by Peter Tonkin
'She has done her best with me and failed,' Levkas continued. 'What more natural than that he should look upon me as a lucky man? A good man to have aboard an unlucky ship? Me, now I am not a superstitious man. I do not believe in luck, simply in professionalism. I survived because I knew what to do and did it, and because the Chief also knew what to do and did it. I have returned because I am a professional. I have been paid to do a job and I wish to see it through.'
'I've been paid to do the same job,' Richard pointed out quietly.
'And, as a professional, you will also see it through. It is expected. We are men of reputation. Our lives do not begin and end with this cruise. There is more for us beyond. How long would I survive in a competitive market if Owners could say "Levkas, he does not finish the job!"? I would be on the beach in a flash. A captain of mere boats. A skipper ferrying tourists round the islands. I have seen it. I know.'
He shrugged and turned away. He had made his pitch. Mariner - and the rest of them - could believe him or not. He did not care: there was little enough they could do either way. Yet he had tricked himself into coming very near the truth; disturbingly near the truth. He had voiced a nightmare of his own - of returning to the accursed Sanna Maru. And the fear in his voice gave weight to his words.
Abruptly, the bridge was full of quiet bustle. Ben snapped the front of the Sat Nav into place and was gone. Robin formally relieved John who went with him down to breakfast. Ho took his cold coffee back to the galley. The trial was over. The Greek seemed to have passed the test. Levkas secretly laughed to himself: now the real work could begin.
Richard stayed in the Captain's chair. His mind soon drifted away from Levkas and his dark suspicions about the man. Inevitably, now, he found himself watching Robin. She had her back to him, gazing out over Salah Malik's shoulder as the Palestinian held the helm. He could see the merest ghost of her reflection in the window, just enough to guess at its expression: that tiny frown of concentration she habitually wore when wrestling with a problem. Her shoulders were squared, her hands clasped behind her. He watched the unconscious play of her long muscles as she rode the minuscule movements of the deck.
How well he knew every inch of that supple back. Dreamily, he watched the shoulders move almost imperceptibly, hips readjust, buttocks and thighs tense and relax.
He wondered what she was wearing under the starched, razor-creased, tropical kit. Probably the practical, almost unfeminine combination he had first seen while helping her back up the side after the wreck of the felucca. Certainly not the breathtaking confections she had favoured in Durban.
God damn Levkas for moving into the Owner's suite and consigning her to the Third Mate's bunk below! The last ten days in Durban had set something alight between them that nothing could put out. In spite of all he had said before coming back aboard, he was still hungry for her.
The South Africans have a strained relationship with the huge ships which pass and repass their shores on the Cape run. Forbidden by OPEC embargo from obtaining the oil in their holds, they tend to see instead only the filth they leave behind. Sludge from illegally or carelessly cleaned tanks. Tar from oil dumped overboard by overladen ships in foul weather; from wrecks. Oil in the only state they do not want it, for it decimates their fiercely protected coastal wild life and puts at risk some of the most magnificent beaches in the world.
Richard expected the authorities to be less than polite, therefore, after they had been taken off the tanker in Durban. But this could not have been further from the case. They treated the whole crew, himself, Robin and the Chief in particular, with something between kindness and awe. It robbed him of any real moral force when he came into conflict with them.
Right from the start, he had dealt with - had been dealt with by - a big, bluff, cheerful man called Jan van der Groot. Such men exist in any organisation and are universally successful. Certainly, Richard tried every tactic he could think of to enforce his will over the South African's and got nowhere. But he was playing from a position of absolute weakness. And van der Groot - 'call me Jan, man!' - concealed beneath his bear-like bonhomie a steely resolve which, given the circumstances, could not be overcome. Moreover, the area of their disagreement was so small that Richard was soon made to feel positively petty; though when he talked it over with Robin he found she had run into the same wall for much the same reason, and van der Groot's charm had impressed her not at all.
As soon as they arrived in Durban on the 7th, ten days ago, Prometheus was put into a specially prepared quarantine dock and everyone aboard was removed for observation to the Addington Hospital, overlooking the harbour. Tests soon established virulent but relatively simple food poisoning; the suspect foodstuff, Thick Vegetable soup, was destroyed and replaced. A thorough search of the ship revealed the final resting place of Haji Hassan's bloated corpse. It was removed, and a post-mortem held as soon as the relevant officers and crew were well enough to attend. A verdict of accidental death was returned: the man had gone below to smoke an illegal substance and had been overcome by inert gas. No other person seemed to have been involved. No other verdict was called for.
As a gesture of respect for the strength of the officers above deck and below, especially that of the Chief, the Third Mate and the legendary Captain, all of whom had remained at their posts, and technically in charge in spite of the distress signal, salvage claims were waived. A local harbour watch was put aboard, awaiting the return of the crew.
In the Addington - and afterwards - things were not quite so simple. The deckhands and stewards had a ward each; the officers had rooms. Everything possible was done for their comfort. The doctors and nurses were kindness itself. Patients responded, for the most part, rapidly. Put in his room at dawn on the 7th, Richard was well enough to receive van der Groot on the evening of the 9th and to check himself out on the 10th.
