Maiden Voyage

FIFTY-FOUR

At noon, on board the Keys liner Arcadia, in mid-Atlantic, several crucial events took place.

The most crucial event was the spring in Harry Pakenow's time clock, displaced by less than one-sixteenth of an inch when he dropped him to the deck of the automobile hold, failed to activate the sear which was supposed to fire the primer which would detonate his thirty sticks of dynamite.

Twelve o'clock came and went, and the Arcadia, having abandoned at last her search for the body of Rudyard Philips, was swiftly and majestically building up speed again as she sailed towards the golden western horizon, her bows glittering with spray, her slanted funnels streaming out plumes of smoke, a picture postcard of a luxury 1920s liner making her way across the ocean to New York. To take the passenger's mind off the tragedy, Ralph Peel had ordered complimentary champagne for everyone in cabin class, free sherry in second, and a bottle of ale apiece in third. Fox-trot music blew across the first-class decks in the lunchtime breeze, and gradually the party atmosphere began to revive, especially in anticipation of today's celebration lunch and tonight's fancy-dress ball.

There was some excitement, too, at the prospect of Mr. Joe Kretchmer and Mr. Duncan Wilkes meeting each other over luncheon, because both of them had been seen to falter during elevenses, especially when the smoking-lounge steward had brought them le snac du jour, which had been a hot Gruyere fondue of plovers' eggs, Dublin Bay prawns, spiced cubes of pork, and diced marrow. Maurice Peace had been predicting that today's lunchtime confrontation would probably decide the winner of the eating contest, and he had been taking hundreds of pounds in extra bets. Interest in the contest, which had flagged during the past few meals because it had seemed as if the competitors would do nothing more spectacular for the rest of the voyage than slowly masticate their way through forty-three different dishes a day, was suddenly and generally revived.

Another crucial event was that Sir Peregrine sat up in his berth and announced to Nurse Queensland that he was perfectly well and that she had better bring him his trousers, unless she wanted to be instantly dismissed. Nurse Queensland called for Dr. Fields, but Dr. Fields was busy with Lady Cressworthy, who had been complaining about pains in the small of her back, particularly after last night's after-dinner tango. By the time Dr. Fields had examined Lady Cresswortby and discovered a row of purple contusions which appeared to have been inflicted by the bones of a spectacularly tight corset, Sir Peregrine had struggled into his uniform and limped out of the cabin up to the bridge. "I am perfectly well, madam," he had told Nurse Queensland, flapping at her with his good arm. "I am in the rudest possible health. But if you don't stop your fussing, I shall be even ruder."

He swung himself scissor-legged into the wheelhouse, and announced to a startled Ralph Peel that he was resuming command of the Arcadia, both operationally and socially. If he was still limping by tonight, then hang it all, he would appear at the fancy-dress ball dressed up as Long John Silver. Mr. Peel was to correct the Arcadia's course by one and a half degrees to port, and what the devil was he doing running the ship at twenty-nine knots? Were they in a race? If so, with whom? Dignity and safety came before speed. And Mr. Peel, once he had carried out his orders, was to return to his quarters and have another shave. Sir Peregrine did not care for officers on the bridge who looked like lemurs.

"You can call my steward and tell him to bring me a large glass of Russian tea, with a spoonful of maple syrup in it, and two aspirin tablets. What's the latest from Ascot?' Because of the time difference as they crossed the ocean, the early-afternoon races had already been run.

"Mrs. Jeffrey's Dinkie won by a neck from the King's horse Weathervane in the Royal Hunt Cup, sir."

"Mrs. Jeffrey? You mean to tell me that the Royal Hunt Cup was won by a woman?"

"Yes, sir," said Ralph. Then, seeing how displeased the commodore was, he added, "I'm afraid so, sir."

"What else?" demanded Sir Peregrine.

"Sansovino won the Prince of Wales stakes."

"Well, thank God for that. Where's Mr. Deacon?"

"I'll have him sent up to the bridge, sir."

"No, no, don't bother. Where's Mr. Philips?"

