Kolymsky Heights (12 page)

‘Sure,’ the bosun said, and watched them lift the stretcher. He was still watching, from the rail, when the taxi drew up below. A Korean got out. Pigtail. Sloppy kitbag and case. Always trouble, Koreans. Late, lazy, lippy. This one was going to need gingering up.

‘Hoy! You!’ he yelled, as the man had the nerve to stop and look at the patient, actually start chatting with the ambulance men. ‘Get up here!’

The man came up the gangplank.

‘You the new hand? Sung?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re late. Dump your kit here and go up and see the mate, on the bridge. Look lively, now.’

The new hand went up to the bridge and saw the mate, who rapidly checked him out. Papers in order; had served with the line; knew the ships. He took him to the captain.

The captain had watched these proceedings with relief. He briefly catechised the new hand and got him to make his signature. A series of thumps had signalled the disconnection of the hoses. He signed for the oil, told the mate to cast off, heard the bawled orders to let go fore and aft, and took the ship out himself.

As the wharf slid away he reflected that in the confusion the ambulance men had not asked for Ushiba’s belongings; not even his papers. Without his papers it was not possible to say where he had been. Well, it wouldn’t interest them at the
hospital where the man had been. They’d have their own procedures for finding out was wrong with him.

In due course.

His stuff could be sent back from Murmansk; perhaps Sweden; even Rotterdam. The owners would have to be informed, of course. He would radio them after putting on a bit of seaway. Quite a bit of seaway. He decided to put it on fast.

‘
1315 hours. Cleared Ishikari Bay
,’ reported the log.
‘Speed
12
knots. Heading 135°
.’ North. Later he would have to go north-east. Much later still, with the Bering Strait behind him and Cape Dezhnev to be rounded, another correction would be needed. North by north-west.

Five days and 1300 miles out of Otaru, the bosun decided it was time to ginger up the new hand.

No definite signs of laziness had come out of him yet, and he hadn’t been caught late for watchkeeping. But he was lippy. He seemed to turn things over in his mind before carrying out an order. He had commented on the new mattress in his bunk; had asked questions about Ushiba. And he showed too much interest in the ship’s movements. All out of order for a new deckhand, and a Korean deckhand at that.

The bosun went briskly forward, rattled down the steps, and looked briefly into the fore ends.

‘Sung! Topside now. Look alive!’

He said it once only, and was waiting, in the lee of a container, out of the wind, as the man came up on deck, his eyes still puffy from sleep.

‘Now then, Sung. Ever greased a Takanawa?’

‘Not when I’m off watch,’ Sung said.

The bosun’s lip tightened. ‘You’re on again at night,’ he said, ‘when it’s dark. I want to see you do it now. Well be frosting up soon.’

So they would. Sakhalin and the Kuriles were well behind them. The Kamchatka peninsula had been passing for some hours on the port side.

‘Tomorrow afternoon,’ Sung suggested, ‘I will be on again. Then it will be light.’

‘And maybe iced up. Get your gear.’

The man gave his momentary stare, then shrugged and went below. But he was soon back, with his woollen hat and donkey jacket; also gauntlets, grease gun and chipper from the locker.

He went through the drill properly enough; first switching on the eleven-ton derrick’s electric motor. And standing back smartly as the dangerous thing kicked and the big arms shuddered round.

‘All right. Now manual,’ the bosun said.

‘Manual needs two men.’

‘Here I am,’ the bosun said, and winked. They could all work by the book. ‘Set her up for greasing.’

He watched as the man unhoused the equipment, and located and fitted it: brake lever and distance piece, reduction gear and turning assembly; all properly fitted. He gave him little help. Whatever the book said, the job could easily be done by one man in calm seas. Two men were needed only with pitching and slippery decks – one to revolve the cogs in turn and clamp home the bar brake, the other to get in with the grease gun. That was when the accidents occurred to arms and legs; and invariably to the grease man.

No grease was needed yet, and both of them knew it. No seas had been shipped and the dockyard grease was still thick. But the man did the job without comment; then took down the equipment, rehoused it, and stood and looked at him, pigtail flapping in the wind. ‘Any more?’ he said.

The bosun’s big hands itched at the Korean’s mulish stare.

‘Not now. When we get into some weather will be time. You can get below now.’

The man turned and went without a word, and the bosun’s hands itched again. With surly crewmen he was used to ruling with his fists. Break them quickly: it was always best and saved time in the end. With this one he knew the time would have to come soon.

Porter, returning to the fore ends, knew it too. He saw the other men watching him from their card game.

‘Bosun been riding you?’

‘Tried to get me greasing a derrick.’

‘Why, the bastard – they don’t need greasing yet.’

