H.M.S. Ulysses Part 50

The Engineer-Commander sighed, picked up the Thermos.

"In that case, perhaps you would care to join me in a cup of coffee?"

Riley looked up, grinned, and when he spoke it was in a very creditable imitation of Colonel Chinstrap of the famous ITMA radio programme.

"Ectually, I don't mind if I do!"

Vallery rolled over on his side, his legs doubled up, his hand automatically reaching for the towel. His emaciated body shook violently, and the sound of the harsh, retching cough beat back at him from the iron walls of his shelter. G.o.d, he thought, oh, G.o.d, it's never been as bad as this before. Funny, he thought, it doesn't hurt any more, not even a little bit. The attack eased. He looked at the crimson, sodden towel, flung it in sudden disgust and with what little feeble strength was left him into the darkest corner of the shelter.

"You carry this d.a.m.ned s.h.i.+p on your back!" Unbidden, old Socrates's phrase came into his mind and he smiled faintly. Well, if ever they needed him, it was now. And if he waited any longer, he knew he could never be able to go.

He sat up, sweating with the effort, swung his legs carefully over the side. As his feet touched the deck, the Ulysses pitched suddenly, steeply, and he fell forward against a chair, sliding helplessly to the floor. It took an eternity of time, an infinite effort to drag himself to his feet again: another effort like that, he knew, would surely kill him.

And then there was the door, that heavy, steel door. Somehow he had to open it, and he knew he couldn't. But he laid hold of the handle and the door opened, and suddenly, miraculously, he was outside, gasping as the cruel, sub-zero wind seared down through his throat and wasted lungs.

He looked fore and aft. The fires were dying, he saw, the fires on the Stirling and on his own p.o.o.p-deck. Thank G.o.d for that at least. Beside him, two men had just finished levering the door off the Asdic cabinet, were flas.h.i.+ng a torch inside. But he couldn't bear to look: he averted his head, staggered with outstretched hands for the gate of the compa.s.s platform.

Turner saw him coming, hurried to meet him, helped him slowly to his chair.

"You've no right to be here," he said quietly. He looked at Vallery for a long moment. "How are you feeling, sir?"

"I'm a good deal better, now, thanks," Vallery replied. He smiled and went on: "We Rear-Admirals have our responsibilities, you know, Commander: it's time I began to earn my princely salary."

"Stand back, there!" Carrington ordered curtly. "Into the wheelhouse or up on the ladder, all of you. Let's have a look at this."

He looked down at the great, steel hatch cover. Looking at it, he realised he'd never before appreciated just how solid, how ma.s.sive that cover was. The hatch cover, open no more than an inch, was resting on a tommy-bar. He noticed the broken, stranded pulley, the heavy counterweight lying against the sill of the wheelhouse. So that's off, he thought: thank the Lord for that, anyway.

"Have you tried a block and tackle?" he asked abruptly.

"Yes, sir," the man nearest him replied. He pointed to a tangled heap in a corner. "No use, sir. The ladder takes the strain all right, but we can't get the hook under the hatch, except sideways, and then it slips off all the time." He gestured to the hatch. "And every clip's either bent, they were opened by sledges, or at the wrong angle.... I think I know how to use a block and tackle, sir."

"I'm sure you do," Carrington said absently. "Here, give me a hand, will you?"

He hooked his fingers under the hatch, took a deep breath. The seaman at one side of the cover, the other side was hard against the after bulkhead, did the same. Together they strained, thighs and backs quivering under the strain. Carrington felt his face turning crimson with effort, heard the blood pounding in his ears, and relaxed. They were only killing themselves and that d.a.m.ned cover hadn't s.h.i.+fted a fraction, someone had done remarkably well to open it even that far. But even though they were tired and anything but fit, Carrington thought, two men should have been able to raise an edge of that hatch. He suspected that the hinges were jammed, or the deck buckled. If that were so, he mused, even if they could hook on a tackle, it would be of little help. A tackle was of no use when a sudden, immediate application of force was required; it always yielded that fraction before tightening up.

He sank to his knees, put his mouth to the edge of the hatch.

"Below there!" he called. "Can you hear me?"

"We can hear you." The voice was weak, m.u.f.fled. "For G.o.d's sake get us out of here. We're trapped like rats!". "Is that you, Brierley? Don't worry, we'll get you out. How's the water down there?"

"Water? More b.l.o.o.d.y oil than water! There must be a fracture right through the port oil tank. I think the ring main pa.s.sage must be flooded, too."

"How deep is it?"

"Three quarters way up already! We're standing on generators, hanging on to switchboards. One of our boys is gone already, we couldn't hold him."

