The Poseidon Adventure (6 page)

'That's it, Robin.'

The men shook their heads.

Scott said, 'I have. Do you know the cause of death of most people who are either lost, shipwrecked or drowned in inhospitable country?'

'Panic,' Muller volunteered.

'No,' said Scott, 'apathy. Doing nothing, just plain quitting -- giving up. The statistics show it. The records indicate that the mere action of keeping busy, trying to do something keeps people alive.'

Then he went on, 'As I see it, if we remain here waiting for help to come, it may or it may not. We don't know anything about how long we can remain afloat this way; how near to death we may be. But here we are, all of us, still alive, thinking and rational people with the gift of life which has been taken away from so many. I suggest that we go forward to meet whatever help there may be for us.'

No one said anything.

Scott concluded mildly, 'You know, an animal will try to fight its way clear of a trap, even if it has to leave a leg behind it.'

Rosen said, 'I still don't get what you're proposing we should do, Frank.'

'Climb,' Scott replied, 'and keep climbing.'

Rosen said, 'And if she goes down while we're doing this climbing?'

Muller surprised himself, for the thought that flashed through his head was:
My God, he's right! At least it will catch us in a moment of nobility.

Scott put it differently. He said, 'We'll have been trying. But I don't believe it will sink.'

The Beamer added, 'Aren't you being a little optimistic, old . . .' and then caught himself in time. One did not call the vicar, or whatever was his American equivalent, 'old boy'. He said, 'How do you know?'

'Because,' Scott said, 'I've made a promise for us. It cannot be ignored.'

The statement was ambiguous, ridiculous and yet contained force and persuasion. Through Muller's mind went all the jokes about the value of having a clergyman during a trip on an aircraft or as a golfing partner. Himself a thorough agnostic who never in his self-centred life had been on his knees, he was not immune to superstition or the atavistic allure of the tribal magician or medicine man.

Scott said, 'Robin there, knows what I'm driving at. If we stay afloat till morning, we may be spotted from the air. Ships and aircraft will be searching for us. There will be only one way to get us out and that's by cutting through the hull at the top. Our chances of being rescued are that much more if we can manage to be there when they do.

'However,' Scott continued, 'it will be up to you to decide whether you remain here or make the effort.'

Muller was struck by the incongruity of the debate, when they were all poised on the brink of extinction. None of them had the faintest idea of the ship's buoyancy reserves in her capsized position, to what extent air had replaced the spaces emptied by disaster. Yet they were not behaving like people close to death. There had been screams and panic and outcries for help enough during the moment of catastrophe. But now perhaps only seconds away from the final plunge of the ship, they were calmly discussing means and chances of escape. Was it the confidence of Scott, or the fact that turned turtle the Poseidon now offered as steady a platform, except for the grotesqueries overhead, as she had when she was right side up? She was there beneath their feet, rigid, solid, negating panic. Yet Muller was well aware that it was an illusion that could be dispelled for ever any moment.

Shelby asked, 'What about the others?' and glanced over in the direction of the people huddled at the side of the ship at the far end of the dining-saloon and the figures on the floor, some now beginning to stir.

'The dead are out of it,' Scott said and Jane Shelby looked up, startled at the brutality of the words, the sudden indifference that showed through what up to then had been gentle persuasiveness. Miss Kinsale came into her view and Jane noticed that she did not seem to share in her astonishment. On the contrary, her expression was one of reflective repose.

Scott said, 'Seven died from the fall here. There is no possibility for the injured to make it. We can't burden ourselves with cripples. The old Doctor's doing the best he can.'

Jane thought:
But that's selfish and cruel -- to abandon them.
But then her common sense said to her,
What on earth is there to be done with people who cannot be moved?
The word 'selfish' turned to 'self-preservation'. Scott was right and she was wrong and she did not like it.

Rosen said, 'Some shipping line! Imagine signing on a man who is half blind as a ship's doctor.'

The Beamer said, 'Imagine signing on a Captain who lets his ship turn upside-down!'

Shelby repeated his question, 'What about the others?' and then added, 'I mean, those over there who haven't been hurt?'

Scott said, 'I talked to them. That young purser told them to stay where they are and someone would come for them. He's wearing a uniform. They believed him.'

