Authors: Robert Mitchell
Once more I staggered with my burden, dragging him by the heels, his head bumping loosely on the steel decking.
With one last effort, over he went; the splash mingling with the crash of the surf. Perhaps the sharks might be hungry – if there were any.
Going back into that dark hole would be a nightmare, but I had to clean up the killing ground. The knife and torch were still down there somewhere. The piece of cord had followed him over the side. I thanked God that I hadn’t stabbed him. A pool of blood would have been impossible to explain.
It was agony climbing back down into that abyss, my muscles at breaking point, my nerve ends screaming. If only I had been thinking straight before I brought him up; the torch could have gone into my pocket and the knife down my sock; but I hadn’t been thinking at all. It took me ages to find the torch. Finding the section with the length of string attached to it had been easy; it was locating the other piece and the batteries that took the time as I grubbed around on the steel floor, not realizing they would roll so far.
But the knife had fallen down between a bundle of bales when I had grabbed it from his hand and let it drop; and I was too exhausted to move them. I probably couldn’t have done so in any case. The bundle of four bales bound up with steel ribbon probably weighed five hundred kilograms. I didn’t know where the wire-cutters were and couldn’t think of any other way to separate them.
I gave up. It was only a knife, and they all carried them. What more normal than to lose one in the hold; and there was no more time to waste. The longer I remained down there, the more chance there was of discovery. Someone might come out on deck, unable to sleep, strolling in the cool night air.
But all was quiet when I reached the top of the ladder. There was no sound; no smell of cigarette smoke.
I put the torch back where I had found it earlier in the day, and crept back along the deck to the accommodation section and the safety of my cabin. The door once more locked and blocked, I collapsed on to the bunk and reached for the bottle, savouring the smoothest whisky I had ever tasted. I felt myself dropping off to sleep, sprawled across the blankets, and then my head slipped off the side of the bed, jerking me awake. I staggered across to the wash-basin and caught sight of myself in the mirror. The figure staring out was covered in dirt; streaked with sweat; red eyes glaring back at me through a face blotched with dust-fuzzed shoe-polish. I looked down. From my shoes upwards I was covered in dirt; black grimy dirt.
I couldn’t risk taking a shower at this time of night. If I was caught in the bathroom by one of the officers in my present state I would be hard put to explain where I had been; and if the
y found the Malay’s body in the morning, that would be it.
I had to make the best I could with the hand-basin. I scrubbed and rinsed my face, hands and neck, getting rid of most of the grime; and covering the basin in black filth, but I could clean that in the morning. I was too tired to care.
The sound of knocking on the door pulled me out of a deep sleep. My eyes flew open, dazzled by sunlight pouring through the uncurtained porthole, and for a moment I didn’t know where I was. Then it came to me - still on the ship. I staggered to the door, suddenly recalling what I had been doing through the night. Moving my blockade quietly to one side, I drew the door open cautiously and poked my head out.
“What’s the matter?” I mumbled on seeing the steward.
“Sorry to wake you, sir.” The smirk on his face gave the lie to that. “But it is already past eight o’clock.”
He went off whistling
quietly to himself as I slammed the door. My head was empty and still asleep, loose on my shoulders.
I had no alternative but to keep moving. If I stopped I would fall down. It was going to be a hell of a day. I grabbed my towel and razor, and bolted for the showers.
Back in the cabin I gave the basin a hurried wipe with my shirt from the night before. It still wasn’t clean, but it would have to do. I staggered along to the dining saloon in a daze, not quite conscious but at least I was moving.
“Sleep in did you, Mr. Rider?” Flint asked with a grin on his face as he leaned back into his chair, well into his second cup of coffee, and fresh as a daisy. I think he enjoyed watching me toil like a coolie in the holds; but there was no way I was going to quit. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction.
“Yes,” I replied sourly. “I had a touch of toothache last night and couldn’t sleep. Must have lain awake for hours before I finally dropped off. I almost came up to your cabin to see whether you might have some spare whisky to deaden the pain, but I didn’t think you would appreciate being disturbed.”
There was a quickly stifled chortle from one of the officers.
He knew I was lying of course, but it shut him up for a few minutes. It would be best to let him believe that it was the unaccustomed work that had exhausted me.
If it hadn’t been for the previous couple of days of lifting and pulling, I doubt whether I could have managed with the Malay’s
body; but the climb up the ladder with that brown son of a bitch had still wrenched muscles I never knew I had.
“I trust that you’re feeling fine, now,
” Flint said after those few minutes, the smirk still bubbling beneath the surface. “Or do you think perhaps you should take it easy for the rest of the day?”
“I’m fine, thanks,” I replied. “The toothache seems to have cured itself.”
What I really felt like was eight or ten hours in the cot; and preferably with the chubby female in the far corner.
“Well then, if that’s the case, the salvors have got just the job for you.” He paused while he got my
full attention. “At least we’ve solved the dilemma about what to do with the meat in those containers of Mr. Cameron’s.” He paused, the smile now gone. “It’s all gone rotten.”
I knew that, but how did he? It was just as well I hadn’t shoved the body in there overnight. The body! What the hell had become of it? Had the bastard floated out to sea, or was he now lying on top of the reef in full view?
“What happened?” I asked angrily. Poor Pete. He had been doomed to disaster from the start.
“A couple of fuses must have blown when we tried to back the ship off the night we went aground
,” he replied. “They didn’t affect anything connected with the running of the ship, so nobody knew they’d blown. Mr. Cameron had always looked after the containers himself.” Pete had been so concerned about his consignment, even to the extent of upsetting the crew with his constant double-checking. “We didn’t find out until late yesterday evening. The whole lot will have to be dumped over the side.” He paused, stirring his coffee with slow, deliberate strokes, and then looked up, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “Do you think you could give a hand?”
