SV - 03 - Sergeant Verity Presents His Compliments Read Free Page B

else you please.'
    Ransome sucked his teeth and whistled softly. The possibilities for plucking the imprudent young heir to the Barham estates were so enormous, given this piece of information, that he needed time to assess the opportunity more fully.
    'Jack,' said the young man suddenly, 'take the £80 and the paper. There's £200. And take my bill at three months for £120 morel'
    Ransome laughed softly and shook his head.
    'And when the bill ain't met, Joey? What then?'
    There was a pause, Ransome continuing to whistle softly.
    'Jack,' sai d the boy again, 'take the girl! She's worth more than all the rest. You can't ask for one better broken to the saddle! Dammit, didn't you see her work for me? She's taught to do the same for any man that runs her and, between whiles, keep him at a stand a hundred ways. Only think, what you might do in India with her! '
    Ransome got up and opened the door leading to the sleeping quarters. By the dim illumination of a single lamp he could see Janet lying on the bed. She was still naked but for her stockings, perhaps expecting further demands upon her soft pale body. Ransome approached, calling her to him, telling her to turn, stretch, or bend herself in the most convenient manner for his examination. With unconcealed amusement he questioned her gently, compiling an inventory of the acts practised on her. The girl replied in timid murmurs as Ransome's hands ran like a whisper over the smooth, milky contours of breasts, hips and bottom. Then, with the patting and probing done, he left the girl and returned to his host, standing before Morant-Barham, leaning with one hand on the gaming table, his smile betraying nothing of his decision.
    'Well?' asked the boy impatiently.
    Ransome steadied himself on the table as the hull of the ship vibrated uncomfortably, the helmsman turning hard to starboard and causing one of the paddle-wheels to spin clear of the water with the incline of the ship. The Birkenhead righted herself and then seemed to rise on a sudden and unexpected swell. Ransome braced his feet apart and clutched the table with both hands, his dark eyes narrowing as though with suspicion. The ship swung violently, there was a distant clatter of china and one of the glass shades in Morant-Barham's cabin toppled and smashed to tiny sparkling slivers on the carpet.
    'The deuce of it! ' said Ransome, relaxing his grip a little.
    But the long rising swell came again, stronger and steeper, the Birkenhead heeling as though in the trough of a great storm. Just as it seemed that the worst might be over, the hull rolled precipitously, the rattle of falling furniture smothered by a great crash which echoed through the ship as though every gun-port had been stove in simultaneously by a heavy sea. Morant-Barham was thrown from his chair by the impact, while Ransome lost his footing and fell backwards among the scattered furniture. Two of the oil-lamps had smashed, leaving only one whose guttering flame cast a fitful shadow-play over the wreckage and confusion.
    Morant-Barham, conscious of a swelling bruise above his left eye, struggled to his feet and found that the floor of the cabin sloped upward a little towards the stern. Yet when he began to walk it seemed as if the angled deck was shifting under his feet with the weight of every step. And then the schoolboy subaltern lost his fear of Ransome in a still greater apprehension. The mighty engines of the Birkenhead were ominously still and somewhere inside the hull there was an echoing inrush of water.
    'What in God's name was that?' he asked, shivering.
    Ransome picked himself up from the littered fragments of glass and the overturned furniture.
    'Get your bitch dressed!' he said, brushing down his tunic vigorously. 'Get on deck! '
    But Morant-Barham was peering into the wrecked cabin, kneeling and fumbling in the gloom.
    'The sovs, Jack, the sovs! All on the floor somewhere!'
    'Damn the money! Get up, unless you want this brig for a coffin! '
    The