Or the radio operator? I could kill the radio operator as he left the office. I was desperate enough to try anything and frantic enough to have a fair chance of success. Even with patrolling guards round. That way Carreras would never get the message. But he would be waiting for it; Oh yes, he would be waiting for it. He would be very anxious indeed to have that last check, and if it didn’t come within minutes he was going to send someone to investigate, and when that someone found the operator was dead or missing, the balloon would be up with a vengeance. Guards running here, guards running there, lights on all over the ship, every possible source of trouble investigated and that still included the sick bay. And Macdonald would still be there. With his gun.

There was a way. It was a way that gave little enough hope of success, with the added drawback that I would be forced to leave those three incriminating ropes attached to the guardrail aft; but at least it didn’t carry with it an outright guarantee of failure. I stooped, felt for the coiled fall rope, cut it with my clasp knife. One end of the rope I secured to my waist with a bowline; the rest of it, about sixty feet, I wrapped round my waist, tucking the end in. I fumbled for and found the radio office key that I’d taken off the dead Carlos. I stood in the rain and the darkness and waited.

A minute elapsed, no more, then the radio operator appeared, locked the door behind him, and made for the companionway leading up to the bridge. Thirty seconds later I was sitting in the seat he’d just vacated, looking up the call sign of the Fort Ticonderoga.

I made no attempt to hide my presence there by leaving the light off. That would only have aroused the suspicions, and quickly, too, of any passing guards hearing the stutter of transmitted Morse coming from a darkened wireless office.

Twice I tapped out the call sign of the Ticonderoga and on the second occasion I got an acknowledgement. One of Carreras’ radio operator stooges aboard the Ticonderoga was certainly keeping a pretty sharp watch. I should have expected nothing else.

It was a brief message, speeded on its way by the introductory words: highest priority urgent immediate repeat immediate attention Master Fort Ticonderoga. I sent the message and took the liberty of signing it: from the Office of the Minister of Transport by the hand of Vice-Admiral Richard Hodson Director Naval Operations. I switched off the light, opened the door, and peered out cautiously. No curious listeners, no one at all in sight. I came all the way out, locked the padlock, and threw the key over the side.

Thirty seconds later I was on the port side of the boat deck, carefully gauging, as best I could in that darkness and driving rain, the distance from where I stood to the break in the fo'c'sle. About thirty feet, I finally estimated, and the distance from the fo'c'sle break aft to the window above my bed was, I guessed, about the same. If I was right, I should be almost directly above that window now; the sick bay was three decks below. If I wasn’t right — well, I’d better be right.

I checked the knot round my waist, passed the other end of the rope round a convenient arm of a davit, and let it hang down loosely over the side. I was just about to start lowering myself when the rope below me smacked wetly against the ship’s side and went taut. Someone had caught that rope and hauled it tight.

Panic touched me, but the instinct for self-preservation still operated independently of my mind. I flung an arm round the davit and locked on to the wrist of the other hand. Anyone wanting to pull me over the side would have to pull that davit and lifeboat along with me.

But as long as that pressure remained on the rope I couldn’t escape, couldn’t free a hand to untie the bowline or get at my clasp knife. The pressure eased. I fumbled for the knot, then stopped as the pressure came on again. But the pressure was only momentary, no pull but a tug. Four tugs, in rapid succession. If I wasn’t feeling weak enough already, I’d have felt that way with relief. Four tubs. The prearranged signal with Macdonald to show I was on my way back. I might have known Archie Macdonald would have been keeping watch every second of the time I was away. He must have seen or heard or even felt the rope snaking down past the window and guessed that it could only be myself. I went down that rope like a man reborn, checked suddenly as a strong hand caught me by the ankle, and five seconds later was on terra firma inside the sick bay.

“The ropes!” I said to Macdonald. I was already untying the one round my own waist. “The two ropes on the bedstead. Off with them. Throw them out the window.” Moments later the last of the three ropes had vanished, I was closing the window, pulling the curtains, and calling softly for lights.

The lights came on. Macdonald and Bullen were as I had left them, both eyeing me with expressionless faces: Macdonald, because he knew my safe return meant at least possible success and did not want to betray his knowledge; Bullen, because I had told him that I intended to take over the bridge by force, and he was convinced that my method of return meant failure and didn’t want to embarrass me. Susan and Marston were by the dispensary door, both fully dressed, neither making any attempt to conceal disappointment. No time for greetings.

“Susan, on with the heaters! full on. This place feels like a frig after this window being open so long. Carreras will be here any minute and it’s the first thing he will notice. After that, towels for me. Doc, a hand to get Macdonald back to his own bed. Move, man, move! and why aren’t you and Susan dressed for bed? If Carreras sees you…” “We were expecting the gentleman to come calling with a gun,” Macdonald reminded me. “You’re frozen stiff, Mr. Carter, blue with cold. And shivering like you were in an icebox.”

“I feel like it.” We dumped Macdonald, none too gently, on his bed, pulled up sheets and blankets, then I tore off my clothes and started to towel myself dry. No matter how I towelled, I couldn’t stop the shivering.

“The key,” Macdonald said sharply. “The key in the sickbay door.”

“God, yes!” I’d forgotten all about it. “Susan, will you? Unlock it. And then to bed. Quickly! and you, doctor.” I took the key from her, opened the window behind the curtain, and flung the key out; the suit I had been wearing, the socks, the wet towels followed in short order, but not before I had remembered to remove the screw driver and Macdonald’s clasp knife from the jacket. I dried and combed my hair into some sort of order — as orderly as anyone could expect it to be after a few hours’ sleeping in bed and helped doc Marston as he swiftly changed the plaster on my head and wrapped splints and fresh bandages round the still soaking ones covering the wounds in my leg. Then the lights clicked off and the sick bay was once more in darkness.

“Have I forgotten anything, anybody?” I asked. “Anything that might show I’ve been out of here?”

“Nothing, I don’t think there’s anything.” The bo’sun speaking.

“I’m sure.”

“The heaters?” I asked. “Are they on? It’s freezing in here.”

“It’s not that cold, my boy,” Bullen said in his husky whisper. “You’re freezing, that’s what. Marston, haven’t you… “

“Hot-water bags,” Marston said briskly. “Two of them. Here they are.” He thrust them into my hands in the dark. “Had them all prepared for you; we suspected all that sea water and rain wouldn’t do that fever of yours any good. And here’s a glass to show your friend Carreras a few drops of brandy in the bottom to convince him how far through you are.

“You might have filled it,” I complained. “I did.”

I emptied it. No question but that that neat brandy had a heating effect; it seemed to burn a hole through me all the way down to my stomach, but the only overall effect it had was to make the rest of me seem colder than ever.