The Poseidon Adventure (29 page)

Shelby said, 'Jane, how can you?'

She turned on him, 'You know it's so! I'm afraid I'm on Mr Rogo's side: Why? Why? Why?'

Caught up in their own fears, fatigue and discomforts they had forgotten that her son was missing. She savaged her husband with, 'What goes on inside you when you sit up straight and sanctimonious on the snob side of the aisle in St Matthews? What do you expect when you say, "My God" or "God help me"? A breakdown service?'

Shelby's answer was so lame that Muller felt a sudden compassion for him. He was little-boy-lost. 'I don't know. I guess maybe I never thought about it.'

Manny Rosen said, 'If there wasn't our God, there wouldn't be a Jew alive today.'

Martin wanted to say, 'If there is, he sure managed to thin you out a lot,' but refrained. To him the Jewish God was a policeman quite different from the Baptist God, with a different set of rules for punishing. Rosen's God was as remote to him as the Manitou of a Red Indian, or the Allah of the Arabs. He, himself, was going to catch it in the neck for adultery and no mistake. But Rosen would hear the roll of thunder if he ate a ham sandwich. Anyway, in these days, God was not the Jew's problem any more. It was their capacity to irritate people.

'Papa,' Belle Rosen said, 'hold my hand. I ain't feeling so good.'

Rogo's angry voice burst out of his angry thoughts. 'Your God, my God, what's He got against us; what's He got against me? What have I done? Why doesn't He act like God? Sure I was a louse when I was a kid, but I took plenty punishment. We went to Mass and confession, Linda and me, regular. Okay, I killed some guys, but they were rats. What about all the guys who get killed in wars? The fellers that killed them come home with medals and are heroes. What did He have to trun down Linda like that for to die like an animal? She never done nothing to anybody, but He had it in for her from the word go.'

Muller thought to himself:
Why can't people think clearly when they get God on the brain? If Linda hadn't disobeyed Scott, she'd still be with us and bitching at him. But if I told Rogo that, he'd hit me.
Aloud he said, 'What I would like to know is which God image was in Scott's mind: Gran'daddy in the sky? Or a sort of glorified coach sending him out on to the field to win the big game?'

When no one replied he continued, 'I am amongst the mystified. When I call myself an agnostic, I merely mean that unlike most Christians I do not consider myself the centre of a Universe conducted on wholly inexplicable lines, by a Father and Son. The animistic Gods who dwelt in trees, stones, brooks and deep places in the forest were much more attractive, as were the Pagan Gods of the Greeks or the politically practical Gods of the Romans. When modern man finally settled upon a Creator made into his own image, he endowed Him with most of his own worst characteristics: vain, vengeful, cruel, capricious, capable either of being bribed with trinkets or conned by flattery. There must be something somewhat more impressive behind the galaxies.'

'How unhappy you must be, Mr Muller,' Miss Kinsale said.

Muller gave way to a momentary flash of irritation. He said, 'The stars don't know their names and I doubt very much whether God even knows what He is like.'

Miss Kinsale looked shocked and Nonnie bewildered. The latter said, 'But the stars
have
names, haven't they?'

Muller did not reply and left Nonnie vaguely disturbed.
Her
God happened to like being sung to loudly on Sundays, but there was nothing wrong in that, and perhaps when she introduced Muller to Him in their little church at Fareham Cross just outside Bristol, he might come to feel as comfortable as she. This was followed by a moment of panic. Muller, man of the world, gent, standing outside Fareham Cross Parish Church with Mum and Dad, being patronized by Mr Stopworth, the Vicar. Mr Stopworth was patronizing. Even Dad said so. Why was this man wanting to marry her? Would she be able to keep him happy? In a moment's agony of doubt she wished that the ship had gone down while they were coupled as one.

Muller felt the slight shudder that had run through her and pulled her closer to his side and placed an arm about her shoulder. He said, 'If you ask me, Scott had his head turned by all that yelling and cheering and publicity.'

'If you ask me,' Rogo said, 'Scott was a faggot.'

'A what?' The query was torn simultaneously from Shelby and Martin.

'A panzola! Queer as a coot. Linda tried to kid herself he had a letch for her, but when she went for his pants in the dark, he yelled bloody murder. Look, nobody's kiddin' anybody any more. Don't you think I know what went on down there in that engine room, when he threatened to break her arm. He didn't like dames. Scared stiff of them. He could hide out behind that turned-around collar and nobody would ever suspect, would they? A lot of those tough, bust-'em-up guys, whether they're hoods, or football players are half-ass panzolas only they don't know it. The more scared they are of women the more they throw their weight around and make with the hairy chest. Scott was one of 'em.'

