Hammond Innes - Solomons Seal

I hesitated. But it wasn’t for me to tell her he was scared of something. ‘You’re part owner of this ship, aren’t you?’

She nodded.

‘Maybe that’s the trouble.’

‘The ship’s still losing money, is it?’

‘I think so.’ And then I asked her about the partner her brother had gone in with. ‘D’you know anything about him?’

‘Yes.’ Her face had suddenly altered, the jaw clenched, the lips a tight line and her eyes coldly staring. ‘What’s Hans got to do with it?’

‘He seems to handle the business end, and I thought perhaps-’ I left it at that, shocked at the violence of her reaction, standing there staring straight at me, gripping hold of the back of the chair so tight that her knuckles showed white.

‘He should never have gone in with Hans Holland,’ she said in that husky voice, her mouth clenched tight. ‘I knew it wasn’t right. Tim was against it, and that day when-’ She shook her head, her eyes very wide. ‘But Jona came over to England specially. He talked Father into it. Said the sins of the fathers shouldn’t be visited on the children, that Hans and he were another generation, and if they wanted to join forces and build a new Holland Line together, the past of the two families shouldn’t be thrown in their faces. I haven’t seen Jona since.’

‘And what were the sins?’ I asked.

She let go of the chairback and turned to stare out at the sea again. ‘I’m not sure. It was something that happened during the war, but Grandpa wouldn’t talk about that — ever. Nor would Mac. All Grandpa ever told me was that Hans’s father handed the Holland schooners over to the Japanese.’

‘A collaborator?’

She nodded. ‘He went over to the Japs. That’s why he was killed. I think maybe my grandfather had a hand in that. And Hans — the same red hair, but he’s Buka really.’ She paused there, frowning, and when I asked her if it was Hans who had visited them in Aldeburgh some months back, she nodded vaguely, muttering to herself, ‘Buka through and through.’ And then she seemed to jerk herself out of her reverie, lifting her head and looking straight at me again as she abruptly changed the subject. ‘So Jona’s in financial difficulties, is he?’

‘He needed this cargo. That’s all he told me.’ I got off the bunk and reached for my clothes. It was up to her to find out about that. ‘Talk to Shelvankar,’ I said. ‘He’s radio officer and cargo agent all in one, and I would imagine the best source of information on board. And if you know any of the crew … Do you understand the Buka language?’

She shook her head. ‘Not Buka. But Pidgin is the same all through the islands. I’m sure that will come back to me quite easily.’

‘Then have a look round the ship, talk to some of the crew while I get dressed.’

‘And what about Jona? You haven’t told me what impression you’ve formed of him.’

‘No, and I’m not going to.’ I had my back to her, rootling around for my shaving kit. ‘I’m a visitor on board this ship, and if he has problems, it’s none of my business.’ I was still tired, and her persistence irritated me. The old belief that a woman on board meant trouble may have had something to do with it.

Silence for a moment; then she said, ‘Very well, I’ll leave you to dress now.’ I heard the door close. She was gone, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I went to the heads then and had a shower. By the time I was shaved and dressed it was past 10.30. I lay on my bunk and tried to read, but my mind wouldn’t concentrate, wondering how well she knew her brother, how much he had told her in letters. It was five years since she had last seen him. A long gap, and some time in the next two hours she would confront him with the fact of her presence here on board this ship. And those two trucks. Like me, she must be wondering what the hell was in them, why the secrecy?

She had flown from Sydney to Brisbane and then hitched lifts up to within a few miles of the beach. That much I got out of her when I went into the wardroom for a quick bite of food before going on watch. But that was all. Holtz was there, and Shelvankar, both of them treating her very formally, and beneath the formality I sensed a mood of caution as though she were something to be handled with extreme care. Shelvankar, in particular. He was unusually silent, his eyes every now and then glancing at her furtively. And she herself was not at all communicative, sitting there quite still as though bracing herself for the moment when her brother would come in.

The steward brought me my coffee and then went along the alleyway to give Holland a shake. It was just past noon and time for me to relieve Luke. I excused myself and took my coffee along to the bridge. The course was due north, visibility good and the sea calm, a long shallow swell coming in from the south. We were already clear of the continental shelf, no reading now on the echo-sounder and no sign of any land. I took a sun sight and was pleased when my calculations coincided almost exactly with our DR position. There was little for me to do then, and the watch passed slowly.

Any moment I expected Holland to come in and ask me why the hell I had gone behind his back and sent that message to his sister. Maybe she dissuaded him, but nobody came on the bridge during the whole of the afternoon watch, and when he relieved me at 16.00, he never mentioned it. He didn’t even refer to her presence on board. He was tight-lipped and very tense, the lines on his forehead deep creases, and he had been drinking. I could smell the whisky on his breath. ‘Have some tea, then get your head down,’ he said tersely. ‘You’re on again at twenty hundred hours.’

‘What about McAvoy?’ I asked.

‘No.’ And when I suggested he had looked sober enough to stand a watch, he almost shouted at me. ‘I tell you, no.’

The door to McAvoy’s cabin was open as I went down the alleyway to the wardroom. He was standing there, a glass in his hand, staring at his bunk, which had an open suitcase on it and a pile of clothes. An empty drawer lay upside down at his feet. He turned slowly, sensing my presence in the doorway. ‘You’re out of luck.’ He smiled at me slyly. ‘She’s having my cabin tonight.’ He waved the glass at me. ‘Thought you’d cleaned me out, didn’t you?’ The smile broadened to a grin, but behind the grin he looked old and tired. ‘Care to join me in a drink? It’s here somewhere.’ He looked vaguely round for the bottle. ‘Well, say something, can’t you?’ His voice was suddenly petulant. ‘Bloody amateur doing my job.’

‘It’s your own fault,’ I murmured.

‘My own fault, you say.’ He nodded slowly. ‘Aye. Maybe it is.’ He looked down at the glass still clutched in his bony hand and smiled. But it was only a drawing back of the lips from yellowed teeth. There was no humour in the smile. ‘I haven’t the guts, you see, to make an end of it. Not alone. I’ve tried, but I canna do it. So …’ He lifted the glass to his lips, swallowing quickly. ‘You’re lucky. No dark Celtic streak in you.’

He stood there staring at me, and I didn’t know what to say. But there were things I wanted to ask him, and in his fuddled state I thought perhaps it was as good a moment as any. ‘You knew Colonel Holland very well, I believe.’ His bloodshot eyes were suddenly wary and hostile. ‘Miss Holland said you were his best skipper.’

‘Aye. He wouldn’t let Perenna sail with anyone but me.’ His voice was firmer, a touch of pride.

‘Would you tell me something then? As I understand it, Colonel Holland took a canoe and sailed off into the Pacific. Why?’

I thought at first he wasn’t going to answer. He was glaring at me angrily. Then, as though it were being dragged out of him, his voice quivering, he said, ‘It was the custom. When you’re too old … to lead and fight … it’s the way the old Polynesian navigators used to go when they’d come to the end of their lives. God damn it! It’s better than dying in bed, to sail away, to the horizon, going on and on until in the end you meet your Maker, still proud, still active, sailing the way you’ve always sailed.’ And he added, ‘He loved the sea. He had courage. He was the finest man … ’ He jerked back the words, turning away, tears in his eyes. ‘Blast you!’