Dark Full of Enemies(31)

He could think of troubling possibilities. Not the time to ask, he thought, and wished he had more coffee.





6





The sea calmed an hour later. McKay climbed down from the wheelhouse to check on Stallings. Snow still fell, lightly, and the wind had slackened. The storm had lasted just long enough to threaten the mission. Friction, he thought, and entered the cabin.

Stallings sat at a small table in the dim light. Graves and the Finn leaned against the walls of one corner, and two of Petersen’s crew—one sitting at the table with Stallings, the other standing by the door—crowded the room, too. There was a fog in the cabin—every one of them was smoking, and their clothes steamed in the heavy warmth. The funk was thick. McKay came in and pulled the door shut behind him. He looked at Stallings.

Stallings gave him his drunken grin. He had been like this at Clemson, returning to the barracks after weekends of corn liquor and the women of out-of-the-way towns. McKay had hoped bringing him into their mountaineering circle would keep him out of trouble. It had, for a while. But there had been no moonshine, this time, and he had seen concussions before.

“How you doing, Grove?”

“My head’s killing me.”

“You whacked it pretty good.”

“Say what?”

Graves shifted in the corner. McKay looked at him. Graves said, “He doesn’t remember.”

Stallings looked at him. “Remember what?”

The Norwegian at the table gave McKay his chair and he sat. “When we got aboard this boat? You hit your head?”

“Well, that’d explain it.”

McKay looked at the crewmen. “Which one of y’all is the doctor?”

The Norwegians looked at each other. One said, “English…”

McKay tried German. The same one who had spoken had a little German, and said that while neither of them was a doctor, properly speaking, they had both helped with wounds and injuries in the past. They had even patched up Petersen before, but the second Norwegian gave him a dark look and he stopped talking. “I did what I could,” he said.

“Thank you,” McKay said.

They nodded, stubbed out their cigarettes in an empty tin can, and left the cabin. When they had gone, McKay looked at Graves and Ollila.

“What happened?”

Graves was at a loss. Ollila lowered his cigarette, said, “He slipped,” and replaced the smoke.

“I figured. I mean how did it happen?”

“I hit my head?”

“Yes. I’m asking how it happened.”

“Damned if I know. Hurts like hell though. You sure this ain’t a hangover?”

“Graves?”

Graves stubbed out his own cigarette and resettled against the wall. The boards creaked. “It happened too quickly, really, but he didn’t grab on when he made to leap aboard. Struck his head on the gunwales. I don’t know.”

“That’s all right. It happens. I’m just trying to figure out how bad it is.”

“It fucking hurts—”

“Shut up, Grove.”

“All right, all right. Goddam.”

McKay looked at the table and gathered himself. “Where’d you hit your head?”

“Feels like I hit the whole thing.” He ran his fingers, gingerly, over his scalp and stopped over his left ear. “Got a good pumpknot coming up right here.”

McKay stood and inspected it. He had Graves and Ollila wave the smoke away from the single bulb in the cabin so he could see better, but even then he had to take out his crook-necked flashlight. The knot was one of the biggest he had ever seen. His mother would have compared it to a goose egg. The skin had been broken in several places by the boat’s gunwale and his head, from the crown to the joining of jaw, ear, and neck, was blood-crusted.

“Lot of bleeding,” McKay said.

“Aye, sir,” Graves said. “I’m afraid we reopened some of those cuts when he took off his cap.”

“Bled like a stuck pig,” Stallings said.

“You know that ain’t true,” McKay said.

“Had to put in five stitches, sir,” Graves said. “At least he held still for it.”

McKay looked at Stallings. “You’ll live.” He stood and leaned against a bulkhead. “This don’t change anything, of course. You’ll have a headache for days but you should be fine. Fine enough to deliver the radio and give some pointers to the Norwegians, anyway. And of course this don’t alter the primary objective in the least. We’ll work on that more when we arrive, in about twelve hours. We’re lucky we transferred everything in that weather with only a pumpknot to cry about.”

“Aye, sir,” Graves said, and Ollila nodded. Stallings grinned.

“Just take aspirin if you need it. You can have mine if you run out.”

“What I could use is a drink.”

“Hell, no. Drink water. As much as you can stomach. Graves?”

“Sir.”

“Make sure no well-meaning soul gives him any liquor.”

“Aye, sir,” Graves said.

“Get some rest if you can. I’ll be around.”

He stepped out of the cabin into the dark and cold. He had considered telling them to check their weapons and gear—again—but they would have to move everything up from the hold and, in the dim light and cramped space of the cabin, he could imagine some small, important item going missing and not noticed until later—a firing pin, a detonator, a box of ammo. And with the German navy plying the Norwegian coast—especially the Vestfjorden, the great open bight between the outlying isles of Lofoten and the mainland—in force, if they were stopped and searched, and some chance lost item lay in the cabin awaiting discovery... He shook his head. Consider the possibilities, assess and calculate, but don’t fret. Fretting gets you killed some other way.