ers be rights.”

  “Not the way I heard it,” Tricker said. “You take a ship what’s been abandoned, it’s anybody’s to take in tow what can. And it’s first come, first served.”

  “We oughter let it go.”

  “What and lose all that salvage money? There’s a whisper going round that we’ll all get some. Nice work, I call that.”

  Trubshaw felt the vibration as the engines started to turn over and knew that the Hopeful Enterprise must be taking up the slack. He groaned again.

  “I’ll never get no money. I’ll be dead.”

  Tricker looked at him with a sharp, calculating eye and came to the conclusion that Trubshaw could just possibly be right; he certainly did not look at all well. Not that he, Tricker, was going to lose any sleep over it. It was someone else’s worry: Trubshaw’s.

  Wilson took the revolver out of the drawer and examined it. There was a thin film of oil on the surface of the metal to protect it from rust, and the barrel was about six inches long. On the side of the barrel he could read the words: Smith & Wesson. He had never before had a real pistol in his hands, and he felt a thrill at the touch of it, at the dull gleam of the dark metal. It looked as deadly as a cobra; two and a half pounds of compact lethal machinery. Wilson gripped the butt in the palm of his hand, curled one finger round the trigger and eased back the hammer with his thumb. He held the revolver at arm’s length and pressed the trigger. The hammer tripped forward with a sharp click.

  “Bang!” Wilson said. “You’re dead.”

  After a little manipulation he found how to get at the cylinder for loading. He took six rounds from one of the boxes and filled the cylinder. He felt a desire to fire the gun; he was like a child with a new toy and could not wait to use it. Well, what was there to stop him? On board this ship he was master; he could do what he liked and there was no one to tell him not to. So he would fire the revolver.

  He put a box of ammunition in his pocket, and with the revolver in his hand, left the cabin. He did not want to risk attracting attention from the Hopeful Enterprise, so he made his way to the poop and took up a position on the starboard side of the deckhouse where he was also screened from the view of anyone on board the tug. The stern of the India Star was lifting and falling, so that he had to steady himself with his left hand on a stanchion while he lifted the revolver, sighted on a fleck of foam on the surface of a wave and pressed the trigger.

  He was surprised by the kick of recoil; it jarred his hand. The barrel jumped and he had no idea where the bullet went. He realised that accurate shooting with a pistol was not quite as easy as it looked on the films.

  He tried again, gripping the butt more firmly and keeping his arm as rigid as possible. This time he did in fact see where the bullet hit the water, though it was not quite where he had aimed. The third and fourth shots he lost altogether, but the fifth he again saw flick the water. The sixth was nowhere.

  That completed one loading. He ejected the empty cases and refilled the cylinder. The crack of the revolver sounded quite loud in his ears, but he doubted whether it would be noticed in the other ships; the wind would carry it away. He continued firing until he had used up the box of ammunition; then he returned to the cabin, cleaned and oiled the gun, and put it back in the drawer.

  He had had nothing to eat since breakfast, and he suddenly realised that he was hungry. He searched around and found a steward’s pantry stocked with food. There was a sink and a small cooker with a cylinder of gas connected to it. He cooked himself a meal and drank three cups of sweet, milky coffee.

  When he went back to the bridge he saw that the sky had cleared and that a pale sun was throwing shadows on the deck. The shadows moved as the ship rolled, and the wind seemed to have turned colder, though it had not increased in strength. There was a slight swell, but nothing to worry about; if it got no worse than this, Wilson reflected, they would make it easily. And then what? The police waiting for him? His heart sank. What future was there for him?

  Scotton came to Barling with information early the next day. He seemed excited about it.

  “The cat’s out of the bag, sir.”

  Barling, who with so many things on his mind had not slept well, looked at him sourly. “What do you mean? What cat?”

  “The news, sir.”

  “What news? For God’s sake, man, out with it.”

  “About us, sir. About us snatching the India Star from the tug. They must have sent a signal from the Atlantic Scavenger about it.”

  “Yes, they would. It was to be expected.” Barling thought it over. It made no difference of course; the situation remained the same; it had simply become common knowledge, as it had been bound to sooner or later. “Well, much good it’ll do them.”

  “I suppose, sir, there’s no need to maintain radio silence any longer?”

  “What? Oh, no, not any more.” There had been no point in it from the moment when the tug had sighted them, but he had forgotten to tell Scotton; there had been so many other matters to think about. “Back to normal.”

  “Yes, sir.” Scotton sounded pleased. Now that the ban had been lifted he would be able to give the other side of the story. There would be people in England eager to hear something from the Hopeful Enterprise, and he would satisfy them. He might even get his name in the papers. It looked like being a big story.

  Barling, as though able to read what was passing in Scotton’s mind, applied a little cold water to the flames of the radio officer’s enthusiasm. “Nothing sensational, you understand? No playing this up as some kind of piracy on the high seas. Just the bare facts and no embroidery.”

