Alistair MacLean Sea Thrillers 4-Book Collection: San Andreas, The Golden Rendezvous, Seawitch, Santorini

‘I know what you were thinking. I’m a ship’s engineer, Bo’sun, not a constructive engineer. I’ll have a look. Maybe we can bolt or weld a few strengthening steel plates at the weakest points. I don’t know. There’s no guarantee. First of all, we’ll go have a look at the steering on the bridge. How are things up top?’

‘Draught-free. Four heaters. Ideal working conditions.’

‘Temperature?’

‘Fifteen.’

‘Above freezing, or below?’

‘Below.’

‘Ideal. Thank you very much.’

McKinnon found four people in the staff dining area – Chief Engineer Patterson, Dr Singh, and Nurses Janet Magnusson and Irene. The nurses were off-duty – the San Andreas, as did all hospital ships, carried an alternate nursing staff. The Bo’sun went to the galley, asked for coffee and sandwiches, sat at the table and made his report to the Chief Engineer. When he was finished he said: ‘And how did you get on, sir? Finding a translator, I mean?’

Patterson scowled. ‘With our luck?’

‘Well, I didn’t really have any hope, sir. Not, as you say, with our luck.’ He looked at Janet Magnusson. ‘Where’s Sister Morrison?’

‘In the lounge.’ Neither her voice nor her eyes held much in the way of warmth. ‘She’s upset. You upset her.’

‘She upset me.’ He made an impatient, dismissive gesture with his hand. ‘Tantrums. This is neither the time nor the place. If ever there is a time and a place.’

‘Oh, come now.’ Dr Singh was smiling. ‘I don’t think either of you is being quite fair. Sister Morrison is not, as you suggest, Mr McKinnon, sulking in her tent and, Nurse, if she’s feeling rather unhappy, it’s not primarily the Bo’sun’s fault. She and Mr Ulbricht are not quite seeing eye to eye.’

‘Ulbricht?’ the Bo’sun said.

‘Flight-Lieutenant Karl Ulbricht, I understand. The captain of the Condor.’

‘He’s conscious?’

‘Very much so. Not only conscious but wanting out of bed. Quite remarkable powers of recuperation. Three bullet wounds, all flesh, all superficial. Bled a great deal, mind you, but he’s had a transfusion: one hopes that the best British blood goes well with his own native Aryan stock. Anyway, Sister Morrison was with me when he came to. She called him a filthy Nazi murderer. Hardly makes for the ideal nurse-patient relationship.’

‘Not very tactful, I agree,’ Patterson said. ‘A wounded man recovering consciousness might expect to be entitled to a little more sympathy. How did he react?’

‘Very calmly. Mild, you might say. Said he wasn’t a Nazi and had never murdered anyone in his life. She just stood and glared at him – if you can imagine Sister Morrison glaring at anybody – and –’

‘I can imagine it very easily,’ the Bo’sun said with some feeling. ‘She glares at me. Frequently.’

‘Perhaps,’ Nurse Magnusson said, ‘you and Lieutenant Ulbricht have a lot in common.’

‘Please.’ Dr Singh held up a hand. ‘Lieutenant Ulbricht expressed deep regrets, said something about the fortunes of war, but didn’t exactly call for sackcloth and ashes. I stopped it there – it didn’t look like being a very profitable discussion. Don’t be too hard on the Sister, Bo’sun. She’s no battleaxe, far less a termagant. She feels deeply and has her own way of expressing her feelings.’

McKinnon made to reply, caught Janet’s still far from friendly eye and changed his mind. ‘How are your other patients, Doctor?’

‘The other aircrew member – a gunner, it seems, by the name of Helmut Winterman – is okay, just a scared kid who expects to be shot at dawn. Commander Warrington, as you guessed, Mr McKinnon, is badly hurt. How badly, I don’t know. His occiput is fractured but only surgery can tell us how serious it is. I’m a surgeon but not a brain surgeon. We’ll have to wait until we get to a mainland hospital to ease the pressure on the sight centre and find out when, if ever, he’ll see again.’

