Benedict Jones - Hell Ship

While most of them watched the Empire Carew list and burn, Dan Connelly watched the sea. He watched the black mirror like surface for signs of life. It didn’t take him long to find some. Far out he could see a man swimming and pulling something with him. It took a moment to realise that the shape he was dragging through the water was another man.

‘There! Pass me a hook.’

The young man dressed in white stayed still and looked around as though confused by what a hook was. The black man who Connelly knew as Earl Hamilton picked up one of the long boathooks and passed it over to him.

‘We ain’t got no light to put on him.’

‘Don’t want one if that sub is still about,’ replied Connelly.

‘A sub? Is that what it was?’ asked the young officer, Dennis Snell.

The swimmer had closed the distance to the boat. In the dark it was hard to make out who he was. Connelly leaned over the side and Hamilton grabbed his belt so that he wouldn’t slip into the ocean beyond.

‘Grab the hook.’

The swimmer looked up as though surprised to find other people out here in the dark on the sea. But the man said not a word and just reached up and caught the haft of the boat hook in a solid grip to pull himself, and the man he was pulling, closer to the boat.

‘Get him out first,’ said the newcomer, voice as rough as old wooden decks. ‘Careful with him, the fire caught him.’

Putner, the radio operator, and the young nurse helped to pull the injured party into the boat. Connelly looked at him as he passed; dark hair frazzled down against his skull, the flesh of his ears twisted and malformed like the wax of a well-used candle, the shoulders and back of his shirt blackened and melted into his skin, the man’s eyes flickered but he seemed to be in another place.

Once the wounded man was aboard, Connolly reached down and dragged the swimmer over the side. The man pushed himself up from the floor and sat himself down. They could all see that he was spent.

He wore only trousers, his chest a mass of tattoos; compasses, anchors, swallows, golden dragons, and a fully masted ship.

His shoulders and forearms were likewise marked; jaguar on his left forearm and a naked woman on the right, HOLD across the knuckles of his right hand and FAST across the left.

He caught his breath and looked up at Connelly.

‘Thanks for the help, Professor.’

Connelly smiled, recognising Royston Busby, the strong arm Donkeyman who kept the Somali Arabs on the black gang down in the Engine Room in line.

‘No problem, Busby. That Collins you dragged in with you?’

Busby shrugged his substantial shoulders.

‘Man owes me money, couldn’t leave him to burn.’

Connelly clapped a hand on Busby’s shoulder and turned to look at Collins who had been laid down. The young nurse was crouched over him.

‘Miss… sorry I didn’t catch your name in all the commotion.’

The dark-haired nurse looked up at Connelly and forced a smile.

‘Starling, Amelia Starling.’ She held out her hand and Connelly shook it gladly.

‘What are his chances?’

‘If he’s still with us come dawn then he has a chance. Depends if we’ve got any medical supplies.’

Connelly looked around.

‘Reckon you can check on that, Hamilton?’

The man nodded in response.

‘Sure, I make an inventory of what we got – and what we lacking.’

‘Lacking a bloody smoke right now,’ threw in Busby.

‘You can smoke when the sun comes up and when we know that we’re clear of any Jap subs that are lurking about.’

Busby turned to Snell and saluted.

‘Aye-aye, sir.’

‘Some more, that is, I can see some more people.’

They all turned to where Putner pointed and saw that the young radio operator was right. Two more swimmers were making for the boat. Hamilton hefted the boat hook and prepared to help bring them in. Connelly returned the favour and took a hold on the waistband of his trousers to stop him pitching forward. The boat was rocked by a swell and Hamilton almost went face first into the water. Connelly grunted and pulled him back.

Once the two people had been pulled up into the boat Connelly looked them over. A man and a woman. The man; balding, somewhere in his late thirties, wearing beige suit trousers and a white shirt, smile on his face once he hit the deck. The woman was blonde, pretty, her patterned dress torn. Connelly recognised them as part of the contingent of passengers they had been shipping along with the nurses and cargo.

‘So here we are,’ said the man with a smile. ‘I’m Conrad Warner and this is the one and only Lily Cecil – songbird of the forces.’

‘Stick a sock in it, Conrad,’ replied the woman from the deck as she lay back on her elbows like some reclining mermaid, albeit one with a strong cockney accent.

Connelly looked over the people in the jolly boat and then away to where the Empire Carew had been a few moments earlier. The ship was gone and they were alone on the dark water.

Dawn coloured the sky early in the Indian Ocean. No one in the boat had slept except for Collins, but his fevered dreams could hardly be termed sleep. Connelly scanned the empty horizon.

‘If there’s no sign of that Nip sub then I’ll take that smoke now.’

Connelly turned to look at Busby and then smiled. He reached into his pocket and took out a sealskin tobacco pouch. He passed it over to Busby.

‘Roll me one while you’re at it, would you?’

‘You can roll your bloody own, Professor – what am I your flunky wallah?’

Busby rolled himself a cigarette and then passed the pouch back to let Connelly roll his own.

‘Got a match?’

Connelly looked at him in disbelief but then handed over his box of Swan Vestas. Busby lit his own smoke and then stood to light Connelly’s from the same match.

‘What’s the course then?’

‘I think I’ll be the judge of that.’

Busby looked over at Snell who sat watching him, double-breasted jacket hanging open now, white shirt and black tie beneath.

‘That right, sir ?’

‘I don’t like your tone, Busby.’

Busby smirked.

‘Funny that, seeing as I don’t like getting told what to do by a jumped-up little cabin boy.’

‘Busby…’

‘Stay out of this, Professor, let the boy answer for himself.’

Snell coloured, red rising to his cheeks in stark contrast to the grubby white of his uniform.

‘I am the ranking officer on this boat.’

‘Wouldn’t be an officer at all if it weren’t for your daddy is what I heard. Wouldn’t have even got a berth on the Carew if Captain Wingrove hadn’t been your bloody uncle or whatever.’

‘The Captain was my godfather,’ whispered Snell, ‘and he’s dead. You will obey my orders or there will be a reckoning.’

‘A reckoning?’ Busby puffed away on his cigarette and snorted, enjoying himself.

The rest of the boat’s party looked on.

‘You reckon you can navigate us out of here, eh? Which way is it to Ceylon then?’

Snell looked confused. He looked around. Up at the sky, the horizon, the sun.

‘I…that is, I think…’

‘You think? It’s that way, that’s the way to Colombo,’ said Busby pointing away to starboard. ‘Way I see it is this; you sit down over there and let those that know run this boat the way it needs to be run, there’s a good little gentleman .’

Busby was swaggering now seeing that the fight and argument seemed to have fallen away from the younger man. Busby had never liked officers and this was his chance to really stick it to one. Connelly threw a look over at the boathook. He looked up and saw Hamilton staring back at him. The black man considered him for a moment and then nodded. Connelly was just about to reach for the hook when Snell spoke again.