Deck Boy, page 14
Until two days earlier when they’d pushed him too far.
“We missed it,” Michael said regretfully. “Were you there?” He topped up his gin.
“There’s all sorts of stories flying around,” Barbara said. “Ossie won’t talk about it.”
Yes, I had been there, standing in the queue.
The meal was sausages or fish pie, with chips, potatoes and vegetables. As usual, Lenny Rat’bone and his sidekick, Steroid Steve Petersen, stood together.
“Look, it’s the Mad Messman.”
Steve laughed.
“Give it a break, Lenny,” Aaron said. “Play some other record.”
“That’s right,” Samuel agreed in his deep voice. “We sick of it.”
“Dear, oh dear! Some people got no sense of humour.” Rat’bone remembered something. “Here, Fatso, someone jus’ told us your mum died. That right?”
Ossie kept his eyes lowered. Carefully he dished out a portion of pie.
“What she make of you then? Havin’ a big fat maggot for a son?”
Ossie froze.
“That is enough.” Samuel gripped Rat’bone’s arm.
“Get off of me.” He pulled away.
“Hey, if he’s a maggot,” Steve said, “does that make her a bluebottle?”
“That’s right.” Rat’bone bared his teeth. “A big, nasty bluebottle.” “Someone squash her, did they?”
Rat’bone slapped the counter. “Splat!”
Ossie cried aloud. “No! No! You’ll not say that about my mum.” In blind retaliation he flung the metal slice he was using at Rat’bone’s chest. Snatching up the tray of hot sausages, he heaved it into his face and rushed round the counter. Seamen scattered. Rat’bone was not fast enough and Ossie, who towered over the little man, caught him by the shirt. Crying, “Ah! Ah!” he beat him with the empty tray. Rat’bone’s false teeth fell to the deck. An ear was torn. Blood ran down his face. If they had been alone, Ossie might have killed him. It took several men to pull him off. Samuel held him tightly to stop the shaking.
The chief steward was summoned. There was an enquiry. Ossie was confined to his cabin for a day while Charlie took over as messman. Rat’bone and Steve were ordered to leave Ossie alone or they would find themselves on a charge.
“More or less what we’d heard,” Barbara said.
“That about his mother,” Michael dropped in the ice and lemon. “He’ll brood about that for weeks.”
“Were they close?”
“Close? He worshipped her. Passed away four months ago.”
I thought about my gran. “Was it a long illness?”
“No, dead sudden.”
“I hope that’s not a joke, Michael,” Barbara said.
“What?” Michael gave a shriek of laughter. “Dead sudden! No, they were sitting by the fire watching telly. One night, about nine I think, she didn’t feel too grand so Ossie went through to the kitchen to make her a cup of tea. Came back, put it down on the table. Said did she want a tablet? No reply – there she was.”
“Dead?”
“I hope so. They cremated her three days later.” He shrieked again. “But he stayed with her all that night and all the next day. Curtains drawn, just the two of them. Didn’t tell the doctor or anybody.”
I didn’t like to think about it.
“You know what he’s doing now don’t you?” Michael said.
“I thought he’d gone to the toilet.”
“All this time?”
I looked from one to the other. “What is he doing then?”
“His mother’s ashes,” Barbara said. “He’s brought them with him.”
“Her ashes?”
“Got them in his cabin,” Michael said. “In a casket. Horrible bronze plastic thing.”
I remembered the container I’d seen in his locker. “What for?”
“It’s weird.”
“Everything about him’s weird,” I said. “Half the things on this ship are weird. I’ve never – ”
“He didn’t want to leave her behind,” Barbara said. “She always wanted to travel, so he’s brought her with him.”
“That’s not weird, it’s creepy.”
“Very creepy.” Luigi pulled his shirt to the throat.
I thought about it. “Any idea what she was like?”
“I met her once,” Barbara said. “Horrible old thing, big as Ossie with ropes of grey hair and a shawl. Sat in a wooden chair by one of them kitchen fires with bars across – you know, from the old days. Glass of Guinness. Stank like a stoat.”
