He eased the rope around his waist and called up as loudly as he could. The rope lurched into motion once more. After a few more minutes, he could feel the spray from the bow wave on his bare legs and Robin’s rope, straight as an iron bar, was angling down close by. He yelled again and his progress stopped. He turned carefully, and there she was, a matter of feet below him, at that instant looking up to see where the noise had come from. Their eyes met and she smiled. The smile of a perfectly happy woman.
“KEREM!” He was in motion.
Five seconds later, at the top of his lungs, “KEREM!” again.
He stood astride her and leaned inward to take her gently under the arms. Her face twisted at once and he saw the danger posed by the boatswain’s chair. But there was little time to consider alternatives. He slid his hands round between her back and the cold side of the tanker, gathering her to him in a gentle bear hug. At once the rope round his own waist cut more deeply. No help for that either.
As soon as her feet were clear of the water, the weight of her rope pulled them left, nearly upsetting Richard’s precarious balance. But the men on the deck understood the change in tension. A head was thrust briefly into silhouette over the edge of the deck and the boatswain’s chair fell free. Richard and Robin swung back, his feet skipping and dancing over the metal, trying to keep their purchase. The strain on his arms intensified. The rope bit deeper at his waist. He took the first step on the long walk home.
There were willing hands enough to lift them in over the rail. John had remained on watch on the bridge, but he had got hold of Ben, who had arrived on the forecastle head too late to do anything other than to heave with the rest. In that psychic way he seemed to have, Chief Steward Ho had heard too, and, having high regard both for his round-eyed captain and the barbarian woman, he, too, had hastened here, collecting on the way Salah Malik, who had just completed the second, fruitless, search for Hajji Hassan.
In the final analysis, their presence was the most germaine. As Richard and Robin sank to the deck, side by side, water spewed out of Robin’s sea-filled shirt, and in it, the smallest of the flying fish that had bombarded her earlier. They all stood looking at it. Hajji’s winnings had gone back into the pot. The fish was worth two hundred dollars.
Robin pulled herself up. Her shoulder hurt, but she would survive. And she was determined to get back on duty as soon as possible. She looked at them all standing watching the flying fish dance.
“Salah,” she said firmly, “you’d better share the winnings from this one round the team,’cause I’ll be damned if I’m going to get you another one.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
After the adventure of the felucca, Prometheus proceeded west of south and early August passed in a deceptive, haunted calm while they sailed under Capricorn and out of the Mozambique Channel. The calm was both haunted and deceptive almost all because of Hajji Hassan. The cause of his disappearance remained a mystery. Richard interviewed anyone who had anything to say, formed his own conclusions, and filled in the logs and the Accident Reports accordingly. After that, it seemed, he was gone for good. And yet he left something of himself behind. Something more even than Levkas’s doomed crew. Perhaps because they had all known him; perhaps because none of them had liked him much; what ever the reason, it was he, the crew said, who was always there, just beyond the edge of your vision. Just behind you. It was his breath that stirred the hair on your neck when you paused in the flat bright corridors in the night to listen to the haunting music one of Ho’s men played on a mysterious Eastern flute.
But, beyond this, the haunted calm was deceptive because on board there were plots and currents under the busy surface that boded no good at all. And because, far to the east and south, a weather system was building that would come close to destroying them all.
Robin had had every intention of returning to duty before the end of her first watch, but Ben had gone soft on her and filled her so full of painkillers before he dared try sew up the small wound on her scalp caused by the felucca’s rail, that he knocked her out for nearly a day and kept her in bed for several more.
Richard took her watches, and this was no bad thing. While on the one hand it tied him down — he had to be on the bridge at certain times — it also brought him out of his captain’s solitude and dumped him right back in the swing of things. With the action forced upon him, he was happier at once. Nor was this a quiet time for anyone else. There was painting to be done; all sorts of maintenance to be completed before they reached the Cape in less than a week’s time. And, while South Africa is as near the equator as Florida, nevertheless it was winter in the Southern Hemisphere and rough weather could be expected.
The working day stretched from dawn to dusk and then beyond. Suddenly it became the rule rather than the exception for small groups of men to appear and disappear at odd times, and to demand food when everyone else had just eaten or were still fasting. The entertainments committee disbanded itself, without having entertained anyone other than themselves. The true brains of the ship moved from the bridge — and the Engine Room — to the galley. This was the time “Twelve Toes” Ho and his men came into their own. No demand was too great; no requirement too unreasonable. As the machine of the crew — above deck and below — ran more and more rapidly, they poured the oil of their service on all the working parts. No matter who left what berth in how much of a mess when called away on some errand, it was all neat and tidy on his return. No matter what nameless accident with what filthy part of the engine, there were always clean, freshly pressed overalls available. Ho even set up an elementary watch system so that there would be someone in the galley at all times.
At midnight, local time, August 4, however, there was no steward there at all. Which made it all too easy for the tall figure in white overalls to put the poison in the food.
He came into the galley with the plan already formed in his mind, hesitant only about the final touches. Aware that he was unlikely to remain undisturbed for long, he paused, enjoying the pressure. He did not want what he was doing to take immediate effect but he needed it to be active at a certain time, in a particular place. Under predetermined conditions.
Yes! That was it! What did you consume under one set of circumstances that you tended to avoid under others?
He smiled grimly and went to work.
The storm came whirling out of the east two days later.
They had been trimming the edge of a seasonal high ever since they had left the Mozambique Channel and the barometer had been standing at 1025 for days, with wide skies and quiet seas to show for it. On the afternoon of the 5th it began to rise rapidly. By sunset it stood at 1037 and John was shaking his head while everybody else was perspiring in the sort of heat they should have left in the Gulf.
“I don’t like the look of this at all,” observed Ben when he relieved Robin at midnight.
“What can we do?” The third mate shrugged — she could shrug now with no discomfort to her shoulder, and was back on her first late watch. “I’d keep my eyes open, though.”
“That’s sensible,” Ben agreed. “Only wise thing to do.” But his tone was distant.
Robin didn’t need to ask why. He was checking her records. She waited. “Back down to 1025 millibars,” he observed.
“Yup.” She shrugged again, wearily.
She went to bed.
By four, the barometric pressure stood at 1020. John noted the fact in the log when he relieved Ben.