Алистер Маклин - Bear Island

‘And you were very, very late abroad that night, weren’t you? Oh, yes, I’ve been making inquiries. Up in the saloon – Mr Goin told me: up on the bridge – Oakley told me: down in the lounge – Gilbert told me: and–’ he paused dramatically ‘–in Halliday’s cabin – his cabin-mate told me. And, most of all, who was the man who stopped me from going to Hammerfest when I wanted to and persuaded the others to sign this worthless guarantee of yours absolving me from all blame? Tell me that, eh, mister?’

His trump card played, Captain Imrie rested his case. I had to stop the old coot, he was working himself up to having me clapped in irons. I sympathized with him, I was sorry for what I would have to say to him, but clearly this wasn’t my morning for making friends anyway. I looked at him coldly and without expression for about ten seconds then said: ‘My name’s “Doctor” not “mister”. I’m not your damned mate.’

‘What? What was that?’

I opened the door to the wheel-house and invited him to pass through.

‘You just mentioned the word “court”. Just step out there and repeat those slanderous allegations in the presence of witnesses and you’ll find yourself standing in a part of a court you never expected to be in. Can you imagine the extent of the damages?’

From his face and the perceptible shrinking of his burly frame it was apparent that Captain Imrie immediately could. I was a long, long way from being proud of myself, he was a worried old man saying honestly what he thought had to be said, but he’d left me with no option. I closed the door and wondered how best to begin.

I wasn’t given the time to begin. The knock on the door and the opening of the door came on the same instant. Oakley had an urgent and rather apprehensive look about him.

‘I think you’d better come down to the saloon right away, sir,’ he said to Imrie. He looked at me. ‘You, too, I’m afraid, Dr Marlowe. There’s been a fight down there, a bad one.’

‘Great God Almighty!’ If Captain Imrie still had any lingering hopes that he was running a happy ship, the last of them was gone. For a man of his years and bulk he made a remarkably rapid exit: I followed more leisurely.

Oakley’s description had been reasonably accurate. There had been a fight and a very unpleasant affair it must have been too during the period it had lasted – obviously, the very brief period it had lasted. There were only half a dozen people in the saloon altogether – one or two were still suffering sufficiently from the rigours of the Barents Sea to prefer the solitude of their cabins to the forbidding beauties of Bear Island, while the Three Apostles, as ever, were down in the recreation room, still cacophonously searching for the bottom rung on the ladder to musical immortality. Three of the six were standing, one sitting, one kneeling and the last stretched out on the deck of the saloon. The three on their feet were Lonnie and Eddie and Hendriks, all with the air of concerned but hesitant helplessness that afflicts uncommitted bystanders on such occasions. Michael Stryker was sitting in a chair at the captain’s table, using a very bloodstained handkerchief to dab a deep cut on the right cheekbone: it was noticeable that the knuckles of the hand that held the handkerchief were quite badly skinned. The kneeling figure was Mary Darling. All I could see was her back, the long blonde tresses falling to the deck and her big horn-rimmed spectacles lying about two feet away. She was crying, but crying silently, the thin shoulders shaking convulsively in incipient hysteria. I knelt and raised her, still kneeling, to an upright position. She stared at me, ashen-faced, no tears in her eyes, not recognizing me: without her glasses she was as good as blind.

‘It’s all right, Mary,’ I said. ‘Only me. Dr Marlowe.’ I looked at the figure on the floor and recognized him, not without some difficulty, as young Allen. ‘Come on, now, be a good girl. Let me have a look at him.’

‘He’s terribly hurt, Dr Marlowe, terribly hurt!’ She had difficulty in getting her words out during long and almost soundless gasps. ‘Oh, look at him, look at him, it’s awful!’ Then she started crying in earnest, not quietly this time. Her whole body shook. I looked up.

‘Mr Hendriks, will you please go to the galley and ask Mr Haggerty for some brandy? Tell him I want it. If he’s not there, take it anyway.’ Hendriks nodded and hurried away. I said to Captain Imrie: ‘Sorry, I should have asked permission.’

‘That’s all right, Doctor.’ We were back on professional terms again, however briefly: perhaps it was because his reply was largely automatic for the bulk of his interest, and all that clearly hostile, was for the moment centred on Michael Stryker. I turned back to Mary.

‘Go and sit on the settee, there. And take some of that brandy. You hear?’

‘No! No! I–’

‘Doctor’s orders.’ I looked at Eddie and Lonnie and without a word from me they took her across to the nearest settee. I didn’t wait to see whether she followed doctor’s orders or not: a now stirring Allen had more pressing claims on my attention. Stryker had done a hatchet job on him: he had a cut forehead, a bruised cheek, an eye that was going to be closed by night, blood coming from both nostrils, a split lip, one tooth missing and another so loose that it was going to be missing very soon also. I said to Stryker: ‘You do this to him?’

‘Obvious, isn’t it?’

‘You have to savage him like this? Christ, man, he’s only a kid. Why don’t you pick on someone your own size next time?’

‘Like you, for instance?’

‘Oh, my God!’ I said wearily. Beneath Stryker’s tissue-thin veneer of civilization lay something very crude indeed. I ignored him, asked Lonnie to get water from the galley and cleaned up Allen as best I could. As was invariable in such cases the removal of surface blood improved his appearance about eighty per cent. A plaster on his forehead, two cottonwool plugs for his nose, and two stitches in a frozen lip and I’d done all I could for him. I straightened as an indignant Captain Imrie started questioning Stryker.

‘What happened, Mr Stryker?’

‘A quarrel.’

‘A quarrel, was it now?’ Captain Imrie was being heavily ironic. ‘And what started the quarrel?’

‘An insult. From him.’

‘From that – from that child?’ The captain’s feelings clearly matched my own. ‘What kind of insult to do that to a boy?’

‘A private insult.’ Stryker dabbed the cut on his cheek and, Hippocrates in temporary abeyance, I felt sorry that it wasn’t deeper, even although it looked quite unpleasant enough as it was. ‘He just got what anyone gets who insults me, that’s all.’

‘I shall endeavour to keep a still tongue in my head,’ Captain Imrie said drily. ‘However, as captain of this ship–’

‘I’m not a member of your damned crew. If that young fool there doesn’t lodge a complaint – and he won’t – I’d be obliged if you’d mind your own business.’ Stryker rose and left the saloon. Captain Imrie made as if to follow, changed his mind, sat down wearily at the head of his own table and reached for his own private bottle. He said to the three men now clustered round Mary: ‘Any of you see what happened?’

‘No, sir.’ It was Hendriks. ‘Mr Stryker was standing alone over by the window there when Allen went up to speak to him, I don’t know what, and next moment they were rolling about the floor. It didn’t last more than seconds.’

Captain Imrie nodded wearily and poured a considerable measure into his glass, he was obviously and rightly depending on Smithy to make the approach to anchorage. I got Allen, now quite conscious, to his feet and led him towards the saloon door. Captain Imrie said: ‘Taking him below?’