The Nylon Pirates

PART FOUR "Enjoy long, thrill-packed days at sea on the way to your rendezvous at the Tavern of the Seas—Cape Town"

1

"Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live," said the Captain, "and is full of misery." He tried not to intone the words; however many times one had read it—especially during the war—it was a most moving service, dedicated always to the proposition that the man lying on the deck at one's feet, whether snug in a coffin, or sewn up in his hammock, or hidden under a flag, deserved only sincerity and sorrow. "He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay."

The Alcestis moved slowly through the sluggish Water; within a few moments, her engines would be stopped for the burial, and the run-down had to be as gradual as possible, for reasons which the Chief Engineer Officer could, if called upon, explain cogently enough. There was a slight breeze, ruffling the bare heads of all who stood in the small space below the after-deck; it came from the newly opened void in the ship's side, the mouth of the grave. The attendance was small; four officers, a mixed dozen of the crew, and about thirty of the passengers. As far as the latter were concerned, Captain Harmer always tried to keep the occasion as unobtrusive as he decently could; a death on board, particularly during a cruise when the average age was over sixty, was deeply disturbing, and the less advertisement it received, the better. The nurse was crying, he observed with surprise; an unusual reaction for a nurse, implying —if it implied anything—that she was concerned on a non-professional basis. She had loved the dead man? She was now out of a job? She blamed herself for something not done, or inadequately done? The Doctor, always involved when people started to cry, would tell him later.

"In the midst of life we are in death," said the Captain, shifting his feet as his ship rolled gently in the long South Atlantic swell. In a small way, that fact was always true for Myth Lines; on any voyage, they carried six coffins, a discreet portion of the Purser's empire which lay hidden until called for. But it must have been true also—he looked down at the ever-present shape on the deck, the mound covered by the flaring colours of the Stars and Stripes— it must have been true for the dead man, George Morgan Simms, retired business executive, who had lived with death for more than ten years (so the Doctor said), on whom, indeed, death had long fed with unobtrusive appetite.

Probably he had known, when he was wheeled on board at New York, that he would never be wheeled off again; but he had chosen this sort of death, this sort of occasion, with the sun warming him for the last time and the horizon bare of buildings, of hospital walls, of relatives. Yet perhaps he could not quite have foreseen that he would leave the ship, taking the long dive seawards, in a hundred fathoms of cloudy water off the mouth of the Amazon. For an American, for anyone, the Equator was an odd place to die, and odder still for a graveyard.

"Suffer us not," said the Captain, "at our last hour, for any pains of death, to fall from thee." The warning words, of course, were for the spectators; if Simms could die, they could all die; let them take care to do it in piety. He glanced round, wondering what the ceremony meant to the onlookers, and why they were there. Curiosity? Religious conviction? Respect for the dead? None of them had known Simms. No one had known Simms; not more than six people had set eyes on him during the past month and a half. Simms had been an idea within the ship, a cautionary item of lading; he was present whenever one thought of him—by accident, by overhearing his name, when sad or lonely or drunk—and absent when he passed out of mind.

Now it was time to make him absent for ever.

The Captain raised his head, and nodded unobtrusively to Tiptree-Jones, standing to one side at the back of the attendant circle. Tiptree-Jones pressed a bell twice, a prearranged signal to the bridge. Deep within the ship, they could all hear the clang of the telegraphs, and then the beat of the engines died, and way fell off the Alcestis.

The Captain braced his shoulders, face to face with the part he hated. "For as much as it hath pleased Almighty God of His great mercy to take unto Himself the soul of our dear brother here departed; we therefore commit his body to the deep." By the open space in the ship's side, the bearers bent and tipped the small platform bearing the coffin; it slid away from them, into the burning sunshine, and down out of sight, as if sponged away from a pale blue slate.

There was a farewell to be spoken at the same time. "/«sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life," said the Captain, "through our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be like unto His glorious body."

As his voice ceased, all of them were left staring at the empty space, the astonishing void. A few faces were stony, but most betrayed a genuine bereavement. There could be no more irrevocable burial than a burial at sea. It did not need the gentle returning pulse of the engines to tell them that it was too late to do anything, that they were abandoning for ever the old man whom no one had known.

The Captain returned to his prayer book, making his voice as strong as possible, to atone for all their guilt. "I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write; From henceforth blessed are the dead which die in the Lord; even so, saith the Spirit, for they rest from their labours."

As usual for the Captain, that was all; he always ended on the phrase"they rest from their labours", which at such moments seemed the point of the ceremony, and perhaps the point of life. There were sentences later on which he never read out loud, which he did not believe in and could not stomach; the part where they were asked to give hearty thanks to God for delivering this our brother out of the miseries of this sinful world. Of course it was meant to cheer people up, but it was utterly false, it was a lie. Hearty thanks. . . . Life was not miserable; sometimes it was dull or ugly, but on balance it was beautiful and exciting, and it was a shame to die and a shame to be snatched away from it, and a shame to be left a mourner.

He put on his cap, while Tim Mansell, who was in charge of the burial party, set them to work dismantling the pivoted platform and securing the huge water-tight entrance-doors again. The machinery of these occasions was always a bit obtrusive. . . . Harmer nodded to the passengers, and murmured "Thank you for coming" as he passed by them. Going forward, his footfalls echoing in the long passageway, he fell into step beside Tiptree-Jones.

"Thank you, First," he said formally. "Everything went off well. See that it's logged, and I'll sign it."

"Yes, sir," said Tiptree-Jones. In this aftermath, his face and bearing were both especially noble, but for once the Captain forgave him. These things were always sad, always hopelessly final; nothing could change that, or detract from it.

"Crossing the Line," said the Captain after a moment. "When was that laid on for?"

"Tomorrow morning, eleven o'clock," answered Tiptree-Jones.

"We'd better scrub it out," said the Captain. The uninhibited, sometimes raucous ceremonies to mark the crossing of the Equator might have served to cheer the ship up, but he did not feel like doing it that way. "It's not really suitable. People will understand."

"Of course they will, sir. I'll tell the Purser."

"And cable head office again about Simms."

"Yes, sir."

"I won't come down to dinner."

2

Everyone felt like that, for a number of hours afterwards; they fell out of love with parties, they did not want to meet other people, they preferred to keep to their cabins until the blackest shadow in the world had passed. Much of this feeling stemmed outwards from the nurse, a slightly melodramatic creature whose finest hour this was.

"I shouldn't have left him alone," she declared, not once but a score of times. "He promised me he felt all right!" No one blamed her, everyone patted her shoulder and told her not to feel badly about it, it might have happened any time, they knew for a fact that Simms hadn't suffered a thing. But there were private thoughts to match this gloss on reality, private pictures of an old man dying alone in terror, reaching for a bell in the darkness, not making it, gasping out his life while just above his head the band played on and the glasses clinked. As long as the memory and the pictures were fresh, no one wanted the band to play, and they preferred to clink their glasses in private.

Diane Loring had many of these thoughts; she unloaded them on to Kathy, in a long monologue which, with death as its starting-point, moved inevitably to the only topic which seemed to promise stability in a perilous world. The topic was sex. It was one which Kathy, in her present mood, could have done without.

Diane had attended the funeral. "I'm sure I don't know why," she said. "I just hate the idea of people dying." They were in Kalhy's cabin, which Diane had invaded; Kathy was lying on the bed, and Diane sitting before the triple-winged mirror, dabbing at her nails with a scarlet-edged sable brush, pausing now and then to examine herself minutely in the glass. "Fancy just tipping him into the sea like that. It doesn't seem safe. Wouldn't he float, or something?"

"They put weights in," said Kathy vaguely. She did not want to talk about this, or about anything; she had been reading when Diane came in, and she still wanted to read or to think, now that she was here. "The sailors know how to fix it."

"Well, I certainly hope so. Think of that poor old man." She moved her face within a few inches of the mirror, and turned it from side to side, scrutinizing with minute attention the skin adjacent to her nose. "Do you get blackheads?"

"No," said Kathy.

"You're lucky. Greasy skin, that's me. All brunettes have it. They say it's the natural oils. . . . That poor old man," she said again, but the thought had become intertwined with another, and she moved on to it very readily. "Did you ever sleep with an old man? I mean-well, Carl's not old, is he?—I mean, a real old man?"

"No," said Kathy. "No, I never did."

"Well, don't!" said Diane, with emphasis. "It's enough to turn your hair grey. They have the darnedest time getting anywhere! And then they blame you! I remember one old character down in South Carolina—" she went back to the nail-dabbing, frowning, holding her hand up to the light, "honest, it was just like a horserace. He had to cheer himself on, the whole time. You know what he said?" She giggled. "He used to shout: "Come on, you bastard! Come on, Silky Sullivan!"

She paused. Kathy said nothing. "Don't you remember—Silky Sullivan was that horse that used to run slow, like nothing at all, and then catch up at the very end." Diane giggled again. "What was it that guy said when I told him about it? 'Maybe it was because Silky Sullivan used to come from behind.' What a character! You know why Americans like to make love like that? So they can both watch TV!"

Kathy smiled briefly, but her thoughts were far away from the joke, if it had ever been a joke. It did not need Diane, these days, to turn her mind away from sex; for the last few weeks, she had seemed to have a blank in her mind, an area of nothingness in her body, where that was concerned. She did not want to love, she did not want to make love, she did not want to pretend, or prepare the snare, or use herself as bait, in the way they had planned. All she wanted to do was to pass the time dreamily, enjoying this wonderful voyage, soaking up the sun,feeling life with the whole of her prostrate body instead of a part of it. A year ago, she would have been bored with the idea, she would have thought of it as a waste of time, a routine fit only for dead-beats. But something—the sea, the sense of floating calm, the undemanding niceness of everyone around her— seemed to have turned her mood towards despised contentment.

Even Tim Mansell had remarked on it—juvenile Tim, simple and silly Tim, inadequate Tim who could not guess the score. He had said, out of the blue: "You may not realize it, but you're not as tough as you used to be." He had used the word "tough" apologetically, in quotation-marks; they had been talking about women, and what they could and could not do with their lives, and the hard speculative sense necessary (he thought) to deal with each man on the exact basis he deserved. She had turned the approach aside— her hard speculative sense was certainly good enough for that one—but the thought had remained. It was true that she had softened; happily dormant, she had forgotten what she was there for. The realization should have been far more of a shock than it was; it involved complications in the future, and a sense of guilty inadequacy now; at the worst, it threatened to betray Carl, and all the interlocking confidence involved in their last six years together. But it had happened, and she did not know how to cope with it, and she did not want to know.

Diane, with no such inhibitions, was jogging along happily on her only hobby-horse. "I met a guy once, he'd got it all worked out," she said. "About seduction, I mean. He told me all about it. It was a bit late for him to tell me then, if you know what I mean, but I guess he thought it was good for a laugh. He said there's two sure-fire ways that men can always make a girl—any girl. I mean, as long as they're not out-and-out apes. First is when they dance with you, and after a bit they say: 'Honey, something wondeful's happening to me, I didn't know it was possible.' Then they say: 'This is the first time it's happened since Korea, or maybe even Okinawa. My God, I thought I was impotent!' Then they say: 'Only you could have done it for me! Are we going to let this beautiful thing go to waste?' My friend said the answer is always, No. I mean, No, we can't let it go to waste." She laughed, without malice. "Aren't men the living end? Then the other way is, they give you a long sad story about how nobody loves them, if they can't work up a relationship soon they're going to jump right out of the window, and then they put the lights out and give you a great big slug of gin and get you cornered on a sofa, and then they undo a lot of buttons and start to cry. I mean, actual tears. He said that one never fails, either."

Kathy, who had scarcely been listening, woke up to the silence when Diane paused. By way of suiting the conversation, she asked: "Which way did he use with you?"

Diane frowned at her reflection. "He didn't have to use any way, darn it. He was good-looking. . . . He'd been out in Australia, looking for gold. Do you know what Australians say when they want to go to the toilet? They say: 'I must go and shake hands with my wife's best friend.' Don't you think that's cute? That's another thing he told me."

Diane's nails were finished; she waved them once or twice in the air and then, when they were dry, started to put away her manicure compact. "Men," she said. "Sometimes they make me sick. And what a collection we've got on board this barge! If I'd known what sort of age-group it was going to be, I'd have asked Carl to pay us overtime rates." She looked down at Kathy; she was inquisitive but not, in her present mood, challenging. "Have you got anyone going for you?"

"Not yet," said Kathy.

"We'll be in Rio next week," said Diane. "I wonder what that's like. I went with an Argentine once, he said a funny thing, he said: 'In a hundred years it will all be from test-tubes. But you and I, let us make history!' What a character____Tell you something, that old Prof had better lay off the booze, or he'll be giving the game away. I've seen him absolutely stinko a couple of times already. It's time he did some work." She stood up, collecting her things. "Time we all did, I suppose, with Carl raking in the stuff the way he is."

"Who's next for you?"

"Walham, I guess. The mean old man from outer space. Have you got any ideas?"

"Not really." She could not possibly be friends with Diane, but she wanted to make a point, even before this tough-skinned, almost impenetrable witness. "I know I've been lazy so far," she said, with a hint of apology. "But I didn't realize it was going to be as peaceful as this."

"You like it peaceful?"

Kathy nodded. "Yes, I do."

"Well, personally it would give me the willies," said Diane. "But it's all according, I suppose." She prepared to take her leave. "See you at dinner."

"Yes."

"Think of that poor old man," said Diane, "chucked overboard, bobbing about like a cork in a kettle. There ought to be a law against it."

3

Running down to Rio, the Alcestis regained her spirits. If Simms had been known to anyone on board, they might have mourned him longer; but he had lived and died anonymously, as far as the ship was concerned, and he passed out of mind almost as swiftly as he had quitted the after-deck on his last journey. It was not a callous reaction; the worst it contained was an element of self-delusion, designed to make those who were left behind feel happy and confident again. Of course Simms had died—or at least, passed over— but he was so shadowy a figure that his passing didn't really count. He had been a name on a list, and now the list was altered; but everyone else that one knew still figured on it, and that was the way it was going to stay.

People talked about him, avidly enough, for the space of two days; his burial—no, his leave-taking—had been original, even bizarre. Then they only remembered him accidentally, when the nurse laughed a little too loudly at the officers' table; and then he was forgotten.

The weather helped this process, and, more than the weather, their ports of call. They were coasting down from the mouth of the Amazon to Rio de Janeiro, touching at all the towns on the Brazilian sea-board where the company had any sort of tourist connexions. Brazil was much written up in the ship's daily bulletins as a land of mystery, scarcely explored, hardly penetrable at all save by intrepid voyagers such as those carried in the Alcestis. Romantic names and words constantly recurred—Matto Grosso, alligators, gauchos, jungle-orchids, cruzeiros, Amer-Indians, piranhas, Dom Pedro II. Brazil was terra incognita; it was larger than the United States. . . .

As they worked their way down the coast, little of thismystique actually confronted them: the successive calls at such places as Belem, Fortalez, Recife, and Salvador were like their calls anywhere else— they anchored off the coast or came alongside, they went ashore, drove up mountains, rode horses along bridle trails, looked at monasteries, wandered round museums, attended race-tracks, explored slums, took photographs, sampled the local food, spat out the local drinks, talked, quarrelled, got drunk, pushed aside the beggars, and went thankfully back to civilization again, laden with souvenirs made of rare, unwrought silver.

But the places were amusing enough, the people could safely be labelled quaint, or colourful, or different; and always, present in all their minds, there was this idea of Brazil—part of an untamed continent, full of silences and this hiss of poisoned blow-pipes,bigger than the United States, and of course all matted jungle except for this tiny coastal strip. Each time they went ashore it was as if they were winning, afresh, a toe-hold on a savage hinterland. This extraordinary illusion did no one any harm, and made very real the idea that a cruise in the Alcestis was a lifetime adventure.

