Алистер Маклин - South by Java Head

Findhorn looked at him, stared out at the dark, tenebrous silhouette of the steamer, then shook his head.

“I’m afraid not, Mr. Nicolson. Some optical trick, nothing else. The retina can hold some queer after-images, or maybe it was just the scuttle reflecting the dying glow from one of our–”

“I don’t make mistakes of that kind,” Nicolson interrupted flatly.

A few seconds passed, seconds of complete silence, then Findhorn spoke again:

“Anybody else see that light?” The voice was calm, impersonal enough, the faint edge of anger just showing through.

Again the silence, longer this time, then Findhorn turned abruptly on his heel.

“Full ahead, quartermaster, and – Mr. Nicolson! What are you doing?”

Nicolson replaced the phone he had been using without any sign of haste. “Just asking for a little light on the subject,” he murmured laconically. He turned his back to the captain and gazed out over the sea.

Findhorn’s mouth tightened; he took a few quick steps forward but slowed up suddenly as the port light switched on, wavered uncertainly, then settled on the aftercastle of the Kerry Dancer . More slowly still the captain came alongside Nicolson, shoulder to shoulder, both hands reaching up for the dodger rail to steady himself: but seeking balance alone could not have accounted for the strength of his grip on the rail, a grip that tightened and tightened until the straining knuckles were burnished ivory in the washback of light from the beam pinned on the Kerry Dancer .

The Kerry Dancer was barely three hundred yards away now, and there could be no doubt about it, none at all. Everybody saw it, clearly – the narrow scuttle swinging in, then the long, bare arm stretching out and frantically waving a white towel or sheet, an arm that withdrew suddenly, thrust out a flaming bundle either of paper or rags, held on to it until the flames began to lick and twist around the wrist, then dropped it, hissing and smoking, into the sea.

Captain Findhorn sighed, a long, heavy sigh, and undamped his aching fingers from the dodger rail. His shoulders sagged, the tired, dispirited droop of a man no longer young, a man who has been carrying too heavy a burden for too long a time. Beneath the dark tan his face was almost drained of colour.

“I’m sorry, my boy.” It was only a whisper; he spoke without turning round, his head shaking slowly from side to side. “Thank God you saw it in time.”

No one heard him, for he was talking only to himself. Nicolson was already gone, sliding on his forearms down the teak ladder rails without his feet touching one step, before the captain had started speaking. And even before he was finished Nicolson had knocked off the gripes’ release links on the port lifeboat, and was already easing off the handbrake, shouting for the bo’sun to muster the emergency crew at the double.

Fireman’s axe in one hand, a heavy, rubber-sheathed torch in the other, Nicolson made his way quickly along the fore and aft passage through the Kerry Dancer ’s gutted midships superstructure. The steel deck beneath his feet had been buckled and twisted into fantastic shapes by the intense heat, and pieces of charred wood were still smouldering in sheltered corners. Once or twice the heavy, jerky rolling of the ship threw him against the walls of the passage and the fierce heat struck at him even through the canvas gloves on his outflung hands: that the metal should still be so hot after hours of gale force winds and torrential rain gave him a very vivid idea of the tremendous heat that must have been generated by the fire. He wondered, vaguely, what sort of cargo she had been carrying: probably contraband of some sort.

Two-thirds of the way along the passage, on the right hand side, he noticed a door, still intact, still locked. He leaned back and smashed at the lock, straight-legged, with the sole of his shoe: the door gave half an inch, but held. He swung his axe viciously against the lock, kicked the door open with his foot, pressed the button of his torch and stepped over the coaming. Two charred, shapeless bundles lay on the floor at his feet. They might have been human beings once, they might not. The stench was evil, intolerable, striking at his wrinkling nostrils like a physical blow. Nicolson was back in the passage within three seconds, hooking the door shut with the blade of the axe. Vannier was standing there now, the big red fire extinguisher under his arm, and Nicolson knew that even in those brief moments Vannier had had time to look inside. His eyes were wide and sick, his face like paper.

Nicolson turned abruptly, continued down the passage, Vannier behind him, followed by the Bo’sun with a sledge and Ferris with a crowbar. He kicked open two more doors, shone his torch inside. Empty. He came to the break of the after well-deck, and here he could see better, for all the lights of the Viroma were trained there. Quickly he looked round for a ladder or companionway, as quickly found it – a few charred sticks of wood lying on the steel deck eight feet below. A wooden companionway, completely destroyed by the fire. Nicolson turned swiftly to the carpenter.

“Ferris, get back to the boat and tell Ames and Docherty to work it aft as far as the well-deck here. I don’t care how they do it, or how much damage is done to the boat – we can’t get sick and wounded men up here. Leave your crowbar.”

Nicolson had swung down on his hands and dropped lightly to the deck below before he had finished speaking. In ten paces he had crossed the deck, rung the haft of his axe hard against the steel door of the aftercastle.

“Anyone inside there?” he shouted.

For two or three seconds there was complete silence, then there came a confused, excited babble of voices, all calling to him at once. Nicolson turned quickly to McKinnon, saw his own smile reflected in the wide grin on the bo’sun’s face, stepped back a pace and played his torch over the steel door. One clip was hanging loose, swinging pendulum-like with the heavy, water-logged rolling of the Kerry Dancer , the other seven jammed hard in position.

The seven-pound sledge-hammer was a toy in McKinnon’s hands. He struck seven times in all, once for each clip, the metallic clangs reverberating hollowly throughout the sinking ship. And then the door had swung open of its own accord and they were inside.

Nicolson flashed his torch over the back of the steel door and his mouth tightened: only one clip, the one that had been hanging loose, was continued through the door – the rest just ended in smooth rivet heads. And then he was facing aft again, the beam circling slowly round the aftercastle.

It was dark and cold, a dank, dripping dungeon of a place with no covering at all on the slippery steel deckplates, and barely enough headroom for a tall man to stand upright. Three-tiered metal bunks, innocent of either mattresses or blankets, were ranged round both sides, and about a foot or so above each bunk a heavy iron ring was welded to the bulkheads. A long, narrow table ran fore and aft the length of the compartment, with wooden stools on either side.

There were maybe twenty people in the room, Nicolson estimated; some sitting on the bottom bunks, one or two standing, hanging on to the uprights of the bunks to brace themselves, but most of them still lying down. Soldiers they were, those who were lying on the bunks, and some of them looked as if they would never get up again: Nicolson had seen too many dead men, the waxen cheek, the empty lustreless eye, the boneless relaxation that inhabits a shapeless bundle of clothes. There were also a few nurses in khaki skirts and belted tunics, and two or three civilians. Everyone, even the dusky skinned nurses, seemed white and strained and sick. The Kerry Dancer must have lain in the troughs since early afternoon, rolling wickedly, continuously, for endless hours.