The Poseidon Adventure (8 page)

Scott said, 'I think we should have some order of proceeding and stick to it, so we know where we all are. It's going to be difficult walking on these pipes. We ought to go in twos, with the men helping the women. I'll lead with . . .' and he looked about for a moment, 'Miss Kinsale. Then I think Mr and Mrs Shelby and the Rosens; then the young people, Mr Bates and Miss Reid, Martin and Mr Muller, and I suggest the Rogos bring up the rear together.'

Linda Rogo said, 'Why should we go last?'

Rogo added, 'Yeah, what makes you think I'm gonna be tail-end-Charlie?'

'Because you've got a head on you and I expect you may be called upon to use it.'

The detective said no more and when his wife started to protest again, gave her arm a sharp squeeze and said, 'Shut up!'

Jane Shelby again felt a small pang of anger. If bringing up the rear in Scott's mind was a place of importance, why had not he chosen her husband over this horrid, violent man who so obviously despised him?

Even as he made his last disposals of his party, something had caught Scott's eye, an upside-down locker hanging from the ceiling from which extra tablecloths and napkins had tumbled. He retrieved eight of each that had not been immersed in the muck sloshing about the floor and distributed them to the men saying, 'Put the tablecloths over your shoulder and the napkins in your pockets.'

It was The Beamer who asked, 'Now what on earth for, old . . .?' and shut himself up again.

Scott said, 'The cloths may come in handy, if they don't we can discard them. As for the napkins, they'll be useful if one of us should suffer a bad cut. We can't afford injuries.'

Jane thought:
God help any of us should we become crippled! He'd leave us.

Scott shook the shoulder of the still dazed Greek seaman and said, 'Okay, Pappas, get moving! Show us the way.'

Williams suddenly rasped, 'Sure! Okay! Get going! And what about us, here?'

The Minister turned back, 'Will you come along? I'll take anyone who wants to come -- or can; Peters, you boys from the kitchen, any of you or all of you.'

Peters said, 'I don't know, sir. Our orders in case of emergency are to remain at our posts until further instructions, or by signal or voice we're sent to our lifeboat stations.'

Williams said, 'Well, there ain't been no signal and there ain't been no voice, and what good are lifeboats when you're ass over tea kettle?'

Scott said, 'I should think you might consider yourself relieved of your orders by now. Very well, Williams, you and who else?'

Scott's quiet acquiescence suddenly threw Williams into an almost childish tantrum, 'Not me!' he shouted. 'You'll never make it! You got any idea what's between you and the bottom of the ship? You'll get yourself and everybody with you killed.'

Scott simply ignored the outburst and said, 'Peters?'

Peters said, 'I wouldn't be leaving Acre, here. We've been together too long. Things may still turn out all right, if we don't lose our heads.' Then he added, 'As you go past, don't look into the kitchens.'

'Why?' Rosen asked without thinking. 'Somebody get hurt?'

'The stoves came away as well as everything else,' Peters answered, 'These two boys here,' indicated the shaking chefs, 'got out. The others didn't.' Then almost as an afterthought added, 'The stoves were in use.'

It was Hubie Muller, the dilettante, whose mind was able to form the most vivid and scarifying picture, perhaps because like so many of his set he was an amateur cook and knew his way about the kitchen. All the plates of the electric stoves would have been glowing hot, and overturned, would have broken loose and with the scalding contents of their pots and pans, come crashing down amongst the chefs, the second cooks, the salad and pastry specialists, dishwashers and pantrymen, crushing, burning or hammering them to death. It was probably from there that the awful animal scream he had heard had emanated as the ship had gone over.

'We'll go,' Scott ordered, but first turned and said, 'Thank you, Peters. Thank you, Acre, and good luck to you.'

Shelby wondered whether he was going to add, 'I'll. pray for you,' but he did not.

The stewards said, 'And good luck to you, too, sir.'

As they moved off they heard Linda say, 'I don't need any help. It's all your fault we're in this mess.' And Rogo's plaintive, almost perpetually placating voice when addressing his wife, 'Aw, now honeybun, lemme take your arm before you bust one of them pretty gams of yours.'

Scott called out, 'Miss Kinsale.'

