“He hated the place,” I said.
“Hated the place when he thought he’d found where the treasure was!” the man scoffed. “He was going back, wasn’t he?”
“Not for the treasure,” I answered. “I tell you, he hated Cocos Island.”
“Not for the treasure!” His laugh was a sneer. “Then why?”
“For evidence that would clear him,” I answered angrily.
“No evidence could possibly clear him.”
“Yes, it could,” I replied. “Irwin, the Diesel mechanic —he kept a log. He put it in the treasure cave. That’s why Mr. Kean was going back to Cocos.”
The man’s lips turned down at the corners in disbelief. “And how was Kean supposed to find it?”
“Before he died Irwin had made a map.”
“A map!” The voice was derisive. “They all do that. There are dozens of maps of the Cocos Island treasure. A man called Keating, back in the last century, left fake maps with all sorts of people. I’ve seen one myself. They’re always turning up.”
“But this was different,” I told him angrily. “Irwin located the treasure cave. And he scratched the map of its location on the base plate of one of the ML’s engines.”
But he didn’t believe me. “You’re making it up,” he said. “You’re lying—trying to make yourself out more of a hero than you are.”
“I’m not lying,” I cried. I was near to tears. “Look— here’s the rubbing I took.” I pulled the piece of paper out of my pocket. I waved it in front of his face. “Mr. Kean wanted to see it before he died. He said that—” But I stopped then. The man’s eyes were gleaming excitedly behind his glasses and I realized that he’d tricked me into producing the map. He’d been goading me on all the time. I stuffed the paper back into my pocket.
“Let me have one glance at it,” he pleaded.
“No.” I turned toward the other man, expecting him to seize hold of me and demand to be shown it. But all he said was, “What a story this would have made before the war!” And the reporter and cameraman turned and hurried off the ship.
Back in the saloon I found the police officer seated in the wicker chair, going through Kean’s papers. He looked up as I came in. “Got the cat, eh? Good. Do you know where Kean kept his letters? I’ve got his will and a full account of what happened on ‘ML 615’ from the time they left Pitcairn Island till he was picked up in Wafer Bay. But no letters. Nothing to give a clue to how he lived or who his friends were since he came out of the service. I’ve searched everywhere. Did he get any letters while you were here?”
“One or two,” I answered. “He burned them.”
“I see.” He gave a grunt and got to his feet. “We’ll lock this place and then we’ll go down to the station. Better bring the cat along.”
At the police station I was given lunch and then I was put into a police car and driven the fifty-odd miles to my school. The Headmaster had been warned of my arrival. “I’ve just heard from Commander Gurling,” he said as we stood in the doorway and watched the red taillight of the police car disappear round the curve of the drive. “He’s in London and will be down tomorrow. You’ve made quite a figure of yourself. I’ve kept all the clippings so that I can show the other boys.” His eyes twinkled. He was a severe, but very understanding man.
The commander arrived shortly after eleven next morning. He nodded to me and then he and the Head disappeared into the study. Sitting alone in the empty hall with Nick in my arms I could just hear the murmur of their voices. At last the Head came out and beckoned me in. His face was grave. So was my guardian’s. The latter told me to sit down. “What’s this about a map?” he asked. His tone was abrupt.
I shifted uneasily in my seat. “Come on,” he snapped. “No harm in telling us since you’ve blurted it out to the press so that everyone in the country capable of reading knows it’s in your pocket.” He thrust a copy of the Morning Record under my nose. In flaring headlines I read: boy pockets cocos treasure—Smuggling Hero Takes Rubbing of Mutineer’s Map. “You’ve been a fool, Johnny,” he said in a kinder voice.
“He tricked me into telling him,” I said.
“Doesn’t matter how he got it out of you,” Commander Gurling replied. “It’s what happens next that worries me. Do you know what this means?” He tapped the headlines viciously. “It means that every crook and treasure-mad gambler in the country—not only in this country, but in the world—is thinking about what you’ve got in your pocket.” He leaned forward. “Don’t you understand? That treasure is real. It exists. Men have spent thousands of pounds trying to locate it. Around 1930 it was estimated at eleven million pounds. It must be worth two or three times that now. And you’re idiot enough to blurt it out.”
