‘Good afternoon, Sister Morrison.’
‘Good afternoon, Mr McKinnon. Making your medical rounds, I see.’
The Bo’sun felt the stirrings of anger but contented himself with looking thoughtful: he was probably unaware that his thoughtful expression, in certain circumstances, could have a disquieting effect on people.
‘I just came to have a word with you, Sister.’ He looked around the ward. ‘Not a very lively bunch, are they?’
‘I hardly think this is the time or place for levity, Mr McKinnon.’ The lips were not as compressed as they might have been but there was an appreciable lack of warmth behind the steel-rimmed spectacles.
The Bo’sun looked at her for long seconds, during which time she began to show distinct signs of uneasiness. Like most people – with the exception of the timorous Johnny Holbrook – she regarded the Bo’sun as being cheerful and easy-going, with the rider, in her case, that he was probably a bit simple: it required only one glance at that cold, hard, bleak face to realize how totally wrong she had been. It was an unsettling experience.
The Bo’sun spoke in a slow voice. ‘I am not in the mood for levity, Sister. I’ve just buried fifteen men. Before I buried them I had to sew them up in their sheets of canvas. Before I did that I had to gather up their bits and pieces and stick their guts back inside. Then I sewed them up. Then I buried them. I didn’t see you among the mourners, Sister.’
The Bo’sun was more than aware that he shouldn’t have spoken to her like that and he was also aware that what he had gone through had affected him more than he had thought. Under normal circumstances it was impossible that he should have been so easily provoked: but the circumstances were abnormal and the provocation too great.
‘I’ve come for some plate glass, such as you have on the tops of your trolleys and trays. I need them urgently and I don’t need them for any light-hearted purposes. Or do you require an explanation?’
She didn’t say whether she required an explanation or not. She didn’t do anything dramatic like sinking into a chair, reaching out for the nearest support or even putting a hand to her mouth. Only her colour changed. Sister Morrison had the kind of complexion that, like her eyes and lips, was in marked contrast to her habitually severe expression and steel-rimmed glasses, the kind of complexion that would have had the cosmetic tycoons sending their scientists back to the bench: at that moment, however, the peaches had faded from the traditional if rarely seen peaches and cream of the traditional if equally rarely seen English rose.
The Bo’sun removed the glass top from a table by Jones’s bedside, looked around for trays, saw none, nodded to Sister Morrison and went back to Ward B. Janet Magnusson looked at him in surprise.
‘Is that what you went for?’ The Bo’sun nodded. ‘Maggie – Sister Morrison – had no objection?’
‘Nary an objection. Have you any glass-topped trays?’
Chief Patterson and the others had already begun lunch when the Bo’sun returned, five sheets of plate glass under his arm. Patterson looked faintly surprised.
‘No trouble then, Bo’sun?’
‘One only has to ask. I’ll need some tools for the bridge.’
‘Fixed,’ Jamieson said. ‘I’ve just been to the engine-room. There’s a box gone up to the bridge – all the tools you’ll require, nuts, bolts, screws, insulating tape, a power drill and a power saw.’
‘Ah. Thank you. But I’ll need power.’
‘Power you have. Only a temporary cable, mind you, but the power is there. And lights, of course. The phone will take some time.’
‘That’s fine. Thank you, Mr Jamieson.’ He looked at Patterson. ‘One other thing, sir. We have a fair number of nationalities in our crew. The captain of the Greek tanker Andropolous, isn’t it? – might have a mixed crew too. I should think there’s a fair chance, sir, that one of our men and one of the Greek crew might have a common language. Perhaps you could make enquiries, sir.’
‘And how would that help, Bo’sun?’
‘Captain Andropolous can navigate.’
‘Of course, of course. Always the navigation, isn’t it, Bo’sun?’
‘There’s nothing without it, sir. Do you think you could get hold of Naseby and Trent – they’re the two men who were with me here when we were attacked? Weather’s.-worsening, sir, and we have ice forming on the deck. Would you have them rig up lifelines between here and the superstructure?’
