Maddon's Rock by Hammond Innes Read Free Book Online Page B

than of events. There was the Captain, with his quiet voice and magnetic eyes, his dour mate with the livid white of that scar running down his weather-beaten cheek, that rascally old gossip of a cook—and Jennifer Sorrel with her pleasant, rather sad voice and strange history. And as background to my thoughts the steady throb of the ship’s engines as sherolled slowly along the southern edge of the Barents Sea towards Leith.
    I don’t think even then I had any real sense of uneasiness. The reason I could not sleep was just that my mind was full of so many things. My hammock swung with the movement of the ship. My stomach recorded each swoop. I felt the slight shudder as the bows struck the next wave and then my back pressed hard on the canvas of my hammock as we rose. Sills suddenly tumbled out of his hammock and was sick in a bucket behind one of the cases. His face was green and shining with sweat as he sat with his head in his hands on one of the cases, moaning slightly. The air became foully sweet and nauseating. At twelve-thirty I got up and went outside. “Just going for a stroll round before I relieve you,” I told Bert. “Sills has been sick.”
    I went for’ard and stood for a moment in the lea of the bridge structure. The wind was nearing gale force and a biggish sea was running. White-caps went hissing past in the dark, dimly seen blurs of white that gave a frightening picture of black, angry water. Footsteps sounded on the iron plating of the bridge over my head. I heard the Captain’s voice say, “The glass is still falling.”
    And Hendrik replied, “Aye. It’ll be a dirty day to-morrow.”
    “Suits us, eh?”
    They spoke quietly and only the fact that I was standing directly beneath them as they leaned on the canvas windbreaker of the bridge enabled me to overhear their conversation.
    “We’ll make it to-morrow night,” Halsey went on. “Have you switched the watches?”
    “Aye, Jukes will be at the wheel from two till four to-morrow night,” Hendrik replied.
    “Good. Then we’ll make——” Halsey’s voice was lost to me as he turned away. Their footsteps faded slowly over my head as they paced back to the other wing of the bridge.
    I did not move. My mind had fastened on one point in that scrap of conversation—they had switched the watchesand Jukes would be at the wheel between two and four the next night. Jukes! According to the cook’s gossip, he was a seaman who had been with Halsey on the Penang . They’d a right to switch watches. Jukes was a seaman; no reason why he shouldn’t be on duty at the wheel. But why had Halsey said that it suited them to have a dirty day to-morrow. Had there been a U-boat warning? There were a dozen explanations for the scrap of conversation I had overheard. Yet it is from that moment that I can definitely say I had a sense of uneasiness.
    I don’t know how long I stood there under the port wing of the bridge. It must have been some time, for when I became conscious of my surroundings again, I felt wretchedly cold. I walked briskly round the deck and the flying white-caps hissing past us through the darkness seemed to surround the ship with vague menaces.
    When I relieved Bert, he said, “You bin for a long stroll, Corp. Thort you’d fallen overboard.” He leaned his rifle against the after-deckhousing and lit a cigarette, hiding the glowing tip of it in his cupped palm the way you learn to in the Army. He leaned against the rail watching the great whale-backed waves slide under our keel. We didn’t speak for a while. But at length he said, “Yer very silent ternight, Corp. Not worried aba’t them seals being broke on that case, are yer?”
    “Not particularly,” I said.
    “Gosh! You don’t ’alf sound miserable. Wot’s on yer mind?”
    For a moment I was tempted to tell him all the little bits of gossip and scraps of conversation and half-toned suspicions that were wandering in a tangled mêlée through my mind. I wanted to talk it