Warner took a step forward and Busby did likewise. Everyone held their breath waiting for the next foot to fall. The sound of a hammer being cocked broke the silence. All eyes turned to Snell stood in the doorway.
‘What is going on? Mr Busby, a step back, if you please, and Mr Warner please return that blade to the kitchen stock.’
Busby and Warner eyed each other but slowly obeyed Snell. Warner placed the cleaver on the table and then walked away towards where Collins sat, lighting a cigarette as he went. Busby looked at Connelly, shrugged, and then sat down and unstopped his bottle.
‘What the hell is happening?’ Snell asked Connelly.
‘Nerves are frayed, sir.’
‘Well, that’s no need to be at each other’s throats.’
Connelly smiled.
‘It’ll only get worse till we get picked up or make landfall. Just need to make sure we watch for it. There’s something up with Warner, not sure what. Where’s Putner?’
‘We found the radio room but the set wasn’t working. He stayed back to try and fix it while I checked on you – lucky I did.’
‘Grub’s up!’ Hamilton banged his spatula against a tin plate. ‘Come and get it while it’s hot.’
They queued up quickly, plates in hand.
‘Will someone take a plate to Putner when we’re done eating?
‘Not a problem,’ replied Hamilton.
The food consisted of some of the canned fish fried with pickles and then mixed into the rice with generous portions of pepper and soy sauce. To the hungry company it was like mana from the gods and they ate like the starved people that they were, niceties and manners left far behind them – the Cafe du Paris could wait for another day.
The valves hummed, a needle flickered, and the radio set was lit up where it was meant to be. Putner put the headset over his ears, flicked a switch and was rewarded by the low hiss of white noise. He adjusted his dials and began to scan across the airwaves. Preferring to listen for surrounding traffic before he even thought about sending a message of his own.
He cruised along the dials stopping here and there when he thought that he heard something beneath the static. It was as though someone were trying to whisper to him when he had his head dunked in a tub full of water. More adjusting but still nothing he could make out. Punter leant back in his chair and took the headset off.
‘Hey, Reg.’
Putner leapt up off his seat fumbling for the hammer on the desk. The heavy tool skipped away from Putner’s fingers and fell onto the deck. Turning he saw Hamilton stood in the door holding a plate of food and two tin cups.
‘Jesus, I could’ve brained you.’
‘You’d need to pick up the hammer to do that,’ Hamilton replied with a smile. ‘Sit yourself down. I just brought you some food.’
‘Food?’
Putner’s eyes told Hamilton of the young man’s hunger and he handed the plate across quickly. Putner sat down on the cot bed and Hamilton took the operator’s chair.
‘Brought us a couple of tots of whiskey too. Got some smokes as well.’
‘Thanks,’ replied Putner through a mouthful of fish and rice.
Hamilton chuckled and sat back letting Putner eat his fill before they talked. He looked the radio set over as he waited and wondered whether they could get any music through it – even Tokyo Rose on the Zero Hour would do, anything from the outside world. Just something to let him know that they weren’t alone on an endless sea.
‘I’ll take that drink now – smoke as well if you don’t mind?’
Hamilton smiled and passed Putner his tin cup. While the younger man took a hit, Hamilton lit two cigarettes and passed one across. Putner coughed from the whiskey and then took the proffered cigarette before taking a tote and coughing again.
‘How’s it going?’
‘Well, the set’s working.’
‘But?’
‘I’m not picking up much traffic. We need to decide if I send the distress signal or not.’
‘Guess that’ll be Mr Snell’s call, not ours.’
Putner nodded and blew smoke into the air.
‘What you going to do when we hit land?’
‘A bath,’ replied Putner, ‘then send a dozen letters.’
‘Who to?’
‘My mother, my sisters, the company to make sure I get my leave and pay for time adrift!’
Hamilton smiled again.
‘You?’ asked Putner.
‘A bar; hot music, rum, little band, some girls to talk to. Then food – let someone cook for me for a change. Maybe a walk on the beach and feel the sand between my toes. Finish it up with a sleep in a real bed; fresh sheets, soft mattress, and no one to wake me up – sleep till past noon.’
Putner extinguished his cigarette and took another hit from his cup.
‘Well, I best get back to it.’
‘You take the chair and I’ll grab that cot while I finish my drink.’
They swapped places and Putner put the headset around his neck.
‘Reckon I could come to that bar with you and get a beer?’
‘Of course, man. We’ll line the cold ones up.’
Putner smiled and went back to listening to the airwaves.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Lily watched Warner from across the room. The promoter and agent sat alone and smoked cigarette after cigarette while working his way through the bottle of cheap whiskey. She had been with Conrad Warner since the dark days of 1940 when it looked like Uncle Adolf was going to cross the channel and his legions would be goose stepping down Pall Mall. They had been through bad times as well as good and never once had he spoken to her in the way that he had earlier. Lily was still in shock from the venom of his words, so unlike the man she knew.
‘Are you alright?’
Amelia Starling had come away from Collins and sat beside Lily. Lily looked at her and forced a smile.
‘Not really. It’s just all this I suppose.’
‘He shouldn’t have spoken to you like that.’
Lily took in a huge breath and blew it out.
‘No, no he shouldn’t have. We’ve chummed along for a few years now and I’ve never seen him like this.’
The two women looked across at where Conrad sat; yet another cigarette burning between his fingers, tin cup and whiskey bottle at his elbow.
‘I suppose it hits us all in different ways,’ proffered Amelia.
‘Maybe. But I’ve been through some dark days with Connie and he’s always been my rock.’
‘Are you and he…’
Lily laughed, short and soft.
‘No, but sometimes he talks like he’d want to but with Connie I’m never sure how much of it he puts on. I’ll let him sleep it off and talk to him tomorrow.’
Snell had headed back to the radio room to speak with Putner and find out where Hamilton was. While Busby worked away at his bottle of sake, Connelly smoked and took out the book that he had stashed in his waistband. It was bound in cheap leather and looked like some kind of journal or day book. He wished that he could read the words within it. Connelly paused for a moment and then put down the book.
‘Any of that sake left?’
Busby passed across the clay bottle and Connelly drained the last mouthful.
‘Good book?’
‘Might be but I can’t read a bloody word of it.’
CHAPTER NINE
Every inch of your skin throbs, itches like the missing limb of an amputee. But with that comes an absence of pain. Sweet relief and you whisper your thanks for the cessation of the pain that has been your world for as long as you can remember. Was there anything before the pain? Out in the darkness something answers your words. The voices start as whispers and rise to a roar that hurts your ears. The voices press against your skull until they are within you – no longer speaking from out there but from in here, in your head. Are the voices yours or are you theirs? Who can tell but you begin to listen more closely now as they tell you what needs to be done. The mass of voices become one voice. His voice. And soon you are ready. Ready to slip out of your suit of skin and into another form.