‘Worsening?’ Dr Singh said. ‘How much worse, Mr McKinnon?’
‘Quite a bit, I’m afraid. Bridge barometer is smashed but I think the one in the Captain’s cabin is intact. I’ll check.’ He brought out the hand compass which he’d removed from the lifeboat. ‘This thing’s virtually useless but at least it does show changes in direction. We’re wallowing in the troughs port side to, so that means the wind and the sea are coming at us on the port beam. Wind direction is changing rapidly, we’ve backed at least five degrees since we came down here. Wind’s roughly north-east. If experience is any guide that means heavy snow, heavy seas and a steadily dropping temperature.’
‘No slightest light in the gloom, is that it, Mr McKinnon?’ Dr Singh said. ‘Where every prospect pleases and only man is vile. Except this is the other way round.’
‘A tiny speck of light, Doctor. If the temperature keeps falling like this, the cold room is going to stay cold and the frozen meat and fish should stay that way. And we do have a vile man – or men – aboard or we shouldn’t be in the state we are. You’re worried about your patients, aren’t you, Doctor – especially the ones in Ward A?’
‘Telepathy, Mr McKinnon. If conditions deteriorate much more they’re going to start falling out of their beds and the last thing I want to do is to start strapping wounded men to their beds.’
‘And the last thing I want is for the superstructure to topple over the side.’
Jamieson had pushed back his chair and was on his feet. ‘I have my priorities right, no, Bo’sun?’
‘Indeed, Mr Jamieson. Thank you very much.’ Dr Singh half-smiled. ‘Not more telepathy?’ The Bo’sun smiled back. Dr Singh appeared to be very much the right man in the right place. ‘I think he’s gone to have a word with the men rigging up the telephone line from the bridge to the engine-room.’
‘And then I press the button,’ Patterson said, ‘Yes, sir. And then south-west. I don’t have to tell you why.’
‘You might tell a landlubber why,’ Dr Singh said. ‘Of course. Two things. Heading south-west will mean that the wind and the seas from the north-east are dead astern. That should eliminate all rolling so that you don’t have to put your patients in straitjackets or whatever. There’ll be some pitching, of course, but not much and even then Mr Patterson can smooth that out by adjusting the ship’s speed to the wave speed. The other big advantage is that by heading south-west there’s no land we can bump into for hundreds of miles to come. If you will excuse me, gentlemen.’ The Bo’sun left, together with his sheets of plate glass and hand compass.
‘Doesn’t miss much, does he?’ Dr Singh said. ‘Competent, you would say, Mr Patterson?’
‘Competent? He’s more than that. Certainly the best bo’sun I’ve ever sailed with – and I’ve never known a bad bo’sun yet. If we ever get to Aberdeen – and with McKinnon around I rate our chances better than even – I won’t be the man you’ll have to thank.’
The Bo’sun arrived on the bridge, a bridge now over-illuminated with two garish arc lamps, to find Ferguson and Curran already there, with enough plywood of various shapes and sizes to build a modest hut. Neither of the two men could be said to be able to walk, not in the proper sense of the term. Muffled to the ears and with balaclavas and hoods pulled low over their foreheads, they were so swaddled in layers of jerseys, trousers and coats that they were barely able to waddle: given a couple of white fur coats they would have resembled nothing so much as a pair of polar bears, that had given up on their diet years ago. As it was, they were practically white already: the snow, driving almost horizontally, swept, without let or hindrance, through the yawning gaps where the port for’ard screens and the upper wing door screen had once been. Conditions weren’t improved by the fact that, at a height of some forty feet above the hospital, the effects of the rolling were markedly worse than they had been down below, so bad, in fact, that it was very difficult to keep one’s footing, and that only by hanging on to something. The Bo’sun carefully laid the plate glass in a corner and wedged it so that it wouldn’t slide all over the deck. The rolling didn’t bother him, but the creaking and groaning of the superstructure supports and the occasional juddering vibration that shook the bridge bothered him a very great deal.