In High Places Read online

  'I wouldn't count on it,' the immigration officer said. He had a stern face and spoke unsmilingly. 'Some of these tubs of yours are wetter inside than out. How you keep them floating is a mystery to me.'

  A rusty iron gangway was being lowered from the Vastervik.

  Looking up at the ship's side, the company agent said, 'Sometimes I wonder myself. Oh well, I suppose it'll hold three more.' He swung himself on to the gangway, me others following.

  Chapter 2

  In his cabin immediately beneath the bridge. Captain Sigurd Jaabeck, big-boned, stolid, and with a weathered seaman's face, shuffled papers he would need for port clearance of his cargo and crew. Before docking the captain had changed from his usual sweater and dungarees to a double-breasted suit, but still had on the old-fashioned carpet slippers he wore most of the time on board.

  It was good. Captain Jaabeck thought, that they had berthed in daylight and tonight could eat ashore. It would be a relief to escape the fertilizer smell. The captain wrinkled his nose distastefully at the all-pervading odour, suggestive of a combination of wet sulphur and decaying cabbage. For days it had been seeping up from the cargo in number three hold, to be circulated impartially through the ship by the hot-air blowers. It was heartening, he thought, that the Vastervik's next cargo would be Canadian lumber, sawmill fresh.

  Now, the documents in his hand, he moved out on to the upper deck.

  In the crew's living quarters aft. Stubby Gates, able-bodied seaman, ambled across the small square mess hall which also served as a day rest-room. He joined another figure standing silently, gazing through a porthole.

  Gates was a London Cockney. He had the scarred, disarranged face of a fighter, stocky build and long dangling arms which made him apish. He was the strongest man on the ship and also, unless provoked, the gentlest.

  The other man was young and small of stature. He had a round, strong-featured countenance, deep-set eyes and black hair grown over-long. In appearance he looked little more than a boy.

  Stubby Gates asked, 'Wotcher thinkin' about, Henri?'

  For a moment the other continued to look out as if he had not heard. His expression held a strange wistfulness, his eyes seeming fixed on the city skyline, with its tall, clean buildings, visible beyond the dockside. The sound of traffic carried clearly across the water and through the open port. Then, abruptly, the young man shrugged and turned.

  'I think of nothing.' He spoke with a thick, throaty - though not unpleasing - accent. English came hard to him.

  'We'll be in port for a week,' Stubby Gates said. 'Ever bin to Vancouver before?'

  The young man, whose name was Henri Duval, shook his head.

  'I bin 'ere three times,' Gates said. 'There's better places to get orf a ship. But the grub's good an' you can always pick up a woman quick.' He glanced sideways at Duval. 'Think they'll let you go ashore this time, matey?'

  The young man answered moodily, dejection in his voice. The words were hard to understand but Stubby Gates was able to make them out. 'Sometime,' Henri Duval said, 'I think I never get ashore again.'

  Chapter 3

  Captain Jaabeck met the three men as they came aboard. He shook hands with the company agent, who introduced the customs and immigration officers. The two officials - all business now - nodded politely to the captain but did not shake hands.

  'Is your crew mustered. Captain?' the immigration man asked.

  Captain Jaabeck nodded. 'Follow me, please.' The routine was familiar and no instructions had been needed to bring the crew to the officers' dining-room amidships. They were lining up outside while the ship's officers waited within the room.

  Stubby Gates nudged Henri Duval as the group, led by the captain, passed by. 'Those are the government blokes,' Gates murmured. 'They'll say if you can go ashore.'

  Henri Duval turned to the older man. 'I make good try,' he said softly. There was a boyish enthusiasm in his heavily accented voice, the earlier depression banished. 'I try to work. Maybe get stay.'

  'That's the stuff, Henri,' Stubby Gates said cheerfully. 'Never say die!'

  Inside the dining-room a table and chair had been set up for the immigration officer. He sat at it, inspecting the typewritten crew list which the captain had handed him. Across the room the customs man leafed through a cargo manifest.

  'Thirty officers and crew, and one stowaway,' the immigration man announced. 'Is that correct. Captain?'

  'Yes.' Captain Jaabeck nodded.

  'Where did you pick up the stowaway?'

  'In Beirut. His name is Duval,' the captain said. 'He has been with us a long time. Too long.'