“He wasn’t to know the repercussions of the thing, Commander,” the Head put in.
“Well, it’s about time he did realize it,” the commander snapped. “Yesterday’s gale tore the ML off the beach. There’s deep water and an eight-knot current off Dungeness. She’ll never be seen again. That means he’s the only person alive who’s got the details of Irwin’s map.” He turned suddenly to me. “You’re a marked man, my boy.”
“Irwin may have been lying to them,” I suggested uneasily.
“It doesn’t matter. Nobody who goes in search of treasure knows whether a map is authentic till he’s done a bit of digging. The point is that they’ll be round you like a swarm of wasps. And this gang—they’re the ones I’m scared of. They’re on the run, and it’s your fault. They’ll stop at nothing.” He paused, drumming with his fingers on the edge of the Head’s desk. “Can you identify them?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “I heard their voices, that’s all.”
“Then you can’t help the police?”
“I don’t think so,” I replied. “I’ve given them their names.”
“That won’t help them. Names are easily changed.” He hesitated uncertainly. “Let’s have a look at the rubbing. Have you got it on you?”
I pulled it out of my pocket and passed it across to him. He smoothed it out on the desk. “Location marked by the usual cross and complete directions,” he murmured as he studied it carefully. Then he folded it up and placed it in his wallet. “This goes into the bank, my boy. You can have it back when you’re twenty-one. By then perhaps you’ll be old enough to know what you’re doing.”
“But I promised Mr. Kean—” I began.
“What did you promise him?”
I told him all that Kean had said as he lay dying. When I had finished, he shook his head sadly. “It’s a rotten business. What he told you may be true. But you must remember that Kean had led a queer, lonely life for the past few years. I’ve no doubt he believed what he told you. But that doesn’t mean it’s true. It happens like that sometimes. My advice is, forget all about it.” He glanced at the Head. “The problem now is how to get the boy out of harm’s way.” The Head nodded. The commander turned to me again. “The Head and I have talked it over. We agree that the best thing is for you to go away, right away. Don’t worry about Dartmouth. The Head will give you a syllabus to work on while you’re away. You’ll take the exam as soon as you get back. You go out now and take a stroll round the grounds. I’m going to get in touch with a friend of mine whose father is chairman of a shipping company. We’ll see if we can’t arrange for you to be slipped out of the country on a freighter.” He lifted the receiver and the Head nodded to me to go.
As soon as I was outside the study, I went straight up to my room and made a copy of the map and directions from memory. You may think that it was a foolish thing to do after what my guardian had said. But at the time I felt it was the least I could do for my dead friend. Kean was right. Nobody—not even my guardian who had been his friend— would believe his statement about the mutiny until Irwin’s log was produced. Some day, I felt, I’d get the opportunity to do what I’d promised him. I wanted to be certain that I’d have the map safe when that opportunity came. I suppose I didn’t believe
that a bank was as safe as my own pocket. At any rate, I felt happier with the copy tucked away in my wallet.
I took a stroll round the house and a few minutes later Commander Gurling called me into the study. He was smiling. I think he was feeling relieved. “It’s all fixed,” he said. “The ‘Sally McGrew.’ She sails from the Thames on tomorrow’s tide. She’s a freighter, bound for Valparaiso. Ever heard of Sir Brian Fawley?”
“Isn’t he an explorer or something?” I said.
“That’s right. Andes and the Western Desert. One of the Long Range Desert Group boys during the war. He’s recently become a director of this company and he’s sailing on the ‘Sally McGrew.’ You’ll act as a sort of cabin boy. But you’ll mess with the officers. You should have an interesting trip.”
Sir Brian Fawley! He’d led an oil prospecting expedition into the Andes for the Chilean Government a year before. I remembered reading about it. And I was to sail with him on a ship bound for Valparaiso in Chile. Forgotten in an instant was all thought of the map and what had happened during the past few days. I was going abroad with a famous explorer. I could hardly contain my excitement.
