Sea of Troubles Box Set

by Peter Tonkin

  He had nothing but contempt for the other officers aboard. Oh, Nicoli looked a little better than the rest on the surface; Kanwar and Tsirtos, perhaps, just young and in the wrong company, but there was not one of them who could have called on an instant's loyalty from him until tonight. That one professional gesture. That one silent command from Captain Levkas. That one act worthy of a Captain, unexpectedly putting the safety of ship and majority of crew before his own life. That deserved a little of Martyr's hard-won respect.

  And, as senior officer left alive, the only officer left alive apart from Tsirtos, even in this situation - even on this ship he had a duty.

  He checked the pressure-reading on the oxygen canister, slipped it over his shoulders and pressed the mask across his mouth. Then, suddenly full of energy, he knelt and tore the hatch-clasps loose.

  When he looked down the ladder, at first he felt a swirl of vertigo. The steel uprights looked thread-thin as they plunged straight down. The rungs blurred into one another, making the ladder look like a slide. But there was no time for hesitation now. Perhaps he had taken too long already.

  He swung one leg over the raised rim of the hatch and placed his foot carefully on the first rung. Then deliberately, hand over hand, he began to climb down. He breathed slowly and evenly, watching the rungs go by. Watching the backs of his hands. Watching the display on his digital watch. It was 00.50 Gulf Time when he started climbing down and he never remembered seeing the display change from that reading; but when he checked again, consciously if automatically as he stepped off the last rung, it read 01.00 exactly.

  He hesitated an instant before turning. He had seen enough of death already, and had hoped to see no more. It was not fear; more a weariness. He was exhausted deep inside, as even the strongest will become after a while when tested near to destruction. As especially the strongest will become when they will not - cannot - share their burdens. But now he was here. He had no choice. He drew strength from that and turned.

  Most of them were piled by the door, sitting or lying at ungainly angles; eyes and mouths wide, as though incredibly shocked at what had happened. Only his own Third Engineer had reacted well. He had died on his feet like those at the foot of Nicoli's ladder, trying to open the door. The man who had closed it felt a terrible jolt in his breast. But a glance at them was enough to satisfy him that they were all beyond help. Another glance at Nicoli and his men. At Gallaher propped against the fire control room, apparently peacefully asleep. Ten bodies. No Captain.

  Without further hesitation, without stopping to check the bodies, even to establish for certain who they all were, he crossed to the fire control room: his first priority still Levkas.

  The Captain was lying at the foot of the far wall, curled on his side, clutching an oxygen cylinder. The mask was loosely over his nose and mouth. Martyr crossed to his side at once, pushing the mask more firmly into place. He checked the cylinder pressure. It was low. He replaced the whole thing. He was primarily concerned with the Captain himself. He did not register how many cylinders remained on the wall. Only when the mask was firmly in place and pumping oxygen did he check for vital signs.

  He could find none.

  He straightened quickly, searching for the manual override to the fire-fighting equipment. It was on the wall nearby. He switched it off and the fans on. They would clear the inert gas in time, but in hours, not minutes. Only then would the atmosphere in here be safe. Only then could the bodies be moved. Until then, there was nothing to be done.

  He looked down at the Captain curled uselessly around the life-giving bottle like a dead child in the womb. He thought he might as well finish the job he had come down here to do. He took the hunched shoulders and tore them off the floor with a massive effort. He propped the inert body against the wall and stooped; letting it fall over his shoulder. Then he straightened, lifting the dangling feet into the air.

  For some reason he glanced up as he passed through the fire control room door, saw the blackened wires above the lintel and began to understand.

  He was breathing like a bellows when he reached the foot of the ladder. He glanced up at the distant hatchway and the one bright star which seemed to fill it. Should he go across and open the door? He could hammer on it to warn anyone who might be still outside. For all he knew the corridor was still full of the carbon dioxide which had leaked out before he had closed the Pump Room off. And, ultimately, that was the trouble. There were decks and working areas below this. The engineering decks - his own domain. The thought of filling them with deadly pockets of heavier-than-air inert gas was something he could not accept.