  The immigration man's expression did not change.

  'I'll take the officers first.' He beckoned the first officer who came forward, offering a Swedish passport.

  After the officers, the crew filed in from outside. Each examination was brief. Name, nationality, place of birth, a few perfunctory questions. Afterwards, each man moved across for questioning by Customs.

  Duval was last. For him the immigration man's questions were less perfunctory. He answered them carefully, with an earnestness, in halting English. Some of the seamen. Stubby Gates among them, had hung back, listening.

  Yes, his name was Henri Duval. Yes, he was a stowaway on the ship. Yes, he had boarded at Beirut, Lebanon. No, he was not a citizen of Lebanon. No, he had no passport. He had never had a passport. Nor a certificate of birth. Nor any document. Yes, he knew his birthplace. It was French Somaliland. His mother had been French, his father English. His mother was dead, his father he had never known. No, he had no means to prove that what he said was true. Yes, he had been refused entry to French Somaliland. No, officials there had not believed his story. Yes, he had been refused a landing at other ports. There were many ports. He could not remember them all. Yes, he was sure he had no papers. Of any kind-It was a repetition of other questioning in other places. As it continued the hope which had dawned briefly on the young man's face faded into despondency. But at the end he tried once more.

  'I work,' he pleaded, the eyes searching the immigration man's face for a glimmer of response. 'Please - I work good. Work in Canada.' He pronounced the last name awkwardly, as if he had learned it, but not well enough.

  The immigration man shook his head negatively. 'Not here, you won't.' He addressed Captain Jaabeck. 'I'll issue a detaining order against this stowaway. Captain. It will be your responsibility that he doesn't go ashore.'

  'We'll take care of that,' the shipping agent said.

  The immigration man nodded. 'The rest of the crew are clear.'

  Those who remained had begun to leave when Stubby Gates spoke up.

  'Can I 'ave a word wi' you, guv?'

  Surprised, the immigration man said, 'Yes.'

  There was a pause at the doorway and one or two men edged back inside.

  'It's abaht young Henri 'ere.'

  'What about him?' There was an edge to the immigration man's voice.

  'Well, seein' as it's Christmas in a couple o' days, an' we'll be in port, some of us thought maybe we could take Henri ashore, jist for one night.'

  The immigration man said sharply, 'I just got through saying he has to stay on the ship.'

  Stubby Gates' voice rose. 'I know all about that. But jist for five bleeding minutes couldn't you forget your bloody red tape?' He had not intended to become heated but he had a sailor's contempt for shorebound officialdom.

  'That'll be enough of that!' The immigration officer spoke harshly, his eyes glowering.

  Captain Jaabeck moved forward. The seamen in the room tensed.

  'It may be enough for you, you stuck-up sod,' Stubby Gates said belligerently. 'But when a bloke 'asn't bin orf a ship in near two years, and it's bloody Christmas...'

  'Gates,' the captain said quietly. 'That will be all.'

  There was a silence. The immigration man had gone red-faced and then subsided. Now he was looking doubtfully at Stubby Gates. 'Are you trying to tell me,' he said, 'that this man Duva
l hasn't been ashore in two years?'

  'It is not quite two years,' Captain Jaabeck interjected quietly. He spoke English clearly with only a trace of his native Norwegian tongue. 'Since this young man boarded my ship as a stowaway twenty months ago, no country has permitted him to land. In every port, everywhere, I am told the same thing: He has no passport, no papers. Therefore he cannot leave us. He is ours.' The captain raised his big seaman's hands, fingers outspread, in a gesture of interrogation. 'What am I to do - feed his body to the fishes because no country will have him?'

  The tension had gone. Stubby Gates had moved back, silent, in deference to the captain.

  The immigration man - no sharpness now - said doubtfully, 'He claims to be French - born in French Somaliland.'

  'This is true,' the captain agreed. 'Unfortunately the French, too, demand papers and this man has none. He swears to me he has never had papers and I believe it's so. He is truthful and a good worker. This much one learns in twenty months.'

  Henri Duval had followed the exchange, his eyes moving hopefully from one face to the next. Now they returned to the immigration officer.