She said, 'Oh, thank you, Dr Scott,' and slipped her tiny hand through the proffered arm. He maneuvred it so that she would be on his left side and away from the kitchen. The other men followed suit. No one said anything more and there was only the sound of their feet reaching for purchase between the slippery pipes.

They picked their way past the open kitchens on their right, their heads averted. They breathed a heavy mixture of acrid odours, food and behind it something sinister and sick-making. The picture in Muller's imagination supplied him with what it was: burned flesh. Most of the ceiling lights had been smashed, but two were intact and the flickering rays of the emergency bulbs showed only the outline of heaped-up steel or glinted off the wreckage of overturned copper cauldrons, stoves, ovens and equipment. Except for the sounds of antiphonal ticking of metal still cooling, the place was silent.

Muller, on the near side, felt a compulsion to know. He could not help himself. He turned and was half-way inside before his foot slipped and he almost fell. He caught himself on a piece of projecting metal but not before he saw something close by on the floor that was red and might have been meat, except that it was not. He said, 'Oh, my God!'

Martin, who had gone on, his head turned resolutely away, said, 'Come on. What do you want to look in there for? I couldn't take any more, after what I saw downstairs. I'd upchuck again.'

'Oh, my God!' Hubie Muller repeated, even while he was wondering at what kind of a person he might be to have wanted to take that look.

He was shivering as he went on after Martin, his feet slipping and a piece of glass sheared his trouser leg open but only grazed the skin. He never even noticed.

Rogo snatched a glimpse as he went by and said morosely, 'I wouldn't want to die like that.'

His wife added, 'I wish you would!'

The party, with the seaman Pappas and Scott leading, came to a door. The Greek stopped and stared at it dully. The polished steel knob was at a curious level, just above their heads. Scott reached up and swung it open. They were all accustomed to the slightly raised, brass-bound thresholds of the doorways aboard ship, over which on the first day landlubbers were forever stumbling until they got used to them. But here there was one some two feet in height.

Scott warned, 'Careful!' and helped Miss Kinsale climb over it.

'What kind of a door is this?' asked Rosen.

Shelby answered him as he assisted his wife, 'It's upside-down.'

Belle Rosen said, 'I don't understand. Is everything going to be upside-down?'

Scott replied, 'I'm afraid so, Mrs Rosen. But we'll manage somehow.'

They were in a long, narrow corridor, a wall on one side and cabins opposite. The pipes that had run along the ceiling and were now underfoot were of a smaller size and spacing than those in the pantry.

'Where are we?' Martin asked.

'Still on "R" deck, I think,' Scott said. '"D" deck is just above us and "E" would be where Peters said Broadway was. We'd better go slowly. We don't want any turned ankles.'

Jane Shelby took a firmer grasp upon the arm of her husband as the thought flashed through her mind of what a sprained or broken ankle, or any kind of serious injury would mean, since Scott would leave such a person behind. They needed to make all haste but could not afford to do so.

They were helped however, by the emergency illumination spaced at intervals in the flooring, lamps projecting from between the pipelines and lighting up their footing. But they had progressed only some ten yards before these lights went out so suddenly that it left them stunned, in darkness darker than dark shot through with pyrotechnics at the back of their eyeballs from staring down at the now extinct lamps.

From behind them they heard Rogo's voice, 'Jesus Christ!' and then the hysterical scream of his wife, 'Mike, hold on to me! Don't let me go!'

There was another sound then, a rushing and a slapping of heavy footsteps against the steel piping and some of them were struck and bumped in the dark by a heavy body. They smelled the stink of sweat and garlic.

And then as suddenly as they had gone out, the lights came on again. But this time brighter and without the fluctuation that had characterized them before.

Robin whispered to his sister, 'I'll bet the other set of batteries has taken over.'

When their eyes had got used to the brightness, they noticed that Pappas the sailor detailed to lead them was no longer there.

Rogo said succinctly, 'Why, the dirty, yellow, son-of-a- bitch! He's taken a powder!'

CHAPTER VI

Nonnie Joins Up

The implication of that brief darkness came as an aftershock and for a moment the party huddled together. It was muggy in the corridor and the men removed their coats and tied them around their waists by the sleeves.

