We lit the oil stoves, left a morose and muttering Eddie-with the doleful assistance of the Three Apostles-to get the diesel generator working and made our way back to the Morning Rose, myself because it was essential that I speak to Smithy, the others because the hut was still miserably bleak and freezing whereas even the much-maligned Morning Rose still offered a comparative haven of warmth and comfort. Very shortly after our return a variety of incidents occurred in short and eventually disconcerting succession.
At ten past three, totally unexpectedly and against all indications, the conning tower fitted snugly over the flange of the midship section. Six bolts were immediately fitted to hold it in position-there were twenty-four altogether-and the work-boat at once set about the task of towing the unwieldy structure into the almost total shelter offered by the right angle formed by the main body of the jetty and its north facing arm.
At three-fifteen the unloading of the foredeck cargo began and, with Smithy in charge, this was undertaken with efficiency and despatch. Partly because I didn’t want to disturb him in his work, partly because it was at that moment impossible to speak to Smithy privately, I went below to my cabin, removed a small rectangular clothbound package from the base of my medical bag, put it in a small purse-strung duffle bag and went back on top.
This was at three-twenty. The unloading was still less than twenty percent completed but Smithy wasn’t there. It was almost as though he had awaited my momentary absence to betake himself elsewhere. And that he had betaken himself elsewhere there was no doubt. I asked the winchman where he had gone, but the winchman, exclusively preoccupied with a job that had to be executed with all despatch, was understandably vague about Smithy’s whereabouts. He had either gone below or ashore, he said, which I found a very helpful remark. I looked in his cabin, on the bridge, in the charthouse, the saloon and all the other likely places. No Smithy. I questioned passengers and crew with the same result. No one had seen him, no one had any idea whether he was aboard or had gone ashore which was very understandable because the darkness was now pretty well complete and the harsh light of the arc lamp now rigged up to aid unloading threw the gangway into very heavy shadow so that anyone could be virtually certain of boarding or leaving the Morning Rose unnoticed.
Nor was there any sign of Captain Imrie. True, I wasn’t looking for him, but I would have expected him to be making his presence very much known. The wind was almost round to the south-southeast now and still freshening, the Morning Rose was beginning to pound regularly against the jetty wall with a succession of jarring impacts and a sound of screeching metal that would normally have had Imrie very much in evidence indeed in his anxiety to get rid of all his damned passengers and their equipment in order to get his ship out to the safety of the open sea with all speed. But he wasn’t around, not any place I could see him.
At three-thirty I went ashore and hurried up the jetty to the huts. They were deserted except for the equipment hut where Eddie was blasphemously trying to start up the diesel. He looked up as he saw me.
“Nobody could ever call me one for complaining, Dr. Marlowe, but this bloody-”
“Have you seen Mr. Smith” The mate?”
“Not ten minutes ago. Looked in to see how we were getting on. Why? Is there something–”
“Did he say anything?”
“What kind of thing?”
“About where he was going? What he was doing?”
“No.” Eddie looked at the shivering Three Apostles, whose blank expressions were of no help to anyone. “Just stood there for a couple of minutes with his hands in his pockets, looking at what we were doing and asking a few questions., then he strolls off.”
“See where he went?”
“No.” He looked at the Three Apostles, who shook their heads as one. “Anything up, then?”
“Nothing urgent. Ship’s about to sail and the skipper’s looking for him.” If that wasn’t quite an accurate assessment of how matters stood at that moment, I’d no doubt it would be in a very few minutes. I didn’t waste time looking for Smithy. If he had been hanging around with apparent aimlessness at the camp instead of closely supervising the urgent clearing of the foredeck, which one would have expected of him and would normally have been completely in character, then Smithy had a very good reason for doing so: he just wanted, however temporarily, to become lost.
At three thirty-five I returned to the Morning Rose. This time Captain Imrie was very much in evidence. I had thought him incapable of becoming frantic about anything but as I looked at him as he stood in the wash of light at the door of the saloon I could see that I could have been wrong about that. Perhaps “frantic” was the wrong term, but there was no doubt that he was in a highly excitable condition and was mad clear through. His fists were balled, what could be seen of his face was mottled red and white and his bright blue eyes were snapping. With commendable if lurid brevity he repeated to me what he’d clearly told a number of people in the past few minutes. Worried about the deteriorating weather–that wasn’t quite the way he’d put it–he’d had Allison try to contact Tunheim for a forecast. This Allison had been unable to do. Then he and Allison had made the discovery that the transceiver was smashed beyond repair. And just over an hour or so previously the receiver had been in order-or Smith had said it was, for he had then written down the latest weather forecast. Or what he said was the latest weather forecast. And now there was no sign of Smith. Where the hell was Smith?
“He’s gone ashore,” I said.
“Ashore? Ashore? How the hell do you know he’s gone ashore?” Captain Imrie didn’t sound very friendly, but, then, he was hardly in a friendly mood.
“Because I’ve just been up in the camp talking to Mr. Harbottle, the electrician. Mr. Smith had just been up there.”
“Up there? He should have been unloading cargo. What the hell was he doing up there?”
I didn’t see Mr. Smith,” I explained patiently. “So I couldn’t ask him.”
“What the hell were you doing up there?”
“You’re forgetting yourself, Captain Imrie. I am not responsible to you. I merely wished to have a word with him before he left. We’ve become quite friendly, you know.”
“Yes you have, haven’t you?” Imrie said significantly. It didn’t mean anything, he was just in a mood for talking significantly. “Allison!”
“Sir?”
“The bosan. Search party ashore. Quickly now, I’ll lead you myself.” If there had ever been any doubt as to the depth of Captain Imrie’s concern there was none now. He turned back to me but as Otto Gerran and Goin were now standing beside me I wasn’t sure whether he was addressing me or not. “And we’re leaving within the half hour, with Smith or without him.”
“Is that fair, Captain?” Otto asked. “He may just have gone for a walk or got a little lost-you see how dark it is-”
“Don’t you think it bloody funny that Mr. Smith should vanish just as I discover that a radio over which he’s been claiming to receive messages is smashed beyond repair?”
Otto fell silent but Goin, ever the diplomat, stepped in smoothly.
“I think Mr. Gerran is right, Captain. You could be acting a little bit unfairly. I agree that the destruction of your radio is a serious and worrisome affair and one that is more than possibly, in light of all the mysterious things that have happened recently, a very sinister affair. But I think you are wrong immediately to assume that Mr. Smith has any connection with it. For one thing, he strikes me as much too intelligent a man to incriminate himself in so extremely obvious a fashion. In the second place, as your senior officer who knows how vitally important a piece of equipment your radio is, why should he do such a wanton thing? In the third place, if he were trying to escape the consequences of his actions, where on earth could he escape to on Bear Island? I do not suggest anything as simple as an accident or amnesia: I’m merely suggesting that he may have got lost. You could at least wait until the morning.”
I could see Captain Imrie’s fists unballing, not much, just a slight relaxation, and I knew that if he weren’t wavering he was at least on the point of considering, a state of approaching uncertainty that lasted just as long as it took Otto to undo whatever Goin might have been on the point of achieving.