Even m.u.f.fled by the hatch, the strain, the near desperation in the voice was all too obvious. "For pity's sake, hurry up!"

"I said we'd get you out!" Carrington's voice was sharp, authoritative.

The confidence was in his voice only, but he knew how quickly panic could spread down there. "Can you push from below at all?"

"There's room for only one on the ladder," Brierley shouted. "It's impossible to get any pressure, any leverage upwards." There was a sudden silence, then a series of m.u.f.fled oaths.

"What's up?" Carrington called sharply.

"It's difficult to hang on," Brierley shouted. "There are waves two feet high down there. One of the men was washed off there.... I think he's back again. It's pitch dark down here."

Carrington heard the clatter of heavy footsteps above him, and straightened up. It was Petersen. In that narrow s.p.a.ce, the blond Norwegian stoker looked gigantic. Carrington looked at him, looked at the immense span of shoulder, the great depth of chest, one enormous hand hanging loosely by his side, the other negligently holding three heavy crowbars and a sledge as if they were so many lengths of cane.

Carrington looked at him, looked at the still, grave eyes so startlingly blue under the flaxen hair, and all at once he felt oddly confident, rea.s.sured.

"We can't open this, Petersen," Carrington said baldly. "Can you?"

"I will try, sir." He laid down his tools, stooped, caught the end of the tommy-bar projecting beneath the corner of the cover. He straightened quickly, easily: the hatch lifted a fraction, then the bar, putty, like in its apparent malleability, bent over almost to a right angle.

"I think the hatch is jammed." Petersen wasn't even breathing heavily.

"It will be the hinges, sir."

He walked round the hatch, peered closely at the hinges, then grunted in satisfaction. Three times the heavy sledge, swung with accuracy and all the power of these great shoulders behind them, smashed squarely into the face of the outer hinge. On the third stroke the sledge snapped.

Petersen threw away the broken shaft in disgust, picked up another, much heavier crowbar.

Again the bar bent, but again the hatch cover lifted an inch this time.

Petersen picked up the two smaller sledges that had been used to open clips, hammered at the hinges till these sledges, too, were broken and useless.

This time he used the last two crowbars together, thrust under the same corner of the hatch. For five, ten seconds he remained bent over them, motionless. He was breathing deeply, quickly, now, then suddenly the breathing stopped. The sweat began to pour off his face, his whole body to quiver under the t.i.tanic strain: then slowly, incredibly, both crowbars began to bend.

Carrington watched, fascinated. He had never seen anything remotely like this before: he was sure no one else had either. Neither of these bars, he would have sworn, would have bent under less than half a ton of pressure. It was fantastic, but it was happening: and as the giant straightened, they were bending more and more. Then suddenly, so unexpectedly that everyone jumped, the hatch sprang open five or six inches and Petersen crashed backwards against the bulkhead, the bars falling from his hand and splas.h.i.+ng into the water below.

Petersen flung himself back at the hatch, tigerish in his ferocity. His fingers hooked under the edge, the great muscles of his arms and shoulders lifted and locked as he tugged and pulled at that ma.s.sive hatch cover. Three times he heaved, four times, then on the fifth the hatch almost literally leapt up with a screech of tortured metal and smashed shudderingly home into the retaining latch of the vertical stand behind. The hatch was open. Petersen just stood there smiling, no one had seen Petersen smile for a long time, his face bathed in sweat, his great chest rising and falling rapidly as his starved lungs sucked in great draughts of air.

The water level in the Low Power Room was within two feet of the hatch:

sometimes, when the Ulysses plunged into a heavy sea, the dark, oily liquid splashed over the hatch coaming into the flat above. Quickly, the trapped men were hauled to safety. Soaked in oil from head to foot, their eyes gummed and blinded, they were men overcome by reaction, utterly spent and on the verge of collapse, so far gone that even their fear could not overcome their exhaustion. Three, in particular, could do no more than cling helplessly to the ladder, would almost certainly have slipped back into the surging blackness below; but Petersen bent over and plucked them clean out of the Low Power Room as if they had been little children.

"Take these men to the Sick Bay at once!" Carrington ordered. He watched the dripping, s.h.i.+vering men being helped up the ladder, then turned to the giant stoker with a smile. "We'll all thank you later, Petersen.

We're not finished yet. This hatch must be closed and battened down."

"It will be difficult, sir," Petersen said gravely.

"Difficult or not, it must be done." Carrington was emphatic.

Regularly, now, the water was spilling over the coaming, was lapping the sill of the wheelhouse. "The emergency steering position is gone: if the wheelhouse is flooded, we're finished."