The Strode Venturer by Hammond Innes Page B

half-dead with fever. What the hell’s it got to do with London if he insists on shipping as crew?”
    “Nothing,” I said. “They don’t even know he’s here.”
    “Well, what are you here for then?” He reached up a hand and twitched the curtain back from one of the portholes as though he thought it might still be daylight outside. Then he grunted and heaved himself up on one elbow, peering at me closely. “What’s your position with the company?”
    “I’m acting for the chairman of the board,” I said. “I’ve full authority …”
    “Oh, I don’t doubt that. But there’s something about you …” That bulging, bony forehead of his was creased in a frown. He shook his head, still with that puzzled frown, so that he looked like a great bloodhound. “Queer. My memory——” He passed his hand up over his face and swung his legs off the bunk. “Plays me tricks now and then. I’ve met so many men—all types—but seeing you …” His bloodshot eyes were still staring at me and there was a sort of shocked expression in them as he reached automatically for his glass, which was empty, and felt the floor with his stockinged feet. “Time passes,” he mumbled.
    “I’m waiting to see Strode,” I reminded him.
    He sat quite still, staring down at his empty glass. He seemed to be thinking it over and it was a process that took time. Finally he nodded his big head slowly. “Well, it’s up to him, I suppose.” And he suddenly threw back his headand let out a great bellow. “Mr. Fields! Mr. Fields!” There was the sound of movement from the deck below and then a door banged and a small man with sandy hair and a long, drooping face appeared. “This is my first officer,” Deacon said. And he asked where Strode was. “Is he still on board?”
    The mate’s eyes shifted uneasily between the two of us. “I dunno. I think so.”
    “Well, find out.” Deacon turned to me. “What did you say your name was?”
    “Bailey.”
    He nodded. “Tell him there’s a Commander Bailey from the London office wants a word with him.”
    The mate hesitated. Curiosity flickered in his eyes. “He’ll want to know what it’s about, won’t he?”
    “Just tell him I’d like to see him for a moment—in private,” I said.
    Deacon rumbled something that sounded like a cross between a belch and the words “Get out,” and the mate hurried away, closing the door behind him. There was a long silence then, the cabin sealed and completely airless. Sweat began to trickle down behind my ears. “So your name’s Bailey?”
    “Yes.”
    Deacon stared at me, not saying anything more, his heavy cheeks, covered with stubble, giving him a grey, ghostly look. He moved his head from side to side; finally he lumbered to his feet. “Drink?”
    “No, thanks.”
    He poured himself a Scotch from the half-empty bottle on the rack above his bunk and then he subsided into the only chair, watching me covertly out of the corners of his eyes. “You wouldn’t remember the old Waverleys, I suppose?” And when I shook my head he nodded. “It’s a long time ago now. Before you were born almost. Christ, it’s bloody years and I was the youngest first officer in the Line.” He was staring down at his drink, smiling to himself and that smile seemed to change his face so that for a moment Icaught a glimpse of the young man he’d once been. “It’s like I was saying. Time passes. Time and people—opportunity, too.” He told me how he’d been offered the post of third officer on one of the crack P. & O. ships and had turned it down out of a misguided sense of loyalty, and then he was rambling on about some Court of Inquiry in which he’d been wrongly blamed for endangering his ship. “I’d the wrong owners then, nobody to back me up.” And he fell suddenly silent, sitting there, huge and hairy, with great sweat patches under his arms, staring morosely up at me out of those veined, bloodshot eyes.
    The heat in that cabin was