I pictured them hunched over the gloomy hearth. Ossie telling her about his voyages. Ornaments from Sydney and Rio.
“What’s he doing now then?” I hardly liked to ask. “Talking to her? Showing her the sunset?”
“Sort of,” Barbara said. “She wanted to travel, yeah? So every night he carries her ashes to the stern and scatters a bit over the side.”
“With a coffee scoop!” Michael clapped a hand over his mouth. “It’s the truth – a red plastic scoop. I never go to his cabin for a cup of coffee, I can tell you. Never know what you’re going to get.”
“Michael, stop it!” Barbara turned back to me. “He’s made a little ceremony of it. He says the Lord’s Prayer, then a prayer for his mother, and throws her ashes into the sea.”
“Except they never reach the water,” Michael cried. “They all blow back and get into his eyes. It’s like a dust storm in the Sahara. When he gets back to the cabin he has to brush her out of his hair.”
“That’s not fair.”
“He breathes her in and can’t stop coughing! Spits her over the side half the time.”
I joined in the laughter. “And is that what he’s doing right now?”
“I think so.”
“Is it OK if I go and watch?” I jumped down from the bunk.
“Provided you don’t start asking a lot of questions. Ossie likes you.”
I ran down to the afterdeck. In the last of the daylight it appeared deserted. Then I saw Ossie, right at the stern. He stood by the rail, a shapeless figure in crumpled white trousers and a cotton jacket. His head was lowered as if in church. I went forward then stopped because I didn’t like to intrude. After a while he crouched to something at his feet. I guessed it was the urn. He straightened, looking from the horizon to something in his outstretched hand. He tossed it forward. A little cloud blossomed in the wind – and was gone.
I didn’t feel in the least like laughing.
Swimming in the Green Caribbean
THE NEXT day we arrived in Curaçao, one of three small islands to the north of Venezuela. We were there to fill up with fuel from the nearby oilfields in the Gulf of Maracaibo.
The company agent brought mail. Seamen retired to their cabins to read letters from friends and the people they loved. I had hoped there might be a letter from Joey and Fizz but there was not.
Since it was a Saturday, Charlie and I had the afternoon free.
“Fancy a walk into town?” he said. “Bring your swimming gear, there’s a pool in the rocks just over the headland.”
“A pool in the rocks? You mean swimming in the sea?”
“Yeah, sandy beach and everything. It’s great.”
“Are you off your head? There’s sharks! It’s one of the worst places in the world.”
“Nah, it’s all fenced off. I was here last trip. Come on, you’ll love it.”
After the rolling decks of the ship, the dusty road seemed to move beneath my feet. It was a walk of two miles. On one side lay a deep sea inlet, on the other the hillsides were covered with refineries. A smell of oil hung over the island. Concrete and tarmac shimmered in the heat.
Willemstad, the capital, was a cheerful town, clean-swept and bright as a paintbox. Although it was Dutch, most people spoke English. We bought a few things and wandered the squares lined with palm trees and hung with bougainvillea. In a cool café open to the street we ordered malted milkshakes with double ice-cream, served in the dewed metal containers.
One of the crew was there before us. Philip, the junior cadet, sat with a big glass of orange. He led a lonely life on board, or so it seemed to me: not quite an officer, not allowed to make friends with the crew, bullied by the arrogant Tony. I had spoken to him several times on the way out and I liked him: lightly-built, shy, clever, hard-working. We joined him at the table.
“Philip, isn’t it?” Charlie introduced us: “Charlie and Ben.”
“Yes, I know. Hi.”
He wore lime-green shorts, running shoes and a vest.
“Been jogging?”
“Running.”
“In this heat?”
“I did cross-country at school.” He carried a bottle of water. “Wet my hair and vest, keeps me cool.”
“Better you than me.”
It was a tourist café. A snooty waiter eyed us with disfavour. He wanted wealthy Americans, not hard-up young sailors. Charlie stared him out.
“We’re going swimming.” He blew bubbles into his milkshake. “Fancy coming along?”
Philip looked down. “Not got my trunks.”
“What’s wrong with your shorts? No one around, you can go skinny dipping.”
