Benedict Jones - Hell Ship

Huge thanks must go to Anthony Watson for all his help in getting Hell Ship afloat, as with most of my books his help behind the scenes is hugely appreciated; thanks mate!

Big love to Justin and Dan at the Sinister Horror Company for believing in the book and making Hell Ship a reality.

Thank you to Lisa; my partner, lover and best friend, for keeping me sane in this crazy world, for making me believe, and for completing me.

As ever thank you to the readers, this was always for you.

The Malacca Straights February 1944

They were down in the belly of the beast. Down where the heat was a tangible being, a physical entity that weighed on the men and crushed the life from out of them. The only sounds were the murmurs of hopelessness and the clunk-clunk of the engines punctuated by the occasional wail of the lost. Of smells, there were many; sweat, diesel, corruption, rot, and the meaty scent of death.

Whatever cargo the ship had once carried, its load was now one of human misery. Where once perhaps sacks of grain or crates of fruit had lain men were now packed in tighter than cattle on their way to market. Men lay atop other men, limbs twisted and combined forming one, great, panting, mass of sweating flesh. Wide, frightened eyes, stared out. They were filthy, rail thin, and they stank. They had stank for so long now that none of them seemed to notice. They had bigger worries weighing upon their shoulders than the mere fact that they stank.

‘Peter is dead.’

Captain Bill Nunhead looked over at his friend Lawrence Cort-Smith, likewise a Captain. Peter Herring had been with them since Singapore when they had been captured in the relentless advance of the Imperial Japanese forces. Since then they had seen prison cells, work camps, and death. Despite it all Nunhead had been convinced that their trio, the three musketeers as they had dubbed themselves, would see the end of the war. That they would see it together and that they would survive. If he could have cried, he would have but having lost so much moisture through sweating and dehydration Nunhead simply did not have the ability to cry. Cort-Smith grasped Nunhead’s shoulder, so bony now, and forced a smile.

‘He’s better off out of it. Have you worked out where the bastards are taking us?’

Nunhead shook his head.

‘Another work camp most likely, but where? I don’t know and I’m not sure it matters anymore – does it? It’ll just be another place where they try to work us to death.’

‘Then we try to make a break for it. I’d rather die a free man in the bush than live another moment under their yoke.’

Nunhead smiled despite himself. He looked at Cort-Smith and tried to picture him as he was before – the darling of the officer’s mess and always caught up in the social whirl of colonial life. Truth be told they had not been friends until after their capture. Nunhead had never liked the handsome young officer; a charming blonde demon at the pony club and with the young ladies when he wasn’t riding. But now, now Nunhead would have given his right arm to make sure that Cort-Smith saw the end of this terrible world that they had found themselves caught up in.

Suddenly there was light in the darkness. A hatch had been thrown open. Men recoiled from the daylight like ghouls in a crypt exposed to the rays of the sun. Nunhead squinted at the light and saw four silhouettes moving down the stairs.

‘What do these Johnnies want?’

Once the guards had stepped down into the murk they were easy to see; khaki jackets, shorts, and caps, rifles, with long bayonets attached, in their hands. Men lying near the stairs reached out to them.

‘Water…’

‘Mercy…’

Rifle butts lashed out, fingers and arms were broken and smashed. One of the guards jabbed out with his bayonet and the men huddled in together even closer than they were before. They had learned to fear the casual cruelness of their captors. The guards looked around at the men, they looked back over their shoulders and Nunhead watched as another man descended into the hold; olive green jacket with a crisp white shirt beneath, white pith helmet, khaki jodhpurs, polished oxblood cavalry boots, and a riding crop tucked under his arm. Like the guards he looked over the prisoners, and then nodded. The guards were spurred to action and used their bayonets to divide ten men out from the crowd and herd them up the stairs. The officer turned to follow.

‘ Yoroshiku onegai shimasu ,’ an English officer, Nunhead recognised him as Major Haddenfield, had spoken in rushed Japanese and stepped from out of the huddle. He was tall, and as thin as the rest, clad in a filthy loincloth and the remnants of a battledress jacket, ‘Please, where are you taking these men?’

The Japanese officer considered the Englishman for a moment. When he replied, it was in halting English.

‘Where they go is not your concern. You will soon see.’

‘ Arigato ,’ replied Haddenfield, ‘we need water, please.’

‘ Arigato …’ the Japanese rolled the word around in his mouth and then smiled at the Major. His riding crop lashed out splitting the skin of Haddenfield’s cheek. ‘ Arigato, arigato ,’ he laughed and raised the riding crop again. Haddenfield cowered like a whipped dog. The Japanese Officer laughed again and then followed his men up the stairs.

With a metallic clank the hatch was shut and once again they were in darkness with only the moaning of the dying and the clunk-clunk of the engine.

The guards came again four more times in the next ninety minutes. The men below decks could hear nothing of what occurred above – just the clunk-clunk of the engine drowning out almost everything else. When they came down the fifth time there were perhaps a third of the men left. Nunhead and Cort-Smith were caught up in the herding and driven towards the stairs.

‘Stay close to me, Bill,’ whispered Cort-Smith.

They knew enough to let themselves be driven by the guards, any attempt at disobedience or dragging of your feet would earn you a smash from the rifle butts – or worse, and both men knew how long it took them to heal now, they had seen men wither and die from the injuries inflicted off-hand by the guards; broken bones leading to sepsis and shallow bayonet cuts becoming infected and maggot ridden.

The daylight forced them to keep their heads down and eyes away from the glare of the sky. But the air, the air was glorious out of the cargo hold. Both men sucked in great lungfuls of the ocean air. The group of ten were shoved out further on to the deck. Nunhead risked a look up and saw that part of the rail had been removed at the side of the ship, the deck around it was slick with crimson.

‘My God…’

Two burly bare-chested Japanese stood waiting, swords in one hand and blood stained rags in the other. There was a shrill cry from behind them and a young Canadian soldier broke clear of the ring of guards and made a break for the rail on the opposite side.