'So that leaves us,' said Shelby.

The pulsating lights from below the floor went dimmer than they had been for a moment, before coming on again. The Beamer said, 'There's a happy thought! How long will those last? I suppose they're on emergency storage batteries.'

'I asked that Fourth Officer,' Scott said, 'but the boy didn't know. An hour or two; maybe more, maybe less.'

'Christ!' said Rogo in an injured tone, 'What does the son-of-a-bitch know -- for our dough?'

Linda closed her eyes and shook her fists like a child in temper and let out a squeal, 'I don't want to die! We're all going to die and all you do is yackety, yackety, yackety! Oh Mary, Mother of God, save us!'

Scott ignored her and replied to her husband, 'Nothing. He only saw this ship for the first time when he joined her twenty-four hours before she sailed. If I thought he knew anything, I'd have made him come along and show us the way. That's why the sooner we start the better.'

Martin spoke up suddenly. He was so small, greying and unobtrusive even in the plaid dinner-jacket he affected, that the middle-western twang of his voice surprised them all.

He said, 'I don't know about you people, but I've got to be back before the tenth. We're putting in a new line. You know, for kids. We've got a lot of youngsters out there in Evanston and you've got to give 'em young stuff. Maybe it's crazy, all those "with-it" shirts, and those ties, but that's what you've got to give 'em.' And then he added almost as an afterthought, 'I've got a crippled wife at home -- arthritis.' He looked at them almost defiantly for a moment. 'But she wanted me to go on this trip. She's a good sport, Ellen.'

Scott asked, 'You'll come?'

'Might as well.'

'And you, Dick?' Scott had turned to the Shelbys.

Richard Shelby hesitated before replying for his family, whom he did not consult. He said, 'Yes, if you say there's a chance.'

Jane Shelby added, 'Or even if there isn't.' A slight hint of sharpness had tinged her words, but it was impossible to tell whether it was a query or a statement.

Scott turned his open gaze upon her, but his look was more inward than outward and Jane felt it. He said, 'At least we'll have valued ourselves, won't we?'

Jane wished that her husband had not hesitated. He was the older man and ought to have been the most capable of them. His momentary hesitation before he surrendered up leadership was only a confirmation of what she had known for a long time. Yet wife-like, lover-like, she always kept on hoping.

Shelby had wanted to lead; had wanted to look good in the eyes of his family. He had kept his nerve and his self-possession during the catastrophe but he had no better suggestion as to how they might extricate themselves. Scott seemed to know what he was about. But he had caught the slight note of asperity in his wife's voice and as an afterthought said, 'Is that all right with you, Jane? Susan? What about you, Robin?'

Robin said, 'Sure! The computer centre on Governor's Island would know where every ship is that was near us. I think we ought to go, Mom.'

Jane felt more comforted. Her son had a mind.

Scott continued his canvass, 'Mr Bates?'

The Beamer said, 'It's worth a try. I don't fancy being drowned like a rat in a trap.'

'. . . Miss Reid?'

The Beamer answered for her, 'Oh, she'll come along with me. Right, Pam?'

The English girl nodded, 'If you want me to, Tony.'

'. . . Miss Kinsale?'

Directly addressed, the spinster awoke as though from a reverie and smiled a gentle acquiescence, 'But of course, Dr Scott.'

'Mr and Mrs Rogo?'

The little eyes of the detective shifted back and forth from Scott to the other members of the group. He was used to taking command in situations and if necessary even overpowering them. But he was out of his element here -- there was no enemy, no one to subdue. The thought of submitting to a rah-rah boy and a preacher at that, went against all his grain. But he did not want to die either. He subscribed to the Broadway creed: shorten the odds anytime you can. He said, 'If you ain't talking through your hat about figuring a way out of here.'

Linda turned on him suddenly, her face red and puffy, 'I'm not going! I'm scared. I think he's a phony!' she bawled at her husband. 'And you're not going either!'

'Aw, now baby!' Rogo soothed.

The last of the pseudo refinement she affected was torn away as she released a stream of filthy abuse upon her husband who eyed her dejectedly and said, 'Aw sweetie, don't talk like that!'

