Hammond Innes - Solomons Seal

‘And once we’re past the Cape it’s open sea again.’ She looked up from the chart. ‘Then he’ll go to his bunk till he relieves you again at four.’

‘Probably.’

‘That means you’ll have two hours alone here.’ She straightened up. ‘All right then. I’ll check with you at o-two-hundred, and if there’s nobody about … ’ She turned to go, but then she said, her voice a little cold and distant, ‘No need for you to be involved. I should be able to manage it on my own.’

Cape Deliverance was broad on the beam when I came into the wheelhouse at midnight, the radar trace showing our distance off 9 miles. Holland had already altered course to 350°. The tension had eased out of him, and he stayed chatting to me until we were clear of the Cape and into the open waters of the Solomon Sea. Then he went below, leaving me with nothing to do except admire the brightness of the stars. The port bridge wing door was open, a warm breeze ruffling the pages of the Admiralty Pilot.

I had just entered up the log for 02.00 when Perenna appeared, dressed in jeans and a dark top. ‘I’ve had a look round. Everybody’s asleep.’ Her voice was low, a little strained.

‘Have you got a torch?’

‘Yes, and tools. They’re in my cabin.’

I hesitated, but only for a moment. The wire fastenings might be difficult for her, and now that I was rested the urge to know what was in those crates had returned. ‘Tell the helmsman I’m going to check the vehicles. I’ll be gone about ten minutes, quarter of an hour.’ He was a Buka Islander, and she relayed the message in Pidgin; then I followed her to her cabin, picked up the tools, and we climbed down into the tank deck. It was very quiet down there, the sound of the sea rushing past the ship’s sides muted. Somewhere a chain was rattling, and the black bulks of the Haulpaks, outlined against the stars, seemed to sway with the movement of the ship. There was nobody anywhere for’ard of the bridge housing to challenge us. I chose the starb’d truck, knowing the canvas back was easy to unfasten. Once inside I shone the torch on the first of the crates and set to work with hammer and chisel.

It took longer than I had expected. The top of the crate was very securely fastened, long 4-inch nails, and the steel walls of the tank deck echoed to the sound of my hammering, the reverberations magnified in the still night. I felt nervous, remembering the way Teopas had hauled me out of the back of the truck two days before, so that I found myself glancing up every now and then, half expecting that deep voice to challenge me out of the darkness. Before I could prise open the wooden top, the two securing wires had to be severed. There were no wire cutters in the toolbag she had borrowed from the engine-room. I had to use a hacksaw, and it took time. ‘Hurry,’ she whispered as the first wire parted with a twang. ‘The helmsman comes from the same village as Teopas.’

Her face was very close to mine, sweat shining on her freckles in the torchlight as she levered at the top of the case, using the long cold chisel. ‘Is that important?’ I asked.

She pushed her hair away from her eyes. ‘They’re in a funny mood. You must have noticed it.’ And she added in a fierce undertone, ‘I don’t trust the Buka people when they’re like that.’

With her hair pushed back I could see the scar in the beam of the torch. ‘Is Teopas responsible for their mood?’

‘He’s their leader, yes.’ She straightened up for a moment, easing her back. ‘There’s something brewing. I don’t know what. Something …’

The second wire parted. I took the hammer and chisel from her, and in a moment the nails were pulling out, the whole top of the case lifting. I put all my weight on the chisel, and my end came loose, enabling me to get my hands under it and force it back, the nails at the other end tearing out of the wood. Whatever it was in the case it wasn’t bottles, and it wasn’t anything in cartons. The thick brown covering paper yielded to the touch. She tore at it with her hands, ripping it clear. ‘Oh, my God!’ She stood frozen, shocked into immobility, staring at the contents. ‘Guns!’

They were neatly chocked into wooden supports, half a dozen machine pistols in the top layer, the plastic grips gleaming, the dull steel coated with grease.

She looked up at me. ‘Do you think he knew? He must have known.’

‘He probably guessed.’

‘All these cases. And another truckful of them.’ She was peering into the back. ‘And there’ll be ammunition, too.’ She turned to me. ‘Who’s getting them? Where are they being sent?’

‘No idea.’ I started folding the lid back. ‘If you’re in the armaments business, I don’t imagine you ask yourself questions like that.’

‘He’ll have to ditch them.’ Her voice was trembling. ‘I won’t be a party to it. Automatic weapons like that. They’ll land up in the hands of terrorists — innocent people getting killed. God! What a fool! No wonder he didn’t want me here. What a bloody stupid mindless fool to get mixed up in a thing like this!’ And before I could stop her, she had jumped to the deck and disappeared among the black shapes of the Haulpaks.

The small hours of a night watch are not the moment I would choose to face up to a decision involving moral principles. There was nothing to occupy my mind, the course set, no navigation required … time passing as I paced back and forth, wondering what the hell to do and conscious all the time that there were guns on board and a sullen crew — an explosive mixture.

Every now and then I glanced at the clock, the minutes dragging, wondering whether she would persuade her brother to get rid of them, expecting him to burst in on me at any moment. Suddenly the deck lights came on, and there were men down there at the for’ard end of the tank deck, dark figures in the shadows gathered round the back of that starb’d truck. The coxs’n’s head appeared, coming up the ladder from below and storming into the wheelhouse. ‘Yu. Yu opim em kes?’ He was naked to the waist, the muscles rippling under the velvet skin of his bare arms as he stood glaring at me. ‘Why yu do it? Cargo bilong Buka pipal. I tell yu before, bilong Buka Co’prative. Where I find Kepten Holland, in his cabin?’

I nodded, too surprised at the man’s anger, his proprietorial sense of outrage, to say anything.

‘Okay, I tokim. An’ yu’ — he was still glaring at me — ‘yu stay out of cargo deck. Nobody go on cargo deck — nobody, yu savvy, only Buka men.’ And he went through into the alleyway. I heard the door of Holland’s cabin thrown open, the sound of voices, then silence, only the murmur of the engines, the rattle of the cups on the ledge below the porthole.

A few minutes later Holland came in. ‘I’d like a word with you. Not here, in my cabin.’ He was wearing sandals and cotton trousers, nothing else, his face pale and that muscle twitching along the line of his jaw. I followed him into his cabin, the ceiling light blinding. There was a bottle and glasses on the desk, and Perenna was there, sitting withdrawn and very still, the tension in her filling the cabin. ‘I thought I’d better tell you. There’s nothing I can do about it.’ He had seated himself on his bunk, his body slumped. ‘By morning it’ll be all over the ship. Everybody will know we’re carrying guns.’ He reached for his glass as though to a lifeline. ‘Perenna wants me to ditch them. But I can’t. I can’t do that.’ And he added, ‘She thought I should tell you.’

I looked at her, expecting her to say something, but she remained silent, drawing on a cigarette in quick, short puffs. I hadn’t seen her smoking before. ‘What’s their destination?’ I asked.