The front of Hubie Muller's shirt was frilled and pleated. His braces were black with violet flowers. Rogo wanted to say, 'Oh dearie, how lovely you look!' but refrained. He himself was trim and muscular with the thick neck of a steer rising from his open collar. His wife's artificial curls had begun to part from her own. She clawed them off the back of her head and threw them to the floor, where they nestled coiled between two sides of pipes like some small, furry animal.

Susan Shelby thought that Scott with his open collar and sleeves rolled up, axe and rope at his belt, looked like an old-fashioned movie hero. Her father found it hard to remember that he had been embarrassed by seeing the Minister on his knees. He was all man.

Jane Shelby's soft, wavy hair had come down about her face like a cloud through her exertions, to give her an extremely youthful aspect. But not a strand of Miss Kinsale's tight, glossy bun was out of place, nor had her frock been greatly disarranged. She glanced at her feet and remarked, 'Oh, dear, I'm afraid I've spoilt my shoes.'

The Beamer's highly-coloured face rising from his neckband, and his braces gave him rather the look of somebody's gardener. Pam, in her slip, her long frock carried over one arm, looked even more incongruous with her naďve blue eyes and English complexion.

Manny Rosen said, 'You all right, Mamma?' With his coat removed, one saw the waistband of his trousers was not pulled quite over his belly. What was left of his hair was greying. He had worried brown eyes and a baby's mouth.

She replied, 'Look, my dress is all torn.'

He said, 'You shouldn't have worse worries.'

She hauled it up to assess the damage and showed fat knees and thick legs descending seemingly without ankles to attach to tiny feet wedged into low-heeled black satin slippers. She had rather a motherly face above her several chins. Behind horn-rimmed spectacles, the dark eyes were still youthful, although she had passed sixty, and gave her an expression that was slightly roguish at times. Her hair, of which she was very proud, was blue-black and still unchanged -- she was always saying, 'Everybody thinks I'm touching it up, but I don't. My grandmother's hair was like this when she was seventy' -- and she wore it in two braids across the top of her head. She had an expensive diamond flower brooch clipped at her left shoulder. It caught her attention now and she took it off quickly, saying, 'Oh my goodness, Manny! You'd better put this in your pocket. I wouldn't want to lose it.'

James Martin asked, 'What was with the lights?'

Shelby said, 'They were probably on two banks of batteries. When one went out there was an automatic switch-over.'

Robin Shelby whispered to his sister, 'See? What did I tell you?'

Susan said, 'Okay, Spaceman! What would we do without you?'

Muller asked, 'What happened to our guide fellow?' and Martin replied, 'He blew.'

But Scott added, 'We don't need him. The staircase ought to be along here on the left. Let's go.'

They had just begun to move off behind Scott and Miss Kinsale, when they heard the distant sound of scrabbling uncertain footsteps.

The Beamer cried, 'Hold it! I think, the blighter's coming back.'

They stopped and turned to look. It was not the Greek, however, but a girl.

As she approached they saw that she was clad in a pink dressing-gown with swansdown lapels, collar and trim. Trying to run, she was slipping and sliding on the uneven surface, yet miraculously keeping her feet which were encased in soft, black leather dancing pumps. As she came on, she was crying in a curiously monotone cadence, like a whipped child that cannot stop, one wavering note of grief repeating itself over and over. And whenever her feet went between two conduits, it would emphasize her sobbing wail, as did each fresh breath she managed to draw. She held her dressing-gown pulled together over her breasts with her left hand and balanced herself with her right. Her hair, tumbling to her shoulders, was a true lightish red. She had not discovered the group as yet, for she was running in blind panic with her head down.

Rogo brought her up short a few yards away from them with a sharp cry of, 'Hey, there, Nonnie! Where the hell do you think you're going?'

Her sobbing turned into a scream of fright as she stood stock still, staring at them, both hands now clutching the dressing-gown about her throat. She had paused directly above one of the inset lights and they saw that the face beneath the hair, even with its dead white skin and pale green eyes swollen from crying, yet managed to be attractive.

