The Curse of the “Star”

II

It was eight when he went topside. The Bjornsan Star was still heading down the river toward the sea, but the banks had faded away until they were but misty lines on the horizon. He found Dolan amidships. The Irishman’s eyes were red-rimmed, but he had a heartiness about him.

“Mal, lad, did we wake you thumping the craft on the bottom?”

“How do you mean?”

“ ’Tis the only way you can get down this censored son of a river. At low tide we rested her on the bottom for nearly an hour.”

“I didn’t even notice. How many passengers are there?”

“Yourself, a party of five — explorers or something — and a dusky gentleman from Kashmir. Seven passengers all told. Have you breakfasted. No? Come along, I’ll guide you to the food department.”

After devious below-decks turnings, Dolan stepped aside and ushered Mal on with a bow. He stepped over the weather sill into a room roughly twenty by ten. A table that would set eight was bolted in the center of the room. Four tables which would seat two were bolted in the corners. There was a smell of strong coffee in the air. At the far end of the room a door swung back and forth with the gentle pitch of the ship in the mild river swells.

Captain Paulus and a stranger, a young man about twenty-one, his face strong and oddly vacant, sat at the far left corner. Paulus nodded distantly at Mal and leaned over his plate again. At the large central table for eight sat one of the two young men of the expedition and the dark-haired plump girl — Gina Farrow.

Mal smiled at the captain, turned right and took the first table directly to the right of the door from the passageway. As he sat down he could feel the eyes of the two at the big table on him. A few moments later a husky young blond lad, not more than seventeen years old, came out of the galley and came directly to him.

“Vee haff,” he said, “broon juice from tins, bread toasted, aiks how you vish those, blanty coffee, sar.”

“Juice, scrambled eggs and coffee. Your English is very good,” Mal said.

The boy flushed. “Thanking you, sar. Quick, I get them.”

Mal had just received the abundant plate of eggs and the boy had taken away the empty juice glass when the bald-headed man entered. He gave Mal an absent glance and went directly to the big table. Seconds later the second of the two husky young men came in. He did not glance in Mal’s direction. Their party was complete, except for Mrs. Temble. The four of them talked together in low tones. There seemed to be a hectic gaiety about them.

Mal was on his second cup of excellent coffee when the “dusky gentleman” came in. He looked somewhat as Gandhi might have looked if he were clad in the most extreme of Hollywood sports togs. His shirt was cerise, his slacks powder blue. He gave his order and while waiting for it to be brought in, he inserted an American cigarette into a filter holder and lit it with a wide-ribbed gold Dunhill. He smiled at nothing and at nobody with all the good will in the world.

Mal glanced up quickly as the dark-haired girl approached his table, smiling. She carried her own cup of coffee with her. Since she had been sitting when he entered the room he had been unable to see her costume. Below the frilly pink blouse she wore a pair of crisp, white, abbreviated shorts, straw shoes with high heels. Her legs were tanned to a honey-brown shade, ripe in contour.

She put her cup and saucer opposite him and said, “You are just going to think that I’m the most terribly, terribly brazen soul in the world at large, but I was just over there saying to Tommy that if we have to share all the space on this tiny little old boat for just weeks and weeks, the best old thing to do is just bust right out and give our first names. Don’t you think so?” She sank gracefully into the chair opposite Mal. “My silly name is Gina. Gina Farrow. What’s yours?”

The approach was a bit overwhelming, and so was her vividness at first hand. “Mal,” he said weakly. “Mal Atkinson.”

“Now you know that name just rings the teensiest little ole bell in my mind, Mal. I just know you’re about the famousest person I ever did meet. Me, I’m a little old widow nobody ever since Charlie got himself leukemia, that’s cancer of the blood, you know, and he just up and died on me and we were probably the happiest little couple you ever saw — and I will say we certainly were the happiest couple on the campus back there at Northeastern. But I’ve got to say we were nobodies because Charlie never did really get himself a chance to do all those wonderful things he used to tell me about at night after the lights were out. Not that I ever gave the old devil much chance for talking.” She giggled with a surprising loudness and ran the pointed tip of a pink tongue across her lower lip.

