Endangered Species (35 page)

‘You don't have any more slugs, sir?' Stevenson asked, looking down at the handful of dull brass cartridges.

‘No.' Mackinnon pulled on socks and shoes. ‘Where's Macgregor now?'

‘I left him laid out in the radio-room. He'd wrecked the place.'

‘The bastard,' Mackinnon swore. ‘They've got Rawlings, then?'

‘Yes, Macgregor was his first lookout . . .'

‘Christ . . . what do they want, the Vietnamese? Did the girl know?'

‘I know what they
don't
want. They don't want to go to Shanghai, sir.'

Something in Stevenson's voice caught Mackinnon's attention. Buttoning his shirt heavy with the stiff epaulettes of Master, Mackinnon asked, ‘And where exactly do
your
sympathies lie, Alex?'

Stevenson paused. He had been relieved to find Mackinnon unmolested. He was now anxious not to be delayed, to rush back to the bridge ladder and storm it as quickly as possible. Mackinnon's cool appraisal steadied him; besides, the Captain had never addressed him by his Christian name before.

‘Me, sir? Why, I . . .' He dropped his eyes.

‘If you're fond of the girl you can't want her given back to the Communists.'

Stevenson looked Mackinnon squarely in the eyes. ‘No, I don't. How did you know?'

A faint smile curled Mackinnon's weathered features. ‘I guessed that at six in the morning with you not in your bunk.'

‘Ah,' broke in Stevenson ruefully, ‘it wasn't quite like that.'

‘The thing is, Alex, I have no intention of taking this ship to Shanghai. Ironically, I had already decided that a wire compound on Stonecutter's Island was probably preferable to turning them over to the Chinese.'

Stevenson's face brightened. ‘That's fantastic, sir.'

‘Up to a point, perhaps,' Mackinnon said drily. He ran his thumbs round his waistband, pulling the front of his shirt tight across his paunch, ‘but Hong Kong or Shanghai, it's
my
decision, and
my
responsibility; not some bloody Glaswegian cowboy and his unlikely allies.' Mackinnon paused, then added, ‘So are you with me?'

‘Of course, sir.' Stevenson grinned, then held out the gun.

Mackinnon shook his head. ‘No, you hang on to that, just tuck it out of sight.' With a kind of fascination Mackinnon watched Stevenson's brown forearm bend as he stuck the dully gleaming pistol into his waistband. He remembered his earlier vision of a world full of gun-toting young men. It was tragic that now among them his own Second Mate had to be numbered.

God, he was becoming an old fool! Had he not long ago decided the lot of the world was turmoil and tragedy? How could he stand dithering philosophically when a few feet overhead his ship was in alien hands?

Perhaps he was already unfit for his job.

‘Come,' he snapped with sudden harshness, ‘let's go and see how to get out of this mess.'

Macgregor came to his senses through a red blur. The whole of his face throbbed and his exploring hand pulled back reflexively from the sensitive bruising. He stared at it, his eyes focussing on blood. Stevenson's battering had broken the skin over his cheekbones and his nose felt huge on a face he sensed was grotesque.

‘The
bastard
,' Macgregor groaned, but the venom had gone out of him: he had been beaten yet again. He lay back, one of life's perpetual underdogs, only then becoming aware of what he had been cheated of. His bare loins, the jeans twisted round his ankles, the sheer discomfort of his position, gradually spurred him to movement more than any motive for vengeance.

Standing, hands on the desk he had smashed earlier, he
remembered the fire axe. Very slowly it seeped into Macgregor's brain that with such a weapon he could bring an overwhelming superiority to bear upon Mister Fucking Stevenson.

For, in Macgregor's battered brain, Stevenson had had only one purpose in intervening:
he
wanted the girl. The lassie would never grass on what was going on on the ship, for she had no more desire to go to Shanghai than the others, so she would either let Stevenson screw her or fight him off – and Macgregor flattered himself that she had little fight left in her. But the thought brought him no comfort: Stevenson was a winner and the bitch would let him have her . . .

With ponderous intent Macgregor went in search of the fire axe he had discarded earlier.

