South By Java Head (13 page)

"Formalities bore me." Findhorn was looking at him with sudden interest. "You are English, aren't you?"
"Perhaps." This time the lips curled, less in a smile than in a token of lazy contempt, perfectly done. "Anglo-Saxon, shall we say?"
"It doesn't matter. You are the captain -- were the captain -- of the Kerry Dancer. You abandoned your ship -- and abandoned all the people that you left behind to die, locked behind steel doors. Maybe they drowned, maybe they were burnt to death: it doesn't make any difference now. You left them to die."
"Such melodramatics!" Siran lazily patted a yawn to extinction, a masterpiece of weary insolence. "You forget the traditions of the sea. We did all in our power for those unfortunates."
Firidhorn nodded slowly and turned away, looking over Siran's six companions. None of them seemed at all happy, but one -- a thin-faced man with a cast in one eye -- was especially nervous and apprehensive. He shuffled his feet constantly and his hands and fingers seemed to have an independent life of their own. Findhorn walked across and stood in front of him.
"Do you speak English?"
There was no answer, just a furrowing of brows, the raising of shoulders and outspread palms in the universal gesture of incomprehension.
"You picked well, Captain Findhorn," Van Effen drawled slowly. "He speaks English almost as well as you do."
Findhorn brought the automatic up quickly, placed it against the man's mouth and pushed, none too lightly. The man gave way and Findhorn followed. The second step backward brought the man against the bulkhead, palms of his outstretched hands pressing hard against the wall, his one good eye staring down in terror at the gun that touched his teeth.
"Who hammered shut all the clips on the poop-deck door?" Findhorn asked softly. "I'll give you five seconds." He pressed more heavily on the gun and the sudden click of the safety catch snicking off was unnaturally loud in the strained silence. "One, two------"
"I did, I did!" His mouth was working and he was almost gibbering with fear. "I closed the door."
"On whose orders?"
"The captain. He said that-----"
"Who shut the fo'c'sle door?"
"Yussif. But Yussif died-----"
"On whose orders?" Findhorn asked relentlessly.
"Captain Siran's orders." The man was looking at Siran now, sick fear in his eye. "I'll die for this."
"Probably," Findhorn said carelessly. He pushed the gun into his pocket and walked across to Siran. "Interesting little talk, wasn't it, Captain Siran?"
"The man's a fool," Siran said contemptuously. "Any terrified man will say anything with a gun in his face."
"There were British soldiers -- probably your own countrymen -- in the fo'c'sle. A score, maybe two dozen, I don't know, but you couldn't have them cluttering up your getaway in the only boat."
"I don't know what you're talking about." Siran's brown face was still the same, still without expression. But his voice was wary now, the calculated insolence gone.
"And there were over twenty people in the aftercastle."
Siran might not have spoken for all the attention Findhorn paid to him. "Wounded men, dying men, women -- and one little child."
This time Siran said nothing. The smooth face was impassive as ever, but his eyes had narrowed, just perceptibly. When he spoke, however, his voice still held its insolent indifference.
"And just what do you hope to achieve by all this stupid rigmarole, Captain Findhorn? "
"I hope for nothing." Findhorn's lined face was grim, the faded eyes bleak and relentless. "It's not a question of hope, Siran, but of certainty -- the certainty of your conviction for murder. In the morning we shall take independent statements from all the members of your own crew and have them signed in the presence of neutral witnesses from my crew. I shall make it my personal responsibility to see to it that you arrive in Australia safely and in good health." Findhorn picked up bis hat and prepared to leave. "You will have a fair trial, Captain Siran, but it shouldn't last long, arid the penalty for murder, of course, is known to us all."
For the first time, Siran's mask of impassivity cracked and the faintest shadow of fear touched the dark eyes, but Findhorn wasn't there to see it. He was already gone, climbing up the companionway to the shrieking bridge of the Viroma.
CHAPTER SIX
DAWN, A cloudless, windless dawn with a lightening eastern sky mother-of-pearl in its opalescent beauty, found the Viroma far to the south-eastwards of the Rhio channel, twenty miles due north of the Rifleman Rock and almost half-way towards the Carimata Straits. The big tanker was travelling under full power, a wisp of hazed blue drifting aft from its funnel, the after-decks shaking in teeth-rattling vibration as Carradale, the chief engineer, pushed the big engine to its limit, and then a little beyond.
