As he stood at the helm, his features, partly illuminated by the greenish-yellow light from the compass, showed something of the tension he was under. Over the last 36 hours his small, uncomplicated world had been invaded as two of his crew had died sudden and violent deaths, most of their bones broken in the grip of some terrible illness. Some of his crew murmured that an evil spirit had entered their bodies and brought about the frenzied convulsions they had witnessed. Whatever it was, or how or when it had found its way aboard, was beyond him and filled him with the utmost dread concerning the safety of his remaining crew and himself.
Since then, some six hours or so had passed without incident. Then suddenly, just twenty minutes ago, Hanson Yen, the second mate, had leapt overboard, foaming at the mouth, his eyes almost bursting from their sockets as he screamed obscenities to the wind and waves before his body sank beneath the murky waters. His insane plunge created a sudden surge of panic amongst them all with Tai Woon hard-pressed to keep control them all.
In the lull that followed he thought over these things as, with cargo heavy and sluggish to the helm, the Nyanga thumped her way through the deepening Atlantic swells. A sudden banging startled him and turning round he saw the face of the Korean cook through the small round window in the top of the wheel house door. With nothing to unduly alarm him, he unlocked the door and accepted the tray of food before locking the door again as the cook set off back to the galley. For the next few minutes Tai Woon was occupied checking map and compass bearings before making a few course corrections when the smell of food reminded him he hadn’t eaten for several hours.
Alarm bells rang in his mind as an unusual taste made him stop his chewing before he spat out what was in his mouth, shoving his fingers down his throat and vomiting the watery contents of his stomach to join the mess on the floor. It was as he drank water from a bottle that he caught sight of the cook’s venomous face glaring at him; his eyes wild and with whitish foam around his mouth he began battering at the door with an iron meat cleaver. Solid as it was it didn’t take long for the wooden door to splinter, and with nothing to defend himself with, Tai Woon retreated to the other side of the small cabin.
The cook, now a raving madman, forced his way through the broken panels and lifting the meat cleaver high above his head moved a step forward, his powerful arm beginning its downward sweep at Tai Woon. Suddenly his feet slipped from under him and he fell back striking his head heavily. The meat cleaver flew from his grasp and Tai Woon was able to see him locked safely away in the hold.
Things returned to normal as he went round the crew and talked to them. Calming them down he made them drink plenty of fresh water before eating a meal of fish and vegetables. The rest of the journey was uneventful and back on shore the port medical officer who checked the cook and inspected the galley explained what had happened. High humidity together with bad storage meant that all the grain foods on board the Nyanga had been contaminated by a variety of dangerous moulds. One mould in particular had caused the terrible sickness which sent three of the crew to their deaths, plus the madness which so strongly gripped the unfortunate Korean cook.
It isn’t surprising therefore, that for many years afterwards, and until his own death, Tai Woo would shudder at the sound of wood being splintered by an axe and would only eat Korean food with a meat cleaver of his own firmly gripped in his sweating hand…
Dennis Crompton © 1997
(first published www.denniscrompton.wordpress.com 2013)
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