There was an awkward silence. The helmsman glanced uncomfortably at Ralph Peel; but then, when he saw that Sir Peregrine was frowning at him ferociously, he snapped his eyes straight ahead again.

"You haven't been told, sir?" asked Ralph.

"Told? Told what?"

"About Mr Philips, sir. I would have assumed that Dr. Fields would have told you."

Sir Peregrine reached out for the back of the captain's chair with his left arm, and gripped it to support himself. "What would you have assumed that Dr. Fields would have told me?"

"I'm not sure I ought to say, sir. I don't want to cause you another stroke. Perhaps you ought to ask Dr. Fields, sir, with respect."

"If this intelligence about Mr. Philips is so shocking that it strikes me down for good, then all I can say is that there are worse ways to go. One could die at the annual dinner of the Shipwrecked Mariners Society, during one of Gerald Maude's awful speeches."

"Well, sir," said Ralph Peel. "I'm sorry to be the first to tell you that Mr. Philips is dead. He was drowned about an hour ago, trying to rescue a passenger who went overboard."

Sir Peregrine stared at Ralph Peel with his mouth slightly open and his tongue tucked in his cheek. Then he said, "Drowned?"

"Yes, sir."

"I see. Well... that's most regrettable. That's really quite tragic. The poor fellow never quite managed to get things right, did he? What with running down that Irishman off Dun Laoghaire, and all that strange business during the storm. Which reminds me. I thought you were supposed to be confined to your quarters for insubordination."

"I, er—to well, I was, sir. But Mr Deacon said that—"

"Deacon, yes." Sir Peregrine nodded. Then, "Have you found Mr. Philips' body yet? Made a search, I suppose?"

"Yes, sir. But no sign of him. He must have gone down like a sack of coal."

"I see. Sack of coal. That sounds like him. Sort of thing Philips would do. Was the passenger rescued?"

"Yes, sir. Miss Marcia Conroy, travelling with Mr. Mark Beeney."

At that moment, the door to the wheelhouse opened, and George Welterman appeared. "Mr Peel?" he said harshly. "We've slowed down! Now why the devil have we slowed down?"

Sir Peregrine turned around, and it was only then that George Welterman realised he was there. He blinked and coughed loudly, but he seemed to be incapable of speech.

Sir Peregrine said, "Did my ears deceive me, sir, or did you just address an inquiry to my third officer about the vessel's forward speed?"

George wasn't put off for very long. "Mr. Deacon promised that he was going to run the ship as fast as possible to make up for lost time," he blustered. "He promised me that personally."

"Oh, did he?" said Sir Peregrine. In spite of his weak and dangling arm, he looked the picture of nautical elegance. "Well, I regret that as captain of the Arcadia I have just countermanded that instruction, and I promise you, equally personally, that if you attempt to barge into this wheelhouse again, or anywhere else on this ship which is out of bounds to passengers, then I will have you locked up in your stateroom until we reach New York, for your own safety, of course. I may even instruct your steward to forget to bring you your meals."

Without waiting for an answer, Sir Peregrine turned his back on George Welterman and addressed himself to the Atlantic chart that was spread out on the navigation table. George was congested with fury; but his temper had already done him enough harm on this voyage, and he controlled himself with an effort of will that made his neck swell over his collar, like pink raspberry sponge bulging over the top of a white ramekin.

When George had marched off along the boat deck, Sir Peregrine said to Ralph Peel, "If that man ever speaks to you again on any subject apart from women, fishing, or the price of a weekend in Ostend, you may feign total deafness."

"Yes, sir," said Ralph, rather shaken.

The brass ship's chronometer read twelve noon.

Henry Pakenow was on the forward boat deck. He stayed as near to number one lifeboat as he could, smoking nervously and waiting for the dull internal thunder that would tell him that his dynamite had gone off. He had seen Lucille in the Palm Court during elevenses, although he had been unable to join her because Mrs. Hall had made quite sure that she and her young charge shared a table for two, in the corner. Since then, Harry had tried to keep his eye on Lucille wherever she strolled, but it wasn't easy to follow her around without appearing to be bothersome, and a few minutes before twelve Mrs. Hall had ushered her inside to dress for luncheon. There was little that Harry could do, except pray that somebody would have the sense a put a life jacket on her, and lead her to the boats.

