Hammond Innes - Solomons Seal

I got him some coffee, then stayed with him in the wheelhouse, but we didn’t talk. He was completely absorbed in his navigation. However, when we were barely 2 miles off, at a point when I would have expected the ship to have his full attention, he came across to me and said, ‘I think I should tell you something. When we bought this ship, it was a question of survival. It still is. I’ve never been much of a businessman. It was Hans who saw the advantages of landing craft that could bring copra and coffee cargoes direct from the plantations. He bought a war surplus RPL and traded with it so successfully that within a year he had bought another. He’s over in England now, arranging finance for this new ship. That’s the sort of man he is, and when he puts something my way, I know it will be to my advantage and all the details thoroughly worked out.’ He looked at me sideways. ‘I’ve been thinking over what you said, and I felt I ought to tell you the position.’

I thanked him, not sure whether this explanation wasn’t in part to convince himself. ‘Of course, mostly the cargoes are arranged by Mr Shelvankar. He does it by radio. All the isolated plantations have radio now; some of the bigger ones even have their own airfield.’ He reached for his oilskins. ‘Think I’ll con us in from the upper bridge. It’s not going to be too easy to see the track down to the beach in this muck.’ Dressed, he tightened the strings of his hood. ‘Hope I’ve set your mind at rest. I wouldn’t want to lose you just as we’re starting the long haul across to the Solomons.’ His smile was friendly but tense as he pushed back the door and went out into a drenching downpour of rain.

The rain was so heavy now it had completely blotted out the scanned outline of the coast. The upper bridge telegraph rang for Slow Ahead, and the revs died to a sluggish beat. We were half a mile from the shore and nothing visible, the circling illumination of the Double Island lighthouse no more than an intermittent glimmer in the darkness. Ahead of us was nothing, only blackness. A few minutes later he signalled Slow Astern and called the crew to stations on the ship’s loudspeakers. We backed and filled with constant alterations of course. Luke came through the wheel-house on his way to the upper bridge, barely recognisable in his oilies, and for’ard I could see oilskin-clad figures flashing torches as they got ready to open the bow doors and lower the ramp. I heard the stern anchor let go, and almost immediately afterwards the gleam of headlights showed through the rain. The telegraph rang for Stop Engines, and a moment later there was a slight lurch as the ship grounded.

There was an oilskin coat and sou’wester hanging on a peg at the back of the wheelhouse. They were too small for me, but at least they gave some protection as I climbed down to the tank deck. By the time I reached the bows the doors were open and the ramp was being lowered. Fortunately the sea was calm, flattened by the rain, for we were grounded at least a dozen yards from the shoreline, and the ramp, when it touched bottom, was half under water. Holland waded out to the end of it with the water up to his knees as he tested the bottom with his feet. Apparently it was firm, for he signalled them to drive on with his torch.

There was no difficulty with the first vehicle. The driver took it slowly in low gear and four-wheel drive, coming up the ramp without a check and parking himself neatly against the steel side of the hold, nose right against the wheels of the first Haulpak. He didn’t get out of his cab, and when I went over to him and asked whether he had seen anything of a young woman, he said, ‘Sure. That beach is crowded with them, all in bikinis.’ He had a broad-brimmed hat on his head and a hard-bitten face. ‘You think I carry a harem around with me, an’ in this weather?’ He grinned down at me. ‘You expect a lot with this sort of a consignment.’ The second vehicle was already coming down the beach, and I had to move out of the way. It came too fast, had to check at the ramp, and the engine died. After that it was a winching job.

It took the better part of half an hour, winching and manhandling, to get it positioned. Finally it was done, and the two drivers waded ashore to the backup car that was waiting for them at the top of the beach. No sign of Perenna Holland. Either she hadn’t been able to make it or she hadn’t got my message. Maybe Shelvankar had never sent it. I went up to the signals office and asked him again, but he assured me he had sent it at once, looking offended that I should doubt his word. He was busy checking the papers the drivers had brought on board. ‘What’s the cargo?’ I asked him.

‘Japanese outboard engines.’ He showed me the manifest. ‘You see. They are all cleared by Customs.’ I had already checked that myself. The trucks had been stacked with heavy wooden crates, each crate wired round and sealed with a little leaden seal. Back in the wheelhouse I found the bow doors closed, the ramp up and the ship already moving astern as Holland hauled her off the beach on engines and stern anchor winch. Ten minutes later we had recovered the anchor and were headed out to sea. He came down then from the upper bridge.

‘Went quite well really.’ He looked tense, the muscle on the side of his jaw twitching slightly, his oilskins dripping water. ‘Rain’s taking off now.’ I could almost feel him trying to unwind. ‘Didn’t like it running in. Lot of tide around here. Not too sure of the chart. Conditions didn’t help either.’ He was pulling off his oilskins. ‘What about some coffee?’

‘I’ll go and see about it,’ I said.

‘Thanks, and put something in it. You’ll find a bottle of Scotch in my cabin.’ He was already at the chart table, leaning over it and at the same time keeping an eye on the echo-sounder. Luke was standing by the helmsman.

‘Coffee?’ I asked him, and he nodded.

When I got back with four mugs, some sandwiches and the bottle of whisky, the rain had almost stopped and the light on Double Island Point showed as a distant flash low down on our starboard quarter. Our course for the gap between the Saumarez and Frederick reefs took us close inshore the whole 100-mile length of Fraser Island. Only when Sandy Cape was abeam would we be in deep water. Holland drained his coffee, put the mug on the chart table and turned to me. ‘I’ll relieve you at four. That all right with you?’

I glanced at the clock at the back of the wheel-house. ‘That gives you barely two hours’ sleep.’

He nodded. ‘Can’t be helped. It’s the same for both of us. Just keep your eye on the depth and the radar. Call me if you’re in any doubt. The Double Island light gives you a perfect back bearing, and if the rain holds off, you should have it in sight until just before I relieve you.’

It gave me a certain sense of satisfaction that a man who spent his whole life navigating the island-infested waters of the South West Pacific should have sufficient confidence in my navigation to leave me in charge of his ship running close along the shore of an island I had never seen before. ‘Just don’t go to sleep, that’s all,’ he added as he went out.

I sent Luke to check that the bow doors had been properly secured. He was gone a long time, finally reporting that he had had to root out the crew again and oversee the job himself. ‘They don’t think it important.’

‘And you?’ I asked.

He shrugged. ‘We never do it before.’

‘That’s because you could always run for shelter under the lee of an island. This voyage you can’t.’

He stayed with me for the first hour of my watch. It was a help, for once the effect of the coffee had worn off the whisky in it took over, and I began to have difficulty keeping my eyes open. The rain, the constant strain of peering into the darkness, the nervous tension of the beaching and the fact that I had been on watch now for almost seven hours, all in a climate that was quite different from England, had made me very sleepy. I was sorry when he finally left me. We hadn’t talked much, but his company had been comforting.