CHAPTER 21Someone was singing something about bottles falling from a wall; Mboto thought it was Stacey, but the doctor did not sound drunk, and was singing with a bitterness that verged on pain.
“Nine green bottles standing on the wall
Nine green bottles standing on the wall
And if one green bottle should accidentally fall
There’ll be eight green bottles standing on the wall.”
The voice died as Mboto moved from the spot on the bulkhead. Had the doctor begun his song by numbering the full original complement of the Odile? Already he had passed the number now crewing the vessel and was going down; nine to eight to seven—would he go the whole way? And, when there were no bottles standing on the wall, what then?
The small pad at the end of Mboto’s wire found a new site and held as the mu
