‘Who’d have done that?’ answered Faggis’s voice, nearer still.
‘Oh, Greene, I expect,’ said Sims. ‘Come along! Be quick!’
Ben heard himself talking hard.
‘Nah, listen, miss!’ he was saying. ‘Soon as we sees ’em, I ’ollers. Not a hordinary ’oller. A ’oller like the Zoo. They jumps back, see? Then you jumps hup, see? And then, while I’m still ’ollerin’, you nip aht and leg it ter the capting.’
It was a sound plan, if any plan could be sound in such an extremity as theirs. But there was just one flaw in it. He didn’t say it. He only thought it. With the fluttering canvas immediately above him, and the knowledge that at any moment a gap would appear somewhere containing a couple of murderous heads, he couldn’t get his lips to move at all.
‘For God’s sake, be quick!’ muttered Faggis.
‘In you go,’ replied Sims. The fluttering canvas sagged. But the next instant it became taut and motionless. ‘Hey—someone’s coming!’ whispered Sims. ‘There’s no time! Walk away carelessly—quick, man, quick!—and stand over by the rail there till they’ve gone.’
Something was collapsing at Ben’s side. Only the knowledge of another’s extremity prevented him from collapsing also. He found himself holding the collapsing thing tight, striving to comfort it.
‘It’s orl right, it’s orl right, they ain’t comin’, it’s orl right,’ he tried to whisper.
But again his lips refused to translate the message into words. Two terrified people shivered in each others arms.
Meanwhile, outside the little boat, the quick instruction of Sims was obeyed, and the newcomers emerged out of the dimness of the boat deck.
One was a young man in a dinner-jacket. The other was a beautiful girl in a pale green evening frock, with a cloak of darker green thrown loosely across her bare shoulders.
‘Good-evening, Miss Holbrooke,’ said the voice of Mr Sims.
15
Death Tries Again
The young people paused in their stroll. The man unwillingly.
‘I’m glad the weather hasn’t interfered with my advice of a constitutional before turning in,’ observed Sims pleasantly.
‘Your advice was very definite,’ replied Miss Holbrooke, ‘and so I’m keeping my promise.’
‘Very charming of you. And tonight, I see, you have a companion—’
‘Who wasn’t quite so keen on her keeping her promise,’ interposed the companion, rather curtly. ‘After the heat of the ballroom, it’s dashed cold.’
‘But the wind’s dropping,’ retorted the girl.
‘And I see she has wisely put on a wrap,’ added Sims, ‘so she will come to no harm. Hygiene before all things, sir. That’s my motto. And if it were yours too, Mr Carter, you’d expand inches.’
‘Thanks, but I don’t think I’m worrying about my expansion,’ answered Carter, and turned to the girl impatiently. ‘Better not stand here, really.’
She hesitated, and Sims shook his head reprovingly.
‘Young man,’ he remarked, ‘you are not going the right way about it. You ought to realise that Miss America is too independent to take orders from Mr England.’
‘Sure!’ laughed Miss America. ‘Or from anybody. I guess you’ve sized me up, Mr Sims.’
‘Oh, do come on!’ urged the young man who was trying unsuccessfully to give the orders. ‘You’ll catch your death!’
Something in Sims’s attitude was making him irritable. Sims was quite aware of the fact. His capacity to irritate had produced many a situation after his own heart.
‘You can go on, Mr Carter, if you want to,’ suggested Miss Holbrooke.
‘Now, that’s a plan!’ exclaimed Sims. ‘Honour an old man, Miss Holbrooke, by exchanging escorts for once! Mr Carter, I promise, shall have you for the rest of the trip!’
There was a short, awkward silence. It was the young man who ended it.
‘I never intrude,’ he grunted, and moved away.
‘Good-night!’ called Miss Holbrooke after him. ‘See you in the morning!’
But then she proved that she didn’t like orders even when they were subtle ones.
‘Sorry, Mr Sims,’ she said, in a low voice, ‘and thanks for the thrill! But I guess you were joking—I’d better go after him.’
‘As you like,’ nodded Sims. ‘But I wasn’t joking.’