As soon as he was well enough to walk, he visited the others. First, he checked on Robin, and found her in better shape than he was himself, fuming from her first interview with van der Groot. Martyr too was on the mend, but some of the others were still in a bad way. Ben was in a coma - not dangerous, apparently, but not too healthy - being fed by a glucose drip. Visits were not encouraged until he came to himself towards the end of the week. Rice, Napier and John Higgins were not too bad. A visit to the crew's quarters, accompanied this time by the restless Robin, revealed almost the same story. Some were almost well again; some were still quite ill.
'About half our complement are well enough to go back aboard, Mr van der Groot,' said Richard firmly on the 9th. 'Call me Jan, man,' boomed van der Groot in answer, with a broad grin.
'Quite. I'd like to get them back aboard as soon as possible, ah ...Jan.'
'Impossible, I'm afraid.' The South African lost none of his charm. 'We had to put together a slightly unusual package under the circumstances. Immigration were not too happy about letting you all in, my people not too happy about leaving your kaffirs out in the harbour to die. We came to an agreement, therefore. They agreed to let you all in together: we agreed to see you all out together .'
'And that means, precisely?'
'What it says. Like any good crew, it'll be "one for all and all for one".' He saw Richard's growing impatience and leaned forward to explain in detail. 'As the crew get better, we take them out of hospital and put them in the Seamen's Mission down by the docks. As the officers get better, they check out of the Addington and into the Edward Hotel. We have rooms reserved. When the last man is a hundred per cent fit, we bundle up the whole lot of you and put you back aboard. All at once. Together. Not one at a time. Not in dribs and drabs. All at once. It's what we agreed. It's the way it has to be.’
'And in the meantime?'
'You get better. You check into the Edward. You have a couple of days' holiday.'
And that was that, bar the arguing. Except for the formalities of Haji's inquest, which seemed to be looking into the death of someone utterly unattached to their current, fairy tale exist
ence. The practicalities were taken care of without Richard being involved - for all that he tried to be, in every stage of anything that affected the welfare of his crew. The Owner, without contacting his Captain except via telex, arranged such payment as was necessary; provided funds at the Standard Bank of South Africa for all officers and crew; even for the Third Mate, though she had independent funding of her own.
So, as each officer improved, he moved in Robin's footsteps down the road to the Edward Hotel on Marine Drive, and into a suite in that great hotel. There were no complaints, of course, but Robin, Martyr and Richard all looked at their surroundings with a great deal of suspicion. During the day, the three of them were often together, visiting the sick and convalescent, attending the inquest, doing a little sightseeing, wandering, apparently aimlessly, round the docks.
In the evening, however, they split up. Martyr was a lonely man who preferred his own company, spending most of his evenings writing long letters which never seemed to be answered - as, indeed, he did aboard ship. As the younger officers came out of hospital so they entered into the swing of Durban nightlife, visiting the nightclubs, especially those with the most daring cabarets. Richard and Robin would have been thrown together by circumstances in any case, even had the chemistry not been so potently at work.
Richard arrived at the Edward on the afternoon of the 10th. The whole crew moved back aboard the Prometheus at 18.00 local time on the 14th. The hours in between were like a honeymoon for them.
There was no hesitation, no courtship. These were people who had known each other too long, knowing that in the other lay almost everything they had always wanted. Robin had loved Richard to the exclusion of almost all others for ten years. Richard saw in Robin everything which had attracted him so fiercely to Rowena, plus a certain indefinable extra. An extra made up of a heady combination: Robin's own strong, open character; the fact that she shared all of his interests and preoccupations; the fact that, subconsciously, subliminally, like a child with a beloved parent, she mimicked him in so many ways. The combination would have been irresistible, even had he felt the slightest inclination to resist.
It was a shock to him to see her that first evening out of hospital dressed as a woman. The sheer magnificence of her left him breathless, choking like some callow boy on his first date. He had seen her under a bewildering breadth of circumstances during the last weeks: seen her fighting him for the position of Third Mate with vivid passion, seen her turn humiliation into victory over Neptune, seen her throw away her life to help what she believed to be a child in danger. Seen her refuse to give in to the greatest extremes of physical discomfort when all around were helpless.
He had never, until she swept like a princess into the room where he and Martyr awaited her, seen her simply as a woman.
They were dining in the hotel on that first night, the three of them together for the first and last time. They had put aside their vexation with the cheerfully intransigent van der Groot, put aside their worries about the others - and some of their suspicions about what was really going on here - and were simply dizzy with the joy of being alive; as will any group of people who have survived what they had survived.
They were waiting for her in the cocktail lounge outside the Mandarin Room, with their table booked for 8.30. Both of them were in Number One whites, having had no chance to arrange civilian clothing, and individually were quite distinguished enough to be turning a few heads themselves as they sat at their ease at a table near the door.
The first they knew of her arrival was a sort of communal intake of breath. A rustle of movement as every head in the place turned. Richard glanced up with the rest and was suddenly unable to inhale.
She stood in the doorway, framed to perfection, accepting the reaction she was causing as of right - as Rowena had - but waiting there not for effect but because she could not see the others in the gloom. She had had twelve hours longer out of hospital than they, and had used some of that time to the greatest possible effect.
