compound it was. “Every time the ship moves violently the broken ends
of the bone grind together. You can imagine what it’s like no, I doubt
if you can. I am trying to rearrange and tighten the splints so as to
immobilise the leg completely. Difficult job for one man in those
conditions. Care to give me a hand?” in one second flat I revised my
estimate of marston’s shrewdness. No doubt he’s just been trying to
allay any suspicions that carreras might have had, but he couldn’t have
thought up a worse way. Not, that is, if carreras offered his help, for
the chances were that if he did delay to help he’d find the sentry
snoring in the passageway outside when be left.
“Sorry.” beethoven himself never sounded half as sweet as the
music of that single word from carreras. “Can’t wait. Captain carreras
making his rounds and all that. That’s what miss beresford is here for
anyway. Failing all else, just shoot him full of morphia.” five
seconds later he was gone.
marston raised an eyebrow.
“Less affable than of yore, john, you would say. A shade lacking
in the sympathy he so often professes?”
“He’s worried,” I said. “He’s also a little frightened and
perhaps, heaven be praised, even more than a little seasick. But still
very tough for all that. Susan, go and collect the sentry’s cup and see
if friend carreras has really gone.”
she was back in fifteen seconds. “He’s gone. The coast is clear.”
I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood up.
a moment later I had fallen heavily to the floor, my head just
missing the iron foot of macdonald’s bed. Four things were responsible
for this: the sudden lurch of the deck as the campari had fallen into a
trough, the stifiness of both legs, the seeming paralysis of my left
leg, and the pain that had gone through my thigh like a flame as soon as
my foot had touched the deck.
hands gripping the bo’sun’s bed, I dragged myself to my feet and
tried again. Marston had me by the right arm and I needed all the
support I could get. I made it to my own bed and sat down heavily.
Macdonald’s face was expressionless. Susan looked as if she were about
to cry. For some obscure reason that made me feel better. I lurched to
my feet like an opening jackknife, caught hold of the foot of my own
bed, and had another go.
it was no good. I wasn’t made of iron. The lurching of the
campari I could cope with and the first stiffness was slowly beginning
to disappear. Even that frightening weakness in my left leg I could in
some measure ignore; I could always hop along. But that pain I couldn’t
ignore. I wasn’t made of iron. I have a nervous system for
transmitting pain, just like anyone else’s, and mine was operating in
top gear at the moment. Even the pain I believe I could have coped
with; but every time I set my left foot on the deck, the shooting agony
in my left thigh left me dizzy and lightheaded, barely conscious. A few
steps on that leg and I just wouldn’t be conscious at all. I supposed
vaguely it must have had something to do with all the blood I had lost.
I sat down again. “Get back into bed,” marston ordered. “This is
madness. You’re going to have to lie on your back for at least the next
week.”
“Good old tony carreras,” I said. I was feeling a bit lightheaded,
and that’s a fact. “Clever lad, tony. He’d the right idea. Your
hypodermic, doctor. Painkiller for the thigh. Shoot me full of it.
You know, the way a football player with a gammy leg gets an injection
before the game.”
“No football player ever went out on a field with three bullet
holes through his leg,” marston said grimly.
“Don’t do it, dr. Marston,” susan said urgently. “Please don’t do
it. He’ll surely kill himself.”
“Bo’sun?” marston queried.
“Give it to him, sir,” the bo’sun said quietly. “Mr. carter knows
best.”
“Mr. carter knows best,” susan mimicked furiously. She crossed to
the bo’sun and stared down at him. “It’s easy for you to lie there and
say he knows best. You don’t have to go out there and get killed, to be
shot down or die from the loss of blood.”
“Not me, miss.” the bo’sun smiled up at her. “You won’t catch me
taking risks like that.”
“I’m sorry, mr. macdonald.” she sat down wearily on his bedside.
“I’m so ashamed. I know that if your leg wasn’t smashed up but look at
him! he can’t even stand, far less walk. He’ll kill himself, I tell
you, kill himself!”
“Perhaps he will. But then he will only be anticipating by about
two days, miss beresford,” macdonald said quietly. “I know, mr. carter
knows. We both know that no one on the campari has very long to live
not unless someone can do something. You don’t think, miss beresford,”
he went on heavily, “that mr. carter is doing this just for the
exercise?”
marston looked at me, face slowly tightening. “You and the bo’sun
have been talking? talking about something I know nothing about?”
“I’ll tell you when I come back.”
“If you come back.” he went to his dispensary, came back with a
hypodermic, and injected some pale fluid. “Against all my instincts,
this. It’ll ease the pain, no doubt about that, but it will also permit
you to overstrain your leg and cause permanent damage.”
“Not half as permanent as being dead.” I hopped across into the
dispensary, pulled old man beresford’s suit out from the pile of folded
blankets susan had fetched, and dressed as quickly as my bad leg and the
pitching of the campari would allow. I was just turning up the collar
and tying the lapels together with a safety pin when susan came in. She
said, abnormally calm, “it suits you very well. Jacket’s a bit tight,
though.”
“It’s a damned sight better than parading about the upper deck in
the middle of the night wearing a white uniform. Where’s this black
dress you spoke of?”
“Here.” she pulled it out from the bottom blanket. “Thanks.” I
looked at the label. Balenciaga. Should make
a fair enough mask. I caught the hem of the dress between my
hands, glanced at her, saw the nod, and ripped, a dollar a stitch. I
tore out a rough square, folded it into a triangle, and tied it round my
face, just below the level of my eyes. Another few rips, another
square, and I had a knotted cloth covering head and forehead until only
my eyes showed. The pale glimmer of my hands I could always conceal.
“Nothing is going to stop you then?” she said steadily. “I
wouldn’t say that.” I eased a little weight onto my left leg, used my
imagination and told myself that it was going numb already. “Lots of
things can stop me. Any one of forty-two men, all armed with guns and
submachine guns, can stop me. If they see me.”
she looked at the ruins of the balenciaga. “Tear off a piece for
me while you’re at it.”
“For you?” I looked at her. She was as pale as I felt. “What
for?”
“I’m coming with you.” she gestured at her clothes, the navy blue
sweater and slacks. “It wasn’t hard to guess what you wanted daddy’s
suit for. You don’t think I changed into these for nothing?”
“I don’t suppose so.” 1 tore off another piece of cloth. “Here
you are.”
“Well.” she stood there with the cloth in her hand. “Well. Just
like that, eh?”
“It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”
she gave me a slow, old-fashioned up-from-under, shook her head,
and tied on the cloth. I hobbled back to the sick bay, susan following.
“Where’s miss beresford going?” marston demanded sharply. “Why is
she wearing that hood?”
“She’s coming with me,” I said. “So she says.”
“Going with you? and you’d let her?” he was horrified. “She’ll
get herself killed.”
“It’s likely enough,” I agreed. Something, probably the
anaesthetic, was having a strange effect on my head: I felt enormously
detached and very calm. “But, as the bo’sun says, what’s a couple of
days early? I need another pair of eyes, somebody who can move quickly
and lightly to reconnoitre, above all a lookout. Let’s have one of your
torches, doctor.”
“I object. I strongly protest against “get him the torch,” susan
interrupted.
he stared at her, hesitated, sighed, and turned away. Macdonald
beckoned me.
“Sorry I can’t be with you, sir, but this is the next best thing.”
he pressed a seaman’s knife into my hand, wide hinged blade on one side,
shackle-locking marlinespike on the other; the marline came to a needle
point. “If you have to use it, hit upward with the spike, the blade