Hammond Innes - Solomons Seal

‘I’m not exactly my own master,’ I said.

But all he replied was: ‘Tell whoever is on that radio of yours I’ll string him up in the Buka Passage if it’s reported to me that he’s been operating key. One word in Morse about that airfield being open, and he’s a dead man. You tell him. And don’t you fool around with me. Just think of Perenna, your own future, where you stand in all this. Over and out.’

That was the end of it, and I looked down at Simon Saroa, his face pale in the glare of the overhead light bulb, his hand not quite steady as he put the mike back on its bracket. ‘Three trucks were blocking the runway.’ His deep voice shook slightly. ‘They are clearing them now.’ His eyes lifted to mine, a frightened stare as he asked, ‘What do I do about Port Moresby? Inspector Mbalu asks me to try and contact somebody right away.’

I didn’t know what to say, and before I could reach any decision, Hans Holland’s voice came out of the loudspeaker again, wanting to know the strength of the force now holding the airfield. ‘Here we reckon there were some twenty-five to thirty police captive on your ship. With six guards, plus Teopas, only seven of them can be armed. That correct? Over.’ I hesitated, wondering whether to say there were more, but it didn’t seem to matter very much. I told him his information was about right, but of course, the effectiveness of the force now in control of the airfield would depend on the weapons they had captured. He didn’t like that, but since I had nothing more to add, he signed off. I was back with Simon Saroa then and his question, which I couldn’t answer. In the end I told him it was nothing to do with me. It was between him and his superiors to decide whether he should risk his neck or not, and to the inevitable question, Did I think Mr Holland would carry out his threat, I told him, ‘Yes.’

What else could I tell him? I left him and went to my cabin. Let the government officials sort this one out. I lay down on my bunk and tried to think, but apart from organising enough food to keep us going, there didn’t seem much I could do but stay here and wait upon events. If the operator decided to send and troops were flown into Buka, then it could be a messy business. And where did that leave me? I couldn’t help smiling to myself, remembering how I’d let my imagination build a future on the strength of Hans Holland’s offer. Captain of an ore carrier … Bloody hell! I’d be lucky to come out of this alive the way things were at the moment.

I fell asleep shortly after that. At least, I suppose I was asleep. My eyes were closed, I know that because I remember opening them as the light flashed on my face. And I was dreaming, my mind chaotic, with a picture of Tim Holland as I had seen him in that photograph, but sitting in the sea with the circular huts all belching smoke through their thatch and one of them in flames with pigs like little balls of fire running out of it. He was sitting propped against a pillow in the water, whittling away at a piece of wood. Suddenly he looked up at me, his eyes empty sockets, his hands proffering me the piece of wood, and at that moment a booming voice — ‘Kill them now …’ A gun stammering, and it wasn’t Teopas who was slammed off balance, falling backwards; it was Hans. Hans Holland with his red hair, dancing on the balls of his feet, and Perenna holding the gun, a chattering stream of staccato bullets building to a cry I could not understand, the gun swinging, the barrel pointing, pointing at me and blasting light, and I woke suddenly, in a sweat, my eyes blinded, my mouth open.

The torch shifted, and I heard a voice say, ‘On your feet now.’ A hard voice, and the face in the torchlight bending over me, hard with red hair flaring. His hand shook me roughly, ‘Come on now. I want the engines started and the anchor up.’

I lay there, staring up at him, wondering how the hell he’d got here. ‘What time is it?’

‘Coming up to six. Soon be dawn.’

I swung my feet out of the bunk and sat up. ‘How did you get here?’

But all he said was: ‘Malulu here will be watching you. Get some clothes on. You’re going up to Queen Carola.’ He turned abruptly and left the cabin.

‘Mi lukaut long yupela.’ Malulu jabbed the hard steel muzzle of his machine pistol into my ribs. I pulled on my shorts and a shirt, slipped into my canvas deck shoes and went on to the bridge. The ship seemed full of men being herded at gunpoint down into the tank deck, and lying alongside was the tug I had last seen in Anewa.

‘Yu get engines started,’ Malulu said, waving his gun at me.

I put the engine-room telegraph to Stand-by and to my surprise got an instant response, a gentle vibration under my feet. I wished I could have had a cold shower. I was sticky with sweat and my brain still sluggish. Even a tug couldn’t have got him up here in under four hours. I cursed myself then for not remembering that VHF has a range of only 30 to 40 miles. When the news that the airport had been taken was broadcast, he must have been more than halfway up the coast already. Which meant, of course, that he’d had some sort of radio contact set up between Anewa and Queen Carola so that by midday, at the latest, he would have known I hadn’t arrived and that something had gone wrong. I ought to have anticipated that. Instead, I had turned in, and now, under cover of darkness, he had boarded the ship and regained control of her so quietly that it was only his torch on my face that had woken me.

The anchor was coming up. A helmsman took his place at the wheel. Luke came into the wheelhouse, his jet-black skin shining with sweat, his heavy lips jutting, his eyes sullen. He went through on to the bridge wing, stood for a moment staring for’ard, then came back and reported, ‘Anchor upan’down now.’ He came and stood beside me. ‘Kepten Holland, he is on the tug. Also Miss P’renna.’

I went to the bridge wing, Malulu at my heels. Down on the tug Jona was standing at the open entrance to the caboose, staring up at our slab side, watching one of the Buka men fooling around with his gun. He didn’t see me. But Perenna did. She was sitting on the tug’s bulwarks, close up near the bows, and for a moment our eyes met. Then, very deliberately, she turned away to stare fixedly at the bos’n, who was coming down off the foredeck after checking that the anchor was properly stowed.

Back in the wheelhouse, I found Mac had been brought in. His wrists were tightly bound, his lips swollen, one eye half closed. He was so beaten up, or else so drunk, he could hardly stand, the skin of his face like paper turned yellow with age. ‘What’ve you done with it?’ he mumbled through his bruised lips.

‘Done with what?’ I asked.

‘The letter, of course.’ His eyes creased up so that I think he was attempting a grin. ‘I told him how we went up to the house on Madehas and opened the bloody safe. It got him mad as hell. Said he’d have it back if he had to kill me for it. You’ve hidden it, I hope.’

I shook my head, trying to remember what I had done with it.

‘That’s right,’ he mumbled. ‘Keep your mouth shut. Don’t admit to anything.’ His eyes switched apprehensively to the door, then back to me, and again that mockery of a grin. ‘I havena got the guts, you see. Not any longer. Need another bottle at least. One more bottle’d put me right out.’ He shook his head. ‘No more bottles now. Not a drop left.’ There were tears in his eyes.

We had started to drift. Dawn was breaking fast, a beautiful, rain-fresh, cloudless dawn, and I could see the shore trees sliding past. The tug hooted, a sudden blast of steam at the funnel, and the stern warp tightened, the propeller churning a wake as she began to stem the current, holding both ships steady. Hans Holland appeared on the catwalk below, moving with a rolling gait, his head down, his hands clenched. He climbed to the bridge wing, stopped just inside the doorway, staring round the wheelhouse, then came across to me. ‘McAvoy tells me you’ve got a letter of mine.’ I didn’t know how to answer him, so I kept my mouth shut. ‘From a man named Lewis.’