‘Oh, yes! Of course! If I’d known that Faggis’s damned accomplice was on board—which he didn’t know himself, mind you!—if I’d had second sight—’ He paused, and emitted an oath. ‘That’s what’s done us, Sims! The girl! That’s why Faggis has got in this stew and why he’s trying to apply pressure! His seeing her in the coal bunker when he went back like a fool that second time, and her giving him the slip and saying she was going to the captain! God, I wish I knew where she was at this moment—I’d like to wring her beastly little neck!’
Ben felt a little movement at his side. He tried to pat it, but missed.
‘Yes, where is she now?’ asked Sims icily.
‘How the devil do I know?’
‘Of course, you don’t know! You don’t know anything. You didn’t know that the girl and the stowaway overheard your conversation with Faggis in the coal bunker.’
‘Well, I’ve got rid of the stowaway, haven’t I?’
‘You don’t know that Faggis has got hold of a knife, and that he’s ready to use it on you or on me if we don’t get him out of his fix damn quick. You don’t even know how to hold on to a bottle of chloroform without dropping it. That was a pretty bit of bungling if you like!’
‘And you don’t know that, if we’ve got to do something damn quick, going round and round the mulberry bush won’t help us!’ exclaimed the third officer. ‘Suppose you stop pretending you’re the Prime Minister of the world, and get down to business?’
‘I’m going to get down to business,’ replied Sims, dropping his voice slightly, ‘and shall continue to be the Prime Minister, Greene, of our little world. Now, then. What’s the time?’
‘Ten to eleven.’
‘I thought you fellows spoke in bells?’
‘So we do, to fellows who understand them.’
‘Ten to eleven. That means ten minutes to “lights out.” Ten minutes to “God Save the King,” eh?’
‘You’re quite a mathematician!’
‘And how long, after “lights out,” before passengers are snug in their bunks? Half an hour?’
‘The majority, I should say.’
‘An hour, the lot?’
‘About that.’
‘Midnight. Well, Greene, we’ll make it midnight.’
‘I suppose it would give you a pain to speak plainly?’
‘I apologise. I forgot I was talking to someone who couldn’t see through an open door.’
‘You don’t know when the blasted door’s open or shut! See here, Sims, is it quite necessary for us to go on loving each other like this? This mutual affection is becoming positively cloying!’ The third officer’s voice rose querulously. ‘You’re known on board as the Lunatic. I’m beginning to think the title fits. Tell me your ideas, or maybe I’ll lose my temper and see you to the devil! The service for which I’m being paid doesn’t include listening to insults.’
‘At midnight,’ said Sims, ‘your stowaway will fall overboard.’
‘Where’s he in the meanwhile?’
‘I suggest that you have him under lock and key.’
‘That sounds all right.’
‘You can arrange things to support that suggestion?’
‘Easily. He gave trouble, and I locked him up. O.K.’
‘Good. Be sure you get all your details tidy, in case you’re questioned closely—’
‘Oh, leave that to me! You talk as if I was a two-year old. The point we’ve got to get tidy is how he happened to be on the boat-deck at all after I’d locked him up?’
‘You went to say good-night to him.’
‘I see. And he did a bunk?’
‘Exactly. Slipped past you and made a dash for it.’
‘O.K. And—yes, while I’m chasing him, he blunders on to the boat-deck, gets too near the rails, and topples over.’
‘Right again.’
‘Well, that deals with him! But then what happens?’
‘I happen.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I happen to be on the boat-deck.’
‘In that case, wouldn’t you have given me a hand?’
‘Of course. I was giving you a hand when the poor stowaway went overboard. It was, I imagine, because the odds were two to one against him that he grew so desperate.’
‘I get you.’
‘I doubt it.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What I say, which is what I generally mean. I doubt whether you get me. You aren’t half subtle enough. If you get me, what do I do next? Tell me that. After the stowaway has fallen into the sea?’