The golden curls had been cropped close to her head giving the effect of a glistening Juliet cap. Around the long neck, the theme of gold was taken up by a modest chain. Tanned gold, too, were the naked shoulders and back, the sheer slopes of the breast. And there it stopped, contained in a cup of black silk. The dress was by Chanel, as were the shoes and the perfume. It was tulip-topped and backless, flowing out from a tight waist in a controlled cascade to the gathers mid-calf. It was, like the necklace, simple as only great art can be.
A perfect dress perfectly filled. The raw silk and the gold flesh complemented each other perfectly. Seemed to have been created for each other and probably had been. Richard stood, fighting the most ridiculous desire to applaud, and she saw him. Had she been breathtaking before, now she became incandescent, seeming to light the room as she crossed to him. He stood tall and awaited her, feeling for the first time in many years the cynosure of all eyes. Knowing - and knowing from experience without a trace of vanity - that couples all around the room were looking at each other and almost nodding. Of course the golden girl was with the dashing, distinguished officer. Such creatures belonged together.
It was a feeling more powerful than the strongest drug.
'Hooks and eyes. At the back. Oh! Quickly!' He fumbled, clumsy with desire.
They were in each other's arms at last, in her room simply because it was the nearest, too impatient even to switch on the light. He slid his thumbs between the hot tight silk and the smooth skin, closing the sides of the dress together, twisting them back apart. And her hands were busy too, on his simpler, more accessible buttons.
The slick silk and the crisp cotton slid away miraculously at the same time and each partner paused, revelling in the sensation of skin on skin; of softness crushed against firmness; of heat building upon heat. They kissed again, crushing each other, terrified to slacken their grip in case the beloved slipped away. Yet slacken their grip they did at last, dominated by more than childish fears.
And later, when they lay in a tangle of bed sheets, she curled against him, his hands lazily exploring her back, learning her by feel in the dark like a blind man, he asked at long last, 'Robin, what is all this about? Really?'
'I want you. I want you back.'
'Only you?'
She should have been shocked at the question, he knew: enraged at the implication. But he asked, somehow safe in the knowledge of her.
And she answered. 'He's too proud. And anyway ...'
They paused. There was no suspicion between them, no bitterness left. During the last few hours they had also laid Rowena, in the way she would have appreciated most, to rest. It was time for the simple truth, and they both knew it.
And the truth did not seem so very dreadful, after all.
'Oh Richard! I'm so very worried about him. He won't tell me - and I can't find out for sure - but I think there's something dreadfully wrong. He hasn't been the same since Rowena died. He seems weaker, somehow; hesitant. But it's more than that now. He's been seeing his doctor, usually when I'm at sea and he thinks I won't find out. He's had a whole battery of tests and I think he thinks he's got a brain tumour.'
'And has he?'
'No! Not as far as I can find out. But there is something. And he still does the strangest things ...'
'Like buying the oil?'
'Like waiting until I took the first holiday in years and then buying the oil. I was halfway to the Seychelles when I found out. It was quite by accident. I'd forgotten to tell my secretary I wanted complete rest and he telexed me the news. He had my itinerary - he'd booked all my flights and the message caught up with me in Bahrain. I came south instead of heading on east. Came on to Prometheus instead of on to the beach.'
'Some holiday!'
'Some lifeguard.'
There was a silence, then she continued. 'If he was his old self, I might have suspected it all as a convoluted plot to bring us together ...'
'With what object?'
'To bring you back
,' she conceded. But there was no reluctance about the concession.
'Explain.'
'Well, as I see it, it really takes two to run the company. One in London and one at sea. I can take care of either end. But if he feels he can't handle the other end, for whatever reason ...'
‘All this, just because he wants me back as son and heir? Gambling much more than he can afford to lose, if the papers are correct?'
'No. It's not just that. It's me, too. It's what I've always wanted. He knows that. He would never have risked it all for himself. But for me ...'
Silence.
'I'm all he has left ...'
Silence.
'And there's so much there, Richard! So much to be done.'
A lesser man might have used Crewfinders as an excuse. Someone not so deeply in love, less involved than he. Someone wishing to keep his distance, to retain a sense of proportion; to hold on to a little sanity. But Richard had been too sane for too long. There would be a way to guard his own beloved company and still to help the Heritages.
And she was right. There was so much to be had. It was breathtakingly exciting.
As was she ...
***
So, at 09.00 Cape time, 17th August, with Robin still on watch, with Levkas still nosing around the bridge, Richard pulled himself up out of his big Captain's chair and crossed to the chart table. For a few moments he stood studying the chart lying under the clear plastic sheet: the chart of the South-West Atlantic.
It was time to turn north for home.
Chapter Sixteen
Georg Levkas's plans, such as they were, turned around his desire to find out who had tried to kill him in the Pump Room.
At first he was in no particular hurry to carry out these vague plans for he had no real idea what he would do when he found the man, but as the days slipped past - five, then six, then seven - and Prometheus neared the Equator once more, he felt the pressure building within him, simply because he knew, as no one else aboard seemed to, how limited the time was becoming.