Sung, going below, knew that he himself had less than four hours now. He didn’t know how much less. As well as Cape Schmidta he had seen Wrangel Island on the chart, directly north. When the cape and the island were in position, he had been told, there were 420 nautical miles to go to his destination. The time of arrival depended on their speed.
He sat down again to the letter he had been writing. He had left it open on the fore ends table, and saw from the grinning faces around that one of the Koreans must have read it out to them. The salutations and loving sentiments were exceedingly high-flown and imaginative. So was the account of his heroism in recent icy storms. He hadn’t mentioned being beaten up by the bosun. Now the storms were over and they were sailing seas no one else dared sail and going fast as the wind. He paused a little over the last words.
‘How fast we going?’ he said.
The man opposite hid his smile and listened for a moment to the engines. ‘The normal. Nine knots,’ he said.
‘Only nine?’ Sung said, disappointed, and wrote on.
Nine knots into 420 nautical miles came to just under forty-seven. Forty-seven hours to go. Or rather forty-seven hours from the last marked timing, which was 1648. It was now after 1730. He had less than three hours. He had less than two and a half. It would have to be at 2000; eight o’clock.
At eight o’clock he went to the heads and locked himself in. He unzipped his jeans and produced his penknife. The small bulge was in the waist of his long johns and he carefully unpicked the stitches. The capsule was wrapped in a tiny polythene envelope and he removed the envelope. To ensure complete and rapid ingestion he had been told to bite it; in which case it would take twenty hours to work, as it had with Ushiba. Ushiba’s dose had been much bigger, to secure a spectacular and unmistakable result. He wouldn’t be as ill as Ushiba, but he would be very ill indeed.
He put the capsule in his mouth and bit it. There was the faintest taste, vaguely clinical, and then it was gone. Twenty hours to wait; until 1600 tomorrow.
He didn’t relish the hours ahead. In particular he didn’t relish being in the hands of the bosun.
Between 1600 and 2000 the watches were split into two-hourly shifts, the first and second dog watches. Next day the captain took the second dog and came on at 1800, very fractious.
The ship was off Cape Shelagskiy and swinging wide, to stay well clear of Chaunskaya Bay. Some kind of military base was in there, at Pevek, and the Russians were suspicious — as ever — of anyone coming near it.
The mate handed over the ship and went below, and the captain stood at the chart table, humming. Still nothing from Green Cape. What the devil was up with them? He was barely twenty-two hours away. Either they had no fish, or they were playing games with him. Well, to hell with them! They could keep the fish. Or send it by air. Yes, very good, let them try that. He wouldn’t call, anyway.
He brought the ship’s head round after half an hour and kept distance with Ayon Island, steadying his course. No more compass changes now till after the Kolyma. He would sail right past. He wouldn’t stop now if they begged him.
The mate came hurriedly into the wheelhouse. ‘Captain,’ he said softly, and motioned him away from the helmsman, ‘there’s some trouble below.’
‘What is it?’
‘The new hand. Sung. He’s in a bad way.’
‘The bosun been at him again?’
‘No, no. He has a fever. He’s vomiting badly. In Ushiba’s bunk.’
The two men stared at each other, and the mate slowly nodded. ‘I think you’d better take a look at him,’ he said.
The captain went below. He found Sung being held by two men as he hung out of his bunk and vomited into a bucket.
‘Captain, sir!’ The bosun anxiously drew him aside and explained.
It seemed that Sung had tried to turn out for his watch, the first dog, but had kept falling over. The bosun, recalling that the man had somehow banged his head on the deck a few days ago, had thought this might be a delayed reaction and had told him to take a spell off. But then he had started being sick. ‘And shaking. And turning green,’ the bosun said, peering into the captain’s eyes.
‘How long has it been going on?’
‘Over two hours. First dog! At first I thought nothing of it. There didn’t seem any need to −’
‘Was it like this with — with —’
‘The same. Teeth rattling.’
The captain thought for a moment.
‘You destroyed the mattress?’
‘Mattress, cover, blanket, everything. All fresh, from the stores.’
‘And scrubbed out the bunk?’
‘With my own hands. Antiseptic. A whole bucket of it.’
‘Captain, captain!’
He was being called, hysterically. Sung was calling him.
‘All right, what is it? I’m here.’ The captain went and leaned over the bunk. He saw with dismay the complexion, the glassy rolling eyes, the chattering jaw. The man was gesturing wildly. ‘Send them away, captain! Only you! Only talk you. No one else — send them away!’
‘All right,’ the captain said, and told the men to step back.
‘And bosun! No bosun. Only you, captain!’
‘Very good. Leave us, bosun. What is it?’ the captain said. The man had gripped his arm, and with his other shaking hand was pointing to his face. His teeth were chattering so much, the captain had to bend closer. ‘Bosun marked me, captain. See my face. No leave me with bosun!’
‘All right.’
‘No with bosun — like Ushiba in heads! No like that, captain. No with bosun. He mark me again — mark me bad!’
‘All right. I’ll see to it,’ the captain said, chilled by the man’s extensive knowledge of Ushiba; evidently fore ends’ tattle.
‘Promise, captain! Promise you no leave me!’
‘I promise. I’ll see to you myself. Rest quietly now. I have to look into some matters.’
Which he certainly did. He went straight to his cabin and reached for the Mariner’s Medical Dictionary. The ominous symptoms told him nothing new, but he read through them all again most hungrily. The man would be having convulsions soon, and diarrhoea. He couldn’t be left where he was. It was the bunk. Antiseptic was no use against a virus. It might even have activated the virus. Water-borne v …. Whatever had activated it, Sung had now got it. It was the bunk; Ushiba’s bunk. But with Ushiba there had been the convenient haven of Otaru to dump him in. Where in this godforsaken waste of the Arctic was he to dump Sung?
For a moment the golden idea of dumping Sung in the Arctic glowed in his mind, but died immediately. Fore ends’ tattle … Somewhere in this waste there would be a medical station. He rumbled through his Notices to Mariners for the area. Longitude 170.
Pevek: sick bay facilities. Well, not there — a military base. He continued west through the consecutive sheets, longitudes 169 to 163, and found nothing — nothing at all to find in this desolate area — and came on 162, and the ultimate irony.
Tchersky: Hosp. & Isolation wing (Call Green Cape).
Call Green Cape! Which he had vowed not to call. Which he now would have to call. He looked at his watch, seven o’clock, and decided there was no point in calling them now. They would have closed down for the night. He was still twenty-one hours away. Morning would be time enough; before noon, anyway. That would still give them time to call him. And give him time to work a few things out.