  'I'm sorry. He can't land in Canada.' The immigration man seemed troubled. Despite the outward sternness, he was not a harsh man and sometimes wished the regulations of his job were less exact. Half apologetically, he added, 'I'm afraid there's nothing I can do, Captain.'

  'Not even one night ashore?' It was Stubby Gates, still trying with Cockney persistence.

  'Not even one night.' The answer had a quiet finality. 'I'll make out the detaining order now.'

  It was an hour since docking and, outside the ship, dusk was closing in.

  Chapter 4

  A few minutes after 11.00 PM Vancouver time, some two hours after the Prime Minister had retired to bed in Ottawa, a taxi drew up, in pouring rain, at the dark deserted entry to La Pointe Pier.

  Two men got out of the cab. One was a reporter, the other a photographer from the Vancouver Post.

  The reporter, Dan Orliffe, a comfortable bulky man in his late thirties, had a ruddy, broad-cheeked face and a relaxed manner which made him seem, sometimes, more like an amiable farmer than a successful and occasionally ruthless newsman. In contrast, the photographer, Wally de Vere, was a lean six-footer who moved with quick nervous movements and affected a veneer of perpetual pessimism.

  As the cab backed away, Dan Orliffe looked around him, holding his coat collar tightly closed as token protection from the wind and rain. At first the sudden withdrawal of the taxi's headlights had made it hard to see. Surrounding where they stood were dim, wraithlike shapes and patches of deeper blackness with, ahead, a gleam of water. Silent, deserted buildings loomed vaguely, their outlines blurring into gloom. Then slowly, eyes adjusting to the darkness, nearer shadows crept into focus and he could see they were standing on a wide cement ramp built parallel with the shoreline.

  Behind, the way the cab had brought them, were the towering cylinders of a grain elevator and darkened dockside sheds. Nearby, piles of ship's cargo, tarpaulin-covered, dotted the ramp and, from the ramp, two docks extended outward, armlike above the water. On both sides of each dock, ships were moored and a few lights, dimly burning, showed that altogether there were five. But nowhere was there any sign of people or movement.

  De Vere had shouldered his camera and equipment. Now he motioned in the direction of the ships. 'Which one is it?' he asked.

  Dan Orliffe used a pocket flashlight to consult a note which the night city editor had handed him half an hour earlier following a phoned-in tip. 'We want the Vastervik,' he said. 'Could be any of these, I guess.' He turned to the right and the photographer followed. Already in the minute or two since leaving the cab their raincoats were streaming wet. Dan could feel his trouser legs becoming sodden and a trickle of water flowed uncomfortably beneath his collar.

  'What they need here,' De Vere complained, 'is a doll in an information booth.' They picked their way cautiously through a litter of broken packing cases and oil drums. 'Who is this character we're looking for, anyway?'

  'Name's Henri Duval,' Dan said. 'According to the desk, he's a man without a country and nobody'll let him off the ship.'

  The photographer nodded sagely. 'Sob story, eh? I get it -Christmas Eve and no-room-at-the-inn stuff.'

  'It's an angle,' Dan acknowledged. 'Maybe you should write it.'

  'Not me,' De Vere said. 'When we get through here I'm getting in the dryer with the prints. Besides, I'll lay you ten against five the guy's a phoney.'

  Dan shook his head. 'Nothing doing. You might win.'

  They were halfway along the right-hand dock now, stepping carefully beside a line of railway freight cars. Fifty feet below, in blackness, water glistened and the rain splashed audibly on a sullen harbour swell.

  At the first ship they craned upward to read the name. It was in Russian.

  'Come on,' Dan said. 'Not here.'

  'It'll be the last one,' me photographer predicted. 'It always is.'

  But it was the next. The name Vastervik stood out on the flared bow high above. And below it, rusted, rotting plates.

  'Does this bucket of bolts really float?' De Vere's voice was incredulous. 'Or is somebody kidding?'

  They had clambered up a ramshackle gangway and were standing on what appeared to be the vessel's main deck.

  Viewed from the dockside, even in darkness, the Vastervik had seemed a haggard ship. Now, at close quarters, the signs of age and accumulated neglect were even more startling. Faded paintwork had great patches of rust extending over superstructure, doors, and bulkheads. Elsewhere the last remnants of painting hung down in peeled strips. From a solitary light bulb above the gangway a layer of grime was visible on the deck under their feet and nearby were several open boxes of what appeared to be garbage. A short distance forward a steel ventilator had corroded and broken from its housing. Probably unrepairable, it had been lashed uselessly to the deck.