For the Professor, this was no longer quite true. Being underemployed, he was beginning to be bored; the trips ashore tired him, and he had little to do except doze in his chair on the sun-deck, and make for the Tapestry Bar as soon as it opened. His book languished, though he loved it as dearly as ever, and sometimes, if he could assemble an audience—one listener was an audience—he read selected sections of it aloud.

On such occasions his voice took on a fine sonorous timbre, and his white mane and proud old face gave him new authority. But he soon tired of this, too; reading was thirsty work, he would say, after ten or fifteen minutes; he did not want to bore anyone—perhaps a little refreshment. . . . Refreshment marked the end of every day; he would sit in the bar, drinking at a steady rate, delivering long philosophical monologues on classical education, and public morality, and the indiscipline of the young, to whoever would listen to him; until gradually he became fuddled, and his face, paper-frail, lost its fine distinction and collapsed into dribbling foolishness, and he stumbled off to bed.

Edgar would look after him, shaking his head. "He'll be the next to go, if he don't watch out," he would say. "Stands to reason. Think of a liver that's been going full-ahead for seventy years. No resilience."

Louis, lapped in luxury, was also cushioned in servitude; his S500 a week for round-the-clock attendance was becoming harder and harder to earn.

It was not that Belle Consolini was overdoing the obvious demands: she had never done so, and she was not going to start now. She had made this clear from the beginning. "It's a matter of mood," she told Louis."My mood. I'll tell you when I want it, and you'd better be on deck when I do. But we're not out to break any records. That's for kids. I'm forty-four, and I like being forty-four, and I'm going to act forty-four. I'm paying for your company, not just your-" She had a colourful way of expressing herself which Louis, a child of the gutter himself, often found shocking. "I should be very surprised if it's more than once or twice a week," she elaborated, "but I want to see more of you than that. For instance, when we get to Rio—"

Thus she made plans, disposing of his time as if she were paying him by the hour; almost she drew up a daily schedule, setting out where he was to be and what he was to be doing, from breakfast-time to midnight and beyond. If she wanted someone to talk to while she was making up for dinner, he was to be there, sitting in a chair near her dressing-table; if she wanted a handkerchief or a scarf or a magazine, he went to fetch it, and he had to come back straight away. When she felt too lazy to go ashore and buy something, he trotted off to execute the commission; when she gave a small party for some of the officers and a dozen of her fellow-passengers, he wrote out the invitations, and saw that they were delivered, and subsequently helped with the drinks, passed the salted almonds, fetched the chairs, lit the cigarettes. Afterwards he had to listen to the post-mortem; and if she were "in the mood", he had to press that button also.

All he was excused, due to circumstances beyond her control, was the washing-up.

She had taken to calling him Scapelli; it had a finger-snapping sound which seemed to determine his status more pointedly than anything else. "Good morning, Scapelli," was certainly adequate for a head-waiter or even a secretary; but for an ardent lover it seemed less than warm, less than encouraging. He was a lazy young man, who would never have quarrelled with $500 a week for performing almost any service; but when the service was of this sort— constant, humble, and emasculate—then even he, as the mileage of subservience piled up, felt a surge of impatient manhood.

Above all, there was, ever-present, Mr. Consolini, that knowing paragon who had done everything and, it seemed, everybody. She referred to him very regularly indeed, not as someone whom she mourned—they had been married for fifteen years, and for the last ten he had been spectacularly inattentive—but as a man whom nothing ever took by surprise because nothing was new. He had travelled five times round the world, he had been in jail ("He was framed," said Mrs. Consolini, with a certain wistful admiration for some unnamed third party), he had bought and sold every single commodity from black pepper to under-age female companionship. Whenever Louis asked a question, Mr. Consolini had known the answer, and his widow, scornful or complacent, produced it now. Sometimes it was less than crystal-clear. Once he had asked her if she were fond of snails. "Good heavens, no!" she answered, almost shuddering. "My husband once told me what goes on in there."

Even his death, apparently, had been in a flamboyant tradition. He had suffered a heart attack in a motel. "The girl said he must have strained himself carrying the suitcases," said Mrs. Consolini. "But I know better."

So did Louis earn his money, as the Alcestis curved her way past the broad pregnancy of the Brazilian coastline, and the sun, balanced overhead like a burnished shield, beat mercilessly upon the wooden decks. These, by midday, were unbearable to the touch, and the pitch in the seams bubbled and spread; while below, in the cabins and the public rooms, the forced-draught ventilation impelled upon the passengers great gusts of moist and torrid air.

It was not a climate for romance, save for a few determined characters who chanced to be awake during the small hours; and Louis Scapelli, the bonded courier of love, crept nearly every night to bed like an exhausted eunuch, a true minister without portfolio. There might, he decided, be tougher ways of earning $500 a week, but there could be none more irritating nor more fatal to morale.

Diane, ideally equipped to defy the heat—or to match it, as the occasion demanded—was engaged in the weaving of a curious tapestry. One thread of it was Mr. Walham—Walham the slow man with a dollar, the last of the very small spenders; the other was a thinner, slighter strand altogether, a customer normally to be overlooked, not least by herself—young Master Greenfield. If the first one was the meanest man she had ever met, Barry Greenfield turned out to be, within his modest resources, the most generous soul on board.

Barry Greenfield was a few months short of sixteen years old; by common agreement, by acclamation, he was the worst example of the Great American Brat that anyone on board had ever encountered. In the space of two months, he had managed to antagonize an impressive array of people, ranging from the oldest passengers (who could not stand the noise) to the youngest officers (who did not mind the noise but could not stand the back-talk). He was legally banned from the Tapestry Room, and he now, by popular request, took his meals an hour earlier than the rest of the passengers, who had had enough of noisy scenes, ruined tablecloths, and flying bread-sticks. But that still left a number of places where he could make a thorough nuisance of himself—notably the swimming-pool, the cinema, the boat-deck during siesta-time, and on trips ashore. For these, a lively competition had developed not to be in the same motor-boat, bus, or taxi; there was something about the whining voice, the derisive running-commentary, the penchant for booby-traps and smeared ice-cream, which destroyed all eagerness to sample the joys of foreign travel.

His parents had long ago given up all but the rudiments of supervision. Years of varying treatment, from sudden harsh punishment to cloying and sentimental forms of bribery, had done their work; Barry now knew that he could get away with murder, and when either of them was goaded into trying to disprove this, the resulting uproar was hardly worth it. He should have been at school at this very moment, but when the cruise was at the planning stage his refusal to be left behind had been so vociferous that they had given up arguing. (He did not really want to come with them, but he wanted to go to school even less.) The authorities had been quick to agree, typically, that Barry, a delicate, highly-strung boy, would benefit from a long sea voyage. They made no secret of their view that it would not really matter how long it was. So he had found himself on board the Alcestis, and the Alcestis passengers had found themselves bedevilled by a fellow-traveller who, across an average gulf of forty-five years, epitomized all that they loathed and feared in the word "teen-ager".

It was this young man who presently approached Diane and asked her, in no very ambiguous terms, if he could go to bed with her.

Diane had been in her cabin when the first encounter took place. It was the middle of the afternoon, at sea between Recife and Salvador; most people were asleep after a late lunch, but she had chanced to be wakeful and was sorting some clothes to send to the cleaners. Her cabin-door was open, to take advantage of the slight breeze, and the curtain half-drawn. A small movement disturbed her, and she looked up, thinking it was the stewardess. But it was Barry Greenfield, his head peering round the corner of the doorway, staring at her with solemn concentration.

He said: "Hi!" in a gruff voice.

She frowned. "What do you want?"

"Nothing. I was just passing."

"Keep doing it, junior." Most people now spoke to Barry Greenfield like this; anything less was a fatal weakness, inviting insult or embarrassment.

But he remained where he was, regarding her with an unwinking stare which was, subtly, less unpleasant than usual. Presently he said:

"I thought maybe you could use some company."

She frowned at him again, irritable, not yet awake to the situation. "What the hell are you talking about? Can't you see I'm busy? Run away and play!"

He came forward a step and said: "I'd rather stay here and play." The expression on his face, as much as the words, made his meaning unmistakable.

Diane Loring was not shockable material, but on this occasion she came very near to succumbing. For five seconds she regarded him, quite unable to believe her ears; then she exploded:

"Don't talk to me like that, you snotty little bastard! Just beat it, or I'll call the steward."

"You won't do that," said Barry Greenfield.

She looked at him more closely, trying to guess what line to take, and why it had suddenly become necessary to take any line at all. As usual, he was remarkably self-possessed; his face, which had never seemed immature, was now set in a knowing, confederate grin. But there was something else, something new—and that was what it was, she suddenly realized; it was something new for him.

He was doing this for the very first time; playing it by ear from a sordid fund of guesswork and hearsay; and just for once, the person he spoke to was bound to have the advantage, because he was a boy, however precocious, stepping on to adult ground.

Confidence returned to her. She was used to dealing with men; this one was a small-scale man, a miniature pressing of the brashness, lust, terror, and vanity which she knew all about. All she need use were small-scale gestures and maybe (she grinned privately) shorter legs.

She said, not relinquishing authority: "You'd better sit down. What's on your mind?"

He came forward and sat on the edge of the bed, small, self-contained, tough, and yet vulnerable in the way that all men were vulnerable, when they laid it on the line.

"You know what's on my mind." His voice, not long broken, was throaty and gruff; trying for masculinity, he achieved a rather beguiling adolescence. She recalled reading some book which said that kids of this age were at the peak of their male potency. Such language. ... "How about it?"

"But gee, Barry, I don't even know what you're talking about."

"Knock it off, sister!" Everything he said, and every line he took, were diminished by the laws of perspective, but they were authentic none the less. "I've been watching you. Don't think I haven't! You and that other babe, you've fixed yourself up a nice little racket. Well, I'm a customer."

"A customer? Whatever for?"

"For one of you floating call-girls." She could see that he had all his phrases ready; he must have rehearsed this scene, afraid of making mistakes or of losing ground at a critical stage. "Just name a price, and maybe we can do a deal."

She looked at him again, more closely still. Under the brash manner, the man-of-the-world assumption, he was nervous; but it was a sexual nervousness only—he knew something, or he had guessed something, which allowed him to speak to her like this. It was difficult to know how to deal with it; a virginal squawk would have been out of place, and yet to take it seriously, to treat it as a proposition, would surely qualify her for the nut-house. It could even be illegal. ... Finally she said: "I don't know what in hell's got into your head, but whatever it is, it's all wrong. Now just you beat it, the same way as you came in. I'm busy, like I told you."

He gave her an authentic sneer, copied from a whole saga of "juvenile delinquency" movies and TV programmes. "I'll say you're busy! Busy with Old Man Walham. Don't waste your time, that's all I say. You want to know what's in his wallet? Mothballs! You'll never get rich that way."

"Walham? What are you talking about? You must be nuts!"

He said again, with considerable assurance: "Sister, you're wasting your time."

It was true that she was busy with Walham, and probably just as true that Walham was not going to pay her much of a dividend. He had placed the offer, from the very beginning, on a purely business footing; and the area of potential blackmail was very small indeed— he was travelling alone, he had (or so he claimed) an "understanding" with his wife, he was not the sort of man who, faced by Carl the outraged uncle, would have crumpled up and reached for his pocket-book. It boiled down to a matter of terms, and he was, as usual, looking for a bargain.

It had started, as so often happened to Diane, with a dance at one of the ship's innumerable "Gala Nights" involving balloons, paper caps, and moderate misbehaviour. Walham, she knew, had been gravitating in her direction fairly determinedly during the preceding five days; it became clear, when they had circled the dance-floor a couple of times, that he had now made up his mind to spend part of the allocation set out in his budget (so the Professor said) under "Sex". It became clear, also, that he was going to use as little of it as possible. Why he had taken it for granted that she was a suitable target, never even came up in conversation. All he said, when they presently sat down in a quiet corner of the main saloon, was:

"How much?"

After their dance, which had been explicit on both sides, it seemed silly to clutch her neckline and demand to know what he could possibly be talking about. Instead, she decided on shock tactics. She said:

"A thousand dollars."

He snorted. Clearly it gave him pleasure to do so; it must have been the preliminary to hundreds of similar discussions, in areas ranging from the selling of farm-tractors to the buying of antiques. In addition, he affected now the classic gesture of the man prepared to make a long, long fight for justice. He cupped his hand to his ear, and said dryly:

"Must be getting deaf. I could have sworn you said a thousand dollars."

Diane, taking the cigarette he offered, answered: "That's exactly what I did say."

"I'm not handing out any endowment funds," said Walham.

There ensued a bargaining session, extending over several days, which was ludicrous, spirited, and distinctly pleasurable. He began by offering her fifty dollars—"and that's way above the market. You'll have to earn it." She indicated, disdainfully, a total lack of interest; they were on board the Alcestis, she argued, and he must be prepared to pay luxury rates. "By God," he swore, his voice already an angry whine, "you're talking like that damned Purser!" He used every argument, including some close financial figuring which she could scarcely follow. Scribbling on the back of a menu, he calculated that, on an actuarial basis which took into account the number of available men on board, she was putting her monthly salary at more than $20,000. "Hell," he said, "the top man in General Motors doesn't rate that much!" "But he gets free cars," countered Diane. "And anyway, that's just a run-of-the-mill job." She was enjoying herself.

"But a thousand bucks!" said Walham, again and again. "I don't spend that amount in five years. I could get fifty girls for that kind of money."

"Go ahead," said Diane heartlessly. "Wear yourself out. See if I care."

"Look, I'll make you a proposition—" Walham began again.

Suddenly, talking to Barry Greenfield, Diane thought: Well, why not? Of course, he was a terrible brat, and she had never done anything like it before; but this was a pleasure cruise—they were in the tropics—anything went—in certain lights he was actually quite good-looking. . . . She said, her voice on a much more friendly note:

"All right, smarty-pants. Make me an offer."

"Well, gee. . . ." He looked away from her, fingering the edge of the pillow. "Gee, I don't know." It was most gratifying to see him, at last, embarrassed and at a loss; it must be the first time anyone on board the Alcestis had enjoyed such a view. "It's like this . . ."

"How much have you got?" she asked him.

"Seventy bucks." He looked at her, trying to interpret her expression. After a moment he said: "I can get more."

"You'll need more."

"O.K., O.K."

"Where will you get it from?"

He jerked his head back. "The folks. My dad's loaded." There was a return of his flip manner as he added: "Don't you worry about the dough."

It was important that she remain in command, in ail areas. "I'm not worrying," she told him crudely."You worry. Seventy bucks will get you precisely nowhere. What sort of league do you think this is?"

"O.K., give it a rest," he said, crestfallen. "How much, then?"

"Two hundred, at least. Then we'll start talking."

He rose from the bed, looking down at his feet. Consternation struggled with the need to appear sophisticated, and both of them with an important branch of virtue—thrift. "That's a lot of dough," he said.

"No, it isn't," said Diane. "It's peanuts."

"I'll see about it," said Barry. "Let you know, huh?"

"You do that."

He came closer, a step at a time, so that presently he was standing over her, and his body, when the ship rolled slightly, touched her shoulder. She suddenly realized that he was tremendously keyed up, triggered for something which, for all the tough talk and the show-off manner, he still knew nothing about. But the message was there; when the time came, it was going to be just like the book said. She put out her hand, holding him off with a very real sense of excitement.

"Down, boy," she said. "Take it easy. I'll see you when you've got the money."

"But when I have it," he insisted, "it'll be O.K.?"

"Yes. It'll be O.K. . . . How old are you, Barry?"

"Nearly nineteen."

"Good for you."

"I'll make it one-hundred-fifty," said Walham. "Not a red cent more."

"The trouble with you," said Diane, "is that you're mean."

"Of course I'm mean! That's why I'm rich." He sounded pleased.

"Well, you're not going to be mean with me. Four hundred—" (she had scaled it down progressively, just for the fun of bargaining) "—is my last and final word. Take it or leave it."

"I got an advance on my allowance," said Barry.

