Page:Vance--The false faces.djvu/165

Rh "Why should you?"

"Just so: why should I?" The lieutenant's accents rose to a shrill pitch. "I have not his record … still in training when he sent 'Lusitania to the bottom. Yes: it was he, second-in-command, in charge of torpedo tubes. His own hand fired that torpedo. …"

He fell silent, staring moodily into his cup, perhaps thinking of the number of torpedoes it had been his own lot to discharge upon errands of slaughter.

And the dead silence of the ship was made audible by a stealthy drip-drip of water from the seams, and the furtive slaver of the tide on the outer plates.

A shiver ran through the body of the Prussian. He pulled himself together with obvious effort, looked up with an uncertain grin, and passed a shaking hand across his writhing lips.

"All foolishness, of course, but 'gets on one's nerves … constant association with man like that. … 'Know what he's doing now, or was, when I came away? Sitting up with doors and windows locked and blinds drawn, drinking brandy neat. He can't sleep by night if sober, or without 'light in the room. If he does, he knows they will get him … people he hears crawling up from the sea, slopping round the house, mumbling, whimpering in the dark"

He broke off abruptly, with a whisper more dreadful than a shriek—"God!"—and jumped to his feet, whipping the automatic from his belt.

A footfall sounded in one of the after compartments. Others followed.