Hammond Innes - The Doomed Oasis

He scrambled out from under the rug. ‘Couldn’t you come with me?’ he asked, suddenly scared now that the moment had arrived. ‘If you were to have a word with Captain Griffiths-’

I didn’t reply to that, but simply handed him the package. I knew he knew it was out of the question, for he didn’t ask me again. A moment later the rear door opened and I heard him get out. ‘I–I’d like to thank you,’ he stammered. ‘Whatever happens — I won’t let you down.’

‘Good luck!’ I said.

‘Thanks.’ And then he was walking across the dock, not hesitantly, but with a firm, purposeful tread. I watched him mount the gangway, saw him pause and speak to one of the crew, an Arab; and then he disappeared from sight through a door in the bridge deck.

I lit a cigarette and sat there, wondering what would happen now. I didn’t think he’d much of a chance, but you never know; he was a resourceful kid.

I finished my cigarette and lit another. I was thinking about the constable on the gate. I ought to have realized that that would have been one of the first things they’d do following his escape. And the man had recognized me. I tried to analyse my motives in doing such a crazy thing, but I couldn’t sort it out. The cold crept into the car as I waited and still nothing happened, except that the snow thickened and the dock turned dazzling white. A tug hooted out in the river, a lost, owl sound in the winter night. It was twenty minutes past nine.

Ten minutes later a whistle sounded from somewhere high up on the Emerald Isle and two men came quickly out of a hut at the end of the dock. They manhandled the gangway ashore and then stood by the warps. Another whistle and the for’ard warp went slack, fell with a splash into the dock. Black smoke belched from the funnel, and as the stern warp was let go, a gap opened up between the ship’s side and the quay. I switched the engine on then, turned the heater up and sat there smoking as the Emerald Isle locked out into the River Taff. And when her lights had finally disappeared behind the whitened shoulders of the loading sheds, I drove back to the solitude of my flat, hoping to God I’d done the right thing.

The story of what happened to him after that I got partly from Captain Griffiths on his return and partly from a letter David wrote me. When he left me on the dock there and went on board the Emerald Isle there was no clear-cut plan in his mind. He knew the layout, of course. She was the only ship trading regularly out of Cardiff to Arabian ports, and she had exercised a fatal fascination for him since he was old enough to wander in the docks. It was the Somali steward and not a deck hand who met him at the top of the gangway and on the spur of the moment, almost without thinking, he inquired whether the passenger accommodation was fully booked. The steward told him No; there were six cabins and only three were occupied. Feeling suddenly more confident, he asked to see the Captain.

Captain Griffiths was in his cabin on the port side of the bridge deck housing and when David was shown in he was seated at his desk checking the Mate’s trim figures. He took the packet, glanced at it and then looked up at David. ‘You work for Mr Grant, do you?’

‘I–I run errands for him.’

‘Office boy, eh? Well, you’re only just in time. We sail in quarter of an hour.’ Griffiths peered up at him from under his bushy brows. ‘What’s the matter with your face, boy? Been in a fight?’

‘No. No, sir. I–I had a fall.’

‘Must have been a bad one. You’re as white as a sheet.’ He bent down, pulled open a drawer of his desk and came up with a bottle of whisky. ‘I’ll give you a drink for your pains.’ He gave that high-pitched cackling laugh, filled the glasses half full and handed one of them to David. ‘Well, young fellow, you can wish me luck, for it’s a Welsh landowner I am now.’ And he slapped the packet of documents with unconcealed pride. There’s times, you know,’ he confided as he swallowed his drink, ‘when I feel like the Wandering Jew himself, doomed to ply from one silt-laden port to another, right through to Eternity. This,’ and his hand touched the packet again, ‘this may help me to preserve my sanity when the temperature’s in the hundreds and the humidity’s so thick your lungs feel as though they’re stuffed full of wet cotton wool and will never breathe clean air again; when conditions are like that, then I’ll take these documents out and read them through just to convince myself that I really do have a little place on the Gower Peninsula where rain washes the air clean of dust and heat and the damned, Godforsaken, everlasting flies.’

‘That’s the Persian Gulf you’ll be referring to, isn’t it? Then maybe you’ll know where Colonel Whitaker lives now?’ He hadn’t intended to ask that question, but the unaccustomed liquor had overlaid his nervousness.

Griffiths glanced up at him quickly. ‘Funny thing,’ he murmured. ‘Grant asked me that same question only this afternoon. Is Colonel Whitaker one of the firm’s clients?’

‘I–I don’t know, sir.’

‘Then what made ‘you ask about him?’

David hesitated. But if he were to succeed in stowing away on board, there was no harm in telling Captain Griffiths the truth right now. ‘He’s my father.’

‘Your father!’ The blue eyes stared. ‘Good God! Didn’t know the Bedouin was married.’

‘My natural father, sir.’

Griffiths’ eyes suddenly crinkled at the corners. ‘Natural father, you say? Well, by God, that’s a good one.’ And he lay back in his swivel chair, pointed his beard at the steel deck above and cackled with laughter. And then he stopped suddenly. ‘I’m sorry, boy. You’re sensitive about it, I can see. Have you ever met your father?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Well, if you had, you’d know why I laughed. Bedouin sons — and daughters. There’s gossip enough about him, but never a whisper of a son in Wales, you see. I’ll tell him, next time he’s aboard — I’ll say to him casually-’ But David was spared the rest, for the bridge communicator buzzed and a voice said, Tug coming alongside now, sir.’

‘Very good, Mr Evans.’ Griffiths got to his feet. ‘I’m needed on the bridge.’ He paused in front of David, staring up at his face. ‘Yes. I can see the likeness now. Any messages you want to give him?’ And when David shook his head dumbly, he patted him on the arm. ‘Well, I’ll tell him I saw you when next he comes aboard. And now you’d better get off the ship quick or you’ll find yourself in Arabia with a deal of explaining to do.’ And he went off, cackling with laughter, to the bridge above.

David found himself standing alone outside the Captain’s cabin. An alleyway ran athwartships. Numbered mahogany doors led of fit on either side. He listened, every nerve taut. He could hear voices on the bridge and down below in the saloon, but the deck on which he stood seemed utterly deserted. Treading softly, he walked the length of the alleyway to the starb’d side, as far away from the Captain’s cabin as possible. The first door he tried was locked, the second opened to a glimpse of heavily-labelled baggage and the startled face of a man lying prone on his bunk with a book. A tug blared so close alongside that he jumped. Cabin Number Four was empty and he slipped inside and locked the door. And after that he stood for a long time, quite still and breathing heavily, listening to the sounds of the ship, waiting tense for the sudden outcry that would inevitably follow the discovery that he had not gone ashore.

That period of waiting, ten minutes at the most, seemed the longest he had ever known. And then a whistle sounded. It was so like the shrill of a police whistle that he reached for the handle of the door, instinctively seeking escape in movement. But then the engine-room telegraph rang from the bridge overhead and the ship suddenly came to life, a gentle throbbing against the soles of his shoes. He knelt on the unmade bunk then and cautiously pulled back the curtain that covered the porthole. He could see the deck rail and beyond it a flat expanse of water with the snow driving across it. And then the water was swirling to the bite of the screws and he knew the ship was moving.