‘The Andover’s navigator?’

‘Lieutenant Cunningham?’ Dr Singh shook his head. ‘I’m sorry – in more ways than one, I’m afraid this may be your last hope gone – that the young man won’t be doing any more navigating for some time to come. He’s in a coma. X-ray shows a fracture of the skull and not a hairline fracture either. Pulse, respiration, temperature show no sign of organic damage. He’ll live.’

‘Any idea when he might come to, Doctor?’

Dr Singh sighed. ‘If I were a first-year intern, I’d hazard a fairly confident guess. Alas, it’s twenty-five years since I was a first-year intern. Two days, two weeks, two months – I simply don’t know. As for the others, the Captain and Chief Officer are still under sedation and when they wake up I’m going to put them to sleep again. Hudson, the one with the punctured lung, seems to have stabilized – at least, the internal bleeding has stopped. Rafferty’s fractured tibia is no problem. The two injured crewmen from the Argos, one with a broken pelvis, the other with multiple burns, are still in the recovery room, not because they’re in any danger but because Ward A was full and it was the best place to keep them. And I’ve discharged two young seamen, I don’t know their names.’

‘Jones and McGuigan.’

‘That’s the two. Shock, nothing more. I understand they’re lucky to be alive.’

‘We’re all lucky to be alive.’ McKinnon nodded his thanks as Mario put coffee and sandwiches before him, then looked at Patterson. ‘Do you think it might help, sir, if we had a word with Lieutenant Ulbricht?’

‘If you’re halfway right on your way of thinking, Bo’sun, it might be of some help. At least, it can be of no harm.’

‘I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a bit,’ Dr Singh said. ‘The Lieutenant was getting a little bit too active – or beginning to feel too active – for his own good. It’ll be an hour, perhaps two. A matter of urgency, Mr McKinnon?’

‘It could be. Or a matter of some importance, at least. He might be able to tell us why we’re all so lucky as to be still alive. And if we knew, then we might have some idea, or a guess at least, as to what lies in store for us.’

‘You think the enemy is not yet finished with us?’

‘I should be surprised if they are, Doctor.’

McKinnon, alone now in the dining area, had just finished his third cup of coffee when Jamieson and three of his men entered, to the accompaniment of much arm-flapping and teeth-chattering. Jamieson went to the galley, ordered coffee for himself and his men and sat beside McKinnon.

‘Ideal working conditions, you said, Bo’sun. Snug as a bug in a rug, one might say. Temperature’s soaring – it’s almost ten degrees up there. Minus.’

‘Sorry about that, sir. How’s the steering?’

‘Fixed. For the moment, at least. Not too big a job. Quite a bit of play on the wheel, but Trent says it’s manageable.’

‘Fine. Thank you. We have bridge control?’

‘Yes. I told the engine-room to cease and desist. Chief Patterson seemed quite disappointed – seems to think that he can do a better job than the bridge. What’s next on the agenda?’

‘Nothing. Not for me, that is.’

‘Ah! I take your point. Our idle hands, is that it? We’ll have a look at the chances of bracing the superstructure in a moment – a moment depending on how long it takes us to get defrosted.’

‘Of course, sir.’ The Bo’sun looked over his shoulder. ‘I have noticed that Dr Singh doesn’t bother to keep the hospital’s private liquor cabinet locked.’

‘Well, now. A little something in our coffee, perhaps?’

‘I would recommend it, sir. Might help to speed up the defrosting process.’

Jamieson gave him an old-fashioned look, rose and crossed towards the cabinet.

Jamieson drained his second cup of reinforced coffee and looked at McKinnon. ‘Something bothering you, Bo’sun?’

‘Yes.’ McKinnon had both hands on the table, as if preparing to rise. ‘Motion’s changed. A few minutes back the ship started quartering a little, not too much, as if Trent was making a slight course adjustment, but now she’s quartering too damn much. It could be that the steering has failed again.’