The Grand Banks Café by Georges Simenon Read Free Book Online Page A

climbed on
     board. He walked along the deck, with no obvious purpose, he saw a light in a
     foredeck hatchway. He leaned over it. Warm air blew up into his face, a combined
     smell of doss-house, canteen and fish market.
    He went down the iron ladder and found
     himself face to face with three men who were eating from mess tins
balanced on their knees. For light, there was an oil lamp
     hung on gimbals. In the middle of their quarters was a cast-iron stove caked with
     grease.
    Along the walls were four tiers of
     bunks, some still full of straw, the others empty. And boots. And sou’westers
     hanging on pegs.
    Of the three, only Louis had stood up.
     The other two were the Breton and a black sailor with bare feet.
    â€˜Enjoying your dinner?’
     growled Maigret.
    He was answered with grunts.
    â€˜Where are your mates?’
    â€˜Gone home, haven’t
     they,’ said Louis. ‘You gotta have nowhere to go and be broke to hang
     about here when you’re not at sea.’
    Maigret had to get used to the
     semi-darkness and especially the smell. He tried to imagine the same space when it
     was filled by forty men who could not move a muscle without bumping into
     somebody.
    Forty men dropping on to their bunks
     without taking their boots off, snoring, chewing tobacco, smoking …
    â€˜Did the captain ever come down
     here?’
    â€˜Never.’
    And all the while the throb of the
     screw, the smell of coal smoke, of soot, of burning hot metal, the pounding of the
     sea …
    â€˜Come with me, Louis.’
    Out of the corner of his eye, Maigret
     caught the sailor, full of bravado, making signs to the others behind his back.
    But once aloft, on the deck now flooded
     with shadow, his swagger evaporated.
    â€˜What’s up?’
    â€˜Nothing … Listen … Suppose the
     captain died at sea, on the way home. Was there someone who could have got the boat
     safely back to port?’
    â€˜Maybe not. Because the first mate
     doesn’t know how to take a bearing. Still they say that, using the wireless,
     the wireless operator could always find the ship’s position.’
    â€˜Did you see much of the wireless
     operator?’
    â€˜Never saw him at all! Don’t
     imagine we walk around like we’re doing now. There are general quarters for
     some, others have separate quarters of their own. You can go for days without
     budging from your small corner.’
    â€˜How about the chief
     mechanic?’
    â€˜Him? Yes. I saw him more or less
     every day.’
    â€˜How did he seem?’
    Louis turned evasive.
    â€˜How the devil should I know?
     Look, what are you driving at? I’d like to see how you make out when
     everything’s going wrong, a lad goes overboard, a steam valve blows, the
     captain’s mind is set on anchoring the trawler in a station where
     there’s no fish, a man gets gangrene and the rest of it … You’d be
     effing and blinding nineteen to the dozen! And for the smallest thing you’d
     take a swing at someone! And to cap it all, when you’re told the captain on
     the bridge is off his rocker …’
    â€˜Was he?’
    â€˜I never asked him. Anyway
     …’
    â€˜Anyway what?’
    â€˜At the end of the day, what
     difference will it make? There’ll always be someone who’ll tell you.
     Look, it seems
there were three of them up
     top who never went anywhere without their revolvers. Three of them spying on each
     other, all afraid of each other. The captain hardly ever came out of his cabin,
     where he’d ordered the charts, compass, sextant and the rest to be
     brought.’
    â€˜And it went on like that for
     three months?’
    â€˜Yes. Anything else you want to
     ask me?’
    â€˜No, that’s it. You can go
     …’
    Louis walked away almost regretfully. He
     stopped for a moment by the hatch, watching the inspector, who was puffing gently at
     his pipe.
    Cod