"How much?"

"A lousy fifty." He studied her face briefly. "Still no good, huh?"

"No."

"I'll get some more, though. Don't you change your mind, will you?"

"A bargain is a bargain," said Diane.

"But it's twice my whole allocation for the trip," said Walham, desperately.

"Well, you're going to blow it all in one."

"Three hundred dollars."

"No."

"Aw, come on. Give a little!"

"No."

"I've got a camera," said Barry. "Cost over a hundred bucks. How about that?"

"I don't want a camera," said Diane. "Cameras are for other people."

"It's a darned good one."

"You know, like the old joke. No Leica."

"O.K." He sighed, not too despairingly. "Only thirty bucks more to go. It won't be long now."

"What's that kid hanging around all the time for?" demanded Walham.

"Maybe he loves me."

"Three hundred and fifty dollars. And that's the last word."

Diane shook her head, for the thousandth time. "We're not on the same wave-band. Why don't you give up?"

"When I go after a thing, I get it."

"I believe you," said Diane. "The trouble is, I operate the same way."

"What's a Mickey Mouse watch?" Barkway asked Brotherhood, the Captain's steward.

"Ask me another," said Brotherhood. "Why?"

"That blasted kid just offered to sell me one."

"All right," said Walham finally. He was in a very bad temper. "Four hundred. But it's plain robbery, let me tell you."

"Bunk," said Diane. "You're getting a bargain."

His eyes gleamed. It was his only prospect of making a profit. "It had better be."

"Congratulations," said Diane to Barry Greenfield. They had really become great friends during the past few days. "I hope it wasn't too much trouble."

"Oh, forget it!" answered Barry. "That's a deal, then?"

"Sure thing."

"When?"

"Now, if you like."

"Thirty-one years at sea," said Barkway. "And I thought I'd seen everything."

Suddenly, everyone started to say: "You know, I believe Barry Greenfield is actually improving."

4

"A very healthy situation," mumbled the Professor, indistinctly. It was clear that the phrase could not be applied to himself. He had a nine p.m. pallor and a very shaky enunciation; awkwardly coordinated, he kept dropping his pencil and strewing cigarette ash down his lapels. Carl, looking at him, thought: It was a mistake to have this meeting so late in the evening; we should have made it before lunch—before breakfast, even. But in truth, it was difficult to catch the Professor in good shape, at any hour of the day. "Very healthy indeed," went on the Professor, wiping the saliva from his lips. "Has anyone anything else to add, before I make up the figures?"

Louis, lounging back in his chair, smiled unpleasantly. "Sure you can make them up, Prof?"

The Professor collected himself with an effort, and glared at his questioner: "What do you mean by that?"

"You know what I mean," said Louis. "Better let me do the adding up."

"I am perfectly capable—" began the Professor.

"O.K.," interrupted Carl irritably. "Let's not make a production out of it. You heard what he said, Louis. Have you got anything else to give him?"

"Sure I've got something," answered Louis. "Steady income, that's me." But he was not particularly proud of the statement, and it showed in the way he looked round the cabin, as if daring anyone to make any sort of comment. "Another five hundred for this week. That's fifteen hundred altogether."

The Professor wrote it down laboriously in his account-book, while they all watched him, and Kathy, sitting in her armchair outside the immediate circle, took a sip of her coffee and wondered if they would get through the meeting without some sort of explosion. Once again, she herself had nothing to contribute; everyone in the room was already aware of this; it was a question as to whether Carl could head off criticism of the fact. It was a question, indeed, whether he wanted to.

The Professor, stumbling over the simple words, asked: "Who was that from?"

"Mrs. Consolini," answered Louis.

Diane raised her head. "What's this Consolini deal?"

"You know what it is," said Louis, edgily. "Five hundred a week."

"How long for?"

"For ever."

Diane raised her eyebrows. "For that, she gets exclusive rights, huh? You're certainly playing it safe!"

"Just try and do better."

"I have done better," said Diane. She turned abruptly. "Take it down, Professor. Walham, four hundred dollars. Greenfield, two hundred."

"Two hundred?" queried Louis, on the alert."Two? What's the good of that? Hell, Greenfield's a rich man!"

"He's not that rich," answered Diane. She really could not correct the mistake. "Anyway, that was the best I could do with him. There've been a couple of others as well," she told the Professor. "Another three hundred altogether. Total, nine hundred." She reached into her handbag, and took out a roll of bills. "Here it is."

"Store prices," said Louis contemptuously. "Four different guys for nine hundred bucks. Is that what they mean by a quick turnover?"

"So what's wrong with store prices?" Diane came back at him. "Hell, I'mworkingl One of those guys—I can't even remember his name—was the quickest deal you ever saw in your life. I swear to God, I was back on the dance-floor in twenty minutes. Do you do any better than that?"

"I'm not in the taxi business," said Louis.

"You're damn' right, you're not," said Diane angrily. "Five hundred a week for lighting cigarettes and running errands! Don't you try and tell me who's earning their living. We might just open a can of worms."

Carl raised his hand. He should have intervened earlier, he knew, but he was not in an intervening mood. As a team, these two were doing well enough; he could not really quarrel with any of the figures, though it might be said that Diane was cutting down on the prices—operating almost legally, in fact—and that Louis had promoted himself into a curious and not particularly appropriate role. But certainly they were showing results, they were both staying ahead of the game.

The same could not be said for the rest of the team. As far as poker was concerned, he was in the doldrums, hanging on to his substantial winnings but not adding to them. It was not that he was playing badly, or holding worse cards, but simply that, as a school, they were finding out too much about each other's play, and learning caution in all circumstances. It was now a tighter game altogether, and thus a less profitable one.

After himself came the Professor, a licensed non-earner who was squandering every cent of his allowance at the bar; and after the Professor came Kathy, who had attained no category of any sort. Carl was not angry with her on that score. He had tried, and failed, to analyse exactly what he felt. Of course it was a disappointment, of course the rest of the team were carrying her; but perhaps, if it made her happy, he could afford to let it go on. It meant, at least, that she was not wandering into danger, that he need not feel he was sharing her with anyone. The other two, however, were entitled to resent it, and it was this that made him wary of applying pressure or discipline of any sort. He could hardly tell Diane that the time had come to step up the prices, when Kathy had no prices to show at all. . . . Now, commanding their silence, he said mildly:

"Let's take it easy. You've both done well. Professor, give us the figures."

"By all means, Carl." The Professor shuffled through his papers, focusing and refocusing his rheumy eyes. "You yourself are the winner, the very big winner." He smiled vaguely and ingratiatingly at Carl; he knew that he was not distinguishing himself, and that consequently he might need a friend. "You are fifteen thousand dollars ahead—fifteen thousand, one hundred, to be preshise— precise. Diane's total is now three thousand, nine hundred. That includes what she has just given me. Louis, three thousand,eight hundred—"

"Hey!" said Louis. "Hold on! How do you figure that?"

The Professor blinked at him. "You mean, you would like the figures broken down into their various categories?"

"I would like," said Louis, savagely copying his careful pronunciation, "to know how in hell you get that total. It's 'way out, by my reckoning."

"One moment." The Professor peered shortsightedly at his book, and at the small mound of papers lying by its side. He was not necessarily in difficulties, but it was not a good moment for close calculation. Today had been a long day, like all other days; by rights he should have been installed in the Tapestry Bar, digesting his dinner, talking at ease to a rapt audience who were enthralled by his views on literature, scholarship, the things of the mind. . . . "One moment, if you please. I certainly have the exact figures here— somewhere—" his voice tailed off as he scrabbled among his papers.

"Jesus," said Louis, "this is book-keeping?"

"Cash from Mrs. Consolini," said the Professor, at last surmounting his confusion, "fifteen hundred dollars. Cash from Mrs. Stewart-Bates, five hundred. Jewellery from Mrs. Stewart-Bates, eighteen hundred dollars. Total—" "Eighteen hundred?" broke in Louis, angrily. "How in hell do you figure that?"

"Fifty per cent of valuation," answered the Professor, suddenly more confident because he had fastened upon a phrase written down in his notebook. "That is what we are likely to get, when the jewellery is disposed of."

"Well, of course if you're going to louse up the figures like that—"

"He's not lousing up any figures," said Diane. "He's trying to work out exactly what you're worth. It's not likely to take him all day, either."

"Total for Louis, three thousand, eight hundred," said the Professor, unheeding. "Grand total for everyone, twenty-three thousand, eight hundred dollars. A most substantial—"

Carl broke in. "I make that twenty-Ztvo thousand, eight hundred, Professor. Just check again."

There was silence while the old man, breathing hard, fiddled his way through the addition again. Everyone in the room knew, without any reference to the figures, that he had made a mistake. It was, sadly and brutally, that sort of occasion, and Carl, the questioner, was that sort of man.

"Well, bless my soul," said the Professor at last. "I must have transposed—" he caught Carl's eye, and checked his explanation in mid-sentence. "You are quite right," he said humbly. "The grand total is twenty-two thousand, eight hundred."

"Not bad, not bad at all," said Louis. "Even if my stuffis marked down like it was a fire-sale." He looked at his watch. "Carl, if it's O.K. with you, I must run, right now. I have a date."

"You run," said Diane. "Or Mommy spank."

"Now cut that out!" said Louis furiously.

"You can both cut it out," said Carl, with an edge on his voice. "I haven't finished yet." He looked round them; when his eyes turned towards Kathy, they did not change expression. "We're half-way through the trip," he went on, "and we still haven't made the price of the tickets. I—"

"Very nearly," said the Professor, almost to himself.

|'What was that?"

"I beg your pardon, Carl," said the Professor, reacting to the sudden sharpness in the voice. "I must have been thinking aloud. But it's only fair to say that we havevery nearly covered our outlay. In fact, we are only some three thousand dollars short of the target."

"So?"

The Professor looked away, deeply embarrassed. "Pray proceed."

'As I was saying," said Carl, with cruel emphasis, "we still haven't made the price of the tickets. Of course, it's pretty well pure profit from now on, but we've got to make sure that the profit matches the effort, that it's worth all this planning. That means that we've got to take every single chance that's offered, and see that each prospect really pays off, for every cent we can squeeze out of it."

He paused, and his glance went slowly round the table.

"Don't look at me," said Diane cheekily. "I've been doing just that."

"I wasn't looking at anyone. ... I think, Louis, that you will probably have to break away from—from your present situation. Of course it's an agreeable arrangement, and in ordinary circumstances it would be ideal. But at the moment it does limit you. Don't you agree?"

"Hell," said Louis, sulkily, "I don't know about that. I worked hard enough to set it up. I work hard enough now, God knows. And after all, it's money coming in, every week. What's the matter with that?"

"There could be more money coming in. Perhaps with less time spent on earning it."

The suggestion echoed Louis's own thoughts very closely, but he was not yet ready to acknowledge them in public. "It needs thinking out—" he began.

"You heard what the man said," interrupted Diane. She was in a difficult mood; Louis's earlier remarks about "store prices" still rankled; she was not missing any chances at evening-up the score. "Don't think—do! Five hundred a week for playing footsie with Grandma isn't work\ You want to get out and about, Junior. Use those rippling muscles, make with the body-urge. This isn't a soft-shoe routine."

"O.K., I'll figure something out," said Louis. The answer was addressed only to Carl; he ignored Diane as if she did not exist, as if her voice were inaudible against the continuous ship's noises. He looked at his watch again. "I guess that's it for me," he said. "I have to keep that date."

"He must have to punch a clock, or something," said Diane, looking after him as the cabin-door closed. "I wonder he's strong enough."

Carl glanced round the room, suppressing a sigh. The Professor, his task done, was already dozing off; his head nodded jerkily as it settled on his chest. Kathy, he knew, would not break her long silence; she had nothing to break it with, and in that lay the seeds of conflict—the conflict he knew was coming. He could sense it in Diane's manner, in her reaction to Louis, in the stubborn self-confidence that overlaid the pretty face. She had done well; they had all had to accept it. Now she was going to make some comparisons.

He wondered how she would begin, and he did not have long to wait.

Diane was lighting a cigarette, unhurried, perfectly sure of herself. She had no worries; worries were for people who didn't measure up, who fell down on the job, who perhaps thought they were a shade too good for the situation. All she wanted was a few straight answers.

"Look," she said finally, "there are a couple of things I just don't understand."

"Such as?" asked Carl. He pitched his tone midway between indifference and a polite show of attention. He did not want to give Diane any more latitude than was strictly necessary, but in all fairness she had earned her say. "What's on your mind?"

"The whole set-up." She turned slowly in her chair, so that she was face to face with Kathy. "For instance, is she in on this, or isn't she?"

It was Kathy who answered. "Of course I'm in on it," she said. "You know that perfectly well. I just haven't started yet. We've talked about that already."

"Sure we've talked about it," said Diane tartly. "We talked about it a fortnight ago. So what happened?"

"Nothing."

Diane waited for her to add to the answer, but no further word broke the silence. Annoyed, she said:

"Nothing? What's that mean, for God's sake? Here am I, working like a blonde in a nigger whore-house, and you donothing! What sort of a deal is that? Have I got to finish the trip with round heels, just because you're too lazy to pitch in?"

Carl said: "That has nothing to do with you, Diane. I make the rules, and I'm the only one who has to be satisfied."

Diane eyed him. "Are you satisfied?"

"Yes."

"Lucky you! Well, I'm not." Her voice suddenly changed, to a strident malevolence. "What sort of a deal is this, Carl?" she repeated. "You're working, I'm working, even Louis is working. The Prof—" she looked at the ancient nodding figure, "—well, at least he does the chores and keeps the books up to date. But Kathy.... This was meant to be a team, remember? No wonder we haven't made the price of the tickets, when all she does is sit around reading books and getting herself a tan. If that is all she does!"

"What's that meant to mean?" asked Kathy, in the silence that followed.

"Take it whichever way you choose," said Diane, with spiteful carelessness. "You may not be bringing in any money, but you're certainly keeping that kid officer happy!"

"I haven't even seen—" began Kathy impetuously, and then broke off. To identify was to acknowledge; toknow that Diane was referring to Tim Mansell meant that Tim Mansell must be figuring actively on the scene. He did not do so. No one figured on the scene. There was no scene. ... On an impulse she got up, and stretched, and said curtly:

"I think this has gone on long enough."

"You can say that again! In fact—"

"All right, Diane," interrupted Carl. "You've spoken your piece. Now let's leave it."

"But is she going to get to work?" demanded Diane belligerently. "Because if not—"

"If not, what?" asked Carl.

"Well, hell, I'd like to take a rest myself!"

"No one's going to take a rest."

"Well, that'll be a nice change." Rising, Diane looked across at Kathy. "I've got nothing against you personally, honey," she said, on a slightly conciliatory note. "I just want to know where we all stand."

"Well, you know now."

"O.K." The brief overture evaporated; if Kathy would not meet it, Diane could switch her mood back again just as easily. "But you can't expect me to carry the load for both of us, indefinitely. There was nothing in the contract about Carl playing favourites. Which means that you and I are doing exactly the same job. Which means that you've got nearly four thousand bucks to catch up. Let's see you do it."

The slam of the cabin-door behind her woke the Professor momentarily, and he peered round him, with cautious interest. But there seemed, regrettably, to be some sort of crisis in the air; it was not a climate for tired old men who might themselves be in disgrace. He shut his eyes again; it was his only defence measure. There was a long silence, broken only by the Professor's snuffling as he dozed off once more.

Kathy looked at Carl's frowning face. "Am I making it difficult for you, Carl?"

"A little."

"Or a lot?" "A lot, I suppose."

"I must stop, then. What do you really want me to do?"

He made up his mind, between the question and the answer. "Work," he answered briefly. "Diane's got a point, you know. How do you fill in your time?"

She shrugged. "Doing nothing. I'll admit it. But I am there for you."

