Shout at the Devil - Smith Wilbur (лучшие книги .TXT) 📗
"Good!" he said. "Oh, very good," and he pursed his lips as though he were about to whistle "Tipperary'. Instead he made a sucking sound, and smiled across at Sebastian.
Behind his flattened nose and blue-ringed eyes, Sebastian smiled back at him.
"A damn good show, Oldsmith!" Joyce's expression changed, the little lights of recognition sparkled suddenly in his eyes. "Oldsmith?" he repeated. "I say, didn't you open the bowling for Sussex in the 1911 cricket season?"
"That's right, sir."
"Good Lord! Joyce beamed at him. "I'll never forget Your opening over to Yorkshire in the first match of the season.
You dismissed Graham and Penridge for two runs two for two, hey?"
"Two for two, it was. "Sebastian liked this man.
"Fiery stuff! And then you made fifty-five runs?"
"Sixty-five," Sebastian corrected him. "A record ninth wicket partnership with Clifford Dumont of one hundred and eighty-sixV "Yes! Yes! I remember it well. Fiery stuff! You were damned unlucky not to play for England." oh, I don't know about that," said Sebastian in modest agreement.
"Yes, you were." Joyce pursed his lips again. "Damned unlucky." Flynn O'Flynn had not understood a word of this. He was thrashing around in his chair like an old buffalo in a trap, bored to the point of pain. Rosa Oldsmith had understood no more than he had, but she was fascinated. It was clear that Captain Joyce knew of some outstanding accomplishment of Sebastian's, and if a man like Joyce knew of it it " meant Sebastian was famous. She felt pride swell in her chest and she smiled on Sebastian also.
"didn't know, Sebastian. Why didn't you tell me?" She glowed warmly at him.
"Some other time," Joyce interrupted quickly. "Now we must get on with this other business." And he returned his attention to the chart on the desk.
"Now I want you to cast your mind back. Shut your eyes and try to see it again. Every detail you can remember, every little detail it might be important. Did you see any signs of damage?" Obediently Sebastian closed his eyes, and was surprised at how vividly the acid of fear had engraved the picture of Blitcher on his mind.
"Yes," he said. "There were holes in her. Hundreds of holes, little black ones. And at the front end the bows there were trapezes hanging down on ropes, near the water.
You know the kind- that they use when they paint a high building Joyce nodded at his secretary to record every word of it.
The single fan suspended over the table in the wardroom hummed quietly, the blades stirred the air that was moist and warm as the bedding of a malarial patient.
Except for the soft clink of cutlery on china, the only other sound was that of Commissioner Fleischer drinking his soup. It was thick, green pea soup, scalding hot, so that Fleischer found it necessary to blow heavily on each spoonful before ingesting it with a noise, not of the same volume, but with the delicate tonal quality, of a flushing water closet. During the pause while he crumbled a slice of black bread into his Soup, Fleischer looked -across the board at Lieutenant Kyller.
"So you did not find the enemy flying-machine, then?"
"No." Kyller went on fiddling with his wine glass without looking up. For forty-eight hours he and his patrols had searched the swamps and channels and mangrove forests for the wreckage of the aircraft. He was exhausted and covered with insect bites.
" Fleischer nodded solemnly. "It fell only a short way, but it did not hit the trees. I was sure of that. I have seen sand-grouse do the same thing sometimes when you shoot them with a shotgun. Pow! They come tumbling down like this..." He fluttered his hand in the air, letting it fall awards his soup, then suddenly they do this. "The hand took flight again in the direction of Commander (Engineering) Lochtkamper's rugged Neanderthal face. They all watched it.
"The little bird flies away home. It was bad shooting from so close," said Fleischer, and ended the demonstration by picking up his soup spoon, and the moist warm silence once more gripped the wardroom.
Commander Lochtkamper stoked his mouth as though it were one of his furnaces. The knuckles of both his hands were knocked raw by contact with steel plate and wire rope.
Even when Fleischer's hand had flown into his face, he had not been distracted from his thoughts. His mind was wholly occupied with steel and machinery, weights and points of balance. He wanted to achieve twenty degrees of starboard list on Blucher, so that a greater area of her bottom would be exposed to his welders. This meant displacing one thousand tons of dead weight. It seemed an impossibility unless we flood the port magazines, he thought, and take the guns from their turrets and move them. Then we could rig camels under her... "it was not bad shooting," said the gunnery lieutenant.
"She was flying too close, the rate of track was..." He broke off, wiped the side of his long pointed nose with his forefinger, and regarded balefully the sweat that came away on it. This fat peasant would not understand, he would not waste energy in explaining the technicalities. He contented himself with repeating, "It was not bad shooting."
"I think we must accept that the enemy machine has returned safely to her base," said Lieutenant Kyller. "Therefore we can expect the enemy to mount some form of offensive action against us in the very near future." Kyller enjoyed a position of privilege in the wardroom. No other of the junior officers would have dared to express his opinions so freely. Yet none of them would have made as much sense as Kyller. When he spoke his senior officers listened, if not respectfully, at least attentively. Kyller had passed out sword of honour cadet from Bremerhaven Naval Academy in 1910. His father was a Baron, a personal friend of the Kaiser's, and an Admiral of the Imperial Fleet. Kyller was wardroom favourite, not only because of his dark good looks and courteous manner but also because of his appetite for hard work, his meticulous attention to detail, and his ready mind. He was a good officer to have aboard a credit to the ship.
