Sea of Troubles Box Set

by Peter Tonkin

  The phone rang and he picked it up without moving more than his hand. 'Mariner.'

  'Good God! Do you ever sleep?' It was Audrey, the night secretary from the agency.

  'As little as possible. What is it?'

  'Emergency. Call ex-Kuwait from Kostas Demetrios. Accident aboard his VLCC Prometheus. Can we replace the Master and all deck officers except the Radio Officer. Also all engineering officers except the Chief?'

  'How soon?'

  'Now.'

  He glanced at his watch. The steel Rolex Rowena had given him just before they set sail that last time. Why wear it? Waste not want not.

  The same reason he maintained the membership of the RAC Club Sir William, her father, had bought him so long ago. Maintained it even when his back was to the wall and it had seemed an unnecessary expense. But the marble halls in the basement of the club's Pall Mall headquarters had stood him in good stead against the fat pot bellies of City life, with their exercise areas, pools and saunas.

  Rowena's Rolex said the time was a minute or two past midnight, British Summer Time. 'I'll be there in twenty minutes,' he said.

  Seventeen minutes later, he stepped out of his long black E-type Jaguar and walked briskly to the door marked CREWFINDERS. They owned a suite of three rooms on the fourth floor of a Victorian building overlooking St Mary Axe in the City of London. Cheek by jowl with Leadenhall and Lloyd's, the company was in the best possible position to keep his finger on the pulse of world shipping - as was necessary if it was to become what Mariner dreamed: the largest independent crew finding agency in the word.

  Twenty minutes later, to the second, he stepped out of the lift into the reception area. 'Any idea what went wrong?' he called to Audrey.

  Audrey was at the night desk, with a small switchboard on her left and a slave monitor on her right connected to the computer's central file. 'No,' she answered at once. 'Must have been something big, though; unless it was industrial action.'

  'An officers' strike, led by the Captain?' His tone said it all.

  'Have to be one hell of an accident. An explosion ...' She tailed off in horror. She had uttered the forbidden word.

  Mariner seemed hardly to notice. '... would hardly have left enough of the ship to require a full complement of officers.'

  He swung past her, already in his shirtsleeves and ready to get down to business. When he sat in his deep leather chair at the main console it was exactly 00.30 British Summer Time. Exactly three hours since he had left, exhausted, for home.

  He got up again, with the back of the assignment broken, at dawn. Had he been one for keeping anniversaries, he would have known that it was exactly five years to the minute since the nightmare began.

  After the disaster, Mariner had chosen to remain ashore, yet at first sight, this man, one of the great sailors of his generation, seemed ill qualified for life on the beach. He had been a sailor for twenty-four years, a Captain for eight and a Senior Captain with Heritage Shipping for six. In all the long years before he had settled down as Senior Captain, heir apparent, husband to Rowena, the boss's elder daughter, he had moved about and worked for all and sundry. Before he became Senior Captain at Heritage Shipping and Mr Rowena Heritage, he had not only earned the papers to command almost anything afloat, he had also set up an unrivalled network of contacts.

  Contacts which, during the years of estrangement with Sir William after Rowena's death, had formed the backbone of Crewfinders.

  It was not a company which would ever rival Heritage Shipping, even though Heritage had been half crippled by the loss of the improperly insured supertanker, but it was Mariner's own company. And it was growing stronger every day. And would continue to do so as long as its reputation remained intact.

  That reputation rested on one fact: Crewfinders could replace officers and crew faster than any other agency in the business. Between one and three days. Any officer. Anywhere in the world.

  But never before had they been asked to replace almost all the officers on a supertanker all at once.

  Dawn came slowly and late, edging into a low grey sky only the thinnest strip of which was visible to Richard Mariner, looking up as he was from a small side window between high building frontages. He watched it, nevertheless, deep in thought, with a huge mug of coffee cooling in his fist. The junior officers were already on their way, summoned by Audrey from beds and other haunts all over the world. But the First Mate was proving more difficult to find. And there were no Captains at all.