'Oh no!' The exclamation came from Miss Kinsale, but breathed with such horror that for a moment it seemed to them that another person had spoken. 'Oh no!' she repeated. 'You mustn't say such a thing, Mr Rogo. He wasn't at all like that. Not at all.'

They were all stunned to silence by the intensity of her denial until Rogo said, 'Excuse me, ma'am, I wasn't meaning to give any offence. I was only saying . . .'

'Anyway, he couldn't have been,' Miss Kinsale then continued as though he had not spoken. 'You see, I
know
. I . . . we were going to be married. He was going to send for me to come over to the United States.'

The shock waves sent out by her statement reacted differently upon all of them. Martin controlled a sudden desire to laugh until he remembered the animal howl of pain that had come from the mousy little spinster at Scott's suicide. Shelby thought:
God, have I been floating upside-down throughout this whole voyage? Maybe all my life?

Miss Kinsale had been sitting up close to the Shelbys. Now she leaned down to whisper to Jane. She said, 'Since we are going to die, I can tell you.' Her sibilation dropped lower, 'We were intimate during the voyage.'

Muller heard it and was moved once more to compassion, as was Jane, but her emotion was mingled with anger.

'Oh, my dear,' she said and could bring herself to do no more than repeat it and Miss Kinsale was not asking for pity. Inwardly she was raging against the dead clergyman: how dared he amuse himself during the voyage with this poor, cast-off-by-life and passed-by woman? What was he accomplishing by making an outrageous offer of marriage to a woman old enough to be his mother? Was that it then, that he was the little games-playing boy who never grew up and wanted his mummy? Did he think it was a gesture of charity to let her once warm her cold hands at the fires of love? Or had he been one of those monstrous psychopaths who under the guise of religion sneak under a woman's skirts like an incubus to bring them personalized contact with the Deity or the Devil? She was glad Miss Kinsale could not see her disgust.

'Oh, Hubie,' Nonnie whispered, 'how awful for her, the poor thing. They were going to be married and she saw him throw himself away.'

'Hush!' he said to her and held her still closer to himself, as though this was the last good, clean, sane person left in the world to cling to. For him it was the final pathetic fantasy. Perhaps there really was that Brigadier from Lincolnshire; the Miss Kinsales of life usually managed to have one in the family. But thereafter Telford House, the Cokingtons, Gerald and all the rest were dreams.

And now Scott. Safe to tell; he was dead. No doubt she had been in love with him from a distance. Her despair at the suicide had emananted from a stricken woman. But Scott -- with Miss Kinsale -- what would she confess to next? Pregnancy?

But Rogo's eyes and fists were squeezed shut, his teeth bared and he was shaking from head to foot in blind, insensate rage. His throat was choked with the killer's urge to batter and destroy. And the object of his fury was no longer there. Had he been wrong all along about Scott? Was he one of these horny bastards who hides behind a clerical collar? Had he been having a bang at Linda during the voyage? And was the incident by the side of Hell Lake nothing but an elaborate cover? If he did lay Miss Kinsale, he could also have taken care of Linda and he knew that she had been hot for him. And she was dead and he had followed her. He felt he would explode in a madman's yell or strike out at anyone when from Belle Rosen came a long-drawn-out wail of pain, 'Oh, my God!'

Rosen panicked. 'Mamma! Mamma! What's the matter? For God's sakes, make a light, somebody.'

'Lights on!' commanded Martin.

They shone upon a Belle Rosen whose lips had turned dark black in the dim rays and whose great breasts were heaving as she tried to draw in breath in short gasps, while crying, 'Oh, my God . . . . The pain . . .'

Lord, thought Muller, who had once seen a victim before,
she's having a heart attack.

From somewhere came the sound of a metallic clang, a thump and a scraping. Muller thought,
Here we go!
and held on more tightly to Nonnie. But Martin cried sharply, 'What was that?' and Kemal was staring up at the dark space above his head.

Rosen groaned, 'Don't talk about noises. Can't you see my wife is sick. What shall I do? What shall I do?'

Muller said, 'Keep her quiet. It's the only thing to do until . . .'

Miss Kinsale said, 'I will pray.'

