"Bear Island" - читать интересную книгу автора (Maclean Alistair)

"What do you think?"

ФIt's not going to improve." He dismissed the weather and smiled. "I'm not a great man for the small talk but with the Otard-Dupuy who needs it? Take the weight off your feet for an hour then go tell Mr. Gerran that all his paid slaves, as you call them, are holding a square dance on the poop.

УI suspect Mr. Gerran of having a suspicious checking mind. However, if I may--?"

"My guest."

I helped myself again and replaced the bottle in the cabinet. Smithy, as he'd warned, wasn't very talkative, but the silence was companionable enough. Presently he said: "Navy, aren't you, Doc?"

"Past tense."

"And now this?"

"A shameful comedown. Don't you find it so?"

"Touche." I could dimly see the white of teeth as he smiled in the half dark. "Medical malpractice, flogging penicillin to the wogs, or just drunk in charge of a surgery?"

"Nothing so glamorous. СInsubordinationТ is the word they used."

"Snap. Me too." A pause. "This Mr. Gerran of yours. Is he all right?"

"So the insurance doctors say."

УI didn't mean that."

УYou can't expect me to speak ill of my employer." Again there was that dimly seen glimpse of white teeth.

"Well, that's one way of answering my question. But, well, look, the bloke must be loony-or is that an offensive term?"

"Only to psychiatrists. I don't speak to them. Loony's fine by me. But I'd remind you that Mr. Gerran has a very distinguished record."

"As a loony?"

"That, too. But also as a film-maker, a producer."

УWhat kind of producer would take a film unit up to Bear Island with winter coming on?"

"Mr. Gerran wants realism."

"Mr. Gerran wants his head examined. Has he any idea what it's like up there at this time of year?"

"He's also a man with a dream."

"No place for dreamers in the Barents Sea. How the Americans ever managed to put a man on the moon-"

УOur friend Otto isn't an American. He's a central European. If you want the makers of dreams or the peddlers of dreams there's the place to End them-among the headwaters of the Danube."

"And the biggest rogues and confidence men in Europe?"