‘One of my girl friends wishing me a happy birthday,’ Lind said. He winked at Goddard. ‘They pour in from all over the world.’
Goddard went back to his cabin, mixed a pitcher of martinis, and lay back on the bunk propped on two pillows as he stared moodily up at the ceiling. So? After Manila, what? Where did you go from there? And why? Consider the noblest of the apes, he thought; the only rational animal, by his own admission. He throws in another gallon of adrenaline and goes bounding over the landscape like a goosed gazelle to save his life, and then after he saves it he stops and looks back and says, what the hell am I running for, my name’s not Smith. He was roused from these somber reflections by the sound of chimes in the passageway. He finished the martini and went back to the dining room. Karen and Madeleine Lennox were already there, standing talking to Captain Steen. He suddenly remembered he’d forgotten all about the drink he’d promised Mrs. Lennox.
She hadn’t. Somewhat overdressed and made-up, she accused him archly as he walked in, ‘Mr. Goddard, I must inform you your verbal promise isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.’
‘Guilty, with extenuating circumstances, Your Honor,’ Goddard said with a grin. I dozed off.’ He turned to Karen. ‘Mrs. Brooke, if I’m typical of the characters you save, I wouldn’t blame you if you went into some other line of work.’
She smiled, and said, I don’t believe you’ve met Mr. Egerton.’ Goddard turned. Egerton had just entered behind him, looking very striking with the neat gray hair and moustache, the black eye-patch, and a white jacket over a white sport shirt. He shook hands warmly, and said, ‘Welcome aboard, Mr. Goddard.’ Beaming at the two women, he added, ‘Sporting of you, I must say, to go to all that trouble so we’d have a fourth for bridge.’
Lind came in then, and they sat down. Egerton was on Goddard’s left, next to Lind at the end of the table. This was the side of the table next to the bulkhead, so they were facing toward the doorway. Just as Captain Steen was about to say grace, Krasicki appeared in the door. He stopped abruptly, staring at Egerton. Goddard, watching him, was aware of something faintly disturbing about it. Krasicki gave a start then, and came on in. Karen spoke to him kindly.
‘I think you’ve met everyone except Mr. Egerton. This is Mr. Krasicki.’
Egerton stood up and held out his hand. ‘Delighted, Mr. Krasicki. And happy to see you’re feeling better.’
Krasicki mumbled something and shook hands. They sat down, Krasicki directly across from Goddard. Captain Steen said grace, and the steward began to take their orders. Egerton turned to Goddard, and said, ‘I understand you’re in the cinema.’
‘I used to be,’ Goddard said.
‘He’s gathering material for his next opus,’ Lind said.
There was a laugh, and Captain Steen inquired, ‘Was your boat insured?’
‘No,’ Goddard said. ‘The theory was that if it went to the bottom, the odds were that I would too. Sound, I thought, but Mrs. Brooke loused it up.’
‘Women,’ Egerton agreed, ‘are incapable of understanding dedication to a scientific principle.’
‘Exactly,’ Lind said. ‘You have to feel sorry for them. They never experience the deep personal satisfaction of being dead and knowing they were right.’
‘Karen,’ Mrs. Lennox remarked. ‘I think we’re outnumbered. Should we counterattack or retreat?’
‘Maybe Mr. Krasicki is on our side,’ Karen replied. She turned and smiled at the Pole, trying to put him at ease in this exchange that was obviously too much for his English. But the latter was paying no attention. He was staring across the table again at Walter Egerton with almost maniac intensity.
‘You have—’ He stopped, appearing to grope for words. ‘You are many years in Argentina?’
‘Why, yes, about twenty,’ Egerton replied.
‘Twenty? Twenty?’ Krasicki repeated, frowning. He looked at Lind.
‘He says you must have retired quite young.’
Even Egerton’s natural poise was a little shaken by that unwavering scrutiny, but he managed to smile. ‘Thank you, Mr. Krasicki; that’s quite flattering. But I was invalided out. Spot of bad luck in Normandy.’
Lind translated this for the Pole. The dining room steward was putting their orders in front of them, but no one began eating. There was another exchange in German between Krasicki and Lind. Lind shook his head as he spoke, and Goddard’s impression was that the Pole had said something he was reluctant to translate. Krasicki turned to Egerton again and tried English.
‘The—aye? The—eye?’
The two women turned their attention to their plates embarrassed by this bad taste, but Goddard continued to watch, aware of some undercurrent here that was more serious than poor manners.
‘Ah—yes,’ Egerton said stiffly. ‘That, among other things.’
It was Karen who smoothed it over. She smiled at Goddard and asked, ‘You do play bridge, I hope?’
‘A little mama-papa bridge,’ Goddard replied. ‘Nothing spectacular. And only after a careful search for weapons.’
The awkwardness passed for the moment, and conversation became general. Goddard continued to study Krasicki between replies to Mrs. Lennox’ chatter on his right. The Pole appeared to withdraw inside himself, eating silently as he bent over his plate, oblivious to the others except to look up now and then at Egerton. Then in a lull he began a rapid exchange in German with Lind. They both smiled. Krasicki turned then and included Egerton in the conversation, still in German. To Goddard’s surprise, Egerton replied in the same language. The Pole stiffened, and his eyes glittered accusingly.
‘Ah! You speak German. I thought you were English.’
‘Yes, of course I speak it,’ Egerton said easily. ‘I attended Heidelberg for two years. Before Sandhurst, that is.’
The others had fallen silent. Krasicki’s eyes continued to burn into Egerton. ‘But you did not say this.’
Egerton shrugged, obviously annoyed but still urbane. ‘Well, really, old boy, one doesn’t normally go about boasting of one’s accomplishments. Bit of a bore to one and all, what?’
Krasicki made no reply, but Goddard noted the nervous twitching at the corner of his mouth. Karen came to the rescue again. ‘I think what we should do is find out why Mr. Goddard doesn’t speak Hollywood.’
The others laughed, and Madeleine Lennox exclaimed, ‘Yes. What about this Mrs. Lennox bit? I thought you were supposed to say Madeleine baby.’
Krasicki bent over his plate again, but his lips were moving silently as though he were talking to himself. Then abruptly he stood up, threw down his napkin, and stalked out.
There was a moment of embarrassed silence, and then Karen said, ‘The poor thing; he’s been very ill.’
Lind nodded. ‘And I think he had a pretty rough time of it during the war. He has horrible nightmares.’
‘Pity,’ Egerton agreed. ‘A frightful shame—all that wreckage.’
The others began to question Goddard about film-making, and the incident was forgotten. The dining room steward went out to get coffee. Goddard was relating a comic foul-up of some kind on a sound stage and everybody was laughing when in the edge of his peripheral vision he saw Krasicki reappear in the doorway. He thought the Pole had come back to excuse himself or perhaps to finish his dinner, and by the time he’d got a good look at the man’s face and the foaming madness in his eyes it was too late to do anything but witness it.
Krasicki screamed something that sounded like
Both women screamed with the crash of the gun, and Egerton shook under the impact of the slug. Goddard hit Madeleine Lennox with a shoulder, driving her to the deck on the other side of her chair, while Captain Steen snatched at Karen and threw her down. Lind was out of his chair then, lunging around the corner of the table for the Pole, who went on spraying spittle across it with the demonic force of his outcry which rode up over the continuous screaming of the women and then was punctuated by the crash of the gun as he shot again. Egerton jerked