  It was the merest chance, nothing more. He had four Captains on paper, but none in fact. One had gone cruising somewhere in the Greek Islands. One had fallen off a ladder. One had been involved in a motor accident on the Kingston Bypass and the last had run over his foot with a lawnmower late yesterday evening. The soonest he could supply a captain was in about a week. Which would not be good enough.

  Still, first things first. Let him get the Mate sorted out and he would worry about the Master then. He put the cold coffee down and went back into the computer room. He had no sooner sat down in front of his console than his phone purred.

  'Yes?'

  'I've just had a call from Ben Strong. He's available.'

  'Are you sure? I thought he was still in Bangkok. So did the computer.'

  'He's just reported back. The computer will be updating his file now. And it's an expensive city, from what I've heard ...' He knew that tone in Audrey's voice. Ben had spun her a hard-luck story and flirted with her a bit to get preferential treatment.

  Well, he deserved it, God knew. He was an excellent officer. And his father had been Richard's own Mate, once upon a time. He was Ben's godfather. The closest thing to a real father Ben had left.

  'Get him back. Tell him he's now First Mate on Prometheus. He needs to be there tomorrow.'

  After that he hit the block. He could not replace the Captain. With all favours called and all debts cleared, he was still that one vital crew member short. There was simply no one he knew who could take command.

  When the idea popped into his shattered head he would never know. Suddenly he saw his own Master's papers as he had thrust them into his desk drawer at home after the inquiry five years ago. At first he dismissed it, but as his desperation grew the vision persisted.

  He made excuses: he had always run a one-man show; there was no one to look after Crewfinders if he went. But he was in a cleft stick: if he didn't go, there would be no more Crewfinders in any case. Anyway, he knew perfectly well that his capable, dedicated secretarial team could run it perfectly well without him.

  So, at last, in spite of his bone-deep feelings of foreboding, he drove back to his flat by Vauxhall Bridge, packed his bags and settled his affairs as though he knew he wasn't coming back.

  Then Audrey drove him to Heathrow.

  John Higgins heard about it first, because he happened to be outside the radio room when the telex came in and was able to take the flimsy off Tsirtos because the young Radio Officer was still disorientated by all the new arrivals and easily browbeaten.

  'Well, blow me down!' said the Manxman, and clutching the stem of his cold pipe firmly between his teeth he strode off in search of his old friend the Mate.

  Ben Strong, here only twelve hours but already very much in charge, was on the bridge. He straightened up as Higgins came in and caught his eye. 'What is it, Number Two?' he asked at once.

  'Message for the Owner, Number One. Seen him?'

  'In his cabin, I expect. Anything I should know?'

  'New Captain due aboard later this afternoon.'

  'Oh?' Ben was suddenly all attention. 'Anyone we know?'

  'I should say so. Mariner's coming himself.'

  Ben just managed to hold himself in check, refusing to rise to Higgins's bait. 'Is that so?' he asked equably after a while. 'Well, you'd better run along and let the Owner know at once, if you'd be so kind. And we'd better get the last of the coffins ashore as soon as possible.'

  'Righty-ho.' Higgins refused to be dashed by h
is cold reception and loped off in search of the Owner.

  As soon as he had gone, Ben mopped his brow. 'Christ on a crutch,' he muttered. 'Dick himself. Now who would have thought of that!'

  He was by no means alone on the bridge. As well as the seamen on duty, the Third Mate Danny Slope was there. Slope was of medium height, just topping Ben's shoulder. He was lean and furtive and habitually wore a veiled, secretive look. He was an unknown quantity among the Crewfinders men, not on the list long enough to be known to anyone other than the computer in St Mary Axe. 'What's that all about, Number One?' he asked now, his voice high.

  Ben looked at him with something akin to distaste. He had nothing against the Third Mate, indeed he seemed quite a competent man, but he looked and sounded like the school sneak in the sort of books Ben had enjoyed reading as a boy.

  'Don't you know anything, young Danny-me-lad?' he demanded; a schoolteacher with a criminally inattentive pupil. 'Richard Mariner's the man you work for. The man who owns Crewfinders.'

  'Well, I know that ...'

