THURSDAY'S ORCHID (21 page)

Then, about ten minutes later, they surfaced. The inflatable came racing in, the motor in neutral as it reached them. Notes were taken by one of the men in the
inflatable; hands were pointed by the divers. The two black-suited men hung on to the rolling craft as it slowly drifted in towards the reef. Then they went down again and the rubber boat once more skidded out to open water.

Twice more she raced in, once on the starboard side and then on the port. Half an hour beneath the
Syrius
would be a nightmare of rushing water and grinding coral. Then, their survey completed, the tanks were hauled inboard as the divers rolled up over the stern of the inflatable and it raced back along the surf, heading back to the break in the reef.

The three Dutchmen on board
Syrius
left us the same way that they had boarded; but with the onset of evening the swell had subsided and there was now little risk to life and limb.

It’s amazing how one’s spirits rise with the calming of the sea. The entire ship had taken on a peaceful air. The crew had stopped
their snarling, their spitting on the deck and their lounging against the bulwarks. The officers were cheerful once more. Perhaps it wasn’t just the calm silent sea and the going down of the sun that had brought it about. The assured confidence of the Dutchmen, their presence, their activity, and the company of the tug may have helped as well.

We stood at the bow and watched as the rubber boat slipped through the narrow passage and returned to
Pacific Ranger
. She may have been small, compared to us, but now she seemed to give forth an aura of power, of hidden strength, of capability.

Flint joined us on the foredeck as we gazed towards the friendly lights of the tug lying snug inside the lagoon. He stood deep in thought, a half smile dimpling his weather-lined face. That look gave me more confidence than ten tugs standing inshore.

“What’s the verdict, Captain?” I asked, knowing that several of the others were bursting to ask him the same question, but not game to risk his sharp tongue. “Are we going to get off?”

“A little too early to say at this stage,” he replied, rocking slowly on the balls of his feet.

“What did they say?” I asked.

“They reckon they stand a fair chance, if they get the job.” The sunset sparkled in his eyes as he turned to face the ship. “The cargo will have to be shifted do
wn to the stern. Some of it may have to be jettisoned. We’re carrying too much weight. And there’ll be a hell of a lot of tackle to be rigged. But yes, they think they can do it, but it will be a close thing.”

At the suggestion of cargo being tossed over the side, my heart sank, the rest of his words a blur.

“What do you mean by
jettisoning cargo
?” I asked, my voice coming out as a croak.

He gave me a puzzled look. “Why should you be wo
rried? Your small amount of luggage will be safe.”

“I was thinking of Pete Cameron’s containers,” I said after a pause that had lasted too long. “I was hoping we could get the meat to Singapore for him.”

He smiled. “Oh, those. No, they should be okay. Although if we can’t shift the containers around to the stern, they may have to go over the side.” He didn’t appear in the least worried. His concern was the ship. “No, it’s the sugar in the forward hold that will have to be dumped. Probably the whole lot of it.”

“Do you think
that’ll be enough to lighten her?” I asked.

They were all crowding around now, listening to every word, even those Malays who claimed they couldn’t speak a word of English.

“Maybe, maybe not. We won’t know until we’ve tried. If that’s not enough, then the meat will go and probably some of the general cargo and maybe even the wool. It all depends on weight and value.”

The wool! If only I could swing it so they tossed the other consignments of wool over the side, and left ours alone. If it came to the crunch I might have to reveal myself and offer some large bribes.

“Of course,” he continued. “If it reaches that stage, the salvors would probably try to off-load the wool on to another vessel. The wool’s fairly easy to manage and could stand a certain amount of salt-spray. But the meat can’t be trans-shipped. Once you turn off the freezers, or leave the doors open for any length of time, the health authorities would condemn the lot.”

The wool was safe, for the time being. I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Well,” I said. “If I can be of any help in getting rid of the sugar, just ask. When do you think you’ll be starting?”

It was time to start crawling. It was one way
of making sure that he might keep me informed of what would be happening.

“It won’t be m
e in charge,” he replied. “It’ll be out of my hands, if they get the job. The salvors will take complete control of the ship from the moment the contract is signed until they hand us back to owners at a safe port – or they give up. My only responsibility will be to see that my crew follows instructions, but thanks for the offer. I’ll see it gets passed on.”

Without another word he strode off towards the accommodation section, hands deep in his pockets.

The evening meal was almost a festive affair. Even the cook was in good spirits, and from the colour of his cheeks he had probably been into the bottle as well. The steward was beaming. The entire crew were buzzing with excitement. Word had gone around the ship that the tug would pull us off in a couple of days and we would be back on the voyage to Singapore. There was even wine on the table.

The evening seemed to reflect the lightening of our spirits, stars clear in the night sky and hardly a cloud to be seen. Even the sea had lost its inky blackness and was now shimmering silver in the moonlight. It was a night for lovers, and for those in peril on the sea seeking comfort.

I was out on the boat deck enjoying a quiet drink by myself. The happy faces in the lounge had been getting me down. I was thinking of Pete, and missing his easy company. He hadn’t been a brilliant conversationalist, but he spoke my language. We were of the same generation, and laughed at the same jokes.

Ah well, I thought to myself, an early night would not go amiss. The arrival of the tug, the growing excitement as we followed the salvors from hold to hold, watching as they pointed and talked, and gaining the hope that we might finally get off the reef had all contributed to my
weariness. As I moved to the ladder leading down to the next deck, a cool breeze from the air-conditioning system brushed my neck. But I was deep in thought, and the opening door behind me hadn’t registered.