At one minute to twelve, the Palm Court orchestra was playing "Can You Toddle Like A Tiger Toddles?" which Harry considered to be a suitable requiem for the most insensitive, hedonistic, and spendthrift generation ever. The Great War had taught them nothing: but this would. Just as the sinking of the Titanic had irrevocably crippled the Edwardian principles of wealth and class, so the sinking of the Arcadia would help to destroy the fatuous speeded-up world of champagne and jazz and privileged young sheiks. They would know for certain that they couldn't dance on the graves of working-class heroes any longer.

Twelve. The gilded clock in the great first-class stairway began to chime Gregorius. Harry gripped the rail and waited for the explosion. When a whole minute passed and it didn't come, he wasn't actually surprised. The clock that Dennis had built into the timing mechanism had only cost one-and-eleven, from Bumfrey's, in Runcorn High Street. Communist revolutionaries couldn't afford chronometers. But as time passed and the Arcadia continued to sail unharmed into the midday sunlight, her wires humming like a Gregorian choir as the wind blew through them, Harry began to wonder if something might have gone wrong. He stepped quickly across the boat deck to where the fifth officer, Derek Holdsworth, was chatting sociably with Hon. Constance Pruitt, and said, "Do you know what the time is, please? My watch seems to have stopped."

Derek Holdsworth took out his pocket watch and said, "Five minutes past twelve, exactly, Mr Pakemoff."

The Hon. Constance Pruitt, a very pretty brunette whose prettiness was somehow majestically enhanced by her squinting eyes, said, "I hope you're enjoying yourself, Mr Pakemoff. Wasn't that rescue exciting? And that poor officer! I cried when I heard!"

"Pakenow," Harry corrected her. Then he stared at her as if she was one of those dotty girls whom long-suffering aunts take out for the day from mental institutions, so that they can all sit tight-lipped in a tearoom and be suitably mortified by the poor creature's loud, peculiar conversation, and the way she drops meringue on her kilt.

Constance Pruitt wasn't to know that Harry couldn't even begin to comprehend the idea of enjoying himself, or of being excited by Marcia's rescue, not in these crucial minutes while he was waiting for his bomb to go off.

Derek Holdsworth, alert to the oddness of the moment, said, "You'll be looking forward to luncheon, I expect, Mr Pak-enow. It's'a special luncheon in honour of our Irish investors. I understand we'll be serving brill, flamed in Irish whiskey."

But without a word, Harry turned around and hurried aft towards the staircase. Halfway there, however, he thought, Supposing the bomb goes off when I'm below decks? I won't stand a chance. Maybe I should wait four or five more minutes. The Hon. Constance Pruitt was watching him as he suddenly paused, and she turned to Derek Holdsworth and remarked, "They're very strange, aren't they, the working class? I've never really seen them close up before. Oh, except for the servants, of course. They seem to be so agitated by something these days. Daddy says it's because they've forgotten their place. It was the war, he says. They all forgot their place."

"I think Mr. Pakenow's a reasonable enough sort," said Derek Holdsworth. Then, "Good afternoon, Lady Mussel. Good afternoon, Mrs. Chalk-Herbert."

Three minutes passed. Four. Two gentlemen in white flannels passed either side of Harry as they promenaded around the boat deck, as if he were nothing more than an ill-sited davit. One of them was saying, "It just goes to show you that the whole idea of pluck isn't dead yet, by any means." They must have been talking about Rudyard Philips.

Harry knew now that his bomb wasn't going to work. More slowly, he made his way to the grand staircase and descended to the first-class lounge. One of the stewards came up to him with a luncheon menu tucked under his arm and said, "A cocktail, sir, before luncheon?"

'I, er, no, thank you," Harry told him. Then, "I've lost my way, actually. Can you direct me to the nearest lift?"

There was only one thing to be done. To go straight down to the automobile hold and set off the dynamite himself, by hand.