  'You just don't know what that has to do with the price of eggs. Right? Well, I'm precisely the man to tell you. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin.

  'Today's story is called The Little Sister, for the little sister is really the villain of the piece.

  'Once upon a time there lived a dashing young seafaring man. Tall he was and good-looking. And much beloved of the ladies. Two ladies looked with particular favour upon this handsome man and they were both the daughters of his employer, the great Sir William Heritage. And our heroic young seaman looked with favour upon the elder sister, for the little sister was hardly more than a schoolgirl. Now Sir William also looked with favour upon our intrepid seafaring man, and as his elder daughter longed to wed our hero, so her father longed to have him as his son and heir. So both these consummations came to pass. Our barnacle-breasted mariner became Senior Captain and heir apparent. But this required our seafaring man to do much faring to sea and so his lovely wife became lonely. And sought comfort elsewhere, in secret. But the little sister came to know the secret and, being bitter with frustration and jealousy, she let the secret be generally known.

  'Our hero, hearing the stories being put about by the little sister, went to his wife and then his father-in-law. "It is loneliness," they both maintained. So he took her with him on his next voyage ...'

  He paused here, then dropped the mock fairy tale tone for the rest of his grim little narrative. 'The ship was the new flagship of the Heritage line. The best. Some moron ran into it in the Channel Separation Zone on the way back in from the Gulf. The whole lot went up. Blew everyone aboard to smithereens. Except Richard Mariner. It all went up beneath him. The only bit of the ship left in anything larger than atoms was the section of the bridge he was standing on. Blew him halfway to Kingdom Come, but he survived.

  'The inquiry exonerated him. Came out smelling of roses to everyone except Sir William Heritage who was short one ship and one daughter, and was not happy about either.

  'And the long and short of it is, Dick Mariner brushed the dust of supertankers off his shoes. Set up Crewfinders. Swore on the grave of his beloved never to sail in these iron monsters again.'

  'God,' said Slope, simply awed by the story. 'How come you know so much about it?'

  'You see before you a poor orphan boy, Number Three. Lost my mum on the day I was born. Lost my dad five years ago, almost to the day. He was Mariner's First Mate on the Heritage tanker.'

  The news went round the ship like wildfire after that. Mariner was the sort of man legends clung to. Everybody in Crewfinders had their own favourite tale or memory of the great man. Tales which grew in the telling.

  'Twelve-toes' Ho had no trouble in finding out all he wanted to know. As well as being perfectly trained stewards, his men were a finely tuned information-gathering machine.

  Salah Malik also heard what he wanted to hear, when he wanted to hear it. He was not displeased. The previous officers - late and unlamented, in his book - had not been the sort of men he relished dealing with.

  The pair of them got together in the galley later that afternoon, prompted by almost telepathic communication; and decided what should be left and what concealed of the previous occupancy. They decided to conceal nothing - after all, they had been consulted about none of this: were not even an agreed part of the original plan, though they knew what had been decided well enough - and let matters take their course.

  Only two men aboard remained relatively unaffected by the news. The Owner, no matter what he might have been in his younger days, was a shipping man now and not a sailor. He knew of Mariner's reputation distantly. He knew nothing of exploding tankers, little sisters, lost loves and lost fortunes. It seemed to him fitting that on a contract this size, the boss should get his hands dirty too. He thought no more of it than that, as far as anyone else could tell.

  Martyr heard. He heard some of the story from young Andrew McTavish, Third Engineer supplied by Crewfinders. It moved him not at all. It spoke to him of a man who had married the boss's daughter for advancement in the firm; who only took her on the fatal voyage because he had been told to and was afraid of queering his pitch with the old man; and who had fouled up anyway and run away from the sea.

  It was a story utterly without romance, as far as he was concerned; the tale of a man who by luck or circumstance had built himself a reputation, but when the testing time had come had simply cut and run. So now, probably down on his luck again, with his vaunted company at full stretch, he was being offered a fortune to come and get his hands dirty again.

  As far as the taciturn American could see, this was just the man to replace the unlamented Levkas.

