Shivering in the sudden chill, Brooks clumped down the ladder to the upper deck and turned for'ard past the galley into the Sick Bay.

Johnson, the Leading Sick Bay Attendant, looked out from the dispensary.

"How are our sick and suffering, Johnson?" Brooks inquired. "Bearing up manfully?"

Johnson surveyed the eight beds and their occupants morosely.

"Just a lot of bloody chancers, sir. Half of them are a damned sight fitter than I am. Look at Stoker Riley there, him with the broken finger and whacking great pile of Reader's Digests. Going through all the medical articles, he is, and roaring out for sulpha, penicillin and all the latest antibiotics. Can't pronounce half of them. Thinks he's dying."

"A grievous loss," the Surgeon-Commander murmured. He shook his head.

"What Commander Dodson sees in him I don't know...What's the latest from hospital?"

The expression drained out of Johnson's face.

"They're just off the blower, sir," he said woodenly. "Five minutes ago. Ordinary Seaman Ralston died at three o'clock."

Brooks nodded heavily. Sending that broken boy to hospital had only been a gesture anyway. Just for a moment he felt tired, beaten. "Old Socrates," they called him, and he was beginning to feel his age these days, and a bit more besides. Maybe a good night's sleep would help, but he doubted it. He sighed.

"Don't feel too good about all this, Johnson, do you?"

"Eighteen, sir. Exactly eighteen." Johnson's voice was low, bitter."

I've just been talking to Burgess, that's him in the next bed. Says Ralston steps out across the bathroom coaming, a towel over his arm. A mob rushes past, then this bloody great ape of a bootneck comes tearing up and bashes him over the skull with his rifle. Never knew what hit him, sir, and he never knew why."