Alistair MacLean - The Golden Rendezvous

It was quarter to eight. I dropped down the series of accommodation ladders that led to the fo'c'sle and made my way forward to the carpenter’s store. The fo'c'sle was unusually crowded for that time of the morning. There must have been close on forty members of the ship’s company gathered there, deck staff, engine-room staff, cooks and stewards, all waiting to pay their last respects to Brownell. Nor were these all the spectators. I looked up and saw that the promenade deck, which curved right round the forward superstructure of the Campari, was dotted with passengers, eleven or twelve in all: not many, but they represented close on the total male passenger complement aboard — I could see no women therewith the exception of old Cerdan and possibly one or two others. Bad news travelled fast, and even for millionaires the chance of seeing a burial at sea didn’t come along too often. Right in the middle of them was the Duke of Hartwell, looking nautical as anything in his carefully adjusted royal yachting club cap, silk scarf, and brass-buttoned navy doeskin jacket.

I skirted number one hold and thought grimly that there might indeed be something in the old superstitions: the dead cried out for company, the old salts said, and the dead men loaded only yesterday afternoon and now lying in the bottom of number four hold hadn’t been slow to get that company. Two others gone in the space of a few hours, near as a toucher three; only I’d fallen sideways instead of toppling over the rail. I felt those ice-cold fingers on the back of my neck again and shivered, then passed into the comparative gloom of the carpenter’s store, right up in the forepeak.

Everything was ready. The bier — a hastily nailed-together platform of boards, seven feet by two — lay on the deck, and the red ensign, tied to two corners of the handles at the top of the bier but free at the other end, covered the canvas wathed mound beneath. Only the bo’sun and the carpenter were there. To look at Macdonald you would never have guessed that he hadn’t slept the previous night. He had volunteered to remain on guard outside the wireless office until dawn; it had also been his idea that, though the chances of any trouble in daylight were remote, two men should be tailed for holystoning the deck outside the wireless office after breakfast, for the entire day if necessary. Meantime the radio office was closed — and heavily padlocked — to allow Peters and Jenkins to attend the funeral of their colleague. There was no difficulty about this: as was common, there was a standard arrangement whereby a bell rang either on the bridge or in the chief wireless operator’s cabin whenever a call came through on the distress frequency or on the Campari’s call sign.

The slight vibration of the Campari’s engines died away as the engine slowed and the revs dropped until we had just enough speed to give us steerageway in that heavy swell. The captain came down the companionway, carrying a heavy brass-bound bible under his arm. The heavy steel door in the port hand fo'c'sle side was swung open and back till it secured with a clang in its retaining latch. A long wooden box was slid into position, one end level with the opening in the side of the ship. Then Macdonald and the carpenter, bareheaded, appeared, carrying bier and burden, and laid them on the box.

The service was very brief, very simple. Captain Bullen said a few words about Brownell, about as true as words usually are in those circumstances, led the tattered singing of “abide with me,” read the burial service, and nodded to the bo’sun. The Royal Navy did this sort of thing better, but we didn’t carry any bugles aboard the Campari. Macdonald lifted the inboard end of the bier; the canvas-swathed mound slid out slowly from beneath the red ensign and was gone with only the faintest of splashings to mark its departure. I glanced up at the promenade deck and saw the Duke of Hartwell there, standing stiffly at attention, right arm bent up to his peaked cap in rigid salute. Even allowing for the natural disadvantages lent him by his face, I had seldom seen a more ludicrous sight. No doubt to the unbiassed observer he was putting up a more fitting show than myself, but I find it hard to be at my reverent best when I know that all I’m committing to the deep is a length of canvas, large quantities of engine-room waste, and a hundred and fifty pounds of rusty chain to give the necessary negative buoyancy.

The door in the ship’s side clanged shut; Captain Bullen handed over the Bible to a cadet; the engine revs mounted, and the Campari was back in business again. And the first item on the agenda was breakfast.

In my three years aboard the Campari I had rarely seen more than half a dozen passengers in the dining saloon for breakfast. Most of them preferred to have it served in their suites or on the private verandahs outside their suites. Barring a few aperitifs followed by Antoine’s or Henrique’s superb cooking, there was nothing to beat a good funeral to bring out the sociable best in our passengers. There could only have been seven or eight missing altogether.

I had a full complement at my table, except, of course, for the invalid Mr. Cerdan. I should have been on watch, but the captain had decided that, as there was a very able quartermaster on the wheel and no land within seventy miles, young Dexter, who usually stood the watch with me, could stand it alone for the length of breakfast.

No sooner had I pulled in my chair than Miss Harrbride fixed her beady eyes on me.

“What on earth’s happened to you, young man?” she demanded.

“To tell you the truth, Miss Harrbride, I don’t really know myself.”

“You what?”

“It’s true.” I put on my best shamed face. “I was standing up on the boat deck last night and the next thing I knew I was lying in the scuppers with my head cut must have struck it against the davit when I fell.” I had my story all prepared. “Dr. Marston thinks it was a combination of sunstroke — I was loading cargo most of the day yesterday and I can assure you that the sun was very hot — and the fact that, owing to our troubles in Kingston and the delay caused by it, I haven’t had very much sleep in the past three days.” “I must say things do keep happening aboard the Campari,” Miguel Carreras said. His face was grave. “One man dead from a heart attack or whatever it was, another missing — they haven’t found our chief steward yet, have they?”

“I’m afraid not, sir.”

“And now you get yourself banged up. Let’s sincerely hope that’s the end of it.”

“Troubles always happen in threes, sir. I’m sure this is the end of it. We’ve never before…”

“Young man, let me have a look at you,” a peremptory voice demanded from the captain’s table. Mrs. Beresford, my favourite passenger. I twisted round in my seat to find that Mrs. Beresford, who normally sat with her back to me, had herself turned completely round in hers. Beyond her the Duke of Hartwell, unlike the previous night, was having no trouble at all in devoting his entire attention to Susan Beresford:

The usual counterattraction on his right, in the best traditions of the theatrical world, rarely rose before noon. Mrs. Beresford studied me in silence for the better part of ten seconds.

“You don’t look well at all, Mr. Carter,” she pronounced finally.

“Twisted your neck, didn’t you? You didn’t have to turn round in your chair to talk to me.”

“A little,” I admitted. “It’s a bit stiff.”

“And hurt your back into the bargain,” she added triumphantly. “I can tell from the peculiar way you sit.”

“It hardly hurts at all,” I said bravely. It didn’t, in fact, hurt me in the slightest, but I hadn’t yet got the hang of carrying a gun in my waistband and the butt kept sticking painfully into my lower ribs.