On the bridge Phan Van Nui awaited the return of his two confederates. He had told them that before they dealt with any of the sleeping crew, the engine-room door had to be secured. It was at the after end of the main-deck alleyway, abaft the galley and not far from the saloon. It was from there they had heard and seen it open and close, felt the blast of warm, oily air as the boiler-suited engineers went in and out. They needed no assistance from Macgregor to devise a way of lashing the outer dogs so that no one could get out. In fact it was the simplicity with which they had discovered this fact that had led them to conceive the plan, once the rumour of their destination became fact. In the circumstance it was of no great importance. Phan did not know of the other means of access to the engine-room. The small door in the funnel was not commonly used, and although the shaft tunnel had provided entry and exit during the typhoon, Phan Van Nui did not appreciate it.

As soon as his men returned and reported the task completed it would be time to take the Captain hostage. Then they could dispense with Macgregor's help altogether.
Phan Van Nui did not trust Macgregor. Giving him the girl got him out of the way and would occupy him for long enough to complete their stratagem. Afterwards . . .

Phan Van Nui lit a cigarette and smiled. Far away in the east, unseen behind rolls of thick cloud, the sun rose.

Mackinnon left his cabin with no plan as to how he intended to recapture his ship. He was motivated by outrage and anger that anyone should have the effrontery to take it from him to the extent of leaving the pistol in Stevenson's possession. It was an irrational act in itself, but to Mackinnon the very thought of dispossession was so inimical that he wanted no fuss, no risk, no misunderstanding to attend the simple fact of his reassuming what was rightfully his.

He was not in any doubt at all that morally and legally he was in the right. He had no intention of delivering the boat people to Shanghai, but he was damned if the flouting of James Dent's ‘order' was going to be perceived by anyone as anything other than his own decision. He strode towards the foot of the ladder to the chart-room, reaching it at the same moment Phan's confederates ran up from securing the engine-room door.

The confrontation was brief. The panting Vietnamese saw before them the bulky figure of Captain Mackinnon. The alleyway light gleamed on his epaulettes and the gold-braided peak of the cap that he had seized instinctively as he left his cabin. They paused briefly at this formidable apparition and lost any initiative their sudden appearance might have gained them. The affronted Mackinnon let out a bull roar and drove at them. His huge fists reached out and each grabbed a handful of singlet, thrusting the wearers back against the bulkhead with a jarring impact. The two Vietnamese howled as their heads cracked against the steel and then, down the stairwell from the dark shadows of the bridge above, came the ear-splitting rattle and the zip and clang, the sparks and wild ricochet of automatic gunfire.

Maddened by this further outrage, his hands still on his two would-be captors, Mackinnon twisted to one side and hurled them both down the stairs to the promenade deck. They were small men, light from under-nourishment, out of breath from their exertions and fearful of the furious strength of the starched white figure assaulting them. They fell in an ungainly bundle, bruised but not seriously hurt in their ignominious tumble.

As he disposed of them, Mackinnon turned back and roared at the man on the bridge. ‘Stop firing at once!'

Stevenson had been a yard or two behind the Captain and had never made the turn round the bottom of the bridge ladder. At the terrifying burst of machine-gun fire, he had drawn back towards the Captain's cabin. The noisy effect of the ricochets in the confined space paralysed him as flying wooden splinters were flung from the door frame of a cabin in the athwartships alleyway. Already aware of the situation and fearful of the outcome, he was not encouraged by Mackinnon's fury. In the wake of the Captain, the stream of automatic fire seemed specifically directed at himself. He found himself sitting, his legs kicking back up the alleyway until he felt the coarse coir of the doormat outside Mackinnon's cabin rasp his bare thighs. At that moment Mackinnon roared out his command to cease fire.

Miraculously Phan Van Nui obeyed. His thin, reedy voice floated down into the officers' flat.

‘Who speak?'

‘This is Captain Mackinnon. I want you to know ship not go Shanghai. Ship go Hong Kong. You savvy?'

Another voice, Tam's, quickly translated and Stevenson saw the door of his cabin opened a crack. A torrent of Vietnamese poured down from the bridge above and when it was over Tam's disembodied voice, speaking in English, filled the air.

‘He says how can we trust you? You can tell us anything.'

‘He's going to have to trust me,' snapped Mackinnon
truculently, stepping forward, but an explosion of sparks and splinters burst like a small bomb at his feet where Phan's slugs cut up the composition of the decking.

Mackinnon danced backwards. Stevenson had got to his feet and crept aft. He could see Mackinnon round the stairs pressed back clear of Phan's line of fire. Phan remained out of sight to Stevenson. The movement caught Mackinnon's eye as he recovered from the gunfire.

