Alistair MacLean: San Andreas

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.’

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