A Death on the Ocean Wave Read online

‘We’ve taken the ship,’ she said, ‘we can do what we like. If we want to kill people, we’ll kill people. If we want to blow things up, we’ll do that too.’

  ‘You don’t understand, do you?’ Tudor wasn’t bluffing. He didn’t think she did.

  ‘Understand what?’

  ‘That the way Western democracies work is by appearing as unlike dictatorships as possible. In a dictatorship authority is always visible. Dictatorships rule on the basis of fear and coercion whereas democracies operate by consent. Dictators use iron fists; elected leaders hide them in velvet gloves. That doesn’t mean they’re not there.’

  ‘I really don’t need a lesson in political theory,’ she said, disdainfully, ‘Particularly one for twelve year olds.’

  ‘Well excuse me but I think you do,’ said Tudor, condescendingly. ‘You seem to think that you and your friends have won something, that you’ve proved a point. That’s not the case.’

  ‘We control the ship,’ she said. ‘I want you as a mouthpiece. You’re hostage number one and you’ll come to no harm provided you do as you’re told.’

  She was blustering. Tudor told her so, angrily now.

  ‘It’s like the Falklands,’ he said. ‘Britain as a mature democracy had a relaxed attitude to the islands and didn’t maintain a serious military garrison. That seemed to make them vulnerable to a rapacious dictatorship. So the Argentinians did what you’ve done. They took the islands and they were able to do so because they were not obviously defended. They were part of the free world and we treated them like that. However the Argentine Government were hopelessly naive and in due course, and with a distressing and unnecessary loss of life, they were expelled and the government of General Galtieri was overthrown. It’s the same here. The nature of the Duchess is that she appears vulnerable. In fact she has to appear vulnerable if she is to perform her essential function. No one wants to take a holiday on a floating fortress. However there are detailed and sophisticated plans for dealing with situations such as this and people like you.’

  ‘Malvinas,’ she said, ‘they were the Malvinas. And that’s a grotesque Enid Blyton version of what actually happened and it has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with what’s happening here and now.’

  She was still blustering.

  He told her so, angry now, ‘and if you don’t listen to me you’ll end up dead. Your friends, too. Any time now the Master-at-Arms will press the button, put the relevant plan into action and you lot will be finished.’

  She smiled the truculent smile of the super-confident or the impossibly naive. Both, actually, thought Tudor.

  ‘We could throw you overboard right now,’ she said. ‘You don’t seem to realize. We’re in charge. We are the masters now. We control the ship.’

  Tudor shrugged.

  ‘If you say so,’ he said. In a sense, he supposed, she was right. His Falklands analogy was actually quite accurate, but the period between the coup or invasion or hijack or whatever and the arrival of the cavalry was a dodgy one. His own position like that of the officers on the bridge was undeniably fraught. For the time being at least.

  ‘So. All right. What do you want?’

  She appeared to relax.

  ‘That’s more like it,’ she said. ‘We’ll make a little video. You’ll have a list of our demands to read out but you’ll frame it with a sympathetic and expert explanation of what’s going on and why we’re right.’

  ‘And what are your demands?’ he asked. She smiled, apparently feeling that she’d regained an initiative. ‘That’s for me to decide and for you to find out. So are you going to co-operate?’

  ‘I don’t seem to have any alternative,’ he said. ‘But I wish you’d listen to what I have to say.’

  ‘There’ll be plenty of time for that,’ she said. ‘You and I are going to be spending quite a time with each other. I shall be interested in hearing some of your theories. And you may learn a thing or two by seeing what terrorism and hijacking are like in real life.’

  Somewhere out on the crepuscular bridge a phone rang. After a few shrill tintinnabulations they ceased and an Irish voice spoke in surly monosyllables. Then a combat-geared figure appeared in the doorway.

  ‘It’s the girl,’ said the goon. ‘She wants to speak to the professor.’

  Tipperary Tatler considered the request for a moment, then shrugged and said, ‘I don’t see why not. Give him the phone.’

  Which he did. The woman’s acquiescence seemed, to Tudor, further evidence of amateurism. In a similar situation he wouldn’t have let himself talk to anyone except under strict supervision.