‘I know. Just got me at it.’

‘Watch yourself with bosun. Show him respect. That’s all he wants.’

‘Sure.’ He turned back into his bunk. There were no problems with the crew. He had soon established a reputation as a moody fellow, best left alone. Because of the two other Koreans aboard he had also established a prepared speech impediment. And because of his size nobody had mocked him for it. But his accent had passed with the Koreans anyway, and he was on reasonable terms with them all. He had dropped in bits of his background; had shown his photos, had looked at theirs. No; no problems with the crew.

But the bosun was something else.

The man didn’t like him. Obeying orders wouldn’t help. He would pile on the orders, give him every lousy job on the ship, until resentment showed, some spark of rebellion. Then bosun would use his fists, beat him into submission. And get him greasing the derrick. He remembered what Ichiko had told him about the derrick. Greasing the derrick was the
most
dangerous job. The bar-brake was hard to handle, couldn’t be left for a second; and on icy decks, the operator slithering, it could slip – with the grease man in among the cogs. Someone else would have to grease, some more experienced hand. He
wouldn’t. So bosun’s first job would be to make him. Well, it had to be faced sooner or later, and sooner was better than later.

He turned over and drifted off to sleep. The dumb insolence had been designed to bring it sooner. Soon enough now the ice would come.

Two days later, five hundred miles north, the ice came.

Despite her economical rate, the ship had now chugged almost three thousand miles from warm Nagasaki into the approaching Arctic winter. From the Bering Strait, still some days off, a howling blast of wind and sleet had them pitching in heavy seas. Since early in the forenoon the hands had been securing the cargo. First down in the holds; then on deck, sliding about as they checked the container locks and cables.

They were warming themselves over mugs of coffee when the bulky figure peered down the companion way.

‘Sung! Matsuda! On top now. Smartly.’

The two men bundled up again and went on top. The bosun was waiting for them, hanging on by the gangway. ‘Derricks icing – get your gear. And start with number three. You’ll need harness, she’s pitching.’ He was already clutching a safety harness himself, and moved away at once.

Cursing, Matsuda led the way to the lockers. ‘The bastard derricks can be steamed off! Who needs them now?’ He had fallen foul of the bosun the day before. He was a little wizened fellow with a wall eye. Right away Sung knew he was not having him on brake. They got the gear and the harnesses and staggered slowly through the uproar of wind to the bosun. He had secured himself to a bollard amidships; number three derrick was close by.

‘Okay, hook up!’ The bosun had to shout above the wind. ‘Matsuda, you’re on brake!’

‘Bosun,’ Sung said. ‘I haven’t greased in these conditions.’

‘Good. Now you can learn.’

‘I’ll be better on brake. I’m stronger than Matsuda.’

‘Ah, strong man! No – you grease, strong man.’

Sung shook his head.

‘It’s an order,’ the bosun told him cheerfully.

Sung leaned over. ‘Fuck the order!’ he said into the bosun’s ear. ‘And fuck you.’

The bosun looked pleasurably at him, and then around, scenting the freezing wind. The lights were on in the wheelhouse and the wipers were going there. Behind the wipers he could see the mate looking down, and beyond him the dim shape of the wheelman.

‘Matsuda, go below for a while, I’ll call you,’ the bosun said, and began unhooking himself. ‘Step aft, Sung.’

Sung stepped aft, his heart beginning to thump. Aft, behind the wheelhouse, was where scores were settled, and he prepared himself to move fast. But they were still below the wheelhouse, and he was unprepared, as his head was jerked sharply back. The bosun had come swiftly on him, yanking his pigtail with one hand and smashing the other into his face. He went over backwards, his feet sliding, but was not allowed to hit deck. His pigtail was still held, and his face still being smashed, two, three, four times. Then, still shocked, his feet still scrabbling the icy deck, he was being swung round and dragged by the pigtail farther aft, before the bosun let go and fell on him.

The bull of a man landed with his knees, knocking the breath out of Sung’s body, the attack so sudden and so ferocious he was utterly stunned. He was still stunned as the bosun began pounding his head on the deck. His only thought was to get out from under, but with the bosun leaning his full weight forward he couldn’t move his body. He brought his hands up and went for the man’s eyes to get him to lean back, but the bosun evaded them easily and butted him for good measure. He felt the sharp crack in his nose, and knew his face was already running with blood, and through the shocked pain felt sudden raging anger as the bosun hawked and spat in
his face. He had not been angry before. The fight had been coming, and he knew and accepted it. But now he was angry.

