Page 63 (1/2)
Warner O’De was the s voice and puckish demeanor, and it was usually up to him to find the humor in any situation The ht frohterhouse No thanks to ya, if ya please I’ll take soup made with Tom Price’s boot before ya feed me that tripe”
They all laughed at the coreat unwashed mob of men, Tom Price’s foot odor stood out as particularly vile
“In fact,” the little Irishrub the French gave us than choke dohat the Scots consider food Fer the love of all that’s holy, theycrate lid And they’re not half as tasty”
This got a fresh burst of laughter Bell could see the men were relieved just to have made it as far as port They wanted the odyssey to be over, surely, but a few days longer really made little difference They were safe, and, in their ain with the ore they’d plundered from the depths of Bednaya Mountain
Bell took a hts piercing the darkness that showed in the le porthole, the dull sheen of old kitchen equip, the wooden table with its indecipherable ju from spots on the metal walls, and the linoleuh to bare ht was low and kind to the eightextraordinary As they laughed at Warry’s witticisms, they looked healthier than when they’d boarded the ship They were ill, for certain, but in Bell’s estilow to the cheeks, a little brighter spark in the eyes
All except Joshua Hayes Brewster No merriment reached past the protective veil he’d pulled over hilum And then Bell recalled that this snapshot wasn’t at all what it see men was a betrayer and murderer on a par with Judas Iscariot
The ie he’d just tried to capture took on much darker overtones In truth, he’d rather leave theent Joel Wallace arrived, but at least he wouldn’t have to watch his back around Brewster and Hall when they went south with him
He heard his na shouted from down the hall outside the mess “Bell? Damnit, man, where are you?”
“In theIvar Ivarsson’s voice He assue from the London office Perhaps Wallace was indisposed for some reason
“There’s trouble,” the man said as he burst into the mess
Bell was on instant alert He got to his feet “What sort of trouble?”
“There’s on just down the quay”
“What men?”
“I couldn’t tell,” he said “Just iven the trouble you’ve caused us since Sandefjord, I can’t iine their intentions are to our benefit”
Bell looked across the table at Brewster There was such fatalisnized the situation as surely as Bell did Bell pulled the 45 from the kidney holster at his back and racked the slide with a hter