“I write for magazines,” he said while Gina was taking another breath.

“I just knew you were some sort of man like that, Mal. I would never have been here at all except Sara came to me and said ole Roger just wouldn’t have one woman all by herself going along on an expedition like this — and you know how lonesome a widow gets, all those black clothes and nothing to do, and so I just up and said yes, because I knew I’d run into all kinds of important people like you, but we haven’t met any — not any — because there we were back up in those old hills without even a movie within a couple thousand miles, near as I can find out. So this is what I really came for, Mr. Atkinson, Mal, I mean, and I just want you to talk and talk and talk, and if you can play a little bridge it will sure be a bonus for free, like with the soap wrappers.”

She ran out of breath, picked up her cup, and sipped coffee, looking at him over the rim with dark eyes that crackled and danced with secret fire.

Mal took a deep breath. “First, I am not a famous person. Second, I play bridge. Third, thanks for taking the initiative.”

“Why, we might be days and days and days before anybody made a move to get acquainted with anybody else, and think of all that time wasted. Now we’re just the best old friends, aren’t we?”

“Of course.”

She finished the cup and pushed it aside, standing up as she did so. “I promised Dr. Temble that I’d walk around the deck with him a few times. Believe me, that will do me good. All my friends, they say, 'Gina, you could be a real pretty girl if you just could take off some of those pounds you’re a-carryin’ around.’ Now you find us up on the deck and I’ll make sure you meet Roger because he’s a real honey, and I like you, Mal, and you two boys will get along real sweet for this trip.”

She followed in the wake of the three men who had just left the room. The engine shudder decreased in tempo. The mess boy saw Mal’s puzzled look. He stepped forward. “Vee dropping bilot. You vish vatch. Ah, no. More coffee? Goot coffee?”

Mal grinned and nodded. Again his cup was filled. He lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. The captain and the young man Mal had guessed to be the second officer had left the officers' mess.

The man in the cerise shirt smiled over at Mal and said, “I heard the young lady introducing herself. I shall do the same.” He spoke with the smothered crispness of Oxford. “I am Mister Gopala, Mr. Atkinson.” He came over to the table, shook hands with one firm downward jerk.

“Won’t you sit down?” Mal asked.

“Thank you, no. I wish to watch this affair of dropping the pilot. You see, this is my first voyage in over twenty years. It seems quite new to me. Later I wish to talk with you. The esteemed Mr. Dolan informs me that you have recently been in China. I have a deep interest in that country.” He smiled, almost shyly. “And I, too, play bridge.” He bowed and left hurried, walking with short quick steps.

Mal could hear, at a distance, the shouted commands and instructions as the river launch came alongside to take off the pilot. The cessation of motion had stilled the air coming from the ventilators and the room began to grow uncomfortably warm. The coffee was still too hot to finish.

The door from the galley swung open and a short man of about thirty came in. The minus quality of chin, the protruding teeth, the bright eyes gave him the inevitable look of a chipmunk.

He stared at Mal. “Hullo! Another one! No wonder I had to give up my cabin. Who are you?” It was a harmless question, but insolently expressed.

“Another passenger,” Mal said flatly.

The short man clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “Good!” He sat, unasked, at Mal’s table. “I’m damn tired of polite people. I’m Torgeson. Chief Engineer. Minnesota ’39. This is my one and only trip on this venerable old lady. I'm a specialist. We converted her from steam to diesel and I’m along to see how she takes the operation. What’d you expect? A dour Scot?”

Mal smiled. “I give up. My name is Malcolm Atkinson. I'm a reporter. I need a rest so I picked a slow ship.”

Torgeson signaled for coffee. “The word is that we have a couple of dollies aboard, Atkinson. Can you confirm that?”

“A very acceptable pair, Chief. One well-married and the other one hovered over by two boys with a mean look.”

The slight man sighed. “Always my luck. Do we ever get an unattached female aboard? No. My undeniable charm and beauty never gets a chance to function. I suppose you expect to enjoy the trip?”