"I think you'll have to improve on that." There was a shade of annoyance in his tone, perhaps masking something else. She might be "there for him", but in fact they had not made love, nor even come near to it, for a long time, and they were both aware of the fact. "Tell me, what was that crack of Diane's about the kid officer?"

"Just Diane."

"Sure?"

"Oh, come, Carl!" she said irritably. "You know me better than that."

In plays, thought Carl, that was the point where the hero put on a meaningful, middle-distance look, and answered: "I wonder if I do. . . ." But he wasn't in that sort of mood. Hedid know her well, and it was ridiculous that they should have scenes like this. He answered, instead:

"We'll be in Rio tomorrow. You'd better start working something out."

"If that's the way you really want it."

"Yes. I do."

"All right. I'll start now."

5

"I still maintain," said Sir Hubert Beckwith, in that clipped British accent which reminded Kathy of the film version of Little Lord Fauntleroy, "that as a nation we have a valuable contribution to make. In fact, quite definitely! The world," said Sir Hubert, slipping an unassuming thumb under the back of her dress as they danced, "will be in debt to the English as long as quality and integrity are held in their proper esteem. That has always been our strong point, as you know." The thumb began to explore the small of her back, conveying a discreet yet perceptible message. "We may no longer be rich," said Sir Hubert, "but we have flawless taste, and we have influence. It would be a great mistake to forget either of them."

They were circling the small twilight dance-floor of Sacha's on Copacabana Beach, after a day's determined sight-seeing all over Rio de Janeiro, ranging from the superb outlook of Sugar Loaf Mountain to a perfectly horrible black-bean lunch in one of the tourist-trap cafes. The rest of their party of six were sitting it out at one of the wall-tables; here and there in the room were other passengers from the Alcestis, eating Fish Porridge and drinking "Brahma Extra" beer in accordance with the directive in the ship's daily bulletin. Nearer the dance-floor, Kathy had observed, was a table of about a dozen of their officers, presided over by the Captain. Tim Mansell was among them, slightly flushed, audibly argumentative. She had smiled at him, but he had failed to smile back. His table included old Mr. Simms's ex-nurse, a girl from the ship's hairdressers, and one of the two female junior pursers. To hell with him, she thought.

She and Carl were there as part of the recurrent entertainment protocol, which operated in every port they touched. This time it was the Tillotsons' party; they had invited the Beckwiths because they owed them a night out from as long ago as Port of Spain, and they had invited Carl and herself because Carl, as a fellow poker player, seemed to be Mr. Tillotson's natural companion on board. Whether the latter had any other reason for the invitation, had not yet become apparent. She herself liked Sacha's very much; it had the right combination of luxury, semi-darkness, good music, and a whopping cover-charge which marked all the best night-clubs in all the best countries.

If there were things included in it which she did not relish—such as Sir Hubert Beckwith's thumb, and his unassailable self-conceit— they still did not obtrude too much. She would dispose of them, because (like it or not) she was involved in that sort of business; and she and Carl, together and separately, were strong enough (like Edgar the barman) to assimilate everyone else's problems and still do a day's work. Tonight, Carl would deal with Lady Beckwith, whose preoccupations were emeralds and status, and with Mrs. Tillotson, beset by homesickness involving her grandchildren. For herself, Beckwith boiled down to no more than a thumb massaging her spine, and Tillotson (so far) to a minute exploratory flicker of the eye.

Ranging farther afield, if Tim Mansell were too sad or angry to return her smile, it only meant that he was not measuring up to his own particular problems, which involved, presumably, that stupid bitch of a nurse now toppling over into his lap.

Perhaps, thought Kathy, she was not really in a good mood at all, in spite of Sacha's and the other delights of Rio. Perhaps she was in a lousy one. It was a question, now, as to who was going to pay for it.

"I cannot emphasize enough," said Sir Hubert, looming over her like a rubber lighthouse, "that dollars are not everything. I always remember some lecturer fellow in Boston once saying that life was now a synthesis of the three D's—dollars, dynamism, and destiny." His encircling hand achieved a really remarkable subcutaneous grip. "I may have got the actual details wrong, but the sense is certainly there. And some of us—some of us—still prefer destiny."

"Gentlemen," said Captain Harmer, who was in an expansive mood, "with a view to encouraging thrift among my officers, the next round is on me."

At this point of the voyage, the Captain was always relaxed and content; indeed, the officers' party at Sacha's was traditional, and at one point or another the Captain always made his benign comment about thrift. He was looking forward with satisfaction to the run from Rio to Cape Town; it promised him over three thousand miles of sea-time with never a sight of land, with only the lonely deeps of the South Atlantic under his keel. Eighteen thousand feet, twenty thousand feet—these were real sailor's soundings, worth celebrating.

His officers needed the party for a different reason. It was all very well for the Captain to feel at his best when they were farthest from land; but the passengers tended not to like it at all, and what the passengers didn't like, the officers, in the end, paid for. Rio was their chance to relax after the varied chores of the past six weeks; but it was also their preparation for the long haul, trackless and featureless, which lay ahead. The Cape Town run had many hazards, all of them man-made.

From Rio to Cape Town, people grew bored; feuds came to a head, complaints multiplied, everyone quarrelled. There was always a time, on any voyage, when any given passenger would make any given remark; this, for the present cruise, was it.Alcestis's only manslaughter to date—a heavy bottle through a light skull—had occurred on this section of the trip.

With no shore excursion to break the monotony, with nothing to look at save those dear familiar faces, this was where the passengers really started to wonder if they had thrown away their passage-money; and it was here, possibly, that the Alcestis could have done with a cruise-director—preferably a very funny one who could sing, dance, and juggle for twenty-four hours a day.

When his round of drinks was brought, the Captain raised his glass. In the murky, somewhat Latinized atmosphere of Sacha's, he was as trim and as English as a cold cut of beef.

"Gentlemen," he said. (They could always tell when the Captain was two or three drinks on the way; he started all his sentences with the word "gentlemen".) "Here's to a successful second half of the voyage."

They all drank; the Chief Engineer, the Purser, Tiptree-Jones, Blantyre; and farther down the table Beresford the apprentice, the girl from the hairdressers, Fleming the young engineer, Tim Mansell, Faith Bartlett who had been Mr. Simms's nurse, and the plain girl from the Purser's Office who was universally known as Good Old Joan. It was a mixed party, with expansive confidence at the top, a wary good behaviour in the middle, and unpredictable reactions at the lower levels. Mr. Cutler the Purser, for example, was in a genial story-telling mood; Tim Mansell, on the other hand, was sad, slightly tight, and resigned to a lifetime of lonely insignificance. It was he who, responding sotto voce to the Captain's toast, murmured:

"What was so successful about the first half?"

"Now don't be like that!" said Faith Bartlett, a wayward character who was demonstrably not like that at all. "Cheer up! Have fun! We're all going to South Africa. Remember?"

"I remember," answered Tim Mansell morosely. His eyes followed Kathy as she danced with Sir Hubert Beckwith. "What's the good of South Africa to me? I've been to South Africa. It's not going to make any difference."

"You could always get a soft shore job," said Fleming. "Cape Town agent for Myth Lines. A hundred pounds a month, and all the coloured girls you can eat."

"I think it's disgusting," declared Good Old Joan, with a shiver, "the way you men talk!" She lived, indeed, in a state of perpetual dismay; no personal hazards came her way, only second-hand accounts, filtering through the ship's grave-vine, of maidens overthrown, young men fleeing without their trousers, old men caught in the hard-won throes of carnal knowledge. "Why can't you be normal?"

"We are," said Beresford, an indubitably normal young man. "In fact, you're sitting at a table with the only normal characters on board." He nodded towards the Captain and his entourage; his voice dropped, theatrically. "All they do is talk about it. Wedo it!"

"I don't know what you mean," said Good Old Joan.

"Neither do I," said Faith Bartlett, with a different kind of authority. "No one's done it to me, I can promise you." She nudged Tim Mansell. "Did you hear that, Fourth?"

"Don't call me Fourth," said Tim.

"But everyone calls you Fourth."

"Not girls."

"What do girls call you?" asked Fleming, now speaking over his shoulder. He was busy on his long-term pursuit of the hair-dressing girl, an unclassifiable blonde called Estelle. Their knees were glued together, their hands intertwined like plaits, but she wore, even now, the same totally preoccupied look with which she dealt with finger-waves and incipient dandruff. Her husband was a Brooklyn detective, long estranged; she did not even like men, only hair problems and the small, minutely growing savings account which would one day give her independence. "What do girls call you?" asked Fleming again, dropping his free hand on to Estelle's thigh. "Just so as we know."

"Oh, cut it out!" said Tim Mansell irritably. "If you want to be funny, practise on somebody else."

"My goodness," said Good Old Joan. "You are in a bad way! Crossed in love? Is that it?"

"Of course he's crossed in love," said Faith Bartlett. Her roving, somewhat spiteful eyes rested for a moment on Kathy, as she swam past in the arms of Sir Hubert. "Your girl friend's doing all right for herself," she said, in a lower tone. "None of my business, and don't think I'm worrying. But if you really want to make good, you'd better hurry it up."

Kathy danced with Mr. Tillotson. She knew hardly anything about him, as a man, and he still gave little away. It was only a thought that she had had, buttressed by the briefest of indications, fed by tiny hints, by nudges of instinct. In the past weeks, they had sometimes mingled eyes; she had intercepted a stare, she had noticed a devious manoeuvre which placed him next to her at parties or at film shows. But even now, as he danced, he was not committing himself; the arm round her waist, though strong, was not a confessional arm, nor an intrusive one. He was either very shy, or he could not make up his mind, or he was resisting temptation for severe moral reasons, or else she had mistaken her man altogether. But she did not think so.

She liked him, as did everyone else on board. Gossip invariably tagged him as the richest man in the ship; but, save for a certain crisp command when he wanted attention, one would not have guessed it.

He had the small man's compact strength without the small man's cockiness; it seemed likely that he had got where he was by merit and luck, not by swindling or manipulation.

Kathy found it impossible to guess, except at a very crude level, why, at this stage of his life, Tillotson should have become vulnerable to physical urges and needs; it could not spring from any deep division between himself and his wife. Mrs. Tillotson was, by common consent, a darling; sweet-tempered, gently-spoken, a repository for everyone else's confidences and problems. The two of them seemed ideally suited, obviously happy; no hint of a quarrel, no sign of impatience or frustration, had ever become apparent. And yet, and yet . . . Kathy still had an absolute certainty that Tillotson wanted something from her; perhaps a brief excitement, a mere pleasurable spasm which would touch him not at all, perhaps something deeper and more fundamental—a reassurance, a flattering renewal of his youth.

There were men who, in middle age, appraised the years ahead against the years behind, and sought to prove that they could still kill a bottle, raise plenty of hell, lay any pretty girl they wanted to, just the way it used to be. . . . In men of quality, it was always a surprise. But it did happen.

Tillotson moved away from her, holding her at arm's length for a moment. His eyes below the crisp grey hair were quizzical, his firm mouth amused.

"Penny for them," he said.

Kathy smiled. "Oh, I was just thinking."

"I know that. You looked as if you were a million miles away."

"No, indeed. The exact opposite."

His eyebrows went up a fraction. "Thinking of me?"

She nodded. "Just that."

On the verge of saying something in answer, he changed his mind, and his expression grew non-committal again. He drew her gently towards him, but it was not an approach, simply a return to normal. She realized that, even in that modest moment of invitation, she had moved too fast. He was not ready yet, and he was not going to be rushed.

She made up her mind. Tillotson would keep, perhaps for ever. Sir Hubert now stood at the head of the menu.

Entertaining the top end of the officers' table, out of earshot of the impressionable young women lower down, Mr. Cutler the Purser was telling a story. He was a great story-teller; he had stories for every category and every sub-division of passenger; he had stories for his superiors, he had stories for stewards. He could always suit his company, whether it were official or polite or relaxed or bawdy. But he had a taste for what might be called shaggy-girl anecdotes, and he was indulging this now.

"There was this new draft of twenty Wrens," he said, straight-faced. "They were having a full-scale medical examination on a very cold day in naval barracks. They were kept on parade for an hour, stark naked, temperature of zero, very draughty. Then the door opened, and what do you think came out?"

His audience waited.

"Forty blue-tits," said Mr. Cutler.

He got his laugh, from the Chief Engineer and the others, even from the Captain, who, a puritan soul, had a vague feeling that such stories were bad for discipline. Tiptree-Jones laughed heartily as soon as he saw the Captain doing the same. Relaxing, they looked round them, enjoying Sacha's, and the cool dark beer, and the beat and sway of the music. They couldn't really afford such cushioned luxury, as the passengers could, but once in a while it seemed a permissible waste of money.

Mr. Cutler, glancing down the length of the table, said:

"Young Tim looks a bit under the weather."

Captain Harmer looked in the same direction. "So he does." He raised his voice: "Fourth!"

"Sir?" said Tim Mansell, swinging round.

"Cheer up," commanded the Captain. "Aren't you enjoying

yourself?"

"Yes, sir," answered Tim. "I'm enjoying myself very much."

"You don't look like it."

Blantyre, the Third Officer, who acted as a link between the top brass and the juniors, said: "It must be love, sir. Hopeless, unrequited love."

"Oh, cut it out," said Tim under his breath.

"Who is it, Fourth?" asked Tiptree-Jones. They all knew, but they were in the mood to play along with the joke. "Maybe we could help. Is it anyone we know?"

"ft isn't anyone," said Tim sulkily.

Kathy and Mr. Tillotson, circling the dance-floor, passed close by their table.

"Why don't you dance with her?" asked Blantyre, when she was out of earshot. "Give her a real treat."

"1 don't know what you mean."

"Perhaps she likes older men," Beresford chipped in. "I read in a magazine once—"

"You shut up!" said Tim savagely.

"/ like older men," announced Faith Bartlett. "And I like younger men. In fact, I like men, period."

"How can you say things like that?" demanded Good Old Joan, embarrassed. "You might as well say—well, I mean—" she broke off, floundering in shocked speculation.

Fleming squeezed the hair-dressing girl fondly, and inquired:

"Do you like men, darling?"

"I like men," said the hair-dressing girl, preoccupied as usual, "like I like enlarged pores."

"That's my girl," said Fleming.

The music ceased, with a flurry of bongo drums; Kathy put her hand lightly on Tillotson's arm as they left the dance-floor. She was looking lovely, thought Tim, watching her with hot and miserable eyes. The loveliest girl in the whole world. Hanging on to that old man's arm as if they were going to bed together. And the way she walked. . . . He turned away, in absolute unhappiness, and made a desperate effort to exorcize the moment. Glass in hand, he leant towards Faith Bartlett, until he was staring directly into her eyes.

"Now, nurse," he said, "tell me about your problem."

Kathy danced with Carl Wenstrom. They danced well together, from long practice; his tall body moved gracefully, and she followed him with instinctive pleasure. They stayed near the centre of the floor, withdrawn from the other couples and from the tables close to the edge. Carl spoke softly, with no change of expression, and she answered him in the same fashion.

"Bring me up to date," he said.

"It looks like Beckwith," she answered indifferently. "Tillotson's playing it very cagey. In fact, he might never get to the point. But Beckwith will."

"How do you know that?"

She shrugged. "Oh—you know. He's pressing ahead whenever he gets the chance. Busy fingers. He's a cold-blooded fish really, and scared to death as well, but I'm getting the message. And so is he."

"I am almost jealous," said Carl.

She dared not bring her body closer to his, but she squeezed his arm slightly. "You know you needn't be. You're worth ten of these dopes. But I've got to put out some sort of a welcome-mat, haven't I?"

"Undoubtedly." He looked down at her for a moment, enjoying the warm, creamy curve of her bosom above the pale green dress. "You're looking very lovely tonight, my darling. Do I see you later?"

"I hope so." They circled once before she spoke again. "It depends how long this thing takes to develop, and what happens."

"You think it will be tonight?"