  ‘Tell her,’ said the Irish leaderene, ‘that we’ll be sending down a video shortly.’

  ‘I’m to tell you that they’ll be sending down a video.’

  ‘Oh.’ Elizabeth Burney sounded pertly amused.

  ‘And we expect to see it broadcast on the ship’s closed circuit TV within the half-hour,’ said Tudor’s captor, and he duly and obediently repeated the expectation, which was greeted with a sharp disbelieving laugh.

  ‘I’m with the Master-at-arms,’ said Elizabeth. ‘He’s an ex-SAS major with a karate platinum belt and a very old-fashioned moustache. He seems unnervingly anxious to kill people. Dishy but disturbing. I think you should warn your new friends that they have real trouble pending. Meanwhile there’s just one thing he needs to know.’

  ‘I’ll pass the message on,’ said Tudor.

  ‘The major wants to know if they’re armed.’

  ‘Absolutely not,’ he said. ‘I’m fine. And being treated very nicely thank you.’

  The goon and the girl looked at him, irritated, as if they were having second thoughts about allowing this conversation, as well they might.

  ‘Just tell your friend that we’ll be sending out the video shortly and meanwhile not to do anything stupid. And that goes for everyone else on board.’

  Tudor smiled. ‘I’m to tell you not to do anything stupid and that goes for everyone else on board,’ he parroted.

  Tm sure Major Timbers will be trembling at the knees,’ she said. ‘Meanwhile we’ll look forward to the film show. Take care. Over and out.’

  There was a click, a buzz of static, then a dialling tone.

  He handed the set back.

  ‘Right,’ he said, ‘if we have a film to make I think I ought to have a look at the script.’

  ‘I’m glad you’re seeing sense,’ she said.

  ‘Sense is emphatically not what I’m seeing,’ he said. ‘Far from it. I’ve told you that I think you’ve got yourself in to a mess and it’s going to become more of a mess and much much worse for you the longer you persevere with this silly charade. My playing along with what you want doesn’t imply surrender or acquiescence or anything at all except, well... ‘playing along with you’. I’ll do just that but it doesn’t mean you’re out of trouble.’

  She smirked in a way that seemed mildly deranged, then took a piece of paper from some hidden fold in her garment and handed it to Tudor.

  ‘Demands,’ she said. ‘I’d like you to read them to camera but I don’t want it to look as if you’re being coerced in any way. So no script. Just a few cue-words and phrases. The whole thing should look like a nice cosy interview on daytime ‘Judy’. Definitely Richard and Judy rather than Paxman or Humphries. Think David Frost. It’s a conversation not an interrogation.’

  ‘Anything you say,’ he said, frowning over the green child-like handwriting. ‘George Bush and Tony Blair to apologize profusely and in person at United Nations for invasion of Iraq. President Putin to withdraw all Russian troops from Chechnya.’ He glanced up. ‘You don’t think perhaps you’re being just a tiny bit optimistic?’ he asked. She looked back just as scornfully and he glanced down again. ‘Religious schools to be abolished,’ he read. ‘Hunting with hounds to be universally outlawed.’

  ‘Are you going to make eating meat an offence?’ he asked, not altogether good-naturedly.

  She scowled.

  ‘I
know you think we’re being naive,’ she said, ‘but the fact is that most people around the world agree with us. But they’re too oppressed and frightened to say so.’

  Tudor nodded, all too aware that the way he did it made the gesture seem patronizing.

  ‘Just let me rough out some notes,’ he said, yawning. He suddenly felt extraordinarily tired, light-headed even. A combination of age and stress, he supposed.

  Seconds later he realized he was passing out.

  Only a nano-second later, he actually did so.

  Chapter Nine

  He felt as if he were coming out from under an anaesthetic. His throat was dry and sore at the back. His chest ached and his vision was blurred. He was aware of concerned, smiling, female, almost beatific faces looking down on him and wishing him well. The feeling was impotent but agreeable.

  ‘Er...’ he said.

  ‘No need to say anything,’ said an Australian voice which he recognized as Elizabeth Burney’s. ‘You’ve been through a little bit of an ordeal. Done well. We’re all impressed. Even me.’