“Why not?”

“Hark ye, Atkinson. Here’s a brief run-through. An incompetent captain. A jealous first officer of international fame. He’s the guy who lost the Cathay on the rocks outside Boston harbor on a sunny afternoon. A second officer with an IQ of about fifty-eight, I’d say. Sparks is an alcoholic, well into the delusion stage. And they all hate me because I say what I think. Happy trip, Atkinson!”

There was a dancing light of wry humor in the small bright eyes.

“How big is the crew?” Mal asked.

“Seven in my gang, counting me and the second. Ten topside hands plus the three officers. That makes twenty. Cookie and two mess boys. Twenty-three. The seven passengers brings it to thirty. Oh yes, and Sparks. Thirty-one aboard.”

The sound of the engines picked up again. Ka-thud... chung; ka-thud... chung; ka-thud... chung. Torgeson cocked his head on one side, listened, nodded. Breeze began to sigh through the ventilators cooling the perspiration on their faces. In a few moments the Bjornsan Star began to lift and sigh and creak with the first ground swells of the coastal sea. Mal glanced over through the ports and saw the horizon line lift into view, hang there for a moment, then slide down out of sight.

Torgeson finished his coffee, clattered the cup into the saucer, shoved the chair back and stood up, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.

“If you want to tell lies,” he said, “look me up. They moved me up to the forecastle. I’m bunking in with Sparks and the second. Two guys have my cabin and a bald-headed guy has Sparks’ cabin. The babes are in Paulus’ cabin and the Hindu is bunking in with Dolan. Aren’t we a happy little family? Grinning, he went out through the galley.”

Mal stood up and started to go out through the other door. As he reached it, it swung open and Mrs. Temble came in. Her eyes went wide for a fraction of a second and then she gave him a shy smile. “Please, Mr. Atkinson, were you leaving? Would you mind sitting with me for just a moment?”

“Not at all.” He followed her back to the cleared table where Mr. Gopala had sat. She walked ahead of him, her shoulders straight with that rigidity he had noticed on the garden dance floor of the Great Eastern. Like the Farrow girl, Mrs. Temble wore tailored shorts. Hers were a vivid yellow. Her slim legs were tanned and beautifully formed. She wore a jade green halter tied at the small of her straight back. She had let the burnished red-brown hair down and it reached to her shoulderblades. It was tied with a scrap of yellow yarn. On her slim brown feet were flat-heeled Indian sandals.

Once they sat opposite each other and after she had given her order to the smiling mess boy, it seemed to take her a very long time to lift her eyes to his. Mal saw that he had underestimated the loveliness of her face, the short straight nose, the delicate bones of the eye sockets and temple, the clean line of jaw and rounded chin. She could live to be ninety and carry beauty to her grave. It was possible to see in her face just how she had looked at twelve, just how she would look at forty. Her eyes were on that borderline where they are neither gray nor green nor blue — but something of all three.

She said tonelessly, “I want to ask you to forgive me for last night. I wish to explain that we have been under considerable strain during the past year and my nerves are not what they should be. Lately I have been doing inexplicable things and my husband feels that it is high time we returned to the States. You must have thought me a perfect fool to act as I did.”

Mal looked at her for a long moment. “Your name is Sara, isn’t it?”

She nodded and again the fear was in her eyes.

“Sara, tell me how long it took you to memorize that little speech.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s as phoney as a nine-cent dime and you know it. I frightened you last night and you were frightened for a good reason, I would guess. I don’t know what that reason is. You could call me a recent expert on fear. I’ve seen a hell of a lot of it lately. I would guess you’re in some sort of trouble. I’m not going to try to ride to the rescue with banners waving. I’ve outgrown the knighthood impulse. I just want to tell you that you have nothing to fear from me. I’m a tired guy on my way home. That’s all. Somehow your fear is hooked up with recognizing me from the hotel. That was coincidence of the simplest sort.”

He could not read her expression because she was looking directly down at the empty plate in front of her. But he saw her firm breasts encased in the jade halter lift with the quickness of her breathing. And her hands, on either side of the plate, were clenched so that the knuckles, against the tan, whitened to ivory.

