Read Online The Dark Crusader by Alistair MacLean - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Alistair MacLean
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avoid, would be the supreme insult." She smiled at me, rather selfconsciously, then went on:
"Colonel Raine told me a good deal about you. He said that when things are completely desperate and there's no hope left, it's in the nature of man to accept the inevitable, but he said you wouldn't, not because it was any positive thing, but just because you wouldn't even know how to set about giving up. He said he thought you were the one man he could ever be afraid of, for if you were strapped to an electric chair and the executioner was pulling the switch, you'd still be figuring a way to beat it." She'd been abstractedly twisting one of my shirt buttons until it was just about off, but I said nothing, if that blur I'd seen on the southern horizon really had been cloud one shirt button more or less wasn't going to matter very much that night, and now she looked up and smiled again to rob her next words of offence. "I think you're a very arrogant man. I think you're a man with a complete belief in himself. But one of these days you're going to meet up with a situation where your self-belief is going to be of just no help at all."
"Mark my words," I said nastily. "You forgot to say, 'Mark my words'."
The smile faded and she turned away as the hatch opened. It was the brown-skinned Fijian boy, with soup, some sort of stew and coffee. He came and left without a word.
I looked at Marie. "Ominous, eh?"
"What do you mean?" she said coldly.
"Our Fijian friend. This morning a grin from ear to ear: tonight the look of a surgeon who's just come out to tell you that his scalpel slipped."
"So?"
"It's not the custom," I said patiently, "to crack gags and do a song-and-dance act when you're bringing the last meal to the condemned man. The better penitentiaries frown on it."
"Oh," she said flatly. "I see."
"Do you want to sample this stuff?" I went on. "Or will I just throw it away?"
"I don't know," she said doubtfully. "I haven't eaten for twenty-four hours. I'll try."
It was worth the try. The soup was good, the stew better, the coffee excellent. The cook had made a miraculous recovery from the depths he'd plumbed that morning: or maybe they'd shot the old one. I'd more to think of. I drained my coffee and looked at Marie.
"You can swim, I take it?"
"Not very well," she said hesitantly. "I can float."
"Provided there are no iron bars tied to your feet." I nodded. "That'll be enough. Would you like to do a little listening while I do a little work?"
"Of course." She was getting round to forgiving me. We went for'ard and I pulled down a couple of boxes for her to stand on, just below the opening to the port ventilator.
"You won't miss much of what they say up top," I said. "Especially, you'll hear everything that's said in or by the radio room. Probably nothing much before seven, but you never know. I'm afraid you're going to get a bit of a crick in the neck but I'll relieve you as soon as I'm through."
I left her there, went back to the after end of the hold, climbed three steps up the iron ladder and made a rough estimate of the distance between the top rung and the bottom of the hatch-cover above. Then I came down and started rummaging around in the metal boxes in the starboard corner until I found a bottle-screw that suited me, picked up a couple of hardwood battens and stowed them away, together with the bottle-screw, behind some boxes.
Back at the platform of wooden boxes where we'd spent the night I pushed aside the two loose battens in the outboard row, cautiously lifted down the boxes with the compasses and binoculars, shoved them to one side, took down the box with the aircraft-type life belts and emptied out the contents. There were twelve of the belts altogether, rubber and reinforced canvas covers with leather harness instead of the more usual tapes. In addition to the CO2 bottle and shark-repellent cylinder, each belt had another water-proof cylinder with a wire leading up to a small red lamp fixed on the left
"Colonel Raine told me a good deal about you. He said that when things are completely desperate and there's no hope left, it's in the nature of man to accept the inevitable, but he said you wouldn't, not because it was any positive thing, but just because you wouldn't even know how to set about giving up. He said he thought you were the one man he could ever be afraid of, for if you were strapped to an electric chair and the executioner was pulling the switch, you'd still be figuring a way to beat it." She'd been abstractedly twisting one of my shirt buttons until it was just about off, but I said nothing, if that blur I'd seen on the southern horizon really had been cloud one shirt button more or less wasn't going to matter very much that night, and now she looked up and smiled again to rob her next words of offence. "I think you're a very arrogant man. I think you're a man with a complete belief in himself. But one of these days you're going to meet up with a situation where your self-belief is going to be of just no help at all."
"Mark my words," I said nastily. "You forgot to say, 'Mark my words'."
The smile faded and she turned away as the hatch opened. It was the brown-skinned Fijian boy, with soup, some sort of stew and coffee. He came and left without a word.
I looked at Marie. "Ominous, eh?"
"What do you mean?" she said coldly.
"Our Fijian friend. This morning a grin from ear to ear: tonight the look of a surgeon who's just come out to tell you that his scalpel slipped."
"So?"
"It's not the custom," I said patiently, "to crack gags and do a song-and-dance act when you're bringing the last meal to the condemned man. The better penitentiaries frown on it."
"Oh," she said flatly. "I see."
"Do you want to sample this stuff?" I went on. "Or will I just throw it away?"
"I don't know," she said doubtfully. "I haven't eaten for twenty-four hours. I'll try."
It was worth the try. The soup was good, the stew better, the coffee excellent. The cook had made a miraculous recovery from the depths he'd plumbed that morning: or maybe they'd shot the old one. I'd more to think of. I drained my coffee and looked at Marie.
"You can swim, I take it?"
"Not very well," she said hesitantly. "I can float."
"Provided there are no iron bars tied to your feet." I nodded. "That'll be enough. Would you like to do a little listening while I do a little work?"
"Of course." She was getting round to forgiving me. We went for'ard and I pulled down a couple of boxes for her to stand on, just below the opening to the port ventilator.
"You won't miss much of what they say up top," I said. "Especially, you'll hear everything that's said in or by the radio room. Probably nothing much before seven, but you never know. I'm afraid you're going to get a bit of a crick in the neck but I'll relieve you as soon as I'm through."
I left her there, went back to the after end of the hold, climbed three steps up the iron ladder and made a rough estimate of the distance between the top rung and the bottom of the hatch-cover above. Then I came down and started rummaging around in the metal boxes in the starboard corner until I found a bottle-screw that suited me, picked up a couple of hardwood battens and stowed them away, together with the bottle-screw, behind some boxes.
Back at the platform of wooden boxes where we'd spent the night I pushed aside the two loose battens in the outboard row, cautiously lifted down the boxes with the compasses and binoculars, shoved them to one side, took down the box with the aircraft-type life belts and emptied out the contents. There were twelve of the belts altogether, rubber and reinforced canvas covers with leather harness instead of the more usual tapes. In addition to the CO2 bottle and shark-repellent cylinder, each belt had another water-proof cylinder with a wire leading up to a small red lamp fixed on the left
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