But there was no stopping her or the obscenities that erupted from her in such an endless and varied stream that the others could only stare aghast and wholly unprepared for what happened next.

Without so much as a change in his pleading and unhappy expression, faster than the eye could follow, Rogo whipped the back of his hand across her face but with his other arm he caught her before she could fall and held her up.

'Oooow!' she wailed and then began to howl. Blood dripped from her nose.

Rogo gathered her into his arms, 'Aw, now honeybun -- I didn't mean it, baby doll, look what you made me do to your little nose!' He took out a white silk handkerchief from the breast pocket of his dinner-jacket and held it to her face. 'Sweetie, you know I don't like to hurt you. Come now, there's my girl!' She subsided into sobs.

Jane Shelby and her husband, too, felt that this was a not unusual scene between them when she had pushed him to the point where the awe in which he stood of her vanished in the sudden flashpoint of the truculence that made him what he was.

The Beamer was staring with his eyes popping from his head. He made no pretence of understanding Americans. But Manny Rosen never turned a hair. He had seen Rogo in action in his own delicatessen shop, with three toughs who had taken the liberty of what Rogo called, 'passing a remark.'

Rogo said to Scott, 'She'll go.'

'Mr Muller?'

Hubie replied, 'I think it's a very good idea.' He was not liking where he was and was ready to move on.

Scott queried, 'Mr and Mrs Rosen?'

Belle Rosen appealed to her husband, 'I don't understand. What is it he wants us to do?'

'I don't know. He says climb up something to get out of here. He wants to go to the top of the ship. He says he'll show us.'

'Manny, a fat woman like me can't climb. You go. I'll stay here and wait.'

'Are you crazy, Mamma? Go away and leave you? You could try, couldn't you? What else is there we can do? Stay here and wait for the ship to go down, and drown?'

Belle Rosen said, 'What difference does it make where we drown?'

The tubby little man suddenly looked undecided at his wife's logic. He had not yet come to grips with the full extent of what had happened to them. Scott went to Mrs Rosen and took her pudgy hand in his, where it quite disappeared. He said, 'We'll all help you, Mrs Rosen. It may not be as difficult as you think.'

She looked up into his face. He and everything he was and represented was as alien to her as though he had stepped off another planet. But something she saw there fired her natural courage which had borne her through life to where she now found herself. She said, 'If you say so,' and then added, 'but I'm a fat old woman. I'll only be in your way.'

Scott smiled, 'Not if you're willing to try. Then it's decided.'

The Beamer's girl gave a little exclamation, 'Oh!' and then facing them firmly and coolly said, 'I'm sorry, of course I can't go with you.'

They were startled. None of them knew her except for exchanging a few words, or very much concerning her, apart from the gossip and this about-face in view of her prior eager consent took them by surprise.

'Mother, of course,' she said, 'I couldn't go without Mummy. She's in her cabin resting. I'd have to . . .' Her speech ran down and she stopped. Fear distorted her plain face as she glanced about her, taking in the nightmare ceiling above and the dark oily water where the staircase had been. 'Tony!' she cried, 'Where is she? We've got to go to her! Which way?'

The Beamer was suddenly helpless. 'Look here, old girl, you must get hold of yourself. You see -- I'm afraid . . .' He looked over to Scott for assistance.

The girl cried, 'Don't just stand there staring at me that way! Why don't you tell me? How do I get to her?'

But by then she already knew the answer and buried her face in The Beamer's shoulder as Scott said, 'I'm sorry, but you must all surely know by now. Everyone who was above this dining-room is now below the waterline. None of them can be alive any longer.'

James Martin felt nausea swimming up and managed to turn himself away from the group before he fell to his knees once more and was violently sick again. For the first time he had thought of Mrs Lewis who had said she would not be coming down to dinner.

'God,' said The Beamer, 'I could do with a drink!'

Rogo had one more violent outburst, 'Jesus Christ!' he yelled at Scott. 'You mean everybody's dead except us? But it's all crazy, this upside-down! It's all crazy! You're crazy! You don't even know how to get us off this floor.'

'Oh yes, I do,' said the Reverend Dr Frank Scott.

