The Ancient. Muriel Gray

focus on his face.

      ‘What?’

      ‘Thought we had a deal, Matthew.’

      ‘Huh?’

      ‘You gonna drink all watch, then you tell me what happens. I fill the log. That’s how it works. That’s how I save your skin.’

      ‘Yeah? What, you want me to thank you for it like every day?’

      Renato crossed his arms. ‘I want you to tell me what you do on duty.’

      Matthew shrugged in agreement. ‘So?’

      ‘You changed course last night. I told the captain everything this morning, like you know you should do and not me, but I don’t tell him that. Know why? ’Cause I don’t know, that’s why.’

      Matthew sat up and blinked at Renato. The man was angry. Not like him. ‘What’s the big deal, Renato? So I forgot.’

      ‘What the captain going to say?’

      Matthew took a swig of his drink and exhaled his words on the resulting expellation of air that followed his swallow. ‘Nothing, I shouldn’t reckon.’

      Renato snorted. ‘Yeah? You alter course, don’t log it and you think he don’t mind?’

      ‘I know he won’t.’

      ‘Yeah? How come?’

      Matthew lay back again and looked at Renato as if he were dumb. ‘Because the captain came to the bridge and changed it himself.’

      A subtle alteration in Renato’s face made Matthew sit up slightly, ashamed momentarily of his slovenly appearance. For no reason that Matthew could comprehend, the second officer looked as though he had been betrayed.

      Matthew cleared his throat. ‘Sorry, man. I just forgot to log it.’

      Renato looked down at him for a moment, then walked across to the gantry and poured himself a Sprite. ‘What time?’

      Matthew was now uncomfortable, staring at the man’s tense back as he drank his lemonade. ‘What time what?’

      Renato turned to face him, his face now inscrutable. ‘What time did he come on the fucking bridge?’

      This was not like Matthew’s friend and partner in crime, Renato Lhoon. This was the man who kept him in a job, who kept him on the very edge of the legality of his post, who made sure he got up, made certain he fulfilled his duties, made absolutely sure that First Officer Matthew Cotton didn’t plough the vessel into a tanker at three in the morning.

      And in return Renato Lhoon got paid. He got paid well. Why now, was he getting so upset about such a tiny regular misdemeanour as forgetting to log? Matthew ran a hand over the back of his neck. ‘Uh, let me see. I reckon around two, maybe half past. I dunno.’

      If only Matthew knew it, there were in fact two reasons that Lhoon was getting upset.

      But then there was no way that he could have known, since Lhoon spent a great deal of time and energy concealing them both, but they were nevertheless at the forefront of his ire right now as he stood regarding the hopeless drunk who was one rank higher than he was in the important chain of command.

      The first reason was probably the most important: Renato Lhoon hated Matthew Cotton. Hated him with the kind of passion that was bordering on animal. He hated the fact that this man had been given a job he was incapable of doing, that he was given a second chance and employed again after throwing away ten years of being a captain because of his decline into alcoholism in the last two, and that he took the job and paid Renato to keep him there in the full knowledge that he should be ashore, ashore for good.

      It made him sick, dressing Cotton when he was naked and ranting, fulfilling his mundane duties for him when he was on watch, keeping the gossip of the crew at bay to prevent the withdrawal of co-operation, and most of all taking his money.

      But the second reason was the captain. Lloyd Skinner was a decent man. So decent he had deliberately chosen this wreck of a human being to be his first officer when he could have chosen anyone he wanted. Anyone, for instance, like Lhoon.

      Renato knew something had happened to Cotton ashore that had made him the way he was. He didn’t know what, but frankly, he didn’t give a shit. He’d never asked, and he didn’t care. Everyone had bad times, everyone had tragedies. This man had once been a respected captain and now he was a bum.

      The sea demanded more of a man.

      Lloyd Skinner should know that, and it irked him that if he did, in this case he turned an extremely blind eye. Renato’s relationship with the captain had always been good. They had, he thought, an understanding, an empathy, a rapport. Now, just lately, he felt Skinner was excluding him, and to exclude him in favour of this useless baggage was too much. He couldn’t give a flying fuck about a tiny change in course. What was upsetting him was that the captain had visited the bridge at a highly unusual time in the night, altered course for no reason that Lhoon could see, and most importantly, hadn’t mentioned it to him during the report of the watch he always gave on Cotton’s behalf in the morning.

      Sure he was mad about it, but for now he would maintain his inscrutability. Because Renato Lhoon had plans.

      He looked back at Matthew. ‘Half-past two? He say why he changed course?’

      ‘Search me. Maybe there was a tanker or shit. I didn’t see anything on the radar.’

      Renato nodded, as though satisfied, then placed his can on the sideboard and walked to the door. Matthew watched him go, expecting more, but he disappeared from view without a parting word.

      ‘Hey!’ shouted Cotton to an empty door frame. ‘You forgot to write down your Sprite.’

      The spaces between the cofferdams were open and stepping over them was possible with care and a little effort. The torchlight illuminated the long cathedral of buttressed iron that supported the main holds like some insane gothic fancy.

      A lesser soul might have been tempted to turn and run with every creak and clank of shifting metal that reverberated along the endless corridor, but Lloyd Skinner was not a man to spook easily. He had been surprised, unpleasantly so, to discover that there were rats down here. He knew there were rats on board. He himself had falsified the inspection sheet to claim that there were not, but it was unsettling that they had penetrated into the part of the ship that should be sealed and secure. More than once, the beam had caught the ugly back of a scuttling grey beast, scrambling for safety over the iron spines of the tanks and splashing through the small puddles of sea water that still persisted even after flushing.

      Skinner gave a moment’s thought to wonder where there might be a breach that allowed them access to this area from the main holds where he knew they lived, foraged and bred, then as quickly dismissed it and carried on.

      He had turned the corner, away from the square of light that came from the engine room, and now he was in a world of total black, with only a cavernous echo to remind him of the scale of his largely invisible surroundings.

      Back there, he knew, the engineers would be gossiping, pouring mugs full of the repulsive Filipino coffee they drank in unhealthy quantities, and looking curiously from time to time at the hole through which their captain had gone to do his duty to the company and international safety regulations. But in here, well below the line of the sea that pushed against the iron skin, eager to enter and fill those gaps with its heavy, salty, irresistible body, he was alone, unobserved.