"Higgins, Jack - Sheba" - читать интересную книгу автора (Higgins Jack)

DAHREIN

August 1939

THREE

THE WIND, BLOWING across the Gulf from Africa, still carried some of the warmth of the day to Kane as he stood on the deck of the launch, listening.

There was no moon and yet the sky seemed to be alive, to glow with the incandescence of millions of stars. He breathed deeply, inhaling the freshness, and followed a school of flying-fish with his eyes as they curved out of the sea in a shower of phosphorescent water.

A door opened and light from the saloon momentarily flooded out as Piroo, the Hindu deck-hand, came up the companionway with a mug of steaming coffee.

Kane sipped some of it gratefully. 'That's good.'

'The Kantara is late tonight, Sahib,' Piroo said.

Kane nodded and checked his watch. 'Almost two a.m. I wonder what the old devil O'Hara is playing at?'

'Perhaps it's the whisky again.'

Kane grinned. 'More than likely.'

As he finished his coffee, Piroo touched him on the arm. 'I think she comes, Sahib.'

Kane listened intently. At first he was conscious only of the slap of the waves against the hull of the launch and the whisper of the wind, and then he became aware of a muffled, gentle throbbing across the water. In the distance, he saw the green pin-point of light that was the starboard navigation light of the Kantara.

'Not before time,' he said softly.

He went into the wheelhouse and switched on the navigation lights, and when he pressed the starter, the engine coughed into life. He waited until the steamer was almost upon them, before he opened the throttle gently and took the launch forward on a course which would bring them together.

The old freighter was doing no more than two or three knots, and Piroo put out the fenders as Kane took the launch in close. A Lascar appeared at the rail and tossed down a line which Piroo quickly secured. A rope ladder followed a moment later, and Kane cut the engines and went out on deck.

The high, rust-streaked side of the Kantara reared into the night, the single stack a long black shadow above. As he climbed the ladder, Kane wondered, and not for the first time, exactly what it was that kept this heap of scrap-iron floating.

He scrambled over the rail and said in Hindi, 'Where's the Captain?'

The Lascar shrugged. 'In his cabin.'

He quickly climbed a companionway to the upper deck and knocked on the door of the captain's cabin. There was no reply. After a moment, he opened it and went in. The cabin was in darkness and the stench was appalling. He fumbled for the light switch and turned it on.

O'Hara was on his bunk. He lay on his back in singlet and pants, mouth open, exposing decaying yellow teeth. Empty whisky bottles rolled across the floor with the motion of the ship, and Kane wrinkled his nose in disgust and went out on deck.

Another Lascar was waiting for him. 'The mate, he say you go to bridge,' the man said.

Kane crossed the deck quickly and climbed an iron ladder to the bridge. Guptas, the mate, was at the wheel, his turbaned head disembodied in the light from the binnacle.

Kane leaned in the doorway and lit a cigarette. 'How long has he been like that?'

Guptas grinned. 'Ever since we left Aden. It should take him at least two days to sleep this one off.'