"Mind you, I've no jurisdiction over a Captain in his own ship; but I can't see a thing." He lay back on the bunk, eyes elaborately closed in seeming exhaustion.
Only Tyndall knew that he wasn't pretending.
Vallery said nothing.
He stood there clutching a handrail, his face grey and 'haggard, his eyes blood-red and drugged with sleep.
Turner felt a knife twist inside him as he looked at him.
When he spoke, his voice was low and earnest, so unusual for him that he caught and held Vallery's attention.
"Sir, this is no night for a naval captain.
Danger from any quarter except the sea itself just doesn't exist.
Agreed?"
Vallery nodded silently.
"It's a night for a seaman, sir.
With all respect, I suggest that neither of us is in the class of Carrington, he's just a different breed of man."
"Nice of you to include yourself, Commander," Vallery murmured. "And quite unnecessary."
"The first Lieutenant will remain on the bridge all night So will Westcliffe here.
So will I."
"Me, too," grunted Tyndall. "But I'm going to sleep." He looked almost as tired, as haggard as Vallery.
Turner grinned. "Thank you, sir. Well, Captain, I'm afraid it's going to be a bit overcrowded here tonight... Well see you after breakfast."
"But------"
"But me no buts," Westcliffe murmured.
"Please," Turner insisted. "You will do us a favour."
Vallery looked at him.
"As Captain of the Ulysses... "His voice tailed off. "I don't know what to say."
"I do," said Turner briskly, his hand on Vallery's elbow. "Let's go below."
"Don't think I can manage by myself, eh?" Vallery smiled faintly.
"I do.
But I'm taking no chances.
Come along, sir."
"All right, all right." He sighed tiredly. "Anything for a quiet life... and a night's sleep I"
Reluctantly, with a great effort, Lieutenant Nicholls dragged himself up from the mist-fogged depths of exhausted sleep.
Slowly, reluctantly, he opened his eyes.
The Ulysses, he realised, was still rolling as heavily, plunging as sickeningly as ever.
The Kapok Kid, forehead swathed in bandages, the rest of his face pocked with blood, was bending over him.
He looked disgustingly cheerful.
"Hark, hark, the lark, etcetera," the Kapok Kid grinned. "And how are we this morning?" he mimicked unctuously.
The Hon. Carpenter held the medical profession in low esteem.
Nicholls focused blurred eyes on him. "What's the matter, Andy? Anything wrong?"
"With Messrs. Carrington and Carpenter in charge," said the Kapok Kid loftily, "nothing could be wrong. Want to come up top, see Carrington do his stuff?
He's going to turn the ship round.
In this little lot, it should be worth seeing!"
"What! Dammit to belli Have you woken me just------"
"Brother, when this ship turns, you would wake up anyway, probably on the deck with a broken neck.
But as it so happens, Jimmy requires your assistance.
At least, he requires one of these heavy plate-glass squares which I happen to know you have in great numbers in the dispensary.
But the dispensary's locked, I tried it," he added shamelessly.
"But what I mean plate glass"
"Come and see for yourself," the Kapok Kid invited.
It was dawn now, a wild and terrible dawn, fit epilogue for a nightmare.
Strange, trailing bands of misty-white vapour swept by barely at mast-top level, but high above the sky was clear.
The seas, still gigantic, were shorter now, much shorter, and even steeper: the Ulysses was slowed right down, with barely enough steerage way to keep her head up, and even then, taking severe punishment in the precipitous head seas.
The wind had dropped to a steady fifty knots, gale force: even at that, it seared like fire in Nicholls's lungs as he stepped out on the flap-deck, blinded him with ice and cold.