couldn’t be matched, but possibly this was because i’d never before seen
an auburn haired girl with green eyes.
she was also tense, nervous, and jumpy as a cat. Unlike old doc
marston and myself, she’d never have made it in the method school.
she came softly to my bedside-bullen was still under sedation and
macdonald either asleep or dozing-and sat down on a chair. After i’d
asked her how she was and how the passengers were, and she’d asked me
how I was and i’d told her and she hadn’t believed me, she said
suddenly, “johnny, if everything goes all right will you get another
ship?”
“I don’t follow.”
“Well,” she said impatiently, “if the campari’s blown up and we get
away or if we’re saved some other way, will you
“I see. I suppose I would.
“You’ll like that? getting back to sea again?” this was a crazy
conversation, but she was only whistling
in the dark. I said, “i don’t think i’ll be back to sea again
somehow.”
“Giving in?”
“Giving up. A different thing altogether. I don’t want to spend
the rest of my life catering to the whims of wealthy passengers. I
don’t include the beresford family, father, mother and daughter.”
she smiled at this, going into the weird routine of melting the
green in her eyes, the kind of smile that could have a very serious
effect on the constitution of a sick man like myself, so I looked away
and went on: “i’m a pretty fair mechanic and i’ve a bit of cash put
away. There’s a very nice flourishing little garage down in kent that I
can take over any time I want. And archie macdonald there is an
outstanding mechanic. We’d make a pretty fair team, I think.”
“Have you asked him yet?”
“What chance have I had?” I said irritably. “I’ve only just
thought about it.”
“You’re pretty good friends, aren’t you?”
“Good enough. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Nothing, just nothing. Funny, that’s all. There’s the bo’sun
-he’ll never walk properly again; nobody will want him at sea any more;
he’s probably got no qualifications for any decent job on
land-especially with that leg-and all of a sudden chief officer carter
gets tired of the sea and decides
“It’s not that way at all,” I interrupted. “You’ve got it all
wrong.”
“Probably, probably,” she agreed. “I’m not very clever. But you
don’t have to worry about him, anyway. Daddy told me this afternoon
that he’s got a job for him.”
“Oh?” I took a chance and looked at her eyes again. “What kind of
job?”
“A storeman.”
“A storeman.” I know I sounded disappointed, but i’d have sounded
ten times as disappointed if I had been able to take all this seriously,
if i’d been able to share her belief that there was a future. “Well,
it’s kind of him. Nothing wrong with a storeman, but I just don’t see
archie macdonald as one, that’s all. Especially not in america.”
“Will you listen?” she asked sweetly. A touch of the miss
beresford that was.
“I’m listening.”
“You’ve heard that daddy’s building a big refinery in the west of
scotland? storage tanks, own port to take goodness knows how many
tankers?”
“I’ve heard.”
“Well, that’s the place. Stores for the oil port and the refinery
millions and millions of dollars of stores, daddy says, with goodness
knows how many men to look after them. And your friend in charge with a
dream house attached.”
“That is a very different proposition altogether. I think it
sounds wonderful, susan, just wonderful. It’s terribly kind of you.”
“Not me!” she protested. “Daddy.”
“Look at me. Say that without blushing.”
she looked at me. She blushed. With those green eyes the effect
was devastating. I thought about my constitution again and looked away,
and then I heard her saying: “daddy wants you to be the manager of the
new oil port. So then you and the bo’sun would be in business together
after all. Wouldn’t you?”
I turned slowly and stared at her. I said slowly, “was that the
job he meant when he asked me if i’d like to work for him?”
“Of course. And you didn’t give him a chance to tell you. Do you
think he’d given up? he hadn’t really started. You don’t know my
father. And you can’t claim i’d anything to do with it either.” I
didn’t believe her. I said, “i can’t tell you how-well, how grateful I
am. It’s a terrific chance, I know and admit.
if you see your father again this evening thank him very much
indeed from me.”
her eyes were shining. I’d never seen a girl’s eyes shining for me
before. Not in this way.
“Then you’ll-then you’ll “and tell him no.”
“And tell him
“It’s a foolish thing to have pride, perhaps, but i’ve still got a
little left.” I hadn’t meant my voice to sound so harsh; it just came
out that way. “Whatever job i’ll get, i’ll get the one I found for
myself, not one bought for me by a girl.” as a thumbs-down on a genuine
and generous offer, I reflected bitterly, the refusal could have been
more graciously phrased.
she looked at me, her face suddenly very still, said, “oh, johnny,”
in a curiously muffled voice, turned and buried her face half on the
pillow, half on the sheets, her shoulders heaving, sobbing as if her
heart would break.
I didn’t feel good at all. I could have walked under a five barred
gate without opening it. I reached and touched her head awkwardly and
said, “i’m terribly sorry, susan. But just because I turn down
“It’s not that, it’s not that.” she shook her head in the pillow,
voice more muffled than ever. “It was all make believe. No, not that,
everything I said was true, but just for a few moments we-well, we
weren’t here. We-we were away from the campari; it was something that
had nothing to do with the campari. You-you understand.” I stroked her
hair. “Yes, susan, I understand.” I didn’t know what she was talking
about.
“It was like a dream.” I didn’t see where she came into the dream.
“In the future. Away-away from this dreadful ship. And then you burst
the dream and we’re back on the campari. And no one knows what the
end’s to be, except us-mummy, daddy, all of them, carreras has them
believing their lives will be spared.” she sobbed again, then said
between sobs, “oh, my dear. We’re just kidding ourselves. It’s all
over. Everything’s over. Forty armed men and they’re prowling all over
the ship. I saw them. Double guards everywhere-there are two outside
this door. And every door locked. There’s no hope, there’s no hope.
Mummy, daddy, you, me, all of us-this time tomorrow it will all be over.
Miracles don’t happen any more.”
“It’s not all over, susan.” i’d never make a salesman, I thought
drearily; if I met a man dying of thirst in the sahara I couldn’t have
convinced him that water was good for him. “It’s never all over.” but
that didn’t sound any better than my first attempt.
I heard the creak of springs and saw macdonald propped up on one
elbow, thick black eyebrows raised in puzzlement and concern. The sound
of her crying must have wakened him.
“It’s all right, archie,” I said. “Just a bit upset, that’s all.”
“I’m sorry.” she straightened herself and turned her tearstained
face in the bo’sun’s direction. Her breath was coming in the quick,
short, indrawn gasps that are the aftermath of crying. “I’m terribly
sorry. I woke you up. But there is no hope, is there, mr. macdonald?”
“‘archie’ will do for me,” the bo’sun said gravely. “Well,
archie.” she tried to smile at him through her tears. “I’m just a
terrible coward.”
“And you spending all day with your parents and never once being
able to tell them what you know? what kind of cowardice do you call
that, miss?” macdonald said reproachfully.
“You’re not answering me,” she said in tearful accusation. “I am a
west highlander, miss beresford,” macdonald said slowly. “I have the
gift of my ancestors, a black gift at times that i’d rather be without,
but I have it. I can see what comes tomorrow or the day after tomorrow,
not often, but at times I can. You cannot will the second sight to
come, but come it does. I have seen what is to come many times in the
past few years, and mr. carter there will tell you that I have never
once been wrong.” this was the first I had ever heard of it; he was as
fluent a liar as myself. “Everything is going to turn out well.”
“Do you think so, do you really think so?” there was hope
in her voice now, hope in her eyes; that slow, measured speech of
macdonald’s, the rocklike steadiness of the dark eyes in that