Алистер Маклин - Ice Station Zebra

‘What does that mean?’ Swanson asked.

‘It means that in his left hand he’ll have to get by with two fingers and a thumb for the rest of his life,’ Jolly said bluntly.

Swanson swore softly and turned to Henry. ‘How in God’s name could you have been so damnably careless? An experienced submariner like you? You know perfectly well that you are required to make a visual check every time a hatch cover engages in a standing latch. Why didn’t you?’

‘I didn’t need to, sir.’ Henry was looking more dyspeptic and forlorn than ever. ‘I heard it click and I gave a tug. It was fixed, all right. I can swear to it, sir.’

‘How could it have been fixed? Look at Dr Carpenter’s hand. Just a hair-line engagement and the slightest extra pressure – my God, why can’t you people obey regulations?’

Henry stared at the deck in silence. Jolly, who was understandably looking about as washed-out as I felt, packed away the tools of his trade, advised me to take a couple of days off, gave me a handful of pills to take, said a weary good-night and climbed up the ladder leading from the electronics space, where he had been fixing my hand. Swanson said to Henry: ‘You can go now, Baker.’ It was the first time I’d ever heard anyone address Henry by his surname, a sufficient enough token of what Swanson regarded as the enormity of his crime. ‘I’ll decide what to do about this in the morning.’

‘I don’t know about the morning,’ I said after Henry was gone. ‘Maybe the next morning. Or the one after that. Then you can apologise to him. You and me both. That cover was locked on its standing latch. I checked it visually, Commander Swanson.’

Swanson gave me his cool impassive look. After a moment he said quietly: ‘Are you suggesting what I think you are suggesting?’

‘Someone took a risk,’ I said. ‘Not all that much of a risk, though – most people are asleep now and the control room was deserted at the moment that mattered. Some one in the wardroom tonight heard me ask your permission to go down to the medical store and heard you giving your okay. Shortly after that nearly everyone turned in. One man didn’t – he kept awake and hung around patiently until I came back from the Drift Station. He followed us down below – he was lucky, Lieutenant Sims, your officer on deck, was taking star-sights up on the bridge and the control room was empty – and he unhooked the latch but left the hatch cover in a standing position. There was a slight element of gambling as to whether I would come up first, but not all that much, it would have been a matter of elementary courtesy, he would have thought, for Henry to see me up first. Anyway, he won his gamble, slight though it was. After that our unknown friend wasn’t quite so lucky – I think he expected the damage to be a bit more permanent.’

‘I’ll get inquiries under way immediately,’ Swanson said. ‘Whoever was responsible, someone must have seen him. Someone must have heard him leaving his cot–’

‘Don’t waste your time, Commander. We’re up against a highly intelligent character who doesn’t overlook the obvious. Not only that but word of your inquiries is bound to get around and you’d scare him under cover where I’d never get at him.’

‘Then I’ll just keep the whole damned lot under lock and key until we get back to Scotland,’ Swanson said grimly. ‘That way there’ll be no more trouble.’

‘That way we’ll never find out who the murderer of my brother and the six – seven now – others are. Whoever it is has to be given sufficient rope to trip himself up.’

‘Good lord, man, we can’t just sit back and let things be done to us.’ A hint of testiness in the commander’s voice and I couldn’t blame him. ‘What do we – what do you propose to do now?’

‘Start at the beginning. To-morrow morning we’ll hold a court of inquiry among the survivors. Let’s find out all we can about that fire. Just an innocent above-board fact-finding inquiry – for the Ministry of Supply, let us say. I’ve an idea we might turn up something very interesting indeed.’

‘You think so?’ Swanson shook his head. I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it for a moment. Look what’s happened to you. It’s obvious, man, that someone knows or suspects that you’re on to them. They’ll take damned good care to give nothing away.’

‘You think that’s why I was clouted to-night?’

‘What other reason could there be?’

‘Was that why Benson was hurt?’

‘We don’t know that he was. Deliberately, I mean. May have been pure coincidence.’

‘Maybe it was,’ I agreed. ‘And again maybe it wasn’t. My guess, for what it’s worth, is that the accident or accidents have nothing at all to do with any suspicions the killer may have that we’re on to him. Anyway, let’s see what to-morrow brings.’

It was midnight when I got back to my cabin. The engineer officer was on watch and Hansen was asleep so I didn’t put on any light lest I disturb him. I didn’t undress, just removed my shoes, lay down on the cot and pulled a cover over me.

I didn’t sleep. I couldn’t sleep. My left arm from the elbow downwards still felt as if it were caught in a bear-trap. Twice I pulled from my pocket the pain-killers and sleeping-tablets that Jolly had given me and twice I put them away.

Instead I just lay there and thought and the first and most obvious conclusion I came up with was that there was someone aboard the Dolphin who didn’t care any too much for the members of the medical profession. Then I got to wondering why the profession was so unpopular and after half an hour of beating my weary brain-cells around I got silently to my feet and made my way on stockinged soles to the sick-bay.

I passed inside and closed the door softly behind me. A red nightlight burnt dully in one corner of the bay, just enough to let me see the huddled form of Benson lying on a cot. I switched on the overhead light, blinked in the sudden fierce wash of light and looked at the curtain at the other end of the bay. Nothing stirred behind it. I said: ‘Just kind of take your itching fingers away from that pipe-wrench, Rawlings. It’s me, Carpenter.’

The curtain was pulled to one side and Rawlings appeared, the pipe-wrench, with its bandage-wrapped head, dangling from one hand. He had a disappointed look on his face.

‘I was expecting someone else,’ he said reproachfully. ‘I was kinda hoping – my God, Doc, what’s happened to your arm?’

‘Well may you ask, Rawlings. Our little pal had a go at me tonight. I think he wanted me out of the way. Whether he wanted me out of the way permanently or not I don’t know, but he near as a toucher succeeded.’ I told him what had happened, then asked him: ‘Is there any man aboard you can trust absolutely?’ I knew the answer before I had asked the question.

‘Zabrinski,’ he said unhesitatingly.

‘Do you think you could pussy-foot along to wherever it is that he’s sleeping and bring him here without waking up anyone?’

He didn’t answer my questions. He said: ‘He can’t walk, Doc, you know that.’

‘Carry him. You’re big enough.’

He grinned and left. He was back with Zabrinski inside three minutes. Three-quarters of an hour later, after telling Rawlings he could call off his watch, I was back in my cabin.

Hansen was still asleep. He didn’t wake even when I switched on a side light. Slowly, clumsily, painfully, I dressed myself in my furs, unlocked my case and drew out the Luger, the two rubber-covered magazines and the broken knife which Commander Swanson had found in the tractor’s petrol tank. I put those in my pocket and left. As I passed through the control room I told the officer on deck that I was going out to check on the two patients still left out in the camp. As I had pulled a fur mitten over my injured hand he didn’t raise any eyebrows, doctors were a law to themselves and I was just the good healer en route to give aid and comfort to the sick.