Hammond Innes - Solomons Seal

Friday morning everybody seemed to be checking out of the hotel at the same time, and on top of that I had to wait for a taxi. It was past nine before I reached the Darling Island docks, sun glinting on the water and the wharves seething with activity.

He was there waiting for me, pacing up and down, a stocky figure in dark blue trousers and jersey, cap pushed back from his forehead. His face lit up as he saw me. ‘’Fraid you’d had second thoughts about it.’ There were dark circles under his eyes, but otherwise he seemed himself. He was even smiling as he took my bags. ‘Well, let’s get the formalities over.’ He passed my gear to the two black crew members manning the inflatable, told them to wait for him, and then we took my taxi on to the Maritime Services building, where I signed on.

Just over an hour later we were back on board, the engines thrumming under my feet and the anchor coming in. We loaded at a roll-on, roll-off ramp, the cargo reconditioned Haulpaks for the Bougainville copper mine, and shortly after noon we had cleared and were steaming out under Sydney Harbour Bridge.

I was in the wheelhouse then, checking the instruments and following our course through Port Jackson towards the Heads. Besides the helmsman and the pilot there were just Holland and Luke Pelau on the bridge, no sign of McAvoy, and when I asked Luke where the first officer was he said, ‘Mr McAvoy little tired this morning.’

Holland heard him and laughed without humour. ‘You won’t see Mac on the bridge unless he’s in one of his moods. Then he’ll come and tell us how to run the ship. That’s right, isn’t it, Luke?’ And the black officer nodded.

‘How long has he been like this?’ I asked.

‘Since my grandfather’s death. They’d been together a long time, and he never forgave himself for being away after a woman when the Colonel started out on his last voyage.’ He was staring out towards the Heads, which were separating now to show the empty heaving expanse of the Pacific in the gap. ‘Go down and check those Haulpaks are properly secured, will you? She’ll be rolling a bit when we get outside.’

Down on the tank deck the Haulpaks were huge, their fat rubber-tyred wheels standing taller than myself. The crew, all black, were tightening up on the securing chains. The bos’n, an elderly man with a great mop of frizzy black hair streaked with grey and a broken-toothed smile, was standing over them. The ore trucks were larger than anything they had carried before, but he knew his stuff, and though I went round every vehicle I had no fault to find.

Already there was movement on the ship, the faint beginnings of the swell coming through the Heads. I went for’ard to the storm door and, having checked that, climbed the vertical ladder to the port catwalk. For’ard, under the ladder to the foredeck, was the bos’n’s locker and workbench. The watertight door leading to the controls for the electric motor powering the bow door thrusters was open. One of my jobs had always been to check the bow doors and the ramp before sailing. I ducked through to the narrow platform that looked down into the well behind the bow doors, and there I got a shock. The steel cross-members that should have been bolted into their transverse position to hold the bow doors securely shut were still in their vertical housing.

I hurried back and yelled for the bos’n, telling him to get some men on to the job right away. But he didn’t understand what I wanted. Even when I took him with me and showed him, he only shrugged and pointed to the hydraulic thrusters, indicating in a complicated mixture of Pidgin and English that that was what kept the doors shut. ‘No use ol ain girders,’ he added, referring to the cross-members.

‘Well, you use them this trip.’ And I told him to get on with it. Good God! With the sort of seas we might encounter on the run across to Bougainville, the bow doors could be burst wide open. What really appalled me was the knowledge that they must have come all the way to Sydney with the bow doors held on the thrusters only. This was apparent as soon as the cross-members had been dropped into position. They couldn’t find the securing bolts. ‘Better get hold of the Chief Engineer,’ I told the bos’n, who seemed to understand what I said even if he couldn’t speak proper English. ‘If he hasn’t got any the right size, then he’d better make some quickly.’

He was just leaving, looking puzzled and unhappy, when one of the crew, squatting on his hunkers below the workbench, held up one of the missing bolts. All eight of them were there where they had fallen, covered with dirt and a pile of steel and wood shavings. The place looked as though it had not been cleaned out since the ship had been handed over by the Army.

I stayed until the cross-members were securely bolted together; then I took the bos’n with me up to the bridge. Holland had to be told. A first officer who was drunk, never took a watch, never checked the cargo, was one thing. But not checking the bow doors, leaving those cross-members unsecured — that was something different: gross negligence that endangered the ship and everyone in her. But we were dropping the pilot, and Holland wasn’t on the bridge, only Luke. I turned to the bos’n. ‘Where’s Mr McAvoy’s cabin?’ I was so angry I decided to have it out with the man myself. ‘Where is he?’ I repeated as the bos’n stood there gazing dumbly at his feet.

‘Okay, kum,’ he said reluctantly. ‘Mi suim.’

I was thinking McAvoy must have some hold over his captain; otherwise Holland would never put up with it. But that was no reason why I should. And then to find him tucked up in his berth in the obvious place, in the first officer’s quarters right across the alleyway from the spare cabin I had been allocated aft of the wardroom. He was lying flat on his back, his pale blue eyes wide open, a vacant stare, the skin of his face haggard and drawn, and so drained of blood he looked positively yellow, as though he were suffering from jaundice. ‘McAvoy. Can you hear me?’

He must have been getting on for sixty, a hard little monkey of a man with battered features and a scar running white under the hairs of his half-bare chest. ‘Why aren’t you up on the bridge? Why haven’t you secured the bow doors?’ I didn’t expect any reply, but I thought I saw a flicker of comprehension in those dull, lifeless eyes. They were like two pebbles that had dried out and lost their lustre. ‘Where do you keep the stuff?’

That at any rate got through to him, his eyes suddenly wide and alarmed. ‘Fu’off. None of your fu’ing bus’ness.’

I started searching his cabin then, emptying drawers, lockers, the lot, and flinging everything on to the floor. ‘Ge’out,’ he screamed. ‘Ge’out, d’ye hear me?’ He had hauled himself up to a sitting position, his head gripped in his hands as he groaned. ‘Wha’ye looking for?’

‘You know bloody well what I’m looking for.’ I reached over the bunk and shook him. ‘The bow doors. Don’t you know enough to have them braced? Now come on. Where is the stuff?’ He started to fight me off, his nails clawing at me, his teeth bared. ‘All right,’ I said, flinging him back on the bed. ‘I’ll find it in the end. And when I do, I’ll break every goddam bottle. Understand?’

‘You do that,’ he breathed, ‘I’ll kill ye. Aye, I will.’ He was staring at me, his eyes alive now with malevolence. ‘Wha’ are ye doing on this ship anyway?’

‘Standing in for you, you useless bastard.’

The malevolence deepened to blazing anger. ‘You call me that again-’

‘I’ll keep on calling you that until you’re on your feet and sober enough to do your job. You’re supposed to be the first officer. You’re a bloody menace. A danger to the ship, do you hear me?’ I left him then, knowing I had got under his skin and wondering just how dangerous he’d be when the drink was out of him. If I hadn’t been so angry, I might have been a little gentler with him.