“My father went down with his ship off Dunkirk,” I said proudly.
He gave me a long look in which amusement and understanding was combined. “There are many ways of getting oneself killed,” he said quietly. “And mostly we choose the way it happens when we’re young. For myself I like to be responsible for my own life, not. get killed at someone else’s orders. The great thing is to learn to think for yourself.” And with that he picked up his pencil and turned back to the notes he had been making.
That was the first of many conversations with Sir Brian. He was more kindly than his abrupt, domineering manner had at first suggested. Perhaps he was just bored with the long trip. But often of an evening, when I had brought in his drink, he would talk to me of the Andes and his experiences on the last trails of the ancient civilization of the Incas. He lent me other books and slowly built up in my mind a vivid and exciting picture of the great, towering ranges of the cordillera los Andes and of the vast hidden resources of the country. I was full of wild ideas for deserting ship at Valparaiso and trekking inland on my own, or of persuading Sir Brian to take me with him when he went up country for the company. I’d lie awake building impossible castles out of forgotten Inca mines rediscovered and developed by myself, dreaming of vast tracts of country explored and opened up by my own ingenuity.
This way I soon forgot the strange events that had put me in possession of the fatal map. Though sometimes I’d take it out and study it. I knew it by heart, and alone in my cabin I’d stare at it and dream of founding an empire in the Andes out of the wealth that had originally come out of that country. That thought began to fascinate me. I could keep my promise to Kean and at the same time build myself a fantastic future. The fact that we were sailing so close to Cocos Island helped, of course. I had looked up Cocos Island in the ship’s charts and discovered that when we had passed through the Panama Canal, the island would lie only three hundred miles to the west of us—less than two days’ sailing. Suppose a storm—some freak typhoon—blew us off our course! That was the thought I hugged to me as we steamed steadily across the Atlantic. And as I gazed at the map, I’d remember Kean’s faint voice: “If ever you go to Cocos Island, remember: send Irwin’s log to the Admiralty.”
In this way time passed quickly and pleasantly. Soon we were past Haiti and in the Caribbean Sea and Sparks was telling me stories of Morgan and Davies and all the other buccaneers who had formed the Brotherhood of the Coast and looted and plundered along the Main. And it was here that I was first jolted out of the sense of security into which I had been lulled by the monotony of shipboard routine.
It was what happened to Nick, I think, that was the start of it. I kept Nick shut in the cabin, for the captain didn’t approve of him. And anyway Nick showed no desire to roam the ship. I should have been warned, for whenever the door was left open, I’d find him hidden in the furthest corner of the cabin, his fur up and his eyes wide and watchful. It was the night we passed close by the lights of Jamaica. Before going to bed I took Nick out as usual on the deck. It was a beautiful night, soft and warm, with a myriad stars overhead and phosphorus gleaming in the churning bow water. I was leaning over the starboard rail watching the fairy glitter of the sea along the ship’s side when Nick gave a strange, unnatural cry.
I looked quickly round. Somebody had closed the door to the cabins and Nick was clawing at it frantically, his fur all ruffed up. Then he swung round and stared defensively into the shadows by the engine hatches. And there I saw two slanting blue eyes blazing balefully. I hadn’t time to move. There was that horrible, grating cry and something small and dark raced across the deck. There was a clash of sound —a sort of dual caterwaul—and then Nick jumped for the davits of a nearby boat. The Siamese went after him. They met on the tarpaulin cover of the boat. I reached the port rail just as Nick jumped. I saw his small, black body hit the water. There was a brief glow of phosphorescent bubbles. That was all. Sickened, I turned and met the blue eyes staring at me from the boat. In sudden anger, I swung myself on to the boat, determined to throw the beastly animal overboard. Its claws ripped at my hands and then with one rasping cry, it jumped lightly down on the deck and walked slowly aft, its kinked tail waving gently.
