"You've got frostbite." "Rub your chin, man!" Turner interrupted sharply.
Slowly, mechanically, Ralston did as he was told.
He used the back of his hand.
Vallery winced again as he saw the palm of the hand, raw and mutilated, skin and flesh hanging in strips.
The agony of that bare-handed descent from the yardarm...
"He tried to murder me, sir.
It was deliberate." Ralston sounded tired.
"Do you realise what you are saying?" Vallery's voice was as icy as the wind that swept over Langanes.
But he felt the first, faint chill of fear.
"He tried to murder me, sir," Ralston repeated tonelessly. "He returned the boards five minutes before I left the yard-arm. W.T. must have started transmitting just as soon as I reached the mast, coming down."
"Nonsense, Ralston.
How dare you------"
"He's right, sir." It was Etherton speaking. He was replacing the receiver carefully, his voice unhappy. "I've just checked."
The chill of fear settled deeper on Vallery's mind.
Almost desperately he said:
"Anyone can make a mistake.
Ignorance may be culpable, but------"
"Ignorance!" The weariness had vanished from Ralston as if it had never been.
He took two quick steps forward. "Ignorance I I gave him these boards, sir, when I came to the bridge.
I asked for the Officer of the Watch and he said he was, I didn't know the Gunnery Officer was on duty, sir.
When I told him that the boards were to be returned only to me, he said:' I don't want any of your damned insolence, Ralston.
I know my job, you stick to yours.
Just you get up there and perform your heroics.'
He knew, sir."
Carslake burst from the Commander's supporting arm, turned and appealed wildly to the Captain.
The eyes were white and staring, the whole face working.
"That's a lie, sir!
It's a damned, filthy lie!" He mouthed the words, slurred them through smashed lips. "I never said..."
The words crescendoed into a coughing, choking scream as Ralston's fist smashed viciously, terribly into the torn, bubbling mouth.
He staggered drunkenly through the port gate, crashed into the chart house, slid down to lie on the deck, huddled and white and still.
Both Turner and the M.AA. had at once leapt forward to pinion the L.T.O.'s arms, but he made no attempt to move.
Above and beyond the howl of the wind, the bridge seemed strangely silent.
When Vallery spoke, his voice was quite expressionless.
"Commander, you might phone for a couple of our marines.
Have Carslake taken down to his cabin and ask Brooks to have a look at him.
Master-at-Arms?"
"Sir?"
"Take this rating to the Sick Bay, let him have any necessary treatment.
Then put him in cells.
With an armed guard.
Understand?"
"I understand, sir."
There was no mistaking the satisfaction in Hastings's voice.
Vallery, Turner and the Gunnery Officer stood in silence as Ralston and the M.A.A. left, in silence as two burly marines carried Carslake, still senseless, off the bridge and below.
Vallery moved after them, broke step at Etherton's voice behind him.
"Sir?"
Vallery did not even turn round.
"I'll see you later, Etherton."
"No, sir. Please.
This is important."