The typhoon of that long night was gone, the great winds had vanished as if they had never been. But for the salt-stained decks and upperworks and the long, heaving swell that would not die away for many hours yet, it might all have been a dream. But it had been no dream while it had lasted: a nightmare, perhaps, but no dream, not with Captain Findhorn driving the lurching, staggering tanker through the great quartering seas and cyclonic winds for hour upon endless hour, with no thought for the grievous punishment the Viroma was taking, with no thought for the comfort and welfare of passengers and crew, with no thought for anything but to put as many miles as possible between himself and Singapore before the day broke and the enemy could see them again. The delicately-hued pastel shades to the east faded and whitened and vanished, all in a matter of minutes, and the big blurred silhouette of the sun climbed swiftly above the horizon, stretching out a broad, shimmering band of dazzling white across the sea, between itself and the Viroma. Not quite an unbroken band, however: something lay in the water, miles away, a big fishing-boat perhaps, or a small coaster, hull down, black as midnight against the rising sun and steaming steadily east, soon diminished to a little black speck in the distance and then nothing at all. Captain Findhorn, on the bridge with Barrett, watched and wondered until it was gone. Perhaps it had seen them, perhaps not. Perhaps it was Japanese, or pro-Japanese, perhaps not. Perhaps it carried a radio, perhaps it didn't. There was nothing they could do about it anyway.
The sun, as it always does in the open sea, seemed to rise straight up into the sky. By half-past seven it was already hot, hot enough to dry out the rain and sea-soaked decks and upperworks of the Viroma, hot enough for Findhorn to hang up his oilskins and move far out on to the wing of the bridge to bask in its heat and draw in great lungfuls of the fresh morning air -- it wouldn't, he knew, be fresh much longer. Findhorn himself felt fresh enough, if a little tired in his bones: about half-way through the middle watch, when the teeth of the typhoon had lost their edge, Nicolson had persuaded him to go to his cabin and he had slept like a dead man for over three hours.
"Good morning, sir. Quite a change this, isn't it?" Nicolson's soft voice, directly behind him, jerked Findhorn out of his reverie. He turned round.
"Morning, Johnny. What are you doing up at this unearthly hour?" Nicolson, Findhorn knew, couldn't have had much more than a couple of hours' sleep, but he had the rested look of a man with at least eight solid hours behind him. Not for the first time Findhorn had to remind himself that, where durability and resilience were concerned, John Nicolson was a man apart.
"Unearthly hour?" Nicolson glanced at his watch. "It's almost eight o'clock." He grinned. "Conscience and the calls of duty, sir. I've just been making a quick round of our non-paying guests."
"No complaints?" Findhorn asked humorously.
"I gather that most of them were a bit under the weather during the night, but otherwise no complaints."
"And those who might have know a damn' sight better than to make them," Findhorn nodded. "How are the sick nurses?"
"The two Chinese girls and the elderly ones are much better. A couple of them were down in the hospital and smoke-room when I was there, changing bandages. All five of the soldiers there were in fine form and hungry as hunters."
"An excellent sign," Findhorn interrupted dryly. "How about the two boys in the hospital?"
"Holding their own, the nurses say. I think that they suffer a good deal of pain, which is more than our worthy Brigadier and his pal are doing. You can hear 'em snoring twenty feet away and the engineers' office smells like a distillery."
"And Miss Plenderleith?"
"Taking her constitutional, of course. From one end of the fore and aft gangway to the other. The English cherish the delusion that they are a nautical race: Miss Plenderleith is enjoying herself thoroughly. And then there are three soldiers in the dining-saloon -- Corporal Fraser and his two men. They've got a chair apiece, and they're all sitting very comfortably with their 303's and Brens cradled in their hands. I think they're praying for Siran or one of his men to take an extra deep breath so that they can have a cast-iron excuse for shooting a lot of big holes through them. Siran and his pals know exactly how these boys are feeling about them; they're only taking very small breaths indeed and blinking one eye at a time."
"I tend to share your confidence in the guards." Findhorn looked sideways at his chief officer, a quizzical expression on his face. "And how is our worthy Captain Siran looking this morning? A trifle worse of the wear, you would say?"
"Not he. Anyone can see that he's slept the deep, untroubled sleep of a man with the conscience of a new-born child." Nicolson stared out to sea for a few moments, then said quietly: "I'd appreciate the opportunity of giving the hangman any assistance he may require."
