The Pirate Ship Read online

  THE PIRATE SHIP

  PETER TONKIN

  © Peter Tonkin 2015

  First published in 1995 by Headline.

  This edition published in 2015 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  For Cham, Guy and Mark and in memory of my father, Wing Commander FA Tonkin, OBE, C.Eng., FRAeS, RAF 1919-1994.

  Table of Contents

  ONE — Sulu

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  TWO — Seram

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  PIRATE SHIP: A vessel employed in piracy or manned by pirates. First used 1600 — Oxford English Dictionary

  PIRACY: Attacks by vessels by armed thieves in the South China Seas have been reported in 1982, 1987 and 1988. These attacks are usually made from fast motor boats approaching from astern. Laden vessels with low freeboard are particularly vulnerable — China Sea pilot, fourth edition 1978. Revised 1991. Admiralty Charts and Publications

  The South China Sea is the worst in the world for maritime robbing and hijack. Since 1992 the international maritime bureau … has logged over 120 pirate attacks in South East Asian waters, where there is a tradition of piracy centuries old — Focus Magazine, November 1993.

  ONE — Sulu

  O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done,

  The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,

  The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

  While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring …

  Walt Whitman. Oh Captain! My Captain!

  Chapter One

  When he judged that they had come far enough south, Huuk raised his right hand from the stock of his AK74 assault rifle and extended his arm straight up above his head in the agreed signal to the other boats. At once they all swung due west and he lowered his hand again. The old gun lay across the low pulpit in which Huuk was standing like a slight, slim figurehead and it vibrated against the teak rail as the motors rumbled up towards full throttle. The long magazine curled out over the still waters of the South China Sea and the warm, oiled mechanism of the chamber pushed back gently and reassuringly into the pit of his stomach like the muzzle of a pet animal.

  Unconsciously, for he was concentrating absolutely upon his lookout, Huuk took a deep breath and held the cool, damp, shadowy air in the depths of his lungs until his ribs began to hurt. The action of breathing in pulled the thick wool of his balaclava into his mouth and he tutted mentally at the anxiety which had made him put it on too early. Left-handed, he pulled the rough wool up over his short nose and high forehead until it sat on the top of his skull like a cap. Only then did he breathe out, stroking the stock of the gun with his right hand as though it were a good-luck charm. Behind him, his five-man crew sat silently, all of them, like him, cradling their weapons and keeping keen watch. Away on either hand, slightly astern in an arrowhead formation, two more launches kept pace, each of them also packed with well-armed men on the lookout.

  They were running in under the last of the night, skimming west as though racing the first great beams of dawn light down the rolling curve of the earth. Already there was enough brightness to cast shadows dead ahead onto the silvery surface of the sea and colour was bleeding into the scene with insidious inevitability.

  Huuk’s newly naked cheek was unnaturally sensitive and so it picked up the first kiss of the dawn wind an instant earlier than usual as it puffed from the south, given extra impetus by the threat of a storm running up from down there. Huuk knew that if he glanced north and perhaps a little east now he would see just the very tip of the Peak aflame like a volcano. No sooner had he thought this than there, like a fallen star, low on the starboard quarter, came the light of the Wenweic Zhou. The point of brightness was so startling that Huuk was tricked into speculating whether, if he continued to watch in that quarter, he would be able to see the distant Fortaleza da Guia light at Macau.

  He stroked the stock of the AK74 and dragged his dazzled vision back. His fine-featured countenance remained as tranquil as the sea but within he was seething with anger. What was making his usually disciplined mind run on such trivialities? What childish forebodings were these which made him almost nervous of completing this mission? What spirits were moving among the last of the darkness warning of terrors to come? What sort of a leader would the men think him if he was not the first to sight their target — and the first to board her, and the first to draw blood? This was the pride which had put him here, at the cutting edge of the bloody business, keeping lookout without using his binoculars.

  The slightest stir behind his left shoulder alerted him that one of the others had sighted something and he glanced south, turning his still-sensitive face into the cool, charged oil-tainted wind. There, away on the dull, threatening, smoke-grey horizon, sat a freighter such as the one they were hunting, her long hull almost invisible in the shadows and her upper works seemingly ablaze. Huuk shook his head once, decisively. No. This was not their quarry. Too far south; on the wrong course; moving too fast. The intelligence out of Aberdeen had been precise about their quarry’s course and disposition at least. Huuk knew exactly what he was looking for, and precisely where it was going to be. Position and movement were, after all, of paramount importance. He narrowed his eyes and faced forwards once again.

  And there she was! Bow on, dead ahead, seemingly dead in the water, there was the ship they sought. Huuk let go of his AK74 for a moment and raised both his arms straight up into the air before gesturing forcefully forward, chopping both hands down like axes with the hard edges of his palms downwards over the hissing water, as though he was delivering two kite strike karate chops to the inoffensive air. This was also an agreed signal. The motors reached a new pitch of snarling frenzy and the three slim launches leaped forward as one, slapping through the still water, kicking up foaming bow waves as they went.

