And, while the Commander swung his binoculars incredulously between what were now the three shells of that impossible fleet, the Navigating Officer whispered in a hushed voice: ‘She must’ve been doing bloody near twenty knots to drive herself up on the beach like that, for Chrissake!’
The Commander stood silently gazing around while the rest of the boarding party shinned sweatily up the grapnel line caught in the aftermast stays and gathered wonderingly about him abaft the ghost ship’s centrecastle. They could have come aboard by the bleached accommodation ladder which still hung dejectedly down her starboard side, but one glance at the rusty bridle and mildewed topping lift which suspended it had convinced the Commander of the folly of such a venture.
The First Lieutenant heaved himself over the bulwarks and uneasily took in the rotting hatch covers, the streaming, leprous steel of bulkheads and decks and the patches of creeping yellow fungus that sent out diseased fingers to explore every inch of wooden doors and awning spars. He shivered involuntarily despite the shimmering heat of the high sun and self-consciously eased the Webley and Scott .38 sitting so unaccustomedly in the sagging web belt around his white-shorted waist. The Commander saw him and smiled a little tightly. ‘There hasn’t been anyone to shoot at aboard this ship since you were getting your picture taken on a bearskin rug, Number One.’
The First Lieutenant coloured in embarrassment and tried, doubtfully, to laugh it off. ‘No, Sir. Though I did see a horror movie once…’
But the Commander wasn’t really listening. Instead he was gazing aft at the incinerated mess of sprawling rails and shattered ventilators which scarred the high poop, and at the object which rose arrogantly and still lethally traversed almost on his own ship. ‘Good Grief!’ he gestured. ‘That was the sort of museum piece the D.E.M.S. crowd used to install aboard merchantmen back in ’39… An old 4.7 by the look of it.’
His Number One followed the oustretched arm and bit his lip involuntarily. Apart from the gun itself, the rest of the deck aft had been practically swept clear of fittings, presumably by what must have been a virtual hurricane of gunfire. ‘Poor bastards… Whoever made up that gun’s crew, I mean.’
‘Which seems to prove one thing,’ the Commander said, almost to himself.
‘Sir?’
‘This ship, Number One. She’s been lying here ever since the war, just rotting and rusting and dying of old age.’
‘Yessir… Er, which war would that be, Sir?’ said the First Lieutenant, for he was young and his first memory of angry guns was as fleet midshipman off the coast of Korea.
The Commander looked at him sadly. ‘If you were a little older, Number One, you’d realise there only ever was one real war.’ He turned. ‘Petty Officer Torrance.’
‘Sah?’ The thump of rubber-soled boots.
‘Take your party and, starting from aft, search the ship as thoroughly as you can. Don’t attempt to enter any ill-lit spaces or go below to the engine room at the moment. I’ll have the E.R.A.s fit up emergency lighting tomorrow. Just settle for a quick shufti through the main decks and accommodation for now. The First Lieutenant and I will visit the master’s quarters; you can report to me there as soon as you’re finished.’
He turned back to his Number One. ‘I always was frustrated every time I read that damned Marie Celeste story, Number One. You know? That sailing ship found drifting with no one on board?’ He started off up the shrapnel-pitted ladder from the well-deck, then hesitated momentarily. ‘And I’m buggered if I could stand not knowing what happened here twenty-five years ago.’
They found the radio room as they climbed the last ladder up to the high boat-deck and, when they glanced apprehensively inside and saw the shambles of splintered dials and valves and wires hanging from the still grey enamelled cabinet, the First Lieutenant said ‘Jesus!’ again. There seemed no way it could have happened — unless someone had done it deliberately.
But what sane person could ever want to maroon himself without any means of communication on a ring of black rocks a thousand miles from anywhere?
They walked along the sun-bleached decking towards the curiously canted bridge and noted the empty, swung-out davits with their rotting, drooping rope falls terminating just above the glassy water in rustbound blocks, and the Commander muttered in angry frustration: ‘From the looks of her, this ship isn’t all that badly damaged. Why, in God’s name, did her crew leave her in the boats? Why didn’t they just sail her straight out?’
They stood for a few moments surveying the partially collapsed wheelhouse and then walked cautiously across the vast plain of the bridge-wing — vast in comparison to the tight compactness of the survey ship’s tiny navigating space — and entered the structure itself. Shards of shattered glass from the starboard windows scrunched under their feet as they moved silently into the dank shade. A faded black course-board hung from the deck-head forward of the lifeless telemotor and wheel, the faint lines of chalk still showing the last course some long-gone quartermaster had steered to. The Commander allowed his hand to rest briefly on the green verdigris of the binnacle while the First Lieutenant nudged his toe against a ragged, discoloured signal flag thrown carelessly on the coir-matted deck. It was still decipherable to a seaman, though.
‘Letter “U”,’ murmured the Commander looking down, ‘“you are standing into danger”. I wonder: did they get it out, perhaps, to signal to that gutted wreck on the beach across there?’
The First Lieutenant squatted and fingered it with distaste. The discoloration wasn’t all caused by the ravages of time. ‘I don’t really know what twenty-five-year-old blood should look like, Sir… but somehow I don’t think this was meant to be used in any signal hoist.’
They only hesitated for a few seconds beside the collapsed section of teak planking that had, at one time, presumably formed part of the monkey island — that open area topping the wheelhouse and used primarily for taking azimuth bearings while navigating in narrow waters. The little white-painted silhouette they could see on it had weathered well through the years, protected as it was from the winds and rains by the break of the chartroom.
‘Damn thing looks like a submarine, Number One,’ the Commander commented, looking more closely.
And that was yet another odd factor to consider because, as the First Lieutenant pointed out, it was not uncommon for submarine captains to celebrate a kill by painting a little white merchantman on the side of their conning towers… but a submarine painted on a merchantman?
They stared, baffled, at the curling, mildewed chart which still lay spread out beside the long-stopped brass ship’s chronometer in its rosewood box. They could see quite plainly the little misshapen ring indicating the island. They could also see the soft pencil line that had indicated the ship’s course and the dead-reckoning positions marked as she had approached the landfall, but what they were so mystified by were the other tracks entered by various officers of the watch during the earlier part of her voyage. Northings contradicted Southings, Eastings countered Westings — there was no rhyme or reason in the darting scribbles.
‘They must’ve been either bloody drunk or bloody mad… or bein’ chased by the very Devil himself,’ muttered the Commander.
Yet even that explanation didn’t bear close examination for, in a ship of this size, there must have been a lot of deck officers and they couldn’t all have been drunk or mad.