"You'd probably be one of the last in a long queue," Findhorn said grimly. "I don't want to sound melodramatic, Johnny, but I think the man's an inhuman fiend and should be shot down the same way as you'd destroy a mad dog."
"It'll probably come to that one of these days." Nicolson shook his head. "Mad or not, he's queer enough."
"Meaning?"
"He's English, or three parts English, I'll bet my last penny. He's come up through one of the big public schools, and it's an odds-on guess that he's had a damn' sight more education than I ever had. What's a man like that doing in charge of a miniature hell-ship like the Kerry Dancer!"
Findhorn shrugged. "Lord knows. I could give you a dozen explanations, all different and with only one thing in common -- they'd all be wrong. You'll find half the dead-beats and black sheep of the world within a couple of hundred miles of Singapore -- but he wouldn't come in either category, so that still doesn't answer your question. Frankly, I'm at a loss." Findhorn drummed his fingers on the dodger rail. "He baffles me, but, by Harry, he's not the only one!"
"Van Effen? Our worthy Brigadier?"
"Among others." Findhorn shook his head. "Our passengers are a strange bunch, but not half as strange as the way they act. Take the Brigadier and this Muslim priest. They're thick as thieves. Unusual, you might say?"
"Incredible. The doors of the Bengal and Singapore Clubs would be for ever shut against him. Not done, in capital letters." Nicolson grinned. "Think of the shock and the fearful mortality rate if it were known -- in the upper military circles, I mean: all the best bars in the East littered with apoplectic cases, sundowners still clutched in their stiffening hands. Brigadier Farnholme is carrying a fearful responsibility."
Findhorn smiled faintly. "And you still think he's not a phoney?"
"No, sir -- neither do you. Colonel Blimp, Grade A -- then he does or says something off-beat, completely out of character. He just doesn't classify easily. Inconsiderate of him, very."
"Very," Findhorn murmured dryly. "Then there's his other pal, Van Effen. Why the devil should Siran show such tender concern for his health?"
"It's difficult," Nicolson admitted. "Especially when Van Effen didn't show much concern for his, what with threatening to blow holes in his spine and trying to throttle him. But I'm inclined to believe Van Effen. I like him."
"I believe him, too. But Farnholme just doesn't believe him -- he knows Van Effen is telling the truth -- and when I ask him why he backwaters at high speed and advances piffling reasons that wouldn't convince a five year old." Findhorn sighed wearily. "Just about as puerile and unconvincing as the reasons Miss Plenderleith gave me for wanting to see me when I went to her cabin just after you and Siran had finished your -- ah -- discussion."
"So you went after all?" Nicolson smiled. "I'm sorry I missed that."
"You knew?"
"Vannier told me. I practically had to drag him to the saloon to get him to give you her message. What did she say?"
"First of all she denied having sent for me at all, then gave me some nonsense about when would we arrive in port and could she send a cable to her sister in England, just something fabricated on the spur of the moment, obviously. She's worried about something and I think she was going to tell me what it was, then changed her mind." Captain Findhorn shrugged his shoulders, dismissing the problem. "Did you know that Miss Plenderleith came from Borneo too? She's been headmistress in a girls' school there and hung on to the last minute."
"I know. We had a long conversation on the catwalk this morning. Called me 'young man' all the time and made me wonder whether I had washed behind the ears." Nicolson looked speculatively at the captain. "Just to add to your worries, I'll tell you something else you don't know. Miss Plenderleith had a visitor, a gentleman friend, in her cabin last night."
"What! Did she tell you this?"
"Good lord, no. Walters told me. He was just stretching out on his settee after coming off watch last night when he heard a knock on Miss Plenderleith's door -- pretty soft, but he heard it: his settee in the wireless office is right up against the bulkhead of his cabin. Walters says he was curious enough to listen at, the communicating door, but it was shut tight and he couldn't hear much, it was all very whispery and conspiratorial. But one of the voices was very deep, a man's murmur for certain. He was there almost ten minutes, then he left."
"Midnight assignations in Miss Plenderleith's cabin!" Findhorn still hadn't recovered from his astonishment. "I would have thought she would have screamed her head off."
"Not her!" Nicolson grinned and shook his head positively. "She's a pillar of respectability, all right, but any midnight visitor would have been hauled in, lectured over the old girl's wagging forefinger and sent on his way a chastened man, bent on leading a better life. But this was no lecture, I gather, but a very hush-hush discussion."