He brightened. “Yeah, OK. Thanks.”
Half an hour later we were climbing a stony track over the headland. Beneath us Pacific Trader lay at her mooring, yellow oil pipes snaking aboard. She looked terrific.
The heat was intense; puffs of dust rose at every step. The refineries with their massive oil tanks were left behind, crickets trilled, lizards whiplashed away into the baking scrub at our approach. We reached the crest. Before us the hillside dropped away to bays and the jewelled, blue-green Caribbean.
“Fantastic!” Charlie balanced his camera on a rock and took a photo of the three of us. Then we started downhill towards the beckoning water.
A lopsided horseshoe of posts and shark net indicated the safe area for swimming. The beach was a dazzling strip of sand broken by rocks.
Three figures stood above the water. They were facing us but at that distance I couldn’t tell if they came from the Trader. One raised his hands and I caught the flash of binoculars. They were lowered and after a while the figures drifted to the head of the beach.
I thought no more about it and as we descended, a spur of the hillside hid the shore from view. A sea eagle launched into the air. We watched it circling until turning a bend we came face to face with the figures we had seen on the shore, labouring up the track towards us.
There were few people I wished to meet less: Jumbo Ryland, Steve Petersen and Tony Fanshott-Williams. All wore shorts and carried rolled towels. Ryland had binoculars round his neck. Never, I thought, had I seen anyone more like an ape with his thick bow legs and bulging stomach, all shaggy with dark hair. Tony was carrying the flippers, mask and snorkel he had stolen from the cargo. I saw they were blue. Steve carried an identical set, his were green.
I prepared myself for a confrontation. It never came. Tony and Ryland were laughing at some joke while Steve, untypically, seemed ill at ease.
“Afternoon,” said the bosun.
I was startled. “Afternoon.”
“Going for a swim?” Tony said.
Charlie said, “Yeah.”
“Water’s perfect.”
“Yeah,” Charlie said. “Looks great.”
“See you back on board then.” The bosun nodded. I had never seen him so friendly.
“Right.”
“Have fun,” Tony said.
“Thanks.”
We passed on. After ten metres I looked back. They were laughing again. Tony caught my eye. I guessed they were making jokes at our expense.
But the beach was coming close, the sun was hot, the water too inviting to let people like that spoil the afternoon.
It took only seconds to kick off my clothes and pull on swimming shorts, in my case the paint-stained football shorts I wore for work. I ran down the beach past skeins of seaweed and flung myself into the water. It was brilliant.
The shark net extended about fifty metres from shore. A wooden platform, a bit over a metre wide and ten metres long, ran along the central section. I swam halfway out and duck-dived. Abruptly, at about two metres, the temperature changed. What had been warm was suddenly chill. Patches of weed on the sandy seabed looked menacing. I was glad to return to the surface and swam on out to the platform.
For a while we played, diving, wrestling on the hot sand, kicking spray into each other’s faces.
Leaving Charlie spread out on shore like a starfish, Philip and I swam back to the platform. He looked down from the edge. “How deep d’you think it is?”
I shrugged. “Five metres?”
“Reckon you can touch the bottom?” His dive was immaculate. As the surface stilled I saw him beneath me, a pale figure swimming down and down. His hand touched, he turned, kicked off and arrowed back to the surface.
“More than five metres anyway.” In a gush of water he sprang to the boards beside me. “More like eight. It’s cold down there.” He shivered. “You going to try?”
I looked past my feet. Eight metres! That dark weed! “Well, I could if I wanted,” I said. “Easy-peasy, but it’s hardly worth the bother. If it was twenty I might give it a go.”
He laughed and jerked a thumb. “Twenty out there.”
I looked seawards. The limpid green water of the shore darkened to the ultramarine of the horizon. Deep water, scary deep. Sharks, stingrays, jellyfish, drowning. “Some other time.” I stretched out in the sun, arm behind my head.
