Flying Dutch полностью

At last they could make out a human being on the ship. Two human beings, two human beings leaning against the rail looking mildly interested. They seemed entirely oblivious to the smell.

Martha seized the grappling-hook while Jo swung the tiller. There didn’t seem an awful lot you could get a handcuff round on the gleaming oak sides of the ship, but she owed it to herself to try.

“Hello there,” said a voice from above her head. “Are you lost?”

Martha blinked. “Are we what?”

“Lost,” repeated the voice.

“Don’t try that one with me, buster,” Martha said. “We’re coming alongside, and don’t bother trying to stop us.”

The taller of the two men gazed at her with a puzzled expression. “Do you really want to come alongside?” he said.

“Yes.”

“Takes all sorts,” replied the taller man. “Shall I drop you a line?”

Martha was about to say something, but Jo explained that it was also a seafaring term. “He wants to lower us a rope,” she whispered.

“What?”

“He wants to lower us a bloody rope!” Jo shouted.

“That’s right,” said the man on the ship, “I want to lower you a rope. If you’d like me to, that is. I’m not bothered one way or the other.”

Martha only had a few seconds to decide whether this was simple or duplex treachery. She decided on duplex.

“Lower away, sucker,” she replied. “See if I care.”

“Your friend isn’t very polite, is she?” said the man on the ship. He threw a rope to them, and Martha grabbed it and made it fast. Together, she and Jo hauled themselves level with the ship. With the best will in the world, there was nothing—absolutely nothing—to handcuff themselves to short of the rail that ran round the side of the ship. Martha thought of acid rain and the whales, and started to scramble up the rope.

“Hold on,” said the man on the ship, “it’s wet, you’ll slip.”

He was right.

Several other men had joined him now. There was sniggering. But no hoses. Martha was not enjoying herself. She was at home with hoses, she knew where they were coming from. But nobody seemed to be taking her seriously.

“Come on, Jo,” she panted as she hauled herself up into the dinghy again and seized the rope. She was feeling angry, frustrated, humiliated and above all wet, and a little voice in the back of her mind was saying that it really was about time the whales learned to look after themselves, or what the hell was the point of evolution, anyway? She dismissed it with the contempt it deserved. “Scared, are you?”

“No,” Jo replied. “I’m going up the ladder.”

“What ladder?”

“The one they’ve just lowered,” Jo replied, and stepped out of the dinghy.

Vanderdecker had just managed to say the “What can I do” part of “What can I do for you?” when the smaller of the two visitors deftly and entirely unexpectedly manacled herself to the ship’s rail. The second—rather unwillingly, Vanderdecker felt—followed suit.

“Is something the matter?” he asked.

On the bridge of the Erdkrieger, the captain observed the scene aboard the poison ship and felt ashamed in his Teutonic heart. His Kameradinen had dared to go where he had been afraid to go, and that was not good enough. He proposed the motion—it was a fundamentally democratic ship—that they lower the other boats, and that they jump to it.

“Why,” Vanderdecker was asking, “have you two ladies chained yourselves to the rail of my ship? Sorry if that sounds nosy, but…”

“Because,” Martha replied, “we are sisters of our mother Earth.”

There was a brief silence, and then the first mate spoke.

“Captain,” he said, “if they’re her sisters, how can she be their mother?”

Vanderdecker smiled patiently at his first mate. “Not now, Antonius,” he said. “I’ll explain later. Environmentalists?”

“That’s right,” Martha said. “So…”

“So why are you chained to the railings of my ship? Practice?” Martha sneered, although Vanderdecker couldn’t see because of the gas mask. “Don’t act innocent with me. We know what you’ve got on this ship.”

“What have I got on this ship?” Vanderdecker said. “Go on, you’ll never guess.”

“Extremely hazardous toxic chemical waste,” came the reply, in chorus. Vanderdecker shook his head.

“No,” he replied, “you’re wrong there. Apart from a few tins of supermarket lager we got in Bridport last time, that is. It’s true what they say, you get what you pay for. I’m sorry,” he said, noting a certain hostility. “You were guessing what I’ve got on this ship.”

“If there’s no toxic waste on this ship,” said Jo sardonically, “how do you explain the smell?”

Vanderdecker shrugged and turned to the first mate. “All right,” he said, “which one of you forgot to buy the soap?”

“Very funny,” Martha snarled. “We know you’ve got that filth on board, and we’re not unchaining ourselves until you turn back to where you came from.”

“I promise,” Vanderdecker said solemnly, “there’s not so much as a thimbleful of toxic waste on board. You can look for yourselves if you like.”

Martha laughed. “What, and unchain ourselves? You’d really like that, wouldn’t you?”