  He tried to speak again and failed once more.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said, ‘Major Timbers says it usually takes about twenty minutes to get your voice back. After that you’ll be talking quite normally. So I’ve got a magical little window of opportunity into which I can get a word. A rare treat.’ She giggled. Tudor had an uneasy feeling that her head had been turned by the galloping major with the moustache and exotic belt.

  ‘So sshhh!’ She put a finger to her mouth. ‘You’ve been gassed as I imagine you know. Rupert won’t be too specific about it. Just describes it as ‘standard-issue kit’ – whatever that means.’

  Rupert eh? So the major had a first name already.

  ‘He’s the Master-at-Arms,’ she said, wide-eyed, ‘but I expect you knew that. Most people on board call him ‘the Jaunty’ or ‘the Jonty’. You learn something new every day. Every ship has one. Well, every ship except Filipino rust-buckets or Taiwanese fishing smacks. Our friends, the Irish, never had a prayer against a top-class Jonty with a crack team. Major Rupert has a crack team. They double up as everything you can imagine. One of the gentleman hosts is a genius with a jemmy; his explosives expert is a drummer in the jazz band; two of the wine-waiters are snipers with medals from Bisley. You wouldn’t want to mess with them even if you were serious al-Qaeda suicide-squaddies. And these guys certainly aren’t.’

  She smiled encouragingly.

  ‘They’re in the brig. They’ll be interrogated properly. Rupert supervises that with the two ballroom dancing instructors. He does nasty and the wife does nice. It’s all rather wonderful.’

  He wanted to ask more about the gas and she seemed to guess as much.

  ‘Rupert’s keeping pretty shtumm about some aspects of the operation,’ she said. ‘He won’t say exactly what the gas was and he won’t say how it was introduced. He was actually rather keen to storm the bridge with stun-grenades and stuff. He seemed a bit depressed that we all wanted something stealthier and unmessy. He said storming the bridge would be good training for his ‘boys’ but I think the real reason was that he wanted to hurt someone, maybe kill them. I get the impression that, provided it can be justified, he’s slightly into killing people. Anyway whatever sent you all to beddy-byes was presumably pumped in through the air-conditioning or maybe the sprinkler system.’ The other smiling female mopped Tudor’s brow with some sort of dampish cloth. It smelt of disinfectant and cheap scent, like the sort of face-towel flight attendants give out on airlines. He seemed to be back in his cabin rather than the ship’s sick-bay.

  ‘We retrieved the list of demands which was babyish, frankly, but I dare say you found time to read it before the gas hit.’

  She sighed.

  ‘We’ll leave you now,’ she said. ‘Try and get some sleep. I’ll come back in an hour or so. You may have forgotten but it’s Sunday. I thought we might go to church service. They’re doing matins at eleven which is just over an hour’s time. You can say thank you to God for your safe deliverance.’

  The girls left. Their absence rendered him oddly deflated.

  He couldn’t sleep so stayed supine, staring at the ceiling and thought. He was alive but could easily have been dead. At least he thought he was alive. Limbo or purgatory, if not heaven or hell, could perfectly well have been a cabin on the Duchess being ministered to by a couple of pretty girls. On balance, however, he was reasonably convinced that he was alive and moderately well on the high seas. He had, though, behaved recklessly and must try not to do so again. Had the Irish hijackers been even moderately professional he would almost certainly not have been spared. On the other hand he had got away with it and would, with reasonable luck, be regarded as some sort of hero. Cool in a crisis and an expert at this sort of thing; not just an armchair expert. In any event he would certainly have put one over on Sir Goronwy Watkyn. Not to mention Chief Inspector Emeritus Freddy Grim.

  But what on earth had that gang been playing at? It was almost as if they were students pulling off a stunt during rag week.

  He wondered what would happen now. The ship was beyond territorial waters and therefore beyond any one country’s jurisdiction. International law of the sea would apply although this was, he confessed to himself, not one of his major areas of expertise. Maritime Law he knew was based on the Laws of Oleron which had been codified by Eleanor of Aquitaine. In the event of mutiny on board a Royal Naval ship the mutineers were tried by courts martial and if found guilty hanged from the yard arm in front of the assembled crew. This was what happened to the guilty Bounty men. At the Spithead Mutiny of 1797 it was judged that their demands were legitimate, therefore no one was strung up. At the Mutiny of the Nore which followed shortly it was judged that the legitimate demands had all been satisfied after Spithead so the ring-leaders were executed, as was traditional when every man-jack took part in the insurrection and mass execution of all hands would have been impractical.

