"It-it's not a phobia," she said defensively. "Not liking things is not a phobia. All sorts of people, especially women, hate rats."
"And mice," I agreed. "They yell and they scream and they dance about and they make for the highest piece of furniture they can reach. But they don't have the pink fits, not even if bitten. They're not still shaking like a broken bed-spring half an hour after it happens. What started all this off?"
She was silent for half a minute, then abruptly pushed up the tousled blonde hair at the side of her neck. Even in the dim half-light I had no difficulty in seeing the scar behind the right ear.
"It must have been a mess at the time," I nodded. "Rat, I take it. How?"
"After my parents were drowned on the way to England I was brought up by my uncle and aunt. On a farm." Her voice was not that of a person discussing the faraway green fields of treasured memories. "There was a daughter three or four years older than I was. She was nice. So was her mother, my aunt."
"And he was the wicked uncle?"
"Don't laugh. It's not funny. He was all right at first, until my aunt died about eight years after I came to them. Then he started drinking, lost the farm and had to move to a smaller place where the only room for me was an attic above the barn.",
"Okay, that's enough," I interrupted. "I can guess the rest."
"I used to lie awake at night with a torch in my hand," she whispered. "A ring of eyes round the room, red and pink and white. Watching me, just watching me. Then I'd light a candle before going to sleep. One night the candle went out and when I woke up this-this-it was caught in my hah" and biting and it was dark and I screamed and screamed-"
"I told you, that's enough," I said harshly. "Do you like hurting yourself?" Not nice, but necessary.
"I'm sorry," she said in a low voice. "That's all. I was three weeks in hospital, not with my neck but because I was a bit out of my mind and then they let me out again." All this in a very matter-of-fact voice. I wondered what it cost her to say it. I tried not to feel sorry for her, not to feel pity: involvement with any person was the one thing I couldn't afford. But I couldn't help myself from saying: "Your unpleasant experiences weren't just confined to the rats, were they?"
She twisted to look at me, then said slowly: "You are more shrewd than I had thought."
"Not really. When you find women behaving in the hands-off down the nose snooty superciliousness affected by some, it's because they think it's an interesting attitude or a mark of superiority, or provocative, or simply because it's a cover-up for the fact that they haven't sufficient intelligence or common sense to behave and converse like a human being. We include you out. How about the wicked uncle?"
"He was wicked all right," she said, unsmiling. "By and by my cousin ran away because she couldn't stand him any longer. A week later I did the same, but for different reasons, some neighbours found me crying in the woods in the dark. I was taken to some institution, then put in care of a guardian." She didn't like any of this and neither did I. "He had a sick wife and a full-grown son and-and they fought over me. Then another institution and another and another. I had no family, I was young, a foreigner and had no money: some people think the combination entitles them to-"
"All right," I said. "You don't like rats. And you don't like men."
"I've never had any reason to change my mind about either."
It was hardly the time to point out that with her face and her figure she had as much chance of escaping attention as a magnet would have of moving untouched through a heap of iron filings. Instead, I cleared my throat and said: "I'm a man, too."
"So you are. I'd quite forgotten." The words meant nothing but the little smile that went with them made me feel ten feet tall. "I'll bet you're just as bad as the rest."
"Worse," I assured her. " 'Ravening' would be a weak word to describe me."
"That's nice," she murmured. "Put your arm around me."
I stared at her. "Come the dawn," I said, "you'll regret this weakness."
"Let the dawn look after itself," she said comfortably. "You'll stay here all night?"
"What's left of it."
"You won't leave me?" This with a child-like persistence. "Not even for a moment?"
"Nary a minute." I rattled my club against the battens. "I'll sit here and I'll keep awake and I'll fight off every rat in the South Pacific. Every man in the South Pacific, too, if it conies to that."
"I'm quite sure you would," she said peacefully. She was asleep inside a minute.
CHAPTER TWO
She slept serenely, like one dead, for over three hours, her breathing so quiet that I could hardly hear it. As the time slipped by, the rolling of the schooner became increasingly more pronounced until after one particularly violent lurch she woke up with a start and stared at me, her eyes reflecting confusion and perhaps a touch of fear. Then understanding came back and she sat up, taking the weight off my arm for the first time in hours.
"Hullo, knight-errant," she said.
"Morning. Feel better?"
"Mmm." She grabbed a batten as another violent lurch sent some loose boxes banging about the hold. "But I won't be for long, not if this sort of thing keeps up. Nuisance, I know, but I can't help it. What's the time?"
I made to look at the watch on my left wrist, but the arm was quite dead. I reached it across with my right hand, trying not to wince as the pins and needles of returning circulation shot through it. She frowned and said: "What's wrong?"
"You told me not to stir all night," I pointed out patiently. "So I didn't. You are no light weight, young lady."
"I'm sorry," she said quickly. She looked at me quizzically, colour in her cheeks, but smiled without embarrassment. "It's come the dawn and I still don't regret my weakness…. Half-past eight, your watch says. Must be broad daylight. I wonder where we're heading?"
"North or south. We're neither quartering nor corkscrewing, which means that we have this swell right on the beam. I don't remember much of my geography but enough to be pretty sure that at this time of the year the steady easterly trades push up an east-west swell. So, north or south," I lowered myself stiffly to my feet, walked for'ard along the central aisle to where the two narrow spaces, one on each side, had been left clear of cargo to give access to the ventilator intakes. I moved into those in turn and touched both the port and starboard sides of the schooner, high up. The port side was definitely warmer than the starboard. That meant we were moving more or less due south. The nearest land in that direction was New Zealand, about a thousand miles away. I filed away this helpful information and was about to move when I heard voices from above, faint but unmistakable. I pulled a box down from behind its retaining batten and stood on it, the side of my face against the foot of the ventilator.
The ventilator must have been just outside the radio office and its trumpet-shaped opening made a perfect earphone for collecting and amplifying soundwaves. I could hear the steady chatter of Morse and, over and above that, the sound of two men talking as clearly as if they had been no more than three feet away from me. What they were speaking about I'd no idea, it was in a language I'd never heard before: after a couple of minutes I jumped down, replaced the box and went back to Marie.
"What took you so long?" she asked accusingly. She knew the rats were still around and a phobia doesn't die away in a night.
"Sorry. But you may be grateful yet for the delay. I've found out that we're travelling south but, much more important, I've found out that we can hear what the people on the upper deck are talking about." I told her how I'd discovered this, and she nodded.