The Dark Crusader by Alistair MacLean Read Free Book Online Page B

regret my weakness.... Half-past eight, your watch says. Must be broad daylight. I wonder where we're heading?"
    "North or south. We're neither quartering nor corkscrewing, which means that we have this swell right on the beam. I don't remember much of my geography but enough to be pretty sure that at this time of the year the steady easterly trades push up an east-west swell. So, north or south," I lowered myself stiffly to my feet, walked for'ard along the central aisle to where the two narrow spaces, one on each side, had been left clear of cargo to give access to the ventilator intakes. I moved into those in turn and touched both the port and starboard sides of the schooner, high up. The port side was definitely warmer than the starboard. That meant we were moving more or less due south. The nearest land in that direction was New Zealand, about a thousand miles away. I filed away this helpful information and was about to move when I heard voices from above, faint but unmistakable. I pulled a box down from behind its retaining batten and stood on it, the side of my face against the foot of the ventilator.
    The ventilator must have been just outside the radio office and its trumpet-shaped opening made a perfect earphone for collecting and amplifying soundwaves. I could hear the steady chatter of Morse and, over and above that, the sound of two men talking as clearly as if they had been no more than three feet away from me. What they were speaking about I'd no idea, it was in a language I'd never heard before: after a couple of minutes I jumped down, replaced the box and went back to Marie.
    "What took you so long?" she asked accusingly. She knew the rats were still around and a phobia doesn't die away in a night.
    "Sorry. But you may be grateful yet for the delay. I've found out that we're travelling south but, much more important, I've found out that we can hear what the people on the upper deck are talking about." I told her how I'd discovered this, and she nodded.
    "It could be very useful."
    "It could be more than useful." I watched her as she swung her legs over the side of the boxes, then touched the side of the right foot, gently. "How does it feel?"
    "Stiff. Not very sore."
    I pulled off the socks and one side of the plaster bandage. The wound was clean, slightly swollen and slightly blue, but no more than it had any right to be.
    "It'll be O.K.," I said. "Hungry?"
    "Well." She made a face and rubbed a hand across her stomach. "It's not just that I'm a bad sailor, it's the fearful smell down here."
    "Those ventilators appear to be no damned help in the world," I agreed. "But perhaps some tea might be." I moved into the tiny cabin, striking an apprehensive match or two to make sure that there were no rats lurking around and called for attention as I'd done a few hours earlier by hammering on the bulkhead. I moved aft and within a minute the hatch was opened.
    I blinked in the blinding glare of light that flooded down into the hold, then moved back as someone came down the ladder. A man with a lantern-jawed face, lean and lined and mournful.
    "What's all the racket about?" Henry demanded wearily.
    "You promised us some breakfast," I reminded him.
    "So we did." He looked at me curiously. "Had a good night?"
    "You might have told us about the rats."
    "I might have. Hopin' they didn't show themselves. Trouble?"
    "My wife was badly bitten on the foot." I dropped my voice so that Marie couldn't hear it. "Rats carry plague, don't they?"
    He shook his head. "Rats carry fleas. The fleas carry plague. But not here. Place is awash in D.D.T. Breakfast in ten minutes." With that he was gone, shutting the hatch behind him.
    Less than the promised time later the hatch opened again and a stocky brown-haired youngster with dark frizzy golliwog hair came nimbly down the ladder carrying a battered wooden tray in one hand. He grinned at me cheerfully, moved up the aisle and set the tray down on the boxes beside Marie, whipping a dented