Brown on Resolution by C S Forester

allow him that luxury. He was the only one of the three survivors of Charybdis who was even half conscious, and Captain Lutz, bearing on his shoulders the responsibility for Ziethen and her hundreds of men, must know at once how Charybdis came to be where she was; whether she had consorts near who could have heard her wireless, whether the meeting was intentional or accidental—everything, in fact, which would enable him to spin out his little hour in being. They did not treat Brown unkindly; they dried him and gave him spirits and wrapped him in a comfortable woollen nightshirt and allowed him to sit in a chair in the dispensary beside the sick-bay while he was being questioned.
    Brown rolled dazed eyes over his questioners as he sat huddled in his chair. The bearded officer with the four rings of gold lace must be Ziethen ’s captain, he knew; the young officer was a sub-lieutenant; the shirt-sleeved man was the Surgeon (who had been doing gory work on the half-dozen wounded Charybdis ’ shells had injured), and the naval rating in the background was the sick-bay steward.
    Fierce and keen were the Captain’s questions, uttered in a guttural and toneless English; occasionally the Captain would turn and speak explosively in German to the Sub-Lieutenant, who in turn would address Brown in an English far purer and without a trace of accent. Brown made halting replies, his eyelids drooping with weariness. He told of Charybdis ’ slow progress through the Carolines and Marshalls, and steady course eastwards across the Pacific, No, he did not know of any other English ship near. He had heard nothing of any concentration against the German squadron. It was at this point that the Captain called upon the Sub-Lieutenant to interpret, and the Sub-Lieutenant duly informed Brown in passionless tones that a prisoner who made false statements was guilty of espionage, and as such was liable to be shot, and undoubtedly in this instance would be shot.
    “Yes,” said Brown.
    “Was Charybdis expecting to encounter Ziethen ?”
    “I don’t know,” said Brown.
    “What was her course and destination at the time of meeting?”
    “I don’t know,” said Brown.
    Now, did he want to be well treated while he was on board?
    “Yes,” said Brown.
    Then let him answer their questions sensibly. Whither was Charybdis bound?
    “I don’t know,” said Brown, and at this point the medical officer intervened, and Captain Lutz left him testily. Brown had been speaking the truth when he said he did not know; but he had a shrewd idea all the same, and had he told Captain Lutz of his suspicions he might have relieved that officer of a great burden of worry. But that was no way Brown’s business—on the contrary. Captain Lutz’s ill-timed threat had reminded him of the fact at the very moment when, in his half-dazed condition, he was likely in reply to kindly questioning to have told all he knew or thought.
    The Surgeon spoke to the sick-bay steward, who summoned a colleague, and between them they tucked Brown into a cot in the sick-bay, put a hot bottle at his feet (shock had left him cold and weak) and allowed him to fall away into that deep, intense sleep for which his every fibre seemed to be clamouring. And while Brown slept Ziethen came round on her heel and headed back eastwards.
    For Charybdis had not gone to the bottom quite without exacting some compensation. One of her 4.7-inch shells had struck Ziethen fair and true a foot above the waterline, and a yard forward of the limits of her armour belt. There the shell had burst, smashing a great hole through which the sea raced in such a volume that the pumps were hard put to it to keep the water from gaining until, after the battle, a sweating work party had got a collision mat over the hole, while inside the stokers cleared the bunker, into which the hole opened, of the coal which interfered with the work of the pumps. Examination of the damage showed it to be extensive. Nowhere else on all