  Nevertheless, he turned and looked wistfully at the easy way.

  A movement! In the corner of his eye something moved then was instantly still. The hair on the back of his neck prickled uncomfortably. He turned further, feeling like the Hunchback of Notre Dame with the Captain on his shoulder, and forced himself to look carefully around. Ten dead men. He could see five faces. The others were hidden or turned away. They all looked dead. There had been no sound.

  'Is there anybody there?' he called, his voice hoarse and distorted. He felt foolish, calling dead men. And yet ... Had it been his imagination?

  'Is there anybody there?' he called again. Like the traveller in that poem by the Englishman de la Mare. Calling to ghosts.

  It was his imagination. Getting spooked. He shrugged unconsciously and instantly became aware of the weight on his shoulder.

  He had hesitated at the foot of the ladder for less than ten seconds in all. Now he turned again and started to climb. With each rung, the Captain's inert body became heavier. With each added strain on his own body, Martyr's consciousness closed down, keeping pain and fatigue at a necessary distance until he had completed his task.

  About halfway up the ladder, his closed mind registered a soft dead clang, like the chime of a cracked bell in the distance. But whether he had actually heard it, or imagined it, like the movement in the corner of his eye, he could not tell.

  How long it took him to complete the climb was something else he would never be sure of. It was marked in his mind by unreal events, not the passage of time. The closing of the imaginary door. The slipping of the Captain's body so that, at one point, high in the air and dead if he should fall, he took both hands off the ladder to hoist the dead weight forward again. And then the heels began to catch so that each step was only achieved by a massive upward thrust of back and thigh.

  He didn't notice when the ladder ended. He fell out of the open hatchway with his grim bundle on to the cool iron deck, to lie there like another dead man until Salah Malik, leader of the seamen, had the pair of them carried away.

  But there was too much to do. He struggled back to wakefulness before they even reached the bridge, then stood watching as they lugged the Captain's body into the brightness.

  'Our first job is to contact the Owner,' he said to Malik, who loomed competently at his side. 'Then we'd better start clearing the Pump Room. I'll write the Accident Report and make up the logs, as there doesn't seem to have been a watch officer on the bridge for nearly two hours. Nor in the engine room since the lifeboat drill. I'll have to guess what happened to Nicoli and his team, I reckon. Any idea what they were doing down there with that ladder?'

  Ghostly in the shadows, Malik's shoulders shrugged. 'Well ... Let's get to it then. Two of your seamen gone, I know. Maybe more. Any stewards? No? Likely just officers then. Tsirtos in the radio room?'

  'I suppose.'

  He was. Sitting wide-eyed with shock, staring at the bright displays. 'They're all dead, aren't they, Mr Martyr?' he said as the Chief put his head round the door. 'I walked round the ship after you closed the door. The stewards were all in their berths. The seamen are around somewhere. I've seen Malik. But the ship's just empty. Corridors. Cabins. Everywhere. Empty. Like the Marie Celeste. Ghost ship ...'

  Martyr let him talk. There was time. Little enough, God knew, but time to let a shocked boy talk away his fear. Gently
he said, 'Can you reach the Owner?'

  'Will we go down in history, like the Marie Celeste?'

  'Maybe get a spot on the six o'clock news. Those reporters sure seem to love a good outbreak of death. Can you contact the Owner?’

  'And when I was wandering around the corridors, I could hear some kind of pipe playing. Ghostly. Like ghosts singing.'

  Into the silence, Martyr agreed. 'Sure. One of the stewards plays a pipe. His name's Nihil. He's the only one not from Hong Kong, I think. It's real pretty.'

  'I never dreamed there would be anything like this, Chief. This is really my first berth. Nicoli got it for me. We're from the same village. Were from the same village ...'

  'That's tough. Can you get the Owner for me now, Sparks?'

  'What? Oh, certainly. He's still at his hotel, I expect. The Captain was just talking to him.'

  'Well, get him!'

  It took a few moments, during which Tsirtos calmed a little, soothing his way past an angry night porter, getting the phone rung in the Owner's suite in spite of the unusual hour.