Sparks couldn’t have been more upset if Nick had belonged to him. Nevertheless, I kept clear of the wireless room after that. I hadn’t realized it at the time, but Nick had stood between me and the fits of depression which I had so often felt since the death of my father. Now I developed an acute sense of loneliness. And suddenly it seemed to me that the crew had grown sullen and watched me curiously as I went about the deck.
I suppose it was because I was in a hypersensitive mood that I began to take note of the voices about me. It was Taffy, the former miner, who started it. He came into the galley two mornings later demanding more food as usual.
“It’s fair starving, I am, man,” he said to Old Walrus. And something about the way he said it awoke half-forgotten memories in my brain. “It’s jumpy you are, man.” The sentence leaped to my mind. They’d been just voices in the dark. I looked at the mean, ferrety face. He gave me a shifty, sidelong glance and there was a strange glint in his eye—a look almost of greed. He mumbled something and went out. The other man—the man who had been just a voice in the darkness below the ML’s boat—his name had been Taffy. I told myself not to be a fool. I was getting jumpy just because Nick was gone and I felt alone. But even on deck, in the blazing sunshine, I couldn’t get rid of the memory of that voice.
That afternoon as I lay basking in the sunshine on top of the afterdeckhousing, two men passed below me, just voices in the shimmering heat that blazed up from the deck. “I tell yer we need more than three of them.”
“O.K., O.K.—plenty of time. What about Andrews?”
“Dunno yet. A few more bottles may do a power of good.” There was a wheezy laugh like steam escaping from a pipe.
The voices faded away. It was just a snatch of conversation, without beginning or end. But it brought me upright with a jolt, peering over the edge to the deck below. The two men moved aft, one short and squat with a bullet-head covered with a little woolen skullcap that was absurdly incongruous in that heat. The other was a tall, shambling figure, his hands thrust into the waistband of his trousers.
I tried to forget about it. But I couldn’t. I suppose it was the fact that I’d heard their voices without seeing them—they had been disembodied voices as they had been on the ML. And that laugh! I kept on reminding myself that Welsh and Cockney and Irish voices were all very much alike. But the thought didn’t drive the memories out of my mind and that night I dreamed I was back on the ML running for my life round and round the deck, chased by hideous shadows with familiar voices.
I suppose this produced in me a mood of suspicion. At any rate, two nights later—the day before we were due to pass through the Panama Canal—I suddenly glanced up from an elementary problem of trigonometry to find the first mate staring at me across the saloon. There was something greedy in the way he looked at me; there was the same glint that I’d seen in the Welshman’s eyes. He glanced down abruptly as my eyes met his, running his fingers through his wiry hair and rustling the newspapers he was reading. A moment later he folded them up and left the saloon.
After that my mind refused to concentrate. I closed my books and went up on deck. A nearly full moon hung low over the water, lighting a yellow path across the flat, smooth swell. I leaned in the shadow of the afterdeckhousing, trying to reason myself out of the illogical feeling of foreboding that had gripped me. Two men came and stood by the rail. One lit a cigarette. In the sudden glow of the match I saw a thick-jawed face with flattened nose and little, red-rimmed eyes. As he moved into the moonlight I recognized him as one of the two I had overheard talking as I lay on the deckhousing two days before.
“Sure an’ I’ll be glad when we’re through the canal,” the man said.
“Only two more days,” the other replied.
“It’s the waiting t
hat gets on my nerves.”
“Two days ain’t long, Mike.”
They drifted on, and a shiver ran down my spine. That half-Irish, half-American voice— The same name, too. Two days! What had they meant by that? I had a wild thought to run to the captain. But what could I say? That I was scared because one of his men was called Mike and had an Irish-American voice? That didn’t make him a mutineer and a murderer. How could I possibly identify a man just by his voice and a name as common as Mike? Again I told myself I was fancying things. I’d be scared of my own shadow next. But though my reason told me there couldn’t possibly be any connection, yet the idea persisted and I spent another restless night.