4 OUTWARD-BOUND
Dusk was falling as the taxi dropped us at the entrance to St. Katherine’s Docks. I had Nick securely under my arm. The commander took my suitcase and we hurried through the murk between the dingy brick walls of shattered warehouses. Then we were out on a riverside wharf and there, high above me, was the blunt bow of a freighter with the name “Sally McGrew” showing a dirty white on her side. All about me was the bustle of the river, tugs hooting, cranes rattling, and the lap of water that seemed to smell of the cargoes of foreign lands. Beyond the rusty stern of the “Sally McGrew” I caught a glimpse of Tower Bridge outlined against an orange streak of fading daylight. Behind it the lights of London glinted, the big office blocks glowing with activity.
Then the gangway sounded hollow under my feet and the smell of the ship took hold of me. We were hailed from the bridge and a moment later I was in a stuffy cabin being introduced to a small, neat man with thin features and tufty eyebrows. Captain Legett. He looked at me down his long nose. “Commander Gurling,” he said, and his voice was deep and booming. “Commander Gurling. It’s my directors’ orders that I ship this boy. I don’t do it of my own free will.” My excitement ebbed. I began to dislike Captain Legett.
“I understand,” the commander answered. And then added: “The boy’s to get a grounding in seamanship prior to going to Dartmouth. He has books and a syllabus to work on. I’d be obliged if you’d see that he studies.”
“He’s shipping as cabin boy,” was the answer. “What he does in his spare time is his own affair.” Captain Legett looked at me for a moment and then sighed, “ ‘I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet, yet trouble came.’ ” I thought him mad at the time. And now I think he would have been startled himself had he known then how prophetic his quotation from Job would prove to be. He had spoken very quietly, as though to himself. But now he said sharply, “My directors’ instructions said nothing about a cat.” His small gray eyes stared at Nick with disfavor.
“Surely you’re not superstitious, Captain Legett?” my guardian said.
“No. But my men often are.”
“The cat belonged to a great friend who has just died,” Commander Gurling said.
The captain grunted. “Very well. The cat can stay as long as there’s no objection from the crew. God knows, there’s enough rats on this ship despite fumigation. But the first complaint I get, over the side it goes. Now, Commander, I expect you’re thirsty. Never knew a Navy man that wasn’t. Boy, there’s a bottle and glasses in that cupboard there.”
I met the commander’s eye. There was sympathy and at the same time I could see he was amused. “You’ll find this good training for Dartmouth,” he said.
I got the bottle and glasses and the captain shouted, “Mr. Andrews!” That deep, booming voice seemed to echo and re-echo through the ship. I suppose he must have seen me start, for his thin lips suddenly relaxed into a fleeting smile. “I’ve been a lay preacher in my time, boy. Bringing hell-fire down on the heads of a congregation is good training for a merchant skipper.” The door opened and a thickset man with a stiff shock of hair came in. “This is Keverne. Show him where to sling his hammock.”
The first mate took me out on to the deck and round to the port side of the bridge accommodation. “Here ye are,” he said, throwing open a door. “Ye’ll share wi’ the second engineer. He’s a kindly old feller. But dinna cross him when he’s drunk. He’s ashore now. Reckon he’ll be drunk when he comes aboard. That your cat?”
I nodded. “Can I leave him here?” I asked.
“Is he clean?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Aye. Then ye’d best leave him here. But dinna leave him here alone when Danner comes aboard. He’ll think it’s the de’il, like as not.” And he gave a harsh laugh.
I shut Nick in and followed the mate out on deck. He took me up on to the bridge and pointed out the various parts of the ship to me. But my attention kept wandering to the dark lane of the river and the lights that glided to and fro with the glint of water at ships’ bows. “First time ye ever seen the Pool?” he asked.
“The Pool?”
“Aye. The Pool of London. That’s what this stretch by Tower Bridge is called.” His gaze wandered over the dark shapes of the warehouses. “There’s a lot o’ rebuilding to be done here. See that empty space over there? Ye’d no think to look at it that that was all warehouses ten years ago. All gone in the blitz of 1940. I ken the time when—” But at that moment Commander Gurling came up on the bridge.