  Huuk looked, mesmerised, foreboding like a stone upon his slight chest. The ship came up towards them as though miraculously rising out of the water, still, silent, apparently deserted. There was no pale wave at her slim bow at all as she drifted north-eastwards into his territory just as the mysterious information had led him to expect.

  With her hull still a shadowy shape and her lines cloaked by a dull purple-grey mist, her superstructure glimmered spectrally as though given some kind of foul luminosity like meat beginning to rot. The square of her white-painted bridgehouse shone dully behind the black bars of her deck gantries, like something caged. As Huuk watched, narrow-eyed, the first great bolt of sunlight smashed against the equipment in the crow’s nest atop the stubby mast which stood above her bridge. The light seemed to shatter as though it was red-molten gold and spattered downwards
like a firework, raining dazzling brightness. The tops of the hard-edged black gantries caught fire like candles, tall flames leaping forward in series along the main deck towards the speeding launches. The stormy dawn wind rumbled and thudded, as though echoing the sounds which ought to have accompanied the blinding pyrotechnics.

  That was just what they needed now, thought Huuk more happily. The freshening wind would cover the sounds of the racing motors as effectively as the waterfall of light would hide their long, shark-like shapes from the watch-keepers aboard — if there were any, which he had been led to doubt.

  He glanced down, past the lateral shape of the AK74, to the neatly coiled rope with its three-pronged boarding hook lying between the gleaming whiteness of his Reeboks. The trainers were expensive and, rarely for this neck of the woods, they were the genuine article. The Levi 501s were far more suspect, purchased cheaply like much of his clothing, in the night market on Temple Street. He knew for a fact that his shirt was not made by Yves St Laurent as its label claimed, and that his watch had never been anywhere near the Rolex manufactory in Switzerland. But he was a neat dresser and came well turned out even on a job like this one. Still, when push came to shove, his life could well depend on the steadiness of his stance, the swiftness of his step and therefore on the grip of his footwear, so his shoes and his equipment were the genuine article at least. He patted the butt of the AK74 one more time for luck, pulled down his balaclava and looked up.

  The mottled, varicoloured three-dimensional jigsaw of the deck cargo was alight now, glowing between the columns of brightness which were the main deck gantries or samson posts. The top of the superstructure, too, had risen into brightness and the long window across the front of the bridge gleamed ruby in the red dawn like the wound of a cut throat. Huuk looked away from the light again; the time for watching was well past now. As the prow of his launch came in past the sheer bow, still seemingly cloaked in the last of the shadows here at sea level, he slung the AK74 over his right shoulder and lifted the grappling hook, swinging it with an easy, practised motion, looking up.

  The side of the ship reached out to a slight overhang here at the bow. The metal near the water was mostly plain, rusty black but here at the forefoot there were white lading marks and the hint of red beneath the surface. Above, there was a slightly old-fashioned flare, painted white, where the side became deck rails round the forecastle head. Just below the white line, above and behind the rusty double hook of the anchor, also in neat white, the name was painted: SULU QUEEN. The light bludgeoning across the deck reflected out across the slight mist, giving the upper reaches, for an instant, a disturbing glory. The whole of the ship seemed to waver as though some unimaginable explosion was taking place within her. Even the bright solidity of her name seemed to tremble on the verge of dissolution. Then the light altered and reality settled back into place again.

  As they came aft of the name, Huuk threw up his boarding hook, tugged on the knotted rope to ensure that the hook was holding firmly, and swung up out of the safety of his launch. As he scrambled up the slippery, clammy side, he could hear the hiss, clatter and twang of half a dozen more hooks being thrown and when he scrambled over onto the deck itself, he was relieved to see five more hooks bedded safely in series. He looked up.

  Everything was different up here. The change was so absolute it was almost incapacitating, as though he had clambered onto a different plane of existence, into a different world. In the absolute daylight, the deck stank of metal and the air, already humid and hot, was filled with further smells from the metal sides of the high-piled containers and, more subtly, mysterious hints of whatever they contained. He had his back to the sun which smote down upon his shoulders through the spurious Yves St Laurent shirt. The containers hulked above his left shoulder and the wind muttered through the spaces in between them as though the ghosts of all his forefathers were there, trying to warn him about something too terrible to be discussed full voice. When he moved, the sole of his Reebok screamed and he jumped, shocked to find that he was sweating.

  By the time the first of his men swung themselves aboard, Huuk was down at the far end of the line of hooks. Stationed between them and the silent bridge, with his eyes darting everywhere and his AK74 cocked and sitting ready on his hip, he waited while the rest of them scrambled aboard and the last pair hauled up the two boxes of extra equipment. In a matter of minutes they were ready and he was able to give the signal. Still without a word having been said, the whole gang of them ran down the deck, keeping close to the shelter of the containers, in covering pairs out of sight of any invisible watchkeepers on the bridge towards which they were heading.

