San Andreas (7 page)

‘If I want to find some optimism, Bo'sun, I'll know where not to look. Would it help at all if we knew approximately where we were?'

‘It would help, but all we know, approximately, is that we're somewhere north or north-west of Norway. Anywhere, say, in twenty thousand square miles of sea. There are only two possibilities, sir. The Captain and Chief Officer must have known where we were. If they're able to tell us, I'm sure they will.'

‘Good God, of course! Not very bright, are we? At least, I'm not. What do you mean—“if”? Captain Bowen was able to talk about twenty minutes ago.'

‘That was twenty minutes ago. You know how painful burns can be. Dr Singh is sure to have given them painkillers and sometimes the only way they can work is by knocking you out.'

‘And the other possibility?'

‘The chart house. Mr Batesman was working on a chart—he still had a pencil in his hand. I'll go.'

Patterson grimaced. ‘Sooner you than me.'

‘Don't forget Flannelfoot, sir.' Patterson touched his overalls where he had concealed his gun. ‘Or the burial service.'

Patterson looked at the leather-covered folder in distaste. ‘And where am I supposed to leave that? On the operating table?'

‘There are four empty cabins in the hospital, sir. For recuperating VIPs. We don't have any at the moment.'

‘Ah. Ten minutes, then.'

The Bo'sun was back in five minutes, the Chief Engineer in fifteen. An air of almost palpable gloom hung over Patterson.

‘No luck, sir?'

‘No, dammit. You guessed right. They're under heavy sedation, may be hours before they come to. And if they do start coming to, Dr Singh says, he's going to sedate them again. Apparently, they were trying to tear the bandages off their faces. He's got their hands swathed in bandages—even an unconscious man, the doctor says, will try to scratch away at whatever irritates him. Anyway, their hands
were
burnt—not badly, but enough to justify the bandages.'

‘They've got straps for tying wrists to the bed-frames.'

‘Dr Singh did mention that. He said he didn't think Captain Bowen would take too kindly to waking up and finding himself virtually in irons on his own ship. By the way, the missing helmsman was Hudson. Broken ribs and one pierced his lung. Doctor says he's very ill. What luck did
you
have?'

‘Same as you, sir. Zero. There was a pair of parallel rules lying beside Mr Batesman so I assume he must have been pencilling out a course.'

‘You couldn't gather anything from the chart?'

‘It wasn't a chart any more. It was just a bloodstained rag.'

It was snowing heavily and a bitter wind blew from the east as they buried their dead in the near-Stygian darkness of the early afternoon. A form of illumination they did have, for the saboteur, probably more than satisfied with the results of his morning's activities, was now resting on his laurels and the deck floodlights were working again, but in that swirling blizzard the light given off was weak, fitful and almost ineffectual, serving only to intensify the ghoulish effect of the burial party hastening about their macabre task and the ghostlike appearance of the bare dozen of snow-covered mourners. Flashlight in hand, Chief Engineer Patterson read out the burial service, but he might as well have been quoting the latest prices on the stock exchange for not a word could be heard: one by one the dead, in their weighted canvas shrouds, slipped down the tilted plank, out from under the Union flag and vanished, silently, into the freezing water of the Barents Sea. No
bugle calls, no Last Post for the Merchant Navy, not ever: the only requiem was the lost and lonely keening of the wind through the frozen rigging and the jagged gaps that had been torn in the superstructure.

Shivering violently and mottled blue and white with the cold, the burial party and mourners returned to the only reasonably warm congregating space left on the
San Andreas
—the dining and recreational area in the hospital between the wards and the cabins.

‘We owe you a very great debt, Mr McKinnon,' Dr Singh said. He had been one of the mourners and his teeth were still chattering. ‘Very swift, very efficient. It must have been a gruesome task.'

‘I had six willing pairs of hands,' the Bo'sun said. ‘It was worse for them than it was for me.' The Bo'sun did not have to explain what he meant: everybody knew that anything would always be worse for anybody than for that virtually indestructible Shetlander. He looked at Patterson. ‘I have a suggestion, sir.'

‘A Royal Naval one?'

‘No, sir. Deep-sea fisherman's. Anyway, it's close enough, these are the waters of the Arctic trawlers. A toast to the departed.'

‘I endorse that, and not for traditional or sentimental reasons.' Dr Singh's teeth still sounded like castanets. ‘Medicinal. I don't know about the rest of you but my red corpuscles are in need of some assistance.'

The Bo'sun looked at Patterson, who nodded his approval. McKinnon turned and looked at an undersized, freckle-faced youth who was hovering at a respectful distance. ‘Wayland.'

Wayland came hurrying forward. ‘Yes, Mr McKinnon, sir?'

‘Go with Mario to the liquor store. Bring back some refreshments.'

‘Yes, Mr McKinnon, sir. Right away, Mr McKinnon, sir.' The Bo'sun had long given up trying to get Wayland Day to address him in any other fashion.

Dr Singh said: ‘That won't be necessary, Mr McKinnon. We have supplies here.'

‘Medicinal, of course?'