  Scotton went away slightly deflated but consoling himself with the reflection that even the bare facts were pretty sensational. They hardly needed any embroidery.

  The second day on board the India Star passed rather slowly for Wilson. He felt restless. Like Captain Barling, he had not slept well, and for a similar reason: there was too much on his mind; though what was on Wilson’s mind was very different from what was on Barling’s. At first light he was up on the forecastle examining the hawser where it passed through the fairlead. There were no obvious signs of wear or strain. He had thoroughly greased the wire the previous day and it was making very little noise.

  He went back to the bridge and searched for the tug with the aid of a powerful pair of binoculars that he had found in the wheelhouse. He discovered the Atlantic Scavenger away on the horizon on the port side. The night had passed and nothing had changed. The weather was dry, the wind fresh, just enough sea running to make the ship roll, visibility good.

  Wilson was observed from the Hopeful Enterprise when he came out on to the wing of the bridge or went up to the forecastle. Barling himself had a look at him through binoculars and was somewhat relieved. His qualms of the previous day conc
erning the young seaman’s safety appeared now to have had little foundation. Wilson was obviously all right; probably enjoying the experience. It would be an adventure to him, something to talk about when he went ashore.

  But Wilson was not looking upon it as an adventure that he would talk about ashore. Drawn irresistibly by that gruesome blackened head impaled on its iron spike, he returned to the boat-deck and peered down into the hole. He heard the dark water swilling back and forth at the bottom and imagined that he heard the cries of the dead men. He looked at the head and wondered what kind of man this had been in life. One of the joking kind perhaps. He was not joking now, unless this was in itself a joke, this head caught up on the iron and staring blindly at nothing.

  He saw the rats then, a dozen of them, creeping along some broken decking, only dimly discernible in the half-light. He could hear them squeaking, and they disgusted him, turned his stomach. He hated rats.

  On a sudden impulse he stood up and ran to the captain’s cabin and fetched the revolver. He lay down at the edge of the hole and saw that one of the rats had succeeded in climbing up to the head. It was gnawing away at that grim relic, and Wilson could hear the sound of its teeth grinding into flesh and bone. He steadied the revolver with both hands, took careful aim, and fired.

  The sound of the shot was followed by an immediate scamper of small feet as the rats fled to safety. The bullet had missed the rat that had been gnawing the head but had struck the head itself, wrenching it from the spike and sending it plummeting to the bottom of the ship. Wilson heard the splash as it hit the water; it was like the sound of a large stone dropped into a well.

  He was angered by his failure to kill the rat. “Damn you!” he shouted: “Damn you, you stinking brutes!”

  He fired the revolver again, and the sound of the shot echoed hollowly, the bullet whining as it ricocheted from metal to metal. He emptied the cylinder, cursing the rats as he did so. “Damn you! Damn you! Damn you!”

  When the hammer clicked he drew back from the hole. His hands were shaking and his head ached. He took the revolver back to the cabin, put it away in the drawer, and lay down on the settee.

  The day passed without incident on board the Hopeful Enterprise. She was still listing slightly, but the list did not appear to have got any worse. The weather was being kind and the engines were on their best behaviour, so that by nightfall the ship was a good hundred miles east of the spot where the India Star had been recovered.

  Barling knew, however, that it was too early for any complacency. There were still between seven and eight hundred miles of ocean to be passed, and even if all went well that meant another nine or ten days of steaming at the speed they were making. In that time all kinds of undesirable things might happen, and he was very much aware of the tug, never far away, prepared to take advantage of any mishap. He would not be able to relax until both ships were safe in harbour.

  Madden, too, was still worrying. The engines had been patched up once, but he was far from confident that they would not break down again. He confided his fears to Loder, but got little encouragement in that quarter. The mate was in one of his sardonic moods and seemed to take a mischievous pleasure in depressing the chief engineer’s spirits even more.

  “You’d better keep that heap of old scrap-iron working. If not, we’re going to be in trouble with our tow. We might have to turn it over to the tug. They’d be pleased.”

  “Barling wouldn’t do that.”

  “He might have no alternative. You can’t tow another ship if your own is incapable of pushing herself.”

  Madden looked gloomy. “If we hand over to the tug there’ll be no salvage money.”

  “Unless they feel like giving us a share—for our good work. Which is about as likely as a heat wave at the South Pole. And if we lose the salvage money you know what happens.”

  Madden’s troubled eyes searched Loder’s face for any spark of comfort, and could find none. “You really believe B. and C. will go into liquidation?”

  Loder put a hand on Madden’s shoulder and gave his most malicious grin. “I’m sure of it, Chief. Dead sure.”

  “Oh, God!”

  “And it’s no use appealing to God. He won’t help you. You’ve just got to help yourself. It’s up to you to keep the wheels turning.”

  “I may not be able to do that.”

  “If you don’t you’ll be looking for a new job.”