This was what he had been gloating about, not my haggard appearance. There was more tittering from the crowd.
“No problem,” I replied pleasantly. “The meat should have kept fairly fresh even without power. Those containers are pretty-well insulated.”
He sat back with a knowing look on his weather-lined face. He knew as well as I did that the meat was putrid.
I ate the rest of my breakfast in silence. It wasn’t easy. I could still smell that rotting flesh.
Thursday again. I should have known it as soon as I had seen the malicious gleam in Flint’s eye. I should have kept my pride to myself and limped off to my cabin and slept the morning away.
I thought it had been hot in the hold as we had lugged the wet bags of sugar around; but it had been shaded down there, and the salt water sloshing around in the bottom of the hold had at least cooled our legs. There was no shade on deck, and no cool water. It was sweltering; and it wasn’t just the heat. I could have put up with that. It was the flies. They were everywhere. The bosun reckoned they had come out with the natives. Flies. We hadn’t had a single one until we had opened the containers. They were in my eyes, up my nose, and even crawling into my ears; and if I opened my mouth to speak they would dart in before I had time to close it again.
The sea had come up, with a huge swell rolling along the length of the ship; the hull creaking and shifting, twisting. As the morning wore on the sky gradually darkened, threatening a change in the weather that showed no promise; although a wind that might cool the deck and blow the flies away would have been more than welcome.
It was ironic.
With all those carcasses of meat floating about in the shallow waters of the reef, nobody was going to notice one lonely brown body drifting in with the surf. If the Malay hadn’t killed Pete, the meat wouldn’t have gone rotten, and there would have been no need to throw it overboard, and then maybe the Malay’s body might have been spotted and been given a decent burial.
Thursday.
I hadn’t realised it at the time, but it must have been during the early hours of the morning when I had finally heaved the Malay over the side. Maybe good things do occasionally happen on a Thursday.
I had walked a fast circuit of the ship as soon as I had come
out on deck after breakfast, but there was no sign of the body. Perhaps my luck had turned and he had caught an outgoing tide. So far nobody had missed him.
We worked on the containers for most of the morning. Each
one of them had been without power since the night we had gone aground and the stench when we opened the doors was indescribable. The slight breeze blowing from the west managed to keep the deck area almost bearable, but working deep inside the containers was sickening.
The meat had gone greasy, and become hard to hold. We had no meat hooks, so it was fingers and nails, with the rancid fat getting well down into the quick. I tried gloves
but they were worse than useless, the leather sliding along the meat. The smell got into my clothes and down into the skin, permeating everything.
Waste. We threw tonnes and tonnes of meat over the side. There was nothing but the best: hindquarters of beef, legs of lamb, hams, some venison, cartons of fillet steak; but it was nothing now but rotting flesh. If Pete had been with us, the shock would have killed him. Had he really been fated to be a loser?
The call to lunch was a welcome break; but not the food. The soup was fine, but there was no way I could touch the main course: mashed potatoes, peas and steak: grey gristly beef covered in congealing fat.
Flint tucked into his plateful with accentuated relish, drops of gravy dribbling down his chin.
“Toothache still bothering you?” he asked, tongue in cheek, as he saw me push the plate towards the centre of the table.
“Just a touch, Captain,” I replied, swallowing hard as I felt the vomit start to rise. “It’ll be alright in a day or so.”
“Ah, steward,” Flint called out. “That steak was delicious. Perhaps we could have the rest of it for dinner tonight; although Mr. Rider might like something softer, for his toothache; like a milk pudding.”
It brought a guffaw of laughs.
I leaned across the table.
“Captain,” I said quietly, so the others wouldn’t hear. “It’s a pity that you’re not as fast as ge
tting on to the bridge in an emergency, as you are with your shitty little jokes!”
He went red in the face and glared at me as I got up and walked away from the table.
The only heavy pieces in the consignment of meat were the hindquarters of beef and we were able to keep up a good steady pace. The crew were eager to finish and get rid of the stench, but it was not until just on five o’clock before we emptied the last container. It was then that we turned on the fire-hoses, the decks awash, the containers blasted clean and everybody doused as battles raged over control of the hoses.
But the hot shower was even better and I stood under the scalding jet for fifteen minutes or more, clothes and all. It was the only way to wash out the grease and the dirt that I had picked up in the hold the previous night. I had worn the same trousers and sweater to work on the meat. It had been hot working in them, but I convinced myself that they might keep some of the stinking fat off me. The bottom of the shower basin was soon awash with thick grey slime.
I ducked along the corridor, dripping soapy water along the rubber flooring, and raced out on to the deck, stripped down to my underpants. It took a second or two to hang the sodden clothes over a rail where they would dry in the next day’s sun, and then raced back to the shower. In another two or three days I might start to feel clean again.
Thirty minutes later, dressed in fresh clothes and with a dram or two of whisky under my belt, I felt a new man; but not looking forward to the meal I knew I had to face. I was starving, and yet my appetite had disappeared.
The captain sat down to another steak, just as grey as the one earlier in the day, and the officers got the same; but there were no smiles this time, only my grin from ear to ear as the steward put a plate of deliciously smelling grilled fish before me. The pain as my saliva glands started working brought tears to my eyes.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“The crew caught some fish this evening,” he replied, his eyes turned away from the others. “They thought you might like some.”
I had worked my guts out, kept up to them and joined in their fun; and this was their appreciation.