Wilbur Smith's Smashing Thrillers (25 page)

He was irritated by the presence of a tongue-tied fourth officer who had
clearly been delegated to entertain him, and was completely awed by the
responsibility. He was irritated by the antics of his senior officers.
They were behaving like a troupe of performing seals in their
competition for the girl's attention.

For a few moments, the tight circle around her opened, and Nick was left
with a few vivid impressions - The green of her dress matched exactly
the brilliant sparkling green of her eyes. Her teeth were very white,
and her tongue as pink as a cat's when she laughed. She was not the
child he had imagined from their earlier encounters; with colour touched
to her lips and pearls at her throat, he realized she was in her
twenties, early twenties perhaps, but a full woman, nevertheless.

She looked across the wardroom and their eyes met. The laughter stilled
on her lips, and she returned his gaze. It was a solemn enigmatic gaze,
and he found himself once again regretting his previous rudeness to her.
He dropped his gaze from hers and saw now that under the clinging green
material, her body was slim and beautifully formed, with a lithe
athletic grace. He remembered vividly that one nude glimpse he had been
given.

Although the green dress was high-necked, he saw that her breasts were
large and pointed, and that they were not trussed by any undergarments;
the young shapely flesh was as strikingly arresting as if it had been
naked.

It made him angry to see her body displayed in this manner. It did not
matter that every young girl in the streets of New York or London went
so uncorseted, here it made him angry to see her do the same, and he
looked back into her eyes.
Som
ething charged there, a challenge
perhaps, his own anger reflected? He was not sure. She tilted her head
slightly, now it was invitation - or was it?
He had known and handled easily so many, many women.
Yet this one left him with a feeling of uncertainty, perhaps it was
merely her youth, or was it some special quality she possessed? Nicholas
Berg was uncertain and he did not relish the feeling.

David Allen hurried to her with another offering, and cut off the gaze
that passed between them, and Nick found himself staring at the Chief
Officer's slim, boyish back, and listening to the girl's laughter again,
sweet and high.

But somehow it seemed to be directed tauntingly at Nick, and he said to
the young officer beside him,
‘
Please ask Mr. Allen for a moment of his
time.’
Patently relieved the officer went to fetch him.

‘
Thank you for your hospitality, David
,’
said Nick, when he came.

‘
You aren't going yet, sir? Nick took a small sadistic pleasure in the
Mate's obvious dismay.

He sat at the desk in his day cabin and tried to concentrate.
It was the first opportunity he had had to consider the paperwork that
awaited him. The muted sounds of revelry from the deck below distracted
him, and he found himself listening for the sounds of her laughter while
he should have been composing his submissions to his London attorneys,
which would be taken to the arbitrators of Lloyd's, a document and
record of vital importance, the whole basis of his claim against Golden
Adventurer's underwriters. And yet he could not concentrate
.

He swung
his chair away from the desk and began to pace the thick,
sound-deadening carpet, stopping once to listen again as he heard the
girl's voice calling gaily, the words unintelligible, but the tone
unmistakable. They were dancing, or playing some raucous game which
consisted of a great deal of bumping and thumping and shrieks of
laughter.

He began to pace again, and suddenly Nick realized he was lonely. The
thought stopped him dead again. He was lonely, and completely alone. It
was a disturbing realization, especially for a man who had travelled
much of life's journey as a loner. Before it had never troubled him,
but now he felt desperately the need for somebody to share his triumph.
Triumph it was, of course. Against the most improbable odds he had
snatched spectacular victory, and he crossed slowly to the cabin
portholes and looked across the darkened bay to where Golden Adventurer
lay at anchor, all her lights burning, a gay and festive air about her.

He had been knocked off his perch at the top of the tree, deprived of a
life's work, a wife and a son - yet it had taken him only a few short
months to clamber back to the top.

With this simple operation, he had transformed Ocean Salvage from a
dangerously insecure venture, a tottering cash-starved, problem-hounded
long chance, into something of real value. He was off and running again
now, with a place to go and the means of getting there. Then why did it
suddenly seem of so little worth? He toyed with the idea of returning
to the revelry in the wardroom, and grimaced as he imagined the dismay
of his officers at the Master's inhibiting intrusion.

He turned away from the porthole and poured whisky into a glass, lit a
cheroot and dropped into the chair. The whisky tasted like toothpaste
and the cheroot was bitter.

He left the glass on his desk and stubbed the cheroot before he went
through on to the navigation bridge.

The night lights were so dim after his brightly lit cabin that he did
not notice Graham, the Third Officer, until his eyes adjusted to the
ruby glow.