CHAPTER V

The Christmas Tree

'The tree there!' Scott said, 'Give me a hand.' He called up to Peters, 'We want to get to you. If we push the tree up, can you hold it?'

Peters replied, 'I was going to suggest that, sir. We've a deckhand and a couple of kitchen staff here. If you can swing the tip up to us, we can manage.'

They had all but forgotten the incongruity of the big Christmas tree. It lay now almost at the feet of Scott's group, the bottom at an angle partly screening the space where the top of the grand staircase had been.

'What do you want to do?' Shelby asked.

'Use it to get up there,' Scott said. 'You fellows had better make yourselves more comfortable. It's going to be heavy.'

Shelby pulled at his black bow tie and opened the collar of his shirt. The others followed, with the exception of Martin, who was still on his knees, holding his head and retching. Somewhere below that stink of oil and water that he had seen, Mrs Lewis with her big, pneumatic bosom and her scented hair which had given him both such excitement and comfort, was floating suspended in her water-filled, luxury cabin or lying wedged and drowned in the bed that they had shared.

'We'll swing the heavy end around first,' Scott said and the six men went to dispose themselves for the job. They were joined by Susan and Robin.

Jane Shelby wanted to help too, but her husband murmured to her, 'Save your strength. God only knows what we're going to find when we get up there, if we do, or how it's going to be.'

Unbroken ornaments and bits of tinsel tinkled musically as they worked the butt around until it lay parallel to the ship's side, with the tip just beneath the opening above.

Scott ranged his crew along its length; himself with his great height and strength in the middle, then Rogo, Muller and The Beamer at intervals, with Shelby, Rosen and the two youngsters at the back to push.

'Now, walk it up,' he said. 'When I lift, get it on to your shoulders. Dick, you heave.' He lifted the trunk of the tree, some four inches thick at that point, on to his shoulders and said, 'Now walk! Push, Dick!'

The top of the tree began to rise and slide up the wall of the dining-saloon, towards the opening above from which Peters, lying on his stomach, was waiting to grasp it.

At the far end of the hall, the other passengers watched them dumbly and offered no help. They were paralysed by their own indecision and looked upon what was going on as a kind of madness.

'I ain't got any more breath!' Rosen gasped.

'Manny, you'll hurt yourself!' Belle cried.

'Come on, fellow, push!' said Shelby and wondered how his fifty-year-old back muscles, unused to anything more strenuous than swinging a mashie, would stand up under the strain.

Scott turned his head over his shoulder to the three behind him and ordered, 'Now lift!' and raised the trunk high above his head.

'Got it!' cried Peters and seized the tip which had risen to the top of the opening.

'Attaboy!' said Scott. 'You pull, we'll push.' The cooperation now worked smoothly; those above hauling, those below shoving until Scott cried, 'That's got it!' He and the others came out from under the branches, panting. Susan's chiffon frock had a tear at the sleeve.

The tree had come to rest at an angle of forty-five degrees and for a moment they stood there regarding it with pride, having shared in a team effort that had succeeded.

Martin stood up and said, 'I'm sorry I was sick. I'll help now.'

Belle Rosen said, 'You want we should go up that?'

Scott replied, 'It won't be too difficult. You've got the branches to hang on to. Wait 'til I see.' For all of his great bulk he went up the tree as agile as a monkey, his feet testing it. 'Great!' he called down, and dropped back on to the floor.

The tree had some of the aspects of a ladder, with sturdy branches emerging from either side to give foot and handhold.

Scott turned to Martin. 'Are you all right? Do you think you could get up there now?'

'Yep.' He wanted his mind and the pictures it was screening for him to be taken forcibly away from Mrs Lewis. Paid had been put to their affair. He would never have to risk the visits to her in Chicago that he had promised. He was safe. Ellen could not possibly ever find out. If he thought of Wilma any more he might cry in front of them.

'Okay, skin up there,' Scott said. 'Then you can reach down and lend a hand to the women.'

Martin went at it effectively, thrusting the branches away from his face as he went and at the same time using them as steadying holds. But he paused in the middle.

Scott coached, 'Don't look down. Just keep going. You're doing fine!'