When I woke in the morning I was startled by the unnatural silence that pervaded the ship. In a panic of sudden fear I rushed out on deck in my pyjamas to find that we were lying motionless on an oily sea, our bows pointed toward the low coast of Panama and the entrance to the canal. In my instant relief I laughed at my fears. The presence of land was wonderfully reassuring. Nevertheless, for curiosity’s sake, I told myself, I asked Old Walrus to point out to me the four members of the crew who had come aboard just before we’d sailed. I hadn’t thought about it before. But I remembered how relieved my guardian had been when he learned that the captain was sailing with the same crew. He hadn’t known then that four men would be missing and replaced by others at the last moment.
The cook gave me a quick look as I made the request. But he didn’t say anything. He took me aft to where the crew were lining the rail bartering with the boats that had put out from the shore. “Taffy’s one, for a start,” he said. “And Mike.” He pointed to the Irish pug-ugly. The next one he pointed out was the gorilla-like Cockney with the woolen skullcap. The fourth was the man who’d been talking to the Irishman the night before, a long, sullen-looking rake of a man with a scar on his cheek and a queer trick of jerking his head. At the sight of them, all my fears of the night before came rushing back.
“Why did you want them fellows pointed out to you, sonny?” Old Walrus asked.
“I don’t know,” I said hastily. What else could I say? I’d no proof that they were the same men. It was just my imagination. I kept telling myself that. “They’re different from the others,” I added without thinking.
He rubbed his bulbous nose with a greasy finger. His small eyes were watching me closely. “Yes,” he said quietly. “They’re different, all right.” And he spat over the side. “Mind you,” he added, “they’re sailors. No doubt of that. But they’re different.”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked eagerly.
He gave a quick cough. “Nothing,” he said. “I didn’t mean nothing. You said yourself they was different. Well they are—that’s all.” And he waddled off, leaving me standing there in the steaming sunlight gazing at the four men. I suddenly felt cold. Suppose I went to the captain?
But I knew it was useless. And I’d have to explain why I was really on board his ship. I couldn’t do that. He hadn’t been told the real reason. He’d be furious. The truth was that I was scared of Captain Legett. And to go to Sir Brian—I could hear his abrupt, violent questions as he cross-examined me. I couldn’t support my accusations. I wasn’t even sure of them myself. I turned away and went for’ard. I felt lost and wretched.
All that morning we lay off the canal, delayed by a unit of an American fleet passing through to the Pacific. I spent most of the time on deck, watching the gray warships going into the canal. The planes from one of the aircraft carriers circled constantly overhead. It was all so new and exciting that I began to forget my fears. After all, what could possibly happen right here among a lot of warships, with the canal authorities supervising the whole area?
Toward sundown the captain sent me to the wireless room with a message for transmission. It was the first time I’d been up there since Nick had gone. I hesitated at the door. From inside came the murmur of voices. The conversation stopped abruptly as I entered. Three men were seated there, talking to Sparks—Maynard, Gault, and the Irishman with the cauliflower ears. They twisted in their seats and stared at me. In the dark corner by the transmitter the blue eyes of the cat I loathed stared at me unwinkingly. Sparks was listening to a message. His left hand hovered over the buzzer. His right hand gripped a glass between rigid fingers and thumb. “Come in, Johnny,”
he said in his usual friendly way. And he jerked his head at the others.
The three men gulped down their drinks and got to their feet. “See you later,” said the Irishman. He looked at me and his big mouth cracked open showing a line of broken, discolored teeth.
“Get out,” said Sparks. His lazy voice had a sudden note of violence, that stirred some buried cell in my brain. But my eyes were on the three men. They were grinning at me in a queer way that I didn’t like.
When they were gone Sparks waved me to a chair. “I’ve missed you, Johnny,” he said. “And all on account of this cat of mine. I’d sling her overboard myself if I thought it would do any good. I don’t like a cat to come between me and my friends. Though I won’t say I’m not fond of the animal. I am. I’d be lonely without her.” His voice was soft and his eyes smiled at me gently. “That’s the trouble with you, Johnny, ain’t it? You’re lonely.”
