Dive in the Sun (26 page)

‘How can you talk like that? Don’t you care what happens? They’re helpless, but so pathetically eager to prove their loyalty to
you
! Can’t you do something for
them
?’

Curtis twisted the pipe between his fingers, his mouth tight. ‘That’s enough, Ian! I asked you to help the wounded, not start behaving like a child!’ He stared angrily around the deck, his eyes blazing. ‘Don’t you think I know about all this? That’s why I’m trying to get them back to their own people. I owe them that.’

‘Or do you mean that
we
won’t be captured?’ Jervis let caution fly to the winds. ‘Who are the more important? Us or them?’

Curtis let his arms fall limply to his sides, and Jervis thought he had given in. But his voice was calm and unhurried, as if he was speaking to a fractious schoolboy.

‘I’ve given you your orders. Now kindly carry them out.’

Jervis stammered with anger. ‘You won’t turn for the coast then? You’ll carry on with this scheme of yours?’

‘I’ll alter course when I’m ready. Not before. Now carry on, Mr. Jervis!’

‘Aye, aye,
sir
!’ Jervis was trembling with suppressed rage and emotion. ‘I hope you’re satisfied!’

As he blundered towards the hold, Curtis’s cold voice halted him in his stride.

‘And another thing, I’ll trouble you to discuss these ideas with me before you start holding council with everybody else!’

Jervis almost fell down the ladder, and stood weakly on the bottom rung, breathing heavily.

‘You spoke to him, Ian?’ She crossed quickly to his side. ‘What did he say?’

‘He refuses to budge.’ Jervis’s eyes filled with tears of humiliation and bitterness. ‘He’s as hard as iron! I wouldn’t have believed it!’

Carla Zecchi watched him thoughtfully. ‘He may be right, Ian. He has had much experience perhaps?’

‘Experience? Of what?’ He winced as another cry floated along the hold. ‘He seems immune to personal suffering! He’s like a man possessed!’

The wounded man cried out once more and Carla plucked nervously at her thin dress. Its hem was stained where she had knelt in the soldier’s blood, and there was a bruise on her arm to mark the place Curtis had gripped her as he pulled her to the deck.

‘Come on, Ian, we must stop him shouting, before the others get more upset.’

He followed her, dragging his feet, casting quick, sickened glances at the suffering and pain which bordered the sides of the hold.

The cry from the tormented man even penetrated the thick bulkhead of the engine-room, and clashed with the persistent rumble of the diesel.

Taylor jerked out of his doze and lolled his tongue across his dry lips. The thick haze which hung over the engine hovered like a group of conversing spirits, which changed their hues and shapes as the shafts of sunlight filtered through the deck grill and danced across the revolving sha

Taylor groaned and eased his cramped body on to his knees. Listlessly he checked the gauges and the oil, and wondered what to do next. Overhead he knew that the sun was soaring to its noon zenith, and there would be little shade on the dried decks. Below it was stuffy and foul, but at least in the engine-room no one disturbed him. He had discarded his jacket and jersey, and sat bare to the waist, his spare body running with sweat, and his hair plastered against his forehead.

The skipper had peered down the hatch at him earlier, and had asked about the engine revolutions, but apart from
brief
, routine questions, he had seemed unwilling to talk.

That suited Taylor, who felt that by just concentrating on their jobs, they could somehow make the time pass more quickly, and with each turn of the shaft they would be thrust more speedily towards safety.

It was odd how the change of environment had altered them all. Without the hard shell of the midget submarine, with all its familiar pitfalls and discomfort, they seemed to move without purpose or confidence.

He felt disturbed and surprised at Duncan, who could always be relied upon for a jest or a bit of company. I expect he’s more out of his depth than I am, he pondered.

There was little deck-space in the engine-room, merely a sort of planked catwalk which ran around the sides and provided a place for one engineer to watch over the diesel. Apart from that, the place was moulded into the hull, so that he could see the ribs of the ship running right down to the keel beneath and where the shaft vanished into its sleeve to join the thudding propeller.

