Arthur Hailey: In High Places

An important day for decisions and a good opportunity to turn events in your favour. Your ability to persuade others will be most marked and therefore progress which can be accomplished now should not be put off till later. A time of meeting. But beware the small cloud no larger than a man's hand.

It was absurd coincidence, he told himself. Besides, looked at intelligently, the words were vague and could be applied to any circumstance. But he did have decisions to make, and he had been considering a meeting of the cabinet Defence Committee for tomorrow, and it would be necessary for him to persuade others. He speculated on what could be meant by the cloud no larger than a man's hand. Something to do with Harvey Warrender, perhaps. Then he stopped himself. This was ridiculous. He put down the book, dismissing it.

He had been reminded of one thing, though: the Defence Committee. Perhaps, after all, the meeting should be held tomorrow, Christmas Eve notwithstanding. The announcement about Washington would be out and he would have to gain support in Cabinet by persuading others to his own opinions. He began to plan what he would tell the committee. His raced on.

It was two hours before he retired to bed. Margaret was already sleeping, and he undressed without waking her, setting a small bedside alarm for 6 AM.

At first he slept soundly, but towards morning his rest was by an odd recurring dream – a series of clouds, which rose from the smallness of hands into sombre, stormlike shapes.

On the Canadian West coast – 2,300 miles from Ottawa as the jets fly – the Motor Vessel Vastervik docked, between showers, on December 23rd.

The wind in Vancouver harbour was wintry and gusting. The harbour pilot, who had boarded the ship half an hour earlier, had ordered out three shackles of anchor chain and now the Vastervik was berthing gently, its big hook dragging like a brake on the silt-layered, rock-free bottom. The tug ahead of the ship gave one short blast and a heaving line snaked shoreward, others following.

Ten minutes later, at 3 PM local time, the ship was secure and its anchor recovered.

La Pointe Pier, at which the ship had moored, was one of several projecting, fingerlike, from the busy, building-crowded shore line. Around the new arrival, and at adjoining piers, other ships were loading or discharging freight. Cargo slings rose swiftly and were lowered. Box cars shunted fussily on dockside rail spurs while lift trucks squirrelled back and forth from ships to warehouses. From a berth nearby a squat freighter eased out towards open water, a tug and line boat fore and aft.

A group of three men approached the Vastervik purposefully. They walked in step, competently skirting obstacles and working parties. Two of the men wore uniforms. One was a customs officer, the other from the Canadian Immigration. The third man was in civilian clothes.

'Damn!' the customs man said. 'It's raining again.'

'Come aboard our ship,' said the civilian, grinning. He was the shipping-company agent. 'It'll be drier there.'

'I wouldn't count on it,' the immigration officer said. He had a stern face and spoke unsmilingly. 'Some of these tubs of yours are wetter inside than out. How you keep them floating is a mystery to me.'

A rusty iron gangway was being lowered from the Vastervik.

Looking up at the ship's side, the company agent said, 'Sometimes I wonder myself. Oh well, I suppose it'll hold three more.' He swung himself on to the gangway, me others following.

In his cabin immediately beneath the bridge. Captain Sigurd Jaabeck, big-boned, stolid, and with a weathered seaman's face, shuffled papers he would need for port clearance of his cargo and crew. Before docking the captain had changed from his usual sweater and dungarees to a double-breasted suit, but still had on the old-fashioned carpet slippers he wore most of the time on board.

It was good. Captain Jaabeck thought, that they had berthed in daylight and tonight could eat ashore. It would be a relief to escape the fertilizer smell. The captain wrinkled his nose distastefully at the all-pervading odour, suggestive of a combination of wet sulphur and decaying cabbage. For days it had been seeping up from the cargo in number three hold, to be circulated impartially through the ship by the hot-air blowers. It was heartening, he thought, that the Vastervik's next cargo would be Canadian lumber, sawmill fresh.

Now, the documents in his hand, he moved out on to the upper deck.

In the crew's living quarters aft. Stubby Gates, able-bodied seaman, ambled across the small square mess hall which also served as a day rest-room. He joined another figure standing silently, gazing through a porthole.

Gates was a London Cockney. He had the scarred, disarranged face of a fighter, stocky build and long dangling arms which made him apish. He was the strongest man on the ship and also, unless provoked, the gentlest.

The other man was young and small of stature. He had a round, strong-featured countenance, deep-set eyes and black hair grown over-long. In appearance he looked little more than a boy.

Stubby Gates asked, 'Wotcher thinkin' about, Henri?'

For a moment the other continued to look out as if he had not heard. His expression held a strange wistfulness, his eyes seeming fixed on the city skyline, with its tall, clean buildings, visible beyond the dockside. The sound of traffic carried clearly across the water and through the open port. Then, abruptly, the young man shrugged and turned.

'I think of nothing.' He spoke with a thick, throaty – though not unpleasing – accent. English came hard to him.

'We'll be in port for a week,' Stubby Gates said. 'Ever bin to Vancouver before?'

The young man, whose name was Henri Duval, shook his head.

'I bin 'ere three times,' Gates said. 'There's better places to get orf a ship. But the grub's good an' you can always pick up a woman quick.' He glanced sideways at Duval. 'Think they'll let you go ashore this time, matey?'

The young man answered moodily, dejection in his voice. The words were hard to understand but Stubby Gates was able to make them out. 'Sometime,' Henri Duval said, 'I think I never get ashore again.'

Captain Jaabeck met the three men as they came aboard. He shook hands with the company agent, who introduced the customs and immigration officers. The two officials – all business now – nodded politely to the captain but did not shake hands.

'Is your crew mustered. Captain?' the immigration man asked.

Captain Jaabeck nodded. 'Follow me, please.' The routine was familiar and no instructions had been needed to bring the crew to the officers' dining-room amidships. They were lining up outside while the ship's officers waited within the room.

Stubby Gates nudged Henri Duval as the group, led by the captain, passed by. 'Those are the government blokes,' Gates murmured. 'They'll say if you can go ashore.'

Henri Duval turned to the older man. 'I make good try,' he said softly. There was a boyish enthusiasm in his heavily accented voice, the earlier depression banished. 'I try to work. Maybe get stay.'

'That's the stuff, Henri,' Stubby Gates said cheerfully. 'Never say die!'

Inside the dining-room a table and chair had been set up for the immigration officer. He sat at it, inspecting the typewritten crew list which the captain had handed him. Across the room the customs man leafed through a cargo manifest.

'Thirty officers and crew, and one stowaway,' the immigration man announced. 'Is that correct. Captain?'

'Yes.' Captain Jaabeck nodded.

'Where did you pick up the stowaway?'

'In Beirut. His name is Duval,' the captain said. 'He has been with us a long time. Too long.'