He didn’t look like a Pakistani and the papers on the desk, accounts for food mainly, indicated that this was the chief steward’s office. As on the upper deck, the lift was switched off. Bolder now, I walked quickly down the port and starb’d alleyways. Most of the doors were shut, but the few that had been left latched open showed them as cabins occupied by sleeping bodies.
I went back to the stairs then, down the final flight to the crew’s sleeping quarters. There was a smell about this deck, a mixture of stale food and human bodies overlaid with the pungent scent of spices and the background stink of hot engine oil. It was a strange feeling, wandering those empty alleyways, knowing that all around me men were sleeping. Here and there I could hear the sound of their snores, muted behind closed doors, louder where the doors were open. There was one man with an extraordinary repertoire, the tone of his snores bass on the intake, almost treble when breathing out. I was at the for’ard end of the starb’d alleyway then and I could hear him quite clearly the whole length of the passage. I shone my torch on him, but he didn’t stir, and though I was certain he was one of the Pakistani seamen, I didn’t wake him. The ship was so quiet, everything so peaceful at this level, that I thought it worth trying to have a look outside the superstructure before taking the irrevocable step of making contact with one of the crew.
There were doors to the deck at each end of the transverse alleyway, but they were locked. I went back up the stairs, moving quickly now. At A deck again I paused. I had already tried the doors leading direct on to the external ladders at the after end of the port and starb’d alleyways, also those by the lift. All had been locked and it was only on the offchance that I tried the starb’d doors leading out on to the boat deck. To my surprise these were not locked. Presumably the cox’n, or whoever had been in charge of the foredeck anchor party, had left them open for the convenience of the crew if the wind increased during the night and there was a sudden emergency. I stepped out into the night, the air suddenly fresh and smelling of salt. Straight in front of me was the starb’d lifeboat, the wind thrumming at its canvas covers.
After the sleeping stillness of the crew’s quarters the noise on the boat deck seemed shattering, the night full of the sound of breaking waves, the scream of the wind in the superstructure, and astern the continual uproar of seas foaming against the base of the cliff. It was very dark and not a light anywhere. I felt my way to the rail, standing there between the after davit and a life raft in the full force of the wind, waiting for my eyes to adjust themselves. The time was 02.19.
Gradually the vague outline of the ship emerged. With my head thrown back I could just make out the dark, shadowy shape of the funnel, and a little for’ard of it the mast poking its top above the side of the bridge housing. Looking aft everything was black, the cliffs and the mountains above blotting out any vestige of light filtering through the cloud. For’ard I could just see the gangway hoist and beyond it the shadowy outline of the hull stretched dark against the broken white of water far below. I thought for a moment I could see the outline of one of the jib crane masts and the manifold, but beyond that the ship disappeared into a void of darkness.
I waited there for a good five minutes, but I could see no movement. Finally, I faced into the wind, feeling my way along the side of the lifeboat to the rail at the for’ard end of the boat deck, following it as it turned across the ship until I found the gap where the midships ladder led down to the central catwalk. I went down it, and down another, shorter ladder to the vast open stretch of the upper deck, not daring to expose myself on the catwalk.
I had never been alone on the deck of a tanker before, always in company, and always either in daylight or in the blaze of the ship’s deck lights. Now, in the wind and in complete darkness, with the sound of broken water all round me, it was like advancing into a primeval void, and even though the tanker was quite a modest one by modern standards, the night made it seem huge.
I was pulled up almost immediately by the sudden emergence of a crouched shape. It turned out to be one of the mooring winches and the figure beyond it one of the ‘dead men’, its head the wheel that guided the hawser from fairlead to winch.
I stood for a moment looking about me, checking for some movement, but it was darker now and I couldn’t see a thing. Already the dim shadow of the superstructure had disappeared, nothing visible anywhere except the nebulous outline of pipes running ahead of me and disappearing into the blackness. I felt very alone then, very naked and unarmed, the steel deck under my feet, the bulk of the winch and those pipes, nothing else visible and the knowledge that the deck went on and on until it reached the raised fo’c’sle where the captive crew had been brought up out of the chain locker and those two poor devils had gone over the side.
I moved on, walking slowly, feeling my way with each step. Even so, I found myself tripping over the small tank washing pipes called lavomatics that were stretched across the deck at regular intervals. There were inspection hatches for each tank and purge pipes to clear the gases, and at one point I barged into a slender, screw-capped sounding pipe that was about knee-high. The deck, in fact, was littered with obstacles for a man moving warily in complete darkness, and now there was a new sound. I thought for a moment it was somebody whistling and stopped abruptly, my heart in my mouth, but it was only the wind. A little further on the sound of it changed. It was like somebody moaning. All about me the wind sighed and moaned and the sea made rushing, slapping noises, and at each new sound I paused until I had identified it, convinced that somewhere along this endless dark expanse of steel plating an armed guard lurked, my eyes searching ahead along the line of the raised catwalk for the tell-tale glow of a cigarette.
A shape emerged, grew suddenly tall and I stopped again. I was in the centre of the ship, following the line of the pipes. The shape was away to the right, very straight and tall, motionless by the starb’d rail. I crouched down, moving slowly forward in the shadow of the pipes. There was another shape to my left now. I hesitated, my heart pounding, feeling suddenly boxed in.
I stayed like that for maybe a minute, the figures on either side of me frozen motionless like myself. Gradually it dawned on me that they were further away than I had imagined and much taller than any man could possibly be. The derricks — the jib cranes for handling pipe! I got slowly to my feet, trembling slightly and feeling a fool as I ducked under the manifold with its mass of pipes running transversely across the ship, big valves showing like crouched figures in the gloom as I negotiated the breaker that stops waves running the length of the deck. After that there were no more pipes, only the catwalk running fore and aft.
I must have veered left for I was suddenly confronted with a new sound, an intermittent thumping noise, as though somebody were regularly striking at the steel hull with a heavy wooden maul. The noise of the sea was louder here. I was almost at the port rail and my eyes, following the line of it aft, fastened on the dark outline of a thin shaft standing straight up like a spear against the pale blur of waves breaking in the khawr beyond. For a moment I stood there, not moving and wondering what it was. Then I remembered the dhow moored amidships with its two masts just showing above deck level. I went to the rail then and looked down, the dark shape of the Arab vessel just visible as it rose and fell, its wooden hull banging regularly at the ship’s side.
A man coughed and I spun round. Nothing there, but then the cough was repeated, strident now and more like a squawk. A sudden flurry and I ducked as a vague shape took wing and disappeared into the night. I went on then, moving quickly, my hand on the rail, determined not to be scared of any more shadows. More roosting seabirds rose into the air and I jabbed my toe against a set of fairleads. There were inspection hatches at intervals, each hatch, and particularly the vents, appearing first as some lurking watcher. Then at last I was at the rise of the fo’c’sle deck with the foremast a slender shaft spearing the darkness above me.