The Ancient. Muriel Gray
He left quietly, and before he had got even halfway to the lift, he heard the quiet but unmistakable metallic sound of Skinner’s door closing. Renato paused, thought, then dismissing the man’s eccentricities of the day, went about his business.
Esther was enjoying her breakfast. The eggs and bacon were good, the coffee hot, she felt revitalized after her shower, and unlike the awkwardness of last night, her dining companion this morning was a jolly and talkative chief engineer called Sohn. Through broken English and equally broken teeth he was telling her about his family which consisted entirely of women: six daughters and what sounded like a formidable wife, and how even the nightmare of an overheating engine room was a blessed escape from the heat of their nagging when he was ashore.
He was candid and funny, and even Matthew Cotton entering the mess room, bringing a nauseating faint stale whiff of alcohol with him as he sat and joined them, couldn’t dampen her high spirits.
Sohn nodded and grinned at Cotton as the lugubrious-looking first officer poured himself a coffee from the communal plastic flask on the table.
‘Feel good this morning, Mattu?’
‘Goddamn born again, Sohn,’ he replied without warmth and took a long swallow of coffee.
The engineer laughed and nodded again. ‘No one like night watch. Mattu get it every time. Ha ha.’
Esther smiled at the man’s jollity in the face of the second officer’s gloom. She crunched on some toast and smiled. ‘So you do eat then?’
Matthew looked at her. ‘The only damn thing Leonardo can cook.’
Given last night’s dinner Esther had to admit he had a point. Sohn pointed at Esther as though Matthew had never seen her before.
‘Esther army stoodent.’
‘Yeah?’
The engineer cheerfully ignored Cotton’s dismissive grunt and turned back to his considerably more charming companion.
‘You shoot guns and all?’
Esther looked down at her plate as though she were talking about something dirty. ‘Standard M16 A2. Nothing fancy. You get acquainted with your weapon at advance training camp.’
Sohn nodded enthusiastically, wanting more. Nothing came. Matthew sat back in his chair and looked at her.
‘Guess you got on well with Lloyd last night then, huh?’
Esther narrowed her eyes. ‘Why do you say that?’
‘He’s a Nam vet. Explosives. Used to defuse bombs, lay land mines.’
She was interested. ‘Yeah? It didn’t come up.’
Matthew drained his cup and poured another. ‘Doesn’t talk about it. You blame him?’
Esther shook her head at nothing in particular.
‘Shit, it’s crazy when you think about guys Lloyd’s age, walking about looking like they spent a lifetime doing nothing more than mow a lawn and polish their Lincoln Continental, yet they’ve seen stuff that you and I only have nightmares about.’
Sohn tried to keep up with what she was saying, watching her with rapt attention now she was talking at regular speed to a fellow English speaker, instead of the slow deliberate words she’d been enunciating for him in the last half hour. He caught the gist.
‘Yeah. He nearly go down on the Eurydice too. That really mess him about, I think.’
Sohn pointed to his head to illustrate where exactly he thought the captain had been messed about.
‘What was that?’ enquired Esther of Cotton, knowing that Sohn’s explanation would be tortuous.
The same waiter as the previous night brought a plate across to Matthew and set it down. Obviously Cotton was a creature of habit. He picked up a fork and shovelled some scrambled egg into his mouth.
‘Carrier Skinner sailed about five years ago. Got called ashore for some personal reason halfway through the voyage, and handed the command over to another captain at Lagos. Damn thing disappeared without trace a day later out of port. No survivors. No salvage.’
Esther was genuinely horrified. ‘Jesus. That must have been rough. He would have known all those guys well?’
‘Sailed with the same crew for nearly two-and-a-half years. Like family.’
‘Did they find out what happened?’
Matthew shook his head. ‘Lloyd had to give evidence at the enquiry. He’d kept his own log after they’d left Luanda and for some reason had taken his notes ashore when he left for Florida.
‘Apparently he thought there’d been an irregularity he couldn’t prove with cargo stowage by the African stevedores, and on account of everything he was able and obliged to check having been in order, they had forced him to sail.
‘But he hadn’t been happy, so guess that’s why he took his copy of the log. Company loved him for that. With no wreck to examine, Lloyd’s evidence was the only thing that counted. His log proved everything had been done just right by the captain and I guess by Sonstar too. Meant the insurance crooks had to pay up in full.’
Esther’s estimation of the captain had risen again. No wonder the guy was reticent and distracted. It sounded like he’d had more than his share of shit. Sohn was nodding enthusiastically at this story.
‘They make a lot of money when ship go down like that.’
Matthew looked sour. ‘Yeah. They sure as hell ain’t got the reputation for charity.’
Esther ate in silence, thinking of the horror of being sucked down on a ship this size into the blackness of that trench below them, and her food lost its taste.
Sohn pushed his chair back and bowed cheerfully to Esther. ‘You want I show you my engine room later?’
Esther beamed. ‘Aw, neat. I’d love that.’
‘I on watch for four hours now. Any time.’
He bowed again and left. Esther was once again stranded with company she could well do without, and she watched Matthew eating in silence, much of her cheerfulness having exited the room with Sohn. Now might be a good time to set things straight, so she took the chance.
‘Listen, I’m real sorry I made you mad on the cargo deck.’
Matthew shrugged as he ate, then mutely nodded his forgiveness.
She continued. ‘Find out what that stuff was?’
He shook his head and shrugged again, completely uninterested, his mouth overful with hot food. Esther could see a repeat of last night’s one-sided conversation looming, and she wiped the sides of her mouth in readiness to go. No one could say she hadn’t given it her best shot.
Matthew looked up at her and intuitively caught the body language that meant she was getting ready to leave and, to Esther’s surprise, did something to halt it. He waved a fork. ‘So tell me. Why’d you choose the military?’
She looked at him to see if there was bitterness or sarcasm behind the question, and when she saw none, she answered. ‘I wanted a degree. It was the only way I could afford one.’
Matthew looked genuinely interested. He swallowed what he’d been chewing and gesticulated at her again with his fork as though he needed it to talk. ‘Yeah? What kinda service you need to put in for that? Three, four years?’
‘Seven.’
Matthew raised both eyebrows. ‘No shit? Hell, you must want that degree real bad.’
It was Esther’s turn to shrug.
Matthew took another swig of coffee, watching her over the rim of the cup. ‘Or maybe I’m getting it wrong here. Maybe you wanted to join up anyhow. Seen