He stared at the swilling and vibrating scum of bilge water, and watched it rippling around the ribs, to lap near the racing teeth of the giant flywheel. Once it reached that wheel, he knew he would be drenched, as it was picked up like a stream by a water mill. Never look after their bloody ships, he thought irritably, as he groped for the handle of the bilge-pump. I pumped the whole lot dry just after dawn, and here it is again. He cranked steadily and noisily, his breath wheezing in his throat.

Didn’t join up to bugger about in this sort of floating ruin, he thought, as the ship rolled lazily, and forced him to put his hand on the hot exhaust pipe.

He pumped in an even, unhurried swing, his mind drifting wearily away from his task and the ship.

He thought of Madge, the girl who lived in the next street in Hackney. She was working on the buses now, and right good she looked in her uniform. He always went up to the garage by Hackney station when he was on leave, just in the hope he might be able to date her, before some other bloke got the chance. A grin split his grimed face. She was quite a
girl
! Kept changing the colour of her hair, but she was still smarter than all the little Yiddisher bits who hung around the town hall dances.

He yelped as a jet of slimy water cascaded out of the bilges and soaked his skin in a sheen of oil and filth. As he shrank to one side, the flywheel bit into the water and sent another small tidal wave sluicing up the side of the engine-room to cover him, and fall hissing on the engine casing.

He stopped pumping, his head cocked on one side. He shielded his eyes from the spray and peered down into the bilges. Instantly, his heart began to pound. There was no mistake, the lower rivets in the stout ribs were now covered completely, and he had been pumping all the time!

He forced himself to act calmly, and began to check the pump. It was working well and quite in order. The bilge-water was rising around the racing wheel in a steady stream now, and even as he watched, he saw the level rise over the engine bearers. Frantically, and fully awake, he began to pump with feverish haste.

Clank … clank … clank … he watched mesmerized, as the pump handle jerked back and forth, conscious only of the water which surged and hissed against him and the engine.

‘Christ! We’re sinkin’!’ he gasped aloud. ‘Can’t keep this up fer long! Engine’ll seize up in a second!’ The sentences jerked from his twisted mouth, but, nevertheless, he stayed where he was, and glanced quickly at the level of the water.

Nearly a third of the flywheel was under water now, and the noise in the confined space seemed like a giant waterfall. He realized that he was in the lowest part of the ship, and the leak must be somewhere forward. He’d have to attract someone’s attention, so that a search could be made. It was queer that no one had noticed anything, it must be quite a large leak.

He gasped painfully and turned to change hands on the pump handle. As he did so, a savage burst of water struck him full in the mouth, and he slipped, spluttering on the catwalk.

‘Gawd blast yer!’ he choked. ‘I’m gettin’ out! S’like tryin’ to bale a battleship wiv a chamber-pot!’

He stopped and rubbed his hand across his wet mouth
with
sudden disbelief. There was no taste of salt at all, and apart from the usual tinge of oil, it was quite fresh and cool. He reached blankly for the handle, his sodden brain wrestling with the problem. It wasn’t possible, and yet, he cursed aloud and bent over his task.

The sun, like a triumphant warrior, had succeeded in driving away the last of the clouds, and was able to concentrate its full strength on the lonely ship beneath. The deck-caulking, already in need of repair, gleamed wetly, and stuck to Curtis’s boots as he moved restlessly about the shimmering deck.

The captain sat inert under the bulwark, his cap tilted across his eyes, and Curtis could not tell whether or not he was still awake; while the helmsman, a small wiry Sicilian, crouched across the spokes of the wheel, his scrawny neck protected by a length of faded bunting.

Curtis had to check himself from looking repeatedly at his watch and compass, and tried instead to concentrate on the bowsprit. He watched it rise sluggishly to point at the blue sky as the stem mounted a wave, and then as the schooner thrust her way forward, dip downward until it seemed to rest on the horizon like a pointer. He wished he had his cap, or something to help drive away the relentless throbbing in his head and neck.

A thin plume of smoke still rose from the galley funnel, as the huge pots of water were boiled for the business of cleaning wounds and dressings alike.

He had buried the last man to die before the heat had reached its maximum power, but apart from the sergeant and Giulio Zecchi, there had been few spectators this time.

