San Andreas Part 5

'Indeed it is, sir.' Dr Sinclair also knew how to sound decisive.

The Bo'sun surveyed the two doctors and Patterson with an impa.s.sive face that was much more expressive than any expression could have been and pa.s.sed through the doorway into Ward B. There were ten patients in this ward and two nurses, one very much a brunette, the other very much a blonde. The brunette, Nurse Irene, was barely in her twenties, hailed from Northern Ireland, was pretty, dark-eyed and of such a warm and happy disposition that no one would have dreamed of calling her by her surname, which no one seemed to know anyway. She looked up as the Bo'sun entered and for the first time since she'd joined she failed to give him a welcoming smile. He patted her shoulder gently and walked to the other end of the ward where Nurse Magnusson was rebandaging a seaman's arm.

Janet Magnusson was a few years older than Irene and taller, but not much. She had a more than faintly windswept, Viking look about her and was unquestionably good-looking: she shared the Bo'sun's flaxen hair and blue-grey eyes but not, fortunately, his burnt-brick complexion. Like the younger nurse, she was much given to smiling: like her, the smile was in temporary abeyance. She straightened as the Bo'sun approached, reached out and touched his arm.

'It was terrible, wasn't it, Archie?'

'Not a thing I would care to do again. I'm glad you weren't there, Janet.'

'I didn't mean that - the burial, I mean. It was you who sewed up the worst of them - they say that the Radio Officer was, well, all bits and pieces.'

'An exaggeration. Who told you that?'

'Johnny Holbrook. You know, the young orderly. The one that's scared of you.'

There's n.o.body scared of me,' the Bo'sun said absently. He looked around the ward. 'Been quite some changes here.'

'We had to turf some of the so-called recuperating patients out. You'd have thought they were being sent to their deaths. Siberia, at least. Nothing the matter with them. Not malingerers, really, they just liked soft beds and being spoiled.'

'And who was spoiling them, if not you and Irene? They just couldn't bear to be parted from you. Where's the lioness?'

Janet gave him a disapproving look. 'Are you referring to Sister Morrison?'

That's the lioness I mean. I have to beard her in her den.'

'You don't know her, Archie. She's very nice really. Maggie's my friend. Truly.' She's very nice really. Maggie's my friend. Truly.'

'Maggie?'

'When we're off duty, always. She's in the next ward.'

'Maggie! Good lord! I thought she disapproved of you because she disapproves of me because she disapproves of me talking to you.'

'Fiddlesticks. And Archie?'

'Yes?'

'A lioness doesn't have a beard.'

The Bo'sun didn't deign to answer. He moved into the adjacent ward. Sister Morrison wasn't there. Of the eight patients, only two, McGuigan and Jones, were visibly conscious. The Bo'sun approached their adjacent beds and said: 'How's it going, boys?'

'Ach, we're fine, Bo'sun,' McGuigan said. 'We shouldn't be here at all.'

'You'll stay here until you're told to leave.' Eighteen years old. He was wondering how long it would take them to recover from the sight of the almost decapitated Rawlings lying by the wheel when Sister Morrison entered by the far door.

'Good afternoon, Sister Morrison.'

'Good afternoon, Mr McKinnon. Making your medical rounds, I see.'

The Bo'sun felt the stirrings of anger but contented himself with looking thoughtful: he was probably unaware that his thoughtful expression, in certain circ.u.mstances, could have a disquieting effect on people.

'I just came to have a word with you, Sister.' He looked around the ward. 'Not a very lively bunch, are they?'

'I hardly think this is the time or place for levity, Mr McKinnon.' The lips were not as compressed as they might have been but there was an appreciable lack of warmth behind the steel-rimmed spectacles.

The Bo'sun looked at her for long seconds, during which time she began to show distinct signs of uneasiness. Like most people - with the exception of the timorous Johnny Holbrook - she regarded the Bo'sun as being cheerful and easy-going, with the rider, in her case, that he was probably a bit simple: it required only one glance at that cold, hard, bleak face to realize how totally wrong she had been. It was an unsettling experience.

