. . .

"You're talking about me?" came a duet of voices from the "bed fortress." Captain Ox's two bodies got up and walked over to us.

I greeted them both. The twin voices confused me slightly. "Do you also want to come with us to Canca? Canca is dangerous, my young man!" said the chorus in unison. "I'll be setting out to sea tomorrow morning at six, 3 kilometres due North of here. Right now I have a total of 82 degrees fever." Obviously I accepted the invitation at once, and shook hands on it twice. The reason for this being that I was standing directly between the Capitano, the husky old salt's laughter thundering into my ears in stereo.

"He's sailing with us! My he's plucky, this gentleman from Graz! Ha ha ha ha hah!" Ox announced.

"Not another!" came a grumpy voice from the "bed fortress," "there are already too many of us!"

"We'll make a rigorous selection right now!" Ox roared. "Everyone up on the roof!"

Von Hanassy-Muller seemed highly anxious. "Please don't, dear Ox! We know how you make your selections, the other day they cost us forty lives!"

"Up on the roof! Everyone!"

Ox remained adamant. He tore the first of the invalids from their "bed fortress," and the rest followed of their own accord.

"He's a monster," von Hanassy-Muller whispered to me. "We'll all die."

I started to feel uneasy. The double captain was now forcing the steaming Austrians up a steep iron ladder.

"You can come as well! And you!" Ox commanded Alex and me. We followed hesitantly. A grey scene greeted us on the roof. The 'flu patients wandered about, freezing and fearful, among a forest of chimney stacks.

"Leo! Read out the take-off numbers!" Ox shouted in chorus. And with that, just imagine, my old friend, the brawny nun simply read out the list of temperatures which he had taken earlier. The one with the lowest temperature (a certain Dr Riccabona from Feldkirch) was the first. "Fly, my little doctor!" the captain laughed brutally. Mr Riccabona started at once to flap his arms up and down, getting faster and faster. But he did not lift off. "I can't manage it today, chief," was his sad reply. Ox fell into a rage, leapt at Riccabona and forced him over the edge of the roof. What do you say to that!!? But the doctor now fluttered merrily across the chasm like a dragonfly. Alex and I weren't half astonished.

. . .