‘What! Do you really feel romantic?’
‘Romance wouldn’t have been my subject.’
‘What would it have been?’
‘Your father.’
Miss Holbrooke caught her breath. She had been on the point of running after her lost cavalier, but now she postponed the impulse.
‘What about my father?’ she demanded. ‘Do you know anything?’
‘Do you?’ he countered. Then, while she stared at him, he added quickly, ‘I see by your face that he’s taken you into his confidence. Well, I’ll take you into mine. You see, Miss Holbrooke, I’m a detective, and I’ve stumbled upon some information that will put you wise to the whole thing. Tell me, have you said goodnight to your father?’
‘Yes. He went in early.’
‘I hope he took the sleeping draught I advised?’
‘I think he did.’
‘And what will you do when you leave me? Go straight to your state-room?’
‘Certainly.’
‘But—Mr Carter—?’
‘I’ve said good-night to him too. You heard me.’
‘And you’ll stay in your state-room till morning?’
‘Of course. Why—’
‘Yes, of course. Your father’s enemies had counted on that. They reckoned that, after you had gone to your state-room, no inquiries would be made about you until tomorrow—and by tomorrow you were to be many miles away. Kidnapping, that was their game. To kidnap you, and to hold you until they got a huge ransom for your return.’
‘But—why?’ demanded Miss Holbrooke, her eyes flashing angrily.
Indignation mingled with her fear. Sims looked at her with sudden admiration.
‘You’re taking it well,’ he replied. ‘Showing the true American spirit! You ask why? Well, I’ve found that out too. It’s a Chicago ring. Your father did them a dirty trick once—that is, they considered it a dirty trick. Held on to a document he’d got hold of—made ’em pay through the nose for it—and froze them out of a fortune. Well, now they want the fortune back. And they were going to use you, Miss Holbrooke, as your father had used their bit of paper. What do you know about that? Pretty damn blackguards, eh? Or—do you see their point?’
Miss Holbrooke did not answer for several seconds. She was taking it well. The best pluck of America ran through her veins. But she was fighting a spell of dizziness, and she suddenly caught hold of her informant’s sleeve for support.
‘Say, I feel funny—in our elegant language, you’ve spilt a mouthful, you know,’ she muttered. ‘I don’t think I’ve quite got on to it yet! How did they propose to kidnap me on board a ship?’
‘Their first idea was to bundle you away to a coal bunker,’ he informed her, ‘and to pretend you’d fallen overboard. But things went wrong—I may have been one of the things, eh?—and so they changed the idea.’
‘What to?’
‘Not quite so loud, Miss Holbrooke. See that figure over there by that rail?’
A swift rustle followed, and another gasp.
‘He’s one of them.’
‘Then me for the captain, right now!’ she whispered.
‘Yes, but don’t you see, I’m another of them,’ replied Sims.
And, after that, there was a silence.
It was this silence—sudden, unrevealing, sinister—that awakened Ben out of his numbness. While the voices had continued, he had listened dazed. So, apparently, had his companion. Words had fallen upon unreceptive senses, situations had evolved, changed and gone, without intelligently registering themselves. Recalling these situations afterwards, Ben wondered why he had not taken advantage
of them. The advent of the two young people temporarily altered the balance of power, and nothing had been done about it. Instead, the two frightened listeners had lain perfectly still, incapacitated by shock and not daring to move. ‘And, any’ow,’ argued Ben subsequently, in defence of his inactivity, ‘there was my little gal, wasn’t there? If I’d shouted, it’d ’ave put ’er in the soup!’
But, in this terrifying silence, the inactivity became a nightmare, and he lost his head. At one moment, Miss Holbrooke’s vivid voice, pulsing with youth and life—at the next, utter stillness. Not even a cry! Not even a protest! Not even the tiniest gasp! Just stillness, and … yes, surely, a faint aroma of chloroform!
What was happening outside the little boat? What was being done to the girl who had become so abruptly silent? It was more than brain could bear, and Ben forgot the girl inside for the sake of the girl outside. His head rose up against the canvas, convulsing it into violent movement, and he roared.
