weight, inch by inch, until his shoulders and hanging head were on a
level with my own, stooped quickly, caught him in a fireman’s lift, and
started climbing.
for the first time that night the pitching, corkscrewing campari
was my friend. When the ship plunged into a trough, rolling to
starboard at the same time, the ladder would incline away from me as
much as fifteen degrees and i’d take a couple of quick steps, hang on
grimly as the campari rolled back and the ladder swung out above me,
wait for the return roll, and then repeat the process. Twice carreras
all but slipped from my shoulder; twice I had to take a quick step down
to renew my purchase. I hardly used my left leg at all; my right leg
and both arms took all the strain. Above all, my shoulders took the
strain. I felt at times as if the muscles would tear, but it wasn’t any
worse than the pain in my leg, so I kept on going. I kept going till I
reached the top. Another half-dozen rungs and I would have had to let
him drop for I don’t think I could ever have made it.
I heaved him over the hatch coaming, followed, sank down on deck,
and waited till my pulse rate dropped down to the low hundreds. After
the stench of oil and the close stufliness of that hold the driving
gale-borne rain felt and tasted wonderful. I cupped the torch in my
hand-not that there was more than a very remote chance of anyone being
round at that hour, in that weather-and went through his pockets till I
found a key tagged “sick bay.” then I caught him by the collar and
started for the side of the ship.
a minute later I was down in the bottom of the hold again. I found
tony carreras’ gun, stuck it in my pocket, and looked at susan. She was
still unconscious, which was the best way to be if I had to carry her up
that ladder, and I had. With a broken arm she couldn’t have made it
alone, and if I waited till she regained consciousness she would be in
agony all the way. And she wouldn’t have remained conscious long.
after coping with carreras’ dead weight, the task of getting susan
beresford up on deck seemed almost easy. I laid her carefully on the
rain-washed deck, replaced the battens, and tied the tarpaulin back in
place. I was just finishing when I sensed rather than heard her stir.
“Don’t move,” I said quickly. On the upper deck again I had to raise my
voice almost to a shout to make myself heard against the bedlam of the
storm. “Your forearm’s broken.”
“Yes.” matter-fact, far too matter-of-fact. “Tony carreras? did
you leave
“That’s all over. I told you that was all. “where is he?”
“Overboard.”
“Overboard?” the tremor was back in her voice and I liked it much
better than the abnormal calmness. “How did he
“I stabbed him god knows how many times,” I said wearily. “Do you
think he got up all by himself, climbed the ladder, and jumped sorry,
susan. I shouldn’t well, i’m not quite my normal, I guess. Come on.
Time old doc marston saw that arm.”
I made her cradle the broken forearm in her right hand, helped her
to her feet, and caught her by the good arm to help steady her on that
heaving deck. The blind leading the blind.
when we reached the forward break of the well deck I made her sit
in the comparative shelter there while I went into the bo’sun’s store.
It took me only seconds to find what I wanted: two coils of nylon rope
which I stuck into a canvas bag, and a short length of thicker manilla.
I closed the door, left the bag beside susan, and staggered across the
sliding, treacherous decks to the port side and tied the manilla to one
of the guardrail stanchions. I considered knotting the rope, then
decided against it. Macdonald, whose idea this was, had been confident
that no one, in this wild weather, would notice so small a thing as a
knot round the base of a stanchion, and even if it were noticed,
carreras’ men would not be seamen enough to investigate and pull it in;
but anyone peering over the side and seeing the knots might have become
very curious indeed. I made the knot round that stanchion very secure
indeed, for there was going to depend on it the life of someone who
mattered very much to myself. Ten minutes later we were back outside
the sick bay. I need not have worried about that sentry. Head bent low
over his chest, he was still far away in another world and showed no
signs of leaving it. I wondered how he would feel when he came to.
Would he suspect he had been drugged would he put any unusual symptoms
down to a combination of exhaustion and seasickness? I decided I was
worrying about nothing; one sure guess I could make, and that was that
when the sentry awoke he would tell no one about his sleep. Miguel
carreras struck me as the kind of man who might have a very short way
indeed with sentries who slept on duty.
I took out the key i’d found on tony carreras and unlocked the
door. Marston was at his desk; the bo’sun and bullen were both sitting
up in bed. This was the first time i’d seen bullen conscious since he’d
been shot. He was pale and haggard and obviously in considerable pain,
but he didn’t look as if he were on his last legs. It took a lot to
kill off a man like bullen.
he gave me a long look that was pretty close to a glare. “Well,
mister, where the hell have you been?” normally, with those words, it
would have come out like a rasp, but his lung wound had softened his
rasp to a hoarse whisper. If i’d had the strength to grin, i’d have
done just that, but I didn’t have the strength; there was hope for the
old man yet.
“A minute, sir. Dr. Marston, miss beresford has a “i can see, I
can see. How in the world did you manage ” close to us now, he broke
off and peered at me with his shortsighted eyes. “I would say, john,
that you’re in the more immediate need of attention.”
“Me? i’m all right.”
“Oh, you are, are you?” he took susan by her good arm and led her
into the dispensary. He said, over his shoulder, “seen yourself in a
mirror recently?”
I looked in a mirror. I could see his point. Balenciagas weren’t
blood-proof. The whole of the left side of my head, face, and neck was
covered in blood that had soaked through hood and mask, matted in thick,
dark blood that even the rain hadn’t been able to remove: the rain, if
anything, had made it look worse than it really was. It must all have
come from tony carteras’ bloodstained shirt when i’d carried him up the
ladder of number four hold. “It’ll wash off,” I said to bullen and the
bo’sun. “It’s not mine. That’s from tony carreras.”
“Carreras?” bullen stared at me, then looked at macdonald. In
spite of the evidence in front of his eyes, you could see that he
thought i’d gone off my rocker. “What do you mean?”
“I mean what I say. Tony carreras.” I sat heavily on a chair and
gazed down vacantly at my soaking clothes. Maybe captain bullen wasn’t
so far wrong: I felt an insane desire to laugh. I knew it was a
climbing hysteria that came from weakness, from overexhaustion, from
mounting fever, from expending too much emotion in too short a time, and
I had to make a physical effort to fight it down. “I killed him tonight
down in number four hold.”
“You’re mad,” bullen said flatly. “You don’t know what you’re
saying.”
“Don’t i?” I looked at him, then away again. “Ask susan
beresford.”
“Mr. carter’s telling the truth, sir,” macdonald said quietly. “My
knife, sir? did you bring it back?”
I nodded, rose wearily, hobbled across to macdonald’s bed, and
handed him the knife. I’d had no chance to clean it. The bo’sun said
nothing, just handed it to bullen, who stared down at it for long,
unspeaking moments.
“I’m sorry, my boy,” he said at length. His voice was husky.
“Damnably sorry. But we’ve been worried to death.”
I grinned faintly. It was an effort even to do that. “So was i,
sir, so was i.”
“All in your own good time,” bullen said encouragingly. “I think
mr. carter should tell us later, sir,” macdonald suggested. “He’s got
to clean himself up, get those wet clothes off and into bed. If anyone
comes “right, bo’sun, right.” you could see that even so little talk