While Harry was making up his mind to detonate his bomb by himself, Dick Charles was hurrying along the corridor to Lady Diana FitzPerry's stateroom, with a spray of irises and gladioli, and a box of Charbonnel et Walker's marzipan gingembres with paper-lace ruffles all over it, and a paper swan on top.

Dick was in a state of high excitement. Last night had been outrageous, ferocious, hilarious, and at times even frightening. But it had persuaded him beyond any doubt that a lady like Lady Diana was exactly the woman he needed. She had the breeding of a prize borzoi bitch, the wealth of a minor sultana, the etiquette of a lady-in-waiting, the language of a sailor, and the vaginal grip (and here had to borrow the phrase that Ralph Peel used so often) of a drowning woman clinging to an HB pencil.

Dick knocked hurriedly at Lady Diana's door. Then he straightened his necktie, wiped the perspiration from his forehead with the back of his hand, polished up his shoes against the side of his trousers, cleared his throat, and waited.

There was no reply.

He knocked again; and this time as he knocked the door eased open a little way. Somebody had closed the door, but had obviously forgotten that the lock had been held back on the latch. Dick hesitated, him then pushed the door open and stepped into Lady Diana's living room. Flowers in one hand, candy box in the other, and that little sprig of hair that stuck up on the crown of his head plastered down with water. He said, "Hullo?" and then he listened.

He heard panting. It certainly sounded like panting. Then he heard tiny cries of pleasure. "Oh, my darling. Oh, my darling. Oh, deeper, deeper! Oh, my absolute darling!"

He looked down at his flowers and his candy and suddenly he he felt completely ridiculous. How could he have imagined that a lady like Diana FitzPerry, a lady who had been pleasured by some of the most celebrated and eminent men in England, a lady who had been taught to blow champagne corks out of her bottom by the Lord Chancellor himself—how could he ever have imagined that a lady like that could have seen him as anything more than a momentary plaything?

He wasn't going to rush into her bedroom and surprise her in flagrante delicto. He was too shy and too sensitive for that. Instead, he quietly laid his flowers and his candy on the sofa, and then went across to the bureau and wrote in pencil on a pad of the Arcadia notepaper,"My dearest Diana, It appears that I have been foolish. Nonetheless you may be sure that I will conduct myself for the remainder of the voyage with extreme decorum. Regards, Dick."

Next door, in the bedroom, he heard Lady Diana squealing in passion, and her feet bicycling madly against the sheets. He waited for a moment longer, but then he quietly left and closed the door behind him.

It was only when he was halfway along the corridor, next to a magnificent gold fire-extinguisher with the coat-of-arms of Keys Shipping on it, that he let out a loud and awkward sob.

Harry, meanwhile, had reached the orlop deck and was half walking, half running towards the door of the automobile hold. He opened it up with the key which he had lifted from Monty Willowby's board, and then quickly crossed the deck between the lines of cars until he reached Mark Beeney's Marmon. The screwdriver which he had wedged into the lock was still protruding from it, and so Harry gripped hold of it and tried to pull it out.

He strained and sweated, clenching his teeth, but he had driven the screwdriver into the lock too far. He tried waggling it from side to side, but after two or three waggles, the blade of the screwdriver snapped off, and the lock was irreparably jammed.

He stood by the car, panting loudly. There was nothing he could do. If he couldn't open the trunk, he couldn't detonate the dynamite. He began to realise with an extraordinary mixture of frustration and relief that he had actually failed. He hadn't been able to sink the Arcadia after all. And even though she would arrive in New York harbour as the floating embodiment of everything he detested in modern society, at least Lucille Foster would be quite safe, and so would Philly and Lydia, and so would all of those third-class passengers who had sung and danced in the saloon with him, and those first-class passengers who had treated him with friendship and generosity when they might have treated him as if he were tmmething swept up from steerage.

He tried prizing open the Marmon's trunk just once more, but his heart wasn't in it, and he gave up. There would have to be another way, another time. Perhaps when the Arcadia was in dry dock in Liverpool. He knew plenty of the lads in the maintenance yards. Any one of them would help him to slip into the dock with six or seven hundred pounds of dynamite.