  Dan sniffed.

  'Yeah,' the photographer said. 'I'm receiving too.'

  The fertilizer stench was drifting out from the ship's interior.

  'Let's try in here,' Dan said. He opened a steel door directly ahead and moved down a narrow passageway.

  After a few yards there was a fork two ways. To the right was a series of cabin doors - obviously officers' quarters. Dan turned left, heading for a doorway a short distance along, from which light was streaming. It turned out to be a galley.

  Stubby Gates, wearing greasy coveralls, was seated at a table reading a girlie magazine.

  'Ullo, matey,' he said,' 'Oo are you?'

  'I'm from the Vancouver Pos(,' Dan told him. 'I'm looking for a man called Henri Duval.'

  Opening his mouth in a wide grin, the seaman exposed a row of darkly stained teeth. 'Young Henri was 'ere earlier on, but 'e retired to 'is private cabin.'

  'Do you think we could wake him?' Dan said. 'Or maybe we should see the captain.'

  Gates shook his head. 'Best leave the skipper alone. 'E's touchy about bein' woke up in port. But I reckon I can roust out Henri for you.' He glanced towards De Vere. ' 'Oo's this bloke?'

  'He's going to take pictures.'

  The seaman stood up, stuffing the girlie magazine into his coveralls. 'All right, gents,' he said. 'Follow me.'

  They went down two companionways and forward in the ship. In a gloomy passageway, lighted by a solitary low-power bulb. Stubby Gates banged on a door, turned a key, and opened it. Reaching inside he switched on a light.

  'Show a leg, Henri,' he announced.' 'Ere's a couple of gents to see yer.' He stood back, beckoning Dan.

  Moving to the doorway Dan saw a small figure sitting up sleepily in a metal bunk. Then he looked at the scene behind.

  My God! he thought. Does a man live here?

  It was a metal box - a cube approximately six feet square. Long ago the walls had been painted a drab ochre but now much of the paint had gone, with rust replacing it. Both paint and rust were covered with a film of moisture, dist
urbed only where heavier water droplets coursed downward. Occupying the length of one wall and most of the width inside was the single metal bunk. Above it was a small shelf about a foot long and six inches wide. Below the bunk was an iron pail. And that was all.

  There was no window or porthole, only a vent of sorts near the top of one wall.

  And the air was foul.

  Henri Duval rubbed his eyes and peered at the group outside. Dan Orliffe was surprised how young the stowaway seemed. He had a round, not unpleasing, face, well-proportioned features, and dark deep-set eyes. He was wearing a singlet, a flannel shirt, unbuttoned, and rough denim pants. Beneath the clothing his body seemed sturdy.

  'Bon soir. Monsieur Duval,' Dan said. 'Excusez-nous de troubler votre sommeil, mais nous venons de la presse et nous savons que vous avez une histoire interessante a nous raconter

  The stowaway shook his head slowly.

  'It won't do no good talking French,' Stubby Gates interjected. 'Henri don't understand it. Seems like 'e got 'is languages mixed up when 'e was a nipper. Best try 'im in English, but take it slow.'

  'All right.' Turning back to the stowaway, Dan said carefully, 'I am from the Vancouver Post. A newspaper. We would like to know about you. Do you understand?'

  There was a pause. Dan tried again. 'I want to talk with you. Then I will write about you.'

  'Why you write?' The words - the first Duval had spoken -held a mixture of surprise and suspicion.

  Dan said patiently, 'Perhaps I can help you. You want to get off this ship?'

  'You help me leave ship? Get job? Live Canada?' The words were mouthed awkwardly, but with unmistakable eagerness.

  Dan shook his head. 'No, I can't do that. But many people will read what I write. Perhaps someone who will read can help you.'

  Stubby Gates put in: 'Wotcher got ter lose, Henri? It can't do no 'arm; might even do yer a bit o' good.'

  Henri Duval appeared to be considering.

  Watching him closely, it occurred to Dan that whatever his background, the young stowaway possessed an instinctive, unobtrusive dignity.