  Madden sighed heavily. Loder gave him a parting slap on the shoulder and walked away. Madden watched him go and regretted having broached the subject; he ought to have known that he would get little cheer from the mate.

  It was after midnight, but Wilson had not been to sleep although he was lying in a comfortable bunk. And he was not at all certain that he wanted to sleep, tired though he was; when he slept he had too many nightmares and woke sweating and screaming.

  He was in a state midway between dozing and waking when he heard the stutter of a petrol engine, and he was not sure at first whether it was real or merely part of a dream. But the sound persisted and grew louder, and Wilson became fully awake with the realisation that a boat must be approaching the India Star. His immediate thought was that it must be from the Hopeful Enterprise, but a moment’s reflection convinced him that it was far more likely to be from the Atlantic Scavenger.

  There was an emergency battery-operated light in the cabin, but Wilson did not switch it on. He slipped out of the bunk, groped for his trousers and pulled them on. He found his thick seaman’s jersey, and was pulling that on too when he heard the boat thump against the side of the ship, and the sound of the engine died away. He thrust his feet into gumboots and went into the day cabin. It was not completely dark, for the moon had risen and some light was coming in through the scuttle. Wilson crossed to the desk, pulled out the drawer where the revolver was, loaded it quickly, and made his way up to the port wing of the bridge.

  It was a clear, cold night, and the ship was bathed in pale moonlight. There was very little wind and the sea was smoother than it had been earlier. The silvery light gave to everything a kind of enchanted appearance, like a scene out of some fairy tale, and a few hundred yards ahead Wilson could see the blunt outline of the Hopeful Enterprise with the light at her stern. Not far off on the port beam was the tug.

  Then he saw the men come up over the bulwark, and he knew that this was a take-over bid. He thought for a moment that the tow-rope must have parted, leaving the India Star ripe for the picking, but almost immediately he knew that this could not be so, since she was still moving forward. So there could be only one explanation: the master of the Atlantic Scavenger had become tired of waiting for the prize to fall into his lap and had decided to take more positive action. And any remaining doubts that Wilson might have had on this point were dispelled when he saw that the four men who had climbed on board the India Star were heading for the forecastle and that one of them was carrying an implement that looked remarkably like an axe.

  Wilson, still with the revolver gripped in his right hand, descended the ladders from the bridge to the foredeck and ran towards the forecastle. By the time he reached the head of the forecastle ladder the four men were grouped by the bollards to which the towing-hawser was belayed. They had their backs to Wilson, and apparently had been unaware of his approach. He stepped off the top rung of the ladder and paused with his left hand on the rail. He could hear the subdued mutter of the men’s voices but was unable to catch what they were saying. Then one of them laughed—the big man who was carrying the axe—and the others backed away a pace or two to give him room. The big man raised the axe above his head, and it was obvious that his purpose was to cut through the hawser.

  “Stop!” Wilson said.

  The man lowered the axe and wheeled round. The other three turned also, and for a moment the face of one of them was caught in the moonlight. Wilson recognised him from a previous encounter: it was the mate of the Atlantic Scavenger, the man who had introduced himself as Creegan.

  �
��Well, now,” Creegan said. “Look who’s here.”

  “Get off this ship,” Wilson said.

  They all laughed: It seemed to amuse them. Wilson did not share the amusement; he was dead serious. He was angry too; he resented this intrusion on his privacy. This was his ship and they had no right to be there. But they were making no move to obey him.

  “Did you hear me?”

  “Oh, we heard you, sonny,” Creegan said. “But we just don’t feel inclined to go. We’ve got a job to do.” He did not show any great surprise at seeing Wilson; he had, of course, been aware that there was a man on board.

  “You’ve got no job to do here. You’ve got no business aboard this ship.”

  “Oh, but we have,” Creegan said. He had a soft, not unpleasant voice, with an almost singing intonation. “And when we’ve finished we’re going to take you back with us to the tug.”

  “And suppose I don’t want to go?”

  “Oh, but you will. It’ll be to your advantage. Very much so.”

  Wilson began to get the drift of it. They were going to pay him to betray Captain Barling. Then they could say he had voluntarily left the India Star and that the ship had been drifting and abandoned when they had taken it in tow. That would take care of the legal point, and no one could prove that they had cut the tow-rope.

  “Are you offering me a bribe?”

  “Bribe!” Creegan said in that gentle, singing voice. “Now who’s talking about bribes? Let’s just say we could make it worth your while to row in with us.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  The other three men laughed again, especially the one with the axe.

  Creegan said: “It’s a big ocean. Men fall overboard. They don’t often come out alive.”

  There was the threat as an alternative, the carrot and the whip; it was for him to choose. And he did not doubt that the threat was real, that it was no bluff. There was a lot of money at stake and these were hard men, however soft and gentle Creegan’s voice might be. Perhaps he was the hardest of them all.