Read Online Night Without End by Alistair MacLean - Free Book Online Page A

should." The voice was high-pitched, but the enunciation clear and precise, and I found it vaguely irritating that it should so perfectly match his appearance, be so exactly what I should have expected. He laughed, a nervous deprecating laugh. "My parishioners, you know . . . " 
         
         I was tired, worried and felt like telling him what he could do with his parishioners, but it wasn't his fault. 
         
         "There's precedent in plenty in your Bible, Reverend. You know that better than I. It'll do you good, really." 
         
         "Oh well, if you think so." He took the glass gingerly, as if Beelzebub himself were on the offering end, but I noticed that there was nothing so hesitant about his method and speed of disposal of the contents: his subsequent expression could properly be described as beatific. I caught Marie LeGarde's eye, and smiled at the twinkle I caught there. 
         
         The reverend wasn't the only one who found the coffee - and brandy - welcome. With the exception of the stewardess, who sipped at her drink in a distraught fashion, the others had also emptied their glasses, and I decided that the broaching of another MarteU's was justified. In the respite from the talk, I bent over the injured man on the floor. His pulse was slower, steadier and his breathing not quite so shallow: I slipped in a few more heat pads and zipped up the sleeping-bag. 
         
         "Is he - is he any better, do you think?" The stewardess was so close to me that I brushed against her as I straightened. "He - he seems a bit better, doesn't he?" 
         
         "He is a bit, I think. But nothing like over the shock from the wound and the exposure, though." I looked at her speculatively and suddenly felt almost sorry for her. Almost, but not quite: I didn't at all like the direction my thoughts were leading me. "You've flown together quite a bit, haven't you?" 
         
         "Yes." She didn't offer anything more. "His head - do you think-" 
         
         "Later. Let me have a quick look at that back of yours." 
         
         "Look at what?" 
         
         "Your back," I said patiently. "Your shoulders. They seem to give you some pain. I'll rig a screen." 
         
         "No, no, I'm all right." She moved away from me. 
         
         "Don't be silly, my dear." I wondered what trick of voice production made Marie LeGarde's voice so clear and carrying. "He is a doctor, you know." 
         
         "No!" 
         
         I shrugged and reached for my brandy glass. Bearers of bad news were ever unpopular: I supposed her reaction was the modern equivalent of the classical despot's unsheathing his dagger. Probably only bruises, anyhow, I told myself, and turned to look at the company. 
         
         An odd-looking bunch, to say the least, but then any group of people dressed in lounge suits and dresses, trilby hats and nylon stockings would have looked odd against the strange and uncompromising background of that cabin where every suggestion of anything that even remotely suggested gracious living had been crushed and ruthlessly made subservient to the all-exclusive purpose of survival. 
         
         Here there were no armchairs - no chairs, even - no carpets, wall-paper, book-shelves, beds, curtains - or even windows for the curtains. It was a bleak utilitarian box of a room, eighteen feet by fourteen. The floor was made of unvarnished yellow pine. The walls were made of spaced sheets of bonded ply, with kapok insulation between: the lower part of the walls was covered with green-painted asbestos, the upper part and entire roof sheeted with glittering aluminium to reflect the maximum possible heat and light. A thin, ever-present film of ice climbed at least half-way up all four walls, reaching almost to the ceiling in the four corners, the parts of the room most remote from the stove and