Rainey shook his head.
"I suppose she can do more than any of us," he said.
Lund nodded, then whistled to Tamada, leaving the cabin.
"Take a bottle of whisky to the hunters' mess, with my compliments. That'll give 'em about three jolts apiece," he said to Rainey.
"Long as we've won out we may as well let 'em down easy. But they'll work for their shares, jest the same. A drink or two may help 'em swaller what I'm goin' to give 'em by way of dessert in the talkin' line. See you later."
Rainey took the dismissal and went up to the relief of Hansen. He did not mention what had happened until the Scandinavian referred to it indirectly.
"They put the doc overboard, sir, soon's Mr. Lund an' you bane go below."
It seemed a summary dismissal of the dead, without ceremony. Yet, for the rite to be authentic, Lund must have presided, and the sea-burial service would have been a mockery under the circumstances. It was the best thing to have done, Rainey felt, but he could not avoid a mental shiver at the thought of the man, so lately vital, his brain alive with energy, sliding through the cold water to the ooze to lie there, sodden, swinging with the sub-sea currents until the ocean scavengers claimed him.
"All right, Hansen," he said in answer, and the man hurried off after his extra detail.
Lund came up after a while, and Rainey told him of the fate of Carlsen's body.
"I figgered they'd do about that," commented Lund. "They savvied he'd aimed to make suckers out of 'em, an' they dumped him. But they ain't on our side, by a long sight. Not that I give a damn. If they want to sulk, let 'em sulk. But they'll stand their watches, an', when we git to the beach, they'll do their share of diggin'. If they need drivin', I'll drive 'em.
"That Deming is a better man than I thought. He's the main grouch among 'em. Said if I hadn't had a gun he'd have tackled me in the cabin. Meant it, too, though I'd have smashed him. He's sore becoz I said he warn't my equal. I told him, enny time he wanted to try it out, I'd accommodate him. He didn't take it up, an' they'll kid him about it. He'll pack a grudge. I ain't afraid of their knifin' me, not while the skipper's sick. They need me to navigate."
"This might be a good chance for me to handle a sextant," suggested Rainey casually.
Lund shook his head, smiling, but his eyes hard.
"Not yet, matey," he said. "Not that I don't trust you, but for me to be the only one, jest now, is a sort of life insurance that suits me to carry. They might figger, if you was able to navigate, that they c'ud put the screws on you to carry 'em through, with me out of the way. I don't say they could, but they might make it hard for you, an' you ain't got quite the same stake in this I have."
Here was cold logic, but Rainey saw the force of it. Hansen came up early to split the watch and put their schedule right again, and Lund went below with Rainey. Lund ordered Tamada to bring a bottle and glasses, and they sat down at the table. Rainey needed the kick of a drink, and took one.
As Lund was raising his glass with a toast of "Here's to luck," the skipper's door opened and the girl appeared. She looked like a ghost. Her hair was disheveled and her eyes stared at them without seeming recognition. But she spoke, in a flat toneless voice.
"My father is dead! I " she faltered, swayed, and seemed to swoon as she sank toward the floor. Rainey darted forward, but Lund was quicker and swooped her up in his arms as if she had been a feather, took her to the table, set her in a chair, dabbled a napkin in some water and applied it to her brows.
"Chafe her wrists," he ordered Rainey. "Undo that top button of her blouse. That's enough; she ain't got on corsets. She'll come through. Plumb worn out. That's all."
He handled her, deftly, as a nurse would a child. Rainey chafed the slender wrists and beat her palms, and soon she opened her eyes and sighed. Then she pulled away from Lund, bending over her, and got to her feet.
"I must go to my father," she said. "He is dead."
They followed her into the cabin, and Lund bent over the bunk.
"Looks like it," he whispered to Rainey. Then he tore open the skipper's vest and shirt and laid his head on his chest. The girl made a faint motion as if to stop him, but did not hinder him. She was at the end of her own strength from weariness and worry. Lund suddenly raised his head.
"There's a flutter," he announced. "He ain't gone yit. Get Tamada an' some brandy."
The Japanese, by some intuition, was already on hand, and produced the brandy. Rainey poured out a measure. The captain's teeth were tightly clenched. Lund spraddled one great hand across his jaws, pressing at their junction, forcing them apart, firmly, but gently enough, while Rainey squeezed in a few drops of brandy from the corner of his soaked handkerchief. Lund stroked the sick man's throat, and he swallowed automatically.
"More brandy," ordered Lund.
With the next dose there came signs of revival, a low moan from the skipper. The girl flew to his side. Tamada,