  Action blanked Huuk’s mind to the intensity of sensation and the whirl of worrying, slightly superstitious speculation, as it always did. He was a natural leader, a combination of imagination and bloody-minded courage, of sensitivity and brutality, of cold calculation and explosive action which made his men worship him. They called him Tuan, Lord, in a way which was as impressive as it was old-fashioned, foreign and inappropriate.

  He arrived at the main door into the port side of the bridgehouse and paused. The heavy metal portal stood invitingly ajar and there was not a whisper of sound or breath of motion, but that meant nothing. This would be the first place Huuk would have mounted a trap had he been in command of the Sulu Queen. He flattened himself against the white-painted outside wall, eased the AK74 until it lay across his silently heaving belly, and waited.

  His men were up beside him within instants, fifteen of them, with himself the sixteenth. Two carried the boxes brought up from the first launch. The rest of them were armed with an assortment of automatic and semi-automatic weapons. They were dressed in an array of jeans, trousers or shorts in various states of cleanliness and repair, and in a range of shirts likewise. They all wore balaclavas or face masks, leaving uncovered only their long dark eyes, ablaze with the prospect of action.

  Huuk’s right hand chopped a series of silent orders and the first pair separated off. In a silent explosion of action they hurled themselves in through the innocently gaping door and were down in a crouch at once, their weapons sweeping from side to side, ready to lay down arcs of fire. Then they were gone and the next pair followed — one high, one low. Huuk stepped through with the last man in and stood, fully erect, with his own AK74 swinging from side to side covering their backs.

  Silence. Stillness.

  Not a whisper of sound. Not a flicker of movement.

  The still air settled, stinking of iron, redolent of something else — something putrid. A lone gull screamed in the distance and its cry set off a cacophony of calls accompanied by the beat of wings like distant thunder. And just at that moment, under that faraway disturbance, Huuk suddenly felt the short hair on his neck stir. For he had the strangest feeling that there was someone there, just out of sight, hidden away close by, watching. Waiting. Then the feeling was gone and the gulls’ cries whispered into silence.

  Huuk looked around the faces of the team crouching along the narrow alleyway in front of him. Their eyes met his one by one, each with the faintest shake of a head. None of them registered anything. He stepped back, leaned out through the doorway and gestured the others in. Still in silence, they trooped in through the door. At once the lateral alleyway was crowded and Huuk led his men swiftly down to the main companionway where they could spread out up and down the steps. Here a rapid series of gestures and clicks split the men into their assigned teams. The first of the black boxes was opened and Huuk handed the leader of each group a Motorola PRC 319 two-way radio. These had been set and tested earlier and needed no further checking now.

  Huuk snapped his fingers once again and despatched one team down to explore the engineering decks below, another to check out the accommodation and the navigating areas above, and left a third, fiercely armed, to guard the boxes here. The men went as ordered, some of them frowning now, for they clearly could not see the need for combat readiness and continued silence aboard thi
s drifting, abandoned hulk. But their orders were clear and, for all they looked like a Triad street gang from the Wanchai, their discipline was absolute.

  As the brooding silence persisted to the point of monotony and his own radio stayed stubbornly silent, Huuk shook himself into action and crossed to the companionway leading up towards the bridge decks. Then, uncharacteristically hesitant, he changed his mind and returned. He handed his AK74 to one of the men guarding the boxes and bent to snap the second one open. There was a bundle of green material on the top and he lifted it out. As he swung it upwards, it unfolded, revealing padded sides, and by the time he had shrugged it over his slim shoulders it stood revealed as an ancient, almost threadbare, bulletproof jacket. He reached back into the black depths of the box and pulled out something else. This was a gun, but no gun like the old AK he had handed to the nearest guard. Where that had been slim and reassuringly fashioned with a light stock and a scimitar-shaped ammunition clip, this was squat, brutal and black. Its stock was skeletal, its barrel short, wide and gleaming obsidian. When he pulled it up to point at the deckhead above and sat it on one slim hip, it still looked more like a grenade launcher than a rifle; and even the open flap of the venerable flak jacket, swinging wide as he moved, could not conceal the brutal power of the thing. With his left hand he caught the tight neck-piece of the balaclava and wrestled it up over his short nose and high forehead until he was able to pull the thing off altogether and cast it impatiently aside.

  The man with the extra AK narrowed his eyes as he watched Tuan Huuk. He watched as the slight figure hunched forward, vibrant with concentration, head moving from side to side like a radar dish — or the head of a hawk in search of its prey. He watched as the bantam-weight body rocked up and forward onto the balls of its feet and was gone up the companionway like a wraith. The guard exchanged a glance with his nearest companion. A ghost of a nod was all that passed between them but it was enough. They knew that while the rest of his command was searching through this idle, abandoned derelict as it drifted across the South China Sea towards distant Hong Kong, Tuan Huuk himself was hunting.