‘Look here,' he had begun and Stevenson mouthed and gestured for him to keep talking. ‘Look here,' Mackinnon went on, ‘stop this shooting at once. You have the gun and I must negotiate with you.' Mackinnon turned to the girl whose face he could just see peeping through the slit in Stevenson's cabin door. ‘Can you explain that to him?'

She nodded and began to translate. To Mackinnon's relief the translation grew into a dialogue. His heart was hammering uncomfortably in his breast as the full import of exactly what was going on overcame his initial outrage. He was aware that the two Vietnamese he had thought he had disposed of were now behind him. They joined in the row and Mackinnon said in stentorian tones, ‘Will you tell these men, miss, that I, I,' he repeated the word, tapping his chest for emphasis and aware that their argument was subsiding and they were listening to him, ‘
I
am taking this ship to Hong Kong. Never mind what you have been told. It is true we were ordered to Shanghai, but now it is all changed.' He thought fast: ‘Because of the typhoon we cannot go to Shanghai.' He paused, sensing a lowering of tension. ‘You tell them.' Perhaps Stevenson's ploy, whatever it was, would not be needed. Mackinnon wanted to avoid the young man being tempted into foolish heroics, knowing his ancient pistol was no match for the automatic weapon held by the man above.

Stevenson had retreated into the Captain's cabin. In addition to the door into the officers' flat and the internal ladder to the chart-room, there was a door leading directly on to the
boat-deck. It led out under the ladder to the starboard bridge-wing and Stevenson reached the top of this and lifted his head cautiously above the level of the deck to locate Phan's exact whereabouts.

To Stevenson's relief the Vietnamese was half-hidden; standing at the head of the chart-room stairwell, only his back and one elbow could be seen through the open wheelhouse door. Cautiously Stevenson moved upwards. Once on the bridge-wing he could pad swiftly to the door and prod the stub-barrelled revolver into Phan's ribs. The man would have to relinquish the machine gun and all would be well. He strained his ears to catch Phan's voice above the noise of the wind. He was still negotiating, saying something in Vietnamese. Stevenson hesitated, thinking he heard Tam's voice and drawing strength from it.

He gathered himself for the final move, his right leg bent under him, the other ready to launch himself forward.

‘Gotcha!'

Macgregor's hand closed round his left ankle, but Stevenson was already moving off the top of the ladder. With one leg trapped he fell full length and the pistol flew from his hand. He barked his shin on the lip of the bridge-deck and then suddenly Macgregor let go of his ankle and leapt up behind him. To his horror, Stevenson found the Able Seaman standing over him brandishing a fire axe.

‘Now you bastard . . .'

Fighting for his life, convinced Macgregor was out of his mind, Stevenson twisted violently to one side. Macgregor had seen the gun slide across the deck and hesitated, unsure whether to commit himself to an attack on the Second Mate with the fire axe, an attack that to succeed could only have one outcome, or whether to try for the abandoned revolver.

Action without much fear of the consequences had been a watchword of Macgregor's uncontrolled and wild childhood, but survival, he had soon learned, often depended upon an escape route. In his many confrontations with authority the
early acquired skill of pushing things just so far had stood him in good stead. At times it had deceived his victims into thinking he was resolute. If so it was part of their perception of their own intimidation. Resolution, however, took no notice of consequences; it pursued its ends regardless, taking no note of escape routes, even of self-preservation. It was one of the building blocks of courage, but not part of Able Seaman Macgregor's make-up.

Stevenson was at his mercy; an unalterable fact which Macgregor paused just long enough to savour. The fire axe, which had seemed so attractive a means of revenge a few minutes earlier, might now be replaced by the revolver, a weapon of greater potential, lethal, but also intimidating. He
could
kill Stevenson. The axe would make short work of the prone body at his feet, but Macgregor knew the chances of pulling off the complete and irreversible seizure of the ship was unlikely. He was not used to considering himself on the winning side. Oh, he had won skirmish after skirmish, certainly; but never a real battle, never mind a campaign; the winning of a war was beyond his imagination. For this reason, a reason of great cunning, the arrangement he had come to with Phan Van Nui had allowed his part in the seizure of the ship to be kept from his shipmates. He wanted to fuck the girl and get ashore in Hong Kong with a fistful of greenback dollars.