He drew me to one side. “A word before I leave, Johnny,” he said. “I’ve had a chat with Captain Legett. Your name means nothing to him. Sailors don’t follow the news the way city people do. And even if any of them have read that story, there’s no reason why they should connect you with it. The ship’s officers just think you’re sailing for the experience and because I’m a friend of the chairman’s son. The only person on board who’ll know your story will be Sir Brian Fawley. All the same, old chap, keep your mouth shut—understand? Treasure is a dangerous thing to be talking of in a ship. I’ve checked with the skipper. He’s sailing with the same crew that he had on his last voyage. He’s taking on no new men so there’s no danger of—” He didn’t finish, but just left the sentence in the air. “But his crew are a pretty tough bunch. He’s been tramping in the Pacific for the past eighteen months and he’s signed on hands from half the ports of the East. So, no talking about your little adventures. Is that agreed?”
“Yes,” I said. I think I was a little scared at his words. The map seemed to burn in my breast pocket.
“Fine,” he said. His hand tightened on my arm. “You’ll be away four or five months. By the time you get back you’ll have seen half the world. But don’t neglect your studies. Your father wouldn’t want you to fall down on Dartmouth —and it’s more competitive than it was in our day.” He glanced down at the wharf with its gloomy, broken buildings etching dark shadows between the lights. For a moment he seemed reluctant to leave me. Then suddenly he clapped me on the shoulder. “Good luck, old fellow!” he said. “And a good voyage.”
He left me then. I stood there on the bridge of the “Sally McGrew” and watched his tall, spare figure in its blue uniform cross the wharf and disappear into the shadow of the warehouses. He never once glanced back. A sudden panic gripped me, so that I wanted to run down the gangway after him. All about me, as I stood there rooted to the spot, were the strange sounds of a strange new world, and I realized suddenly that I was alone.
The mate’s voice hailed me. “Do ye ken the shipping , office, laddie?”
“No,” I answered.
He gave me directions. “There’s some mail to be fetched. The London-Chile Steamship Company, Royal Mint Street. Anybody’ll tell ye where it is.”
I hurried on that errand. I think I
was afraid the boat might leave without me or that the drunken second engineer would return and throw Nick into the river before I could get back. The dark, half-lit streets of the Tower dock area of London were unfamiliar. But I found the place in the end—a dingy little office at the top of a long flight of wooden stairs. A clerk gave me a large bundle of mail for the “Sally McGrew” tied up with string and I ran all the way back to the ship. It was still there, the blurred shape of its bows half-hidden behind a crane, and in the stuffy little cabin I was to share I found Nick curled up on the engineer’s bed.
The mate was in the saloon with the chief engineer, a big, ugly man with tattoo marks on the backs of his hands. “Grub’s up, boy,” the mate said as I handed him the bundle. “Ye’d best get down to the galley for the officers’ duff.”
I descended to the deck below, scenting my way to the galley by the smell of curry. The cook was short and fat, like a white balloon, with a drooping moustache and the most monstrous blue bulb of a nose. His expression was one of infinite sorrow. In all the time I knew him I never saw him manage more than a half-smile. He never laughed. He said his name was Joe. But to me and the rest of the crew he was always Old Walrus.
When the officers had all been served I took my place at the bottom of the table. The captain said a long grace. He said it slowly and in a deep voice. He’d have delivered a sermon to the damned while the food got cold if he’d thought his officers would have stood for it.
Nobody spoke much. Only the mate was busy. He was sorting the contents of the package I had brought from the shipping office. “See you’ve got your newspapers as usual, Mr. Andrews?” said the captain.
“Aye,” replied the mate. “There’s a month’s reading there, Captain Legett. A copy of the Morning Record for every day till we hit Panama.” Then he suddenly let out an oath. “Begging your pardon, sir,” he said, glancing apologetically at the captain. “But Sparks is sick.” He held up a note. “Appendicitis. Doctor says he’ll have to have an operation.” •
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