“How big is the crew?” Mal asked.
“Seven in my gang, counting me and the second. Ten topside hands plus the three officers. That makes twenty. Cookie and two mess boys. Twenty-three. The seven passengers brings it to thirty. Oh yes, and Sparks. Thirty-one aboard.”
The sound of the engines picked up again. Ka-thud... chung; ka-thud... chung; ka-thud... chung. Torgeson cocked his head on one side, listened, nodded. Breeze began to sigh through the ventilators cooling the perspiration on their faces. In a few moments the Bjornsan Star began to lift and sigh and creak with the first ground swells of the coastal sea. Mal glanced over through the ports and saw the horizon line lift into view, hang there for a moment, then slide down out of sight.
Torgeson finished his coffee, clattered the cup into the saucer, shoved the chair back and stood up, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.
“If you want to tell lies,” he said, “look me up. They moved me up to the forecastle. I’m bunking in with Sparks and the second. Two guys have my cabin and a bald-headed guy has Sparks’ cabin. The babes are in Paulus’ cabin and the Hindu is bunking in with Dolan. Aren’t we a happy little family? Grinning, he went out through the galley.”
Mal stood up and started to go out through the other door. As he reached it, it swung open and Mrs. Temble came in. Her eyes went wide for a fraction of a second and then she gave him a shy smile. “Please, Mr. Atkinson, were you leaving? Would you mind sitting with me for just a moment?”
“Not at all.” He followed her back to the cleared table where Mr. Gopala had sat. She walked ahead of him, her shoulders straight with that rigidity he had noticed on the garden dance floor of the Great Eastern. Like the Farrow girl, Mrs. Temble wore tailored shorts. Hers were a vivid yellow. Her slim legs were tanned and beautifully formed. She wore a jade green halter tied at the small of her straight back. She had let the burnished red-brown hair down and it reached to her shoulderblades. It was tied with a scrap of yellow yarn. On her slim brown feet were flat-heeled Indian sandals.
Once they sat opposite each other and after she had given her order to the smiling mess boy, it seemed to take her a very long time to lift her eyes to his. Mal saw that he had underestimated the loveliness of her face, the short straight nose, the delicate bones of the eye sockets and temple, the clean line of jaw and rounded chin. She could live to be ninety and carry beauty to her grave. It was possible to see in her face just how she had looked at twelve, just how she would look at forty. Her eyes were on that borderline where they are neither gray nor green nor blue — but something of all three.
She said tonelessly, “I want to ask you to forgive me for last night. I wish to explain that we have been under considerable strain during the past year and my nerves are not what they should be. Lately I have been doing inexplicable things and my husband feels that it is high time we returned to the States. You must have thought me a perfect fool to act as I did.”
Mal looked at her for a long moment. “Your name is Sara, isn’t it?”
She nodded and again the fear was in her eyes.
“Sara, tell me how long it took you to memorize that little speech.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s as phoney as a nine-cent dime and you know it. I frightened you last night and you were frightened for a good reason, I would guess. I don’t know what that reason is. You could call me a recent expert on fear. I’ve seen a hell of a lot of it lately. I would guess you’re in some sort of trouble. I’m not going to try to ride to the rescue with banners waving. I’ve outgrown the knighthood impulse. I just want to tell you that you have nothing to fear from me. I’m a tired guy on my way home. That’s all. Somehow your fear is hooked up with recognizing me from the hotel. That was coincidence of the simplest sort.”
He could not read her expression because she was looking directly down at the empty plate in front of her. But he saw her firm breasts encased in the jade halter lift with the quickness of her breathing. And her hands, on either side of the plate, were clenched so that the knuckles, against the tan, whitened to ivory.
She looked up again. “You are... exactly what you said you are?”
“A reporter — headed home after the world’s worst assignment. Yes.”
“I... I can believe you, Mr. Atkinson, bait the others...”
“My name is Mal,” he corrected gently. “The others won’t believe that I am what I am, eh?” He smiled. “Just what sort of an expedition was it, Sara?”
She shut her eyes for a moment, then started to stand up. He reached across the narrow table, put his hand firmly on her warm brown shoulder and forced her back down into the chair.
“Stay and have your breakfast. I’m going up on deck.” He stood up. She kept her face turned away from him. He looked down at the shining hair and said, “I won’t meddle, but even a guy who has given up a knighthood will have to come running if the lady makes a direct appeal.”
He left her without looking back.
He went up onto the boat deck that was on the same level as the bridge. The captain’s cabin was between the boat deck and the bridge itself. Off to the right the mainland of India was a hazy line on the horizon. Dr. Temble and Gina Farrow stood close together at the rail between the bow of one lifeboat and the stern of the second.
Gina turned and smiled at him and called, “Come here, Malcolm.” He went over. “Malcolm Atkinson, Dr. Roger Temble.” Temble’s grip was surprisingly strong. The eyes, behind the glittering rimless glasses, were liquid brown.
“So nice to meet a fellow passenger,” he said softly. “Mr. Atkinson, I am afraid you will have to forgive us for any irregularities of behavior you may see. Our little group has had several taut hours over the past seventeen months and you could call us a bit unstrung. My wife, particularly. She told me last night of her very ridiculous behavior when she met you on deck. This expedition has been very hard on her. She came with me under protest, you understand. My protest.”
Dr. Temble smiled in a friendly way, but Mal had the impression that he was being watched very carefully by both of them.
“Your wife has already explained that to me, Doctor.”
“Ah, good! She is a very sensitive and excitable girl. I am really afraid that if we had delayed getting her back to a familiar environment, her mind might have given way, wouldn’t you say so, Gina?”
“Sara’s a sweet kid, Roger,” Gina said, “but she’s got too much imagination. You know how those things are.”
“So, Mr. Atkinson,” the doctor said suavely, “if you should happen to notice any... uh... aberrative symptoms during our voyage together, I would appreciate your bringing them to my immediate attention.”
“I’ll certainly do that, Doctor.”
“I understand you’ve been in China on an assignment, Mr. Atkinson?”
“That’s right.”
“How did you get out?” Both of them seemed to be watching him with a very intense interest. A perverse devil took charge of Mal.
“You’ll forgive me, I hope, if I duck the question. It’s all happened so recently. You know how it is. Too early to talk about it.”
He had thought Dr. Temble’s liquid brown eyes to be warm. Now he noticed that behind the lenses they had all the expression of congealed jelly. Gina, for once, was not in ceaseless motion. Her face, without its vivacity, was more rapacious than striking.
Temble said quickly, and with great joviality, “Well, I sincerely hope that after you have rested you’ll be able to tell us about that great country during these months of severe trial.”
Gina clutched the doctor’s arm. “Roger, the man plays bridge!”