Redemption - Leon Uris [176]
“Porthole bunk is open,” Rory said. “I’m going topside.”
“Goodo,” Chester said.
The shunk-rooomshunk and the click of the dice and the groan of the Wagga Wagga fell into perfect harmony as Rory left the turbine room and was plunged into darkness as he worked his way to the ladder.
Topside, the hatches and any decent deck space looked like a bin of silvery fish—it was covered with half-naked bodies, slimy with sweat.
Rory went up the ladder until he reached a chain-bearing sign: OFFICER’S COUNTRY; NO ENLISTED PERSONNEL. He slipped on his MESSAGE CENTER armband provided by Johnny and was passed through, then made it to the top deck where Johnny and the other warrant officers had small quarters.
There was a single lifeboat lashed up and hanging from a davit for the top-deck people, away from the other boats that lined the lower decks. Johnny had deftly loosened the knots of the canvas cover so it could easily be slipped off and recovered. He had filled the boat from bow to stern with a mattress of life vests, which he shared with Chester and Rory.
Johnny had ingested his fill of soggy hot air and was in a fuzzed state as Rory crawled in. They traded remarks as to how bloomin’ hot it was.
“Well, we’ve crossed the equator and we’re moving north,” Rory said. “That tells me that South Africa is out.”
“Got an uncoded message today at the center. We’re making a rendezvous around Ceylon with some Indian troops,” Johnny said.
“So, we’re heading for the Mediterranean and maybe on up to England.”
“Sounds right to me.”
“And just maybe we’ll stop at Aden and the empty ships will take on our Arabian horses.”
“I’d like to take on a few Arab women…first they come out and do their belly dance and then start twirling their tits….”
They were quiet for a time. Tarbox was faraway, in an arched room filled with belly dancers.
Rory had made a discipline of keeping Georgia Norman out of his mind. The hours were better spent crying inside for his Uncle Conor than longing for her. Conor was dead and in time the hurt would fade. Georgia had told him that his pain would be tucked away.
But Georgia! She came bursting through to him at the oddest places and the oddest times. Mostly he thought of her lying on the bed with her green silk kimono opened to her whiteness. It never failed to create a sensation of sheer wanting, and it flowed all about him. He trained himself to let her in for only a few minutes or he’d get restless and moody.
Both Conor and Georgia strangely dimmed as Liam Larkin made his stand. Why the Squire! Something about the sea, the bloody convoy that was throwing him together with his father.
“Where’s Chester?” Johnny asked.
“In the engine room giving dice lessons.”
“I’ll bet he learned it in Hong Kong in one of those gambling palaces with his old man, don’t you think?” Johnny asked.
“Maybe, but he’s a natural with numbers. He showed me the odds on every combination on the dice. As for blackjack, all he has to do is hold the deck. I’m only letting him have five quid a day. I don’t want the whole ship in debt to him.”
“It was brilliant of me,” Johnny said, “to see the great merit of this lad and slip him into the Light Horse.”
“You son of a bitch.”
They were quiet again, now awake, and propped up so they could see out of the lifeboat down to the decks and out to the lightless convoy. Uncle Conor had told Rory that on the smooth seas and heaven-filled nights, the sailors dreaded the watch because they had time to think about everything they had left behind, everything they coveted…to become a rover.
“What’s bothering you, Rory?”
“Nothing.”
“Shit, I can hear your brains buzzing clear across the boat. Smoke is coming out of your ears.”
“Hell, it must be crossing the equator. I can’t seem to be keeping my old man off my mind. I feel like we’re sharing a strange passage, him going down to New Zealand and us to wherever. Somehow, I wake