‘Of course.' Dr Singh watched as Wayland went into the galley. ‘How old is that boy?'

‘He claims to be seventeen or eighteen, says he's not sure which. In either case, he's fibbing. I don't believe he's ever seen a razor.'

‘He's supposed to be working for you, isn't he? Pantry boy, I understand. He spends nearly all his day here.'

‘I don't mind, Doctor, if you don't.'

‘No, not at all. He's an eager lad, willing and helpful.'

‘He's all yours. Besides, we haven't a pantry left. He's making eyes at one of the nurses?'

‘You underestimate the boy. Sister Morrison, no less. At a worshipful distance, of course.'

‘Good God!' the Bo'sun said.

Mario entered, bearing, one-handed and a few inches above his head, a rather splendid silver salver laden with bottles and glasses, which, in the circumstances, was no mean feat, as the
San Andreas
was rolling quite noticeably. With a deft, twirling movement, Mario had the tray on the table without so much as the clink of glass against glass. Where the salver had come from was unexplained and Mario's business. As became the popular conception of an Italian, Mario was darkly and magnificently mustachioed, but whether he possessed the traditional flashing eyes was impossible to say as he invariably wore dark glasses. There were those who purported to see in those glasses a connection with the Sicilian Mafia, an assertion that was always good-humouredly made, as he was well-liked. Mario was overweight, of indeterminate age and claimed to have served in the Savoy Grill, which may have been true. What was beyond dispute was that there lay behind Mario, a man whose rightful home Captain Bowen considered to be either a prisoner-of-war or internment camp, a more than usually chequered career.

After no more than two fingers of Scotch, but evidently considering that his red corpuscles were back on the job, Dr Singh said: ‘And now, Mr Patterson?'

‘Lunch, Doctor. A very belated lunch but starving ourselves isn't going to help anyone. I'm afraid it will have to be cooked in your galley and served here.'

‘Already under way. And then?'

‘And then
we
get under way.' He looked at the Bo'sun. ‘We could, temporarily, have the lifeboat's compass in the engine-room. We already have rudder control there.'

‘It wouldn't work, sir. There's so much metal in your engine-room that any magnetic compass would have fits.' He pushed back his chair and rose. ‘I think I'll pass up lunch. I think you will agree, Mr Patterson, that a telephone line from the bridge to the engine-room and electric power on the bridge—so that we can see what we are doing—are the two first priorities.'

Jamieson said: ‘That's already being attended to, Bo'sun.'

‘Thank you, sir. But the lunch can still wait.' He was speaking now to Patterson. ‘Board up the bridge and let some light in. After that, sir, we might try to clear up some of the cabins in the superstructure, find out which of them is habitable and try to get power and heating back on. A little heating on the bridge wouldn't come amiss, either.'

‘Leave all that other stuff to the engine-room staff—after we've had a bite, that is. You'll be requiring some assistance?'

‘Ferguson and Curran will be enough.'

‘Well, that leaves only one thing.' Patterson regarded the deckhead. ‘The plate glass for your bridge windows.'

‘Indeed, sir. I thought you—'

‘A trifle.' Patterson waved a hand to indicate how much of a trifle it was. ‘You have only to ask, Bo'sun.'

‘But I thought you—perhaps I was mistaken.'

‘We have a problem?' Dr Singh said.

‘I wanted some plate glass from the trolleys or trays in the wards. Perhaps, Dr Singh, you would care—'

‘Oh no.' Dr Singh's reply was as quick as it was decisive. ‘Dr Sinclair and I run the operating theatre and look after our surgical patients, but the running of the wards has nothing to do with us. Isn't that so, Doctor?'

‘Indeed it is, sir.' Dr Sinclair also knew how to sound decisive.

The Bo'sun surveyed the two doctors and Patterson with an impassive face that was much more expressive than any expression could have been and passed through the doorway into Ward B. There were ten patients in this ward and two nurses, one very much a brunette, the other very much a blonde. The brunette, Nurse Irene, was barely in her twenties, hailed from Northern Ireland, was pretty, dark-eyed and of such a warm and happy disposition that no one would have dreamed of calling her by her surname, which no one seemed to know anyway. She looked up as the Bo'sun entered and for the first time since she'd joined she failed to give him a welcoming smile. He patted her shoulder gently and walked to the other end of the ward where
Nurse Magnusson was rebandaging a seaman's arm.

Janet Magnusson was a few years older than Irene and taller, but not much. She had a more than faintly windswept, Viking look about her and was unquestionably good-looking: she shared the Bo'sun's flaxen hair and blue-grey eyes but not, fortunately, his burnt-brick complexion. Like the younger nurse, she was much given to smiling: like her, the smile was in temporary abeyance. She straightened as the Bo'sun approached, reached out and touched his arm.

‘It was terrible, wasn't it, Archie?'

‘Not a thing I would care to do again. I'm glad you weren't there, Janet.'

‘I didn't mean that—the burial, I mean. It was you who sewed up the worst of them—they say that the Radio Officer was, well, all bits and pieces.'

‘An exaggeration. Who told you that?'

‘Johnny Holbrook. You know, the young orderly. The one that's scared of you.'

