Doctor Who_ Island of Death - Barry Letts [47]
Five days. Okay, forget the photography. Let‟s face it, after yesterday she needed a holiday. Her head was still sore, and there was an impressive lump just above her left ear. And the whole thing had left her feeling sort of wobbly inside.
Concentrate on the pleasure-cruise bit, that was the thing.
Lounging on a deck chair, being brought beef tea by white jacketed stewards, like in the old thirties films. Huh! That‟d be the day. Or what about a ship-board romance? Who with, though? She ran her mind‟s eye over the possible candidates: the nice but impossibly furry Pete; lanky Bob, who‟d always be rushing off to his beloved charts; or the plump Chris. Not a lot of choice. Where was Sammy when she needed him?
She suddenly giggled. Out loud. How snobby could you get? Only the officers had been asked to audition for the part!
Miller, the steward - Dusty Miller didn‟t they call him? - he was just about the yummiest male on board, so why hadn‟t she even considered him? Briefly, she did just that; and recoiled from the hideous social complications that might ensue.
Forget it.
One thing, she must get some exercise. She was really missing her morning jog. She could hardly go for a three-mile run, but in all the books she‟d read with cruises in them, it was traditional every morning to have a brisk walk round and round the deck - thirty or forty laps, or whatever. It would have to do.
Dusty Miller picked up the tray of food from the table. He looked across at the unmoving figure on the bunk, its back to him and to the door. „You okay, Mr Whitbread?‟
Brother Alex kept quite still. He wouldn‟t have an alibi for the attack (if it was needed), but if people took it for granted that he‟d been out of action, that could be just as good. As soon as he‟d got back to the cabin, he‟d got rid of the remains of the chair over the side - making quite sure he wasn‟t seen
- and then retired to bed again.
„You haven‟t hardly eaten a thing - and you didn‟t touch your breakfast neither.‟
The answer came as a groan, and a muffled feeble voice.
„What day is it?‟
„Day? It‟s Wednesday. No, I tell a lie. It‟s Thursday. And a lovely day and all. Sun scorching your bleeding eyes out.‟
Another groan.
Miller turned back at the door. „You want me to get somebody, sir?‟
Whitbread heaved himself round. „No, no. I‟ll be all right. I must have slept all day yesterday...‟
„Yeah. Ask me, you were well out of it. What with Miss Smith and the Doctor and all.‟
His heart leapt. „The Doctor as well? What about them?‟ he asked.
„Only went overboard, didn‟t they?‟
Praise be to Skang! The Doctor as well!
„Still, all‟s well that ends well...‟ The door slammed behind him.
What? What did he mean by that? He sat up in bed, meaning to call the steward back - and just managed to stop himself. It could mean only one thing. She‟d been rescued.
He had to do the job all over again.
Sarah got up early the next morning, feeling almost back to normal, put on her trainers and set off on her first constitu-tional.
She‟d done a recce as soon as she‟d had the idea. There was no way it would be possible to establish a high-speed walking track around the main deck. There was far too much equipment - and for that matter, at that time of the morning, there‟d be too many men indulging in the Royal Navy‟s obsession for spotless cleanliness.
But the boat deck, she realised, where the ship‟s boats hung from their davits, was a different matter. Open to the sky, it ran along each side and aft of the officers‟ living quarters. The wardroom was at the back, and a corridor ran down the middle, with the cabins each side. The Captain‟s suite - a grand name for his sleeping cabin and his day cabin
- ran across the for‟d end.
The only snag was that the open deck didn‟t continue round the front of the bridge structure. Instead, there was a door at the front end of each side