Sheba

‘It won’t win us this coming war, my friend, nothing can do that. You see, Hans, we’re all going straight to hell, but here’s to your promotion anyway.’

He raised the glass of schnapps and drained it at a single swallow.

Dahrein

3

The wind, blowing across the Gulf from Africa, still carried some of the warmth of the day to Kane as he stood on the deck of the launch, listening.

There was no moon and yet the sky seemed to be alive, to glow with the incandescence of millions of stars. He breathed deeply, inhaling the freshness, and followed a school of flying-fish with his eyes as they curved out of the sea in a shower of phosphorescent water.

A door opened and light from the saloon momentarily flooded out as Piroo, the Hindu deckhand, came up the companionway with a mug of steaming coffee.

Kane sipped some of it gratefully. ‘That’s good.’

‘The Kantara is late tonight, Sahib,’ Piroo said.

Kane nodded and checked his watch. ‘Almost two a.m. I wonder what the old devil O’Hara is playing at?’

‘Perhaps it’s the whisky again.’

Kane grinned. ‘More than likely.’

As he finished his coffee, Piroo touched him on the arm. ‘I think she comes, Sahib.’

Kane listened intently. At first he was conscious only of the slap of the waves against the hull of the launch and the whisper of the wind, and then he became aware of a muffled, gentle throbbing across the water. In the distance, he saw the green pin-point of light that was the starboard navigation light of the Kantara.

‘Not before time,’ he said softly.

He went into the wheelhouse and switched on the navigation lights, and when he pressed the starter, the engine coughed into life. He waited until the steamer was almost upon them, before he opened the throttle gently and took the launch forward on a course which would bring them together.

The old freighter was doing no more than two or three knots, and Piroo put out the fenders as Kane took the launch in close. A Lascar appeared at the rail and tossed down a line which Piroo quickly secured. A rope ladder followed a moment later, and Kane cut the engines and went out on deck.

The high, rust-streaked side of the Kantara reared into the night, the single stack a long black shadow above. As he climbed the ladder, Kane wondered, and not for the first time, exactly what it was that kept this heap of scrap-iron floating.

He scrambled over the rail and said in Hindi, ‘Where’s the Captain?’

The Lascar shrugged. ‘In his cabin.’

He quickly climbed a companionway to the upper deck and knocked on the door of the captain’s cabin. There was no reply. After a moment, he opened it and went in. The cabin was in darkness and the stench was appalling. He fumbled for the light switch and turned it on.

O’Hara was on his bunk. He lay on his back in singlet and pants, mouth open, exposing decaying yellow teeth. Empty whisky bottles rolled across the floor with the motion of the ship, and Kane wrinkled his nose in disgust and went out on deck.

Another Lascar was waiting for him. ‘The mate, he say you go to bridge,’ the man said.

Kane crossed the deck quickly and climbed an iron ladder to the bridge. Guptas, the mate, was at the wheel, his turbaned head disembodied in the light from the binnacle.

Kane leaned in the doorway and lit a cigarette. ‘How long has he been like that?’

Guptas grinned. ‘Ever since we left Aden. It should take him at least two days to sleep this one off.’

‘What a way to run a ship,’ Kane said. ‘What happened this time, anyway? Why didn’t you call at Dahrein on the run-in from Bombay, as usual?’

‘We had cargo for Mombasa,’ Guptas told him. ‘After that, Aden.’

‘Skiros wasn’t too pleased,’ Kane said. ‘I presume you’ve got the stuff all right.’

Guptas nodded. ‘They should be bringing it up now. By the way, we have a passenger this trip.’

‘A passenger?’ Kane said incredulously. ‘On this tub?’

‘An American woman,’ Guptas said. ‘She wanted to leave Aden in a hurry. We were the only ship available and the Catalina wasn’t due for a week.’

Kane flicked his cigarette in a glowing spiral into the night.

‘Then I won’t hang about. No sense in waking her up. She might get curious.’

Guptas nodded in agreement. ‘I think that would be wise. A strange thing happened just before dawn yesterday.’

‘What was that?’

‘The Catalina – Romero’s Catalina. We saw it on the horizon about thirty miles out. It landed beside some Portuguese freighter. They were offloading crates.’

‘So what’s the difference between that and what we’re doing now? So Romero’s doing a little smuggling too.’ Kane shrugged. ‘We’ve all got to get by. I’ll see you next month.’ And he went down the ladder to the deck.

He leaned over the rail and watched two Lascars lower an oil drum down to Piroo on the deck of the launch. A voice said quietly from behind, ‘Do you happen to have a light?’

He turned quickly. She was rather tall and the smooth rounded face might have suggested weakness had it not been for the firm mouth. She wore a scarf and a light duster coat.

He held out a match in his cupped hands. ‘Rather late for a promenade round the deck.’

She blew smoke out and leaned against the rail. ‘I couldn’t sleep. The facilities for passengers on this ship are strictly limited.’

‘That I can believe.’

‘A strange place to meet a fellow-American.’

He grinned. ‘We pop up everywhere these days.’

She leaned over the rail and looked down at the launch. ‘That’s your boat, I presume?’

He nodded. ‘I’m a deep-sea fisherman out of Dahrein. Got caught in a storm and ran out of fuel. It’s lucky the Kantara came along.’

‘I suppose it is,’ she said.

Her perfume hung disturbingly in the air and, for some reason, he could think of nothing more to say. And then Piroo hailed him from the launch and he smiled. ‘I’ll have to be going.’

‘Ships that pass in the night,’ she said.