"Ah, there you are.
Well, well, 'pon my soul, if it Isn't our navigating officer, the Honourable Carpenter, lost as usual and dressed to kill in his natty gent's suiting.
Do you know, Pilot, in that outfit you look like a cross between a deep-sea diver and that advert for Michelin tyres?"
"Ha!" said the Kapok Kid aggrievedly. "Sniff and scoff while you may, sir." He patted his quilted chest affectionately. "Just wait tUl we're all down there in the drink together, everybody else dragged down or frozen to death, me drifting by warm and dry and comfortable, maybe smoking the odd cigarette------"
"Enough.
Be off.
Course, Number One?"
"Three-twenty, sir.
Fifteen knots."
"And the Captain?"
"In the shelter." Carrington jerked his head towards the reinforced steel circular casing at the after end of the bridge.
This supported the Director Tower, the control circuits to which ran through a central shaft in the casing.
A sea bunk, a spartan, bare settee, was kept there for the Captain's use.
"Sleeping, I hope," he added, "but I very much doubt it.
Gave orders to be called at midnight."
"Why?" Turner demanded.
"Oh, I don't know.
Routine, I suppose.
Wants to see how things are."
"Cancel the order," Turner said briefly. "Captain's got to learn to obey orders like anybody else-especially doctor's orders.
I'll take full responsibility.
Good night, Number One."
The gate clanged shut and Marshall turned uncertainly towards the Commander.
"The Captain, sir.
Oh, I know it's none of my business, but", he hesitated "well, is he all right?"
Turner looked quickly around him.
His voice was unusually quiet.
"If Brooks had his way, the old man would be in hospital." He was silent for a moment, then added soberly. "Even then, it might be too late."
Marshall said nothing.
He moved restlessly around, then went aft to the port searchlight control position.
For five minutes, an intermittent rumble of voices drifted up to the Commander.
He glanced up curiously on Marshall's return.
"That's Ralston, sir," the Torpedo Officer explained. "If he'd talk to anybody, I think he'd talk to me."
"And does he?"
"Sure, but only what he wants to talk about.
As for the rest, no dice.
You can almost see the big notice round his neck,
'Private-Keep Off.'
Very civil, very courteous and completely unapproachable.
I don't know what the hell to do about him."
"Leave him be," Turner advised. "There's nothing anyone can do." He shook his head. "My God, what a lousy break life's given that boy!"
Silence fell again.
The snow was lifting now, but the wind still strengthening.
It howled eerily through masts and rigging, blending with a wild and eldritch harmony into the haunting pinging of the Asdic.
Weird sounds both, weird and elemental and foreboding, that rasped across the nerves and stirred up nameless, atavistic dreads of a thousand ages past, long buried under the press of civilisation.
An unholy orchestra, and, over years, men grew to hate it with a deadly hatred.
Half-past twelve came, one o'clock, then half-past one.
Turner's thought turned fondly towards coffee and cocoa.
Coffee or cocoa?
Cocoa, he decided, a steaming potent brew, thick with melted chocolate and sugar.