"Maybe. I haven't worked things out. It might help if you kept old Lady Snootwith busy when we get back on board. Trouble is, she has him running errands the whole time."

"So what's the answer?"

The music was coming to a close. "I haven't worked things out," she said again. Her forehead was creased with a tiny frown. "Has Beckwith ever been in your cabin? Do you think he would remember the number?"

Carl shook his head. "No. He's had a drink in the sitting-room once or twice. But he wouldn't know which of the other rooms are yours and mine. Why?"

"Just an idea. I thought it might increase the pressure if I took him into your cabin, and then told him you were likely to come back any time."

"It's a possibility."

She nodded, as the music stopped and the dancers began to move back to their tables. "Yes. I'll probably try that. You'd better stay out of the way, or use my cabin, till I give you the word."

"O.K." As they walked back, he said: "I see yourother admirer isn't looking quite so sad now."

She glanced briefly at Tim Mansell. "Oh, him. . . . That nurse really is a menace, isn't she?"

"She makes me glad I am not ill," answered Carl. Coming towards their table, he added: "Ah, we have a visitor."

The Captain had joined them for a moment, greeting their table heartily and accepting a whisky and soda at Tillotson's invitation. His good humour was infectious; their group, which had not been notable for high spirits, soon grew cheerful and lively. But presently it was time to leave; the Alcestis would be sailing at first light, and they were due back on board not later than two o'clock. Tillotson, calling for their bill, frowned in mock dismay as he noted the total.

"Well, it's cheaper than playing poker," he remarked, "and that's about all you can say for it."

Captain Harmer nodded. "Ah yes, I heard you had a regular game going. Who's the big winner?"

Carl and Tillotson both answered: "He is," at the same moment, and then burst out laughing.

"You must be 'way ahead," said Tillotson.

"Perhaps a little," admitted Carl. "I haven't been keeping strict accounts. But I can feel you breathing down my neck most of the time."

"You play a heavy game?" asked Harmer.

"A moderate game," answered Carl. He smiled at the Captain; there was between them a mutual respect and liking which rose from small things, things heard and seen and reported at odd moments during the past six weeks. They faced each other as strong and competent men in their own chosen worlds. "We don't want to give the ship a bad name, do we?"

They were all preparing to move; Sir Hubert was collecting things for his wife—her stole, her cigarettes, her lighter which had fallen to the floor. But then, out of the corner of his eye, Carl noticed that Beckwith was hanging back, so that presently he was walking to the door beside Kathy. He could be heard to say, in well-bred tones whose nonchalance failed to conceal a hint of invitation:

"I must say I'm still pretty wide-awake. We might have a night-cap on board, what?"

Carl, motioning to the Captain to precede him, smiled inwardly. It sounded as though tonight would indeed be the night.

It had started, like all English love-making, as a series of merry jokes and timid ventures. How about a good-night drink, ha! ha! My wife seems to be busy, ha! ha! More cosy in your cabin, what? Ha! Ha! Let's put the lights out and enjoy the view, ha! ha! Perhaps we'll be more comfortable on the bed, ha! ha! ha! But from then on, helped by alcohol and judicious favours, Beckwith had gained courage and a certain crude insistence; and his last throw of the dice—"Better lock the door, what?"—had been made with hard-breathing authority. She had locked both doors, and pushed the key out of sight behind a pile of magazines. Then she turned, and in the light of the bedside lamp found that the action was about to be joined.

Sir Hubert Beckwith was discarding his trousers. Even this, he managed to do as if he were conferring nobility upon some female peasant. He had a monogram on his under-pants. The time had clearly come.

Kathy sat down on the bed, and said, in a very distinct voice: "What in hell are you doing?"

Sir Hubert started. Above the hum of the engines, and the creaking noises the Alcestis always made at sea, Kathy's words had rung out with electrifying clarity. He straightened up, a lanky and ridiculous figure in his striped under-pants, and said, in a nervous whisper:

"Sh! Not so loud, for heaven's sake! Someone will hear."

"I should damn well hope so!" said Kathy, with the same clarity and force. "What do you think this is? The locker-room at the Y?"

Irresolute, not equipped to argue from so weak a position, he said: "But I thought . . . Good heavens, we were just talking about it! I mean, not in so many words, but ... I thought when you kissed me—"

"Have you gone completely nuts? I asked you down for a drink, and you suddenly start undressing! What do you think you're going to do?"

It was sufficiently clear what Sir Hubert had thought he was going to do, and equally clear that he could quickly lose his appetite for it. Already he had picked his trousers up, with a kind of sulky grandeur, and was drawing them on again. He must, thought Kathy, have felt himself excessively vulnerable, if it had taken so little to unnerve him; fear of scandal, warring briefly with desire, had overrun the position and dictated a most prompt retreat. It was worth remembering. . . . Adjusting his scarlet braces, he said, in tones of majestic reproof:

"You seem to have changed your mind. Quite extraordinary!'*'

Kathy waited. Her disgust at the situation was almost dispelled! by its humour; it was all she could do not to burst out laughing in his face. Finally, when he was fully dressed again, and preparing; aloofly to leave, she said:

"Not quite so fast. Do you think you can get away with this?/ Wait till my stepfather hears about it!"

"I hope," said Sir Hubert, in perceptible alarm, "that you will not be silly enough to tell him."

"Tell him?" Kathy forced a full measure of indignation into her voice. "I won't need to tell him! He'll find out, soon enough! And so will your wife."

Sir Hubert started again, more violently, as if a painful nerve had been touched. It was the first time he had reacted naturally, without reserve or hauteur; both seemed to be melting away. "My wife has nothing whatever to do with this," he said, in a thoroughly uncertain voice.

"Not yet, she hasn't," answered Kathy. "She's up on the bridge with my stepfather and some of the others, seeing the sunrise. You know that, darn well." Her voice took on a crisp inflexion. "But soon it'll be light, and then they'll all come down."

"Well?" But he knew the answer already.

"Your wife will come looking for you, And my stepfather will find us here, with the door locked."

"But nothing's happened."

"Try and tell him that!"

"Why should he come here, anyway?"

"This is his cabin."

Sir Hubert, who was obviously not at his best, took a few moments to work the situation out. But when it hit him, it was a mortal wound.

"My God!" he said. "You planned this whole thing."

"Yes."

"What is it you want?"

"Money."

Sir Hubert swallowed, as if he had something very unusual to admit. Finally he admitted it. "I haven't any."

"Don't give me that," said Kathy crudely. "You can't have come on a cruise like this, and not have money. Look at those cuff-links. Look at that cigarette-case. You've got plenty! Give some to me."

"I mean, I never carry any money with me."

"Then you'd better leave me the links and the case, while you go and get some." As he advanced a step towards her, she said: "Don't try anything rough, or I'll start ringing bells and screaming the place down."

"Let me out of here," said Sir Hubert stoutly. But his front was crumbling from moment to moment; there was now a wildness in his look which was a long way from the noble suavity which had been his most detested hall-mark. He turned, and tried the doorknob. "Where's the key? Give me the key."

"Give me the money," she countered, "and you'll get the key. You won't get it otherwise!"

"It's my word against yours!" His voice had sharpened a full octave of hysteria.

"Maybe. But do you really want my stepfather knocking on that door? What are you going to say to him? What are you going to tell your wife? The door locked itself? You were afraid of burglars? You'd better pay up, and damn' quickly!"

Sir Hubert stood looking at her for a full half-minute, the sweat gleaming dull on his forehead. It was clear that he was beginning to be terrified; the idea of his wife finding him in the cabin, or even hearing about it afterwards, must have seemed in the realm of irretrievable disaster. He tried the door again, with furtive, futile energy; the fact that it was still locked seemed to push him over the edge of self-control. Turning away, he collapsed into a chair, and covered his face with his hands. From there, he mumbled indistinctly:

"I haven't any money. It's all my wife's."

They were getting on, thought Kathy; he had made the big admission, breaching the dyke of his enormous self-esteem, and soon he would

204

make others as well. The important thing was to keep him on the run.

"Of course it's all your wife's," she answered roughly. "Who do you think you've been fooling? Everyone in the ship knows you're a full-time phoney! But you can still get some money. From her. Can't you?"

Sir Hubert would no longer look at her. By the ebbing of alcohol, by the terror of discovery, he was reduced to a small ashamed voice in a collapsing world. "She keeps me very short," he said finally. "A sort of allowance. I can't possibly ask for more. I have to account for every penny of it, as it is." After a moment he added: "You can't imagine what it's like."

Kathy stared at him. If he was acting, it was a very good act; but she knew that he was telling the truth. Only a desperate fear would have made him admit such pitiful facts. She hardened her heart, determined to make some advantage out of it.

"O.K., have it your own way. We'll just stay here till something happens. I'm not giving you the key until you pay, that's for sure."

"But I can't pay." His voice was now dull, as if many shameful blows were falling on him at the same time. "I haven't any money left. Literally none at all."

"How much does she give you?" asked Kathy curiously.

"It varies with—with how she feels. Last week it was ten dollars."

Between pity and disgust, she was almost ready to write the whole thing off, and let him go. She was using a lever against a vacuum; there was nothing to be gained from this insect of a man. . . . But before she could make up her mind, Beckwith was speaking again; the words suddenly began to pour out, and though his head was still bowed and he was talking to the floor, she knew that he was aiming directly at her heart, out of his terrible need.

It was as if he could not explain fast enough, nor dig deep enough for the degrading truth; it was as if he had not spoken this truth, nor even glanced secretly in its direction, for as long as he could remember. She sat down, compelled to let the torrent of words swamp her.

"You don't know what it's like, being dependent on a woman like that." His voice was a gabble, but a clear gabble none the less. "She doesn't let me forget it for a single second. ... It was all right at the beginning, but that was twelve years ago. I was thirty-six. . . . She gave me everything when we were first married; clothes, cars, horses, a wonderful house, jewellery, travel. The title was new to her, and she loved it, and she loved me. . . . Then it all changed, I don't know why. She saw that I'd got used to all the luxuries, all the money, and that I couldn't do without them, and she started to ration me. . . . Then she began making a fool of me in public—no, not quite making a fool of me, but using me to run endless ridiculous errands. There was one embassy party in London when I had to stand beside her with an ashtray. Oh God!" he exclaimed suddenly, as if he could stand the contemplation no longer, "give me a drink, for Christ's sake!"

She rose, without a word, and poured out some brandy, and gave it to him. The recital was disgusting, but beyond disgust was an appalled sense of pity; Beckwith was all the bad words—sponger, parasite, fake—but he was reduced now to a simpler emblem— total defeat. The haughty façade of the years, the self-deception; the armour of arrogance, all were melting away. She had a frightening suspicion that, when all was gone, there might not even be a man left.

He gulped his drink, raising his head only a fraction to do so. "You don't know what it's like," he said again. "Fetching things, finding things she's lost, buying things and bringing back the change. . . . Being sent on errands. Being interrupted, told to keep quiet. And making love to order. Getting ten dollars when she was pleased.... Once we were in Paris, and I lost a watch she'd given me, and she wouldn't believe I'd lost it, she said I'd sold it and kept the money, and she took away all my clothes and called the police. They must have thought we were both crazy. . . ." He raised his head at last; there were tears glistening in his eyes. "Let me go," he said suddenly, humbly. "I've nothing to give you. You can see that, can't you?"

She could indeed see it, and she was prepared to let him go; but remembering his manner of the past, his purse-proud, title-proud disdain, she could not control her wish to hurt. He was going to get off easily, but not as easily as that.

"Sure you can go," she said contemptuously. "Who wants you?"

"Thank you," he said, with the same humility, and stood up, his shoulders slack.

"Are you really a man?"

"I—I don't know."

Suddenly the revenge was nothing. In an absurd reversal of roles, she felt herself softening, to the point where she wanted to build him up again, to restore something of manhood. Anything was better than this cringing spaniel, in naked fear of losing his meal-ticket.

"Why not get out of it altogether?" she asked.

"How do you mean?" "Leave her. Beat it. Find some work. Do anything. You must have been something before. Be it again."

"I was nothing before." She felt that she was now listening to an entirely natural man, stripped of all the pretence, all the shoddy gilding. "I never had any money. Just the title. There were three lots of death-duties in ten years. . . . This is all I can do."

"Why?"

"I just know it is."

It was as she had suspected and feared; the natural man was nothing, just as the fake man was nothing. She took the key from behind the magazines, and unlocked the door. Then she stood aside.

"Beat it," she said.

Awkwardly he advanced. "Thank you very much. I'm sorry about the misunderstanding."

"There wasn't any misunderstanding."

"Good night, then."

She did not answer, and when she was alone she stood for a long time in thought, staring at the closed door. Then she began to laugh, silently at first, and then aloud. So much for the first attempt at piracy. She thought of her accounting at the next meeting. "Sir Hubert Beckwith—Nothing." Most accurate. . . . She was still laughing when Carl came in, but the laughter was nearer to tears— tears for her own failure, tears for all the failures in the world. She was overwrought by the degrading tug-of-war; in such a contest, who was the victor, who the vanquished?

"What happened?" asked Carl, watching her with some concern. "I just came down—I was next door—I heard him go. How much did he give you?"

"Not a dollar, not a cent." And as he looked puzzled: "You know those Christmas-present ads—'For the man who has everything'?" Her voice began to shake uncontrollably. "There should be another line of goods, for the man who has nothing. Beckwith would be a real candidate."

"Are you all right, Kathy?"

"Oh yes, I'm wonderful!" Suddenly she threw herself on the bed, and turned her face away; it seemed the most pitiable and evil moment of her life. "I'm wonderful," she repeated, her eyes now scalding. "But only by comparison."

6

East by south from Rio, the Alcestis ploughed her brave and steady furrow across the South Atlantic, traversing as quickly as possible the long haul to Cape Town. The Captain, personally, was in no hurry; he would have preferred to stay in these indulgent latitudes for ever, with only the dolphins and the flying-fish for company, and two thousand fathoms of blue water to play with. But he had other responsibilities; chiefly, to see that his passengers crossed three thousand miles of ocean, and made their landfall in South Africa, without coming to blows or sending priority cables ahead for plane reservations to New York. Since, at their best speed of fifteen knots, the journey could not take less than nine days, their best speed it had to be, to minimize the chances of disaster. In the meantime, his officers put forth prodigious efforts to keep the customers amused.

Competitions multiplied, games were stepped up; there was a succession of tournaments—ping-pong, deck-tennis, shuffle-board, swimming, diving, horse-racing—to take the main edge off the day; and in the evenings, fancy-dress dances, film shows, bingo sessions, and gala dinners varied the monotony of a landless passage. Above all, the passengers were encouraged, by example and by stealthy hint, to give parties themselves. The fact that the same people came *o all of them could not be helped, and was, perforce, taken for granted.

The Zuccos gave a "historical characters" costume-party; there were eight Napoleons, eleven Helens of Troy, and endless bickering about the prizes. The Bancrofts gave a champagne party, and the Gersons, not to be outdone, an oyster supper. Carl gave a smaller party in his suite; it was amusing for the entirely private reason that the majority of their guests were connected by adultery. The Beddingtons gave a moonlight dance, virtually in pitch darkness, up on the boat-deck; it was in such circumstances, people said unkindly, that Bernice Beddington looked at her best. Mr. Walham, in spite of the broadest encouragement, failed to give a party; Mrs. van Dooren gave one, and didn't even show up.

But there were quarrels none the less; feuds sprang up, remarks were taken the wrong way, carelessly passed drinks seemed, later, to have been spilt on purpose. There was one glorious row, which reached as far as the Captain's cabin—and stopped there—when Mrs. Kincaid told a select circle of friends, not more than ten or twelve, that the blonde girl who called herself Mrs. Burrell had better get married fast, because she was undoubtedly pregnant; whereupon Mr. Burrell, a proud husband in fact and a prouder father in embryo, countered with the comment that he would sue the Kincaids for a million dollars—the exact amount, he affirmed, missing from the public treasury in the Kincaids' home-town. (Captain Harmer dealt with this affair so sternly and scathingly that the contestants, cowed, came together and swore eternal enmity .—towards him.) But there was no row to match the row which developed after the ship's concert. That, as Mrs. van Dooren put it, was a real honey. She added her own obscure superlative; it had, she said, everything but pink lemonade.