The blow
thudded into my back and the stair-rail bit into my side as I hurtled forward, flying through space, thrust by some unseen hand: flung sideways over the rail towards the steel deck below. My arms flailed out. The stanchion hit my wrist. I twisted my hand and grabbed the rough piping as I went down, the sky spinning.

My glass crashed to the deck, splintering into a thousand pieces. The stanchion wrenched itself loose from my grip as my arm straightened out; but it had broken my fall. I landed on the deck below, on my feet for an instant and then toppled sideways. The broken glass crunched as I rolled over it, the hard steel biting into my shoulder as I smashed against the bulwark; shaken; stunned.

By the time I managed to pick myself up off the deck, all was quiet. He had vanished as silently as he had come.

He must have been watching as I had settled down on the boat deck, then waited on the other side of the door for his opportunity; and when I had turned to leave he had struck with a ruthlessness that was frightening.

I felt small and alone.

Why did he want me dead? I knew why. But how could my death give him the cargo of marijuana? And why wreck the ship? There was no sense in any of it. I moved to my cabin, studying each shadow before passing it by.

Once more my security arrangements were in force, the door blockaded. I had grown lax, but it was certain now that he was more anxious than ever for my death.

Tired though I was, I couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t just the pain from the bruises that made me toss and turn all night.
The nightmares kept recurring: the bursting bales, the grinning skull and the dark, broad-brimmed, feather-plumed hat.

I awoke exhausted, and drenched in perspiration.

By mid-morning the news was all over the ship. The contract had been given to the Dutch tug. It made nonsense of the captain’s contention that the salvors and underwriters would argue for days over terms and conditions.

Pacific Ranger
was brought around and took up station astern of us. Men and equipment were ferried over and the work began.

The next four days were spent in shifting and ditching cargo.

The sugar was the first to go over the side. There were still a great many layers of bags which seemed to be dry, but the whole lot was condemned to be cast into the sea. It was a basic rule of salvage. If there is a chance of cargo being rejected by underwriters as damaged beyond commercial value, then it has to be dumped. The salt-water contamination had threatened the whole shipment and it all had to go.

If the deck-boards
had been put in on loading in Cairns it would have been only the bottom layers that would have been dumped. I was glad that they hadn’t, for with all the sugar thrown overboard there was more chance of getting the
Syrius
off without having to trans-ship any of the wool.

I should have kept my mouth shut. I was now an unpaid labourer, sweating in the forward hold, dragging bags of wet sugar into the centre of that deep steel chamber and dropping them into
the cargo nets. The winch-men, sitting in the shade of the winch-houses, moved the levers that raised each load and swung it over the gunwales, dumping the sodden mass into the surf.

For two days I did nothing but drag and lift bags of sugar. My muscles no longer belonged to my body. They screamed at me for rest; begged me to stop, and refused to go on; but there was no way I was going to quit; no way I was going to give the crew the satisfaction of watching me crawl away, beaten, to my cabin. If they could hack the pace, then so could I.

Two days and nearly to the bottom of the stack. A metre of water in the floor of the hold, rising with the tide: dirty, thick, oily water, brown from the contents of a hundred or more burst bags; smelling of bunker fuel and dead coral; and still more bags to be removed, dragged along by hand, two of us to a bag, up on to the island of sugar in the middle of the hold, up on to the slings; slow, filthy, and tedious.

The midday whistle blew. My shift dropped the bags they were hauling and shuffled
through the thick syrup towards the foot of the ladder leading up through the well to the deck. There was no need for me to hurry. The food would still be there when I arrived. I waited until they were out of sight and sat down on the mound for a moment to catch my breath. It was good to rest and do nothing for a couple of minutes.

A shadow passed across the bags in front of me
, but it meant nothing to my tired brain. It stopped and grew larger, and I waited for the voice to call down and remind me that it was time for lunch. The shadow disappeared and then came back. I looked up to see who it was, and was just in time to see the bag of sugar as it toppled over the hatch-coaming high above my head. For that split-second I was rooted to the spot and then finally my brain passed on the message to move, and to move fast. I ducked sideways, rolling on to my back, and stayed there, staring up at the sky, gritting my teeth, trying not to move a muscle as the bag hit the mound beside me with a sickening thud.

He would either run or look down to see if he had been successful this third time. I waited. A mass of dark hair came into view and then the face, peeping over the edge. He had l
ooked: a Malay; a member of the deck crew, one of the winch operators.

The bastard had made his second mistake. The first was in killing Pete, and not me.

He disappeared and a second sack came hurtling down, missing me by centimetres as I sprang to my feet and ran to the side of the hold beneath the overhang. He was a calculating son of a bitch; intending to make sure of me; one bag to stun and a second to kill. He would look again, and know that he had failed. It wouldn’t be long before the hunt started again. But this time I would be the hunter!

I moved along the wall of the hold towards the ladder-well, knowing that he could be waiting for me at any one of the stagings. I gripped the warm steel run
gs and began my climb, eyes tilted upwards, watching the square openings far above my head, watching for anything else that might come crashing down. At every step I was ready to jump for my life, not that it would have done any good, for the well was so narrow that he couldn’t have missed. I hardly dared breathe for fear that he might hear me approaching. The last stage would be the worst. The sudden glare of sunlight might momentarily blind me. But would he think of that?

He hadn’t. The decks were clear.

And now it was my move. Let him be the one to guess, to wonder, to look over his shoulder.

I stood and took a long, slow look around
, shaking my head as though still stunned from that first bag, and then walked to the other side of the hatch-coaming from where he had thrown the two bags.