'My God, my God! Oh, my God!' moaned Belle.

'Mamma, Mamma, I'm here.'

Shelby cried, 'Air! There's no air. That's why she can't breathe. I can't either.'

They all heard the scraping and bumping then and after that a twang like the parting of a cable, repeated twice more.

Muller gasped, 'They've come! They've come! That was from over our heads. Quick! While we've still got the strength, tap back to let them know.'

Martin cried, 'Hey -- Kemal! Get up there. Take the axe. Where's the axe?'

In the remaining light of their fading batteries they looked about them and then at one another. It was impossible any longer to achieve a full deep breath. They were gasping and gulping like netted fish. Yet they managed to roll their bodies away from where they had been sitting or lying in case the axe was there.

Rogo said to Shelby, 'You had it last.'

'I didn't. I thought Martin had it.'

Muller said, 'We've got to tap back. Where is it? Where is it?'

Miss Kinsale said, 'Dr Scott has it.'

'What? Scott is dead!'

'He took it with him.' They stared at Miss Kinsale. 'It was tied around his waist. I saw the light flash from it as he left us.'

Rogo croaked, 'The dirty bastard! So he's killed us after all.'

CHAPTER XXIII

Everything Goes in Threes

James Martin, the least muscular and athletic of the group still had something left in his spare frame. Holding one of the hand torches, he pulled himself laboriously up through and over the crosspieces leading to the hull, hauled back and struck with all the remaining force that he could muster. But there was only the shattering of glass against the steel and a faint plink that could not possibly have penetrated if there was anyone outside. Martin wondered if in their last struggle to live they had not mistaken those ever-present noises of the ship, herself fighting to the last to remain above the surface.

Martin jumped down again, or rather fell. He rasped, 'I guess that's it.'

Muller said, 'Nonnie -- it's such a pity. I'd have been good to you.'

'It doesn't matter, Hubie. Are we going to die now?'

'I think so.'

'I love you.'

'Yes, Nonnie. Stay close.'

Rogo repeated, 'That stupid bastard!'

A weird metallic voice that had no resemblance to anything human reverberated through the stifling space, 'Is there anyone there?'

'My God!' whispered Muller. 'They're talking to us. But how can they?'

The voice was like the flat, strangulated, vibrating sounds emanating from radiophonic head sets. It continued, 'Is there anybody down there? This is Commander Thorpe of the U.S. Air-Sea Rescue destroyer escort Monroe. I am using an electronic amplifier. If you speak we will be able to hear you.'

Martin struggled with the fetid air for the last measure of oxygen. 'Yes, yes! We're down here.'

'Okay! We hear you. How many are you?'

'Eleven. Six men and five women. But we're dying. There's no air any more. Can't you get us out?'

'Yes. Be patient. We can't cut you out yet. We'd burn up the remainder of your oxygen.'

Rogo suddenly lost control, 'Patience my ass. What the hell do you think we climbed up here for, to choke to death? Get us out, you bastard!'

The impersonal metal voice that could not carry any inflection of sympathy replied. 'We must get air to you first. They're bringing over a drill, pump and sleeve we use on submarines. Don't panic. You probably have more air than you think you have. Don't move. Don't talk unnecessarily. Try to take half breaths slowly.'

Rosen raised his eyes to the roof, 'My wife. She's terribly sick.'

Muller said, 'It looks to me like a heart attack.'

The voice replied, 'We have a doctor here with us. He will speak to you.' A pause. 'This is Lieutenant Worden. I am a doctor. What are the symptoms?'

It was strange, how when told there was more air than they had thought, there seemed to be such. Muller was able to reply, 'I saw a heart attack once. Pain. Lips blue. Worse off than us, fighting for breath.'

'Keep her quiet. Loosen her clothing. We'll get to her shortly.'

'If we don't sink first,' Shelby muttered. The sensitive microphone they were using picked him up.

'We don't think she'll sink -- yet.'

'Loosen her clothes, he says.' It was Rosen speaking. 'What clothes?'

Muller suggested, 'Undo her bra.'

'In front of everybody? She wouldn't like that.'

'Oh for Chrissakes, Manny,' Rogo said.

Jane Shelby leaned over, got her hand beneath Belle's back and unhooked her. She said, 'This is no time to be fussy.' The huge breast flopped.

'Papa, Papa, help me,' Belle moaned.

'Just stay quiet, Mamma. They're coming in a minute.'