The Bo'sun spoke in a slow voice. 'I am not in the mood for levity, Sister. I've just buried fifteen men. Before I buried them I had to sew them up in their sheets of canvas. Before I did that I had to gather up their bits and pieces and stick their guts back inside. Then I sewed them up. Then I buried them. I didn't see you among the mourners, Sister.'

The Bo'sun was more than aware that he shouldn't have spoken to her like that and he was also aware that what he had gone through had affected him more than he had thought. Under normal circ.u.mstances it was impossible that he should have been so easily provoked: but the circ.u.mstances were abnormal and the provocation too great.

'I've come for some plate gla.s.s, such as you have on the tops of your trolleys and trays. I need them urgently and I don't need them for any light-hearted purposes. Or do you require an explanation?'

She didn't say whether she required an explanation or not. She didn't do anything dramatic like sinking into a chair, reaching out for the nearest support or even putting a hand to her mouth. Only her colour changed. Sister Morrison had the kind of complexion that, like her eyes and lips, was in marked contrast to her habitually severe expression and steel-rimmed gla.s.ses, the kind of complexion that would have had the cosmetic tyc.o.o.ns sending their scientists back to the bench: at that moment, however, the peaches had faded from the traditional if rarely seen peaches and cream of the traditional if equally rarely seen English rose.

The Bo'sun removed the gla.s.s top from a table by Jones's bedside, looked around for trays, saw none, nodded to Sister Morrison and went back to Ward B. Janet Magnusson looked at him in surprise.

'Is that what you went for?' The Bo'sun nodded. 'Maggie - Sister Morrison - had no objection?'

'Nary an objection. Have you any gla.s.s-topped trays?'

Chief Patterson and the others had already begun lunch when the Bo'sun returned, five sheets of plate gla.s.s under his arm. Patterson looked faintly surprised.

'No trouble then, Bo'sun?'

'One only has to ask. I'll need some tools for the bridge.'

'Fixed,' Jamieson said. 'I've just been to the engine-room. There's a box gone up to the bridge - all the tools you'll require, nuts, bolts, screws, insulating tape, a power drill and a power saw.'

'Ah. Thank you. But I'll need power.'

'Power you have. Only a temporary cable, mind you, but the power is there. And lights, of course. The phone will take some time.'

'That's fine. Thank you, Mr Jamieson.' He looked at Patterson. 'One other thing, sir. We have a fair number of nationalities in our crew. The captain of the Greek tanker Andropolous, isn't it? - might have a mixed crew too. I should think there's a fair chance, sir, that one of our men and one of the Greek crew might have a common language. Perhaps you could make enquiries, sir.'

'And how would that help, Bo'sun?'

'Captain Andropolous can navigate.'

'Of course, of course. Always the navigation, isn't it, Bo'sun?'

'There's nothing without it, sir. Do you think you could get hold of Naseby and Trent - they're the two men who were with me here when we were attacked? Weather's.-worsening, sir, and we have ice forming on the deck. Would you have them rig up lifelines between here and the superstructure?'

'Worsening?' Dr Singh said. 'How much worse, Mr McKinnon?'

'Quite a bit, I'm afraid. Bridge barometer is smashed but I think the one in the Captain's cabin is intact. I'll check.' He brought out the hand compa.s.s which he'd removed from the lifeboat. 'This thing's virtually useless but at least it does show changes in direction. We're wallowing in the troughs port side to, so that means the wind and the sea are coming at us on the port beam. Wind direction is changing rapidly, we've backed at least five degrees since we came down here. Wind's roughly north-east. If experience is any guide that means heavy snow, heavy seas and a steadily dropping temperature.'

'No slightest light in the gloom, is that it, Mr McKinnon?' Dr Singh said. 'Where every prospect pleases and only man is vile. Except this is the other way round.'

