"MacLean, Alistair - The Golden Rendezvous" - читать интересную книгу автора (Maclean Alistair)

"Praise be to god," the little agent murmured. The tone, no less
than the words, was a prayer of thanksgiving. "Senor carreras himself!
your passengers at last, captain."
"That's what I said," Bullen growled. "More grief." the little
man looked at him in puzzlement, as well as might anyone who didn't
understand Bullen's attitude towards the passengers, then turned and
hurried off towards the gangway. My attention was diverted for a few
moments by another crate swinging aboard, then I heard captain Bullen
saying softly and feelingly, "like I said, Mister, more grief." the
procession, two big, chauffeur-driven prewar packards, one towed by a
jeep, had just pulled up by the gangway and the passengers were climbing
out. Those who could, that was-or very obviously there was one who
could not. One of the chauffeurs, dressed in green tropical drills and
a bush hat, had opened the boot of his car, pulled out a collapsible
hand-propelled wheel chair, and, with the smooth efficiency of
experience, had it assembled in ten seconds flat, while the other
chauffeur, with the aid of a tall, thin nurse clad in over-all white
from her smartly starched cap to the skirt that reached close down to
her ankles, tenderly lifted a bent old man from the back seat of the
second packard and set him gently in the wheel chair. The old boy-even
at that distance I could see the face creased and trenched with the
lines of age, the snowy whiteness of the still plentiful hairdid his
best to help them, but his best wasn't very much. Captain Bullen looked
at me. I looked at captain Bullen. There didn't seem to be any reason
to say anything. Nobody in a crew likes having permanent invalids
aboard ship: they cause trouble to the ship's doctor who has to look
after their health, to the cabin stewards who have to clean their
quarters, to the dining-room stewards who have to feed them, and to
those members of the deck crew detailed for the duty of moving them
around. And when the invalids are elderly and very infirmand if this
one wasn't I sadly Missed my guess-there was always the chance of a
death at sea, the one thing sailors hate above all else. It was also
very bad for the passenger trade. But as long as the illness was of
neither a contagious nor infectious nature and that a certificate could
be produced from the invalid's own doctor to the effect that the invalid
was fit for the proposed voyage, there was nothing that could be done
about it. "Well," captain Bullen said heavily, "i suppose i'd better go
and welcome our latest guests aboard. Finish it off as quickly as
possible, Mister."
"I'll do that, sir." Bullen nodded and left. I watched the two
chauffeurs slide a couple of poles under the seat of the invalid chair,
straighten and carry the chair easily up the sparred foot planks of the
gangway. They were followed by the tall angular nurse and she in turn
by another nurse, dressed exactly like the First, but shorter and
stockier. The old boy was bringing his own medical corps along with
him, which meant that he had more money than was good for him or was a
hypochondriac or very far through indeed or a combination of any or all
of those; on the credit side was the fact that both had that indefinable
competent no-nonsense look of the professional nurse which would make
the lot of our ship's surgeon, old Dr. marston, who sometimes had to