Ocean Prize (1972) (9 page)

He was driven by curiosity more than anything else, for it was no duty of his to turn out at that hour and inspect the tow. But he wanted to see for himself how things were going, whether the
India
Star
was still with them or whether the two ships had parted company in the night.

The cold wind struck him as he clawed his way towards the stern, flicking rain and spray into his face, and with the deck behaving crazily under his feet, he was obliged to move carefully from one handhold to the next. He could see the powerful electric lamp cutting a swathe of light through the darkness astern, but no one appeared to be keeping watch on the tow-rope.

He gave a shout: “Hi, there! Anyone about?”

No one answered, and he shouted again, “Anyone here? Anyone on watch?”

He had reached the after end of the poop deckhouse and had still seen no one, and he was beginning to wonder a little uneasily whether some accident had occurred, whether perhaps the man who should have been on watch had been washed overboard. With this sea running it was not impossible. He moved to the taffrail, rested his hands on it and looked at the cauldron of water below him. If anyone had gone into that it was goodbye to him, that was for certain.

He was turning away from the rail when he heard Trubshaw’s voice.

“Gotcher knife with you this time, Chippie?”

Trubshaw had come up behind him, and before he could make a move to defend himself Trubshaw’s iron fist crashed into the side of his neck. It was like a club hitting him. He staggered under the impact, clutched at the rail for support, failed to make contact, lost his balance as the deck tilted, and fell heavily. He tried to get up, and Trubshaw slammed him down again with his foot, stamping viciously and grinding his heel into Orwell’s ribs.

“Nobody pulls a knife on me an’ gets away with it. I been watchin’ you, Chippie. I been watchin’ an’ waitin’. Now I gotcher where I wancher, an’ I’m really goin’ t’make you pay for wadjew done.”

He began to kick Orwell. Orwell rolled over and felt the stab of Trubshaw’s toe in the small of his back. He stretched out his right arm and got one of the rails under his hand. He gripped it and pulled himself up. Trubshaw attempted to kick him again, but the movement of the deck took him off balance; he staggered and was saved from falling only by the wall of the deckhouse. By the time he had recovered
Orwell was on his feet, gasping and still slightly dazed, his back against the taffrail.

Trubshaw was angry; he rushed in again and swung his right fist at Orwell’s jaw. Orwell saw the blow coming and instinctively shifted his head to the right. Trubshaw’s fist slid past Orwell’s left ear and the momentum carried him on so that the full weight of his body crashed into Orwell, driving the carpenter back against the rail. Trubshaw dropped both hands on to the taffrail, one on each side of Orwell, and held him pinned there, unable to break free.

“I gotcher now,” he grunted. “You don’t get away this time.”

Orwell’s arms were locked against his sides. He tried to bring his knee up but he was hampered by the long oilskin coat that he was wearing. Trubshaw was beginning to exert pressure, and Orwell could hear him panting, could smell the unpleasant odour of Trubshaw’s breath.

“I’m goin’ t’make you really squirm, Chippie. I’m goin’ t’make you squeal, you bastard.”

“Don’t be a fool, Trub,” Orwell said. “Give over.”

Trubshaw gave a sneering laugh. “Beginnin’ to ’urt, is it? Well, you squeal, just you squeal; then we’ll see.”

He increased the pressure, forcing Orwell back over the taffrail. Orwell was in real pain, and he wondered how much further Trubshaw would go if he did not squeal for mercy. It went against the grain to plead a favour from such a man, to admit defeat; but better that than a broken spine.

“All right, Trub, you win.” He was gasping with the agony in his back. “Give over now. You got me licked.”

Trubshaw laughed again but did not relax his grip. “Well, that’s sumfin’. That’s gettin’ on the way. But it don’t amount to squealin’. So squeal, you bastard, squeal.”

“No,” Orwell said. “Damned if I will. To hell with that.”
And this time he managed to bring his knee up into Trubshaw’s stomach and heard the man grunt. It must have hurt Trubshaw, but it did not have the desired effect of making him release his grip. Just the opposite in fact, for it seemed merely to enrage him, and the pressure increased until it was scarcely bearable.

Orwell was bent back over the taffrail like a bow, and he knew that something had to break. He could hear the water churning past below him, and he wondered whether Trubshaw had so completely lost control of his temper that he really meant to kill him, to throw him overboard and let the sea take him. Orwell knew that it was only too probable; when Trubshaw was in a rage he just went berserk.

Despite himself, Orwell gave a cry of pain; the agony in his back was beyond all bearing. “Trub! For Christ’s sake!”

He might have saved his breath. Trubshaw was past being appealed to, past reason. Orwell knew in that moment that he was going to die. And he knew that he was afraid of death.

