At least that’s how it felt to sixty-five-year-old Patrick Devlin, as he meandered along in the early morning sun.
After forty years at sea, Devlin was approaching retirement. That looming thought, and a long night of drinking, had left him in a reflective mood. What exactly was he retiring to? He had no family, no real friends aside from those he crewed or drank with.
“Can’t believe this is the last time I’ll see this stinking place,” he said, speaking to an equally exhausted drinking companion, another Irishman named Keane.
“If it was your last night here,” Keane said, “then you did it up right, Padi. In true Irish fashion… you drank everyone under the table. And left them with the tab.”
Despite Indonesia’s Muslim status, there were plenty of places to drink in the city of Jakarta. A good thing too, because the harbor had become so busy that ships often anchored for days waiting their turn to load and unload. Traffic in the port had doubled threefold in the past decade. Despite frantic levels of construction, the harbor could not keep up.
“Think about it,” Keane added. “Back home, you’ll never wake with dust caking your throat and sweat dripping from your face.” Keane almost tripped but regained his balance. “And none of these damned blaring speakers, waking the dead in the morning like air-raid sirens.”
The call of the muezzins from the mosques in Jakarta was known to be exceedingly loud and to ring out at an exceedingly early hour. Only recently had the time for their song been moved from three a.m. to the somewhat more reasonable hour of four thirty.
Still too damned early, Devlin thought. But, in some ways, he’d miss even that, such was the lure of exotic lands.
“Always thought I’d make captain,” he said.
“And give up all this?” Keane asked, slurring every word.
Devlin laughed. He’d longed to be a captain and ship’s master for most of his life, but an event several years back had made him wonder if he wanted the responsibility. It had also set his drinking on a dangerous course. Captains didn’t tie one on with their crews, they drank alone in their cabins. And they were often forced to make harsh decisions, the kind that haunted Devlin as it was.
“Not on your life,” Devlin said with false bravado. He threw an arm around Keane’s neck in a move that was half headlock and half hug.
The two men were laughing as they reached the motor launch they’d brought from their ship: a freighter loaded with rolls of copper, anchored offshore in the never-ending queue.
As they climbed into the small runabout, Devlin stepped to the controls. Keane, on the other hand, found himself a comfortable spot to lie down, stretching out across a trio of seats and pulling an orange life vest under his head for use as a pillow. Before Devlin had even cleared the bowlines, Keane was passed out and snoring loudly.
“That’s right,” Devlin mumbled, “you sleep. I’ll do all the work as usual.”
He cast off the bowlines and then fired up the small boat’s engine. A moment later, he was picking his way across the crowded harbor.
Small boats moved here and there. A pair of tugs worked to drag a monstrous bulk carrier out into the channel, while crewmen, painting and scraping and fighting the endless battle against rust and corrosion, scampered over other vessels like crabs on the rocks.
Devlin guided the launch past all this and out into the anchorage. He kept a fair course, moving slowly past the waiting ships, until a particular vessel caught his eye.
Slowing the launch just a bit, Devlin stared at a black-hulled vessel with a dark gray superstructure. It looked vaguely familiar, like a small cruise liner, though the dark paint was neither festive nor striking. The more he studied the ship, the odder her appearance was to him. She didn’t seem to carry any lifeboats, radar masts, or even antennas. In fact, she carried none of the normal appendages that sprout from modern ships.
In his inebriated state, Devlin struggled to make sense of it. He saw no one on deck and no sign of activity. The ship itself reminded him of a derelict, stripped for parts. Her black-gray color was like that of charred steal, but the coating wasn’t soot, she’d been deliberately tinted that way.
Subconsciously, Devlin angled the launch toward her, moving closer and then coming around the bow. There he spotted something new, something unmistakable.
“It can’t be,” he said out loud.
In front of him lay the overlapped plating of a hasty repair job. Plates of different thickness and consistency had been welded and riveted into place to cover a breach in the hull. The heavy black paint covered it all, but the jagged, H-like shape of the repair was unmistakable.
He shouted to Keane. “Wake up,” he said, “you have to see this.”
Keane grunted something and rolled over.
“Keane?!”
No response. Devlin gave up on him and turned back to the ship. He was wide awake now.
“You’re a bloody ghost,” he whispered, edging closer to the black hulk. “A bloody ghost or a bloody trick.”
He was still muttering various curses of disbelief when the launch bumped up against the ship. He reached out and touched her. There was an odd, almost rubbery feel to the paint. But the ship itself was real enough.
A sense of uncontrollable anger began to well up inside Devlin, a dark Irish rage. Years of guilt and self-hatred fueled it. Someone was tricking him, or had tricked him years ago.
He passed around the bow and headed for the stern. A gangway sat in the lowered position, resting diagonally across the aft end of the ship. Its bottom step was eight feet above the harbor’s oily waters. Devlin pulled up next to it.
He cut the throttle and lazily tied a line to the sloping stairs. He didn’t bother with Keane and instead climbed onto the launch’s roof. From there, he clambered awkwardly up onto the gangway.
It shook with his weight and banged against the hull, but it held. Despite the racket, no one appeared to welcome him aboard or shoo him away.
Devlin began to climb. He moved slowly at first on shaky legs, and then faster as he became more certain of the truth. “I saw you go down!” he shouted at the ship. “I saw you bloody well go down!”
He stumbled as he neared the top and sprawled out on the last few steps, breathless and almost weeping. He could see raised letters on the stern. They were hidden beneath the rubbery black paint, but they hadn’t been scraped off before the new paint was slapped over the top.
He ran his hand across the letters he could reach. They were real, just like the ship itself.
Pacific Voyager.
Like a man caught in the surf, Devlin was bowled over by waves of emotion. Confusion, sadness, and elation hit him almost simultaneously, one after another. How could the ship be here? Had someone salvaged her? Last he knew, the wreck hadn’t even been located.
He sat there, sobbing like a child and hoping he wasn’t in the middle of a dream, until the sound of footsteps came from above. The squeak of a gate followed as a section of the rail was pulled back where the gangway met the main deck.
Devlin looked up as a man appeared. The face was bearded now but familiar to him. An odd moment passed as two sets of eyes tried to connect what they saw to distant, faded memories.
The bearded man won the race. A sad smile crept over him. “Hello, Padi,” he said in a kind and melancholy way.
“Janko?” Devlin said. “You’re alive? But you went down with this ship.”
The bearded man offered a hand and helped Devlin to his feet, bringing him aboard and steadying the inebriated old sailor as he stood on the main deck.
“I wish you hadn’t found us,” Janko said.
“Us?”
“I’m sorry, Padi.”
With that, Janko shoved a handheld device into Devlin’s ribs. The blow stunned the old sailor, but the massive shock that followed did more damage. Devlin convulsed as he fell backward. He was unconscious by the time he hit the deck.