“Or else he fell overboard after you left,” commented Evans. He turned again to Martin, “Get the assistants, will you?”
The assistant engineers were as surprised as the rest.
“I don’t know nothing about it,” said the heavy-set one. “Chief, he went on up top around ten o’clock and he didn’t come back down, or at least I didn’t see him again.” The other assistant had not seen him either.
“Well, there’s the story,” said Evans. “On his way back he must have slipped.”
“But it wasn’t rough at all,” said the Major. “I wonder how he managed to fall over.” The Major carefully made his large-nosed profile appear keen and hawk-like.
“Well, he’d been sitting on the railing when I was fixing the ventilator. He might have sat on the forward railing after I left,” said Bervick.
“He could lose his balance then?”
Bervick nodded, “Easiest thing in the world.”
“I see.”
“We had a deckhand fall off that way once.”