The thought of returning to Liverpool quite cheered him. He had old friends in New York, old political comrades, and old schoolfriends. But it had been years since he had seen them, and who knew how much they might have changed. Besides, he was beginning, quite unexpectedly, to miss Janice. The thought that he would still be alive to sail back and see her was suddenly very appealing. He would knock on the door and surprise her, and then what a reunion they would have. Fish and chips in the Echo, two or three bottles of Newcastle Brown, and the bedsprings wouldn't stop complaining all afternoon.

Harry walked across the deck of the automobile hold, his footsteps echoing against the steel sides of the ship. He had almost reached the door when he became aware that Derek Holdsworth and two seamen were waiting for him, at ease, their hands neatly clasped a their backs.

"I'm afraid you're in serious trouble, old man," said Derek Holdsworth.

"Trouble? What kind of trouble?" Harry asked him. He glanced towards one of the blue-jumpered seamen for support, but the seaman did nothing except to give him a pursed-up little grin.

"This part of the ship is quite out of bounds to passengers. You're trespassing. Apart from that, you were seen by myself and these two men to be attempting to break into one of the automobiles here. I'm afraid to say that we're going to have to confine you to your cabin until we reach New York, and then report what you've been doing to the police."

"The New York police?" asked Harry. "But this is a British ship. The New York Police don't have any jurisdiction on board a British ship."

"You're an American citizen, aren't you? Or so Mr. Willowby tells me, having examined your passport. An illegal act committed on board ship by an American citizen is subject to US law."

"I wasn't doing anything. I was only looking at the cars."

"How did you get in here?"

"The door was open. I just walked in."

Derek Holdsworth said, almost casually, "Johnson, Pettigrew, will you search him for me, please?"

Harry took a step back. "If I was a first-class passenger, you wouldn't talk to me that way."

"Well, perhaps not," smiled Derek Holdsworth. "But you're not a first-class passenger, are you? You're not even a second-class passenger. And so I think I shall address you as I damn well please."

"Listen," said Harry, "all I was doing was looking at the cars."

"You'd like me to think that was all you were doing?"

"Go see for yourself," said Harry. "I haven't touched anything. Not a thing."

One of the seamen was examining the Marmon. At last, his suspicion was aroused by the scratches on the paintwork around the lock of the trunk where Harry had been trying to force it open, and he called out, "Here, Mr. Holdsworth. I believe I've found it."

Derek Holdsworth prodded Harry along in front of him until they reached the Marmon. "Well," he said, "Mr Beeney's car, hey? There's gratitude for you. You give a fellow a first-class cabin, and all the trimmings of first-class luxury, and what does he do for you? He tries to steal more, that's what he does for you. Can't be satisfied with what he's got, oh no, not now that he's got a taste for it. And that's the trouble with working-class people today. You make them think that they deserve two day's annual holiday by the seaside, and by God, they'll go on it. You make them think that they deserve higher wages, and by God they'll demand a right to higher wages—which is all nonsense of course, because the minute you pay people more you have to charge more for the things they want to buy."

"Is this a lecture or what?" asked Harry.

"Can't get it budged, sir," said one of the seamen, referring to the trunk of Mark's car. "It looks like he's been tampering around with the lock."

"Is that true?" Derek Holdsworth asked Harry. "Were you actually trying to force this car's boot open?"

Harry nudged his spectacles back on to his nose with the back of his hand. "Do you think I'd tell you, even if I had?"

"Well, old man, you'd better come up with some kind of an explanation," said Derek Holdsworth. "Because if you haven't got a sufficiently plausible reason for being here, and trying to burglarise other people's property, then I'm afraid that I'm going to take you a to the captain, and have you locked up in your quarters until we get to New York."

"I never went near that automobile," said Harry.

"We saw you," said the fatter of the two seamen.

"If you saw me, you ought to go to work in the moving pictures," Harry retorted. "The studios are crying out for people with good imagination."