Martin was not looking down; he was thinking down to what that cabin, now below, must be like. Action had not succeeded in erasing the images. Why had not he insisted that Wilma come to dinner? Why had not he gone to her room?

The next moment Peters had him by the hand and was hauling him through the upside-down doorway. 'There you are, sir. We'll have you all up here in a minute.'

Scott looked from Linda Rogo to Pamela Reid. 'I'm afraid those long gowns will have to come off. The short frocks are all right, but you'll never make it hobbled like that. And take off your shoes. The men can put them in their pockets; you'll be wanting them later.'

Linda said, 'What does he want?'

Rogo answered, 'The dress! The dress! Take it off. How are you going to get up there with your can in that sausage skin?'

'What do you want me to do?' Linda spat out at Rogo, 'Strip? In front of everybody?' Indecencies rose to her lips like air escapng from water.

'Honeybun,' Rogo began, when she cut him off.

Her lip and nose were swollen where he had struck her, and her doll face was suddenly all askew with venom.

'That bum, there, just wants to see me with my clothes off. I know his kind: preach on Sunday and screw all week. He's had his eye on me the whole trip.'

Rogo said, 'Aw, baby doll, you shouldn't say things like that. Here, lemme help you with your zipper.'

Linda said, 'Take your filthy hooks off me,' and raked the backs of his hands with her fingernails. Blood seeped from the marks. The others tensed for the explosion to come.

But it was milder this time, for Rogo only shook his head sorrowfully, 'They always ask for it,' and then with another of his lightning-like movements, ripped her gown from her body. She stood there in bra and pants, holding her arms over her bosom as he said, 'Baby, sweetie, you always make me do things I don' wanna do.'

Linda began to cry again, 'Oh, I'm so ashamed with everybody looking!' She only took her arms from her breasts when she noticed that no one was interested.

'Miss Reid?' said Scott.

The English girl had been standing at The Beamer's side in her ice blue, rumpled satin dress which fitted neither her personality nor her person. She had not spoken since she had learned of the fate of her mother, but she had been thinking hard. She was a sensible girl; there was nothing she could do. Mourning could come later. She turned to The Beamer and asked, 'Is it true about Mummy?'

He said, 'Yes, I'm afraid so, Pam.'

'Is she really dead?'

The Beamer looked helpless and his eyes went to that pool where the central staircase had been and whose oily surface was now unbroken. What could he say further to the poor kid? But she had followed his glance and, accepting it as final, asked no further. She did something to the shoulder straps of her frock so that it simply fell down about her legs and she stepped out of it unembarrassed. She was wearing a short, white nylon slip. The shedding of the dress was some kind of farewell to someone or something that she had been. She said nothing but simply slid her hand into that of The Beamer.

He thought to himself:
Oh, my God! What will I do now?
For the gesture had been like a wedding. She had not a pretty body and looked no more graceful in the slip than she had in the dress. She had been a great drinking companion but he was not in love with her; did not want to be; did not want her; did not want anything ever but just to be allowed to live in alcoholic peace. The brakes on his drinking had been taken off when his wife had died a few years ago and he had found himself free to dwell in the perpetual, never-never land of whisky haze, where he could feel secure and unassailed. What was he to do with this motherless girl, who had just given herself over to him? He gave her arm little pats without realizing he was doing it.

Scott said, 'Now then, Susan, how about it, will you go next?'

'Okay!' She kicked off her shoes and handed them to her father. She was young, fresh and strong. She had found her limbs trembling after the ship had capsized but at no time had the thought of death, or that she might be going to die, entered her head. Now she understood what Scott had meant by apathy versus action. When you were doing something you stopped being frightened. She was pleased that he had selected her to go as an example to the others and hoped she would do a good job of it.

Indeed as Scott had predicted, it proved less difficult than anticipated. For with the tall Minister to reach up a hand, Susan was held firmly half-way up the climb and had only two more branches to negotiate before Martin, leaning down, secured and pulled her up triumphantly.

Unexpectedly Belle Rosen said, 'Should I go next?'

Her husband said, 'You want to, Mamma?'

'If I don't go now, I never will. I'm so nervous.'

'Good for you, Mrs Rosen!' Scott encouraged. 'You saw how easily Susan made it.'