It was a moment when the wind eased for an instant; a strange lull when the banshee howling dropped to a sob. In that momentary lull both men heard the other sound—the humming of the wire hawser. It seemed to get through to Trubshaw, through the wall of rage that encased him, to impinge on his consciousness. He turned his head to one side, listening, yet still not slackening the pressure.

Orwell listened too, and the humming noise rose in pitch, rose to a high, thin whine, almost like a human scream. And then there was a sudden crack, and there was no more humming or whining. But something came whipping back from the fairlead, something thin and sinuous like a striking snake; and it lashed Trubshaw across the back of the neck, tearing through the sou’wester and through the collar of his
coat, tearing through to the flesh and tearing that too. And Trubshaw released Orwell, and flung his hands up to his neck and went staggering back, shrieking.

Orwell straightened his back, and all the vertebrae seemed to be crying out in protest. He hung on to the taffrail and heard Trubshaw screaming; and he looked at the fairlead and saw that there was no hawser passing through it now. But there was a length of wire rope lying on the deck, frayed at the end, and perhaps with some blood on it if it had been possible to see.

He turned his head slowly and looked down the pale corridor astern where the light was shining, and he caught a fleeting glimpse of the other ship. Then she was gone, swallowed up in the darkness, and he did not see her again.

“I
t was
bound to happen,” Loder said. “In a sea like this there was too much strain. It wasn’t even a new hawser.”

He was talking to Madden in the saloon, drinking a well-earned cup of coffee and resting his legs. After a long watch in rough weather the legs got very tired; they were under stress the whole time; it was as bad as a crossr-country run.

“I hear one of the seamen got caught by the back-lash from the hawser,” Madden said. “Is it bad?”

“He’ll live. It took a slice out of the back of his neck, but he was lucky: it could have blinded him. The carpenter happened to be standing by, which was another piece of luck for Trubshaw; Orwell was able to help him. The steward’s looking after him now.”

He drank some more coffee, warming both hands on the cup and feeling the warmth running down inside him.

Madden said: “I suppose now we make for home.”

“No,” Loder said.

“No?”

“Didn’t you know? We’re going to hunt for the lost sheep.”

“The
India
Star
?”

“None other.”

But we couldn’t pick her up again in this.” Madden
turned his head slightly, ear cocked to the sounds of the gale which penetrated to the interior of the ship. “Even if we found her, even if she isn’t sunk, it just wouldn’t be possible.”

“Agreed. But the plan is to wait until the weather eases and then take her in tow again as soon as we find her. If we find her.”

“It’s impossible.”

“Not impossible. Just crazy. Odds of a million to one against. But the Old Man’s dead set on getting that ship.” He drained his cup, took a small cigar from a case in his pocket and lit it. He tilted his head back and let smoke drift from his mouth. It put him in mind of the smoke coming from the hole in the decks of the
India
Star.
He wondered whether that fire was still burning, or whether it had been quenched by the sea, swallowed up with the ship and the cargo. “And of course we all know why, don’t we, Chief?”

“Do we?” Madden said.

Loder gave a laugh. “Oh, come off it, Chief. Don’t pretend you don’t know as well as I do that getting that salvage money is his last chance of saving the Company.”

“Is that what you think?” Madden peered at Loder with his anxious, watery eyes.

“I wouldn’t mind taking a bet on it.”

“Yes,” Madden said, thinking it over, “I suppose you could be right. If he is in difficulty—”

“Oh, he is. No doubt about it.”

“If he is in difficulty, it would answer his problem. A ship like that, with the kind of cargo she’s carrying, must be worth a fortune. It would solve everything.” Madden’s voice dropped almost to a whisper. “Everything.”

“But it won’t.”

Madden’s head jerked up, his eyes once again searching Loder’s. “Why not?”

“Because we’ll never take the ship in. Not now. If there ever was a chance—and it was a pretty slim one at best—it went west when that tow-rope parted. Now the chance isn’t just slim: it doesn’t exist.”

“I suppose not.” Madden sounded depressed.

“We may as well forget about it now.”

Madden sighed heavily. “I suppose so.”

But George Barling had not forgotten it. As long as there was one small fragment of hope remaining Barling would cling to it. Even if the odds were, as Loder had said, a million to one against him, Barling would not give up. He had seen salvation on the end of a tow-rope and he meant to see it there again if that were humanly possible.

He was well aware, nevertheless, that in the prevailing conditions it would be useless to search for the
India
Star.
Even if they found her it would be quite impossible to get another hawser fixed. So the only thing to do was to hang about in the area until the gale abated, then make a search. The
India
Star
would have drifted of course, but they could make a rough calculation of the likely direction and amount of the drift, and allow for it. He was aware that Loder thought it was a waste of time, but he was not interested in what Loder thought. The decision was for him to make, and he had made it. With her propeller turning over just fast enough to give steerage way, the
Hopeful
Enterprise
turned her head to the wind and prepared to ride out the storm.