There was a short pause. The third officer was clearly anxious to prove that he could be as subtle as anybody, if he really put his mind to it.
‘It’s obvious,’ he said at last. ‘You come along with me to report the matter, and corroborate my story.’
‘Idiot!’ retorted Sims. ‘Why should your story need corroborating if—as you say—you tidy up all the details?’
‘Hell! Then what do you do?’ barked the third officer.
‘I dive in after our poor friend,’ said Sims. ‘Theoretically, of course.’
‘What!’
‘Thereby proving the theory that I actually am a lunatic.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Why do I do that? For this reason, Greene. I’ve got to be got off the ship somehow or other, haven’t I? Tell me a better way?’
‘A theoretical dive won’t do it,’ murmured Greene.
‘Yes, it will, when we’re only trying to establish theories,’ Sims pointed out. ‘And then there’s another thing. If a passenger is in the water, as well as a stowaway, the captain is far more likely to stop the ship, isn’t he?’
‘Wrong there—he’d stop it anyway.’
‘Perhaps. But it will make for more confusion and excitement, which is what we want.’
‘Yes, but where will you really be, Sims, while people are trying to spot your head bobbing up and down in the water?’
‘Here, Greene, here. In the boat we are standing under at this moment.’
He rapped the outside of the boat softly as he spoke, and the sound of his rapping was not louder than the sound of two hearts beating only a few inches away from his knuckles.
‘Somebody else will also be in the boat,’ Sims went on, with a quiet chuckle. ‘Oh, we shall be a merry little party! My sack? I’m not sure. I doubt if I shall have to use it now. This new arrangement alters things. But you look after your details, Greene, and you may be sure I shall look after mine. For a short while, you and I will have to separate and act independently of each other. But when you come along to lower the boat to search the black seas for me, then we will meet again … and the black seas will swallow us up. Now do you get me, Greene, eh? Now do you get me?’
He chuckled again, and the chuckle was followed by a silence longer than any that had preceded it. Greene was thinking hard and furiously. Personalities were forgotten. The grim business in hand had his undivided attention.
And, while he thought, the atmosphere beneath the canvas covering of the little boat became increasingly hot, and Ben turned his eyes from the stuffy roof to find out what the other eyes were doing. But all he could see from his cramped position in the dimness was the bottom of a little nose and the vague impression of two little lips pressed very firmly together.
‘It’s a damn risk,’ muttered the third officer, at last.
‘It is certainly a damn risk,’ agreed Sims. ‘It always was a damn risk, and it is now a greater damn risk than ever. The stowaway and the girl have added to the damn risk. Faggis is a damn risk. I am a damn risk. Don’t forget that, Greene! But aren’t you going to get a damn price for the damn risk if all goes properly to plan?’
‘Who, exactly, will be in the boat?’ asked Greene.
‘Me and my gal,’ answered Sims unpleasantly. ‘There will also be Faggis. He, certainly, won’t expect to be left behind. And I shall need his presence in my little boat just as much as you’ll need
his absence on your big one. I suppose my little boat has a sail?’
‘Of course.’
‘Would it be too much to expect you to find me a couple of extra ruffians to augment my crew? Stokeholds provide all types, don’t they? And there’d be—fifty quid apiece for each of the ruffians at the end of the trip.’
‘It might be done.’
‘It had better be done. The ruffians will go down in history, of course, as noble volunteers. And, with you to lead them—’
‘The devil, I don’t lead them!’ exclaimed Greene.
‘The devil you do, Greene. How are they to set off otherwise? You will be the chief hero of the moment. Everything will be prepared in advance, naturally—those preparations are among your details—but when the boat actually descends to join in the search, it will appear to descend on your sudden impulse, and the crew will be our picked volunteers who will respond to your impulse.’
‘Suppose I can’t get the volunteers? It’s doubtful.’
‘Then we shall have to do without them.’
‘And suppose I get into trouble for my impulse?’