He thought of Jervis and clenched his fists angrily. Young idiot. What the hell did he mean by getting so entangled with everything? He forced himself to relax. It was Jervis’s first operational trip anyway, so perhaps this had to be expected. Still, his sort of reasoning was infectious. His predecessor, Roberts, would have acted differently, he thought, but immediately dismissed the idea. What was the use … he was dead.

He squinted his eyes to look for the seagull, but it had vanished, and in some way he felt saddened.

We’re all dead really. Given up as lost by everyone but ourselves. His thoughts returned persistently to Jervis. Young fool. Couldn’t see further than himself.

He watched the bowsprit and wondered about the night. It seemed so far off, that it took real effort to continue with his plan for altering course. If the schooner was reported missing before nightfall, it would be the end anyway. But—and his pulse quickened at the thought—if they could keep clear of patrols until they were hidden by the darkness, there was a chance, and a good one at that, he could get them all to safety.

He frowned as he listened to the clank of the bilge-pump. Poor Taylor was obviously suffering, too. He could imagine what this ordeal was doing to the E.R.A’s strength of mind.

The mayor had left the deck, and Curtis was glad. The man’s strange, haunted eyes troubled him, and already he seemed to have aged considerably.

A shout from forward made him look up startled. One of the seamen was shouting excitedly and waving an empty bucket.

The captain stood up with ponderous dignity, his eyes dark and grave.

‘What’s he yelling about?’ Curtis asked. ‘Tell him not to disturb the people below!’

The captain moved slowly across the poop, his hands feeling his pockets as if uncertain what to do next.

He faced Curtis with watchful calm. ‘
Signore
, he says that the fresh water is no more!’ He waited for the impact to show on Curtis’s taut features, and hurried on, ‘That is impossible of course, for we take on a thousand gallons!’ He shrugged helplessly. ‘But if he says so, then it is true!’

Curtis’s face was still blank, yet already the shock of the captain’s words was working furiously on his mind. The seaman placed the bucket on the deck with a hollow clang, and stood quietly watching the two captains with patient interest.

Curtis heard the captain fire a series of questions at the man, but knew from the definite way he answered and the professional movement of his hands, that there could be no doubt about his findings.

The captain dropped his voice and moved still closer. ‘It
is
very bad. The water has been allowed to drain away. The valve has been opened.’ He met Curtis’s eyes, suddenly enraged, as if he, too, had been betrayed. ‘It was no accident,
signore
!’

At that moment the engine-room hatch banged open and Taylor emerged, his skin running with sweat and oily water, his eyes blinking in the glare.

‘Strewth! I thought we was done for! I’ve just pumped the ’ole bleedin’ ship aht! Some clumsy twit must ’ave upset something!’ He groaned wearily. ‘An’ I thought we was sinkin’!’ he added reproachfully. He looked from one to the other, his quick mind already aware that his news held more impact than he had imagined.

‘Where is the water valve?’ Curtis’s voice was calm, even distant.

‘In the hold,
signore
. We use it when we drain the tank for cleaning.’

‘I see.’

Curtis turned to Taylor. ‘George, call Steve and the sergeant. I want all the people from the hold on deck. All those who have been fit enough to move about, and have had access to that part of the ship.’

‘What’s up then, Skipper?’ Taylor scrambled towards the after hatch.

‘We have a new enemy among us, George. It’s too late to do anything useful about it, but I just want to meet the one concerned.’

The captain saw Curtis’s face and shuddered.

JERVIS TOOK A
last look around the hold, noting the quiet which seemed to hang over the ship, and which surrounded the listless wounded men who lay in their various attitudes around him. Only two or three of the more capable soldiers remained to tend to their requirements as best they could, and Jervis felt his eyes straying to the large water-can which swung lazily
from
a deck beam. It was queer about the water giving out, he could not even begin to understand what had happened, and was almost too tired to contemplate it. Taylor had slithered down the ladder, his dark face angry, even sullen. He had muttered something about the water, and that the skipper wanted all the personnel from the hold on deck at once. Jervis had deliberately delayed his own departure after Carla, the sergeant and the others had left, partly because he wanted to make sure that the wounded were quiet and as comfortable as possible, and did not suspect that the sodden dressings on their wounds were the last they could expect, but mostly because he wanted to show Curtis that he, at least, was not impressed by this peremptory summons.