Star of Africa

Chapter 21

Down there in the darkness and the heat and the stink of sweat and fear, tobacco smoke and diesel oil and stale urine, they waited for something to happen, and tried not to think about what it might be.

It had only been three-quarters of an hour or so since Jude had returned from above decks, but it seemed as if hours had passed. The pitch blackness of the engine room just made it worse. The torches were all switched off, to save on batteries. The only light was the occasional flare of a lighter and the tiny red glow of cigarettes burning as anxious men tried to calm themselves by smoking. The engine room echoed to the sound of the eerie creakings that resonated through the hull of the immobilised ship, and the tick-tick of contracting metal as the shut-down engines gradually cooled. Diesel and his assistants had partially dismantled the machinery in a deliberate act of self-sabotage to deprive the pirates of any chance of getting the vessel back under power.

There remained nothing to do but sit it out. The silence was broken now and then by a nervous whisper, and the tune that Scagnetti kept quietly humming to himself, somewhere in the darkness. Scagnetti would occasionally break off from humming to mutter and cackle to himself. If he’d been deliberately trying to unsettle the others, he couldn’t have done it better. Even Gerber had given up telling him to shut the hell up.

The only other voice that could be heard was that of Park. In between long silences, he would begin to mutter to himself in Korean and break into a whimper. The whimper would sometimes die away, or else grow into a tortured moan, like the whine of a sick dog.

Further away, they could hear the dull thud and clatter of running footsteps and hatches opening and closing as the pirates hunted through the bowels of the ship for the hiding crew. The sounds of movement and voices seemed to be drawing steadily closer and closer. Everyone knew that the pirates must have figured out the remaining crew members were hiding in the engine room, and that it was just a question of their locating it. The pirates were working their way down towards them methodically, level by level, investigating one compartment after another.

It was a big ship, but it wasn’t that big. Not big enough. They would be here soon.

Jude could feel the tension growing among the others. It wasn’t helped by Park, who was growing more nervous and vocal by the minute. It was obvious what the Korean was thinking, and he wasn’t the only one. They were doomed. Nobody was coming to rescue them. The pirates were going to find them and butcher them, one by one.

Hunched cross-legged in a lonely corner of the darkness, Jude was finding it difficult not to believe it, too. He was the only one who’d personally witnessed the bodies of their dead fellow sailors being slung overboard like garbage for the sharks, something he had wisely chosen not to share with the others. He had to will himself to stay calm, which he did by mentally reciting over and over the words of the message he’d emailed to Jeff Dekker. It was the only glimmer of hope he could cling to.

Jeff would know what to do. Jeff would find a way to help.

Just for something to help occupy his mind, Jude reached down and took the diamond — as he was now certain it was — out of his pocket. He fingered its rough contours in the darkness, and once more wondered what he was going to do with the thing.

He was lost in meditation when a torch beam suddenly shone into his face out of nowhere. Startled, Jude whipped the diamond out of sight as the figure holding the torch came up close and bent low to speak to him.

It was Gerber. ‘Got a moment?’ he whispered. As if he was butting into Jude’s busy schedule. Gerber turned off the torch, settled himself down next to Jude and they sat in the darkness, shoulder to shoulder. Any other time, Jude would have welcomed the company. He was clutching the diamond tightly in both hands, jammed between his knees.

‘I’m worried about Park,’ Gerber said in a low voice.

‘Yeah, I know. Me too.’

Right on cue, came another mournful groan from somewhere in the darkness.

‘I think he’s losing his mind.’

‘Maybe.’

‘It’s the stress. Saw it in ’Nam. Some fellas just fall apart, you know? I think we should watch Park.’ Gerber paused. ‘What about you, son? How’re you holdin’ up?’

‘Loving every minute of it.’

‘Tell me something,’ Gerber whispered. ‘This Jeff guy you’re in contact with. He’s a cop, right?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Then he’ll have known who to call. They should be here any time. Right?’

‘Right.’

‘Let’s hope so,’ Gerber said quietly.

Jude was getting cramps from sitting so long on the hard metal floor, and he still had Pender’s pistol hidden in his waistband, where it kept digging into him. He shifted, trying to get comfortable. In the process, the diamond slipped out of his fingers and hit the floor with a dull clunk.

‘What’ve you got there?’

‘Nothing,’ Jude said, quickly scrabbling in the dark for it. His fingers found it and clasped it tightly. It felt like a heavy burden, one that Jude badly wanted to share with someone. The pressure of keeping it secret was wearing him down. Lou Gerber was a good guy. He was a friend. Surely he could be trusted?

Jude wrestled with the idea, and relented. ‘If I tell you, you have to promise to keep it to yourself,’ he said in an extra-low whisper, leaning close to Gerber’s ear.

‘Sure. What?’ Gerber murmured.

Jude took a deep breath, hoping it wasn’t an unwise move to take Gerber into his confidence. He opened the fist that was clutching the diamond.

Just then, there was the thump of footsteps very close by, and the jabber of loud voices just the other side of the engine room hatch.

Gerber forgot all about what Jude had been about to show him. He gripped Jude’s arm. ‘They’re here.’

More voices. The pirates were trying to spin the wheel that opened the watertight seal, but it was all locked solid from inside. When the lock wouldn’t open, there was a pounding against the thick steel that sounded like a battery of lump-hammers and echoed loudly through the whole engine room.

Every single one of the thirteen men inside was up on his feet, frozen. Nobody breathed or spoke, or dared to turn on a torch.

The clanging stopped as suddenly as it had begun. The voices receded. Could the pirates have given up so quickly, and moved on elsewhere?

Gerber relaxed his grip on Jude’s arm. Jude sensed the older man turn towards him in the darkness. Gerber seemed about to say something. But whatever words came out of his mouth were drowned out by the huge, crashing explosion that seemed to rock the whole ship.

Jude’s ears were filled with a high-pitched whine. Beside him, Gerber had staggered backwards and nearly fallen over. Jude grabbed his torch and shone it towards the hatch. The steel was buckled, the seal broken, smoke from the blast seeping in through the uneven gaps that had appeared around the edges of the door. But the solid hinges and locks had held. The door was still in place. There was a strong stink of cordite.

‘Those crazy bastards!’ Diesel yelled.

‘RPG,’ Gerber said. ‘Gotta be.’

Jude had no idea what an RPG was. But he knew it was bad news. The pirates had finally located the engine room and they were determined enough to use artillery to break their way in.

Jude shone his torch around the room. Park was groaning continuously. Even Scagnetti had stopped humming and cackling. They all backed away as far as they could from the door.

Moments later, another stunning explosion punched Jude’s eardrums and made him rock on his feet. The pirates had fired another missile at the door, but still, the door had taken the impact. Flames were licking through the widened gaps around the edges of the buckled steel. Fire had broken out in the passage. The pirates could be heard yabbering in a chorus of panic. After a few moments, there was the whoosh of a fire extinguisher, and the flames died down.

‘They keep this up, they’re gonna sink us,’ Gerber said.

‘Or burn us out and barbecue us,’ Diesel added.

Jude shook his head. ‘They’re not about to destroy the engine room. They want to keep the ship. Why else would they still be here?’ It was little comfort either way.

There were no more explosions. It took another ten minutes of voices calling out commands in their own language, and more footsteps and pounding and the scrape and rattle of equipment being lugged into the passageway, before it became apparent what the pirates were planning to try next.

They were going to cut their way through the hatch door with an oxyacetylene torch.