The Dark Crusader - Страница 6

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I was still looking slowly around, feeling my heart making for my boots and hoping that it was not too dark for Marie Hopeman to see my carefully balanced expression of insouciance and intrepidity, when the overhead light dimmed to a dull red glow and a high-pitched whine came from aft: a second later an unmistakable diesel engine came to life, the vessel began to vibrate as it revved up, then as it slowed again I could just hear the patter of sandalled feet on the deck above-casting off, no doubt-just before the engine note deepened as gear was engaged. It didn't require the slight list to starboard as the vessel sheered off from the jetty wall to tell us that we were under way.

I turned away from the after bulkhead, bumped into Marie Hopeman in the near darkness and caught her arm to steady her. The arm was goose-fleshed, wet and far too cold. I fumbled a match from a box, scratched it alight and peered at her as she screwed her eyes almost shut against the sudden flare. Her fair bedraggled hair was plastered over her forehead and one cheek, the saturated thin silk of her dress was a clammy cocoon that clung to every inch and she was shivering constantly. Not until then did I realise just how cold and dank it was in that airless hole. I waved the match to extinction, removed a shoe, started hammering the after bulkhead and, when that had no effect, climbed a few steps Up the ladder and started beating the hatch.

"What on earth do you imagine you're doing?" Marie Hopeman asked.

"Room service. If we don't get our clothes soon I'm going to have a pneumonia case on my hands."

"Wouldn't it suit you better to look round for some kind of weapon?" she said quietly. "Has it never occurred to you to ask why they've brought us out here?"

"To do us in? Nonsense." I tried out my carefree laugh to see how it went, but it didn't, it sounded so hollow and unconvincing that it lowered even my morale. "Of course they're not going to knock us off, not yet, at least. They didn't bring me all the way out here to do that-it could have as easily been done in England. Nor was it necessary to bring you that I should be knocked off. Thirdly, they didn't have to bring us out on this boat to do it-for instance that dirty canal we passed and a couple of heavy stones would have been all that was needed. And, fourthly, Captain Fleck strikes me as a ruffian and a rogue, but no killer." This was a better line altogether, if I repeated it about a hundred times I might even start believing it myself. Marie Hopeman remained silent, so maybe she was thinking about it, maybe there was something in it after all.

After a couple of minutes I gave the hatch up as a bad job, went for'ard into the tiny cabin and hammered against the bulkhead there. Crew quarters must have been on the other side for I got reaction within half a minute. Someone heaved open the hatch-cover and a powerful torch shone down into the hold.

"Will you kindly quit that flamin' row?" Henry didn't sound any too pleased. "Can't you sleep, or somethin'?"

"Where are our cases?" I demanded. "We must have dry clothes. My wife is soaked to the skin."

"Comin’, comin'," he grumbled. "Move right for'ard, both of you."

We moved, he dropped down into the hold, took four cases from someone invisible to us then stepped aside to make room for another man to come down the ladder. It was Captain Fleck, equipped with a torch and gun, and enveloped in an aroma of whisky. It made a pleasant change from the fearful stink in that hold.

"Sorry to keep you waiting," he boomed cheerfully. "Locks on those cases were a mite tricky. So you weren't carrying a gun after all, eh, Bentall?"

"Of course not," I said stiffly. I had been, but k was still under the mattress of my bed back in the Grand Pacific Hotel. "What's the damnable smell down here?"

"Damnable? Damnable?" Fleck sniffed the foul atmosphere with the keen appreciation of a connoisseur bent over a brandy glass of Napoleon. "Copra and shark's fins. Mainly copra. Very health-giving, they say."

"I dare say," I said bitterly. "How long are we to stay in this hell-hole?"

"There's not a finer schooner-" Fleck began irritably, then broke off. "We'll see. Few more hours, I don't know. You'll get breakfast at eight." He shone his torch around the hold and went on apologetically: "We don't often have ladies aboard, ma'am, especially not ones like you. We might have cleaned it up more. But there's a bunk there, quite clean. Don't either of, you sleep with your shoes off."

"Why?" I demanded.

"Cockroaches," he explained briefly. "Very partial to the soles of the feet." He flicked the torch beam suddenly to one side and picked up a couple of brown monstrous beetle-like insects at least a couple of inches in length that scuttled out of sight almost immediately.