It was an extraordinary one in that the fluffy aureole of fox-coloured hair emphasized that it was just too small and its features that much too tiny, as though everything -- nose, mouth, teeth and oval chin -- were in miniature. If they had been proper size, she would have been beautiful. She was a grown person and yet everything about her appeared to be infantile and it was with a guileless ingenuous innocence, like a hurt child going to its father, that she stumbled to Hubie Muller, and into his arms, where she clung crying, 'Oh my God, I'm so frightened! I'm so frightened! Hold me, hold me! Don't let me go! Please don't let me go! Oh, I'm so scared!'

Hubie Muller held the slight body close to him as she had begged, for she was shivering. He smelled the underarm body odour of fear mingled with some kind of cheap scent, but the hair on which his face now rested was clean and soft.

'Please let me stay!' she cried. 'Somefink awful has happened. I don' know what. I'm just so frightened I don't know where I am!'

'All right,' said Hubie in his soft voice, 'you're all right now.'

Miss Kinsale said, 'Why it's Miss Parry! The poor thing. She's terrified.'

Only Miss Kinsale and Rogo actually recognized her, the former because she had chatted with her several times and the latter because as a Broadway cop, he liked to have his nose in anything connected with show business. During the voyage he had got to know not only her but the entire company.

She danced in the chorus line of the cabaret that accompanied the cruise. The others had probably looked at her on an average of three times a week when performances were given and she high-kicked in unison with eleven other girls, but had never really seen her.

Rogo did not like that she was sheltering with a fellow who, if he was not a flit, was the next worse page in his book, a cream puff. He said, 'Pull yourself together, kid. You're amongst white people.'

The girl continued to cling to Muller, pressing the side of her face hard against his chest as though trying to hide. She was still trembling uncontrollably.

Then she cried, 'Where's' Sybil? Have you seen Sybil? I can't find anyone. I'm frightened! I don't know what's happened.'

Muller held the bony shoulders more tightly to try to stop the shaking that was racking her. He said, 'There, you're all right now. There's been an accident, but we'll look after you.' Then he added, 'Who's Sybil?'

'M-my roomie. She's my chum.' She gasped, 'Oh, my God, an accident?' And then looking up and seeing for the first time where she was, she held Muller off from her and cried, 'Oh dear, I'm sorry! I've done something awful. I don't know you, do I? We're not supposed to be with the gentlemen passengers. I've been having a regular cuddle, haven't I? Timmy said if she ever caught us, she'd . . .'

Muller said, 'Never mind.' He regarded the flower-like features in the small, anguished face. He had already recognized the commonness of her speech, which to the ears of The Beamer was a lower class mixture of Welsh and English. 'It's quite okay,' he repeated, 'none of us are really passengers any longer. We're all sort of sticking together here.'

The others now surrounded the strange little figure, the colour of whose hair clashed horribly with the pink of her négligée with its absurd fluffy white trimming. A piece of it had come loose from the collar and floated momentarily in the air like a thistledown, to settle by the black dancing slippers on her feet. She had retreated from Muller's arms and now she clutched the wrap more tightly about her, 'Oh, my God, I've got nothing on underneath!'

The Beamer said, 'Don't let that worry you, love, none of us are exactly overdressed.'

Muller explained, 'We've come from the dining-room. I'm Hubert Muller and this is Dr Scott who is trying to lead us up to where . . .'

More than anything it was Muller's soothing voice and his literalness that had brought the girl out of her panic. She blinked up at the big man saying, 'Oh, I know, the Minister gentleman. All the girls are crazy about him Oh, I'm sorry! I mean . . .'

Manny Rosen said, 'That's all right, he's used to it.'

The girl eyed them warily for an instant, to see whether fun was being made of her. Then she said finally, 'I'm Nona Parry, but everybody calls me Nonnie. I'm a Gresham.'

Muller fumbled with the phrase. He took in the chalk-white skin, the red-gold hair and the pale eyes. What was a Gresham? Then his mind snapped the word into the proper context. Of course, one of the dancers from the show! But he could not even remember her. Perhaps makeup changed her.

Nonnie looked to Scott and said, 'Can you help me? Have you seen any of the others?' But she remained standing close by Muller as though ready to retreat once more into his arms. 'I mean from our company. Nicky -- he's the funny one, Heather and Moira, the one that sings. And Timmy -- Mrs Timker. She looks after us.'