The programme for the ship's concert developed somewhat bashfully at first, but during the last forty-eight hours before the performance the idea caught on, and finally everyone wanted to get into the act. The task, which fell to Tiptree-Jones, of auditioning the available talent and deciding which would qualify and which must be declined, was a formidable one; it was safe to say that by the time the curtain went up, almost the entire audience was composed of rejected performers who were not in the mood to admire anyone else's talents.

Tiptree-Jones himself led off the show with a comedy conjuring routine. It was the sort of thing he was good at; but too many of the audience, denied by this very man the chance to tap-dance or sing "Asleep in the Deep", buttoned up their smiles and sat on their hands. A flop. Nurse Bartlett sang songs from Oklahoma and South Pacific, but as a pretty girl she was unpopular with those who mainly moulded public opinion, and as a nurse she was notorious for having lost a patient, no doubt through neglect. Another flop. Two stewards then embarked on a cross-talk act; it was funny if one could appreciate English music-hall humour, and unravel a Liverpool accent as well, but not otherwise. The applause was generous rather than appreciative. It was now the turn of Mr. Zucco, who, looking like Buster Keaton and sounding like the public image of Sam Goldwyn, told a succession of funny stories. They were not at all funny; and he ended with a Jewish dialect anecdote so unmistakably crude that the audience gasped, and his wife's cheerful laugh rang out over acres of shocked silence. A flop, indeed.

That left Mr. Hartmann, one of the poker players, who juggled with ping-pong balls and expendable glassware; Jack Gerson, who was far from sober and did impressions, appallingly similar, of Bing Crosby, Lionel Barrymore, and James Stewart; and two more stewards, who went through a slow-motion wrestling routine copied from an early film of Mickey Rooney. The audience, restive, began to talk out loud, complaining of favouritism and ineptitude. The husbands and wives of the performers clapped energetically, glaring round them. Tiptree-Jones, harassed beneath his easy social manner and aware of the Captain's critical eye from the front row of chairs, stepped forward and announced: "We come now to our final turn— last but not least, to coin a phrase—Mrs. Burkhart, soprano."

Mrs. Burkhart was not a soprano, but she was everything else; it was indeed unfortunate that Tiptree-Jones had used the expression "last but not least", which scored an immediate laugh as soon as she stepped on to the stage. For Mrs. Burkhart was a huge woman, on whose monumental bosom the music-sheet quivered like a newspaper caught on a mountain ledge. The piano rattled, the very floor-boards shook, as she took up a stance like a prize-fighter; then she launched forth, at full blast, her giant arms flexed, her enormous diaphragm rising and falling like some vast, ruined souffle, into her song.

It was unfortunate, again, that the song she had chosen was "The Lass with the Delicate Air". Someone snickered audibly as the first words recalled the song's title; the laughter thickened and spread as the absurd phrases, appropriate only to some shy wood-nymph weighing not more than ninety-five pounds, came booming forth from this heroic amplifier. There were angry shushing noises, but not enough to overcome the laughter, which had gained a determined, cruel hold. Mrs. Burkhart only survived two verses; increasingly aware of her audience, angry with the pianist whose instrument was no match for her own, she stumbled over the girlish trill which went with the word "delicate", and came to a ragged stop. The laughter was a long time subsiding; but to match it there was in the audience another faction, grim-faced, scandalized, which now called for order and shouted "Encore!"

There could be no encore. Mrs. Burkhart swept from the stage, followed by the pianist, running to keep up with her; while from the second row of the audience a furious red-faced man—Mr. Burkhart—rose like a thunder-cloud and strode off in the direction of the Purser's office.

That was a row which was a long time dying, capping as it did an evening which had inspired plenty of bad feeling already. All over the ship argument broke out like an endemic rash; cabin-doors were slammed, drinks refused, lips pursed, angry charges made. The number of people who were not on speaking terms next morning exceeded all previous figures. But the Captain, mulling it over with his First Officer afterwards, was not too perturbed. Rows were standard practice at this stage of the voyage; they rarely got by the ship's concert without some furious tribal outbreak. The Alcestis, however, was making good progress, under the arching sky and benign glow of the Southern Cross; and there was a report of bad weather, about five hundred miles ahead, directly in their path. That was nicely calculated to take the mickey out of everyone.

Louis Scapelli had finally had enough of it. More than enough. It had been sufficiently annoying, though tolerable, to be at Mrs. Consolini's beck and call on a twenty-four-hour basis; at least the manly incidents of the night made up for the bell-hop aspects of the day, at least he was earning part of his money honestly. But lately he had noticed a change; the fetching and carrying had been stepped up, while there appeared to be little or no call for any more significant activity. As a matter of fact she was bored with it, she told him coolly, when he eventually brought the subject up, one afternoon in her cabin. It wasn't all that important; with him, it never had been. Meanwhile, she wanted to give a party, tomorrow night. About sixteen people; the list was on her desk. Would he fix it, please? Last time, there hadn't been nearly enough caviar among the canapes. He really ought to watch out for that—the ship was full of it, it was just slackness on the part of the stewards. And she had left her library book somewhere. She would like it now.

Louis finally exploded. "What do you want to go and leave your stuff around for? Do you think I've nothing better to do than— than—"

She eyed him coldly. "Than what?"

He stared back at her, bad-tempered, ready for a collision. "Than run around after you like this?"

"No."

"What do you mean, no?"

"I mean, you haven't anything better to do. Not as long as I'm paying the shot. You'll do what I want, and if it's my book I want, you'll go get it."

"Get it yourself," he said angrily. "I'm sick of this."

"Very big and bold." Her voice was sarcastic. Momentarily he wondered if she were staging a show-down on purpose; if so, he was more than ready for it. "But I don't pay you five hundred a week to be sick of anything. Go get that book for me, and then come back and fix up about the party. I'll want fresh flowers for it, too."

"No." He should have let the bald refusal stand by itself; but because she had always held the commanding position, had called the tune for so long, he found himself adding, lamely: "I'm tired. Just leave me alone, will you?"

But she was not going to take any excuses. It was the first time he had shown any sign of rebellion, and, one way or the other, it was going to be the last. Their relationship had now continued for nearly a month; it had been fun at the beginning, as all aspects of command were fun; but the fun ceased as soon as the command was challenged. She didn't want a contest of wills; she wanted a captive. And captives didn't argue.

"You heard what 1 said, Scapelli," she answered brusquely. "Do 1 have to tell you twice?"

He remained staring at her in silence. He had had enough, certainly, but now that the moment of crisis was at hand, he was not quite determined enough to make the break himself. Let her be the executioner, he thought, and himself the injured party. That way, he would be left with a grudge, which was the way he always preferred it.

"Scapelli—" she began again.

"Don't call me Scapelli!" he snapped. "My name's Louis. Use it."

"Scapelli," she repeated, as if he had not spoken—and instinctively he knew who would be the next character to appear. Her husband —the man always at hand to settle any arguments. "My husband always said that—"

"To hell with your husband!" he answered. "I'm sick of hearing about him. I don't believe he ever did anything worth a damn. He's dead anyway. Maybe he's better off, at that."

She looked at him levelly. "Now we're getting at the truth. It sounds as though you want out."

"1 want out of this sort of thing." He swept his hand around the cabin, which in its untidy luxury seemed to reflect all the things about her he most disliked. "Doing the chores for you—I've had enough of it!"

But she did not intend to allow so quick a break; the dismissal was to be staged in her own good time. "Who's next on your list, then?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know darn well what I mean. You'll be losing five hundred dollars a week. You must have thought up another prospect, before you started acting so tough. Who's it going to be?" She smiled unpleasantly. "Maybe it's a pity Grace Stewart-Bates got away. People like her don't grow on trees."

It was not a pity, of course; it was the best thing that could have happened. Mrs. Stewart-Bates had left the ship at Rio, alleging ill-health; but before she had cut her losses, there had been, for Louis, a very uncomfortable period during which she appeared to be haunting him. He had run into her at every corner, every party, every shore excursion; there were times when the entire passenger-list seemed to have been reduced to a single pair of sad, accusing eyes, staring at himself and Belle Consolini as if the two of them were jointly responsible for all the misery in the world.

He had not felt threatened by it—he knew she would never dare confess what had happened—but it had been discomforting all the same. It was the more discomforting because the same thing did not seem to be happening to Diane, who had just as much on her conscience, if not more. She appeared to feel no embarrassment over the fact that she had to mingle with yesterday's victims; indeed, neither Bancroft nor Gerson, for example, showed any signs of resentment, and she could be seen having drinks with them, separately or together, at any hour of the day. Maybe they were coming back for more. . . . But he was not coming back for more; not from Mrs. Stewart-Bates, not from this tough old bitch who treated him like dirt. Money was money, but, as Carl had pointed out, there were better ways of earning it.

"Don't you bother about that," he answered her roughly. "I'll get by, without any help from you."

But she still wanted to slow it down, to enjoy the victory on her own terms.

"What'll you bet? I'll give you any odds you'll be back here in a week, looking for a free hand-out. I know your kind. My husband always said—"

"Oh Christ, not him again!" He faced her squarely at last. "Look, let's pack this thing up. You don't want me, I don't want you. I'm sick of running errands, and you don't need me in any other way."

"You're no good in any other way," she interrupted.

"O.K., O.K." He was prepared to let it go. "Let's not tangle over who's alive and who's dead."

"Are you saying I'm dead?" She was suddenly furious; her eyes were snapping fire as she looked at him. "By God, I've picked up better men than you off Skid Row!"

"I wouldn't doubt it."

She began to swear, at that. It was no ordinary cursing; she dredged the gutter for her language, and flung it at him in great heaps of abuse, handfuls at a time. Something had caught her on the raw. Perhaps it was a sexual thing, perhaps it was the fact that the dismissal was turning out to be mutual; but whatever the trigger, the weapon spat fire. He took the tongue-lashing without reprisal, without really listening attentively; if it made her happy, it was no skin off his nose. When she paused for breath, he said: "Good for you," as if praising a child's best efforts, and turned to leave the cabin.

Opening the door, he caught her glance inadvertently, and found there the most baleful expression he had ever encountered. As he went down the corridor towards his own cabin, he suddenly realized that in the last fifteen minutes he had made an implacable enemy.

Mr. Kincaid, who had the professional politician's trick of being able to button-hole anyone in two easy moves, cornered Carl after dinner in the smoking-room. In evening dress, Kincaid looked at his most senatorial; across the ruffled cream shirt a broad black ribbon wandered, anchored to his eye-glasses which themselves set off the bushy white mane of hair. But behind the eye-glasses, his blue eyes were singularly alert, and his manner was very far from vague.

"What's the matter with the old guy?" he asked Carl, without preamble.

"Old guy?" Carl, contentedly nursing a small brandy which would last him out until he joined the poker game, an hour later, looked at Kincaid with only moderate interest. Even if he had wished to be interrupted, he would not have chosen this corrupt old weasel as a companion.

"You know—the Professor."

From the first, everyone on board had always called him the Professor; Carl was probably the only one who knew and remembered his proper name.

"What about the Professor?"

Kincaid said: "Let me top up that drink for you," snapped his fingers at the attendant steward, and said: "Two brandies, son." Then he turned back to Carl. "He was talking a hell of a lot of crap to me before dinner, that's all. Half the time I couldn't make sense out of it."

Carl smiled, not encouragingly. "Vague reminiscence is the privilege of age."

"Maybe, maybe. Only this wasn't reminiscing."

"What was it, then?"

"God knows. More like the stuff you hear on some egg-head lecture-circuit. I tell you, he was 'way out! 'Course, no one minds him being fried all the time—let's face it, everyone on board gets plastered, most days—but he certainly talks queer when he lets go."

"How do you mean, queer?"

"Oh, I don't mean queer." Kincaid grinned, with wolfish humour. "Guess he's too old for that sort of stuff." He signed the bar-chit which the steward offered him, and took a noisy gulp at his brandy.

"He was talking in parables, he said. I'll say he was! I can't give it you word for word. You know the way he spouts it when he gets going."

"Yes," said Carl. For some reason he had become alerted. "But what was the general sense?"

"General nonsense, I'd call it." Kincaid rubbed the side of his chin with a faint, unpleasant rasping noise. "Well, I'll tell you. He said this ship was a—what the hell's that fool word—micro-something."

"Microcosm?"

"That's the one. Never have occasion to use it myself. A microcosm of the world today, that's how he put it. It's financed by the Americans, but it's really owned and run by the British. He said as long as we stay on board and do as we're taught, we're safe; we're looked after and protected by the sailors—that's the British. But as soon as we get ashore by ourselves, the natives—that's the rest of the world—take us for suckers, rob us right and left. Get it?"

"Oh yes," answered Carl easily. "But I don't really think—"

Kincaid held up his hand. "Oh, I don't mind that kind of talk," he said. "You know what the British are like—always bitching about how we've edged them out of the sunshine. I've never met an Englishman yet who wasn't in mourning for the good old days before we took over world leadership. That's standard operating procedure. Take that stuffed-shirt Beckwith bastard, for example. To hear him tell it, we stole Buckingham Palace when the Queen wasn't looking!"

"Plenty of symbolism in Beckwith, too," agreed Carl. "But what about the Professor?"

Kincaid nodded. "O.K.—let's get back to him. Now, where was I?"

"The Americans are guided and protected by the British," prompted Carl.

"Yes. That was the general idea. He said the outside world was always waiting to take us for a ride. Well, we know that. But then he had a twist. He said thereal danger was not from the outside world, but from internal corruption. While we're concentrating on people like the Russians, who are the open enemies, same as the tourist-gougers ashore, the real damage is being done by people inside."

He paused, and Carl was glad of it. He needed a space to collect his thoughts. He could just hear the Professor giving their whole position away, in a few measured sentences, and he was appalled by it. The damned old fool. . . . The only question that remained was, whether Kincaid was smart enough to have worked out the parallel.

Apparently he was not smart enough—not yet. "Thing I don't understand is, the connexion with the ship. Over that last item, I mean. I can see how it's us spending the money, and the British doing the organizing, and the crooks ashore taking us for every cent we've got. But what's the danger inside the ship? Who are meant to be the bad characters here? Or does he mean all the rows that go on? Is that it?"

"Very probably," said Carl, grateful for the false lead. He tried to inject into his voice an easy confidence. "I must say I'm inclined to agree that they have an unsettling effect on our lives, aren't you?"

Kincaid rubbed his chin again. "Maybe that was it. Though it doesn't add up to danger, surely? . . . Why does he talk that way, anyway? Mind you, it doesn't worry me. Fifty years in politics, you get yourself a tough hide. But lots of people don't like it. They think he's needling them."

Carl shook his head. "I'm sure he's not. It's simply that he has an analytical turn of mind—"

"I call it needling," said Kincaid briskly.

It seemed to Carl that he must start mending some fences. "I can assure you, the difference is radical," he began.

Kincaid, conditioned to react to the fatal word, did so instantly. "Radical, eh? Is that the trouble? I might have guessed it! How did he get on board, for God's sake? I tell you, those bastards are everywhere."

"No, no," said Carl, stemming the flow as best he could. "You misunderstand me. What I meant was, there's a world of difference between needling—saying things to provoke or annoy—and theorizing for its own sake. I'm quite sure the Professor was simply trying to make conversation, in the realm of world politics. Probably as a compliment to you. If he got a bit mixed up in the process—" he shrugged, and smiled, as one man of the world to another. "It's understandable. We've got to remember that he's getting old."

