‘I wouldn’t say that.’
‘Me, I never did go a lot on that lark. All right for them that likes it. The rope’s good though; I’ll give you that. But why the question mark?’
‘It’s life, isn’t it? A mystery.’
It had been an impulse to have it done. He had thought of it as a kind of symbol — the mystery of his own birth. Now he half-regretted the step; it was pretty silly when you came to think about it.
‘Well,’ Bristow said, ‘if it’s what you wanted.’
Keeton caught sight of Petty Officer Hagan making his way aft, using the starboard side, away from the loading operations. Hagan looked like a man with a purpose.
‘Oh, dear,’ Bristow said. ‘I bet he’s got a job for somebody. I’m making myself scarce.’
He started to drift away, but he was too late; the petty officer had already seen him. Hagan’s bellowing voice was audible above the other noises.
‘I want you, Bristow. And you, Keeton. You can be a bit useful for a change.’
Bristow shrugged in resignation and waited for Hagan to climb the ladder from the main deck.
‘So what’s the trouble this time, P.O.?’
‘You’re for guard duty,’ Hagan said. ‘You’re going to guard some valuable cargo. And you’ll dress proper and all.’
‘Guard duty!’ Bristow said. ‘Well, stone the ruddy seagulls!’
The valuable cargo came aboard in wooden boxes which might have contained small arms or ammunition. The boxes had rope handles at each end and the stevedores stowed them amidships in an improvised strong-room with bare steel sides and a padlocked door. At first Bristow had counted the boxes going in, but he had soon lost count. Now, irked by stiff white trousers, gaiters, webbing belt and sheathed bayonet, he leaned back against the locked door with his hands resting on the muzzle of his rifle.
‘You’d think it was the crown jewels in there. Two armed guards. What are they playing at?’
‘You heard what the P.O. said — valuable machine parts — very secret.’ Keeton spoke cynically. He wondered whether even the petty officer himself believed that story.
‘Who’s going to nip in and pinch secret machinery here?’ Bristow grumbled. ‘They’ve been reading too many thrillers.’
It was close and hot in the alleyway outside the padlocked store-room. Down that iron passage came the oily smell of the engines. They were below the water-line, and it seemed as though no breath of fresh air had ever penetrated so far into the confines of the ship.
‘Roll on four bells,’ Bristow said. ‘Somebody else can take over then. Thank God we’ve only got two-hour watches, not four. Four hours of this and you wouldn’t see me for grease.’
A steward came down the alleyway and paused to stare at the two naval ratings. He was wearing black trousers and a short white jacket with soup stains on it. He had a pinched-in face and no chin to speak of, sleek, oiled hair and a black moustache that was like something that had crawled out of his nose and expired on his upper lip.
He gave a lopsided grin that did nothing to improve his appearance.
‘What you two boys all dressed up for? Armed and all. My, my! Expecting boarders?’
‘Hop it, Gravy Boat,’ Bristow said.
‘The name’s Smith, if it’s all the same to you.’
‘All the same to me if it’s Florence Nightingale. Nobody’s allowed to loiter in this alleyway. You included. That’s orders.’
‘What they got in there, then? Treasure?’
‘I’ll give you treasure, you flipping bottle-washer. Beat it.’
Bristow picked up his rifle and tapped Smith’s shins. The steward gave a yelp, jumped back and struck his head on a fire extinguisher.
Bristow laughed. ‘Now do what I told you. Get moving.’
Smith glowered venomously at Bristow; then he limped away, rubbing the back of his head. At the end of the alleyway he turned and fired a parting insult at Bristow. ‘You fat slob, you. Playing at soldiers. When you going to grow up?’
He made an obscene gesture. Bristow hauled the bayonet out of its sheath and made a rush at him. The steward disappeared very smartly and Bristow came back to his post grinning.
‘Put the breeze up him. Stewards!’
Keeton had taken no part in this horseplay; to him it seemed childish. Bristow slipped the bayonet back into the sheath and was silent for a few minutes. Then he said: ‘I been thinking.’
Keeton grunted.
‘About what that little blighter said — about us guarding treasure. Maybe he was right. Maybe it is treasure in there. Maybe it’s gold.’
‘I never thought it was anything else,’ Keeton said. ‘Nobody but a dim-wit like Hagan would swallow that secret machinery guff. It’s gold all right. We’ll dump it in Uncle Sam’s pocket and then we’ll catch an Atlantic convoy and take the wool to England.’
Bristow scratched the back of his neck, his eyes bright.
‘What a lovely little fortune, hey? Must be thousands of quids’ worth. Suppose it was ours, Charlie. Just suppose it was ours.’
‘You can suppose what you like,’ Keeton said. ‘But it never will be.’
They steamed out into the South Pacific with the morning sun glittering on the water. They left behind them the great steel bridge and set their course eastward for Panama, a long and lonely haul between the islands and the coral reefs, over the carcasses of dead ships and the white bones of long forgotten mariners.
A light breeze was rustling the Red Ensign when Keeton went on watch at noon. He climbed the steel ladder from the gunners’ quarters, went down from the poop and crossed the afterdeck which was now washed clean of the garbage that had accumulated in dock. He was carrying his life-jacket slung over one shoulder and he was wearing a pair of khaki shorts and a khaki drill bush shirt that he had bought from one of the army gunners. He did not believe that he would ever have cause to wear the life-jacket, but he carried it because Petty Officer Hagan was fussy about such things.
The Valparaiso was armed with two 20-millimetre Oerlikons, two .50 calibre Browning machine-guns and an old 4-inch breech-loader on the poop. Keeton had never fired a gun in anger. Since stepping on board the Valparaiso he had not seen a single enemy plane and had never heard a depth-charge explode. He had fired guns in training, but at this late stage in the war he did not think he would ever be called upon to do more than that. Everywhere in the Pacific theatre the Japanese had been pushed back and on the other side of the globe the Battle of the Atlantic had been won. Keeton would go on watch because that was what he was ordered to do, but his private belief was that gun watches were now no more than a token, a hangover from that time when the war at sea had been fierce and bloody and merciless.
He met Hagan at the foot of the ladder amidships. The petty officer was coming down from the accommodation deck and he looked at Keeton with the sour expression of a man who is always prepared to discover a fault.
‘Where’s your tin hat?’ Hagan asked.
Keeton said: ‘I left it in the cabin. I didn’t think I needed it.’
‘You didn’t think! Let me tell you something, my lad you’re not paid to think. You’re paid to obey orders and orders says you carry a tin hat on watch, see?’
‘I see.’
In Keeton’s opinion Hagan was a jumped-up little Hitler. Just because he had crossed anchors on his sleeve he threw his weight about as if he owned the ship. Keeton would have liked to tell the petty officer just what he thought of his orders, but there would have been no sense in doing so; it would only have meant trouble for himself.
‘I’ll let it pass this time,’ Hagan said, as though he were conferring on Keeton an immense favour, ‘else you’ll be late relieving. But another time remember it.’