‘There's nobody scared of me,' the Bo'sun said absently. He looked around the ward. ‘Been quite some changes here.'

‘We had to turf some of the so-called recuperating patients out. You'd have thought they were being sent to their deaths. Siberia, at least. Nothing the matter with them. Not malingerers, really, they just liked soft beds and being spoiled.'

‘And who was spoiling them, if not you and Irene? They just couldn't bear to be parted from you. Where's the lioness?'

Janet gave him a disapproving look. ‘Are you referring to Sister Morrison?'

‘That's the lioness I mean. I have to beard her in her den.'

‘You don't know her, Archie. She's very nice really. Maggie's my friend. Truly.'

‘Maggie?'

‘When we're off duty, always. She's in the next ward.'

‘Maggie! Good lord! I thought she disapproved of you because she disapproves of me because she disapproves of me talking to you.'

‘Fiddlesticks. And Archie?'

‘Yes?'

‘A lioness doesn't have a beard.'

The Bo'sun didn't deign to answer. He moved into the adjacent ward. Sister Morrison wasn't there. Of the eight patients, only two, McGuigan and Jones, were visibly conscious. The Bo'sun approached their adjacent beds and said: ‘How's it going, boys?'

‘Ach, we're fine, Bo'sun,' McGuigan said. ‘We shouldn't be here at all.'

‘You'll stay here until you're told to leave.' Eighteen years old. He was wondering how long it would take them to recover from the sight of the almost decapitated Rawlings lying by the wheel when Sister Morrison entered by the far door.

‘Good afternoon, Sister Morrison.'

‘Good afternoon, Mr McKinnon. Making your medical rounds, I see.'

The Bo'sun felt the stirrings of anger but contented himself with looking thoughtful: he was probably unaware that his thoughtful expression, in certain circumstances, could have a disquieting effect on people.

‘I just came to have a word with you, Sister.' He looked around the ward. ‘Not a very lively bunch, are they?'

‘I hardly think this is the time or place for levity, Mr McKinnon.' The lips were not as compressed as they might have been but there was an appreciable lack of warmth behind the steel-rimmed spectacles.

The Bo'sun looked at her for long seconds, during which time she began to show distinct signs of uneasiness. Like most people—with the exception of the timorous Johnny Holbrook—she regarded the Bo'sun as being cheerful and easy-going, with the rider, in her case, that he was probably a bit simple: it required only one glance at that cold, hard, bleak face to realize how totally wrong she had been. It was an unsettling experience.

The Bo'sun spoke in a slow voice. ‘I am not in the mood for levity, Sister. I've just buried fifteen men. Before I buried them I had to sew them up in their sheets of canvas. Before I did that I had to gather up their bits and pieces and stick their guts back inside. Then I sewed them up. Then I buried
them. I didn't see you among the mourners, Sister.'

The Bo'sun was more than aware that he shouldn't have spoken to her like that and he was also aware that what he had gone through had affected him more than he had thought. Under normal circumstances it was impossible that he should have been so easily provoked: but the circumstances were abnormal and the provocation too great.

‘I've come for some plate glass, such as you have on the tops of your trolleys and trays. I need them urgently and I don't need them for any light-hearted purposes. Or do you require an explanation?'

She didn't say whether she required an explanation or not. She didn't do anything dramatic like sinking into a chair, reaching out for the nearest support or even putting a hand to her mouth. Only her colour changed. Sister Morrison had the kind of complexion that, like her eyes and lips, was in marked contrast to her habitually severe expression and steel-rimmed glasses, the kind of complexion that would have had the cosmetic tycoons sending their scientists back to the bench: at that moment, however, the peaches had faded from the traditional if rarely seen peaches and cream of the traditional if equally rarely seen English rose.

The Bo'sun removed the glass top from a table by Jones's bedside, looked around for trays, saw
none, nodded to Sister Morrison and went back to Ward B. Janet Magnusson looked at him in surprise.

‘Is that what you went for?' The Bo'sun nodded. ‘Maggie—Sister Morrison—had no objection?'

‘Nary an objection. Have you any glass-topped trays?'

Chief Patterson and the others had already begun lunch when the Bo'sun returned, five sheets of plate glass under his arm. Patterson looked faintly surprised.

‘No trouble then, Bo'sun?'

‘One only has to ask. I'll need some tools for the bridge.'

‘Fixed,' Jamieson said. ‘I've just been to the engine-room. There's a box gone up to the bridge—all the tools you'll require, nuts, bolts, screws, insulating tape, a power drill and a power saw.'

‘Ah. Thank you. But I'll need power.'

‘Power you have. Only a temporary cable, mind you, but the power is there. And lights, of course. The phone will take some time.'

‘That's fine. Thank you, Mr Jamieson.' He looked at Patterson. ‘One other thing, sir. We have a fair number of nationalities in our crew. The captain of the Greek tanker—Andropolous, isn't it?—might have a mixed crew too. I should think there's a fair chance, sir, that one of our men and
one of the Greek crew might have a common language. Perhaps you could make enquiries, sir.'