Kolymsky Heights by Lionel Davidson Page B

still in dry dock.’
    ‘What’s the sailing date?’
    ‘The thirty-first. You’ll learn all this.’
    ‘That gives me only two days in between.’
    ‘It’s a week before you’re needed. You’ll be briefed on it. We have to keep to plans.’
    ‘Okay,’ Porter said. He took a cigarette, and offered Yoshi his pack.

    ‘I shouldn’t, it’s not healthy,’ Yoshi said. But he accepted a cigarette, and blew out a stream of smoke.
    ‘What’s the stop-off schedule?’ Porter asked.
    ‘ You do not need this ,’ Yoshi said, mouthing above the din. ‘Not here. It’s not finalised, anyway.’
    ‘What have you got?’
    Yoshi put down his cigarette and took out a map. A sheet of scrawled Japanese was attached to it. He opened the map out on his knee.
    ‘The west coast – you know it?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘No, it isn’t used much by international lines. This is a cheap line. It does cheap business. Here, Nagasaki.’ Yoshi put a finger on it. ‘And here, Niigata – the first stop, about seven hundred miles up. In Niigata it discharges and loads.’
    ‘It loads what?’
    Yoshi ground his teeth a little, but he checked the paper. ‘Fork lifts, agricultural machinery, skates,’ he said. ‘The skates for Gothenburg and Rotterdam, the rest Murmansk.’
    ‘Containerised?’
    ‘Containerised.’
    ‘As deck cargo or what?’
    Yoshi blinked. ‘The loading isn’t finalised,’ he said.
    Porter looked at him. Yoshi was the man he had to deal with, and he had been told he was a good man. But Yoshi didn’t know this. There would be other things he didn’t know. That was why he was at the Lucky Strike. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘What’s the discharge cargo?’
    ‘Wool. The ship is coming now. It runs there and back from Australia. It drops the wool at Nagasaki and feeder vessels move it on. This one will. First of all to Niigata.’
    ‘Wool is a baled cargo.’
    ‘Yes, baled,’ Yoshi said, checking.
    ‘The ship handles break-bulk and container?’
    ‘It handles everything, it’s a tramp. It goes to places the others don’t,’ Yoshi said.

    Porter thought about this. ‘Okay, Niigata. What then?’
    ‘Then Otaru. Up here on the island of Hokkaido. The same thing, load and discharge. And final bunkering. It’s the last stop in Japan. It drops the remainder of the wool, then off – up to the Bering Strait and the Arctic’
    ‘What’s the date for up there?’
    ‘Nagasaki-Murmansk is twenty-eight days, their speed. They go a slow speed, it’s cheaper. But they allow more for turnaround and delays. The one sure date, they’ll be at Murmansk the first week of October. After that there’s a good chance they’d be iced in.’
    ‘How about Green Cape?’
    ‘I don’t know about Green Cape. There’s no consignment yet. There still could be. The Russians always leave it to the end. It wouldn’t be the last word, anyway.’
    He explained. On rounding the strait the ship would radio its arrival in Russian waters, and the Russians would radio back if they wanted them to stop.
    ‘Stop for what?’
    ‘Fish. They have a small fish business with Murmansk.’ Murmansk was not on the map but Yoshi pointed out where it would be, somewhere near the door. ‘Way out there. That time of year nothing much goes that way. the traffic is all the other way, to the Pacific. Maybe this is the last ship of the season, so they’ll want it.’
    ‘What if they don’t?’
    Two flutes of smoke came out of Yoshi’s flat nose. ‘If they don’t, there’s a plan,’ he said. ‘And if they do, there’s also a plan. You’ll learn all this.’
    ‘Where do I join the ship?’
    ‘At Otaru. It happens fast, before they have time to let anyone know. Actually, they won’t want to let anyone know.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘No. Enough,’ Yoshi said. The minimal nose and the shell glasses gave him the appearance of a tough cat. ‘There’s a lotfor you to learn, but not here. In the place set up for you to learn. You stay out of sight there