Uncharted Seas Read Free

to get rattled though and your chances are plenty better than they would be in North Africa.’
    He turned and favoured Basil with a disapproving stare. ‘Come, Mr. Sutherland, we must get to it.’
    Another of the pumping squad who had just come off dutygripped the Finn by the arm. ‘Chances?’ he repeated in a guttural voice, ‘surely you do not mean there is
any
chance that the ship should sink?’
    ‘Certainly not, Señor Vedras.’ Juhani Luvia looked down from his great height on the squat middle-aged Venezuelan who had spoken. ‘I’ve been in ships that have weathered much worse storms.’
    ‘Yes, but they were bigger and better ships—not little old tubs like this,’ Basil Sutherland snapped. ‘Still, go ahead. Lead me back to your filthy pump.’
    A door banged loudly somewhere and there was the sound of smashing crockery. Luvia cocked a blue eye in the direction of the galley, then took the new shift below.
    Jean De Brissac and Vicente Vedras commenced a zigzag course towards the bar. The Venezuelan was a man of forty-five who had lived well; showing it by his heavy jowl and increasing waistline. He was very dark with a swarthy complexion, and heavy black eyebrows that almost met in the middle of his forehead.
    The Frenchman was ten years younger; dark, too, but of a finer mould. His skin was tanned a healthy nut-brown from the years he had spent as a member of the Military Mission in Madagascar; his brown eyes held a laughing impudence that had made many a lovely lady eager to know him.
    As French officers habitually wear uniform, their wardrobe of civilian clothes is small, so, although he was sailing under the Swedish flag,
en route
for Guadaloupe, he had obtained the Captain’s permission to wear his military kit. A little vain by nature, he was conscious, even in these anxious hours while the ship was battling against the hurricane, that he cut a dashing figure in his breeches and tunic of horizon blue.
    ‘You will drink?’ he asked the Venezuelan courteously.
    ‘
Mille gracia, une Cognac.
’
    ‘
Deux fines
,’ De Brissac told the white-coated Hansie.
    Vicente Vedras’s eyes flickered in the direction of Synolda Ortello, the South African girl. He leaned over to the barman. ‘For me separately, a bottle of champagne also. Two glasses. I take it to the Señorita there who is not well.’
    The Swede pushed a bottle of Hennessy towards De Brissac. Judging the roll of the ship with commendable accuracy, he poured two portions.
    Vedras took his glass and bowed politely. ‘This storm—it is ’orrible, but that we are in no danger is good news. For some littlemoments I was afraid.’ With a quick movement he tossed off his drink.
    ‘So was I,’ confessed De Brissac. ‘But these heavy seas will probably go down by morning. Here’s to better weather!’
    He drank more slowly and glanced round the saloon. It was not a pretty spectacle. The dozen odd passengers were lolling about in various degrees of discomfort and abandon, their canvas-covered cork lifebelts near at hand. The elderly Greek was being abominably sick. A plate of stale sandwiches, with their pointed ends curling upwards, reposed on a near-by table. The air was heavy with tobacco smoke. As the ship’s only common room and bar it was the natural refuge of the men who had been working at the pumps, and for hours on end they had been cooped up there smoking at an abnormal rate owing to the tension of their nerves.
    With a muttered: ‘You will excuse,
mon Capitaine
,’ the Venezuelan signed his chit, clutched the bottle of champagne to his breast, and stuffed two glasses in his pockets. Making a sudden dash across the room he landed up beside Synolda.
    Jean De Brissac advanced with a more cautious step towards the two nuns. He brought himself up a little unsteadily before them.
    ‘
Mes sœurs
,’ he said, and continued in French, ‘if I can be of any service to you I pray you to command me.’
    Neither of the women looked up from