“Yes,” she nodded. “I was caught usar Kota Bharu.”
“A bayonet?”
“Yes.”
“One of these notched, ceremonial bayonets, wasn’t it?” He looked closely at the scar, saw the narrow deep incision on the chin and the rough tear beneath the temple. “And you were lying on the ground at the time?”
“You are very clever,” she said slowly.
“‘How did you get away?” Nicolson asked curiously.
“A big man came into the room — a bungalow we were using as a field hospital. A very big man with red hair — he said he was an Argyll, some word like that. He took the bayonet away from the man who had stabbed me. He asked me to look away, and when I turned back the Japanese soldier was lying on the floor, dead.”
“Hooray for the Argylls,” Nicolson murmured. “Who stitched it up for you?”
“The same man: he said he wasn’t very good.” “There was room for improvement,” Nicolson admitted. “There still is.”
“It’s horrible!” Her voice rose sharply on the last word. “I know it’s horrible.” She looked down at the floor for some seconds, then looked up at Nicolson again and tried to smile. It wasn’t a very happy smile. “It’s hardly an improvement, is it?”
“It all depends.” Nicolson jerked a thumb at the second engineer. “On Willy here it would look good: he’s just an old sourpuss anyway. But you’re a woman.” He paused for a moment, looked at her consideringly and went on in a quiet voice: “You’re more than good-looking, I suppose — Miss Drachmann, you’re beautiful, and on you it looks bloody awful, if you’ll excuse my saying so. You’ll have to go to England,” he finished abruptly.
“England?” The high cheekbones were stained with colour. “I don’t understand.”
“Yes, England. I am pretty sure that there are no plastic surgeons in this part of the world who are skilled enough. But there are two or three men in England — I don’t think there are any more — who could repair that scar and leave you with a hairline so fine that even a dancing partner wouldn’t notice it.” Nicolson waved a deprecating hand. “A little bit of powder and the old war-paint, naturally.”
She looked at him in silence, her clear blue eyes empty of expression, then said in a quiet, flat voice: “You forget that I am a nurse myself. I am afraid I don’t believe you.”
“‘Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know'” Willoughby intoned.
“What? What did you say?” The girl looked startled.
“Pay no attention to him, Miss Drachmann.” Captain Findhorn took a step towards her, smiling. “Mr. Willoughby would have us think that he is always ready with apt quotations, but Mr. Nicolson and I know better — he makes them up as he goes along.”
“‘Be thou chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shall not escape calumny’.” Willoughby shook his head sadly.
“Thou shalt not,” Findhorn agreed. “But he’s right, Miss Drachmann, in that you shouldn’t be quite so ready with your disbelief. Mr. Nicolson knows what he’s talking about. Only three men in England, he said — and one of them is his uncle.” He waved his hand in a gesture of dismissal. “But I didn’t bring you here to discuss surgery or to give me the pleasure of refereeing a slanging match. Mr. Nicolson, we appear to have run out of —- ”
He broke off abruptly, fists clenching tightly by his sides, as the klaxon above his head blared into sudden, urgent life, drowning his words as the raucous clangour, a harsh, discordant, shocking sound in a confined space, filled the dining-cabin. Two longs and a short, two longs and a short — the emergency action stations call. Nicolson was first out of the room, Findhorn only a pace behind him.
To the north and east thunder rumbled dully along the distant horizon, sheet-lightning flickered intermittently all round the Rhio straits, on the inner vortex of the typhoon, and, overhead, the half-seen clouds were beginning to pile up, rampart upon rampart, the first huge, tentative raindrops spattering on the wheelhouse top of the Viroma, so heavily, so slowly, that each single one could be heard and counted. But to the south and west there was no rain, no thunder, just an occasional flash of lightning over the islands, half-seen, half-imagined, far off and feeble flickers that left the darkness more impenetrable than before.