'A tiny speck of light, Doctor. If the temperature keeps falling like this, the cold room is going to stay cold and the frozen meat and fish should stay that way. And we do have a vile man - or men - aboard or we shouldn't be in the state we are. You're worried about your patients, aren't you, Doctor - especially the ones in Ward A?'

'Telepathy, Mr McKinnon. If conditions deteriorate much more they're going to start falling out of their beds and the last thing I want to do is to start strapping wounded men to their beds.'

'And the last thing I want is for the superstructure to topple over the side.'

Jamieson had pushed back his chair and was on his feet. 'I have my priorities right, no, Bo'sun?'

'Indeed, Mr Jamieson. Thank you very much.' Dr Singh half-smiled. 'Not more telepathy?' The Bo'sun smiled back. Dr Singh appeared to be very much the right man in the right place. 'I think he's gone to have a word with the men rigging up the telephone line from the bridge to the engine-room.'

'And then I press the b.u.t.ton,' Patterson said, 'Yes, sir. And then southwest. I don't have to tell you why.'

'You might tell a landlubber why,' Dr Singh said. 'Of course. Two things. Heading southwest will mean that the wind and the seas from the north-east are dead astern. That should eliminate all rolling so that you don't have to put your patients in straitjackets or whatever. There'll be some pitching, of course, but not much and even then Mr Patterson can smooth that out by adjusting the ship's speed to the wave speed. The other big advantage is that by heading southwest there's no land we can b.u.mp into for hundreds of miles to come. If you will excuse me, gentlemen.' The Bo'sun left, together with his sheets of plate gla.s.s and hand compa.s.s.

'Doesn't miss much, does he?' Dr Singh said. 'Competent, you would say, Mr Patterson?'

'Competent? He's more than that. Certainly the best bo'sun I've ever sailed with - and I've never known a bad bo'sun yet. If we ever get to Aberdeen - and with McKinnon around I rate our chances better than even - I won't be the man you'll have to thank.'

The Bo'sun arrived on the bridge, a bridge now over-illuminated with two garish arc lamps, to find Ferguson and Curran already there, with enough plywood of various shapes and sizes to build a modest hut. Neither of the two men could be said to be able to walk, not in the proper sense of the term. m.u.f.fled to the ears and with balaclavas and hoods pulled low over their foreheads, they were so swaddled in layers of jerseys, trousers and coats that they were barely able to waddle: given a couple of white fur coats they would have resembled nothing so much as a pair of polar bears, that had given up on their diet years ago. As it was, they were practically white already: the snow, driving almost horizontally, swept, without let or hindrance, through the yawning gaps where the port for'ard screens and the upper wing door screen had once been. Conditions weren't improved by the fact that, at a height of some forty feet above the hospital, the effects of the rolling were markedly worse than they had been down below, so bad, in fact, that it was very difficult to keep one's footing, and that only by hanging on to something. The Bo'sun carefully laid the plate gla.s.s in a corner and wedged it so that it wouldn't slide all over the deck. The rolling didn't bother him, but the creaking and groaning of the superstructure supports and the occasional juddering vibration that shook the bridge bothered him a very great deal.

'Curran! Quickly! Chief Engineer Patterson. You'll find him in the hospital. Tell him to start up and turn the ship either into the wind or away from the wind. Away is better - that means hard a-starboard. Tell him the superstructure is going to fall over the side any minute.'

For a man usually slow to obey any order and handicapped though he was by his constricted lower limbs, Curran made off with remarkable alacrity. It could have been that he was a good man in an emergency, but more likely he didn't fancy being on the bridge when it vanished into the Barents Sea.

Ferguson eased two layers of scarf from his mouth. 'Difficult working conditions, Bo'sun. Impossible, a man might say. And have you seen the temperature?'

The Bo'sun glanced at the bulkhead thermometer which was about the only thing still working on the bridge. 'Two above,' he said.

'Ah! Two above. But two above what? Fahrenheit, that's what it's above. That means thirty degrees of frost.' He looked at the Bo'sun in what he probably regarded as a meaningful fashion. 'Have you ever heard of the chill factor, eh?'

