Ann was mollified. ‘That’s OK, then.’ She gave the Captain a winning smile, from sheer force of habit.
Deadman lit another cigar. ‘OK, here’s the deal. Captain, we sail on the first tide.’
Rumbuggery nodded and tapped the side of his nose. ‘Right. Gotcha. Before any shneaky dockside rat getsh to hear about some of the characters we got in the crew – not to mention the cargo …’
Ann’s ears pricked up. ‘What characters? What cargo?’
Hurriedly, Deadman continued, ‘Sure, sure, Skipper. Then you take us to the co-ordinates I’ve already given you.’
‘What’s he talking about?’ demanded Ann. ‘What characters? What’s all this about a cargo? What sort of cargo?’
‘Yessiree.’ Rumbuggery gave Ann a knowing, drunken wink. ‘I sure wouldn’t want the port authorities to hear about thish cargo.’ He gave a phlegmy chuckle which deteriorated into a hacking cough.
‘When we get to this latitude,’ continued Deadman, ‘I’ll reveal our destination.’
‘I want to hear more about this cargo.’
‘I don’t like it!’ The interruption was sudden and shocking. Rumbuggery’s mood, in the way of drunks, had undergone a sudden swing. His voice, powerful enough to summon a favoured fore-mast hand from the fo’c’sle to the Captain’s bunk in the teeth of a hurricane, made the solid steel walls vibrate.
‘I tell you, it’s ashking for trouble.’ The Captain’s face was a picture of misery. ‘You’re ashking me to shet sail for an unknown destination …’ The Captain enumerated his points on nicotine-stained fingers. ‘… on a ship that leaksh like a sieve, carrying a highly dangerous cargo and crewed by the worsht collection of cut-throats and no-goods I ever laid eyesh on – and, worsht of all …’ The Captain’s eyes bugged out with indignation. ‘… with a woman on board!’
‘Now hold it right there!’ Ann shot to her feet, eyes flashing. ‘Did you say, “a woman” on board? “A woman” as in “one”? Singular?’ She pointed accusingly at Deadman. ‘Youse creep, you never told me that!’
‘Didn’t I?’ said Deadman unconvincingly. ‘It must have slipped my mind. Does it matter?’
‘You betcha it matters!’ howled Ann. ‘You expect me to spend three months on this hell-ship, being pawed and leered at by a bunch of lecherous deck apes, without even another goil on board? You told me this would be a cruise, with luxurious accommodation on a swell, high-class liner.’
‘Maybe I exaggerated a little.’
‘I shoulda guessed you were lyin’ when youse lips started to move.’ Ann fixed Deadman with a furious glare. ‘Forget it, buster. Include me out.’
‘Well, there’s gratitude!’ Deadman turned to Rumbuggery. ‘Captain, I appeal to you …’
‘No you don’t.’ Rumbuggery eyed Deadman up and down, then shook his head decidedly. ‘Not one bit. I like lithe young deck-hands with firm, rounded –’
‘I meant,’ grated Deadman, ‘I appeal to your sense of fair play.’ He pointed accusingly at Ann. ‘She hadn’t worked for two years. I dragged her out of the gutter …’
‘I was resting, you joik!’
‘Yeah, like you’d been resting ever since the talkies came in, and your fans discovered that Ann Darling, the Sweet Maid of Milwaukee, had a voice like a buzz-saw tearing through sheet metal.’
‘That ain’t fair! I had elly-cue-shun lessons …”
‘… till your voice coach threw himself out the window. Get this, doll-face – I hired you because no other producer would touch you with a camera crane.’
‘Yeah? Well, no other goil would agree to come on a crazy trip like this.’
‘That too,’ agreed Deadman. Ann, not sure whether she’d just scored a point or conceded one, gave an injured huff and turned her back on the men.
‘While we’re on the shubject,’ said Captain Rumbuggery, taking yet another liver-dissolving pull at his glass, ‘just where the hell are we going?’
Deadman rolled his eyes. ‘I told you. I’ll spill the beans when we reach the coordinates I gave.’
‘No!’ Captain Rumbuggery slammed his glass down. Liquid slopped from it and began to eat through the table. ‘That’sh not good enough! You exscpect me to take you into uncharted seas and unknown dangersh with a contraband cargo and a woman on board? I won’t do it, I tell you!’
‘All right, already!’ Deadman gave an exasperated sigh. ‘I can’t tell you everything – there may be spies aboard. But, just to satisfy your curiosity, I’ll give you a few hints.’
He bit the end off another cigar. Ann leaned forward, her eyes gleaming with calculation. The Captain tried to focus, and not fall off his chair.
Deadman lit the cigar puffing hard and rolling it around in the match flame to ensure that the tobacco burnt evenly. He stuck one hand in a waistcoat pocket, took a deep draught of the pungent smoke, and blew three rings which sailed up to join the clouds roiling around beneath the flyspecked ceiling.
Lowering the cigar, he carefully removed a flake of tobacco from his bottom lip. Only then did he turn to face the Captain and Ann.
‘Tell me,’ he said slowly, ‘did you ever hear of … Dong?’
Dong … Dong … Dong … Dong
The sound reverberated around the cabin.
Dong … Dong … Dong … Dong
Deadman stared through the porthole. ‘Who is ringing that goddamn bell?’
‘Eight bells!’ intoned a salt-roughened voice from the deck.
‘Twenty hundred hours, ship’s time,’ explained the Skipper. He staggered to the cabin door, flung it open and bellowed, ‘Will you shut up out there! How’sh an old seadog to think with that noise going on?’
‘Sorry, Skipper.’
Rumbuggery weaved his way back to his seat. ‘Did you jusht shay what I thought you said, Mr Deadman?’
‘I did,’ nodded the producer.
Rumbuggery’s eyes flared with shock and fear. Then they flared again as the light from Deadman’s smouldering cigar spontaneously combusted with the alcoholic fumes surrounding the Captain. The smell of singed hair joined the cabin’s rich mixture of odours, but the Skipper seemed barely to notice it. ‘Dong!’ he repeated in a quaking voice.
Ann shrugged. ‘Is that the name of the island we’re
