Empire of the Sun - J. G. Ballard [34]
Jim watched it go, then walked through the ankle-deep water that covered the metal deck. The river had begun to shift slightly, and the waxy surface was unbroken as it entered the open stateroom below the bridge and ran out through the port rail. Jim stepped into the stateroom, a rusting grotto that seemed even older than the German forts at Tsingtao. He was standing on the surface of the river, which had rushed from all the creeks and paddies and canals of China in order to carry this small boy on its back. If he stepped on to the waves by the port rail he could walk all the way to the Idzumo…
Towers of smoke shuddered from the cruiser’s funnels as it prepared to raise anchor. Were his parents on board? Aware that he might now be alone in Shanghai, on this steamer he had always dreamed of visiting, Jim gazed from the bridge towards the shore. The tide was beginning to run, and the flower-decked corpses were following their heels to the open sea. The freighter leaned in the stream, and its rusty hull creaked and sang. The plates sawed against each other, and the trailing hawsers swung across the foredeck, the halyards of invisible sails still hoping to propel this ancient hulk to the safety of some warm sea a world away from Shanghai.
Happily, Jim felt the bridge shudder under his feet. As he laughed to himself at the rail he noticed that someone was watching him from the shipyard beyond the funeral piers. A man wearing the coat and cap of an American seaman stood in the wheelhouse of one of three partly constructed colliers. Shyly, but captain to captain, Jim waved to him. The man ignored him, and smoked the cigarette concealed in his hand. He was watching, not only Jim, but a young sailor in a metal dinghy which had cast loose from the next steamer in the boom.
Eager to welcome his first passenger and crewman, Jim left the bridge and made his way down to the deck. The sailor drew nearer, rowing in strong, short movements, careful not to disturb the water. Every few strokes he looked over his shoulder at Jim, and peered through the portholes as if he suspected that this rusty freighter was infested with small boys. The dinghy sat low in the water, weighted down by the sailor’s broad back. He pulled alongside, and Jim saw a crowbar, spanners and hacksaw between his boots. On the bench seat were the brass rings of porthole mounts prised from the ships’ hulls.
‘Hello, kid – going for a run up the coast? Who else is with you?’
‘Nobody.’ For all the hope of safety that this young American offered, Jim was not eager to leave the ship. ‘I’m waiting for my mother and father. They’ve been…delayed.’
‘Delayed? Well, maybe they’ll come later. You look like you need some help.’
He reached out to climb aboard, but as Jim took his hand the sailor pulled him roughly into the dinghy, jarring his knees against the brass portholes. He sat Jim upright and fingered his blazer lapels and badge. His loose blond hair framed an open American face, but he scanned the river in a furtive way, as if expecting a Japanese naval diver in full gear to break surface alongside the dinghy.
‘Now, why are you trying to bother us? Who brought you out here?’
‘I came by myself.’ Jim straightened his blazer. ‘This is my ship now.’
‘Some kind of crazy British kid. You’ve been sitting on that pier for two days. Who are you?’
‘Jamie…’ Jim tried to think of something that would impress the American; already he realized that he should stay with this young sailor. ‘I’m building a man-flying kite…and I’ve written a book on contract bridge.’
‘Wait till Basie sees this.’
As they drifted from the freighter the American drew on his oars. With a few powerful strokes he pulled the dinghy towards the mud-flats. They entered a shallow creek between the funeral piers, a black and oil-stained channel that wound past the shipyards. The American stared morosely at an empty coffin that had jettisoned