Fortunately the Captain was standing next to me, so that I could whisper news of the approaching catastrophe in his ear without causing panic among the others. He went pale, motioned me to be quiet and wait until one of the Chinese came by and then ask to speak to the man in charge. It was morning before they brought us some food, which was actually to make a mockery of us. We did not have a hand free, or the room to raise it to our mouths. It was put on the corner of a cupboard, to taunt us. I tried to signal that I wanted to speak to their chief, as did the Captain, but they didn’t understand us.
Fortunately they had also taken the Chinese contractor or comprador prisoner. He was probably part of the plot, but even if he was they obviously wanted to save his face. To that end the comprador endured hunger, thirst and near-suffocation with us, and I must say with great composure. So he was still subject to the Captain’s authority and translated his request.
A quarter of an hour later I and the comprador were untied and taken forward to the Captain’s cabin. Five Chinese were sitting there. On the table revolvers lay among whisky bottles. Four of them were sitting on the bunk, while the fifth occupied the Captain’s office chair. Beneath a black mask hung a grey moustache. The man was very fat and scarcely moved. I had a suspicion that he was a white man. The Chinese fired questions, the comprador translated, and one of the four retranslated. I told them about the last signal I had received and warned them that we were heading for a typhoon if we kept on this course. The chief muttered incomprehensibly, and we were grabbed again and taken back to the cabin where we were being held. The comprador whispered to me: “Because of his superior wisdom he knows all about currents and typhoons, and doesn’t need the Westerners’ machines.”
Fine, I thought, if that’s how you want it. I hope he’s caught in the middle of it with his superior wisdom. But actually I expected him to use our advice to his advantage, and have them change course. I was wrong, but I’m convinced that he, and he alone, realized the importance of the warning, but could not pay any attention to it in front of the others without forfeiting his authority.
At first, though, the chief’s wisdom seemed superior to the sensitive instruments of Zi-Ka-Wei. For two days we sailed across a calm sea. We were tied a little less tightly, and the sickest of us could lie in the two bunks, and we could eat food. The Captain and the second engineer suffered worst, as we were given no alcohol at all. The Captain especially was going visibly downhill, shivering, stuttering and weeping.
On the third night it arrived after all, despite the fat chief’s wisdom. We saw nothing of the storm. Now no one could lie down any more and still we were thrown on top of each other at intervals. It went on for two days. Three men died. The Captain went mad and started biting; all his teeth were knocked out. The rest could scarcely breathe. If it had lasted a few hours longer we would all have suffocated. But the door opened, and the wind had dropped, though the waves were still splashing up sky-high. But things soon improved. In the afternoon we were laid out on the deck, and buckets of water were thrown over us till we got up, and then we had to drag the bodies to the railings; we refused to throw them overboard, and they lay there for hours, until another high wave came and did the job for us and washed them away.
How could it be so calm the following day? The sea was no longer a swirling mass of water, we were floating in a soft blue mist, with a few brown islands beside us and a few ragged clouds above us. We no longer felt our bodies, and pain and exhaustion were forgotten. It was as if the hurricane had abolished gravity. We sailed on, and the clouds faded into a complete blur, but the islands were becoming more numerous; in the evening hosts of them lay off a low, hazy coast. The sky above seemed like the real world, where between vertical cliffs wide fissures opened onto azure seas.
Between them the Loch Catherine drifted like a foreign body, a meteor, hurled down onto a still fluid planet that had come to rest but not yet found solidity. The ship floated into the bay.
The next morning we lay a hundred metres from the sandy shore. This time the pirates seemed not to be content with carrying off cash and precious possessions. All tools, all the iron and copperware, loose equipment and provisions were landed and carted off by hundreds of coolies to a large shed further inland. The lifeboats were lowered and pulled up onto the beach. All the indications were that the pirates had had enough of going on board as passengers and as in the old days wanted to fit out pirate junks for themselves. It was possible that those on board were on a mission to obtain materials.
IV
AFTER THE LOCH CATHERINE had been thoroughly plundered and looked like a stripped wreck, we were also taken off. We were tied by the arm two by two and taken ashore escorted by four Chinese soldiers. Then the ship’s engines were started and it was freed from its moorings. It swung rudderless across the bay, and quickly ran aground. The engines went on churning for a while, then grated to a halt, and the ship formed a new cliff at the entrance to the bay.
The black iron cauldron in which the food for the deck passengers was always cooked had also been brought ashore. The cook was busy preparing a meal for us. Then the comprador distributed the portions as we moved past him in a line. He had now finally discarded the mask of a fellow-prisoner, and handed us the bowls with a grin. He saw the humour of the reversal of roles with an almost Western sensitivity. But he gave a kick to a few of us whom he hated especially, and he spat in the engineer’s face.
We did not have much time to empty our bowls. We were soon kicked to our feet, blindfolded and led away. Were we being taken to our deaths? If so, why had they given us food? Or was this an extra refinement? We walked for four hours in uncertainty, and probably only a few of us were seriously afraid of death, and perhaps a few longed for it. But we were all filled with fear of torture — no one was too jaded for that. Anyone stepping out of line, through stumbling, was immediately pushed back, which proved that we were surrounded by a sizeable escort. We stumbled on like this for hours. It was becoming hotter, and the sun was blazing down more fiercely on our uncovered heads. If only the blindfolds had been tied over our skulls, that would have been a relief.
Suddenly the sunshine became less fierce. Was it evening? No, we were passing between high walls and we could hear and smell a great mass of people surrounding us. A screeching that grew louder and louder, the fumes of sweat and cooked and burnt meat and rotten fish; we had experienced this often enough when sighted to know that we were being taken through a Chinese town. At first we walked along a wide road, then we were constantly prodded to turn a corner. We were grabbed from all sides and hot hands groped at us, curious hands, large coarse ones and also small children’s hands, and nails cut into our flesh, accompanied by shrill laughter. Sometimes one of us was hauled into a window, had long pins stuck into him and was pushed out again.
This ordeal lasted for hours. Then we suddenly halted, bumping into each other like the carriages of a braking train. We heard a loud creaking sound, and a fierce wind hit us, the shreds of our clothes flapped around us, and the smells of decay departed. Behind us was the crowded town, and ahead of us must be a broad empty plain. It was as if we had been submerged in oil and mercury and were now suddenly surfacing in a vacuum. At first it was painful, and our breathing accelerated. Then most of us revived, but for some the transition was too violent, and they fell down unconscious; it took many blows with rifle butts to get them to their feet. On we went again, and the wind remained strong but the sun was no less fierce for that and this plain was sandy, so that the soles of our feet baked as we walked. Our escort must be less numerous now, and no longer prodded us in the right direction, and many stumbled, hitting their heads or arms on sharp stones, and continued bleeding, while sometimes people fell into a mouldy, soft mass of wood and landed on dry human bones.