Hammond Innes - Solomons Seal

I thought he meant Colonel Holland, but when I asked him why Colonel Holland had got himself mixed up in the Cargo Cult, he turned on me as though I had said something blasphemous. ‘No, it was the other one. Him and the Old Man, they were like as two peas. ‘Cept one of them was rotten. Aye, and something else, too-’ He frowned, groping for a word, then struck his fist against his knee. ‘Pagan. That’s what he was. Pagan bad.’ He was staring at nothing, silent, lost in the past.

‘Who?’ I asked him. ‘Who are you talking about?’

‘Red Holland, of course.’ He almost snarled the name. ‘We burned the bastard. Alive.’ His head turned, eyes staring wildly. ‘Why do you ask? He’s dead now and none of your business.’

Shocked at the violence in him, I waited, expecting him to calm down. Instead, he suddenly screamed at me, ‘Get out!’ And then, muttering to himself: ‘They’re dead, all of them dead, the schooner captains, too. Lot of silly sheep, doing what he told them. Welcomed the Nips with open arms.’ He smiled, baring his teeth as though relishing the recollection. ‘We killed all four of them, took their ships back and sailed them for the Allies. Got a medal for that, but didn’t get my ship back. Finest little schooner I ever had, and I sank her in the Buka Passage.’ He was silent then, nursing his drink, his eyes with a glazed look. Finally he whispered, ‘Get out, d’you hear? Leave me be.’

I left him then and went along the alleyway to the wheelhouse. Jona Holland was there talking to Shelvankar, his sister standing silent beside the helmsman. ‘Makes sense.’ He was staring down at the message in his hand. ‘He’ll take them up to Queen Carola, and we go straight to Anewa.’ He turned at the sight of me. ‘There’s a slight change of course. I’ve just heard from Hans. One of his RPLs is going to meet us off Shortland Island.’

‘Will Hans be on board?’ Perenna asked, her voice sounding sharp and brittle.

He nodded. ‘Looks like it. I didn’t know he was back, but he says he sailed from Carola at first light, and he’s got Sapuru on board. He’s the head of the Co-operative.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Should make the rendezvous about five this afternoon, which means we’ll be shot of those guns by nightfall and can head round the south of Bougainville to deliver the Haulpaks to the copper port.’

‘You haven’t changed your mind, then?’

He jerked his head round, staring at her angrily. ‘No. And if you want to know the destination of that cargo, you can ask Hans.’ He was already moving towards the door. ‘Work out that course, will you?’ he said to me and escaped into the alleyway.

Perenna watched him go, then gave a little shrug. I thought it was a gesture of defeat, but then she turned to me. ‘What would you do? Come on, tell me. If you were captain …’ She was staring straight at me. ‘Would you hand those cases over, just like that? Well, would you?’

‘I can’t answer that,’ I said, turning away to the chart table.

‘But I want to know. I want to know if another man would behave the way Jona is behaving.’

‘We’re all different,’ I murmured, picking up the chart ruler. ‘We behave differently. Right now I don’t see that he’s any alternative.’

‘Meaning you would never have got yourself into this sort of situation.’

I didn’t answer, bending over the chart and concentrating on the Shortland Island course, conscious all the time of her eyes still fixed on me. After a while she said, ‘Anyway, I’m glad you’re here.’ By the time I looked round she was gone.

Shelvankar gave me the rendezvous, which was off Gomai Point to the west of Shortland, and after taking some sun sights and establishing our position, I altered course to 27°. But for that damned cargo I would have been enjoying myself, standing there on the bridge of an LCT steaming through a milky haze in the Solomon Sea to a landfall on my first Pacific island. When I relieved Luke after the midday meal, Shelvankar had the ship’s radio tuned to the Brisbane station. I don’t know what its normal range was meant to be, but that morning we were receiving it loud and clear, music mostly, interspersed with local items of news and the odd interview. It must have been about three in the afternoon. I remember the faint trace of Bougainville’s Mt Taroka had been showing on the radar for ten minutes or so, and I had just fixed our position. Then the disc jockey interrupted a Heron Island waitress playing a guitar and trying to sing like Joan Baez to announce a news flash: Queensland police had traced the driver of a stolen Jaguar found abandoned in the Glass House Mountains. He had been picked up at Toowoomba with A$500 in cash on him and an air ticket to Sydney. The Jaguar had belonged to a dealer in Sydney. The police had not released the name of the man who had stolen it, only his statement that he had driven it up to Tin Can Bay to pick up the drivers of two trucks that had been shipped out from the beach at about 2 a.m. on Sunday night. The description of the ship indicates some sort of a landing craft. Police enquiries have already established that an old wartime tank landing craft of the Holland Line cleared Sydney on Saturday morning bound for Bougainville. They have alerted the PNG authorities, and Bougainville has been requested to search the vessel on arrival. The trucks are suspected of carrying contraband, possibly stolen silver. A search is now being made for the two missing drivers.

The newscast ended, and I went at once to Holland’s cabin. He wasn’t there, but then I heard his voice coming from behind the closed door of the signals office opposite. I pushed it open to find him sitting with Shelvankar at the desk, his face pale and bloodless, his hand trembling as he held the microphone to his mouth. ‘I tell you, I’ll have to think about it. Over … ’ He listened for a moment, then he said, ‘I know there’s a lot of money in it, but it’s me they’re after. They don’t know anything about you. They don’t know you’re involved. You should have told me. It’s a hell of a shock. I don’t know what’s best to do. I’ll just have to think. Over …’ And after a long pause, he nodded. ‘Well, if you’re sure they’ll stick to that if they are picked up. But I’ll keep tuned to Brisbane. If there’s nothing new comes through before we meet up, we can discuss it then, decide what we do. Over and out.’

Slowly he put down the microphone and switched off the VHF. ‘You heard the news, did you?’ He jerked his head at Shelvankar, and the little Indian sidled out. The muscle on his jaw was moving, his eyes as scared as when I had first seen him. ‘Well, come in and shut the door. I don’t know what the hell to do. Bloody stupid business. I never handled contraband, anything like that before. But guns …’ He half buried his head in his hands. ‘Christ! Everybody on the ship must have heard it.’ He dropped his hands, raising his head to stare at me again. ‘What are you going to say if they question you?’ He was like a man under sentence appealing for some way out.

‘That’s what I came to tell you.’ His eyes went blank, knowing what I was going to say. Then the door opened, and Perenna came in.

She closed it behind her, standing there, her face set as she stared down at him. ‘That settles it,’ she said. ‘You’ll have to get rid of them.’

He seemed to brace himself, shaking his head. ‘He’s already at the rendezvous, waiting. I was talking to him on the radio when that news flash came through.’ And then, speaking much faster: ‘All they know is that two trucks were loaded off the beach. They don’t know there was anything in them, and Hans says there’s no way they can find out. The drivers will say they were empty. He’ll take just the crates. I put the trucks ashore at Kieta. Empty trucks. The District Commissioner can’t make much of that. It’s not a crime. We’re always putting empty trucks ashore in the islands.’