Then followed events that were swift and tumultuous. A face appeared. It seemed to shoot down on Ben from the sky. Another face followed. This one seemed to be rushing at him out of a long tunnel. He struck at both. He missed both. Both struck at him. Neither missed.
One hit him like a hammer. The other, like a sharp-pointed corkscrew. The corkscrew entered him and tried to pull some part of him out. He objected violently, but an enormous black man, after having extinguished him with his bulk, informed him that all the best people were subjected to such treatment. ‘You must certainly let me pull your chest out,’ said the black man.
‘Yus, but wot’ll I do, goin’ abart without no chest?’ argued Ben. ‘I’d look funny.’
‘If you like, I’ll take your head instead,’ suggested the black man.
He twisted the corkscrew into Ben’s head, and pulled. Ben continued to object. ‘Look ’ere,’ he begged, ‘can’t I die like wot I did larst time? There was hangels then, and cheese. ’Ow’ll I eat, if yer tikes me ’ead?’
But the black man gave such a violent pull that the head came off, and after that Ben had to give up and just float. He floated rather peacefully at first. In the distance, about ten thousand miles away, people were murmuring. They appeared to be troubled, but Ben wasn’t troubled, and it was nice to be out of it all. Then, however, the floating became less peaceful. He began to heave and toss, like a boat. Perhaps he was a boat? You never knew.
A strange sensation came to him. He felt as though history were repeating itself, and as though he were over the ship’s side again, still hanging to the rope. An idea dawned. ‘I’ve got it,’ he thought. ‘I’m still ’ere!’ It was the only solution, for he was certainly swaying, and the wind was playing on his skin.
The voices, though! He couldn’t account for them! Sometimes close to him, sometimes ten thousand miles away. Near—far. Near—far. Swing—sway! Swing—sway! Down—down! Down—down! Down … down … down …
‘Well, I ain’t worryin’,’ thought Ben. ‘This is where I meets the hangels, ain’t it?’
Now the sea was all around him. Black, inky sea. Swelling, heaving sea. He could hear it. He could smell it. You always know sea. Good-bye …
But when he opened his eyes, angels were not gathered around him. Instead, he found himself staring up at the faces of Sims and Faggis
16
Six in a Boat
Ben was not born to be a prime minister, but he had his subtlety. As reality swept back upon him in a form just as terrifying as that in which he had left it, he knew it would find him wanting unless he became, to some extent, both strengthened and acclimatised. He knew the lunacy of coming to grips with reality yet awhile and of attempting, in his condition, to battle against those cruel staring faces. So he very quickly closed his eyes again, and lay quite still, hoping that the momentary opening would not be interpreted as a return to consciousness, but as a sort of inverse wink.
God did not hear many of Ben’s prayers, but he evidently heard this one. Beyond a sensation that the two faces advanced a little closer for an instant—and that may have been imagination—nothing happened. Ben was left to breathe in earnest imitation of a man totally unconscious.
‘Wunner if I ought ter groan a bit?’ he reflected. ‘I got enough pains ter.’
He had any number of pains. He tried to count them, from the head downwards, but gave up at his waist. He was never good at arithmetic.
‘Yus, I better groan,’ he decided. ‘It’s unnacherel not ter.’
On the point of groaning, however, he changed his policy.
‘’Corse I mustn’t groan,’ he remembered. ‘I’m unconshus, and don’t feel nothink. Gawd, I wish I was!’
It was his head that pained him most. If the black man had come along now, he could have had it with a pound of tea.
Well, he couldn’t waste time thinking of his bumps. What he had to do was to find out the position, or as much of the position as a man could find out with his eyes tightly closed.
One thing was clear. He was still in the little boat, and the little boat was no longer swinging on its davits. It was sailing on the water. He could hear the water lapping against the sides as it swished through, and he had caught a glimpse of the sail during that momentary opening of his eyes. You can tell when you’re low down too. Everything seems high up, like. When you’re high up, everything seems low down, like. No doubt about it. The little boat had left the big boat, and was proceeding on a voyage all its own.
