Island of Death (16 page)

The Brigadier harrumphed and took a sip of his dram. He wouldn’t have told them about his decisive intervention, but, thanks to the Cox’n, the story of his knockout blow was now known throughout the
Hallaton
(to the glee of the entire ship’s company), and Bob had, off the record, passed it onto the Doctor and Sarah.

He took another sip of whisky. No wonder she was still shaking, he thought. Bad enough to have nearly been drowned. But those great things - twenty feet long if they were an inch - were killers. The Doctor had said so. And the way they tossed their passengers onto the scrambling nets with their noses must have been the last straw.

He said as much.

‘Natural to them,’ said the Doctor. ‘It’s the way they play with the small seals, tossing them in the air and catching them.’

‘Before they eat them?’ said Sarah, wide-eyed with horror.

‘Of course.’

‘But that’s horrible!’

‘No different from the way your pussy cat plays with a mouse.’

‘I haven’t got a cat,’ said Sarah, still unhappy.

The Doctor put down his glass. He sat down next to her.

‘You’re bound to be upset,’ he said. ‘But they’re only being themselves. We must just thank the quirk of evolution that seems to make them friendly to humans. But, yes, they’re carnivorous animals. They eat seals, and penguins - even porpoises - and fish of course.’ He paused a moment and then went on, ‘I seem to remember someone who thoroughly enjoyed eating a lump of minced buffalo.’

Sarah grinned ruefully. Take no notice of me. I’m a silly ungrateful mare. I’m just being childish.’

‘And what’s wrong with that?’ said the Doctor.

How much longer will it take us, do you reckon,’ asked Sarah.

Like the Doctor and the Brigadier, Sarah had been officially invited to come onto the bridge whenever she cared to. But in practice this meant only about half the time - whenever the CO was off duty. He never told her to leave, but his manner to her was always so cold - and she found it so embarrassing when he shouted and swore at the crew - that she confined her visits to those times when either Pete Andrews or Bob Simkins was Officer of the Watch and in charge of the ship.

‘How much longer? That’s difficult to say exactly,’ answered Bob, who’d just put their noon position on the chart. ‘We lost about two hundred miles yesterday, what with one thing and another. Bit more. If we don’t hit anything else like that, it should be about five days. We’ve a pretty good idea of the way the tidal currents go, but it’s not like driving down to Brighton for a day out.’

Five days. Okay, forget the photography. Let’s face it, after yesterday she needed a holiday. Her head was still sore, and there was an impressive lump just above her left ear. And the whole thing had left her feeling sort of wobbly inside.

Concentrate on the pleasure-cruise bit, that was the thing.

Lounging on a deck chair, being brought beef tea by white jacketed stewards, like in the old thirties films. Huh! That’d be the day. Or what about a ship-board romance? Who with, though? She ran her mind’s eye over the possible candidates: the nice but impossibly furry Pete; lanky Bob, who’d always be rushing off to his beloved charts; or the plump Chris. Not a lot of choice. Where was Sammy when she needed him?

She suddenly giggled. Out loud. How snobby could you get? Only the officers had been asked to audition for the part!

Miller, the steward - Dusty Miller didn’t they call him? - he was just about the yummiest male on board, so why hadn’t she even considered him? Briefly, she did just that; and recoiled from the hideous social complications that might ensue.

Forget it.

One thing, she must get some exercise. She was really missing her morning jog. She could hardly go for a three-mile run, but in all the books she’d read with cruises in them, it was traditional every morning to have a brisk walk round and round the deck - thirty or forty laps, or whatever. It would have to do.

Dusty Miller picked up the tray of food from the table. He looked across at the unmoving figure on the bunk, its back to him and to the door. ‘You okay, Mr Whitbread?’

Brother Alex kept quite still. He wouldn’t have an alibi for the attack (if it was needed), but if people took it for granted that he’d been out of action, that could be just as good. As soon as he’d got back to the cabin, he’d got rid of the remains of the chair over the side - making quite sure he wasn’t seen

- and then retired to bed again.

‘You haven’t hardly eaten a thing - and you didn’t touch your breakfast neither.’

The answer came as a groan, and a muffled feeble voice.

‘What day is it?’

‘Day? It’s Wednesday. No, I tell a lie. It’s Thursday. And a lovely day and all. Sun scorching your bleeding eyes out.’

Another groan.

Miller turned back at the door. ‘You want me to get somebody, sir?’

Whitbread heaved himself round. ‘No, no. I’ll be all right. I must have slept all day yesterday...’

‘Yeah. Ask me, you were well out of it. What with Miss Smith and the Doctor and all.’

His heart leapt. ‘The Doctor as well? What about them?’ he asked.

‘Only went overboard, didn’t they?’

Praise be to Skang! The Doctor as well!

‘Still, all’s well that ends well...’ The door slammed behind him.

What? What did he mean by that? He sat up in bed, meaning to call the steward back - and just managed to stop himself. It could mean only one thing. She’d been rescued.

He had to do the job all over again.

Sarah got up early the next morning, feeling almost back to normal, put on her trainers and set off on her first constitu-tional.

She’d done a recce as soon as she’d had the idea. There was no way it would be possible to establish a high-speed walking track around the main deck. There was far too much equipment - and for that matter, at that time of the morning, there’d be too many men indulging in the Royal Navy’s obsession for spotless cleanliness.

But the boat deck, she realised, where the ship’s boats hung from their davits, was a different matter. Open to the sky, it ran along each side and aft of the officers’ living quarters. The wardroom was at the back, and a corridor ran down the middle, with the cabins each side. The Captain’s suite - a grand name for his sleeping cabin and his day cabin

- ran across the for’d end.