Philip trailed his ankles in the water and for a while we chatted. It was, he told me, his second trip. He loved being at sea, found his studies easy, liked Tim Nettles, the second mate, didn’t like the mate and loathed the senior cadet. He was religious, a committed Christian, his father a vicar. And he had also, though I had to drag it out of him, been county schoolboy champion in both cross-country and freestyle swimming. I was impressed. But more important than these things, from my point of view, I realised that Philip had become my friend.
“I’m going back.” He rose. “Coming?”
I stretched luxuriously on the hot boards. “In a minute.”
With scarcely a splash he was gone. Rolling on my side, I watched his easy arm movements, the turn of his head for air.
I spotted something else too.
Inside the net, thirty metres away and cutting through the water even more efficiently than Philip, was a large triangular fin.
Tiger Shark
“PHILIP!” I jumped my feet. “Philip! Shark!”
Charlie had seen it too and rushed down the beach, shouting and pointing.
Philip saw him and turned his head. The shark was closing. How he kept his cool I have no idea. Momentarily he stopped swimming. The shark cruised alongside, checking him out, and passed ahead. Had it wished, a slight angle of the tail, a lazy snap of the jaws and Philip would have been gone.
He swam on, twenty metres from shore. The shark circled and made a second pass, so close it must have brushed his side. Again, somehow, Philip hung motionless in the water.
Then he was in the shallows, racing frantically to the beach. The shark pursued him until the water could only have been thirty centimetres deep. Philip ran up onto the sand. The shark lay watching him, half out of the water. Deprived of its prey it turned away, thrashing the sea with its tail. Seconds later it sank from sight. Philip hung an arm round Charlie’s neck, then his knees gave way and he slithered to the ground.
He was safe but what about me? Fifty metres out and a shark in the pool. It was like a film where the victim has locked all the doors and finds the murderer in the house with him. I couldn’t swim back, that was certain. Outside the mesh a blue bladder, a Portuguese man o’ war, drifted past with trailing stings. Deep down an eel, over a metre long, crossed a patch of sand. The only way to get ashore, as far as I could see, was to clamber round the outside of the net.
Half a metre, or maybe a little more, rose above the surface. I grasped the top, lowered a foot down the seaward side and hooked my toes in the steel mesh.
Charlie shouted, “Ben! Stay there. I’ll get a boat.”
“It’s all right, I’ll climb round.”
It was awkward, either I had to lower my legs into the water or hang far out with my shorts touching. It wasn’t hard otherwise, no worse than gym exercises at Frankie’s, and work on the ship had made me strong.
At one point there was a jagged wire and it cut my foot. A tiny bloom of blood hung in the water. It stung like fire but my fear of the shark was so great that I scarcely noticed.
Every few metres the net was bolted to a concrete post sunk into the sea bed. Except for the top these were green, covered with shells and clinging weed. I passed two and clung to the third. Briefly, to ease the strain on my arms, I straightened.
The shark knew I was there. No fin broke the surface but as I looked down I saw it glide past. I was appalled. It was enormous, two to three times as long as myself with cold black eyes and a tapering tail. The faded stripes down its back made me think this was a tiger shark
It vanished beneath the surface dazzle. I started towards post number four.
There was no warning: no sound, no slicing fin, no disturbance of the water. Suddenly, with what seemed the speed and power of an express train, the shark smashed headfirst into the mesh where I was hanging. The net leaped, buckled, ballooned and I was flung backwards into the open sea. I was winded, dazed, bruised. Gasping for breath, I struggled back to the fence.
The shark had gone but the net was damaged. The mesh gaped, wires were broken. I scrambled away, half swimming, half dragging myself with my arms.
I was midway to the shore. The sea was shallower now, four or five metres. Less weed and rock, more sand.
The shark would attack again, I was sure of it. But if a creature so terrifying swam in the pool, what swam behind me in the open sea? I reached another post and pulled myself from the water to look around.
At that very moment, as my eyes were turned from the pool, the shark slammed into the wire right alongside the post. The post buckled, the concrete fractured. Bolts sprang out. The net burst free. I clung tight, my hand torn. Looking down, I saw the shark not a metre away. Its snout was bleeding. Its mouth gaped wide, showing serrated teeth that could have sliced off a limb with a single bite. Its alien eye regarded me with no feeling at all.
