"What's wrong, Doctor?"

"Food poisoning."

"Had to be something like that. I was asleep. Something woke me. I knew something was wrong, that we weren't under command." I believed him, all experienced seamen have this in-built capacity to sense trouble.

Even in their sleep. I'd come across it before. He moved quickly to the chart table then glanced at the compass. "Fifty degrees off course, to the east."

"We've got all the Barents Sea to rattle about in," I said. "Give me a hand with Mr. Smith, will you?"

We took an arm each and dragged him towards the port door. Mary dear stopped stirring the contents of the metal mug she held in her hand and looked at us in some perplexity.

"Where are you going with Mr. Smith?"

"Taking him out on the wing." What did she think we were going to do with him, throw him over the side? "All that fresh air. It's very therapeutic."

"But it's snowing out there! And bitterly cold."

"He's also-I hope-going to be very very sick. Better outside than in.

How does that concoction taste?"

She sipped a little salt and water from her spoon and screwed up her face. "It's awful'

"Can you swallow it?"

She tried and shuddered. "Just."

"Another three spoons. "We dragged Smithy outside and propped him in a sitting position. The canvas wind dodger gave him some protection but not much. His eyes were open and following our actions and he seemed aware of what was going on. I put the emetic to his lips and tilted the mug but the fluid just trickled down his chin. I forced his head back and poured some of the emetic into his mouth. Clearly, all sensation wasn't lost, for his face contorted into an involuntary grimace of distaste: more importantly, his Adam's apple bobbed up and down and I knew he'd swallowed some of it. Encouraged, I poured in twice as much, and this time he swallowed it all. Not ten seconds later he was as violently ill as ever I've seen a man be. Over Mary's protests and in spite of Allison's very evident apprehension I forced some more of the salt and water on him: when he started coughing blood I turned my attention to Oakley.

Within fifteen minutes we had two still very ill men on our hands, clearly suffering violent abdominal pains and weak to the point of exhaustion , but, more importantly, we had two men who weren't going to go the same way as the unfortunate Antonio had gone. Allison was at the wheel, with the Morning Rose back on course: Mary dear, her straw-coloured hair now matted with snow, crouched beside a very groggy Oakley: Smithy was now sufficiently recovered to sit on the storm sill of the wheelhouse, though he still required my arm to brace him against the staggering of the Morning Rose. He was beginning to recover the use of his voice although only to a minimal extent.

"Brandy," he croaked.

I shook my head. "Contraindicated. That's what the textbooks say."

"Otard-Dupuy," he insisted. At least his mind was clear enough. I rose and got him a bottle from Captain Imrie's private reserve. After what his stomach had just been through nothing short of carbolic acid was going to damage it any more. He put the bottle to his head, swallowed and was immediately sick again.

"Maybe I should have given you cognac in the first place," I said. "Salt water comes cheaper, though."

He tried to smile, a brief and painful effort, and tilted the bottle again.

This time the cognac stayed down, he must have had a stomach lined with steel or asbestos. I took the bottle from him and offered it to Oakley who winced and shook his head.

"Who's got the wheel?" Smithy's voice was a hoarse and strained whisper as if it hurt him to speak, which it almost certainly did.

"Allison."

He nodded, satisfied. "Damn boat," he said. "Damn sea. Fra seasick. Me. Seasick."

`You're sick, all right. Nothing to do with the sea. This damn boat wallowing about in this damn sea was all that saved you: a flat calm and Smithy was among the immortals." I tried to think why anyone who was not completely unhinged should want Smithy and Oakley among the immortals but the idea was so preposterous that I abandoned it almost the moment it occurred to me. "Food poisoning and I was lucky. I got here in time."

He nodded but kept quiet. It probably hurt him too much to talk. Mary dear said: "Mr. Oakley's hands and face are freezing and he's shaking with the cold. So am I, for that matter."

And so, I realised, was I. I helped Smithy to a bolted chair beyond the wheel, then went to assist Mary dear who was trying to get a jelly-kneed Oakley to his feel?. We'd just got Oakley approximately upright, no easy task, for he was practically a dead weight and we required one hand for him and one for ourselves, when Goin and the Count appeared at the top of the ladder.

"Thank God, at last!" Goin was slightly out of breath but not one hair was out of place. "We've been looking for you every-what on earth-is that man drunk?"

"He's sick. The same sickness as Antonio had, only he's been lucky.

What's the panic?"

"The same sickness-you must come at once, Marlowe. My God, this is turning into a regular epidemic."

"A moment." I helped Oakley inside and lowered him into as comfortable a position as possible atop some kapok life jackets. "Another casualty, I take it?"

"Yes, Otto Gerran." Maybe I lifted an eyebrow, I forget, I do know I felt no particular surprise, it seemed to me that anyone who had been within sniffing distance of that damned aconite was liable to keel over at any moment. "I called at his cabin ten minutes ago, there was no reply and I went in and there he was, rolling about the carpet"

The irreverent thought came to me that, with his almost perfectly spherical shape, no one had ever been better equipped for rolling about a carpet than Otto was: it seemed unlikely that Otto was seeing the humorous side of it at that moment. I said to Allison: "Can you get anyone up here to help you?"

"No trouble." The quartermaster nodded at the small exchange in the corner. "I've only to phone the mess deck."

"No need." It was the Count. "I'll stay."

"That's very kind." I nodded at Smithy and Oakley in turn. "They're not fit to go below yet. If they try to, they'll like as not end up over the side. Could you get them some blankets?"

"Of course." He hesitated. "My cabin-'

is locked. Mine's not. There are blankets on the bed and extra ones at the foot of the hanging locker." The Count left and I turned to Allison.

"Short of dynamiting his door open, how do I attract the captain's attention . He seems to be a sound sleeper."

Allison smiled and again indicated the corner exchange. "The bridge phone hangs just above his head. There's a resistance in the circuit. I can make the call-up sound like the Q.E. 2's foghorn."

"Tell him to come along to Mr. Gerran's room and tell him it's urgent."

"Well." Allison was uncertain. "Captain Imrie doesn't much like being woken up in the middle of the night. Not without an awfully good reason , that is, and now that the mate and bosun are all right again, like-"

"Tell him Antonio is dead."