Trubshaw was in the hospital amidships. The hospital was a small, white-painted cabin with two bunks, and Trubshaw had it to himself. Orwell went along at midmorning
smoko to see how he was getting on. He found Trubshaw lying on his back with a lot of white bandage swathed about his neck. There was a growth of stubble on his face, but the skin looked pale, as though drained of blood.

He did not turn his head when Orwell walked in; it was doubtful whether he could have done so; but his eyes moved. Orwell closed the door and crossed to the bunk.

“How are you feeling, Trub?”

Trubshaw looked up at him and did not answer at once; and when he did speak it was in a voice so hoarse and weak, it hardly seemed like his.

“I feel bloody terrible.”

“You’re lucky to be alive.”

“Lucky?”

“And if it comes to that,” Orwell continued, “I’m lucky to be alive too. You’d have killed me, wouldn’t you?”

The bunk was moving like a seesaw. Trubshaw groaned. He seemed to be in pain.

“You would, wouldn’t you?” Orwell said, hanging on to the tubular iron framework and bringing his black-bearded face closer to Trubshaw’s. “That’s the truth, isn’t it? You’d have pitched me overboard.”

“No,” Trubshaw said. “You can’t pin that on me.”

Orwell glanced towards the door and back at Trubshaw. “Why trouble to deny it? There’s only the two of us here. And we both know.”

“No.”

“We both know you were so mad you’d have broke my back and tipped me over the taffrail if that tow-rope hadn’t parted and given you a smack. That’s what saved my life. But it was no thanks to you.”

“’Ave you told anyone?”

“No, I haven’t told anyone.”

“Are you goin’ to?”

“I’ve not made up my mind.”

“Nobody’d believe you.”

“People who know you would. People who know what a vicious bastard you are.”

Trubshaw was silent, staring up at Orwell. Then he said: “You ain’t goin’ to tell nobody, Chippie.”

“Maybe not,” Orwell said. “But that’s not to say it’s all forgive and forget. I’m not a forgiving man, Trub.” He remembered that moment when he had known he was going to die. He remembered being afraid. Trubshaw had made him afraid; it was easier to forgive the physical injury than that.

“So wotcher goin’ to do abaht it?” There was a more truculent note in Trubshaw’s hoarse voice now.

Orwell tugged reflectively at his beard. “Well, let’s see. I might do summat right here and now. You’re as helpless as a baby lying there. Suppose I was to slip a knife into you.”

“You wouldn’t do it,” Trubshaw said; but he was not quite so truculent. He seemed uneasy. “You wouldn’t get away with it.”

“No reason why I shouldn’t. Nobody knows I’m here. Nobody saw me come in. Nobody’ll see me go out. I’d say there’s plenty of others in this ship that wouldn’t cry their eyes out if you snuffed it. Plenty of suspects, like in all the best detective yarns. No proof though. Think of that, Trub.”

“You wouldn’t do it,” Trubshaw said again; he seemed to be trying to convince himself.

“No?” Orwell put his right hand behind his back and drew the knife from its pigskin sheath. He held it in front of Trubshaw’s eyes. “You’ve seen this before.”

Trubshaw stared at the knife and did not move. Orwell laid his right hand on Trubshaw’s chest, holding the knife so that its point was just touching the soft underpart of Trubshaw’s jaw where the bandage ended.

“I could press it in there and slit your throat. No trouble at all.”

Trubshaw said nothing, still did not move. He looked at Orwell with fear growing in his eyes, and his hands lay motionless on the blanket that covered him. He did not attempt to raise them and grip Orwell’s wrist, to try to wrest the knife from him; he seemed to know that it would have been useless. Orwell had merely to thrust once and the knife would be in his throat.

They remained thus for a full minute, staring into each other’s eyes and not speaking a word. Then Orwell gave a laugh and put the knife back in its sheath. Trubshaw allowed his pent-up breath to escape with a hiss.

Orwell laughed again. “You thought I would do it, didn’t you?”

“No.”

“You’re a bloody liar. I could see it in your eyes.”

“So you’re a mind-reader as well as a carpenter.”

“I can see when a man’s afraid. You were afraid.”

Trubshaw did not continue with the argument. He appeared to be suffering. There were lines of pain around his mouth.

“But why should I trouble to kill you?” Orwell said. “You’ll die anyroad. You’ll be dead before we reach port.”

“No. I’m not goin’ to die.”

“You don’t look good to me.”

“Of course I don’t. I oughter be in ’ospital.”

