South by Java Head. Alistair MacLean

should have asked, you know,” the captain said pleasantly. “Why didn’t you?”

      “I didn’t think it necessary, sir.” Vannier was uncomfortable, on the defensive. “It’s our fourth call today. You—you ignored the others, so I——”

      “True enough,” Findhorn agreed. “It’s a question of priorities, boy. I’m not going to risk a valuable ship, a priceless cargo and the lives of fifty men on the off-chance of picking up a couple of survivors from an inter-island steamer. But this might have been a troopship, or a cruiser. I know it’s not, but it might have been. And it might have been in a position where we could have given some help without sticking our necks out too far. All improbable ‘ifs’ and ‘mights’, but we must know where she is and what she is before we make a decision.” Findhorn smiled and touched the gold-braided epaulettes on his shoulders. “You know what these are for?”

      “You make the decisions,” Vannier said stiffly. “I’m sorry, sir.”

      “Forget it, boy. But one thing you might remember—to call Mr. Nicolson ‘sir’ once in a while. It’s—ah—expected.”

      Vannier flushed and turned away. “Sorry again, sir. I don’t usually forget. I’m—well, I think I’m just a little bit tired and edgy, sir.”

      “We all are,” Findhorn said quietly. “And not a little bit, either. But Mr. Nicolson isn’t —he never is.” He raised his voice. “Well, Mr. Nicolson?”

      Nicolson hung up the receiver and turned round.

      “Vessel bombed, burning, possibly sinking,” he said briefly. “0.45 N, 104.24 E. That makes it the Southern entrance to the Rhio channel. Name of the vessel uncertain. Walters says the message came through very fast, very clear at first, but quickly deteriorated into crazy nonsense. He thinks the operator was seriously injured and finally collapsed over his table and key, for he finished up with a continuous send—it’s still coming through. Name of the ship, as far as Walters could make out, was the Kenny Danke.

      “Never heard of it. Strange he didn’t send his international call-sign. Nothing big, anyway. Mean anything to you?”

      “Not a thing, sir.” Nicolson shook his head, turned to Vannier. “Look it up in the Register anyway, please. Then look through the K’s. Obviously the wrong name.” He paused for a moment, the cold blue eyes remote, distant, then turned again to Vannier. “Look up the Kerry Dancer. I think it must be that.”

      Vannier riffled through the pages. Findhorn looked at his chief officer, eyebrows raised a fraction.

      Nicolson shrugged. “A fair chance, sir, and it makes sense. N and R are very close in Morse. So are C and K. A sick man could easily trade them—even a trained man. If he was sick enough.”

      “You’re right, sir.” Vannier smoothed out a page of the directory. “The Kerry Dancer, 540 tons, is listed here. Clyde, 1922. Sulaimiya Trading Company——”

      “I know them,” Findhorn interrupted. “An Arab company, Chinese backed, sailing out of Macassar. They’ve seven or eight of these small steamers. Twenty years ago they had only a couple of dhows—that was about the time they gave up legitimate trading as a bad business and went in for the fancy stuff—guns, opium, pearls, diamonds, and little of that legally come by. Plus a fair amount of piracy on the side.”

      ”No tears over the Kerry Dancer!”

      “No tears over the Kerry Dancer, Mr. Nicolson. Course 130 and hold it there.” Captain Findhorn moved through the screen door on to the port wing of the door. The incident was closed.

      “Captain!”

      Findhorn halted, turned round unhurriedly and looked curiously at Evans. Evans was the duty quartermaster, dark, wiry, thin-faced and with tobacco stained teeth. His hands rested lightly on the wheel, and he was looking straight ahead.

      “Something on your mind, Evans?”

      “Yes, sir. The Kerry Dancer was lying in the roads last night.” Evans glanced at him for a moment then stared ahead again. “A Blue Ensign boat, sir.”

      “What!” Findhorn was jerked out of his normal equanimity. “A Government ship? You saw her?”

      “I didn’t see her, sir. The bo-sun did—I think. Anyway, I heard him talking about it last night—just after you’d come back from shore.”

      “Are you quite certain, man? He said that?”

      “No mistake, sir.” The high-pitched Welsh voice was very definite.

      “Get the bo’sun up here at once!” Findhorn ordered. He went over to his chair, sat down, easy and relaxed, and thought back to the night just gone. He remembered his surprise—and relief—when he had gone over the side and found the bo’sun and carpenter manning the motor lifeboat that was to take him ashore, his surprise and relief when he had seen the butts of a couple of short Lee Enfields protruding beneath a piece of canvas thrown carelessly over them. He had said nothing about these. He remembered the distant sound of guns, the pall of smoke lying over Singapore from the last bombing raid—one could set a watch by the appearance of Japanese bombers over Singapore every morning—the weird, unnatural hush that had lain over city and roads. The roads themselves had been empty, deserted as he’d never known them, and he couldn’t remember seeing the Kerry Dancer or any other ship flying the Blue Ensign as they went in. It had been too dark and he had had too much on his mind. And he had had even more to worry about on the way out. He had learnt that the oil islands of Poko Bukum, Pulo Sambo and Pulo Sebarok had been fired, or were to be fired—he had been unable to find out or even see for himself, the pall of smoke obscured everything. The last of the naval units had pulled out and there was no one to take his fuel oil. Nor his aviation spirit—the Catalinas were gone, and the only Brewster Buffaloes and Wildebeeste torpedo bombers that remained were charred skeletons on the Selengar Airfield. 10,400 tons of explosive fuel, trapped in the harbour of Singapore and——

      “McKinnon, sir. You sent for me.” Twenty years that hadn’t missed out a sea or port in the world worth looking at had turned McKinnon from a raw, shy, unknowing Lewis boy to a byword among the sixty odd ships of the British Arabian Company for toughness, shrewdness and unvarying competence—but they hadn’t altered a single inflexion in his slow, soft-spoken Highland voice, “About the Kerry Dancer?”

      Findhorn nodded, said nothing, just continued looking at the dark, stocky figure before him. A commodore, he thought dryly, inconsequentially, has his privileges. The best first mate and the best bo’sun in the company …

      “I saw her lifeboat yesterday evening, sir,” McKinnon said quietly. “She left before us—with a full complement of passengers.” He looked speculatively at the captain. “A hospital ship. Captain.”

      Findhorn climbed down off his chair and stood in front of McKinnon, without moving, The two men were of a height, eye to eye. No one else moved. It was as if each one feared to break the sudden, utter stillness that had fallen on the bridge. The Viroma wandered one degree off course, then two, then three, and Evans made no move to correct it.

      “A hospital ship,” Findhorn repeated tonelessly. “A hospital ship, Bo’sun? She’s only a little inter-island tramp—500 tons or so.”

      “That’s right. But she’s been commandeered, sir. I was talking to some of the wounded soldiers while Ferris and myself were at the jetty, waiting for you. Her captain’s been given the option of losing his ship or sailing her to Darwin. There’s a company of soldiers aboard to see that he does.”

      “Go on.”

      “That’s all there is, sir. They filled up the second boatload before you came back—most of the cases were walking wounded but there were a few on stretchers. I believe there are five or six nurses, none British, and a little boy.”

      “Women, children and sick men and they stick