"Old enough to know better," grumbled Kincaid. He tossed off the remainder of his brandy, and stood up; he had seen someone else he wanted to talk to. "Well, I just thought I'd mention it to you. That sort of talk's unsettling. Even when it makes sense. It might be a good idea to have a word with him."

"I certainly intend to do that," said Carl.

The Professor was asleep when Carl found him; stretched out on his bunk under a fan, wearing only a pair of patched drawers, his withered old body collapsed, his mouth open to allow the bubbling snores to escape. He must have lain down straight after dinner, and dozed off. Carl, in a quiet fury, reached over and shook him by the shoulder.

"Wake up," he commanded. "I want to talk to you."

"Eh, what's that?" The Professor, fathoms deep in unconsciousness after a day's steady drinking and a prolonged meal, struggled to come to the surface. His eyes blinked through wispy grey hair as he looked at Carl, and he sat up shakily. "Good heavens, Carl, what's the matter?"

"What have you been saying to Kincaid?" demanded Carl.

"Kincaid? That ridiculous mountebank!" The Professor, lowering his stick-like legs over the edge of the bunk, snufHed the words. "I said nothing of any consequence to him, I can assure you. It would be an utter waste of time."

"Don't give me that," said Carl sharply. He realized that he was on edge, harassed by a score of things, worried especially about Kathy, but he was unable to control his anger. "You've been talking to him—about us!"

"Us?" The Professor, collecting his wits, was beginning to comprehend. "Nothing of the sort. I was drawing a simple parallel between—"

"I know all about your simple parallels, you bloody old fool! You as good as told him that we were operating as a gang on board, that we were the real danger to him and the rest of the passengers. Didn't you?"

Deeply offended, the Professor looked down at his curling, yellowish toes. "Really, Carl! Surely you and I have been friends long enough—"

"Don't soft-soap me!" snarled Carl, suddenly beside himself with fury. "I didn't bring you along as a friend. You're hired, hired to do a job, and instead of that you're well on the way to ruining everything." He pointed an accusing finger downwards, stabbing the crass air between them. "Why did you talk like that to Kincaid? Have you gone crazy?"

"Certainly not," said the Professor, feebly trying to regain his dignity. He drew a towel round his shoulders, and thrust his feet into ancient felt slippers. "I said nothing to Kincaid which he could possibly construe—"

Carl broke in. "I'll tell you exactly what you said to Kincaid. You said—or implied—that the danger to him and to the other passengers wasn't when they got ashore, it was right here on board. Internal corruption!" He felt a fresh wave of fury exploding inside him. "God damn it, what were you trying to do? Put him on his guard? Tip him off?"

"He is much too stupid—" began the Professor, wavering.

"He's not stupid at all. He's a hard-shell politician with a nose like a bloodhound. You said more than enough to start him wondering and guessing. I know his sort. He'll worry away at it till he comes up with the right answer." He looked down at the old man. "Professor, I could just about kick you off the ship, right now. In fact, it would be a damned good idea to send you home from Cape Town."

The Professor, now cowed by an anger he had never witnessed before, much less provoked, raised humble eyes. "I'm sorry, Carl. I didn't think. . . . You know how it is when one starts speculating on an intriguing theme."

"I know how you are," answered Carl roughly. "Just a drooling old idiot. Well, I'm warning you—that's the last chance you'll get. If I hear one single word more ... In future, just you keep out of Kincaid's way, and don't talk like that to anyone. Anyone! You understand?"

"Yes, Carl." In spite of the hot, airless cabin, he drew his towel closer round his shoulders, shivering. "I'm sorry, Carl," he said again. "Depend upon it, I shall take especial care in the future."

"You'd better. . . . You just lay off all that sort of talk, else there'll be trouble. And lay off the booze, too. Or I'll cut you off entirely."

"I hardly think it's a matter of the amount of alcohol—"

"And don't argue!" shouted Carl suddenly. "Do you want to drive me nuts? You do what you're told! Don't drink. Don't talk. Don't do anything except be on hand whenever I want you. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Carl." The tattered patrician dignity had all but crumbled away; all that was left was the shell of an old man, half naked, stripped of much more than his clothes. "I give you my solemn promise."

"Remember it."

Making his way down the corridor again, Carl shook his shoulders, feeling a sudden load of care. If he had been rough with the Professor, it was because he smelt danger. A lot of people—their victims —knew about their operations already; for various reasons, they would not talk, but if anyone else grew suspicious, if gossip started, the entire thing might collapse. Now, at the break-even point, they could not afford that; the whole purpose of the trip was just coming over the horizon.

He turned into his cabin, bathed his face, and prepared to leave for the poker game in Tillotson's suite. How was he supposed to concentrate, when this sort of thing happened? . . . His anger cooling, he was left with a curious sense of bereavement. It was true that he and the Professor were old friends of long standing; but no friendship could survive stupidity such as this. He would just have to be watched, that was all. Like Kathy. Like all the rest of them.

The ship's doctor, Tom Hillingdon by name, was a grave young man with a sense of humour under severe and permanent control. None of the popular myths about ship's doctors—their drunkenness, their failing powers, their infamous conduct in a professional respect, their past convictions for abortion—applied to him, any more than they did to his fellow-practitioners; he was a ship's doctor because he liked the life and, more important still, because he could measure up to it. He was tall, and good-looking in a studious way; his qualifications were impeccable. He read a great deal. He had an ambition to specialize in tropical medicine—but later on, when he had seen the world and learned the ropes. Now, on the present job, he was energetic, capable, and resolute. He had to be.

No seedy drunk or superannuated snuff-taker could have filled his post. On any normal voyage, Hillingdon had well over a thousand people to look after—more than to be found in the average village— and he might have to deal, at short notice, with anything from broken legs to whooping-cough, from child-birth to D.T.s. He was always on his own; the Alcestis had its own clinic, operating-theatre, isolation area, and labour ward, and he had to be an expert in all four of them. There were no available specialists to be called in, no locum to shoulder the weight or take the blame. He had to detect malingerers among the crew, and to flatter female hypochondriacs whose husbands owned fifty-one per cent of any given stock. Above all, he had to be there when he was needed; and, like the Captain in another area of competence, he could be needed for almost anything.

Just at the moment, he was needed for an unusual though not unique reason, by a young woman whom he knew, by observation, to be the second prettiest girl in the ship. Tom Hillingdon, who was fond of pretty girls—it was quite mutual—was prepared to concede Diane Loring that much; though during the past month he had made certain mental reservations about her which were now proving accurate. It was just as well that he hadn't joined the queue. . . . But at least she was honest and unequivocal; faced with the same predicament, people usually said that they were inquiring for a friend.

Diane, sitting opposite him across the surgery table, went straight to the point.

"I need a bit of help, Doc," she told him.

Tom Hillingdon came to the alert. She was using a phrase which he had heard, with minor variations, three times during the past two days; he had been looking for the link, which none of the complainants would give him; it seemed likely that this was it. Of course, she might simply be pregnant, or she might think she was. But in that case they usually said: "Doctor, I'm in a jam."

"Please tell me about it," he said formally, and added, with private irony: "Miss Loring."

Diane said: "It hurts."

He asked some questions, and presently made his examination and took a swab for later analysis. But he knew the answer already; it completed the puzzle which was scarcely a puzzle at all, simply a pattern of misconduct. For that reason he was not at all surprised; he had been expecting a visit from Diane Loring, or from someone like her, for the last forty-eight hours. He had thought it might be the nurse, which was a good example of a bad guess. Of course, it was not a frivolous matter; the trouble was venereal, within the meaning of the word. But it was a minor, irritant variation which posed no problems.

He told her what they had both suspected, and now knew, and added:

"I would like you to tell me who it could be."

Diane hesitated. "Well, it's like this," she began, and then stopped.

"I can assure you," he helped her, "you need not be shy with me."

"Shy? Who's shy? I'm just trying to work it out."

Now he remained silent. He had lost his capacity for surprise many years earlier. Sometimes he thought it was just as well.

"This doesn't go any further, does it?" asked Diane, on a note of caution.

"No," said Tom Hillingdon, untruthfully.

"It's probably Walham," said Diane after a moment. "I knew that old bastard would get even somehow. Or—or it just might be Bancroft."

Tom Hillingdon waited. He wanted to hear a third name, simply for the fun of it. He knew it already.

"Or it might be that dark guy who limps—what the hell's his name?—his wife plays canasta the whole time."

Hillingdon waited again. Ethically sensitive, he felt he should not prompt her.

"You know—old Timber Tool."

"Timber Tool?"

"Woodcock," said Diane finally.

Tom Hillingdon inclined his head, content that the pattern was complete.

But the pattern was not complete. "Or it might be a couple of other people," said Diane. "Anyway, that will give you the general outline."

Hillingdon hoped so; his supply of drugs was limited. "Have you been very busy?" he asked.

"Hell, Doc—what's busy?"

"I beg your pardon," said Tom Hillingdon formally. "It's my job to ask these things." He began to write, completing his notes and outlining the necessary treatment. "I'll give you an injection, just to be on the safe side," he told her. "And I'll make up a lotion which will take care of the local irritation. It should clear up in a day or two."

"Thanks, Doc."

"There's one other thing, Miss Loring," he said, with only slight emphasis. "You should refrain from sexual intercourse for the time being."

"O.K.," said Diane cheerfully. "You're the doctor!"

He was the doctor, and for that reason he did not like the next step at all. Of all the things in medicine which he took seriously, the most serious, for him, was the integrity of his profession; and the fact that, every day he spent aboard the Alcestis, he was under a positive obligation to violate the Hippocratic oath of secrecy, had always been troublesome. He had forced himself to come to terms with the situation, but it had never sat well on his conscience.

Briefly, he had to set out in a daily report all details of the patients under his care—their symptoms, their treatment, their prospects of recovery. Whatever it was—a broken leg, an alcoholic lapse, a bout of Asiatic flu—the Captain had to know about it, as soon as it developed. In the present case, he had to report to Captain Harmer that the ignoble link between three of his other patients was Diane Loring.

When Tom Hillingdon was younger, he used to baulk at the disclosure; once, he had even come into collision with Harmer himself, who put him straight on company policy, as opposed to medical ethics, in very short order.

"I don't care who's got what," the Captain told him forcefully, "or how disgraceful or embarrassing it may be. I've got to know about it! This ship is my sole responsibility; if something goes wrong, it's the Master that takes the blame, and I am not going to take the blame for something I know nothing about."

"But surely, sir—" he had begun his protest.

"There aren't going to be any arguments," said Harmer coldly, and then, seeing the young man's crestfallen face, he added, on a more friendly note: "But I don't mind saying a bit more about my point of view. It boils down to my personal responsibility as Master. Suppose you find one of your patients has signs of T.B., and for some reason you feel you want to hush it up. Because I know nothing about it, I allow that patient to land somewhere, and so I break half a dozen port health regulations, and maybe endanger a whole community. Who gets sued? The company. Who does the company take it out of? Me. . . . Suppose you have a patient who develops some sort of violent delusion, and before I can have him locked up—because I haven't heard anything about it—he chops somebody up with an axe? Who takes the blame for that? The Master. Because he ought to know what goes on in his ship." Harmer drew a deep breath. "I know it's a hard rule, Tom, and I know exactly why it worries you. But whatever—whatever—is wrong with anyone on board, I have to know about it, so that I can take the necessary steps to protect the company, and incidentally myself."

"But surely there are some cases where it can't matter."

The Captain shook his head. "I'll be the judge of that," he said, with a return of his forceful manner. "As far as you're concerned, you're an employee of the company, and you'll obey the company rules. And my orders. When somebody is ill on board, I have to be told what's wrong with him. There aren't any exceptions, in any circumstances."

That seemed to be that. . . . Tom Hillingdon had never subsequently argued about it, and he had never held back any information in his daily reports. He did not do so now, when he saw Captain Harmer at five o'clock the same evening.

"But how serious is this?" asked Harmer, when he had digested the news.

"Not very," said Hillingdon. "It's really just a local inflammation. Over-enthusiasm, I would say. Or an infection somebody picked up in the Caribbean." He grinned. "Anyway, now it hurts, like the girl said. But it clears up in a day or two, under proper treatment."

"If she lays off?"

"If she lays off."

"You told her to do that?"

"Yes, sir."

The Captain nodded. "Very well. We'll leave it like that, for the moment." He caught Tom Hillingdon's eye. "In my young days," he said rather primly, "people had more sense of decency. Here's a girl who can't be more than twenty-four or -five, apparently sleeping with everyone on board who happens to ask for it. It really is disgraceful!"

"It's the way a lot of people behave nowadays, I'm afraid."

"These girls seem to think of nothing but enjoying themselves."

"It might conceivably be profitable as well."

The Captain, brought up short, eyed him again. "Oh. ... I hadn't thought of that. Did she say anything to indicate—" he waved his hand.

"No, sir. But some of the people she's been with aren't exactly young and handsome." He paused, rather awkwardly, and then added: "It's just an idea."

"It's a bloody good idea," said the Captain unexpectedly. "When you go down, ask the Purser to see me."

The Captain usually sent for Foxy Cutler when he wanted to talk something out; there was no man on board more likely to come up with a fresh slant on any problem. He was not to be disappointed on this occasion.

"Well, of course there's been the usual gossip," said Cutler, when the Captain brought him up to date on the doctor's report. "You know how it is—everyone takes it for granted that X is sleeping with Y, even if all they do is to have a drink together before lunch. But I must say, I didn't know the Loring girl had been getting around so fast."

"Well, we know now," said Captain Harmer grimly. "Do you think she's actually making a racket out of it—taking their money— call-girl stuff?"

"Could be," answered Cutler. "Perhaps with a bit of blackmail on the side."

"Blackmail?"

"Let's call it pressure. If the wife's actually on board, it wouldn't be too difficult for the girl to make the man pay up very handsomely."

He mused, tapping his teeth with an empty pipe. Then he went off on another tack. "Now I remember, there was even some talk about her and the awful child."

The Captain stared at him, genuinely amazed. "Barry Greenfield? You mean that little boy?"

"The same. There was a rumour that Barkway had seen or heard something. I couldn't confirm it. He won't talk."

"I'll make him talk, if necessary. . . . But how could that possibly be true? The kid's only fifteen! He couldn't—well, think of the age difference."

"No more of an age difference than young Scapelli, and some of those old girls he's been trotting around with." Foxy Cutler's eyes narrowed. "You know, there's the germ of an idea there."

"What idea?"

"I'm just thinking as I go along. The Loring girl is sleeping around with a lot of older men—maybe for money. Scapelli is doing the same sort of thing, almost certainly for money; it could hardly be anything else. It begins to add up to a funny sort of family. And that's not all." He paused.

"What else?"

"The father, or uncle, or whatever he is. Wenstrom. He's been cleaning up, too, at poker. And I understand their stewardess is very hot on the idea that he and the other girl—our little Kathy— aren't father and stepdaughter at all, but something much cosier."

"Any evidence of that?"

Cutler shook his head. "No. Just the way they sometimes behave to each other."

The Captain looked out of his cabin window, at the broad sweep of sunshine on the water, and the far horizon twenty miles away. He was not shocked by what the Purser had just said; years of sea-going had demonstrated, beyond any doubt, that people often told lies about their relationships, with not much harm done. Father-and-daughter, uncle-and-niece, the more traditional executive-and-secretary—these were conventional couples who often turned out to be something quite different. In this area, a hotel-clerk's easy morality was the only appropriate reaction; as long as people were discreet, it did not really matter what their closed doors hid from sight.

But Cutler had started him on another train of thought. He had raised a suspicion that the family might not be a family at all, but something like a gang, operating on the principle of plunder. That was much more serious; it came under the heading of discipline, whereas the other was merely a matter of social conformity. If it were really true—if they were operating like that—then something would have to be done about it. His sixth sense of the irregular was telling him that this was going to be necessary.

"Have you talked to Barkway about this?" he asked presently.

"I've given him a chance to talk to me," answered Cutler. "But there's nothing doing there, at the moment. He's been bloody-minded this whole trip, and he won't help. He just says he hasn't noticed anything."

