'Thank God for old Socrates!' he said feelingly. 'Only man in the ship who can make you see even a modicum of sense.' He parked himself on the edge of the bed. 'How do you feel, Dick?'
Vallery grinned crookedly. There was no humour in his smile.
'All depends what you mean, sir. Physically or mentally? I feel a bit worn out-not really ill, you know. Doc says he can fix me up-temporarily anyway. He's going to give me a plasma transfusion-says I've lost too much blood.'
'Plasma?'
'Plasma. Whole blood would be a better coagulant. But he thinks it may prevent-or minimise-future attacks...' He paused, wiped some froth off his lips, and smiled again, as mirthlessly as before. 'It's not really a doctor and medicine I need, John-it's a padre-and forgiveness.'
His voice trailed off into silence. The cabin was very quiet.
Tyndall shifted uncomfortably and cleared his throat noisily. Rarely had he been so conscious that he was, first and last, a man of action.
'Forgiveness? What on earth do you mean, Dick?' He hadn't meant to speak so loudly, so harshly.
'You know damn' well what I mean,' Vallery said mildly. He was a man who was rarely heard to swear, to use the most innocuous oath. 'You were with me on the bridge this morning.'
For perhaps two minutes neither man said a word. Then Vallery broke into a fresh paroxysm of coughing. The towel in his hand grew dark, sodden, and when he leaned back on his pillow Tyndall felt a quick stab of fear. He bent quickly over the sick man, sighed in soundless relief as he heard the quick, shallow breathing. Vallery spoke again, his eyes still closed. 'It's not so much the men who were killed in the Low Power Room.' He seemed to be talking to himself, his voice a drifting murmur. 'My fault, I suppose-I took the Ulysses too near the Ranger. Foolish to go near a sinking ship, especially if she's burning... But just one of these things, just one of the risks... they happen...' The rest was a blurred, dying whisper. Tyndall couldn't catch it. He rose abruptly to his feet, pulling his gloves on. 'Sorry, Dick,' he apologised. 'Shouldn't have come, shouldn't have stayed so long. Old Socrates will give me hell.'
'It's the others, the boys in the water.' Vallery might never have heard him. 'I hadn't the right, I mean, perhaps some of them would...' Again his voice was lost for a moment, then he went on strongly: 'Captain Richard Vallery, D.S.O., judge, jury and executioner. Tell me, John, what am I going to say when my turn comes?'
Tyndall hesitated, heard the authoritative rap on the door and jerked round, his breath escaping in a long, inaudible sigh of thankfulness.
'Come in,' he called.
The door opened and Brooks walked in. He stopped short at the sight of the Admiral, turned to the white- coated assistant behind him, a figure weighed down with stands, bottles, tubing and various paraphernalia.
'Remain outside, Johnson, will you?' he asked. 'I'll call you when I want you.'
He closed the door, crossed the cabin and pulled a chair up to the Captain's bunk. Vallery's wrist between his fingers, he looked coldly across at Tyndall. Nicholls, Brooks remembered, was insistent that the Admiral was far from well. He looked tired, certainly, but more unhappy than tired... The pulse was very fast, irregular. 'You've been upsetting him,' Brooks accused. 'Me? Good God, nol' Tyndall was injured.
'So help me, Doc, I never said-----'
'Not guilty, Doc.' It was Vallery who spoke, his voice stronger now.
'He never said a word. I'm the guilty man, guilty as hell.'
Brooks looked at him for a long moment. Then he smiled, smiled in understanding and compassion.
'Forgiveness, sir. That's it, isn't it?' Tyndall started in surprise, looked at him in wonder.
Vallery opened his eyes. 'Socrates!' he murmured. 'You would know.'
'Forgiveness,' Brooks mused. 'Forgiveness. From whom, the living, the dead, or the Judge?'
Again Tyndall started. 'Have you, have you been listening outside? How can you------?'
'From all three, Doc. A tall order, I'm afraid.'
'From the dead, sir, you are quite right. There would be no forgiveness: only their blessing, for there is nothing to forgive. I'm a doctor, don't forget-I saw those boys in the water... you sent them home the easy way. As for the Judge, you know, 'The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord', the Old Testament conception of the Lord who takes away in His own time and His own way, and to hell with mercy and charity.' He smiled at Tyndall. 'Don't look so shocked, sir. I'm not being blasphemous. If that were the Judge, Captain, neither you nor I-nor the Admiral, would ever want any part of him. But you know it isn't so...'
Vallery smiled faintly, propped himself up on his pillow. 'You make good medicine, Doctor. It's a pity you can't speak for the living also.'
'Oh, can't I?' Brooks smacked his hand on his thigh, guffawed in sudden recollection. 'Oh, my word, it was magnificent!' He laughed again in genuine amusement. Tyndall looked at Vallery in mock despair.
'Sorry,' Brooks apologised. 'Just fifteen minutes ago a bunch of sympathetic stokers deposited on the deck of the Sick Bay the prone and extremely unconscious form of one of their shipmates. Guess who? None other than our resident nihilist, our old friend Riley. Slight concussion and assorted facial injuries, but he should be restored to the bosom of his mess deck by nightfall. Anyway, he insists on it, claims his kittens need him.'
Vallery looked up, amused, curious.
'Fallen down the stokehold again, I presume?'
'Exactly the question I put, sir-although it looked more as if he had fallen into a concrete mixer. 'No, sir,' says one of the stretcher-bearers. 'He tripped over the ship's cat.'
'Ship's cat?' I says. 'What ship's cat?' So he turns to his oppo and says: 'Ain't we got a ship's cat, Nobby?' Where upon the stoker Nobby looks at him pityingly and says:' 'E's got it all wrong, sir.
Poor old Riley just came all over queer, took a weak turn, 'e did. I 'ope 'e ain't 'urt 'isself?' He sounded quite anxious.'
'What had happened?' Tyndall queried.
'I let it go at that. Young Nicholls took two of them aside, promised no action and had it out of them in a minute flat. Seems that Riley saw in this morning's affair a magnificent opportunity for provoking trouble. Cursed you for an inhuman, cold-blooded murderer and, I regret to say, cast serious aspersions on your immediate ancestors, and all of this, mind you, where he thought he was safe-among his own friends. His friends half-killed him... You know, sir, I envy you...'
He broke off, rose abruptly to his feet.
'Now, sir, if you'll just lie down and roll up your sleeve... Oh, damn!'
'Come in.' It was Tyndall who answered the knock. ''Ah, for me, young Chrysler. Thank you.'
He looked up at Vallery. 'From London-in reply to my signal.' He turned it over in his hand two or three times. 'I suppose I have to open it some time,' he said reluctantly.
The Surgeon-Commander half-rose to his feet.
'Shall I------'
'No, no, Brooks. Why should you? Besides, it's from our mutual friend, Admiral Starr. I'm sure you'd like to hear what he's got to say, wouldn't you?'
'No, I wouldn't.' Brooks was very blunt. 'I can't imagine it'll be anything good.'
Tyndall opened the signal, smoothed it out.
'D.N.O. to Admiral Commanding 14 A.C.S.,' he read slowly. 'Tirpitz reported preparing to move out. Impossible detach Fleet carrier: FR77 vital: proceed Murmansk all speed: good luck: Starr.' Tyndall paused, his mouth twisted. 'Good luck! He might have spared us that!'
For a long time the three men looked at each other, silently, without expression. Characteristically, it was Brooks who broke the silence.
'Speaking of forgiveness,' he murmured quietly, 'what I want to know is, who on God's earth, above or below it, is ever going to forgive that vindictive old bastard?'
CHAPTER EIGHT
THURSDAY NIGHT
