Voyage into Violence Read Online Free Page B

was sitting next to Bill. Questioned, he claimed two miles, not one.
    There were now a good many people around the pool, and white-jacketed stewards began to move among them. Mrs. Macklin beckoned with decision; she was, in time, brought a drink deeply red, and downed it in two swallows. “Bloody Mary,” Pam said, “and I should think she’d need it.” They relaxed in the sun, and watched through dark glasses, and as the sun grew higher—and hotter—spoke less.
    Respected Captain Folsom came and peered at Mrs. Macklin, in his chair. The respected captain wore pink slacks and a mottled shirt, and tennis shoes. And his uniform cap. Observed by Pam, he nodded to her, and then, when Jerry said, “Good morning, captain,” he came to stand above Jerry. He said it was a swell day. He hoped they were having a swell time.
    â€œWhere’s your officer of the day?” Jerry asked him, in lazy tones, keeping things going. “Walking his post in a military manner?”
    â€œWell,” Folsom said, “the fact is, one of the boys is up to tricks. Great little joke, one of the boys pulled. Hidden the sword.” He made a sound like laughter. “Swallowed it, maybe,” he said. “Some of the boys will swallow anything.”
    â€œWhy?” Pam asked. “What would be the point of it?”
    â€œBangs into things,” Folsom said. “I don’t deny that. But, damn it all—I’m sorry, ladies—darn it all, it’s an emblem . See what I mean?” He looked at them, and now there seemed to be anxiety in his ruddy face. “Part of the whole thing,” he explained. “Keeps up the standard of the whole thing. Just because it bangs into things—after all, nobody’s got the duty for more than an hour at a stretch.”
    â€œYou rotate?” Dorian said. “All of you?”
    â€œAll but me,” Folsom said. “And the adjutant. He locks things up at night. Counts and locks up. Can’t have weapons around loose.” He looked at them severely. “Those are real rifles,” he told them.
    â€œReal sword, too?” Pam asked him, and there was only polite interest in her voice.
    â€œSure,” Folsom said, and then looked at them again, and it seemed—to Pam at any rate—that there was something almost wistful in his expression. “All right,” he said, “suppose it looks silly? We like it. We spend fifty weeks a year in offices and making contacts and what have you.” He looked particularly at Jerry North. “You get out with the boys,” he told Jerry. “Like anybody else.”
    â€œSure,” said Jerry, who had found that getting out with the boys was for the most part a tedious business, but who knew better than to admit, publicly, so un-American an attitude.
    â€œCaptain Folsom,” Pam said. “It isn’t silly at all. Nobody thinks it is. It’s just swe—I mean, sort of gay and jolly.”
    â€œThe wife thinks it’s silly,” Folsom said. “I keep telling her—”
    But an Old Respectable, in full uniform—but sword-less—came to stand at attention before the respected captain, and to make an elaborate motion with his head. Folsom said, “Excuse me, folks,” and went away with the—diminished, unemblemed—officer of the day.
    â€œI wouldn’t have expected him—” Pam began, and was interrupted by the public-address system, which clicked clear its metallic throat and continued: “Will the following please communicate with the purser? Mr. or Mrs. Oscar Peterson. Mr. or Mrs. Gerald North. Captain or Mrs. William Weigand. Mr.—er Captain—J. R. Folsom. Thank you. Click.”
    It is disconcerting to have one’s name called over a public-address system—bandied, as Pam thought of it—before the many passengers of a ship. It leads, or led with Pam, to an unaccountable sense of