She looked up again. “You are... exactly what you said you are?”

“A reporter — headed home after the world’s worst assignment. Yes.”

“I... I can believe you, Mr. Atkinson, bait the others...”

“My name is Mal,” he corrected gently. “The others won’t believe that I am what I am, eh?” He smiled. “Just what sort of an expedition was it, Sara?”

She shut her eyes for a moment, then started to stand up. He reached across the narrow table, put his hand firmly on her warm brown shoulder and forced her back down into the chair.

“Stay and have your breakfast. I’m going up on deck.” He stood up. She kept her face turned away from him. He looked down at the shining hair and said, “I won’t meddle, but even a guy who has given up a knighthood will have to come running if the lady makes a direct appeal.”

He left her without looking back.

He went up onto the boat deck that was on the same level as the bridge. The captain’s cabin was between the boat deck and the bridge itself. Off to the right the mainland of India was a hazy line on the horizon. Dr. Temble and Gina Farrow stood close together at the rail between the bow of one lifeboat and the stern of the second.

Gina turned and smiled at him and called, “Come here, Malcolm.” He went over. “Malcolm Atkinson, Dr. Roger Temble.” Temble’s grip was surprisingly strong. The eyes, behind the glittering rimless glasses, were liquid brown.

“So nice to meet a fellow passenger,” he said softly. “Mr. Atkinson, I am afraid you will have to forgive us for any irregularities of behavior you may see. Our little group has had several taut hours over the past seventeen months and you could call us a bit unstrung. My wife, particularly. She told me last night of her very ridiculous behavior when she met you on deck. This expedition has been very hard on her. She came with me under protest, you understand. My protest.”

Dr. Temble smiled in a friendly way, but Mal had the impression that he was being watched very carefully by both of them.

“Your wife has already explained that to me, Doctor.”

“Ah, good! She is a very sensitive and excitable girl. I am really afraid that if we had delayed getting her back to a familiar environment, her mind might have given way, wouldn’t you say so, Gina?”

“Sara’s a sweet kid, Roger,” Gina said, “but she’s got too much imagination. You know how those things are.”

“So, Mr. Atkinson,” the doctor said suavely, “if you should happen to notice any... uh... aberrative symptoms during our voyage together, I would appreciate your bringing them to my immediate attention.”

“I’ll certainly do that, Doctor.”

“I understand you’ve been in China on an assignment, Mr. Atkinson?”

“That’s right.”

“How did you get out?” Both of them seemed to be watching him with a very intense interest. A perverse devil took charge of Mal.

“You’ll forgive me, I hope, if I duck the question. It’s all happened so recently. You know how it is. Too early to talk about it.”

He had thought Dr. Temble’s liquid brown eyes to be warm. Now he noticed that behind the lenses they had all the expression of congealed jelly. Gina, for once, was not in ceaseless motion. Her face, without its vivacity, was more rapacious than striking.

Temble said quickly, and with great joviality, “Well, I sincerely hope that after you have rested you’ll be able to tell us about that great country during these months of severe trial.”

Gina clutched the doctor’s arm. “Roger, the man plays bridge!”

“Excellent!” Dr. Tenable said. “The two girls and I could have alleviated many hours of boredom if we had had a fourth, but neither of my two associates, Mr. Welling and Mr. Branch, proved themselves capable of learning the game. Once we get our sea legs, I suggest that we make up a game. Where would you suggest, Gina?”

“The cabin Sara and I have would be perfect. Light and airy, Roger.”

“Tomorrow would be about right for me,” Mal said.

He smiled and left them. He spent the next hour or so learning his way around the ship. The radio shade was at the after end of the boat deck, beside the ladderway leading down to the main deck. The only above-decks cargo was the group of four big used bulldozers near the bow, British Army surplus consigned to New Zealand. As he walked around he noted that the cargo winches, life boats, all rigging, were in superb condition. He also learned that, of the crew, only Dolan, Torgeson, Sparks and the one mess boy spoke English. The other crew members, except for the sullen-looking second officer, seemed smiling and amiable.