He clutched at the butting head as it came down again, and hugged it fiercely, using every atom of strength to draw it closer and closer until the bosun, straining, twisted his head to try and release it, and brought an ear within range, and Sung sank his teeth in it. He hung on tight and savaged the ear, shaking it from side to side, and heard the bosun swear; the man leaned sideways to ease the ear, and with the weight shifting on him, Sung came out from under.

He slithered fast on the icy deck and was on his knees, in a position now to go on top. But that was not his idea. The man had caught him – okay, he had relied on a sudden attack, and on his weight and toughness. What he had to learn was that with all his weight, with all his toughness, on level terms, or any other terms, he could never win. Never! That he was simply entitling himself to a hard time, and that this time would come to him not by any fluke or momentary disadvantage, but always, every time, whenever he chose to have it.

He had to explain this to the bosun, but his head felt scalped from the dragging and was splitting from the battering, so he thought he had better disable the man first. He let him stumble to his feet and begin his rush, and even backed and got his hands up to defend himself and swung one back to strike, and when the bosun swung himself, he nimbly sidestepped and used his greater agility to kick the bosun in the crotch. He kicked him as hard as he could, and when the man grunted and held himself, he chopped him in the neck and kicked his feet away, sending him crashing to the deck again. Then he jumped on him with both boots. Then he knelt beside the bosun.

‘Bosun,’ he said humbly. ‘Leave me alone. I’m a hard man. I fought many fights, very dirty, and I always win. Pick on me, and I’ll cripple you for life. You’ll never work again – I swear it. And I don’t want that. I’ve got my own problems. They say
I’m maybe crazy. Okay, I’ve done crazy things and I’ve done time, it’s there in my papers. But it’s only when people pick on me. I can’t take that, bosun. You understand me?’

The bosun didn’t say if he understood him. He was crooning and gurgling in his throat as he held himself, his head down. This seemed to enrage Sung who took both of the bosun’s ears and shook them savagely, bringing the bull head up and staring into its eyes. ‘You no talk to me? Only spit in my face? Ah, you better fucking answer, man! I tell you, you better or I tear your fucking head off. You don’t treat me like shit! Understand? Understand me?’

The bosun’s head was shuttling so violently that his eyes were squinting. His mouth was still contracted in its painful crooning circle, but through it he grunted his understanding.

‘Well, that’s good. I’ve got things to say to you, bosun. Look, give me orders, make me work. It’s okay. I’ll do what I should. But something I don’t want to do, or I can’t do, you figure it out, and I don’t do that thing. Okay? Because you try to make me, I cripple you. I don’t care, see. Just don’t make me mad!’

The bosun was recovering slowly, and he shuffled himself into a sitting position. ‘Sung, you’re a crazy bastard,’ he said, ‘and you don’t know what you’re doing. I’ll break you.’

‘How you do that, bosun?’ He wasn’t sure if he was coming on too strong with the broken Japanese, and his impediment had slipped. But the general craziness was working, he could see. ‘You want to put me in irons, you want to lock me up? And explain why. Go to the captain, say, “Captain, this man too tough for me.” Or get help from the crew. What you need with that, bosun? Look – you beat me up, you mark my face, anyone can see. I didn’t mark
your
face. What I say? “Hey, I beat up the bosun”? Everyone laugh at me. I no say that. I no say anything. I just want you off my back.’

These arguments, he could see, were getting through to the bosun, who was slowly pulling himself together.

‘Sung,’ he said, ‘you’re going to be sorry for this. It’s a long
voyage, and you’re going round the world. And you know what you’ll get out of it? You’ll get fuck-all. Not a yen. I’ll have every bit of pay docked. I’ll get you for one thing after another. See how you’ll like it, big boy.’

Sung stared at him and his eyes glowed. ‘You think about that, bosun. You think again, eh? You do that to me, I come wherever you are. I find you. I’m crazy? Okay, I put your eyes out. I break you up. I break your bones, your knees, your hands. You no step on a ship again. Say like now: I want to stamp on your balls, I do it. You walk bad for days. I don’t do that. But I give you something, so you remember, eh? Give me your hand, bosun.’

The bosun wouldn’t give him his hand so he jumped hard on the bosun’s thighs and as the man jerked in agony chopped his bull neck so that the head crashed back again on the deck.

‘Sit up, bosun. Give me a hand. Right hand.’

The bosun gave him his hand, and he carefully picked the little finger, and showed it to the bosun, and broke it. And then with the man gasping in agony he helped him to his feet.

‘Don’t ride me, bosun,’ he said simply. ‘I no hurt you any more. See what a face you gave me. I go below and show that face and everybody see. You beat me up – all right? Just rest your hand and remember. You do something to me I don’t like, I come and find you. Wherever you are, I come and find you!’