Another thing had been revealed by that momentary glimpse. It was no longer dark. The sky had been fish-grey. It had smelt of dawn. The air, also, smelt of dawn. Something stirring and whipping in it that was not merely the breeze. Trust an old sailor’s nose! Yes, the sun would soon be up, revealing all the crests and undulations of the heaving surface in a million points of gold.
Small boat sailing. Good-bye, Atalanta. Night over. Well, what next?
The only other definite thing Ben’s glimpse had discovered for him was the presence of Sims and Faggis. But they could not be the sole occupants of the boat in addition to himself? There must be others. What others?
He must get another glimpse somehow. The answer to this last question was too important. Too much hung upon it. Perhaps, if he tried one eye at a time, and opened it a quarter, he might learn things without at the same time giving things away.
He opened his right eye a quarter. All he saw were his own eyelashes. He closed the eye again, took a quiet breath, and opened it half. Half seemed terribly daring.
This time he saw more than his own eyelashes. He saw a bit of a leg. A knee, frankly exposed. Beige. With a ladder. He recognised the ladder; and the sun that was shortly to bring joy to the world could bring joy no greater than the joy brought to Ben by that humble little ladder in a girl’s beige stocking.
The intense comfort of this discovery satisfied him for several moments. The girl—the one that was his—was in the boat. They hadn’t strangled her, or tipped her into the water. ‘And they ain’t tipped me into the water too,’ reflected Ben suddenly. ‘That’s funny! There wouldn’t ’ave bin no question in Parlyment!’
One thing puzzled him about the leg, though. Shouldn’t it have been straight out, like? It was up and down, like. Ben himself was straight out, like.
Then his mind began to wonder about other matters, and he tried his left eye. Again the quarter-measure merely revealed his own lashes, plus this time a bit of his nose. The left side had always bulged out a bit more than the right since a wallop he’d received in a cellar two years ago. But when he opened the eye a full half, he found himself staring at something green. Smooth and green. What was it? He was a bit too close to make out.
Very gingerly, he shifted his head a fraction. It took him five minutes. There weren’t going to be any silly risks this trip! If the sort of statistician who calculates how long it would take a toad or a snail or a growing finger-nail to get from London to York had brought his mathematics to bear on the rate of Ben’s head, the journey would probably h
ave worked out at three and a half billion years. Fortunately, however, the head did not have to travel so far to discover what the smooth green thing was. It was a bit of a flimsy evening cloak.
A little farther away than the cloak, and partially covered by it, was a bare arm. A small portion of the arm was also covered by two or three loops of thick cord. The loops of thick cord added a lugubrious touch to the tiny picture within Ben’s limited range. So did an edge of some coarse brown material that appeared to be doing duty as a more complete covering. It was the sort of material out of which sacks are made.
The form beneath the sacking was not up and down, like. It was straight out, like.
‘Gawd!’ thought Ben. ‘Then they reely got ’er!’
While he had been knocked out and had been passing through a series of horrible nightmares, Sims and Faggis and the third officer had carried out their scheme. Had it been carried out all according to plan? Had Ben’s roar precipitated it? Had Ben’s companion done anything to interfere with the scheme, or had she also been overpowered immediately—chloroformed like Miss Holbrooke, in fact—and lain helpless during the whole mad gamble? To these questions, Ben could supply no answers. Whatever had happened, here they were in the boat, and all he could do was to lie quietly until something else happened.
He lay for a long while. Part of the time (though he would have denied it, had you taxed him) he slept. The sun rose, sending its illusion of beauty across the water and spreading its golden carpet that led to nowhere. The sea became blue, concealing its tragedies. The sky, no longer haunted by shadowy spectres and secret thoughts, expanded into its gracious dome. And beneath the gracious dome, and journeying through the fickle warmth of external beauty, went the little boat with its cargo of strangely assorted hearts.
Voices murmured above Ben. Sometimes they rose sharply. Limbs moved around him. He received more than one kick. But he paid no attention. He told himself that he was being very clever, and was secretly getting back his strength.
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