"Two engines
are intact. Two will run half-speed or a little better, and one will
do a little."
"One remains dead?"
"Yes, sir. But we can repair that on the way. Rudders and propellers
will do. Helicopters O.K."
"And floats?"
"Both aft floats repaired, sir. One is cut down a third, and one a
half, but they will serve."
"How about petrol?" the Master demanded. "We have only that one aft
starboard tank, now, not over three-quarters full."
"There's a chance that will do till we can run down a caravan along
the Red Sea, carrying petrol to Suakin or Port Sudan. So there's a
fighting hope--if we can raise ourselves out of this sand that clings
like the devil himself. It's lucky, sir, we jettisoned those stores.
Wind and current brought some of them back, anyhow. If they'd stayed
in the storeroom they'd have all been burned to a crisp."
"Yes, yes. You think, then, we can make a start?" The Master put his
apparatus into the desk-drawer and carefully locked it. He stood up
and tightened his belt a notch.
"We can try, sir," Frazier affirmed grimly. Unshaven, haggard, dirty,
and streaked with sweat, he made a strange figure by contrast with the
trim, military-looking chap who only a week before had started with
the other Legionaries, now no less altered than he.
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