The members of the party looked at each other uneasily and Miss Kinsale put her thin hand to her face and said, 'Oh dear, they were all together on "C" deck. My cabin was close to theirs. They were such nice people.'

'But "C" deck was above the dining-room.' It slipped out before Jane Shelby could help herself.

Manny Rosen said, 'Don't. The kid ain't in any shape . . .'

Scott asked, 'When did you leave your cabin, Nonnie? Where were you going? Can you tell us exactly what happened?'

Nonnie shook her head slightly with the effort to recollect, so that her hair shimmered in the half light. She said, 'It was just before nine o'clock, I suppose. Timmy said there wouldn't be any show tonight and we didn't have to do anything if we didn't want to. I had a tray in our cabin and washed my hair. Sybil was still sick and didn't want anything. I was going to the hairdresser's to borrow some rollers and buy some hair spray.'

Muller thought.
How are we going to tell her? How will she take it?

Scott asked, 'On which deck is the hairdresser?'

Nonnie counted on her fingers and said, '"D" deck. That's one -- no, two down, because of the dining-room. I get so confused.'

Involuntarily several of the party looked up towards the ceiling. Nonnie caught their glances. 'Not up,' she said, 'down. You go down from "C" to "D", but you have to come this way because of the dining-room.'

Nobody said anything.

Nonnie continued, 'It was so late I didn't think anybody would be about at that time. But the hairdresser sometimes is still working, so I just slipped on . . .' she hesitated, 'this, and went down the first flight of stairs and was walking along to get to the next one, when I got thrown down like somebody pushed me. I don't know what was happening. I was on my side like somebody was holding me down and I couldn't get up. I was scared. My head felt dizzy. Then I fell.'

She stopped suddenly and a puzzled look came into her eyes. 'But I couldn't have fallen, could I? Because I'd already been thrown down in the passageway. But why would I be falling? But I did. I fell on my back, but I didn't hit my head. I was so dizzy everything seemed to be swimming around me. And then there was this terrible noise. Did you hear it? Screams and banging and crashing. I don't know where I was or what happened. I suppose I fainted. I'm not the kind that faints, but I must have. When I awoke up it was all dim-like. There was something funny about the lights and they weren't on the ceiling any more. I must've fallen down to some funny place in the ship.'

Linda muttered, 'So we all faw down! For Chrice sakes can't someone shut this little bum up?'

If the girl heard her, she paid no attention. She was wound up. 'I got up and didn't know which way to go. I wanted to get up the stairs and get back to Sybil. I went the way I thought they ought to be -- where I come from. But maybe because I was so dizzy I got turned around. I couldn't find them and it was dark. I came to one place where I thought the stairs was, but there was only a hole there and I looked down and there was some water. When I saw the water, I got frightened again and I thought maybe something had happened to the ship and I'd got to get back to my cabin. So I started to run and then when the lights went out, I thought I was going to die and began to cry like a baby. I'm afraid I made a fool of myself. I'm sorry,' she stopped. She had run down like a clock.

'No, you haven't,' Hubie comforted, 'it was enough to frighten anyone.'

Scott said, 'She'll have to know. Will you tell her, Hubie?'

'Oh Christ!' said Muller. 'Must I?'

Nonnie was looking from one to the other of the party, still confused but slightly more at ease by those whom she had recognized from having met or seen in the audience. 'Tell me what?'

Half under her breath Jane Shelby said, 'No! Don't.' She wanted to spare her and at the same time knew that it was impossible. Everything that the Minister did or suggested was right, yet at the same time seemed cruel as well.

Scott went on, 'Yes, you'd better. We've got to get going while there's light.'

Muller took her hand in his and said, 'Nonnie, I'm afraid you're in for another shock.' Then he told her quietly and simply while the others watched her uneasily, wondering how she would take it. That class of people always went to pieces and kicked up a terrible fuss.

But Nonnie did not. If anything she went yet another shade whiter and her face seemed even smaller. She only murmured, 'May I sit down for a second?' and did. They waited for the tears, but she had none of those either. Her fight was to get a grip upon herself in front of them all. She put her hands before her face for only an instant and then climbed back to her feet.