He went back up onto the boat deck and looked in at Sparks. The man did not look up. He was about fifty, with a gray ravaged face, eyes deeply set. He had a long wave receiver set to a Calcutta station, set softly to a program of Indian music. He was reading a tattered copy of Plutarch’s Lives.

At last he seemed to grow conscious of Mal’s shadow in the doorway. He looked up with nervous jerkiness.

“Passengers not allowed in the radio room,” he said in a rasping voice.

“My error,” Mal said, backing out.

The hooded eyes stared at him. “Error is the great common denominator of mankind, sir. Life itself, once you have studied it, reveals itself to be a structural error generated in the heat of the primal world, in the hot depths of a lifeless sea. History is but the recounting of errors compounded as a result of that first one, the first creation of a uni-cellular animal which divided itself to make two.”

“And so,” said Mal, “you sit in there with that belief and take pleasure in reading what a compounded error has written about other biological errors, eh?”

Sparks stared at him. “Come back in here, sir. Sit down. It was too much to expect that there would be anyone to talk to this trip.” He reached out and cut off the whine and wail of the music. “My name, sir, is Stephen MacLane. I taught philosophy at the University of Glasgow until one sunny morning I found that I did not believe any word which I said. Since then I have made it my habit to break down the beliefs of others to basic and hence meaningless fundamentals. I wish to know what you believe in, sir. And I wish to know your name. Do not be frightened, sir, at the wee blue monkeys that infest my board here. I’ve found that they are harmless despite their evil appearance.”

Mal glanced at the board with a chill feeling at the back of his neck. The man had stated it all so soberly that the idea of tiny blue monkeys seemed feasible.

“My name is Malcolm Atkinson. And I do not know what I believe in.”

“A common state. Less positive than those who follow Sartre, the high priest of believing firmly in nothingness.”

“I may believe that I exist. A year ago I was certain of it. Now I feel as though I were a cleverly created illusion, Mac-Lane.”

One gray eyebrow went up. The man smiled. “A pleasant sourness to find in one so young. Take that fool, Dolan. He believes in himself. He thinks that if the factor of luck could be taken out of his life, he could rule his environment. Paulus believes in nothing but a clean ship and good digestion. Torgeson believes the world is a comic opera devised for his special amusement. He, too, is a determinist. The second officer exists only on the animal level. He is possibly the happiest man aboard.”

Mal did not leave until the mess boy came to the doorway and announced that it was time to eat.

For the mid-day meal he was directed to the main table. The Captain sat at one end, Dolan at the other. Sara Temble was seated at the Captain’s right, Gina Farrow at his left. Dr. Temble sat beside Gina, facing Tom Branch. Mal sat at Dolan’s left beside Branch, facing Welling. Mr. Gopala, considered a second-class citizen, sat smiling and alone at a table for two. The other men entitled to eat there came and went during the meal, wolfing the food and departing hurriedly.

Paulus ate with shocking carelessness, liberally spattering the front of his whites and the table around his plate. As he hastily chewed each mouthful, he stared frankly and with obvious pleasure at the bare brown shoulders and arms of the girls on either side of him.

The food was plain and good. Branch and Welling did not indulge in table talk. Of the two, Tom Branch was the larger, but only by a little. His white shirt bulged across the barrel chest, the buttons pulling the fabric tight. Mal thought that he did not look as alert as Welling, the slightly leaner man. Both of them moved with the coordination of natural athletes and neither of them dropped their poker expressions for a moment. At close range Mal found that they were both older than he had first thought.

Mal was curious about the two of them. As research geologists, they were beautifully miscast. Even if there were a mining engineering tie-in, it still did not make a great deal of sense. The details were wrong. Details of scarred knuckles, of the constant controlled alertness. In fact, Temble’s relationship to them smacked a bit of the relation of trainer to animals.

Mal grinned inwardly as he saw both Gina and Sara pointedly avoiding any glance toward the captain’s lusty eating habits. Dolan gave Mal a solemn wink.