“The only hospital you’ll see is this one. With the steward to look after you. And a lot he knows about doctoring.
That neck of yours could get gangrene, and then what?”

Trubshaw’s eyes glared hatred at his tormentor, but there was apprehension in them too. There might be something in what Orwell was saying. After all, what did the steward know about medicine? It was not as if he was a qualified doctor.

“We’ll be ’ome in a few days now. I’ll get proper treatment then.”

“Home! You can put that out of your head rightaway. It’ll be weeks before we’re home at the rate we’re going.”

“Wotcher mean? We ain’t got that ’anger-on now. We oughter be makin’ good time.”

“I’ve got news for you,” Orwell said. “We’re waiting for this storm to die down, then we’re going hunting.”

“’Untin’?”

“For the hanger-on that’s not hanging on any more. And when we’ve found it we’re going to take it in tow again. You won’t be going ashore just yet.”

“Christ!” Trubshaw said. “The Old Man must be bonkers.”

Orwell grinned malevolently. “Oh, he is. But it’s not going to do you any good, is it?” He walked to the door, then turned. “Think about it, Trub. Think about dying.” He went out and closed the door behind him.

When Orwell had gone Trubshaw lay on his bunk and listened to the sounds of the ship: the creaking and groaning, the occasional clang of metal on metal, the thump of the engines. His neck hurt; it hurt like hell. Suppose Orwell was right. Suppose it did turn to gangrene. Suppose he were to die.

The idea of death frightened Trubshaw. It was all right when you were doing something active; he had never been scared of death in the wartime convoys; at least, if he had,
he had forgotten it now. But that was different; that was not like this—lying helpless, waiting for death to come and take you. “Think about dying,” Orwell had said. Trubshaw thought about it and felt sick. He was not old enough to die; he was hardly fifty; plenty of years in him yet, good years, in which to enjoy life, do things. But people died any time; nobody could guarantee you your full ration of life; so maybe the time had come for him. And what about after? Was there anything or nothing? Did you wake again like the preachers said, or were you just snuffed out like a candle? There was only one way of finding out for certain, and that was the way Trubshaw did not wish to take.

Thinking about dying, and hating the thought, Trubshaw incautiously turned his head and felt a stab of pain in his neck so fierce that he cried out with the agony of it. After that he lay very still, groaning a little, and wondering whether it was the gangrene beginning to bite.

If Sam Orwell had seen him then he would have been well satisfied with the results of his visit, very well satisfied.

The gale continued with no appreciable abatement. The
Hopeful
Enterprise
faced it, her propeller revolving slowly and the seas breaking over her bows. Spray, caught by the wind, was flung up to the bridge and spattered against the windows of the wheelhouse; halyards, stretched to the limit, vibrated like harp strings, and wailing, as of a multitude of bereaved women, rose and fell in a dismal dirge of woe.

Scotton, limited by orders of his captain to listening only, caught occasional transmissions from the
Atlantic
Scavenger,
which he carried to Barling.

“They’re in the area where the
India
Star
was last heard of, sir.”

“But haven’t sighted her?”

“No, sir. And in their last report they don’t sound very hopeful. They think that in this sea the
India
Star
has probably sunk.”

Barling nodded thoughtfully. “Is that so?”

“Well, it is rather likely, sir,” Scotton ventured to suggest.

Barling stared at him bleakly. “I do not accept that.”

“No, sir.”

“I refuse to accept it.”

“Yes, sir.” Scotton could see that Barling did not want to believe that the
India
Star
had gone down, and any suggestion that she might have done so was not going to be received with any pleasure. He decided that his most prudent course would be to go along with Barling. “I suppose a ship like that could stay afloat in spite of the damage.”

“The damage was all amidships. There is no reason at all why she shouldn’t remain afloat.”

“Of course not, sir.”

“Have you got any more on the weather?”

“Rather more promising, sir.” Scotton was glad to be able to report some good news. “The gales appear to be moving away eastward.”

“Good. As soon as conditions have moderated sufficiently we shall start searching.”

“Yes, sir,” Scotton said, and refrained from adding what he thought—that it would be a vain search.

“Did you gather what the
Atlantic
Scavenger
proposed doing?”

“Apparently they’re going to cruise around for a time; but I don’t think they’ll keep it up long. Not from the way they spoke.”

Barling hoped they would not. He did not want any competition from the tug when the weather cleared. It was fortunate
tunate that, before the tow-rope parted, the
India
Star
had at least been moved some distance from the spot where she had been originally abandoned. That meant that the
Atlantic
Scavenger
would be searching in the wrong area. It was just as well that he had had the foresight to impose strict radio silence, otherwise young Scotton might have given the whole show away.