'She don't weigh what I do. Will it hold me?'

'It held me. Here, give me your hand.'

'Must I take my dress off?' she asked.

'No,' said Scott, 'it's short. It won't get in your way.'

'You hold my shoes, Manny.'

'Take it easy, Mamma,' said her husband and helped her.

With Scott steadying her, she made her way painfully up through the branches but was stopped momentarily by the gap where there was no one to hold her. Shelby was reminded of a black bear cub he had once seen like that, caught half-way up a tree, unable to get up or down and wondered whether she was going to fall.

Manny Rosen called out, 'Belle, keep going! It ain't much farther.'

But Scott distracted her more successfully with his quiet, 'Just take Mr Martin's hand and you'll be all right.' Almost without thinking and in obedience, she climbed the next two branches and was hauled up to safety to a cheer from below. She was as delighted with herself as a child and gave them a wave and a smile.

'A regular Peter Pan,' she said.

A few minutes later they were all at the top. Scott, standing at the edge called down, his deep voice carrying to the farthest end of the saloon, 'Anybody else? We're going to try to reach the ship's hull in case there's an attempt to rescue us.'

There was an unusual stir amongst the remaining passengers. A man called back and said, 'We've decided to wait here.'

A steward came shuffling forward through the debris, a bloodstained napkin in his right hand. His left arm hung queerly from his shoulder. When he reached the bottom of the tree he called up to Scott, 'I'd like to get up to my mates, if I could, sir. I've done all I can.'

'Well then, come up man. Hello! What's happened to your arm?'

'I don't know, sir. I can't seem to move it.'

'Is the other one hurt, too?'

'No, sir,' the steward replied. 'It's just that I've been looking after some of those who were bleeding.'

In an instant Scott was down the tree, gripping the man's good hand and gently hauling him up after him.

A steward said, 'Okay, Jock, you're better off with us up here.'

Peters asked, 'Need we hang on to the tree any longer, sir?' The tip was still resting on the ledge.

Scott looked down into the chaos of the dining-saloon once more -- the dead, the dying and the living huddled like sheep. His expression was pitiless. 'No,' he said and kicked it away. It fell to the floor with a crackling of branches and a last tinkling of breaking ornaments.

Jane Shelby cried, 'Why did you do that? They might have changed their minds.'

Scott glanced at her briefly but she was aware that he was not there with her, was hardly seeing her.

He said curtly, 'If they do, they know how to go about it.'

Jane thought that this man's utter contempt for the weak could not have been more bitterly expressed. Was this what leaders were like? Would she have wished her husband to be like this? She wondered what would happen if Scott were to be really crossed and how much of a heart beat within that massive frame. And yet how quickly and with that resolution combined almost with tenderness he had fetched up the injured steward. She both admired and despised him.

They now found themselves in the corridor leading to the kitchens. On one side in sequence were the serving pantry, the sommellerie where wines for which there might be an immediate call were kept and a restaurant bar. These were the last stops of the waiters on their way out from the kitchens, where they picked up cutlery, extra glasses, serving spoons and drinks.

'Mind the pipes,' Peters warned. 'You're walking on the ceiling.'

This caused them to look up quickly and to see what had become of the floor. Its polished vinyl surface was now over their heads. Underfoot were lines of metal pipes, some asbestos-covered, of various widths and colours, serving as conduits for electrical wiring, plumbing, telephone lines, steam for heating, water under pressure for the thousands of fire prevention sprinkler system heads scattered through the ship, and even pipes to bring up beer directly from the tuns to the bars, variously spaced and slippery; the members of the party found it difficult to stand.

Rogo said to Scott, 'You didn't think of that one, did you?'

The Minister replied, 'There'll probably be a lot of other surprises awaiting us. I expect the higher we go, the worse it will be.' He looked at Rogo almost with amusement and concluded, 'I never said it would be easy.'

Acre, the other steward, lay full length where he had been hurled during the roll-over. Close by were the remains of the laden tray he had just been about to carry out. Salmon timbales, chicken, steaks with potatoes, vegetables and rice grains were scattered about. When the ship had begun to heel, he had put out his leg to try to counterbalance. It had snapped between knee and ankle.