Nicholls looked at him and disapproved without condemning; for a moment, he had an inkling of the tragedy of the inevitable.
Riley was never at any time a very successful criminal, his intelligence barely cleared the moron level.
He dimly appreciated his limitations, and had left the higher, more subtle forms of crime severely alone.
Robbery, preferably robbery with violence, was his metier.
He had been in prison six times, the last time for two years.
His induction into the Navy was a mystery which bafHed both Riley and the authorities responsible for his being there.
But Riley had accepted this latest misfortune with equanimity, and gone through the bomb, shattered 'G' and 'H' blocks in the Royal Naval, Barracks, Portsmouth, like a high wind through a field of corn, leaving behind him a trail of slashed suitcases and empty wallets.
He had been apprehended without much difficulty, done sixty days' cells, then been drafted to the Ulysses as a stoker.
His career of crime aboard the Ulysses had been brief and painful.
His first attempted robbery had been his last, a clumsy and incredibly foolish rifling of a locker in the marine sergeants' mess. He had been caught red-handed by Colour-Sergeant Evans and Sergeant Macintosh.
They had preferred no charges against him and Riley had spent the next three days in the Sick Bay.
He claimed to have tripped on the rung of a ladder and fallen twenty feet to the boiler-room floor.
But the actual facts of the case were common knowledge, and Turner had recommended his discharge.
To everyone's astonishment, not least that of Stoker Riley, Dodson, the Engineer Commander had insisted he be given a last chance, and Riley had been reprieved.
Since that date, four months previously, he had confined his activities to stirring up trouble.
Illogically but understandably, his brief encounter with the marines had swept away his apathetic tolerance of the Navy: a smouldering hatred took its place.
As an agitator, he had achieved a degree of success denied him as a criminal.
Admittedly, he had a fertile field for operations; but credit, if that is the word, was due also to his shrewdness, his animal craft and cunning, his hold over his crew-mates.
The husky, intense voice, his earnestness, his deep-set eyes, lent Riley a strangly elemental power, a power he had used to its maximum effect a few days previously when he had precipitated the mutiny which had led to the death of Ralston, the stoker, and the marine, mysteriously dead from a broken neck.
Beyond any possible doubt, their deaths lay at Riley's door; equally beyond doubt, that could never be proved.
Nicholls wondered what new devilment was hatching behind these lowering, corrugated brows, wondered how on earth it was that that same Riley was continually in trouble for bringing aboard the Ulysses and devotedly tending every stray kitten, every broken-winged bird he found.
The loudspeaker crackled, cutting through his thoughts, stilling the low voices in the Sick Bay.
And not only there, but throughout the ship, in turrets and magazines, in engine-rooms and boiler-rooms, above and below deck everywhere, all conversation ceased.
Then there was only the wind, the regular smash of the bows into the deepening troughs, the muffled roar of the great boiler-room intake fans and the hum of a hundred electric motors.
Tension lay heavy over the ship, over 730 officers and men, tangible, almost, in its oppression.
"This is the Captain speaking.
Good evening." The voice was calm, well modulated, without a sign of strain or exhaustion. "As you all know, it is my custom at the beginning of every voyage to inform you as soon as possible of what lies in store for you.
I feel that you have a right to know, and that it is my duty.
It's not always a pleasant duty, it never has been during recent months.
This time, however, Fm almost glad." He paused, and the words came, slow and measured. "This is our last operation as a unit of the Home Fleet.
In a month's tune, God willing, we will be in the Med."
Good for you, thought Nicholls. Sweeten the pill, lay it on, thick and heavy.
But the Captain had other ideas.
"But first, gentlemen, the job on hand.
It's the mixture as before, Murmansk again.
We rendezvous at 1030 Wednesday, north of Iceland, with a convoy from Halifax.
There are eighteen ships in this convoy, big and fast, all fifteen knots and above.
Our third Fast Russian convoy, gentlemen, FR77, in case you want to tell your grandchildren about it," he added dryly. "These ships are carrying tanks, planes, aviation spirit and oil-nothing else.
"I will not attempt to minimise the dangers.
You know how desperate is the state of Russia today, how terribly badly she needs these weapons and fuel.
You can also be sure that the Germans know too, and that her Intelligence agents will already have reported the nature of this convoy and the date of sailing."
He broke off short, and the sound of his harsh, muffled coughing into a handkerchief echoed weirdly through the silent ship.
He went on slowly.
"There are enough fighter planes and petrol in this convoy to alter the whole character of the Russian war.
The Nazis will stop at nothing, I repeat, nothing, to stop this convoy from going through to Russia.
"I have never tried to mislead or deceive you.
I will not now.
The signs are not good.
In our favour we have, firstly, our speed, and secondly, I hope, the element of surprise.
We shall try to break through direct for the North Cape.