How did he know, I wondered. And as I stood there without saying anything, he nodded in an understanding way. “That’s no time to desert those that are your friends. Come, pull up a chair.”
“The captain asked me to give you this message for transmission,” I said.
“Did he now?” He chuckled, and the slight brogue he gave his words made me wonder whether he, too, was Irish. He took the message and put it on the desk in front of him. “The captain can wait. It’s yourself I want to talk to.” His eyes burned with restless excitement. I glanced at the blue eyes staring at me silently from the corner and moved toward the door.
“Oh well, have it your own way, Johnny,” he said, still laughing with his eyes. Then he leaned forward, suddenly serious. “If you’re in trouble—remember, Sparks is your friend. Understand? Come to me. I’ll help you.”
“Why should I need help?” I asked, my hand on the door.
“Why? Because they’ve tumbled to you.” He pulled the glass out of the stiffened hand that held it.
“I don’t understand,” I said uncertainly.
“Your secret’s out. They’ve tumbled to you.”
His blue eyes were mocking me, amused and watchful. “You mean those men who were in here?” I asked.
“Lord no,” he answered. “It’s the mate, Johnny. He’s the man you want to watch. Him and that old Bible-thumping miser of a captain. When the storm breaks, you just take a reef in your tongue and come up here. You’re smart. You and I—we’re a match for them. And we’ll put Benito’s Hat on top of them.” And he roared with laughter.
I slipped out then and went down to the galley, wondering what he had meant by saying that my secret was out. And why had he mentioned Benito’s Hat? That was where Kean had said he’d buried Irwin’s dead body. Old Walrus was preparing the evening meal. “What is Benito’s Hat?” I asked him.
The frying pan fell with a clatter, he turned so quickly. “What was that you said, sonny?” he asked, stooping with a grunt to retrieve the pan.
“What is Benito’s Hat?” I repeated.
“Means nothing to me,” he said slowly. “Where did you hear of it?”
“Sparks mentioned it just now,” I said.
He grunted and went slowly over to the stove. Then he turned. “Why don’t you get yourself put ashore at Panama, sonny?” he said. “You’d get a freighter back to England easy from there.”
I stared at him in astonishment. “What reason would I give?” I asked, a little bewildered.
“Say you’re sick—say anything you like, but get off this ship.” He was quite serious.
“Why should I?”
“Because the ‘Sally McGrew’ ain’t gonna be a healthy place—not so long as you’re on boa
rd of it.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“No more do I, sonny. No more do I. But my advice is, get ashore at Panama and go home.”
“No,” I said. “I’m going to Valparaiso.”
“Panama’s your last chance,” he said sorrowfully. “Panama or Balboa.”
“But tell me why,” I said.
“Ain’t no reason in what Old Walrus is telling you, sonny. I just feel things, that’s all. I been ship’s cook for more years than I care to remember. I know the feel of a ship. And this one ain’t healthy. And the reason it ain’t healthy—” He sighed. “Well, if you won’t, you won’t, I suppose.” And he turned back to his stove.
The engine-room telegraph sounded and I went up on deck. The ship was nosing her way slowly toward the entrance of the canal. It was nearly noon. The land closed in on either side of us, burning in the blazing sun. I watched, fascinated, as we entered the locks and the black lock crews swarmed aboard, fixing the towropes and passing them to the four little electric engines that buzzed along the stone embankment to tow us through. There were three pairs of locks at the Atlantic end, all operated from a single observation tower. An American Victory ship passed us, going through to the Atlantic. As I stood, gazing down at the blaze of white stone with its caterpillar rails and quiet, ordered efficiency, Sir Brian came and joined me at the rail. “Well, what do you think of it?” he said. “You’re looking now at probably the greatest engineering feat man has ever achieved.”
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