‘You will! It will be a most unfortunate impulse. The boat will capsize. You will return to the mother ship, sopping, with a grim story explaining why the boat you set out in can never return. But, if you are dismissed the service, you’ll have won enough to retire on, so why worry?’
‘Thanks! But why am I sopping? Are you telling me that I’ve got to jump out of the boat?’
‘You needn’t jump. You can let yourself down into the water quite slowly and gently the moment we connect with the surface, provided you do not report yourself until we have disappeared into the night. Have I thought of everything?’
Then Greene laughed.
‘By God, you haven’t!’ he said. ‘How is our little impromptu rescue party going to be engineered with crowds all round us? Who’s the darned fool now?’
‘You are, as ever,’ responded Sims. ‘The crowds will be on the other side of the ship—the side over which the stowaway and I have supposedly jumped. On this side, the side from which we go, there will only be just enough hands to help with the launching. It will be among your details to collect them, Greene, and to see that none get into the boat who are not wanted there.’
‘God!’ muttered Greene. ‘You’re expecting a lot!’
‘And you’re going to get a lot for supplying what I expect,’ retorted Sims, tartly. ‘Any more questions?’
‘Yes, one,’ answered the third officer. ‘Faggis’s girl. You’ll be gone, and Faggis will be gone, and—and your girl will be gone, but I’ll still be here! How do I deal with Faggis’s girl, if she turns up and gets nasty?’
‘My dear Mr Greene,’ said Sims, and his voice bore a note of finality. ‘If, after so many of his troubles have been removed, an experienced third officer cannot deal with a chit of a girl whose character is not likely to tell in her favour, his brain cannot be superior to that of the green scum that populated the world in the Protozoic Period. Faggis’s girl, Greene, will be another of the details you will have to settle. If she presents a difficult detail, it may console you to remember that I myself will be surrounded by them.’
He paused. From a distant brilliantly lit saloon came the strains of ‘God Save the King.’
‘Lights out,’ murmured Sims. ‘The good ship Atalanta is going to bed. Make the most of your hour, Mr Greene.’
‘What are you going to do, during your hour?’ inquired the third officer.
‘As it will be the last peaceful hour I am likely to know for a considerable time,’ answered Sims, ‘I shall stay just where I am, by the boat, this interesting little boat I shall soon know so much better, and smoke.’
14
Re-enter Faggis
The voices ceased. The dark world outside the little boat in which Ben and his companion lay grew silent, apart from the discord of the wind which had now dropped to a low moan. The third officer had departed to attend to his unsavoury details. The man with the sack—for so Ben invariably thought of him—remained, to ponder over his.
What now? Ben’s muddy mind groped around for a solution. Probably the far clearer mind illuminating the small warm body beside him was also groping, but there was no way of getting into touch with it, no way of effecting a union. If they whispered, even, the grim figure standing so still beside the boat would stir, raise his head, and listen. And then—anything might happen!
‘Tork abart bein’ cornered!’ thought Ben miserably. That was another thing. It wasn’t easy even to think. You see, your head was going round and round. But for the comfort of companionship, Ben felt he would have gone off his blooming nut and blubbered.
But, of course, he mustn’t blubber. He’d got to think. So he started, and it went like this:
‘We gotter git aht of the boat. Yus, but we can’t. All right. We can’t git aht of the boat. But we gotter.’
This not being helpful, he wiped it out, and began afresh:
‘Nah, then. ’Ere we are. Wot are we goin’ ter do? That’s wot we gotter decide, like. And, when we’ve decided, like, we’ll ’ave ter do it.’
He felt this was an improvement. There seemed some sense of order about it. But a disturbing question, arising directly out of his weak condition, came along to upset his faint serenity.
‘Yus, but ’ow are we going ter do it?’
And then another question, more complicated still:
‘And, any ’ow, wot is it?’
That was terribly dashing. It seemed to extinguish all incentive. For what was the use of working a bursting brain to find out what one knew one couldn’t do?