"As-as big as that?" Marie Hopeman whispered.

"It's the copra and diesel oil," Henry explained lugubriously. "Their favourite food, except for D.D.T. We give them gallons of that. And them were only the small ones, their parents know better than to come out when there are people around."

"That's enough," Fleck said abruptly. He thrust the torch into my hand. "Take this. You'll need it. See you in the morning."

Henry waited till Fleck's head was clear of the hatch, then pushed back some of the sliding battens that bordered the central aisle. He nodded at the four foot high platform of cases exposed by this.

"Sleep here," he said shortly. "There's more than cockroaches down this hold. And keep that light on."

"Why? What is there here that-"

"I don't know," he interrupted. "I've never spent the night here. There's not enough money to pay me to." With that he was gone and moments later the hatch shut to behind him.

"Spreads sweetness and light wherever he goes, doesn't he?" I asked. "I wonder what he does mean? But I'd take any money they're not hired assassins. Murderers don't-"

"Do you mind?" she interrupted. "My suitcase. I'd like to change."

"Sorry." I passed it to her, along with the torch. "Did you pack any slacks?" She nodded.

"Then wear them." I rummaged in one of my own cases, brought out a couple of pairs of socks. "Pull these over them. Anti-cockroach. You can change up in the cabin there."

"You didn't think I was going to do it here," she said coldly. No gratitude. I grinned at her, but no answering smile. She closed the cabin door behind her, not gently.

I'd finished changing by the faint glow of the overhead light and was tapping a cigarette out of its packet when a sudden scream of pure terror from the cabin froze me immobile for a second. But only for a second: four steps and I was at the cabin door just as it was torn violently open and Marie Hopeman came stumbling frantically out, struck her head a glancing blow against the low overhead doorway and literally fell into my arms. She grabbed me and clung on desperately, a young koala bear stranded on its first eucalyptus tree had nothing on Marie Hopeman at that moment. At any other time it would have been very pleasant but just then it wasn't getting us anywhere.

"What happened?" I demanded quickly. "What on earth is it?"

"Take me away from here!" she sobbed. She twisted in my arms and looked over her shoulder with wide horror-filled eyes. "Please. At once! Away." Her eyes widened still further, she took that deep breath that is so often prelude to a scream, so I picked her up hurriedly, walked the ten feet to where Henry had pushed the battens aside and sat her there, her back propped up against the inner battens.

"What was it?" I asked urgently. "Quickly."

"It was horrible, horrible!" She didn't know what I was saying, her breath was coming in long quivering gasps and she was trembling violently. She felt me straightening and sunk her fingers deep into my arms. "Don't leave me. Don't!"

"I'll only be a moment," I said soothingly. I pointed to where a beam of light lay angled across the floor of the cabin. "I want that torch."

I broke away from her desperate grip and almost literally flung myself through the small cabin door. This wasn't courage, it was the lack of it, I didn't know what the fauna of the South Pacific was but it might have ranged from nests of cobras to colonies of black widow spiders and if I'd stopped to think of all the unpleasant possibilities it might have taken me a very long time indeed to cross that threshold.

I picked the blazing torch off the floor and swung it round in a complete circle, all in one movement. Nothing. Another, a much slower and more thorough inspection. Still nothing, nothing except a pile of damp clothes and a couple of my socks on the bed. I went out, taking the socks with me, and pulled the door tight shut behind me.

Her breathing had quietened but she was still trembling badly when I got back. The change from the cool, self-sufficient and rather aloof young lady who had flown out to Fiji with me to this panic-stricken defenceless girl was just within the limits of credibility and it gave me no pleasure at all. Her fair hair was in wild disorder. She was wearing a matched jumper and cardigan and a pair of light blue slacks. On her left foot she wore two of my socks: the right foot was bare.

I turned the torch on this bare foot, leaned forward suddenly and swore. On the outside of the foot, just behind the little toe, were two narrow deep punctures from which blood was slowly welling.

"Rat!" I said. "You've been bitten by a rat."

"Yes," she said shakily. Her eyes darkened in remembered terror. "It was horrible, horrible, horrible! A black rat, huge, as big as a cat. I tried to shake it off but it hung on and on and on-"

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