But not quite unpenetrable. For the fifth time in two minutes the watchers on the bridge of the Viroma, elbows braced against the wind-dodger and night-glasses held hard and motionless against their straining eyes, caught the same signal winking out of the darkness to the south-west — a series of flashes, about a half-dozen in all, very weak and not lasting more than ten seconds altogether.
“Starboard 25 this time,” Nicolson murmured, “and opening. I would say it’s stationary in the water, sir.”
“As near as makes no difference.” Findhorn lowered his binoculars, rubbed aching eyes with the back of his hand, and raised the glasses again, waiting. “Let’s hear you thinking aloud, Mr. Nicolson.”
Nicolson grinned in the darkness. Findhorn might have been sitting in the front parlour of his bungalow at home instead of where he was, in the eye of a typhoon, not knowing which way it would break, with a million pounds and fifty lives in his hand and a new, unknown danger looming up in the darkness.
“Anything to oblige, sir.” He lowered his own binoculars and stared out thoughtfully into the darkness. “It might be a lighthouse, buoy or beacon, but it’s not: there are none hereabouts, and none I know of anywhere that have that sequence. It might be wreckers — the gentlemen of Romney, Rye and Penzance had nothing on the lads out here — but it’s not: the nearest island is at least six miles to the south-west and that light’s not more than two miles off.”
Findhorn walked to the wheelhouse door, called for half speed, then came back beside Nicolson. “Go on,” he said.
“It might be a Jap warship — destroyer, or something, but again it’s not: only suicide cases like ourselves sit out in the middle of a typhoon instead of running for shelter — and, besides, any sensible destroyer commander would sit quiet until he could give us the benefit of his searchlights at minimum range.”
Findhorn nodded. “My own way of thinking exactly. Anything you think it might be? Look, there he goes again!”
“Yes, and still nearer. He’s stationary, all right . . . Could be a sub, hears us as something big on his hydrophones, not sure of our course and speed and wants us to answer and give him a line of sight for his tin fish.”
“You don’t sound very convinced.”
“I’m not convinced one way or the other, sir. I’m just not worried. On a night like this any sub will be jumping so much that it couldn’t hit the Queen Mary at a hundred feet.”
“I agree. It’s probably what would be obvious to anyone without our suspicious minds. Someone’s adrift — open boat or raft — and needs help, badly. But no chances. Get on the intercom to all guns, tell them to line up on that light and keep their fingers on their triggers. And get Vannier to come up here. Ring down for dead slow.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” Nicolson went inside the wheelhouse and Findhorn again raised his night glasses to his eyes, then grunted ,in irritation as someone jogged his elbow. He lowered his glasses, half-turned and knew who it was before the man spoke. Even in the open air the fumes of whisky were almost overpowering.
“What the devil’s happening, Captain?” Farnholme was irate, peevish. “What’s all the fuss about? That damn’ great klaxon of yours just about blasted my ears off.”
“I’m sorry about that, Brigadier.” Findhorn’s tone was even polite and disinterested. “Our emergency signal. We’ve sighted a suspicious light. It may be trouble.” His voice changed, subtly. “And I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave. No one is allowed on the bridge without permission. I’m sorry.”
“What?” Farnholme’s tone was that of a man being asked to comprehend the incomprehensible. “Surely you can’t expect that to apply to me?”
“I do. I’m sorry.” The rain was beginning to fall now, faster and faster, the big fat drops drumming so heavily on his shoulders that he could feel the weight of them through his oilskins: yet another soaking was inevitable, and he didn’t relish the prospect. “You will have to go below, Brigadier.”
Farnholme, strangely, did not protest. He did not even speak, but turned abruptly on his heel and vanished into the darkness. Findhorn felt almost certain that he hadn’t gone below, but was standing in the darkness at the back of the wheelhouse. Not that it mattered; there was plenty of room on the bridge, it was just that Findhorn didn’t want anyone hanging over his shoulder when he had to move fast and make fast decisions.