"Vhat if they had to take a pithth?" Joe said. "I alvayth have to pithth a lot chutht before a fight. No matter how brave I am, and I am, I get tenthe. It ain't nervouthneth. Chutht tenthion."
"And of course all that booze doesn't have a thing to do with it," Sam said. "If I had a fifth in me, I wouldn't be able to get out of the toilet. In fact, I'd be lucky if I could find it."
"The vhiskey dearth my kidneyth. Clear kidneyth; clear head. My head, I mean, not the boat'th head."
"Both heads have a lot in common," Sam said. "The toilet's got pipes full of water, and you have water on the brain."
"You're chuth talking nathty becauthe you're nervouth," Joe said. He patted Sam on the shoulder with fingers the size of bananas.
"Don't get familiar with the captain," Sam said: But he felt better. Joe loved him, and he would always be at his side. Could anything bad happen to him while that monster was guarding him? Yes. The boat could be destroyed, Joe or no Joe.
31
THE REX GRANDISSIMUS WAS VISIBLE BY NOW, A WHITE INDIStinct mass moving toward him. As minutes passed, it became sharper. For a moment, Sam Clemens felt a pain in his breast. The Rex had been his first boat, his first love. He had fought to get the metal for it, killed, even slain one of his colleagues for it—where was Erik Bloodaxe now?—helped plan it down to the least bolt, and all that killing and battling and struggle had been negated when King John had stolen it. Now it was his greatest adversary. It was a pity to have to destroy that craft, one of the only two of its kind on the whole planet.
He hated John even more because he was forcing him to sink the beauty. Maybe, though, just maybe the Rex could be boarded and taken. Then both boats could sail on up The River to its headwaters.
Sam had always seesawed from deepest pessimism to wildest optimism.
"Two and a half miles now," the radar operator said.
"Any blips on the Goosel"
"No... yes, sir! Got some! It's three miles to the starboard, just above the hills!"
"Sir, the enemy vessel is turning to starboard," the radarman said.
Sam looked out the fore port. Sure enough, the Rex was swinging around. And as the Not For Hire plowed toward it, the Rex presented its stern.
"Vhat in hell'th he doing?"
"He can't be running away!" Sam said. "Whatever else the sneaky bastard is, he's not a coward. Besides, his men wouldn't let him. No, he's up to something devious."
"Perhaps," Detweiller said, "the Rex has some mechanical difficulty?"
"If it does, we can catch it," Sam said. "Radar, check its speed."
"Enemy vessel is making thirty-five miles per hour, due west, sir."
"Against the current and wind, that's top speed," Sam said. "There's nothing wrong with it. Nothing I can see, anyway. Why in blue jumping blazes are they running? They haven't got any place to hide."
Sam paused, rolling his eyes as if they were looking for an idea. He said, "Sonar! Do you pick up any foreign object! Say, something that could be a mine?"
"No, sir. All clear underwater except for some schools of fish."
"It'd be just like John to make some mines and scatter them in our path," Sam said. "I'd do it myself if the situations were reversed."
"Yeth, but he knowth ve have thonar."
"I'd try it anyway. Sparks, tell Anderson to hold off until we're engaged or until further orders."
The radio operator transmitted the message to the pilot of the Goose, lan Anderson. He was a Scot who had flown a British torpedo-bomber during World War II. His gunner, Theodore Zaimis, was a Greek who had been a tail-gunner in an RAF Handley Page Halifax on its night raids over France and Germany in the same war.
Anderson reported that he understood. Radar followed the Goose as it maintained a more or less level course eastward.
As the sun slowly arced downward, the Not For Hire decreased the gap between it and the Rex.
"Maybe John doesn't know how fast this boat can go," Sam muttered as he paced back and forth. He looked at the crowds on both banks and on the spires and bridges. "Why do they stand around gawking? Don't they know rockets and shells are likely to be landing among them? That's the least John could have done, warn them!"
The great red-and-black stone temple came into view, loomed, then dwindled. Now the pursuer was only half a mile behind the pursued. Sam gave Detweiller orders to ease up on the speed.
"I don't know what he's up to. But I'm not going to run full speed into any trap."
"It looks as if he's heading for the strait," Detweiller said.
"I might have known that," Sam said. i The mountains were curving in, their arcs on both sides almost meeting a mile ahead. Here the black, white, and red-streaked walls formed straight-up-and-down precipices out of which The River boiled. The Rex, though it must be under full power, was only making twenty miles an hour. Its rate of progress would be even less if it entered the towering and dark passage.
"Do you really suppose John's going to take her to the other side?" Sam said. He pounded his left palm with his fist. "By thunder, that's it! He's going to wait for us on the other side, catch us when we come out!"
"You vouldn't be that thtupid, vould you?" Joe Miller said.
Sam ignored him. He strode to the radio operator. "Get me Anderson!"
The pilot of the Goose spoke with a broad Lowland Scots brogue. "Aye, we'll go over and see what this skurlie is doing, Captain. But it'll take some time to climb over the pass."
"Don't climb over the mountains; go through the pass," Sam said. "If you see your chance, attack!" Then to Byron, "Heard anything?"
A slight annoyance passed over Byron's face. "I'll tell you as soon as I do."
Sam laughed and said, "Sorry, John. But the idea of somebody planting explosives down there... well, it concerns me. Carry on."
"Here it is," Byron said as the warrant officer of Station 26 spoke. Sam swung around to stand by Byron.
"Ensign Santiago left about half an hour ago, sir," Schindler said. "He put me in charge, said he was suffering from nervous diarrhea and he wanted to clean himself out so he wouldn't disgrace himself. He said he'd be right back. He didn't show up until ten minutes later, but I didn't think much about it, sir, since he said he just couldn't stop.
"He looked like he'd just had a shower, sir, was dripping wet. He said he'd fouled himself and so had to take a quick shower. Then, just after we heard the general call to report by the numbers, he excused himself again. But he hasn't been back."
"Station 27, report!" Byron said. He turned his head to Sam. "He might not be the only one."
All thirty-five stations reported that no one else had been missing even for a minute.
"Well, he's either hiding some place or went overboard," Sam said.
"I doubt he could leave the boat without someone seeing him," Byron said.
Sam called de Marbot. "Get all your marines, all, to search for Santiago. If he resists, shoot him. But I would like to talk to him if possible."
Sam turned to Byron. "Santiago's been with us from the beginning. John must have planted him, though how John knew about the laser I don't know. We didn't even think of it until after he stole the boat. And how in God's name did Santiago find out about the laser? Even Queen Victoria's sex life wasn't a better secret."
"He's had plenty of time to dig around," Byron said. "He's a sly one. I never did trust the dago."
"I liked him," Sam said. "He was always congenial, very good at his duties, and a hell of a good poker player."
Santiago was a seventeenth-century Venezuelan sailor who had captained a warship for ten years. Shipwrecked off an unidentified Caribbean island, he was speared by Indians as he struggled onto a beach. However, this only hastened his death a little. Syphilis had almost finished tearing him apart anyway.