I nodded. ‘Glad I’m of use.’ I turned to him then, and the smile faded as I said, ‘There’s just one thing. Those two trucks you’re lifting off the beach, what’s in them?’
‘I don’t think that need concern you.’ His tone was abrupt, slightly defensive.
‘That depends,’ I said. ‘You’re loading off a deserted beach at night, no Customs Officer present, and if it’s contraband …’
‘The cases will be Customs-sealed, papers, everything dealt with.’
‘Yes, but what’s in them?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you that.’
‘Does that mean you don’t know? You’re accepting cargo off a deserted beach and you don’t know what it is?’
He stared at me uneasily, then turned away. ‘It’s simply to save them trucking it all the way down to Sydney.’
‘You could have picked it up at Brisbane.’
‘I don’t know why they chose this method,’ he said irritably. ‘I didn’t fix it. But I need that extra cargo to cover my fuel bills.’
‘If you didn’t fix it, who did?’
‘My partner.’
‘Through your agents in Sydney?’
‘It’ll be on the manifest. I don’t know what agent he used.’
‘And you don’t know what the cargo is.’
He turned on me then. ‘Look, Mr Slingsby, either you’re a passenger on my ship or you’re acting first officer. Whichever it is, you’re under my orders. The cargo is nothing to do with you. But if you feel there’s something wrong, then there’s nothing to stop you going ashore as soon as we’re on the beach and the ramp down.’ He was facing me, his head down, his voice trembling on a high note. ‘It’s up to you,’ he added, and went quickly out as though afraid I’d persist with my questions.
I stood there for a moment, staring at the chart and thinking over what he had said. I was certain that there was something illegal about those trucks. All the time I had been questioning him I had sensed his doubt. But, as he had said, no reason why I should be a party to it. I was free to walk off the ship as soon as we reached the beach, except that I had radioed that message to his sister. ‘Kepten!’ The helmsman was pointing. ‘Lukluk, Kepten. Double Island lait.’
I picked up the glasses and went out to the bridge wing. The night was very dark. Away to the north a flash of lightning lit the low cloud base. It was some time before I saw it, picking up the flash as the old tub crested a swell. It was too low on the horizon for positive identification, but it couldn’t be anything else. During the next half-hour the echo-sounder recorded a gradual decrease in depth, finally steadying at between 39 and 34 fathoms. By then the light was very clear. But during the next hour it became increasingly difficult to see as rain came in from the north, very heavy at times so that it even blurred the trace of the coast I was getting on the radar screen. At 23.30 I called Holland. We were then in 32 fathoms, the indistinct radar trace showing us 6 miles off.
I got him some coffee, then stayed with him in the wheelhouse, but we didn’t talk. He was completely absorbed in his navigation. However, when we were barely 2 miles off, at a point when I would have expected the ship to have his full attention, he came across to me and said, ‘I think I should tell you something. When we bought this ship, it was a question of survival. It still is. I’ve never been much of a businessman. It was Hans who saw the advantages of landing craft that could bring copra and coffee cargoes direct from the plantations. He bought a war surplus RPL and traded with it so successfully that within a year he had bought another. He’s over in England now, arranging finance for this new ship. That’s the sort of man he is, and when he puts something my way, I know it will be to my advantage and all the details thoroughly worked out.’ He looked at me sideways. ‘I’ve been thinking over what you said, and I felt I ought to tell you the position.’
I thanked him, not sure whether this explanation wasn’t in part to convince himself. ‘Of course, mostly the cargoes are arranged by Mr Shelvankar. He does it by radio. All the isolated plantations have radio now; some of the bigger ones even have their own airfield.’ He reached for his oilskins. ‘Think I’ll con us in from the upper bridge. It’s not going to be too easy to see the track down to the beach in this muck.’ Dressed, he tightened the strings of his hood. ‘Hope I’ve set your mind at rest. I wouldn’t want to lose you just as we’re starting the long haul across to the Solomons.’ His smile was friendly but tense as he pushed back the door and went out into a drenching downpour of rain.
The rain was so heavy now it had completely blotted out the scanned outline of the coast. The upper bridge telegraph rang for Slow Ahead, and the revs died to a sluggish beat. We were half a mile from the shore and nothing visible, the circling illumination of the Double Island lighthouse no more than an intermittent glimmer in the darkness. Ahead of us was nothing, only blackness. A few minutes later he signalled Slow Astern and called the crew to stations on the ship’s loudspeakers. We backed and filled with constant alterations of course. Luke came through the wheel-house on his way to the upper bridge, barely recognisable in his oilies, and for’ard I could see oilskin-clad figures flashing torches as they got ready to open the bow doors and lower the ramp. I heard the stern anchor let go, and almost immediately afterwards the gleam of headlights showed through the rain. The telegraph rang for Stop Engines, and a moment later there was a slight lurch as the ship grounded.
There was an oilskin coat and sou’wester hanging on a peg at the back of the wheelhouse. They were too small for me, but at least they gave some protection as I climbed down to the tank deck. By the time I reached the bows the doors were open and the ramp was being lowered. Fortunately the sea was calm, flattened by the rain, for we were grounded at least a dozen yards from the shoreline, and the ramp, when it touched bottom, was half under water. Holland waded out to the end of it with the water up to his knees as he tested the bottom with his feet. Apparently it was firm, for he signalled them to drive on with his torch.
There was no difficulty with the first vehicle. The driver took it slowly in low gear and four-wheel drive, coming up the ramp without a check and parking himself neatly against the steel side of the hold, nose right against the wheels of the first Haulpak. He didn’t get out of his cab, and when I went over to him and asked whether he had seen anything of a young woman, he said, ‘Sure. That beach is crowded with them, all in bikinis.’ He had a broad-brimmed hat on his head and a hard-bitten face. ‘You think I carry a harem around with me, an’ in this weather?’ He grinned down at me. ‘You expect a lot with this sort of a consignment.’ The second vehicle was already coming down the beach, and I had to move out of the way. It came too fast, had to check at the ramp, and the engine died. After that it was a winching job.
It took the better part of half an hour, winching and manhandling, to get it positioned. Finally it was done, and the two drivers waded ashore to the backup car that was waiting for them at the top of the beach. No sign of Perenna Holland. Either she hadn’t been able to make it or she hadn’t got my message. Maybe Shelvankar had never sent it. I went up to the signals office and asked him again, but he assured me he had sent it at once, looking offended that I should doubt his word. He was busy checking the papers the drivers had brought on board. ‘What’s the cargo?’ I asked him.
‘Japanese outboard engines.’ He showed me the manifest. ‘You see. They are all cleared by Customs.’ I had already checked that myself. The trucks had been stacked with heavy wooden crates, each crate wired round and sealed with a little leaden seal. Back in the wheelhouse I found the bow doors closed, the ramp up and the ship already moving astern as Holland hauled her off the beach on engines and stern anchor winch. Ten minutes later we had recovered the anchor and were headed out to sea. He came down then from the upper bridge.