  As soon as the ringing tone filled the small room, Martyr said, 'That's enough for now. I'll take it from here.' And he gently ushered Tsirtos out.

  Just at the moment the door closed behind the departing Radio Officer, connection was made.

  'Yeah?' snarled the Owner.

  'Demetrios? It's Martyr. We got trouble.'

  It would be difficult to open the door: the dead Third Engineer was holding the handle on the other side. If Martyr closed his eyes he could still see the man clearly - imprinted on his memory - the picture as clear after three hours as it had been after three seconds.

  'Malik! Give me a hand here!'

  The solid Palestinian joined him shoulder to shoulder and they heaved together. The handle moved. Martyr tensed, expecting to hear the crash of the body falling on the other side, but nothing of the sort happened.

  Both men automatically held their breath as the door opened that first fraction, but there was really no need.

  'Push gently,' Martyr ordered. 'I think they're piled pretty close.'

  But again, no. The door swung open unhindered for nearly two feet before the Third Engineer's fist appeared under it and the first obstacle - his shoulder - was reached. Then it required more than the two men's strength to move it further. Some of the other seamen joined them silently and the door swung back a few more inches before the rest of the bodies piled solidly behind it impeded any further efforts.

  'I'll go in and start to move them,' said Martyr. 'Salah, you'd better stay here.' Malik was the only man aboard the Chief ever addressed by his first name. 'I'll need two more to help me, though.'

  As was his prerogative as unofficial Chief Petty Officer, Salah Malik detailed two of his men to accompany the Chief: 'Khalil. Haji.'

  Inevitably, thought Martyr. The two he saw most often in the engineering section. The two most competent.

  They heaved back on the door and slid in sideways. Being back in the room made his gorge rise. He thought of himself as being used to death, but nausea almost overcame him; and a sort of superstitious dread, not unlike Tsirtos's. He was extremely glad when Haji and Khalil also came in.

  The two Palestinians looked first at each other and then at him. They all carefully avoided looking at the floor. Martyr was in charge. That was his responsibility. He undertook it unwillingly. Wearily. He got down on one knee by the first of them. The Third Engineer. The flesh was cold and marble-hard. As though the Gorgon had been here, he thought, not mere gas. He moved the body as if it were an unwieldy statue. Once it was free, he gestured to the others and they moved it clear of the pile.

  At once a stinking wash of effluent swept out, as though that first body had been a dam. He stood up as though stung and skipped hurriedly out of the way, retching dryly.

  It took them ten intensely disgusting minutes to pile them all from behind the door over beside Gallaher by the fire control room. Then Martyr turned his attention to Nicoli's group. He edged past Kanwar still gazing up, and began to climb the slippery rungs, hoping the six dead hands would hold it still for a few moments more. Like a spider, he enveloped Nicoli and tried to break his death-grip on the steel. As he did so, he glanced at the pipe junction straight ahead, wondering what had brought them here in the first place. There was nothing to be seen. That didn't surprise him much. In his experience it was usually the case that the largest catastrophes had the smallest origins. They had probably just come here to do something perfectly innocuous, he thought. Then he started concentrating on getting the First Officer's arms free. But it was impossible.

  'Chief!' Salah Malik's urgent voice interrupted his endeavours. 'Owner's helicopter coming in.'

  'I'll be right up. You take care of this. Note the original positions of the corpses. There will be ten. I'll confirm it all for the logs ...'

  The Owner had brought a small medical team who bustled off at once, costing a fortune and wanting to earn their pay. The two Americans walked more slowly through the glare of the landing lights towards the bridge. They were silent until they reached the plush safety of the Owner's suite opposite the Captain's and Martyr's own on C deck. The first sound was the slap of the Accident Report book hitting the Owner's coffee table.

  The first word that passed between them was Demetrios's question. 'Drink?'

  'Bourbon. Neat.'

  'Thought you were a Temperance man.'

  'Sometimes. Sometimes not.'

  'Guess I don't know as much about you as I thought.'