  On merchant ships mutineers were tried by civil courts. However, if he were honest he couldn’t be certain what was done to passengers who rose up against the ship’s legitimate authority. It wasn’t a frequent occurrence. Bearing in mind the so-called war on terrorism which had been carried on since the destruction of the New York World Trade Centre on 9/11 anyone attempting to hijack a cruise-ship could reasonably expect to be shot out of hand. The US Marine Corps didn’t take prisoners.

  He sighed.

  It was all quite mystifying. And the ‘demands’ had been grotesquely naive. It was almost as if the gang had gone into operation demanding the answer no, determined to fail. But what would be the point of that? Perhaps they had been hired by Riviera so that the shipping line could be made to look good. There was a horrid plausibility about that in the modern world. On the other hand the ragtag band of brothers and sisters he had encountered on the bridge didn’t feel like actors from Central Casting. Tudor was not, by nature, a conspiracy theorist belonging firmly in the cock-up camp. He found it inconceivable that even in the age of spin a cruise company would stage an act of high-seas piracy in order to demonstrate the reliability of their own security procedures and systems.

  This afternoon he was scheduled to deliver his ‘Mutiny on the Bounty’ talk. This seemed at one and the same time both more and yet less significant. The incident this morning gave him first-hand experiences on which to draw and yet a contemporary brush with disaster made a history lecture seem pretty irrelevant. Why care about mid-Pacific mid-eighteenth century when you’d experienced a state-of-the-art, man-of-the-moment equivalent in the here-and-now? Tudor would have his work cut out to demonstrate the reason for talking about the Bounty when what everyone wanted to know about was the Duchess. Heigh-ho!

  He dozed. Images flickered across his subconscious like scenes from an old movie. He saw lifeboats from Titanic overturning; Trevor Howard as Captain Bligh berating Marlon Brando as Fletcher Christian – were they actually in the same movie?; Jack Hawkins in The Cruel Sea
; Humphrey Bogart as Captain Queeg rolling dice in the Herman Wouk classic whose name eluded him. The Caine Mutiny that was it. Mutiny seemed the operative word and yet what had happened this morning was not a mutiny in the accepted sense.

  His mind was wandering. Bloody nerve gas. Bound to have a disorientating effect. Wouldn’t be a nerve gas if it didn’t. It would wear off presumably. Timbers and Co must be aware of its properties. He’d be right as rain in a minute or so. Church parade would sort him out. Hand of God and all that. Thinking of Timbers and his lot though gave one pause for thought, didn’t it? It was obviously essential in the post-9/11, Iraq-invasion world for ships such as the Duchess to carry discreet private armies as protection against terrorism in any shape or form, but private armies were, almost by definition, susceptible to bribes and blandishments. That was, after all, the definition of a mercenary.

  What God abandoned, these defended,

  And saved the sum of things for pay.

  Housman. It was a cynical trade. You made yourself available to the highest bidder. Patriotism, loyalty, belief, fanaticism, call it what you like... these buttered no parsnips with men like Major Timbers. Both the Umlauts and the Prince of Araby could match any bids made by, well, anyone. On the other hand, Tudor guessed, selling out to the highest bidder would, if it meant changing sides in mid-stream, be ultimately bad for business. Trust might be too cosy a word for terrorism and its counterpart, but there would have to be honour among thieves. If you got a reputation for breaking contracts you wouldn’t last long even in that murky world.

  He must have dozed off again for when he was next aware of anything it was of a hand on his shoulder and the radiant and intelligent eyes of Elizabeth Burney staring into his.

  ‘Church parade,’ she said, half-mocking, half-affectionate, not even marginally respectful. ‘If you’re not feeling a whole lot better already you will be after a hymn or two and some robust words from our glorious captain. I had a quick look at the menu and they’re doing ‘Eternal Father Strong to Save’; the Old Testament lesson is Genesis Seven.’