crude-carriers that you might wander through them for hours without
meeting another human being. With their huge bulk and their tiny crews,
the only place where there was always human presence was the navigation
bridge on the top floor of the stern quarters.
The bridge was always one of Peter's obligatory stops.
Good-morning, Tug/ the officer of the watch would greet him.
Peter had been christened with his nickname when he had announced at the
breakfast table on his first morning: Tankers are great, but I'm going
to be a tug captain, like my dad. On the bridge the ship might be taken
out of automatic to allow Peter to spell the helmsman for a while, or he
would assist the junior deck officers while they made a sun shot as an
exercise to check against the satellite navigational Decca; then, after
socializing with Captain Randle for a while, it was time to report to
his true station in the engine We were waiting on you, Tug/ growled the
Chief. Get your overalls on, man, we're going down the propeller shaft
tunnel. The only unpleasant period of the day was when Peter's mother
insisted that he scrub off the top layers of grease and fuel oil, dress
in his number ones, and act as an unpaid steward during the cocktail
hour in the elaborate lounge of the owner's suite.
it was the only time that Chantelle Alexander fratemized with the ship's
officers and it was a painfully stilted hour, with Peter one of the
major sufferers - but the rest of the time he was successful in avoiding
the clinging restrictive rulings of his mother and the hated fiercely
but silently resented presence of Duncan Alexander, his stepfather.
Still, he was instinctively aware of the new and disturbing tensions
between his mother and Duncan Alexander.
In the night he heard the raised voices from the master cabin, and he
strained to catch the words. Once, when he had heard the cries of his
mother's distress, he had left his bunk and gone barefooted to knock on
the cabin door.
Duncan Alexander had opened it to him. He was in a silk dressing-gown
and his handsome features were swollen and flushed with anger.
Go back to bed. I want to see my mother, Peter had told him quietly.
You need a damned good hiding/ Duncan had flared.
Now do as you are told. I want to see my mother. Peter had stood his
ground, standing very straight in his pyjamas with both his tone and
expression neutral, and Chantelle had come to him in her nightdress and
knelt to embrace him.
It's all right, darling. It's perfectly all right. But she had been
weeping. After that there had been no more loud voices in the night.
However, except for an hour in the afternoon, when the swimming-pool was
placed out of bounds to officers and crew, while Chantelle swam and
sunbathed, she spent the rest of the time in the owner's suite, eating
all her meals there, withdrawn and silent, sitting at the panoramic
windows of her cabin, coming to life only for an hour, the evenings
while she played the owner's wife to the ship's officers.
Duncan Alexander, on the other hand, was like a caged animal. He paced
the open decks, composing long messages which were sent off regularly
over the telex in company code to Christy Marine in Leadenhall Street.
Then he would stand out on the open wing of Golden Dawn's bridge,
