Vallery's wrist between his fingers, he looked coldly across at Tyndall.
Nicholls, Brooks remembered, was insistent that the Admiral was far from well.
He looked tired, certainly, but more unhappy than tired... The pulse was very fast, irregular.
"You've been upsetting him," Brooks accused.
"Me?
Good God, nol" Tyndall was injured. "So help me, Doc, I never said-----"
"Not guilty, Doc." It was Vallery who spoke, his voice stronger now. "He never said a word.
I'm the guilty man, guilty as hell."
Brooks looked at him for a long moment.
Then he smiled, smiled in understanding and compassion.
"Forgiveness, sir.
That's it, isn't it?"
Tyndall started in surprise, looked at him in wonder.
Vallery opened his eyes.
"Socrates!" he murmured. "You would know."
"Forgiveness," Brooks mused. "Forgiveness.
From whom, the living, the dead, or the Judge?"
Again Tyndall started.
"Have you, have you been listening outside?
How can you------?"
"From all three, Doc.
A tall order, I'm afraid."
"From the dead, sir, you are quite right.
There would be no forgiveness: only their blessing, for there is nothing to forgive.
I'm a doctor, don't forget-I saw those boys in the water... you sent them home the easy way.
As for the Judge, you know,
'The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away.
Blessed be the name of the Lord', the Old Testament conception of the Lord who takes away in His own time and His own way, and to hell with mercy and charity."
He smiled at Tyndall.
"Don't look so shocked, sir.
I'm not being blasphemous.
If that were the Judge, Captain, neither you nor I-nor the Admiral, would ever want any part of him.
But you know it isn't so..." Vallery smiled faintly, propped himself up on his pillow.
"You make good medicine, Doctor.
It's a pity you can't speak for the living also."
"Oh, can't I?" Brooks smacked his hand on his thigh, guffawed in sudden recollection. "Oh, my word, it was magnificent!"
He laughed again in genuine amusement.
Tyndall looked at Vallery in mock despair.
"Sorry," Brooks apologised. "Just fifteen minutes ago a bunch of sympathetic stokers deposited on the deck of the Sick Bay the prone and extremely unconscious form of one of their shipmates.
Guess who?
None other than our resident nihilist, our old friend Riley.
Slight concussion and assorted facial injuries, but he should be restored to the bosom of his mess deck by nightfall.
Anyway, he insists on it, claims his kittens need him."
Vallery looked up, amused, curious.
"Fallen down the stokehold again, I presume?"
"Exactly the question I put, sir-although it looked more as if he had fallen into a concrete mixer.
'No, sir,' says one of the stretcher-bearers. 'He tripped over the ship's cat.'
'Ship's cat?' I says.
'What ship's cat?'
So he turns to his oppo and says: