Because one end of the isolation area was so open and none of the windows out onto the weather deck could be locked, Lamia had had no trouble in setting up a lively smuggling route. He now had unrivalled access to medication — always a popular bargaining counter — and he missed his cigarettes and pornography. As the contraband was exchanged either way, so was the mutinous seaman’s cynical speculation. The situation was extremely damaging; indeed, it was beginning to turn dangerous.
Richard did not discover all this at once, of course, but he was an extremely acute man and a widely experienced one; it was only a matter of a few days before he had worked out what was going on in the restricted world around him.
Once he had discovered that the skin condition was unsightly and uncomfortable but by no means enervating, he reassumed command and arranged with a more than willing Peter Walcott for the ping-pong room to be turned into a fully functioning office. The walkie-talkie particularly freed him; linked as it was to the main communication of Psyche’s powerful radio room, it allowed him to communicate with anyone he wanted to talk to, anywhere.
On his flight across here, when he had known about Wally’s condition but not his own, he had completed his discussion with Yves Maille about exactly what it was they could see in the sea and directed the final series of course changes which, when fully executed, swung the convoy round onto its eastern heading. During the next few days they would follow the southern edge of the busy Guinea current, safely away from the shallow shoreline, the outwash of the Niger and the gathering reefs of coral, heading over the deep water of die Guinea basin directly for the wide embrace of Mawanga’s tectonic harbour.
Richard reported their progress to the Mau Club, and passed on Asha’s description of the symptoms which they were all suffering to be sent out to the United Nations’ tropical medicine experts, and to their experts in radiation sickness at UCLA hospital, though no one made specific mention of this fact. He agreed that when the new Bell helicopter arrived, Asha should send samples ashore to the nearest hospital with a research facility and UN affiliation. The nearest were either in Abidjan on the Ivory Coast or Accra in Ghana; the one two days’ sailing away, the other three days’.
By the end of his first working day in the isolation unit, Richard was very much back in charge and had impressed everyone around him, except the group of malcontents he was currently trapped with. They soon realised who he was, however, and, with eyes ever on the main chance, they began to make overtures to Wally who was an obvious conduit of influence and information.
As the evening of that first day in the isolation ward gathered around him, Richard stood looking out through the window across the poop deck towards the line watch and the great flank of the berg beyond them. The light was thickening and turning ruby again, though none of the recent sunsets had achieved the spectacular beauty of those behind the high sands of the harmattan. The men of the line watch were in animated conversation, gesturing at the line, the ice and the yellow line cutter. Richard felt he could almost hear what they were saying — but that was impossible in fact because to the constant grumble of generators and throb of engine beneath his feet was added the hum of the air conditioning. Even under the influence of the berg, the air was warm outside. The meltwater would have been running even more intensely down upon these men had they not moved the ship. The thought triggered another in Richard’s mind, a lateral leap of association into something which had been niggling him since they turned south in Biscay and the melt rate had begun to climb.
The ships had been running in ballast, but they were tankers, after all, with massive carrying capacity as yet unused. It was time to do some complex calculations, he thought. And that thought brought to mind the best technical ship handler he knew. The one he was married to. It was time to call Robin. Still looking at the aft line watch, Richard brought the walkie-talkie to his lips and called through to the radio officer.
Five minutes later, he heard the ringing sound and closed his eyes, shutting out the garnet cliff which dominated his view and instead imagining the warm intimacy of the sitting room at Ashenden. It was the phone by the sofa which was ringing, he imagined, and she was coming through from the kitchen to answer it. He always phoned at this time if he could and she would know it was probably him. She would be walking through, having left the twins with Janet to finish their supper, ready to curl up on the sofa and talk to him with the gentle, quiet intimacy they both treasured. He always phoned at this time because he knew she would be able to look out through the French windows towards France itself as they talked, and watch the sun set over the Channel.
‘Mariner.’
He had been so busy daydreaming he was surprised when she answered.
‘Hello, Mariner.’
‘Hello, darling. I hoped it would be you.’ He heard the familiar sounds she made as she sat on the sofa.
‘Sorry I didn’t get through last night.’
‘Bit of a crisis?’
‘You could say that. How are the terrors?’
‘Terrible. They miss you. We all do. Even Ashenden gets lonely after a while.’
‘I’ll be home soon.’
‘Do. Or we’ll be coming out to Mawanga.’
‘Don’t do that! It’s going to be a circus.’
‘No, I was joking. I don’t want to put the twins through all those jabs yet. What crisis?’
He began to tell her a little, making light of it, playing mind games with himself as he always did when he was less than honest with her, worrying that he was being over-protective and patronising, suspecting acutely that she could read him so well — even at this distance on a crackly line — that she would go to the other extreme and imagine that his reticence covered things which were much worse than they actually were.
‘But you’re in safe hands.’
‘Yes. I’m with Asha and she’s got every expert the UN can contact to advise her over the phone.’
‘But they don’t know what it is.’
‘Not yet.’
‘And the skin is coming off your hands and face.’
‘Not all of it; it’s just as though I’m peeling a bit after sunburn. That’s all.’
‘Off your hands and face.’
‘Well, not so much my face as my neck, you know …’ His voice trailed off.
Silence.
‘Maybe I’ll come out after all,’ she said.
‘Oh darling! There’s nothing you could do!’
‘I could take over your command for a start. I hope you’re paying poor Sally Bell captain’s rates because she’s been in command of that ship for longer than you have, by the sound of things.’
‘Talking of that…’
‘Talking of Sally?’
‘Talking of taking command, I’ve got a bit of a conundrum, and I’d like your advice, as the most gifted ship handler in the family…’
Next morning’s captains’ conference was held on the walkie-talkies — on the ‘party line’, as Bob Stark insisted on calling it. This was by no means an unusual procedure. Since die loss of one helicopter and the difficulty, and time wasted, of hopping from one ship to another, the conference had often been held this way. But this one Richard would have preferred to hold face to face. Even though he could and did fax all the calculations and the sheets of lading schedules to everybody as they discussed what he and Robin had worked on until late last night, he would have preferred to see their faces as he talked. But he was able to tell a good deal from their tone of voice and had to satisfy himself with that.