'You see,' whispered Miss Kinsale, 'it didn't really matter about the axe. Dr Scott knew what he was doing all the time.'

They waited in the smothering airless heat, using the remainder of their batteries for the comfort of seeing one another on the brink of rescue, or equally the edge of eternity. Muller had no doubts but that the ship would give way before they could be effectively reached. The ironies of their toilsome ascent to the summit had been too consistent. There were more bumpings and scrapings and metallic sounds from overhead.

The voice said, 'The equipment has arrived. It was used to free sailors imprisoned in the capsized Oklahoma at Pearl Harbor. It has since been refined. A hole will be drilled via an airtight sleeve and air will be pumped in to you. You'll be able to breathe properly. We'll continue to pump it while we cut away the plates. Where are you situated? Not directly in contact with the hull?'

Martin was able to reply. 'No. We are in the propeller shaft tunnel. The hull is about ten feet above our heads.'

'Good. Stay where you are and hang on a few minutes longer.'

Shelby wondered how much more death those few minutes could contain. What if the Poseidon should lurch to the bottom and carry their rescuers with them? He felt suddenly beyond caring. What would life be like thereafter if they were pulled out of this trap?

Jane thought how her son would have gloried in the fulfilment of his prediction that they would be found, that the elaborate machinery set up to salvage downed astronauts from their steel capsule shell was functioning. Her stricken heart cried out silently, 'Robin, Robin, where are you?' She knew then and there that she would never see him again.

Susan thought:
We are going to be saved. What will I be like? Must I tell my secret? Will it always be a shadow over me?

Martin felt drained of everything but that last spark of life that he refused to concede.

From overhead came a sudden machine-gun rat-tat-tat, which stuttered, halted, started again, stopped once more and then settled down to a steady whining clatter.

Muller said, 'They're drilling, Nonnie.' And then he added, 'If God is the jokester I think He is, this would be the moment to pull the rug out from under our feet for His big laugh. Maybe Scott called the turn.'

Miss Kinsale whispered once more, 'He died to save us all,' and this time Rogo did not comment.

From the metal voice: 'We are through the outer plates. Are you still all right?'

Rosen croaked, 'For God's sake, hurry. Mamma's hand is so cold.'

Belle suddenly said clearly, 'You wanted I should go on so I could see Irving and Stella, Simon and little Hy and Myra. Well, I did it, didn't I?'

'Yes, Mamma, you did. You were great. Just great,' and he looked around at them again for confirmation. 'Maybe she's getting better again.'

No one said anything. The drill suddenly gave a loud, screeching whine and bit through the inner shell above their heads, and they saw the gleam of its inch-wide diameter as for a moment it rattled against the sides of the hole. With it came the first oily whiff which could be drawn into tortured lungs. The drill was withdrawn and a moment later, a black tube was thrust through the hole to come to rest a foot or so below the inside of the hull. Then as a steady thumping was heard from above and outside, the first stream of fresh cool air flowed over them, resuscitated and revitalized them so that they were able to raise first a feeble cheer and then, as the oxygen began to make them a little drunk, laugh and cry.

But simultaneously as though the pin-prick in her skin had touched a nerve, the ship began to groan and creak again, to cry out in her joints and distant parts. There was a moment's movement and from the direction of the engine room a piece of loose steel clanged like a bell. Beneath them the floor quivered uneasily. From overhead came sounds of scurrying feet and rattling gear and a voice that said, 'Stand by to . . .'

'Jesus!' said Muller. 'It's the Big Laugh after all. She's going.'

Rogo cried, 'The sons-of-bitches have let all the air out!' And he yelled up, 'Okay, you rats, run out on us before you get your feet wet!'

The voices and the scrabbling continued but they could not hear what was being said. The fresh air continued to blow in upon them and the noises of the pumping never stopped.

Then the Commander spoke directly to them. He said, 'We're not leaving you. We think she'll stay up long enough for us to get you out. It won't be long now.'

Muller said, 'They've got guts. If we go, we take them along with us.'

The voice calmed them again. It said, 'The doctor wants to have another word with you.'

After a moment's pause they heard, 'This is Lieutenant Worden speaking now. How is the sick lady?'

Rosen groaned. 'How can I tell? She's better with the air.'

Lieutenant Worden said, 'Good. I'm going to pass down a hypodermic through the tube. Does any of you know how to administer a hypodermic?'

