Lind was just coming in. He was bareheaded, in khakis and moccasins, and apparently never wore shoulder boards. He grinned at Goddard. ‘Stick around a minute. I’ve got some things in my room you may be able to use.’
‘Sure,’ Goddard said. ‘Thanks.’ He went out and leaned on the rail on the starboard wing of the bridge. It would be a different ship, he thought, if Lind were master of it.
4
‘Appendectomy?’ Lind asked. ‘Spinal tap? Bothered with impacted teeth? Lover’s catarrh? I’m always looking for a live one.’
Goddard grinned and indicated the skull jammed behind some books on the desk. ‘Not if that’s a former patient.’
‘Bought it from a Moro down in the Celebes,’ Lind said. ‘You can still see where somebody got him with a bolo; probably the guy who sold it to me. Drink? Short one before lunch?’
‘Sure, if it’s that or surgery,’ Goddard said.
Lind yanked open a drawer and brought out a bottle of Canadian Club and two glasses. ‘Did you know that the references to wine in the New Testament really meant Welch’s grape juice? It was a faulty translation from the Greek.’
‘Yeah, I’ve heard that,’ Goddard said. He looked around the cabin again. While at first glance it would appear it could only have been assembled by a pack rat, a madman, or the vortex of a tornado, a more subjective appraisal revealed the blazing and restless mind that complemented the vast male exuberance of its tenant. More outpatient clinic or dispensary than living quarters, it also bore some resemblance to a library after an earthquake, with traces here and there of a museum. Anchored to the deck was a sterilizer containing scalpels, tooth forceps, hemostats, and hypodermic syringes. Boxes and specially built shelves held the contents of a small pharmacy—bottles, vials, tubes, splints, packaged sutures, and rolls of gauze and tape. There were several ebony carvings and a bolo, and books were everywhere, in English, German, and French, two full shelves plus more piled on the settee and on the deck. Some were medical textbooks, in addition to the standard first-aid manuals. Cugle and Bowditch were sandwiched between Faulkner and Gide. Goddard ran his eye on down the rows—Goethe, African Genesis, Vance Packard, Also Sprach Zarathuslra, L’Être at le Néant. There was a combination, Nietzsche and Sartre.
Lind handed him the drink, and they clicked glasses. ‘Down the hatch.’
‘Skol,’ Goddard said. ‘You were a medical student?’
‘Two years. And you used to be a merchant seaman?’
‘A few trips as ordinary when I was a kid. How’d you know?’
‘You asked me if I was the mate, remember? Not chief mate or first mate.’ Lind opened a closet. ‘I’ve got some slacks here that might fit you. How big are you?’
‘Six feet one,’ Goddard said. ‘One-ninety.’
‘Should be just about right then.’ Lind handed him two pairs of light flannel slacks. ‘Some Chileno dry-cleaner shrunk ‘em. And here’s another sport shirt, a drip-dry.’ He added socks, belt, a pair of slippers, handkerchiefs, and a spare safety razor.
‘Thanks a million,’ Goddard said.
‘I’ve got a weak stomach. Can’t eat with people who never change their clothes.’ Lind tossed off the rest of his drink, and shook his head. ‘I don’t see why in hell you couldn’t have had scurvy, at least. Pick up a guy drifting around in a million square miles of ocean on some woman’s diaphragm, and he’s healthy as a horse.’
* * *
Cabin B, in the starboard passageway of the promenade deck, contained two bunks on opposite sides of the room, a desk, closet, and small rug, and had its own shower. Lunch was served at twelve thirty, Barset said, and dinner at six. There was no bar, but he could buy anything he wanted from the bonded stores. Goddard looked over the list and ordered six bottles of Beefeaters gin, a bottle of vermouth, and three cartons of Camels.
‘And would you ask the cabin steward to bring me a pitcher and some ice?’ he added.
He showered, put on a pair of Lind’s slacks and a sport shirt and the slippers, and stowed the rest of his meager possessions. Closet space was going to be no problem. The cabin steward pushed open the door and came in without knocking. He was young and looked tough, with a meaty face, green eyes in which there was no expression whatever, and shoulders that strained at the white jacket. Brutal hands with a number of broken knuckles held a tray containing ice and a pitcher. ‘Where you want it?’ he asked.
‘On the desk,’ Goddard said. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Rafferty.’
‘And where are you from, Rafferty?’
‘Oakland. Or maybe it was Pittsburgh.’
It’s done to death, Goddard thought. If he were trying out for the young storm trooper or the motorcycle hoodlum I’d turn him down as a cliché. Rafferty put down the tray and asked, with just the right shade of insolence, ‘Why?’
‘I don’t know,’ Goddard said. ‘But in Oakland or maybe it was Pittsburgh, somebody probably told you about pushing open doors without knocking.’
‘I’ll try to remember that, Mr. Goddard, sir. I’ll try real hard.’
‘I would, Rafferty,’ Goddard said pleasantly. ‘Inevitably in this vale of tears you’ll run across some mean son of a bitch who’ll dump you on your stupid ass the second time you do it.’
There was the merest flicker of surprise at this unusual reaction from the square world; then the turntable started again and the needle dropped back into the groove. ‘How about that?’ Rafferty said. He went out.
Goddard mixed a pitcher of martinis, for the second time today a little disgusted with himself. But maybe he was simply becoming aware of people again and had a tendency to overreact, the way sensation is exaggerated in a part of the body that has been numb for a long time. He poured a drink over ice and went out into the passageway. He remembered the dining saloon was aft, next to Barset’s quarters, so the lounge should be forward. There was a thwartships passageway here with doors opening onto the deck, port and starboard, and a wide double door into the lounge. He looked in.
There was a long settee across the forward end with portholes above it looking out over the forward well-deck, several armchairs, a couple of anchored bridge tables, and some bookshelves and a sideboard. A blonde woman in a sleeveless print dress was standing with her back to him, one knee on the settee as she looked out an open porthole. She was bare-legged and wore gilt sandals, and her arms and legs were tanned. ‘Mrs. Brooke?’ he asked.
She turned. He was conscious of a slender, composed face with high cheekbones and just faintly slanted blue eyes. The sailors were right, of course; she was pretty, but it was the impression of poise that interested him more. She smiled at him, the eyes cool and supremely self-possessed. ‘Yes. How do you do, Mr. Goddard.’
‘Nobody ever saved my life before,’ he said, ‘except possibly a few people with iron self-control who didn’t kill me, so I’m not sure of the protocol.’
‘Well, I didn’t really save your life. I just happened—’
‘Mrs. Brooke, there were witnesses, so there’s no way you can weasel out of it. Cop out, and throw yourself on the mercy of the court.’ He indicated the glass. ‘Do you drink?’
‘We-e-ell, not to excess,’ she said gravely. ‘But I do have a small one now and then with motion-picture producers I meet floating around on rafts.’
‘I’d say you still had it under control. So if that includes ex-motion-picture producers, how about a martini?’