Read Online The Doomed Oasis by Hammond; Innes - Free Book Online

The sky was grey with a low wrack of cloud, no sun. The violence of the movement was exhausting, and towards nightfall he was sick, retching emptily into the washbasin. Nobody seemed to hear the sound of his misery, nobody seemed to care. The seas, thudding against the bows of the ship, made her tremble, so that everything rattled, and each time she buried her bows the noise of the impact was followed by a long, shuddering movement that seemed to run through his tired body as though he were himself being exposed to the onslaught of the gale.
    Night followed the day at last and he slept; and then it was day again. Darkness and light succeeding each other. He lost count of the days, and when the sun came out and the sea subsided, he knew he was too weak to hold out alone in that cabin any longer. The moment had come to face the future.
    Just above his head, within easy reach of his left hand, was a bell-push. He lay half a day, staring at the yellow bone button embedded in its wooden orifice, before he could summon the courage to press it, and when the steward came he told the startled Somali to take him to the Captain.
    Griffiths was seated at his desk so that to David’s bemused mind it seemed like that first time he’d met him, except that now the cabin was full of sunlight and they were off the coast of Portugal. The Somali was explaining excitedly and Griffiths’s small blue eyes were staring up at him. The Captain silenced the man with a movement of his hand. “All right, Ishmail. You can leave us now.” And as the steward turned to go, his eyes rolling in his head, Griffiths added: “And see you don’t talk about this. The passengers are not to know that a stowaway has been hiding in their accommodation.” And when the door closed and they were alone, he turned to David. “Now, young man, perhaps you’d explain why the devil you stowed away on my ship?”
    David hesitated. It was difficult to know where to begin, though he’d had four days of solitude to think about it. He was scared, too. The little man in the worn blue jacket with the gold braid on the sleeves was more frightening to him than either of the judges who had sentenced him, for his future was in the Captain’s hands. “Well, come on, man, come on.” The beard waggled impatiently, the blue eyes bored into him.
    I would like to think that he remembered my advice then, but more probably he was too weak and confused to invent a satisfactory story. At any rate, he told it straight, from the receipt of his mother’s hysterical letter and his escape from Borstal, right through to the tragedy of his return to the house in Everdale Road. And Griffiths listened without comment, except that halfway through he took pity on David’s weakness, for he was leaning on the edge of the desk to support himself, and told him to pull up a chair and sit down. And when finally he was asked to account for his possession of the documents that had been his excuse for boarding the ship, he stuck to the explanation we’d agreed on.
    But Griffiths was much too sharp for him. “So you took the packet from Mr. Grant’s office and decided to deliver it yourself?”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œYou say you found the door of Mr. Grant’s office open. That means he’d only gone out for a moment. When he came back and found the packet gone, the natural thing would be for him to come down to the ship and give me some explanation. You’re lying, you see.”
    There was nothing he could do then but tell Captain Griffiths the truth, and the blue eyes, staring into his, began to crease at the corners. By the time he had finished, Griffiths was leaning back in the swivel chair and roaring with laughter, his mouth so wide open that David could see the movement of his uvula in the red hollow of his gullet. “Well, I’ll be damned!” Griffiths said, wiping his eyes. “And Grant an accessory