'I do,' said Rogo and they stared in astonishment. He added, 'A cop also got to know how to deliver a kid.'

Muller said, 'Good man,' and did not hear what Rogo said between his teeth.

They heard a slight clinking sound. A syringe emerged from the tube, butt end first, attached to a thread. Rogo reached up and plucked it forth. 'I've got it,' he said. 'Where?'

'The left arm. Intramuscular.'

Rogo approached her holding the needle. He said, 'This won't hurt you at all, Belle. You'll be okay. Smart guy that doc.'

Rosen said, 'See, Mamma, now you'll be all right. Today a heart attack is nothing any more. Look at your uncle Ben, he had one when he was sixty and he lived to be seventy-five. Even Presidents of the United States, who got terrible worries. So today they don't like the way your heart is -- they change it. Just lie still. You got nothing to worry about.'

Belle Rosen opened her eyes and said, 'That's good,' and then died without further ado. Her eyes remained open and staring.

Rogo the expert on death muttered to himself, 'Oh Christ, no!' and in desperation jabbed home the needle into the flesh of her left arm, just below the shoulder. The staring eyes had already begun to glaze but Rosen was not yet aware.

He said, 'Mamma, you heard me? Everything's going to be all right.' Then in sudden alarm he cried, 'Mamma! Mamma! Why you looking so?'

Muller never would have imagined that Rogo could have so much tenderness in him as he put his arm gently about his shoulder and said, 'Manny, I'm sorry. She can't hear you. It's all over. She ain't with us any more.'

Rosen became a frightened little man, not quite able to understand. He cried, 'What? What? But she was getting better. She only spoke to me a minute ago. You gave her the injection. Why does she look so? Is she really sick? For God's sakes, then, get the doctor!'

The others were frozen into immobility by pity, by horror and even anger at this last cruel irony. And Miss Kinsale prayed aloud, unconsciously paraphrasing the late Reverend Scott, saying, 'Dear God, if you want any more of us, take me.'

Rogo shouted up in the direction of the pierced hull, 'Doc! Are you there, Doc?'

'Yes, I'm here.'

'This is Detective Rogo speaking. I gave the injection, but I'm afraid it was too late. I'm afraid she's gone. How long will it be before you get through?'

'They're going to begin cutting now. Do you know how to massage a heart?'

Rogo looked doubtfully at the mountain of clay that had once been Belle Rosen and said, 'I could try.' The massive breast was in the way and beneath it were layers of fat covering the ribs encasing the silent heart. He tried to push the huge mammary aside to get at the area.

Rosen screamed, 'What are you doing? Keep your hands off her! Leave her alone!'

Shelby said, 'Rosen, control yourself. It's first-aid. The doctor told him to.'

Martin cried, 'Oughtn't we close her eyes? She's looking as though we'd all let her down. I wish we'd sink, right now -- the lot of us.'

Muller offered to Rogo, 'If you'll show me what to do, I'll try to help you.'

The detective nodded and said, 'Get on the other side. Try to lift the rib cage up and down if you can manage. Like this; slowly -- one two, one two.'

The two men bent to their work. Nonnie was crying. Rosen, still bewildered, kept asking, 'What are they doing? Why are they touching Mamma? Why doesn't the doctor come?'

Jane Shelby said, 'It isn't an indignity, Mr Rosen. Don't you understand! They're trying to make her heart go again.'

In the dim light Manny Rosen's round face looked almost babyish in its total bewilderment, 'Her heart go again? But why? Did it stop?'

Jane said, 'Yes, I'm afraid it did.' She wondered how she could be so cool and matter-of-fact in the face of this further tragedy, this additional wanton stealing of life from a good and innocent person, until she realized that she had been immunized. Never again in life would anything ever shock or hurt her.

Martin repeated, 'Can't you close her eyes?' It was one thing to be haunted only by a picture in his mind of Wilma Lewis in her cabin -- their cabin, and another to be locked in a chamber with a dead woman. Were Wilma's eyes open too, and staring through the murky waters?

Rogo said, 'It ain't working. We'd better wait 'til the Doc gets here.'

From overhead came a tapping and the metallic voice, 'Keep away from this area now, everyone. We're going to burn through.'

The pace of the thumping from above increased and was followed by a roaring, ripping sound. In the black roof of the hull, in the vicinity from which the sound had come, there appeared a glow, a thin, orange-coloured line. They smelled burning metal and felt the heat.