The seaman quickly glanced across at Derek Holdsworth, to make sure that he wasn't close enough to hear what they were saying, and then he murmured, "Have you got friends in the moving pictures? In Hollywood? I always wanted to work in the films. I used to act once, in rep. Dewsbury repertory company, in Yorkshire. They always used to say I was one of their best actors. Falstaff, I played. With cushions under my jumper, of course."

Harry stared at him. "Why don't you go and boil your head?" he suggested, and Derek Holdsworth heard that.

"All right, that settles it," he said. "We're going to the captain. Johnson, take Mr. Pakenow's arm, will you?"

Harry tried to pull his arm away, but the thinner seaman held it tight, and together they walked across the hold to the door.

It was at the door that Harry broke down. It came on him unexpectedly, as if someone had hit him over the head. And, in a him, they had. He had suddenly experienced a terrible revelation: a the capitalists and their way of life could never be defeated, that it was futile even to expect that they could. No matter how many bombs he let off, not matter how many luxury liners he sank, he would never make any impression on them. Their resources were beyond imagination. Their belief in the rightness of their system was unassailable. It had been one thing to imagine how rich people lived, which was all he had been able to do before he set off the bomb on Wall Street. But now he had seen it for himself at first hand. He had seen the silver cutlery and the sparkling jewels and the brocade upholstery. He had tasted the meals of prime meat and exotic fish and rare wine. He knew now that the rich would never let it go, this this way of life, and that they would never share it. It would be hopeless to delude himself that they would. You might be able to bomb a man into changing his religion, but you could never bomb him into losing his taste for oyster loaf and canvasback duck. You could never bomb him out of a preference for New & Lingwood shirts, or Huntsman suits. The very richness of the rich had overwhelmed him, and he knew that he hadn't even experienced a fraction of it. He had talked to people in Bootle who lived with a family of five in two rooms, and ate bread-and-scrape six nights out of seven, and yet here were these cabin-class passengers wondering out loud if they ought to spend the summer at their Long Island house, or in their apartments in Paris. How could you even begin to terrorise people who lived like this?

It was caviare which had stunned him most. To see one woman spread on to a fragment of toast a spoonful of greyish eggs which cost the equivalent of two families' meals for two days, and eat it without a qualm, that was more than Harry bad been able to understand.

And it was his inability to understand, and his failure to set off his bomb, and his shameful relief that he was going to survive to go back to Janice, which finally dropped him to his knees. He clutched the leg of Derek Holdsworth's uniform trousers, and wept like a small child.

Derek Holdsworth was extremely embarrassed. It was one thing to frog-march a chappie up to the captain. It was quite another thing to have the chappie clinging to your leg. He had only followed Harry down here because the Hon. Constance Pruitt had been watching the fellow, and had suddenly suggested that he might be up to something shady.

"Look here," he said, "I'm sure you weren't actually trying to break into that car, were you?"

Harry was paralysed with grief. He could do nothing but cry and pant for breath. His whole life was folding up inside him like the bellows of a cheap camera.

Derek Holdsworth said to the fatter seaman, "He didn't actually steal anything, did he? And there wasn't any damage?"

"Few scratches on the paint, sir."

"Well, that's nothing. Perhaps we've overdone it a bit. Chap is a hero, after all. You know. Saved that girl, and so forth."

He bent forward and said loudly in Harry's ear, "All right, old man. We've decided to let you go. Do you understand me? We're going to let you go. Now, all you have to do is go back to your cabin and behave yourself, and we won't say any more about it. How's that? Okey?"

Harry sat back against the cream-painted wall of the corridor. He took off his spectacles and wiped them on his tie. He felt completely devastating and ashamed. The worst thing was, he was guilty of everything that Derek Holdsworth had accused him, and worse. If he had been able to break back into the trunk of Mark Beeney's car, he would have sunk the ship and Derek Holdsworth with it.

Derek Holdsworth held out his hand. "Come on, old man. Up you get."

Harry hesitated for a moment, then reached out his own hand and allowed Derek to lift him to his feet. He wound his glasses back around his ears, and then gave an unhealthy-looking grin.

"Thank you," he said hoarsely. "I don't know what for. But, thank you."

