North Star Read Free Page B

loudhailer out on to the wing of the bridge.
    We were tied up by 14.00, the lumpers offloading the catch. Since Aberdeen was not our home port, there was no pay, only subs from the local agent to see the boys home. They had a long rail journey ahead of them and most of them were away by the time the first pound boards were being replaced and the emptied compartments hosed down. The skipper called me to his cabin. He was packing his bag. ‘You in a hurry to get back?’ He knew I was the only officer who hadn’t got a wife waiting for him in Hull.
    I shook my head.
    He was standing holding a shirt and a bundle of dirty socks in his hand, a slug of whisky on the locker behind him. ‘Ah thought not.’ The bulging eyeballs stared at me. ‘Take it then you won’t object to staying the night aboard. We’ve no ship’s husband here, you see, and Les doesn’t arrive till tomorrow.’ He waited a moment and then nodded. ‘Good. That’s settled then. Better use my cabin so’s you can keep an eye on things laike.’
    The lumpers packed it in shortly before 19.00 and then I had the ship to myself. I sat on the bridge smoking a pipe and watching the lights come on as dusk descended over the city and the high land behind it. A stillness had settled on the Basin, the quay deserted except for the occasional figure moving along the shadowed wall of the sheds. A siren blared briefly and a trawler up near the entrance started backing out. I watched her as she headed for the open sea, thinking of the mate preparing his gear and the ice ahead and the skipper wondering where the hell he’d get a catch that would satisfy his gaffers.
    After that the port seemed dead, nothing stirring. Night had closed down on Aberdeen. I tapped out my pipe and went tothe galley to collect a plateful of shepherd’s pie and veg the cook had left for me. The galley stove was still warm and I put a kettle on for coffee. With the coffee I had a glass of brandy from the officers’ ex-bond locker. A cat had come aboard and as I drank I watched it stalk its prey in the shadows cast by the deck lights.
    To be suddenly alone on a ship gives one an odd feeling of isolation. All during the voyage the Fisher Maid had been alive with men, an organized unit of activity, her hull vibrating to the pulse of her engines, resounding to the noise of the sea. Now it was deserted, a hollow shell, inactive, still and strangely quiet. I had time to think now, but somehow I seemed unable to concentrate. I was tired, of course, but I think it was the stillness and the quiet that prevented my mind from focusing clearly. I finished my drink, went down to my cabin and packed my gear, shifting it to the skipper’s cabin in the bridge housing. Then I turned in.
    I was in my pyjamas, having a last smoke, when I heard footsteps crossing the gangway, the murmur of voices. I went through into the bridge and out on to the wing. Two figures stood talking on the deck below. ‘Looking for somebody?’
    They turned at the sound of my voice, their faces pale in shadow, something slightly menacing as they stared up at me. Then one of them moved, coming out of the shadows to the foot of the ladder. ‘Heard you were still aboard. We’d like a word with you.’ He started up the ladder, a short, burly figure, his round, pugnacious face framed in dark sideburns, eyes deep-set and a full-lipped mouth. ‘Remember me?’
    I nodded, the sight of him taking me back to that angry meeting in Hull. He was a Newark man and nothing to do with the shipyards. His name was Bob Scunton and he had confronted me when I was still trying to address the meeting, prodding me in the stomach and telling me to belt up and stop talking a load of statistical rubbish the lads didn’t want to know. The other man I had never seen before. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘You can come up.’ And I led them into the bridge.There was only one seat, so we stood facing each other, and I didn’t like it. I had the feeling of being