Cuttlefish (29 page)

Up on the bridge too they were replacing several gauges, and there was broken glass underfoot, but they at least had time to drink the tea, and take some heart from it. Clara was there to hear the chief say, “We're starting the electric motor, Skipper,” and then to have the lights go out again. The emergency light came on again.

“Fuses,” said the chief. “We must have water in somewhere. It's awash down here, Captain. But the pumps are winning for now.”

Light was restored, obviously the fuse changed.

“Is there any hope of fixing it, Chief?” asked the captain, his voice carefully controlled.

The chief didn't sound so controlled. “Possibly. If the seal we've got on the leak can hold the inflow to what it is now, the pumps can cope. If we start taking in more water, Captain, we'll have to either sink or surface.”

“The airship is still up there, Chief,” said the captain. “We've got a wireless aerial up. They saw us in the moonlight. She's sending our position by wireless, and is playing searchlights on the water. They'll turn their Gatling gun on us if we surface. The oil from our bilges makes quite a trail,” said the captain.

“It's pump or sink, Captain.”

Clara would have liked to stay on the bridge and know what was happening, but the captain motioned her to go.

So she went back to the galley.

Scared.

It was a huge relief when, a little later, just after the lights dipped again but did not go out, the sub began moving again. “That chief is a wonder,” said Cookie. “You nip down there and see if they want fresh tea now.”

The scene in the engine room was less chaotic than earlier. There was, it was true, what looked like a small scrapyard along one wall. They were all still working furiously. But the level of water underfoot had gone down, and the smoke and steam had at least spread out into a general fug. The chief nodded at her. “Tell Cookie fifteen minutes, if nothing else goes wrong.”

On the way back she bumped into Big Eddie the diver, plainly preparing to go out. He waved but looked very preoccupied, and didn't say anything.

A little later the
Cuttlefish
stopped moving. Clara's heart sank. “Engines?”

Cookie shook his head. “Probably sent the diver out to slap a glue-patch on it. The pressure will pull it into the leak and then it will set. It's not a permanent answer, but may stop it leaking so much. Then they can stop pumping, so the oil sheen won't be marking our trail. We can dive a bit deeper, then stop being followed and move away. Then later they can maybe silver-solder the pipe entry.”

“Oh. I hope so. I really, really hope so. I thought we were going to die,” admitted Clara.

“We've got a little way to go before we're home and dry yet,” said Cookie. “But she's a good boat, with a good skipper and a good chief engineer.”

Clara didn't remind him that he sometimes said that only the good died young.

Tim's fingers were cut, and he had a row of blisters on his shoulder—that would have been much worse if someone hadn't doused the burning fabric—and he felt as if every bit of his body that wasn't wet was covered in oil and soot. He'd briefly seen Clara's scared white face when she had brought in the tea. It hadn't been until now that they'd had a chance to gulp the cold brew. The captain himself had come down to see how things were going. Tim sat on some scrap and eavesdropped, glad enough to stop working and sit down.

“Yes, Captain. We can hold off on pumping, I think. It's a trickle now. If we go deeper and there is more pressure…I don't know,” said the chief.

“They can see us underwater in the searchlights. There is a dreadnought and three destroyers en route to here. They should be here in three hours. Another two airships will be overhead with more drop-mines within forty minutes for the first, and an hour for the second. Before they get here we must be able to dive to at least beyond their visibility, and then run as fast as we can,” said the captain.

“Give the glue ten more minutes, Captain,” said the chief with a sigh. “But I must warn you the batteries are not fully charged. If we have more than eight hours' life in them, I'll be surprised.

“And we have a ten-hour run to the nearest Westralian port.” The captain tugged his beard. “Ten minutes, Chief. And let's cut all other power usage to a minimum.”

“Yessir. I might be able to get three or four of the Stirling
engine sequence going, sir, but the compressors…well. No,” said the Chief, grimacing. “So we just have to jury-rig a pipe direct to the snuiver, and settle for an old-fashioned coal fire. We can get it heated up with some naphtha…”

“Do what you can, Chief. We've got three hours to dawn. We'll need to lie up somewhere. Cover with camo and inshore on the bottom for the day.”

Ten minutes later they dived, with almost no one in the engine room, for safety. But even outside the engine room Tim could hear water spraying onto the temporary sheet metal barrier they had put up. The glue wasn't holding out the water.

The boat moved, though.

A little later they went back into the wetness of the engine room. The submarine had risen to just under the surface, and the captain was making as much speed as possible. In shallower water the leak was back to a stream running down the wall.

Tim knew all too well from his lessons that with no compressors running the compressed air to raise the sub was limited to what they had already. Dive too often, and she'd never come up. He tried hard not to think about it. He settled in to work with Thorne and Matthews, on one of the Stirling engines. Others were busy on the other engines—there were fourteen of them, each with their own firebox and coal-dust pressure feed—and the chief himself was trying to see if any one of the three compressors could be salvaged.

