whatsoever for jeopardising the ship, the cargo and our lives on a wild goose chase."
No one said anything, no one moved. The silence was back again, heavy, foreboding, impenetrable. The air was still, and very airless -- the approaching storm, perhaps. Nicolson was leaning against the flag locker, hooded eyes looking down at his hands clasped before him: the others were looking at the captain, and not blinking: the Viroma had now slewed yet further off course, ten, perhaps twelve degrees, and still swinging steadily.
Captain Findhorn's wandering gaze finally settled on Nicolson. The remoteness had gone from the captain's eyes now, when he looked at his first mate.
"Well, Mr. Nicolson?" he asked.
"You're perfectly right, sir, of course." Nicolson looked up, gazed out the window at the foremast swaying slowly, gently, under the lift of the deepening swell. "A thousand to one that it's a trap, or, if it isn't, ship, crew and passengers will all be gone by now -- one way or another." He looked gravely at the quartermaster, at the compass, then back at Findhorn again. "But as I see we're already ten degrees off course and still slewing to starboard, we might as well save trouble and just keep on going round to starboard. The course would be about 320, sir."
"Thank you, Mr. Nicolson." Findhorn let his breath escape in a long, almost inaudible sigh. He crossed over towards Nicolson, his cigarette case open. "For this once only, to hell with the rules. Mr. Vannier, you have the Kerry Dancer's position. A course for the quartermaster, if you please."
Slowly, steadily, the big tanker swung round, struck off to the north-west back in the direction of Singapore, into the heart of the gathering storm.
A thousand to one were the odds that Nicolson would have offered and the captain would have backed him in that and gone even further -- and they would both have been wrong. There was no trap, the Kerry Dancer was still afloat and she hadn't been abandoned -- not entirely.
Still afloat, at two o'clock on that sultry, breathless mid-February afternoon in 1942, but not looking as if she would be afloat much longer. She was deep in the water, down by the head and listing over so heavily to starboard that the well-deck guardrail was dipping into the sea, now lost in it, now showing clear as the long, low swell surged up the sloping deck and receded, like waves breaking on a beach.
The for'ard mast was gone, broken off about six feet above the deck; a dark, gaping hole, still smouldering, showed where the funnel had been, and the bridge was unrecognisable, a scrapyard shambles of buckled steel plates and fractured angle-irons, outlined in crazy, surrealist silhouette against a brazen sky. The fo'c'sle -- the crew's quarters just for'ard of the well-deck -- looked as if it had been opened up by a gigantic can-opener, the scuttles on the ship's side had disappeared completely and there was no trace of anchors, windlass or for'ard derrick winch; all this fo'c'sle damage the result, obviously, of a bomb that had penetrated the thin steel deck plating and failed to explode until it was deep inside the ship. No one there at the time could have known anything about it, for the lethal blast would have been far faster than realisation. Abaft the well-deck, the wood-lined accommodation quarters on the main and upper decks had been completely burnt out, gutted as far as the after well, sky and sea clearly visible through the gaunt and twisted framework.
It was impossible that human beings could have survived the bludgeoning, the consuming, metal-melting white heat that had reduced the Kerry Dancer to the charred, dead wreck drifting imperceptibly south-westwards towards the Abang Straits and faraway Sumatra. And, indeed, there was no life to be seen on what was left of the decks of the Kerry 'Dancer, no life to be seen any where, above or below. A deserted, silent skeleton, a dead hulk adrift on the China Sea.... But there were twenty-three people
No one said anything, no one moved. The silence was back again, heavy, foreboding, impenetrable. The air was still, and very airless -- the approaching storm, perhaps. Nicolson was leaning against the flag locker, hooded eyes looking down at his hands clasped before him: the others were looking at the captain, and not blinking: the Viroma had now slewed yet further off course, ten, perhaps twelve degrees, and still swinging steadily.
Captain Findhorn's wandering gaze finally settled on Nicolson. The remoteness had gone from the captain's eyes now, when he looked at his first mate.
"Well, Mr. Nicolson?" he asked.
"You're perfectly right, sir, of course." Nicolson looked up, gazed out the window at the foremast swaying slowly, gently, under the lift of the deepening swell. "A thousand to one that it's a trap, or, if it isn't, ship, crew and passengers will all be gone by now -- one way or another." He looked gravely at the quartermaster, at the compass, then back at Findhorn again. "But as I see we're already ten degrees off course and still slewing to starboard, we might as well save trouble and just keep on going round to starboard. The course would be about 320, sir."
"Thank you, Mr. Nicolson." Findhorn let his breath escape in a long, almost inaudible sigh. He crossed over towards Nicolson, his cigarette case open. "For this once only, to hell with the rules. Mr. Vannier, you have the Kerry Dancer's position. A course for the quartermaster, if you please."
Slowly, steadily, the big tanker swung round, struck off to the north-west back in the direction of Singapore, into the heart of the gathering storm.
A thousand to one were the odds that Nicolson would have offered and the captain would have backed him in that and gone even further -- and they would both have been wrong. There was no trap, the Kerry Dancer was still afloat and she hadn't been abandoned -- not entirely.
Still afloat, at two o'clock on that sultry, breathless mid-February afternoon in 1942, but not looking as if she would be afloat much longer. She was deep in the water, down by the head and listing over so heavily to starboard that the well-deck guardrail was dipping into the sea, now lost in it, now showing clear as the long, low swell surged up the sloping deck and receded, like waves breaking on a beach.
The for'ard mast was gone, broken off about six feet above the deck; a dark, gaping hole, still smouldering, showed where the funnel had been, and the bridge was unrecognisable, a scrapyard shambles of buckled steel plates and fractured angle-irons, outlined in crazy, surrealist silhouette against a brazen sky. The fo'c'sle -- the crew's quarters just for'ard of the well-deck -- looked as if it had been opened up by a gigantic can-opener, the scuttles on the ship's side had disappeared completely and there was no trace of anchors, windlass or for'ard derrick winch; all this fo'c'sle damage the result, obviously, of a bomb that had penetrated the thin steel deck plating and failed to explode until it was deep inside the ship. No one there at the time could have known anything about it, for the lethal blast would have been far faster than realisation. Abaft the well-deck, the wood-lined accommodation quarters on the main and upper decks had been completely burnt out, gutted as far as the after well, sky and sea clearly visible through the gaunt and twisted framework.
It was impossible that human beings could have survived the bludgeoning, the consuming, metal-melting white heat that had reduced the Kerry Dancer to the charred, dead wreck drifting imperceptibly south-westwards towards the Abang Straits and faraway Sumatra. And, indeed, there was no life to be seen on what was left of the decks of the Kerry 'Dancer, no life to be seen any where, above or below. A deserted, silent skeleton, a dead hulk adrift on the China Sea.... But there were twenty-three people
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