  Chapter Five

  They had left the last three coffins close to the top of the accommodation ladder so that they were the first things Mariner saw as he pulled himself wearily on to the deck.

  They were the worst things he could possibly have seen during his first moments back aboard a supertanker and he froze, horrified. For a moment even his massive reserves of emotional strength were taxed to their limit.

  Ben pushed forward at once, shocked to see his godfather's long, aristocratic face all bone and line; the massive chin steely with stubble; the incendiary blue eyes dull and dark ringed, sunken with fatigue. His hand was raised, but more to support than to greet.

  He was unceremoniously shoved aside by the Owner. 'So this is the great Richard Mariner,' boomed Kostas Demetrios. 'Welcome aboard, sir. Welcome aboard.'

  Mariner took Demetrios's hand and shook it formally. He dragged his tired eyes away from the long, plain boxes and glanced around the deck. He saw little enough - only the expanse of green overlain with huge pipes, fifteen feet above, running fore and aft; port and starboard. Odd-shaped columns of manifolds, winches, hatches, tank-tops; all standing to shoulder height - all dancing and wavering in the furnace heat of a Gulf afternoon. And beyond them, the incandescent brightness of the bridge. Five storeys high. Far, far away.

  Ben succeeded Demetrios at last, shaking Mariner's hand. 'Hello, Dick,' he said quietly. 'Welcome back. No ceremony, I'm afraid. I thought you'd rather not ...'His eyes, gentle brown in a mahogany tan and deep-slitted against the murderous glare, searched Richard's pale face anxiously. Then, as his godfather's eyes came alive again, he gave a broad grin. Then shook hands vigorously and might have embraced, had Demetrios not interrupted.

  'C'mon. Let's go. Time's money.'

  Richard looked at him properly, and didn't much like what he saw. Demetrios was a square man, hard of body and strong of arm, but with something self-indulgent, almost decadent, about his huge dark eyes and full red mouth. His luxuriant black curls just topped Mariner's square shoulder. When he turned his head, it was just possible to see, in the X-ray glare, faint lines from ear to throat where, even at his age, he had had his face lifted. Even at his age ... and what was that? Difficult to estimate. Certainly he was older than he seemed. As he spoke, sunlight blazed on a gol
d tooth. And when he spoke, it was with an American accent. Among the most dangerous combinations in the world, mused Richard grimly. Greek pirate's soul and a Harvard Business School mind. And greed. Demetrios had greedy eyes. But then, which self-made millionaire did not? he wondered. And pushed the bluff, honest gaze of his ex-father-in-law out of his memory.

  These thoughts occupied his mind for the walk up to the blessed shade cast by the port bridge wing. He opened the bulkhead door and stepped ahead of the others into the cool of the A deck corridor. There was a distant hum of generators. The lights and the air-conditioning were on. He shivered. Then Ben was by his side. 'Good trip out, Dick?'

  'Fine. How soon can we weigh?'

  'As soon as the Owner, and … and the others leave.'

  If Richard closed his eyes he could see the coffins. The three, full no doubt, at the head of the accommodation ladder. Others, older, at the memorial service five years ago: empty every one.

  They got under way at 16.35 local time. The interim was taken up with a brief conference between the Owner and his new Captain, during which Demetrios seemed determined to answer as few questions as possible and to emphasise the overwhelming need for a swift passage. When he left, he took the last three coffins with him.

  At 17.00, Richard began his inspection.

  He started high in the navigation bridge with Ben Strong at his side. Then they went down to the bridge and chatted briefly to John Higgins on watch there; checked the equipment, chart table, course, log books. Looked down the long deck, changing colour from green to ochre in the early sunset. Went down to C deck, then B deck, then A; then the crew's quarters and the rest.

  Here Richard met his crew. Vague names, quickly forgotten at first - only Salah Malik and 'Twelve-toes' Ho standing out from the crowd because they were so obviously in charge. Salah somewhere between a Mullah and a Chief Petty Officer; Ho named 'Twelve-toes' because of his uncannily sure footing.

  Then they went deeper into the bowels of the ship, down into the roaring inferno of the engine room. And here at last the Captain met the Chief Engineer.