In High Places

'I expect, being on a ship like this,' Dan said, 'you get to meet all kinds of people.'

'You said it, matey.' The seaman grinned. 'All shapes 'n' colours 'n' sizes. Some queer ones, too.' He glanced knowingly at the others.

'What's your opinion about Henri Duval?' Dan asked.

Stubby Gates took a deep swig from his own mug before answering.

' 'E's a decent little fellow. Most of us like 'im. 'E works when we ask 'im to, though a stowaway don't have to. That's the law o' the sea,' he added knowledgeably.

'Were you in the crew when he stowed aboard?' Dan asked.

'You betcher! We fahnd 'im when we was two days out o' Beirut. Thin as a ruddy broomstick, 'e was. I reckon the poor bastard was starvin' before 'e come on the ship.'

De Vere had tasted his tea and put it down.

'Bloody awful, ain't it?' their host said cheerfully. 'It tastes o' zinc concentrate. We picked up an 'old full of it in Chile. Bleedin' stuff gits in everything – yer 'air, yer eyes, even the tea.'

'Thanks,' the photographer said. 'Now I'll be able to tell them at the hospital.'

Ten minutes later Henri Duval came to the galley. In the meantime he had washed, combed his hair, and shaved. Over his shirt he wore a blue seaman's jersey. All his clothing was old but clean. A tear in the trousers, Dan noted, had been neatly darned.

'Come and sit down, Henri,' Stubby Gates said. He filled a fourth mug and placed it before the stowaway, who smiled his thanks. It was the first time he had smiled in the presence of the two newsmen, and it lighted his face, making him seem more boyish even than before.

Dan began the questioning simply. 'How old are you?'

There was the slightest of pauses, then Duval said, 'I twenty-three.'

'Where were you born?'

'I born on ship'

'What was the name of the ship?'

'I not know.'

'Then how do you know you were born on a ship?'

Again a pause. 'I not understand.'

Patiently, Dan repeated the question. This time Duval nodded understanding. He said, 'My mother tell me.'

'What nationality was your mother?'

'She French.'

'Where is your mother now?'

'She die.'

'When did she die?'

'Long time back – Addis Ababa.'

'Who was your father?' Dan asked.

'I not know him.'

'Did your mother tell you about him?'

'He English. A seaman. I never see.'

'You never heard his name?'

A negative headshake.

'Did you have any brothers or sisters?"

'No brother, sister.'

'When did your mother die?'

'Excuse -I not know.'

Reframing the question, Dan asked, 'Do you know how old you were when your mother died?'

'I six year old.'

'Afterwards, who looked after you?'

'I take care myself.'

'Did you ever go to school?'

'No school.'

'Can you read or write?'

'I write name – Henri Duval.'

'But nothing else?'

'I write name,' Duval insisted. 'I show.'

Dan pushed a sheet of copy paper and a pencil across the table. Slowly and in a wavering, childish hand the stowaway signed his name. It was decipherable but only just.

Dan gestured around him. 'Why did you stow aboard this ship?'

Duval shrugged. 'I try find country.' He struggled for words, then added, 'Lebanon not good.'

'Why not good?' Involuntarily Dan used the young stowaway's abbreviated English.

'I not citizen. If police find -I go to jail.'

'How did you get to Lebanon?'

'I on ship.'

'What ship was that?'

'Italian ship. Excuse -I not remember name.'

'Were you a passenger on the Italian ship?'

'I stowaway. I on ship one year. Try get off. No one want.'

Stubby Gates put in, 'As far as I can figure it, 'e was on this Eyetalian tramp, see? They was jist goin' back and forth rahnd the Middle East. So 'e 'ops it at Beirut an' gits on this one. Git it?'

'I get it,' Dan said. Then, to Duval, 'What did you do '" before you were on the Italian ship?'

'I go with men, camels. They give me food. I work. We go Somaliland, Ethiopia, Egypt.' He pronounced the names awkwardly, making a back-and-forth movement with his hand. 'When I small boy, crossing border not matter, no one care. Then when I bigger, they stop – no one want.'

'And that was when you stowed on the Italian ship?' Dan asked. 'Right?'

The young man nodded assent.

Dan asked, 'Do you have any passport, papers, anything to prove where your mother came from?'

'No paper.'

'Do you belong to any country?'

'No country.'

'Do you want a country?'

Duval looked puzzled.

'I mean,' Dan said slowly, 'you want to get of this ship. You told me that.' A vigorous nod, assenting.

'Then you want to have a country – a place to live?'

'I work,' Duval insisted. 'I work good.'

Once more, thoughtfully, Dan Orliffe surveyed the young stowaway. Was his tale of homeless wandering true? Was he, in fact, a castoff, a misborn whom no one claimed or wanted? Was he a man without a country? Or was it all a fabrication, an artful texture of lies and half-truths calculated to elicit sympathy?

The youthful stowaway looked guileless enough. But was he really?

The eyes seemed appealing, but somewhere within them was a veil of inscrutability. Was there a hint of cunning behind it, or was imagination playing tricks?

Dan Orliffe hesitated. Whatever he wrote would, he knew, be hashed over and checked out by the Post's rival afternoon paper, the Vancouver Colonist.

With no immediate deadline, it was up to himself how much time he took in getting the story. He decided to give his doubts a thorough workout.

'Henri,' he asked the stowaway, 'do you trust me?'

For an instant the earlier suspicion returned to the young man's eyes. Then abruptly he nodded.

'I trust,' he said simply.

'All right,' Dan said. 'I think perhaps I can help. But I want to know everything about you, right back from the beginning.' He glanced towards where De Vere was assembling his camera flash equipment. 'We'll take some photographs first, then we'll talk. And don't skip anything, and don't hurry because this is going to take a long time.'

Chapter 5

Henri Duval was still tiredly awake in the galley of the Vastervik.

The man from the newspaper had a tongue with many questions.

It was a puzzle at times, the young stowaway thought, to be certain what he wished. The man asked much, expecting plain words in return. And each answer made was written down quickly upon the sheets of paper before them at the table. It was as if Duval himself were being drawn out through the hurrying pencil point, his life that was past placed carefully in order. And yet, about so much of his life, there was nothing of order, only disconnected pieces. And so many things were hard to tell in plain words – this man's words – or even to remember in just the way they happened.

If only he had learned to read and write, to use pencil and paper for storing things from the mind, as this man and others like him did. Then he, too – Henri Duval – could preserve thoughts and the memory of things past. And not everything would have to stay in his brain, as on a shelf, hoping it would not become lost in forgetfulness, as some of the things he searched for now, it seemed, had done.

His mother had spoken once of schooling. She herself had been taught as a child to read and write. But that was long ago, and his mother had died before any schooling for himself could be begun. After that there was no one else to care what, or whether, he learned.

He frowned, his young face creased, groping for recollection; trying to answer the questions; to remember, remember, remember…

First there had been the ship. His mother had told him of it and it was on the ship that he had been born. They had sailed from Djibouti, in French Somaliland, the day before his birth and he believed that his mother had once told him where the ship was bound, but he had long since forgotten. And if she had ever said what flag the ship flew, that was forgotten too.