Southtrap

'I'm certain Reilly and O'Byrne don't know,' MacFie said. 'If it had been Captain Prestrud's ghost, it wouldn't have acted that way anyhow.'

'What d'you mean, Chief?'

'Reilly said the ghost held the gun on him, down there next to the shaft tunnel. It backed away and vanished, he said.'

'Anything else.'

'Reilly keeps saying what big hands it had. The automatic was half-hidden in them.'

Reilly stuck to his story when I confronted him in the engine-room. The little group of sullen strikers were gathered in a corner like guilty schoolboys. Except that they were frightened. Reilly was scared and his fear had infected the others.

'Listen, Reilly,' I told him. 'If I search the ship myself, will that satisfy you?'

Fear also made him truculent and impertinent. 'I know what that means. In half an hour you'll come back and feed us a load of crap that you didn't find a thing. You'll never have moved out of your cabin.'

I wanted to take a swing at him, ugly little runt though he was.

'You'll come along with me, Reilly. If you want to piss yourself, do it before we start.'

It was the sort of talk the others understood. They laughed jeeringly. Reilly realized he was losing his grip. MacFie grunted satisfaction.

'I'll come — but only if you have a gun,' answered Reilly. 'He had a gun. One of those automatics with a skeleton butt. I've seen 'em back home.'

'Belfast, I'll bet,' I retorted. 'You didn't by any chance have to get out quick to save your skin, did you, Reilly?'

The others were siding with me now. O'Byrne said mockingly, 'Go along with you now, Paddy boy. Show the big man you aren't scared.'

Reilly turned on him angrily. 'It was your friggin' grub he pinched. Now I've got to friggin' well go and hunt him down.'

My mind was busy while I kept the exchange going. The only gun I knew of in the ship was Wegger's Luger. Wegger had the dogwatch; he'd be asleep now. I had no intention of going cap in hand to wake him and beg his gun just because a sea-lawyer of a greaser had claimed to have seen a ghost.

I said to MacFie, 'Give me a spanner, Chief. A hefty one.' I addressed Reilly. 'If that's not enough for you, you can stay. Coming?'

The tool MacFie handed me was big enough to drive a hole through the Quest's plating.

Reilly asked, 'Now?'

'Yes. Now.'

He said in a whining tone, 'Ghosts don't walk around in daylight. And he had a gun.'

I laughed derisively. 'Come on, Chief. Get back to work you others. Reilly can have a break until I come back and report to him on the incidence of the supernatural.'

They didn't know what that meant, nor did I intend them to. They started to grin and break up. Reilly hung back undecidedly.

I started my search with the shaft tunnel. It was dark and dank in the bilges, and noisy from the engines and the propeller shaft. MacFie held a torch. Bent double, we worked our way along the tunnel in the direction of the stern. My foot slipped on something. I thought it was a dead rat. MacFie directed his light beam on it.

I eyed the pulped thing under my shoe and called above the noise to MacFie, This is the first ghost I know that eats cold boiled potato.'

MacFie replied thoughtfully, 'So Reilly did see someone, after all.'

I gripped the spanner tighter. 'Let's get on.'

We completed our search of the shaft tunnel. There was nothing.

Number 3 and 4 holds, abaft the stack, were likewise empty.

We went for'ard and cased the forecastle, where the crew lived.

Nothing.

Number One hold was nearest to the foc's'le. When we had been through it without result, only Number 2 hold and the 'tween decks were still unaccounted for.

We found ourselves in Number 2 hold among cases, packages, and all the miscellaneous things which go to make up a ship's cargo.

MacFie shone his flashlight on his watch. 'I must be getting back. Wait till I get my hands on Reilly. I'll trim his arse-feathers all right!'

'Quiet!' I snapped. 'Out with that light! There's someone coming!'

There was a pad-pad of bare feet from the direction of the deep-fuel tank which separated the hold from the engine-room. MacFie and I shrank back against the nearest case, clear of the gangway which had been left open between the cargo.

He was coming at a trot, breathing hard. I took a tight hold of the chunk of spanner. As he came opposite our hiding place, MacFie threw the beam and I launched myself.

I had raised the spanner to half-brain him.

I stopped in mid-stroke It was Wegger.

He had the Luger in his left hand.

He had the gun by the barrel, with the butt extended, like a club. You can't fire a Luger like that.

He dodged aside as quick as a boxer side-stepping a blow, and swung to meet me. He raised the butt with a quick, deadly motion.

Then he, too, stopped.

'Sir! Are you all right? I heard there'd been a mutiny…'

He was panting hard, like a man who has run up half a dozen ship's ladders. He was dressed in a peculiar rig, washed-out jeans and a karate-type blouse.

'Put that bloody gun away!' I snapped to hide my own tautness. 'It might go off and hurt someone.'

Wegger seemed to become suddenly conscious that he was swinging a lethal weapon.

'It isn't loaded — I prefer to use it this way — I mean, there wasn't time to load it…'

There was a cold excitement about the man which vibrated through the hold. His chest rose and fell with his quick breathing.

'Listen,' I went on. 'There's no need for panic, or to flash a gun all round the ship.'

'Did you find anyone?' he demanded.

'You should have been in your cabin asleep,' I retorted.

'How the hell did you hear about this mutiny business?'

He ignored my question. 'Did you find anyone?' he repeated.

MacFie interrupted. 'We've searched the bluidy ship and wasted the skipper's time and mine just because some sonofabitch Irishman…'

'Chief,' I said, 'now that I've got an armed escort you can get back and kick Reilly up the backside. Mr Wegger and I will finish off the search just as a formality.'

'There's nothing I would like better,' replied Wegger, with a strange note in his voice.

'We'll take a quick look-round here and then finish with the'tween decks aft where the drifter buoy and the instruments are,' I went on. 'If anyone's been acting suspiciously the met. men and the scientists are bound to have spotted it.'

MacFie turned to go. I returned the big spanner to him and said. 'That's too big a weapon to use on one small Irishman, Chief.'

He snorted with disgust and went.

Number 4 'tween decks, the scientists' preserve, was over the stern. I opened the door ahead of Wegger and went in. It was a big, bare space, well lighted.

A remarkable sight met our eyes.

Holdgate, the volcanologist who was sharing with the three met. men, was lying on a wooden board the shape of a coffin lid. Next to him was the shroud-like shape of the plasticized nylon drogue. This was to be attached to the bottom of the buoy to stabilize its drift. Holdgate's arms and legs were fastened to the board with straps and buckles.

'Now!' called Smit, the senior weatherman. He gave his knuckles a crack as a preliminary. Then the three grabbed the board by Holdgate's head.

Transmit!'

Holdgate sucked his teeth in an ineffectual kind of whistle. The three up-ended the board so that Holdgate stood almost upright.

'Buoy away!'

Holdgate gave another whistle.

Smit said, 'Okay, boys. That's it. Just like a real burial at sea. All we need is the captain…'

'He's here.'

I couldn't warm to the harmless horseplay — you can't once you've done the real thing. The three lowered the plank to the deck and began to loosen the straps in a self-conscious way.

'We were having a run-down for the launch on Monday,' Smit apologized. The carpenter fixed us this plank.'