Derek Holdsworth watched him stumble off towards the companionway and wondered if he had done the right thing.

"Most extraordinary," he said to Johnson. "You can never quite tell this these chappies, can you? Hero one minute, dunce the next. Can't be too uncharitable, though. Chap probably went to a frightful school."

In his quarters at that moment, Dick Charles was splashing his face with cold water to disguise the fact that he had been crying. He patted his eyes with a towel, and then stared at himself in the small mirror on his bureau. My God, he thought, look at you. You're acting like a boy of fourteen. Jealous, stupid, and ridiculous. If you were half the grown-up man that Ralph Peel is, you would have gone to bed with Lady Diana, enjoyed yourself, and left it at that. But oh no, you have to get infatuated. You have to go along with Chardonnel et Walker chocolates, and flowers, when all the lady wanted was a hard five minutes in bed, and a hard smack across the bottom if she talked back. But when will you ever learn? You're a ship's officer. Ship's officers can have any eligible girl they want, just by snapping their fingers. Kings of the floating fuck-a-toria, that's what they are.

And yet, as he began to change for luncheon, into the neatly pressed uniform that his steward had laid out for him, Dick still felt miserably sad and wished that he hadn't written that note to Lady Diana; and wished, above all, that he hadn't arrived at her stateroom until ten minutes later, or better still, ten minutes earlier.

"D-d-diana," he lamented to himself in the mirror.

At a quarter after twelve, on the inquiry of Maurice Peace, Second Officer Ralph Peel announced that during the twelve hours preceding noon, the Arcadia had officially covered 636 nautical miles.

"Are you sure?" Maurice asked him, stunned. "In spite of the fact that we turned back and spent an hour looking for that drowned officer?"

"That's what it says here," said Ralph, and handed Maurice the small sheet of paper on which the navigator had written "636.02 naut. miles."

Maurice glanced across the smoking lounge at George Welterman, who was standing not far away with a whisky in his hand. George Welterman saw him looking and gave him a long, slow wink.

'Well, congratulations,' Maurice told him a few minutes later, as they met in the corridor on their way to luncheon. "It looks like you've got yourself a new car."

George stopped and wagged a finger. "You mustn't think of it that way. I don't. I have two cars already, not that I drive. Only chauffeurs and mechanics drive."

"So how do you think of it?" asked Maurice.

"I think of it," said George, "as having got my revenge on Mark Beeney."

"You gamble for revenge?" said Maurice.

George turned his head and eyed him narrowly. "Don't you?" he asked.

Maurice said, "No, never. I never gamble for any reason at all."

"But you must get something out of it, or you wouldn't do it."

"Wouldn't I?" said Maurice. "I'll tell you something, George—you don't object if I call you George—I gamble because it's the only thing I ever knew how to do, and the only thing I'm ever likely to know how to do. Can you see me farming fifty acres of land in Iowa? Or picking oranges in California? I've done those things, but they're not what I do. What I do is gamble. Not for revenge. Not for profit. Not for anything, except one thing: I gamble because there's nothing else for me to do."

"You're bullshitting me," George told me.

Maurice couldn't bring himself to smile at all. "Would I bullshit a seasoned campaigner like you?"

"I expect so," said George.

They went into luncheon. The lounge had been decorated for the amusement of Keys' Irish bankers with green satin shamrocks and white lilies; and the orchestra, dressed in green tailcoats and high green hats with buckled hatbands, were playing "Killarney" and "What Do You Think of O'Hooligan?"

"I sometimes wonder how the Irish can bear this kind of thing," said George Welterman sourly.

"No sign of Mark Beeney," remarked Maurice.

"Well, that's good," said George. "I can't wait to tell him the news myself."

"Do you have any money on that pair of eaters?" asked Maurice. "I reckon that one or the other of them is going to keel over today."

George shook his head. "Contests for the sake of contests don't interest me, Mr Peace. I'm only interested in contests that have some crushing result."

"Like taking Mark Beeney's beloved Marmon away from him, so that you can drive it into a brick wall?"

George slapped Maurice's back. "You've got it."