‘
Good evening, Mr. Graham.
’
He moved to the chart table and checked the
log. Graham was hovering anxiously, and Nick searched for something to
say.

‘
Missing the party?
’
he asked at last.

‘
Sir.
’
It was not a promising conversational opening, and despite his
loneliness of a few minutes previously, Nick suddenly wanted to be alone
again.

‘
I will stand the rest of your watch. Go off and enjoy yourself.
’
The
Third Officer gawped at him.

‘
You've got three
seconds before I change my mind.’

‘
That's jolly decent of
you, sir
,’
called Graham over his shoulder as he fled.

The party in the wardroom had by now degenerated into open competition
for Samantha's attention and approbation.

David Allen, wearing a lampshade on his head and, for some unaccountable
reason, with his right hand thrust into his jacket in a Napoleonic
gesture, was standing on the wardroom bar counter and declaiming Henry's
speech before Agincourt, glossing over the
p
assages which he had
forgotten with a
‘
durn-de-du
m
.
’
However, when Tim Graham entered, he
became immediately the First Officer.
He removed the lampshade and inquired frostily.

‘
Mr. Graham, am I correct in believing that you are officer of the watch?
Your station at this moment is on the bridge!
’

The
old man came and offered to stand my watch
,’
said Tim Graham.

‘
Good Lord!
’
David replaced his lampshade, and poured a large gin for his
Third Officer.
‘
The old bastard must have come over all soft suddenly.
’

Beauty Baker, who was hanging off the wall like a gibbon ape, dropped to
his feet and drew himself up with rather unsteady dignity, hitched his
trousers and announced ominously,

‘I
f anybody calls the old bastard a
bastard, I will personally kick his teeth down his throat.
’
He swept the
wardroom with an eye that was belligerent and truculent, until it halted
on Samantha. Immediately it softened.
‘
That one doesn't count, Sammy!
’
he said.

‘
Of course not,
’
Samantha agreed.
‘
You can start again.
’
Beauty returned
to the starting point of the obstacle course, fortified himself with a
draught of rum, pushed up his spectacles with a thumb and spat on his
palms.

‘
One to get ready, two to get steady - and three to be off!
’
sang out
Samantha, and clicked the stopwatch. Beauty Baker swung dizzily from
the roof, clawing his way around the wardroom without touching the deck,
cheered on by the entire company.

‘
Eight point six seconds!
’
Samantha clicked the watch, as he ended up on
the bar counter, the finishing post.
‘
A new world record.
’

‘
A drink for
the new world champion
.’

‘
I'm next, time me, Sammy!
’

They were like schoolboys.
‘
Hey, watch me, Sammy!
’
But after another ten
minutes, she handed the stopwatch to Tim Graham, who as a late arrival
was still sober.

‘
I'll be back!
’
she lied, picked up a plate with a large untouched hunk
of Angel's cake upon it and was gone before any of them realized it was
happening.

Nick Berg was working over the chart-table, so intent that he was not
aware of her for many seconds. In the dramatic lighting of the single
overhead lamp, the strength of his features was emphasized. She saw the
hard line of his jawbone, the heavy brow and the alert widely spaced set
of his eyes. His nose was large and slightly hooked, like that of a
plains Indian or a desert Bedouin, and there were lines at the corners
of his mouth and around his eyes that were picked out in dark shadow. In
his complete absorption with the charts and Admiralty Pilot, he had
relaxed his mouth from its usual severe line. She saw now that the lips
were full without being fleshy, and there was a certain sensitivity and
voluptuousness there that she had not noticed before.

She stood quietly, enchanted with him, until he looked up suddenly,
catching the rapt expression upon her face.

She tried not to appear flustered, but even in her own ears her voice
was breathless.

‘
I'm sorry to disturb you. I brought some cake for Timmy Graham.
’

‘
I sent
him below to join the party.
’

‘
Oh, I didn't notice him. I thought he was
here.
’

She made no move to leave, holding the plate in one hand, and
they were silent a moment longer.

‘
I don't suppose I could interest you in a slice? It's going begging.
’

‘
Share it
,’
he suggested, and she came to the chart-table.

‘I
owe you an apology
,’
he said, and was immediately aware of the harshness
in his own voice. He hated to apologize, and she sensed it.

‘
I picked a bad moment
,’
she said, and broke off a piece of the cake.
‘
But
this seems a better time. Thank you again, an
d
I'm sorry for all the
trouble I caused. I understand now that it nearly cost you the Golden
Adventurer.
’
They both turned to look out of the big armoured glass
windows to where she lay.

‘
She is beautiful, isn't she?
’
said Nick, and his voice had lost its
edge.