Had I gone to Cooktown then, I might have had some warning before I got myself involved in the tangled background of the Hollands. As it was, I flew back to Sydney next day knowing nothing about the trail of greed and death that had its origin in the Dog Weary mine, or the relevance of that stamp collection, only that there was probably some connection. I had a window seat, and coming in low over Sydney Harbour Bridge in the late afternoon, the sky clear and the sun just setting, I thought I could see the repair yard where the LCT had been lying. But now there was only a coaster alongside. The plane tilted slightly, giving me a view of the bridge and the whole broad expanse of Port Jackson right out to the Heads. That was when I saw her, a squat little toy of a vessel out beyond Fort Dennison. I thought for a moment I had missed my chance and she had sailed. But as we steadied on our course for the airport on Botany Bay, craning my head, I caught another glimpse of her below the tailplane. I could see the wake then. She wasn’t outward bound. She was heading back into port.
As soon as we landed, I rang the agent. This time I had no trouble, probably because the man who answered was in a hurry to get home. The Perenna had just completed her engine trials. There were still some minor adjustments to be made. These would be carried out tomorrow. She would be taking on cargo Friday morning and sailing for Bougainville that same day. It didn’t give me much time, for I still had the legal side of the Munnobungle sale to deal with, as well as currency and land sale regulations to check. I went straight to my hotel, left my bags and took a taxi to Observatory Park, where I knew I would have a good view of the dock area.
It was a cold, very clear evening, and from the steps above Kent Street I looked across Darling Harbour to wharves thick with shipping and more vessels anchored off in the dark expanse of water. It was some time before I picked her out. She was half hidden by a big container ship, just her bows showing, and then she was completely lost to sight, for the container ship was under way with two tugs in attendance.
When the container ship was clear, I could see her plainly, small and slab-sided among the freighters over towards Peacock Point. There were no taxis, and it was a long walk across Pyrmont Bridge to the dock area and the gate leading on to the wharves. I was almost an hour wandering about under the stars among ships and cranes and the blank walls of the storage sheds before I was lucky enough to find a launch lying alongside some steps out by Donkey Island. It was taking on the crew of a Japanese freighter anchored off, and the coxs’n, who spoke a few words of English, agreed to drop me off at the LCT. It was just on eight when we left, a stiff breeze blowing up the harbour and all of us huddled under the canopy. He made for his own ship first, and when we were alongside, there was a great sorting out of packages and souvenirs before the crew members finally went chattering like a group of starlings up the gangway. ‘Your ship ex-war?’ the coxs’n asked me, his teeth showing in a grin.
‘Not my ship,’ I told him.
‘You visit?’
I nodded, and he turned the launch towards the LCT, now only three or four cables away. ‘How you get shore?’ he shouted above the sound of the engine and the crash of the bows.
‘They’ll have a boat.’
‘No boat.’
I didn’t say anything, watching as we approached the familiar shape of her. She looked even older than when I had seen her last, the paint flaking from her flat side, the letters HOLLAND LINE showing red and streaked with rust in the glimmer of the shore lights, and her plates all buckled by years of work. And then that name again as we rounded the stern to come alongside under her lee.
No gangway, and no sign of anybody on board, only a light high up in the bridge housing aft. It came from what used to be the wardroom. I hailed her, but there was no reply. A rope ladder lay flat against her side, and I seized hold of it as the launch bumped. ‘You send a signal Yamagata,’ the little coxs’n said, ‘I come take you shore.’
I thanked him, and then the launch was swinging away and I was climbing the rusty side. And when I reached the catwalk, and stood looking down at the empty tank deck with the storm and ramp doors at the far end, it was all so familiar that it was like that first time I had gone aboard an LCT at Helensburgh, a young National Serviceman nervous at the thought of going to sea in such a strange craft.
‘You, what you like?’
I turned to find a man in thin blue trousers and a heavy sweater standing below the bridge housing. He was very black with a great mop of frizzy black hair. ‘Is the Captain on board?’ I asked him.
He stared at me, the whites of his eyes showing, and there was a long silence. ‘You like to see him?’
‘Where is he? In the wardroom?’
‘What you want him for?’
I hesitated. ‘Is his name Holland?’
‘He not seeing anybody.’
‘Tell him I have news of his sister.’ I had moved along the catwalk and was now quite close to the man. He was shivering slightly, and the glossy smoothness of his black skin had a blue tinge as though he had been dipped in indigo. ‘You’ll get cold out here,’ I said, moving past him towards the bridge ladder.
‘Okay. I take you.’
‘Don’t bother. I know the way.’ I went up the ladder to the bridge wing and slid back the door to the wheelhouse. It was dark inside, only the glow of the shore lights to show me the dim outline of the wheel and the engine-room telegraph. It was very quiet, no sound of movement or voices, not even a radio, and the hum of the ship’s generator muted to a gentle persistent murmur deep down below me. I went through into the passage leading aft, past the captain’s cabin and the signals office with its radio equipment. Light showed in the heat cracks of the wardroom door, and I pushed it open.
The layout hadn’t changed, a black grease-stained leather settle around two sides of the mess table, some chairs and the inevitable ship photographs and Service plaques on the walls. The mess table had a chart spread half across it, and there were books open, one of them an Admiralty Pilot, and beside it a sheet of paper with some notes. There was also a half-empty bottle of whisky and a china jug with the lip broken. All this I took in at a glance, my mind slipping back twenty years and my eyes fastening on the man slumped at the far end of the settle under the porthole, his legs up and his head leaning back against the corner. He had dark hair, almost black, a square freckled face, very sallow with deep lines creasing the forehead and his mouth hung slightly open.
He looked ill and tired, and I thought for a moment he had fallen into a drunken coma. But then his eyes opened, staring at me wide with shock. Suddenly he sat up, a quick startled movement. ‘Who are you?’
‘You’re the Captain, are you?’ I asked him.
He nodded slowly, his eyes still wide and that startled, almost frightened look. I told him my name, but he didn’t seem to take it in. ‘Who sen’ you?’ His voice was soft, a little slurred. ‘Wha’ you want?’
He wasn’t ill. He was just scared. I could literally smell his fear, the nerve twitching a muscle in his cheek, his self-control almost gone.
‘It’s all right,’ I said, trying to reassure him. ‘I just came to see if you had room for a passenger. They told me you’d be sailing on Friday as soon as you had taken on cargo.’ I was talking fast, trying to give him time to accustom himself to my presence. ‘I’m from England, on business, but I’ve got over a month to kill and I thought-’
‘Who told you I’d be sailing on Friday?’
‘The agents.’
‘An’ you wan’ come with me, on this ship?’ The creases on his forehead deepened as he forced his brain to concentrate. ‘Why? Who put you up to this?’