In the distance Tim heard drop-mines.

“That's good,” said Thorne.

“Why? That means the other airship must be here.”

Thorne gave him a half-smile. “If they knew where we were, they'd save them to drop on us. They're probing. They've lost us.”

Tim could only hope that that stayed true.

The interior of the submarine was dark except for the dim emergency lights, although they were under way. It made working in the galley difficult, and hot food for anyone out of the question. But Cookie broke out tins of ham, ship's biscuits, and tinned fruit for dessert, and fed people. “Outside a meal, life don't seem so bad, missy,” he said. “Takes a brave man to face trouble, and they face it better with a full stomach. Work better too. I reckon feeding them is a good thing.”

Clara did too, seeing the crew's faces in the dim light as they ate. She hadn't realized before just how important the people who merely made food and hot drinks were.

Then came a noise that was even more welcome than the easing that plates of food had given to the frightened faces. It was halfhearted…but it was an engine noise, not just the soft, near-silent hum of the electric motors.

Cookie beamed. “That chief could make an engine out of a dustbin lid. I've kept what bread I've got for the engine room sandwiches, and we've got biscuits too. See if the bridge can use some of those, or if they can come down to eat? Engine room lads get priority over officers right now.”

So Clara ran up to the bridge.

“It doesn't seem to have occurred to them that we could be listening in,” said Sparks to the captain. “Here are the coordinates, Captain, for the RAS
Calpurnia
and the RAS
Balmain.
The other airship is heading for Adelaide, as she's nearly out of fuel. The HMS
Portrush
is still half an hour from where they lost us.”

“I assume they think we can't receive wireless signals from underwater, and the idea that we might have an aerial up on an aquaplaned float at low speeds has not occurred to them,” said the captain. “Three degrees starboard, steersman. It's that or they are trying to deceive us, and it is a trap. Right now we need to take a chance, gentlemen. The
Portrush
will have hydrophones, and running on the Stirlings and whatever cobbling the chief has managed on a
compressor now will allow us a little recharging time. We can also refill our purge tanks.”

“Sighting breakers, sir,” said the periscope man.

“Black Rocks. With any luck they'll think we've gone to ground at Coffin Island.”

“Aren't we going to, sir?” asked Clara, forgetting she was merely supposed to be here on an errand.

“No. We'll make for the Halls Reefs,” replied the captain. “We'll have three-quarters of an hour of running in daylight, but until the sun gets high enough, even the airships can't see very far into the water. It's a chance we'll have to take.” Then he took in who he was speaking to. “Miss Calland. What do you want?”

“Please, sir, Cookie wants to know if he should send biscuits up, or whether the bridge crew can come to the mess to eat. We've fed the rest of the crew, sir, except the engine room. It's all cold, sir, but it's food,” she said hastily.

The captain shook his head. “Tell him I'll send the men down in shifts. And he can use his burners again at the moment, while we're on the snuiver, just not the electrical equipment. He can send me tea and some biscuits up. And he's to send some food down to the chief and his men.”

“He has kept the bread for them, sir,” said Clara. “Just in case they needed sandwiches.”

That actually managed to raise a smile from the captain and the bridge watch. “Then I think I will ask the chief engineer if he can let some of his men have some relief. We'll find more labour for the chief. Let them eat cold canned stew with the rest of crew.”

“Um. It's ham, sir. Cookie said things weren't bad enough for stew.” That actually got them to laugh.

Walking down to the mess again, Clara thought to herself how she had changed on this journey. When the Russians had kidnapped them, she'd been afraid, for herself and her mother. When they'd been trapped in the nets, and when she'd been stuck outside, she was
afraid for herself again. In the Faroes, she had been afraid, afraid Tim might be hurt. In Rivas…she'd been afraid people might be angry, and afraid of being left behind. When Tim had been locked up, afraid for him again. When the mate had taken her prisoner, she hadn't been afraid, just angry, mostly with herself. Now…now she was afraid for everyone on the crew, and also for the boat. They were hers, and she was theirs.

Tim was glad to leave the engine room and the erratic clatter of the jury-rigged compressor for the mess. Just how long the compressor would survive was another matter. They were busy with a frantic rebuild of the second one. Tim was no artificer or engineer, but it looked hopeless to him. The chief had bullied and sworn one piece of equipment into working again, though; he might succeed again. They had to do it, Tim knew. They needed to be able to empty the ballast tanks if they dived, and, if they stayed down long, for their breathing while submerged below snuiver depth.

Tim had been told to eat and sleep—washing right now was out of the question, because it would take power—so he did. He was faintly aware of Big Eddie coming in. They'd stopped and the divers had been busy. Then when he woke again the “all quiet” light was burning, and the sound of drop-mines echoed eerily again. They weren't close, but even hearing them at all was too close.