"You'd better have another talk with him, Foxy. Or get Brotherhood to do it."

"I'll do that."

"And I'll do a bit of thinking myself." His eyes came back from the horizon. "Well, the girl's out of action for a bit, anyway. And Scapelli? What's Scapelli doing, these days?"

"Mrs. van Dooren."

Louis Scapelli had got himself cornered again, though in reversed circumstances of enslavement. It was like a bad film, or a nightmare; fleeing from the yoke of Mrs. Consolini, who only wanted him as a messenger-boy, he was now ensnared by Mrs. van Dooren, whose desires, it seemed, were exclusively animal. In her service, all he had to do was to pour the drinks, and make love to her. But her capacity for both was insatiable.

The start of the affair was auspicious—too auspicious; he should have been put on guard by her controlled handling, but he thought he could make things go his own way. He had come up to her one evening in the ballroom, when she was sitting by herself, imbibing the first of many after-dinner slugs of rye and water. Stopping by her table, he said:

"Good evening, Mrs. van Dooren."

"Hi, there!" she answered vaguely, and then, focusing her eyes, she said: "Oh, it's you," on a much less flattering note. When he did not immediately pass on, she asked: "What's on your mind, sonny?"

"Nothing. I thought you might like to dance."

"Dance!" She enunciated the word with measureless scorn. "Are you crazy? I never dance. Dancing's kid stuff. It's for people who can't go to bed together. Didn't you know that?"

"Well—" he began.

She waved her arm. "Sit down, for God's sake," she commanded. "You're giving me a crick in the neck." As he took the nearest chair she leant forward and asked, with a sort of hazy directness: "What's going on? Are you making a switch?"

He smiled, and said: "Yes," and took it from there; it seemed silly to respond in any other way. By ten o'clock they were in cheerful accord, and by eleven they were in bed.

Even at that stage, he should have taken warning. For some reason—something he had heard, something he had read—he had formed a conviction that women who drank too much were likely to be frigid; this extraordinary notion led him to adopt some odd manoeuvres, picked up in God-knows-what sexual gutter, in order to satisfy her. It was another mistake. Presently he found that she was staring at him in critical appraisal, and then she asked, in a voice both cold and sober:

"Are you actually enjoying that?"

He decided that he was not going to accept the rebuke; he had had enough of female superiority from Mrs. Consolini. Equally forthright, he answered:

"No. I was doing it for you."

"Well, don't bother. Where do you think I was brought up? In a circus?"

"I don't know where you were brought up."

"On Easy Street."

After that, they got on much better.

Indeed, they got on too well. She had a compulsive appetite for making love. The alcohol had been a substitute; now she rationed the one in favour of the other. At first he enjoyed it; he was reestablishing his manhood after an unhappy holiday, while she flowered into a fierce and flattering sensuality which put a positive glow upon her whole body. They would spend hours in her cabin; sipping slow drinks, taking baths, falling into bed again. She was never really satisfied. At each final good-night, still brisk as a spring lamb, she would say: " 'Bye now! But don't forget—come back real soon!"

They had no financial arrangement. After forty-eight hours she gave him a thousand dollars. When he went through the motions of protesting that it was too much, she said: "O.K., lover-boy. Earn it!"

He was the first to tire; it was inevitable; a prolonged effort, particularly in this area, had never been his strong point. On the third evening he said: "I guess I'll take an early night tonight. I'm feeling kinda bushed."

Lying on the bed, taking off her ear-rings, she shook her head. "Don't be chicken. What's the matter with you? We've only just started."

Something in her voice stirred his misgivings; it was an echo of an earlier servitude. "But I'm tired."

"Snap out of it, then. Take a drink. Do some setting-up exercises." After a moment she added, with seeming irrelevance: "I heard about you from Mrs. Consolini."

"What do you mean?"

"She said you were an awkward bastard."

"What else did she say?"

"That she paid you five hundred a week, and you didn't deliver. So you were fired."

"That's a lot of bunk!"

"I'm not so sure. . . . What do you want me to say about you?"

He frowned, disliking—even fearing—the way the conversation was going. "I don't want you to say anything about me. Jesus, don't you want this to be a secret?"

She shrugged. "I don't mind. I'm not shy. . . ." Then suddenly she was staring at him, and her eyes were dead level, not at all vague. "Look, Romeo, let's get this straight. I drink all the time, and I'm not ashamed of it. If I make love all the time, I'm not ashamed of that, either. I do exactly what I like, and I just don't give a damn. You can't scare me like you scared that poor old dame. And you can't hold out on me, like you held out on Belle Consolini."

His sulky expression was a mask for much uncertainty. "You seem to know it all."

"You bet I know it all! Do you want me to start telling it all?"

"No. Of course not."

"Well, behave yourself, then."

He decided to play it safe. "Hell, I was only fooling. I'm not tired." He approached her bed, and relapsed into their personal jargon. "Baby wants it?"

"Baby wants it eight times. . . ."

He did not leave baby till four o'clock in the morning; at noon, a note enclosing a hundred-dollar bill summoned him again. He did not dare to disobey; he was sure that shewould talk, and talk loudly and shamelessly, if she did not get her way. She knew or guessed too much, and she was tough enough to use all of it.

So it went on, seemingly for ever; he had fashioned himself a nympho neck-tie which he could not discard. When he hung back, she laughed at him, or threatened; when he did what she wished, all she said was: "More."

Nearing Cape Town, utterly exhausted and unnerved, he knew that he must somehow escape.

About two hundred miles west of the African coast-line, on the last day's run, the Alcestis began to move uneasily, as they edged towards the bad weather system which for a week had been lying in wait for them.

The Captain knew all the symptoms, as a doctor knows a difficult patient, or a man his quarrelsome wife. The glass had been dropping swiftly, and the wind, veering, now blew stiffly from the south-east; as the long South Atlantic swell developed a cutting edge, the Alcestis began her traditional misbehaviour. With the wind ahead, she had never been a good sea-boat; there was some flaw in the sheer of her bows, or the length of her keel, which started her butting and pitching while other ships could still shoulder their way smoothly ahead. Now, with the wind getting up, and the sea beginning to run against her in good earnest, the Alcestis showed what she could do when, like a girl unwillingly talked into a picnic, she took a dislike to the weather.

The Captain had been called to the bridge at midnight; on his way up—he had been watching a film show, three decks below— he listened to the sounds of his ship, and knew what was in store for her. She was working and creaking loudly, as all old ships did; down the long corridors, a dozen groaning sounds came to meet him as he made his way towards the main companion ladder. She was already pitching heavily, rolling more than a little—the wind must be on the starboard bow, as the forecast had warned them. Even as he mounted the bottom step of the ladder, he heard and felt the first solid crunch as her bows slid down an enormous switchback to land squarely in the trough of a wave.

Now, wedged in a corner of the bridge, accustoming his eyes to the darkness, he weighed their prospects. It was likely to be a southeasterly gale—the traditional Cape weather—and it was likely also to last a couple of days. Faced with this, he could either alter course slightly to the northwards, and press on towards the shelter of the coast-line ahead; or he could hold his course, and make the best progress he could into the eye of the wind. Even as he considered their choice, the Alcestis came down heavily again, with a huge solid crash, and he heard from far below the tinkle of broken glass. That must have caught the bar off balance. . . . But it meant that he would now have to ease off, whatever course they were steering; the Alcestis was too old, and too much loved, to be punished like this. He turned abruptly, and called to the officer of the watch.

"Second!"

"Sir?" came a voice out of the darkness, somewhere beside the quartermaster.

"Reduce by twenty revolutions."

It was bad luck, but it couldn't be helped.

The wind got up with astonishing swiftness; at one o'clock he gauged it to be Force 6, and at two it was nearer 9 or 10—over fifty miles an hour. He stayed where he was on the bridge, duffel-coated against the vile weather, because that was his job; it was how he earned his pay, not by handing round drinks or preserving a social armistice among the idle rich. He could not have got to sleep anyway, the way that they were moving. . . . Under the sullen sky, there was moon enough to see the white walls of water rushing towards them, and to watch them explode into foam under their bows; moving into the teeth of the gale, the Alcestis laboured and rolled as if she were tired and defeated already, while from outside the bridge-house there was a mounting uproar as the wind screamed and tore at every surface it could reach.

He had to ease their speed every half-hour; by the time dawn came up, they were virtually hove-to, making three or four knots at the most, in a grey waste of furious water which every few minutes broke as high as the boat-deck. Pinned down by the storm, the Alcestis suffered and took the staggering blows, with a heavy, hangdog persistence. Every now and again, like a steeplechaser misjudging a fence, she came down with an almighty, rivet-starting crash which shook the whole hull; while tons of water swept over the foredeck and cascaded down into the well.

He had no choice now; they would have to stay where they were till f;he storm blew itself out. It meant that they would be a day late at Cape Town—maybe two. He smiled wryly, rubbing his stiff, bristly face. At least it would take the edge off all their quarrels, and keep the children quiet.

Kathy had risen early, at about six o'clock; she had found it hopeless, trying to sleep while the whole ship and everything on board was being thrown about so unmercifully, and in the close air below she was feeling seasick. She dressed in slacks, and the thickest sweater she could find, and made her way slowly to the boat-deck; it was a matter of clinging to handrails, walking a few steps, pausing often to get her breath back. As she mounted, the full noise of the storm began to reach her; at the boat-deck level, even inside the armoured glass walls of the sun-room, it greeted her in a frightening crescendo.

The sun-room gave her a view of the whole upper deck, dripping wet, swept by scuds of spray which every few moments were whipped into a hundred small whirlpools by the driving wind. A notice on the door said: "In the interests of safety, access to this deck is temporarily forbidden". Surveying the wild and universal turmoil, she could not quarrel with that. The fresh air revived her; she wedged herself into a deck-chair, and sat down to a grand-stand view of the storm.

She had never before experienced a storm at sea; its strength and fury were unimaginable. Everything within her view was drenched with spray—the funnels, the line of canvas-topped boats, the railings; and the noise seemed to her tremendous, a whole orchestration of tortured notes, from the howl of the wind round the main deck-house to the vicious twanging and plucking of ropes and wires. When a sea hit them, it was like a blow from a murderous fist. From where she sat, she was looking aft, down the whole length of the Alcestis; whenever the ship rolled, and the horizon lurched into view, the entire surface of the sea seemed to be fleeing away from her, torn to ribbons by the wind and flung into a boiling twilight far astern.

She found it awesome—and then, after the accustoming of time, magnificent. The sea was clearly their enemy, but the Alcestis was a match for it; she was riding the storm as if, for all the punishment it meted out, she knew she could outlast it in the end. As Kathy sat there, time was forgotten; only the nearness of danger, the sense of triumph, was real. She would rather have been where she was, alone, than anywhere in the world.

Presently—after an hour, two hours, when it was full daylight, and the outlines of their ordeal grew even clearer—she became aware of a new noise added to the tumult. It was a thudding, a crashing, a rhythmical shock which she could feel through the thin soles of her shoes. She sat forward, uneasy, and presently identified it. Quite close to her, the second boat in the long line of eight swung out of sight, towards the sea, and then came crashing back inboard, with a monstrous shock. It had broken loose from its lashings. She knew enough to realize that if the plunging and swinging continued, the boat would soon be smashed to matchwood. She knew also that its ponderous weight, and the great lift of the sea urging it to and fro, could maim and destroy anyone who tried to secure it.

Even as she watched, appalled by the prospect of destruction, the men came running—four of them, unwieldy in dripping yellow oilskins, led (she had known this would happen) by Tim Mansell.

He, and they, looked tiny as they collected in a group underneath the enormous lifeboat, which first swung free and then crashed against the davits. She almost cried out: "Run away—don't touch it!" as they stood within the shadow of that hideous pendulum, and took stock of what they had to do.

But presently it was a pride and a joy to watch him. He was not a boy any longer, he was a man, he knew what he was doing, even when life could be at stake, when an arm could be torn off, a chest crushed to bloody ruin. He—no, it was they, a brave team of men marshalled by a young lion—worked gradually, perilously, but surely. It took four tries to throw a heavy line over the boat, in the teeth of the wind, and as many more to bring the line inboard again. Tim Mansell himself did that, darting forward within inches of the hurtling keel and hauling in the line as if possessed. When he shouted, his men jumped forward, lending their weight, taking a turn round a stanchion; when the line snapped on the reverse roll, they were all flung off their feet, in a comical heartrending overthrow.

Catlike on the heaving deck, they tried again, with a thicker line; this time it held, while the four of them, straining, sweating, dashing the spray from their faces, made it fast and inched it in. The boat came sullenly under control, and was edged back into its chocks. Gradually the danger passed, while the wind, robbed of its sport, screamed with haphazard fury. It had taken more than an hour to turn crisis into nothing, to shrink a series of desperate chances down to a single log-entry.

Kathy found that for a long time she had been standing up, her body pressed against the glass of the sun-room; she had become so bound up in the struggle that she was exhausted by the end of it. When finally Tim Mansell, surrounded by his men, stood back, hands on hips, to look at their completed handiwork, she felt a deep admiring pride. This was what it was like, to be a man, a sailor. . . . The sea-voyage had never been real until this moment; nor had Tim Mansell ever seemed part of the grown-up world, until in this brief contest, under her very eyes, he had suddenly overtaken and surpassed all that she knew of men.

The four sailors struggled forward again, leaning their squat bodies against the wind, brushing the streaming spray from faces pinched with cold. Last of them all, with a backward glance at the tamed boat, was Tim Mansell—but as he passed the windows of the sun-room he glanced inside, and found her there watching him. She smiled brilliantly as she met his eyes, and then, on an impulse, she clapped her hands together, offering him silent applause for what he had been through, for what he had done. As he saw it, his expression changed again, from competent sternness to a familiar boyish immaturity. But she would never believe the latter again; she had seen the fabric of the man within, and now she was shaken by its power to move her.

He waved in answer, but dismissively, as if to say: "Sorry— busy." She sat on alone, watching the scudding spindthrift, hearing the wind, feeling the Alcestis lift ponderously to the enormous waves. For a hundred reasons, she was nearly in tears; but beneath a marvelling emotion she was deeply content. She could not analyse it; indeed, it did not seem to matter what anything meant. The whole ship, and all sorts of other things, seemed suddenly to have been cleaned by the wind and the sea, and by heroic men who were not daunted by either.

Table Mountain came up over the horizon like a noble blessing; after two days of foul weather, they were gliding into Table Bay as if across a carpet, quartering the calm sea towards peace and the long-hoped-for landfall. The mountain itself was cloud-topped, wreathed in misty white; it stood poised above the town, which straggled up its slopes until first the houses, and then the tree-line, surrendered to rock and scree. Sunshine seemed to fill every part of the horizon, reflected on pink and yellow buildings, on bronzed green roofs, on exotic trees; the gateway of Africa opened to them in hot splendour. They edged into the harbour, past a bright-painted Union Castle ship which was just getting up steam. People waved a welcome; black faces looked up at them; flower-sellers offered tiny pin-points of red and orange and blue; the quays sprang to life as they nudged a way gently into their berth. On the deck of the Alcestis, all storm and stress forgotten, the passengers counted their blessings and basked in the sunshine. Cameras clicked and whirred. Over all, the mountain stared down on them in hazy blue detachment.

The Professor, gazing round him, threw out an arm and declaimed sonorously:

Cook's son, duke's son, son of a belted earl, Forty thousand horse and foot going to Table Bay!

"What was that?" demanded Kincaid from near by. He often followed the Professor round nowadays, standing within earshot, hoping for ammunition. "Who said it?"

"A forgotten poet of Empire," answered the Professor courteously, "singing of our past glories." "This is the twentieth century, you know," said Kincaid, with unpleasant emphasis.

"Oh, yes," said the Professor. He sighed. Though it was early in the forenoon, he was tired already. "Let us try to make the most of it."