The only snag was that the open deck didn’t continue round the front of the bridge structure. Instead, there was a door at the front end of each side into the control part of the ship: the sonar; the sparks’s cabin; the main gyro-compass room with its auxiliary wheel for steering if the bridge above was damaged; and so on. So you couldn’t get round to the other side.

However, there was also a door each side into the cabin area that opened into a short corridor going from one side to the other. So, by going indoors - not very nautical sounding that, thought Sarah, but she could hardly say (or even think) going below’ when it was all on the same level - by going indoors for a moment or two, she’d be able to complete the circuit.

Hang on. It must be the CO’s private entrance to his cabins. It didn’t go anywhere else. That was a bummer.

She’d just have to be ultra quiet.

So here she was, bright and early on Friday morning, striding out at a speed she reckoned to be four miles an hour; or even five. Power-walking they called it, didn’t they?

So if she kept up the same speed for half an hour, she would have gone at least two miles. If she really pushed it she might get as big a buzz as she did from her run on Hampstead Heath - if it wasn’t for the silly hiatus when she had to slow down and creep through the short corridor past Hogben’s cabin. But she hadn’t any choice, had she?

It was a bore. He was a bore. She could even hear him snoring as she tiptoed by.

Horrible man.

Having spent Thursday establishing to the world that he was barely convalescent, Whitbread rose very early on Friday and presented himself in the wardroom (once he’d found it) for breakfast.

There must be no more mistakes. From the way they’d behaved so far it seemed that the Doctor and the Brigadier had nothing to go on but suspicions of the cult. But if the Smith girl started putting two and two together...

‘Good morning, Mr Whitbread. Glad to see you up. Feeling better?’ Pete Andrews was the only one in the wardroom. The welcome was so obviously sincere that he was instantly reassured If the truth had been discovered, he would have had a very different welcome.

He settled down to eating a frugal poached egg on toast, and concentrated on listening to the First Lieutenant, asking disingenuous questions, so that he could learn all about the
Hallaton
and its people.

If everybody got used to seeing him around the ship, he’d be able to keep an eye open and establish the pattern of the girl’s day, and spot any regularities, so that he would be able to predict when she’d be alone and vulnerable.

But then, as he was sipping his second cup of coffee, he saw her, whipping past the open windows of the wardroom as if she was in a race. Round she went, past the after door and round to the other side, disappearing up the deck outside; and then, a few minutes later, there she was again. And again. And again.

Pete Andrews finished his breakfast and disappeared, but the girl kept on passing by. He didn’t count the number of times, but it must have been twenty-five minutes or more before she stopped appearing. Did she do this every morning?

Was this what he’d been looking for?

His mind gave a little lurch. Now, what was that all about?

He examined his twisted complex of emotions, and began to untangle them. Pleasure that the girl hadn’t been drowned?

Surely not. A sort of guilt? He’d been pretty ruthless in the hidden back alleys of his public life, but he’d never been responsible for anyone’s death. Then again, it had never been necessary before.

As the pieces fell into place, the picture revealed itself. It wasn’t guilt or remorse, just a fear that he might get caught -

and a fierce determination not to let it happen. And as for the other emotion...

Yes, it was true that he was pleased that Sarah Jane Smith (stupid name) had been saved, but only because it meant that he could experience once more the rush of simple pleasure that he’d felt as the chair leg smashed into her skull.

He was really looking forward to killing her.

‘Sarah!’ The Doctor’s voice came from his open door as she passed it on her way back to her cabin.

Hastily hiding her book under the blanket she was carrying

- she wouldn’t want the Doctor to know she was an addict of such rubbish! - she turned back. ‘Yes?’

‘Are you busy?’

Busy! For the first time in her life since she’d left kinder-garten, there was nothing, nothing at all, that she really ought to be doing. She’d still be lying on the deserted upper bridge if it hadn’t turned so hot as the sun climbed up towards noon.

‘Nothing that can’t wait.’

Like getting a tan, or finding out whether Lady Amelia would really fell for the manipulative charms of Sir Percival.

‘Good. If you can spare a moment or two...’

She entered the Doctor’s cabin and he gestured towards an empty chair with the object in his hand. It looked a bit like a long version of one of those things you use to test the pressure in a car tyre. Of course! The sonic screwdriver!

He aimed it at an open silver box on the table. Now she recognised that as well; she’d seen it before, the Doctor was always fiddling with it. As she heard the strange sound of the screwdriver, the box’s contents gave a sort of wobble, rather like a mirage she’d seen in the Moroccan desert three holidays ago.

‘That’s better,’ said the Doctor, closing it.

‘That’s the bit from the TARDIS, isn’t it?’ she said, sitting opposite him.

‘The relativity circuit of the temporal balancing governor.

That’s right,’ he replied, minutely adjusting one of the many small knobs on the side of the box. Then he pressed the largest button. The box responded by making its tinkly music-box noise. ‘I thought I’d improve the shining hour by having another go at it,’ he went on. ‘Improve the shining hour! Ridiculous expression. Like polishing a diamond. Like polishing a diamond. Like polishing a diamond.’

What
was
he on about!

‘Did you notice anything?’ he asked.

‘Like what?’

‘Anything at all. Anything odd.’

‘Well... Not really. Only you saying “like polishing a diamond” over and over again.’

‘Ah! How many times?’

‘Three.’

‘Mm.’

It was like when he had started howling in the sea. Just Doctorish. It was no good trying to keep up with him.

‘That should do it,’ he said, as he gave a couple of the knobs another tiny tweak. ‘Mark you,’ he continued as he pressed the main button again, ‘an unpolished diamond looks like something you’d pick up on the beach and toss into the sea. So perhaps it’s not so ridiculous. Well?’

‘Well what?’

‘Notice anything this time?’

What on earth was he talking about? ‘What am I supposed to notice?’ she asked.