“Why?”
“Well, I’ve seen backs broken in falls before now — but never one that looked like this! See? It’s terribly badly bruised right away from the fracture. That can happen, but… it’s the general picture that’s all wrong.”
“What does it suggest, then?”
O’Hara rubbed sweat from his eyes. “It’s almost as though it’s been broken by a blow from some instrument that missed the first time, if you see what I mean — say, an iron bar. Possibly in a fight.”
Shaw stiffened. “Or — intentionally? Not in a fight, but just hit until the backbone went?”
O'Hara looked up at him quizzically. ''I suppose that’s possible. What’s on your mind. Commander?”
“Quite a lot,” Shaw said grimly. “I’d like to ask him a few questions, if that's all right.”
“Is it important?”
“Very. I’d like to find out if his injuries are due to a desire for authenticity on the part of his Captain. And if so — why!”
O’Hara said reluctantly, “All right, but don’t overdo it And you'd better hurry. Just wait while I get the stretcher under him.” Shaw and O’Hara, assisted now by the big Chinaman, manoeuvred the stretcher under the seaman, who gave low moans of pain; then, when he was flat and strapped in, O’Hara nodded to Shaw. He said, “Go ahead, but make it snappy. Maybe he doesn’t speak English anyway.”
“I’ll try.” Shaw bent low over the blink, said: “Listen, John. You speak English?”
Two black eyes looked up, glittering, full of pain. “Some words,” the man said faintly, his face wet with sweat. “Velly small bit.”
Shaw said urgently, “Just tell me how it happened. Tell me how you got hurt.”
“Tank cleaning, fall down tank, bleak back.”
“H’mmmm… Didn’t have a fight, did you?”
The man repeated, “Tank cleaning, fall down tank, bleak back.”
Shaw thought it sounded just a little pat, a little too much like something learned off parrot-fashion. The big man, the bos’n, was leaning forward anxiously now, his face ugly, muttering away to himself.
Shaw asked, “Is there anything… unusual about your ship, John?”
There was no reaction; the man’s eyes were closed now. Shaw, who had no knowledge of pidgin-English, searched his mind desperately for something which might penetrate. He asked urgently, “Ship him make-um funny-funny, queer?”
There was a gasp of pain from the injured man, but he opened his eyes again. He said, “Plain tanker, velly ordinaly, in ballast, bound for Persian Gulf to load spilit for Shanghai.” To Shaw, it didn’t sound as though the man really understood what he was saying. He went on, “Ship good? You happy here?”
“Velly good ship, velly happy, Captain good man, mate good too. Also bos’n.”
Shaw was about to speak again when there was a sudden outburst of jabbering from the bos’n. Shaw swung round on him, snapped: “You keep out of this.” When the man persisted, Shaw brought out his gun, rammed it in the bos’n’s stomach.
He said, “Any more of that and I’ll shoot.” He turned back to the man in the bunk. The eyelids fluttered, there was an indistinct murmur, and then the head lolled and the body gave a spasmodic jerk. O’Hara bent forward swiftly, felt for pulse and heart. Then he stood back.
He said, “That’s all.”
“Dead?”
“Very.” The doctor looked at Shaw’s face, added: “He was going anyway. You didn’t make any difference. I wouldn’t say the same for this bloke.” He jerked his head towards the bos’n. “Somebody broke that man’s back for him, and I wouldn’t put it past this big bastard… but she’s a Chinese ship and that’s not our affair. Or is it?”
Shaw said grimly, “That depends.”
He went out of the stinking mess-room, past silent groups of men squatting about the decks in blue overalls, staring and impassive; Shaw fancied he could detect an air of expectancy, of waiting for something. He went up to the bridge and found the Master, told him curtly what had happened. He added,
“I think there’s just a little more behind this, Captain, something you haven’t told me.” He stood threateningly above the squat man, long jaw thrust out. “Would you care to tell me if you have any special orders with regard to the New South Wales?"
The yellow face was inscrutable, the eyes, downcast now, hooded by heavy lids. “There is nothing.”
“You’re quite sure?”
“I am quite sure.”
“Are you?” Shaw pushed his revolver into the man’s ribs. “Does this make you feel a little less, sure, Captain?”
The Chinese didn’t move. He said calmly in a sing-song voice, “It makes me sure only of this: that you take an unpardonable liberty and I shall make a report to our representative in Abadan.”
“Suppose I arrest your ship?”
Imperturbably the Chinese replied, “On what grounds? I am a peaceful tanker Master, and I asked for you to come only to take away an injured man, in the name of a common humanity.” He raised his eyes then, looked straight into Shaw’s. “That is not enough for you? You must demand further reason? Not enough, that the man was so badly injured that he is now dead?” He made a hopeless gesture. “I do not know what to say. It is not the business of you or any British shipmaster to ask these questions on the high seas.”
Shaw bit his lip, frowned. The man was right on that point, anyway. Certainly neither he nor Sir Donald Mackinnon had any authority to detain a foreign flag ship, and he had already gone a little too far in pulling a gun on the Tungtai’s Master. And there really had been a sick man… and the Master didn’t seem in the least worried by that covering aircraft overhead. Besides, he’d made no attempt to interfere with Shaw or the sailors — let alone with the liner’s cargo!
Shaw said stiffly, “Very well, then. I’m returning aboard the New South Wales now, but I’m not satisfied that man of yours really had an accident. If I were you, I’d watch out you don’t run into trouble over that. That’s nothing to do with me, I know, but it may be somebody’s job to investigate, Captain.” And that, he thought was just about all there was in it; an injury, most likely not an accidental one — but Sir Donald had been right to answer the call. Shaw gave the Chinese a long, hard look but there was no reaction; he nodded to the liner’s Second Officer. “Let’s go, Mr Kelly.”
They went down to the fore tank deck, hailed the boat which was lying off. It came alongside and they were pulled back to the New South Wales. As they hooked on to the falls and rose on the winches to the embarkation deck, the tanker was already under way again and steaming north-westwards for the Persian Gulf.
Shaw and the doctor climbed to the bridge and reported to Sir Donald. Soon after, the New South Wales swung back on to the track for Fremantle, proceeding fast so as to make up as much as possible of the time lost. The covering aircraft made a farewell signal and flew off.
Very soon after that the tanker was a fast-fading speck astern, and, aboard her, a small, skinny man with large ears and grey hair was climbing somewhat fearfully up the deep, shining shaft of a cargo-tank. Reaching the deck, he told a member of the crew to send down a rope and bring up the radio transmitter which he had been using. When he had seen this brought up carefully and tenderly, he climbed up to the bridge, looking anxious — and disappointed.
It was late that evening that some news came through to the New South Wales.
First there was a signal from Captain James in Sydney to say that an air patrol had reported the tanker Tungtai as having made a big alteration of her course, swinging round almost on a reciprocal of her previous track to head in towards the north Australian coast. Inquiries were being made of her Australian agents, but for the time being the patrolling aircraft had lost her in haze and low cloud as the sun went down. The second piece of news emerged when Shaw went up to the radio room to send an acknowledgment to James and tell him that in his opinion it was not a matter of urgency that the Tungtai should be intercepted whatever trouble it caused. He was, in fact, extremely worried now, for there seemed to be no logical, lawful reason why the Tungtai should suddenly go back on her tracks like this.