  'You know enough.'

  'I hope so. I really do. What's the damage?'

  'Complete officer complement except the kid Tsirtos and me.'

  Demetrios's eyes narrowed suspiciously. 'You'd better tell me all about it.'

  'Quicker if you see what you can salvage while I write up the Accident Report. You can read that later.'

  'Just tell me ...'

  'Up to you. Nothing suspicious that I can see, though. Just accident and inefficiency ...' Quickly and concisely, he described what he believed had caused the first accident and what he knew about the tragedy which had sprung from it.

  When he had finished, Demetrios sat in silence. The Chief freshened his bourbon.

  'It's what I get for employing men like that, I guess,' said the Owner at last. 'But who else would do the job?'

  'What are you going to do now?' asked Martyr. The answer was important to him. More important than anything. 'Are you going ahead?'

  'Got to. No alternative. Shook hands all the way down the line. No way out now.' His mouth twisted as he re-used Diavo's phrase, 'Shook hands on it'.

  Martyr tried to hide his relief. 'You got to replace them all in next to no time, then,' he said.

  Demetrios nodded. Suddenly it was he who was weary. Martyr felt full of energy. 'Start in the radio room. Get hold of an agency,' he suggested. Demetrios nodded and went.

  Martyr pulled the Accident Report book across the table, and began to make his report. He did it without the aid of notes, or, apparently, of second thought. He wrote down clearly and concisely what he believed had happened, as he had told it to the Owner, leaving out only the fanciful pieces about corpses moving and doors shutting.

  No sooner had he done so than there came a knock at the door. 'Come!' called Martyr.

  It was Kerem Khalil, reporting up from Salah Malik in the Pump Room. All the bodies had been moved now, he said. Everything was in the hands of the Owner's medical team.

  'Good,’ said the Chief. 'Is that all?'

  Khalil hesitated. Perhaps this had been part of his original message, perhaps not. 'Nine,’ he said.

  'What?' Martyr felt a cold shiver down his spine, suspecting.

  'You said you counted ten bodies apart from the Captain. Wrong. Nine.'

  Martyr was still sitting, lost in thought, when Demetrios came back, full of good news.

  He stopped in the middle of explaining to the Chief what he had done to enquire sharply, 'Is th
ere anything wrong?' Martyr took an instant before answering. He considered telling him that suddenly it looked less like an accident after all. But he decided not to, in the end. Prometheus had to sail, and that was that. There was simply no alternative. 'No, nothing's wrong: he said at last. 'There's nothing wrong at all.'

  Chapter Four

  Four thousand miles away, one hour later, Richard Mariner sprang awake in an icy sweat and clung feverishly to the same thought: There's nothing wrong!

  He lay for a moment in the tangled wreck of his bed repeating the phrase as the sound of metal grinding on metal died in his ears. He always heard the terrible sound of the impact, never the explosion. But then the impact had, oddly, been the more terrifying of the two, and the explosion itself had seemed silent to him.

  Mariner swung himself out of bed and strode through into the sitting room. Long windows facing the river made the place seem like a ship's bridge and he stood where the helm would have been, looking over the Thames towards Nine Elms with the bright span of Vauxhall Bridge on his left.

  He was tall, thin of waist and hip; but the breadth of shoulder and depth of chest gave him the appearance of rock-like solidity. The strength of his square jaw might have suggested an equally resolute character to an old-fashioned expert in physiognomy, who might also have seen natural aristocracy in the aquiline jut of his nose, broken a little out of line now; and fastidiousness - perhaps tenderness - in the delicate line of his lips. In the half-light, his face seemed almost blue: hair so black as to have a hint of it; square jaw with a tint of it, even when shaven; and eyes like magnesium flares behind a pane of sapphire.

  And rings, bruise-deep, below them.

  Last week's visit to Rowena's grave seemed only to have made things worse. On his bedside table lay his current reading, Nigel Balchin's The Small Back Room. Richard remembered Sammy Rice's first words in it: 'In 1928 my foot was hurting all the time, so they took it off ...' God! If only memories could be like that!