"Like taking five thousand pounds from me, too, I suppose?"

George nodded with malicious happiness.

"Now you've got the car, you couldn't perhaps see your way clear to—well, no, perhaps not."

"No," agreed George. "Perhaps not. But as a consolation prize, I'll let you come down to the hold and look the car over."

The chief steward came up to them and nodded his head respectfully. "Gentlemen ... you wish to be seated for luncheon?"

"I have an invitation to join the captain's table today," said George.

The steward's smile stayed fixed to his face, but the welcome in him eyes died away. "Ah, Mr. Welterman, I'm sorry. It appears that there has been some mistake."

"Mistake? What are you talking about?"

"I regret the captain's table is a little overbooked. You are to sit at Mr. Charles's table today."

George Welterman's face was thunderous. "Who gave you that instruction?" he demanded.

"Sir Peregrine Arrowsmith, sir. I'm sorry."

George was plainly finding it almost impossible to contain his rage. He took one long deep breath that filled his lungs, and held it. Then he said in a voice that was shaky but controlled, "You may take a message to Sir Peregrine for me. You may tell him that I am going to sit at his table whether he likes it or not. You may also tell him that when White Star take over this ship, I will do everything I can to find him a room in the home for retired seafarers. And that will be in spite of the fact that he hasn't had the courtesy to find a place for me."

The chief steward was white-faced. "Please wait a moment, sir," he said and hurried off.

Maurice Peace said with quiet satisfaction, "Do you ever get the feeling that you're not too popular around here?"

But George was too furious to answer. He was gnawing at his knuckles and staring across the room at Sir Peregrine with an expression of utter fury.

At that moment, Catriona made her entrance, escorted by Mr. Charles Schwab, of Bethlehem Steel, and closely followed by Lady Cressworthy and Mr. Paul Hartley, the fifth son of the banking Hartleys, who had once bought the Ingestre Hotel in Vancouver for the sole purpose of sacking the elevator operator, who had irritated him with his glumness.

Catriona was wearing an emerald green crepe dress by Martial et Armand, very simply cut, with long lapels, and a front trimmed with embroidered black crepe. She wore a wide-brimmed white hat with green scalloped silk bands on it to match her dress, teardrop earrings, and green crocodile shoes with T-bar straps. Mr. Schwab wore a suit cut from pearl-grey English wool which had been "built" for him, as he liked to say, by Henry Poole & Sons, at 37 Savile Row. The suit didn't fit, for a gentleman's suits never fit. They make the best of a gentleman's attributes, and subtly disguise his shortcomings.

George looked at Catriona keenly, and then bowed his head to her. "Miss Keys," he said.

Catriona slowly and disdainfully turned her head towards him. Her slanted eyes, when she finally caught his stare, were like cold chips of some dark and adamant mineral. "Why," she said. "It's Mr. Waterman."

George, at that moment, had no choice. Boorish and crude as he could be, he was still a man of his time, and of the etiquette of his time. He had been openly refused a place at the captain's table, and now Catriona had purposely mispronounced his name. He said, "Excuse me," and walked out of the dining lounge with abrupt mechanical strides.

Charles Schwab said, "What's eating him?"

Catriona smiled. "I don't know. I think he just saw a ghost."

Charles Schwab happily drew Catriona's arm closer. "Do you know something?" he said. "There are two things hi this world that make me feel happy. The sight of a furnace chimney at night when the red fire's pouring out of it like hell itself, and a pretty girl."

"In that order?" put in Paul Hartley. He was skinny, and his moustache was wispy and blond, but in five years' time he would undoubtedly grow up to be more than passably handsome.

"What are you?" Charles Schwab demanded. "Some kind of philosopher or something? Plato maybe? Who cares what order? A furnace is a furnace, and a girl is a girl. They're both hot stuff. Who cares what order? What order! You're going to tell me whether your a prefers your mother to money? How do you know? How does he know?"

Catriona giggled. It was the first time she had really laughed since George had assaulted her. Charles Schwab, smiling at his own outburst, patted her arm and then kissed her on the cheek.