On a clean slate, he now wrote this:
‘We’re ’ere. While that chap’s there, we gotter stay ’ere. Orl right.’
He closed his eyes. He really did feel pretty awful. Then he opened them in a panic. Where was the girl?
Something tickling his ear warmly, told him that she was still beside him. It was her breath. She was gently prodding him, too. It was the combination of the prodding and the breath that had made him open his eyes. How long had they been closed …
‘Don’t go to sleep,’ said the tickle.
‘Was I?’ he whispered back, so low that he couldn’t hear it himself.
‘Began to snore,’ said the tickle.
He worked his fingers up to his eyes and held them open. Snoring, was he? Lummy! He’d give himself away when he was dead!
Presently he felt the tickle again. It was wonderfully comforting, even though it did make his ear feel like a bath with the warm tap turned on.
‘Hear anything?’ asked the tickle.
Ben shook his ear. It was all he dared. If you speak with your stomach jumping, you never know what sound will come out.
‘I think he’s gone,’ said the tickle.
‘Gawd, ’as ’e?’ cried Ben.
‘Sh-h!’ hissed the tickle.
‘Was that me?’ thought Ben.
Evidently Sims had gone, or he would undoubtedly have heard Ben’s shout. But he had only gone for an instant. The girl’s sharp ears soon caught the sound of returning footsteps, and, seizing Ben’s arm, she pressed it violently. The next moment, Sim’s voice sounded below them.
‘What are you doing here?’ demanded the voice.
‘I’m not taking orders from anybody,’ came the gruff response. ‘Let’s know what’s happening?’
Ben recognised the second voice with a shudder. It was the voice of the man who had a couple of murders to his credit, and who suggested by his tone that he was quite ready to add to the number, if necessary.
‘Get back!’ ordered Sims sharply. ‘If anybody sees you, you’re done for!’
‘And if that girl sees the captain, I’m done for,’ retorted Faggis. ‘Think I’m going to sit still all night and wait for it?’
‘You won’t have to wait all night, if you’re sensible.’
‘What’s happening, then? Darnation, I want to know!’
‘Greene’s not told you yet, then?’
‘Greene!’
‘Haven’t you seen him?’
‘No.’
‘Perhaps you didn’t stay where we left you?’
‘I’m not staying anywhere unless I want to! And, see here, if there’s going to be any double-crossing, you needn’t think you’re going to get away with it.’
‘If there is any double-crossing, Faggis, we shall none of us get away with it. Put back that knife. I don’t need to be reminded that you’ve got it. You need to be reminded that I’ve got a revolver, and that when I’m really annoyed I can be just as troublesome as you can.’
‘Talk!’
‘Is it? Why, my dear fellow, if I shot you at this moment, who’d blame me? I’d merely have shot a murderer.’
‘Then why don’t you shoot me?’
‘Because I need you, just as you need me. Not brotherly love, my darling. So get back, and stay back till you’re wanted.’
‘When’s that?’
‘Midnight.’
‘Definite?’
‘Quite definite. At midnight you can come here—to this spot—and you’ll find the get-away all nicely arranged.’
‘What do we get away in?’
‘In this little boat.’
‘Oh, so that’s it?’
‘That is it.’
‘Anything to prevent my hopping in the little boat now, and waiting there? No one’d find me, and I’d be on the spot.’
‘Why, that’s quite a good idea, Faggis,’ said Sims, after a moment’s consideration. ‘Yes, quite a good idea.’
‘Then I’ll act upon it. Help me in.’
‘By all means.’
Ben did not hear the little gasp behind him. It was muffled by his own big gasp. Gawd! Now it was coming!
He clenched his fists, though without any hope of being able to put them into action. When you are lying helpless on your back, and are discovered by two giants, one with a knife and the other with a revolver …
The canvas roof shivered. Fingers were touching an edge of it outside. Ben suddenly discovered that the grip on his arm was hurting him.
‘Hallo—someone seems to have started already on this cord,’ came Sims’s voice, closer than it had ever been before.
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