The Bo'sun spoke with commendable restraint. 'Yes, Ferguson, I have heard of the chill factor.'

'For every knot of wind the temperature, as far as the skin is concerned, falls by one degree.' Ferguson had something on his mind and as far as he was concerned the Bo'sun had never heard of the chill factor. 'Wind's at least thirty knots. That means it's sixty below on this bridge. Sixty!' At that moment, at the end of an especially alarming roll, the superstructure gave a very loud creak indeed, more of a screech than a creak, and it didn't require any kind of imagination to visualize metal tearing under lateral stress.

'If you want to leave the bridge,' the Bo'sun said, 'I'm not ordering you to stay.'

'Trying to shame me into staying, eh? Trying to appeal to my better nature? Well, I got news for you. I ain't got no better feelings, mate.'

The Bo'sun said, mildly: 'n.o.body aboard this ship calls me "mate".'

'Bo'sun.' Ferguson made no move to carry out his implied threat and he wasn't even showing any signs of irresolution. 'Do I get danger money for this? Overtime, perhaps?'

'A couple of tots of Captain Bowen's special malt Scotch. Let's spend our last moments usefully, Ferguson. We'll start with some measuring.'

'Already done.' Ferguson showed the spring-loaded steel measuring tape in his hand and tried hard not to smile in smug self-satisfaction. 'Me and Curran have already measured the front and side screens. Written down on that bit of plywood there.'

'Fine, fine.' The Bo'sun tested both the electric drill and electric saw. Both worked. 'No problem. We'll cut the plywood three inches wider and higher than your measurements to get the overlap we need. Then we'll drill holes top, bottom and sides, three-quarters of an inch in, face the plywood up to the screen bearers, mark the metal and drill the holes through the steel.'

That steel is three-eighths of an inch. Take to next week to drill all those holes.'

The Bo'sun looked through the tool box and came up with three packets of drills. The first he discarded. The drills in the second, all with blue tips, he showed to Ferguson.

'Tungsten. Goes through steel like b.u.t.ter. Mr Jamieson doesn't miss much.' He paused and c.o.c.ked his head as if listening, though it was a purely automatic reaction, any sound from the after end of the ship was carried away by the wind: but there was no mistaking the throbbing that pulsed through the superstructure. He looked at Ferguson, whose face cracked into what might almost have been a smile.

The Bo'sun moved to the starboard wing door - the sheltered side of the ship - and peered through the gap where the screen had been in the upper half of the door. The snow was so heavy that the seas moving away from the San Andreas were as much imagined as seen. The ship was still rolling in the troughs. A vessel of any size that has been lying dead in the water can take an unconscionable time -depending, of course, on the circ.u.mstances - to gather enough momentum to have steerage way on, but after about another minute the Bo'sun became aware that the ship was sluggishly answering to the helm. He couldn't see this but he could feel it: a definite quartering motion had entered into the rolling to which they had been accustomed for some hours.

McKinnon moved away from the wing door. 'We're turning to starboard. Mr Patterson has decided to go with the wind. We'll soon have both sea and snow behind us. Fine, fine.'

'Fine, fine,' Ferguson said. This was about twenty seconds later and the tone of his voice indicated that everything was all but fine. He was, indeed, acutely uneasy and with reason. The San Andreas was heading almost due south, the heavy seas bearing down on her port quarter were making her corkscrew violently and the markedly increased creaking and groaning of the superstructure was doing little enough for his morale. 'G.o.d's sake, why couldn't we have stayed where we were?'

'A minute's time and you'll see why.' And in a minute's time he did see why. The corks.c.r.e.w.i.n.g and rolling gradually eased and ceased altogether, so did the creaking in the superstructure and the San Andreas, on an approximately southwest course, was almost rock-steady in the water. There was a slight pitching, but, compared to what they had just experienced, it was so negligible as not to be worth the mentioning. Ferguson, with a stable deck beneath his feet, the fear of imminent drowning removed and the snowstorm so squarely behind them that not a flake reached the bridge, had about him an air of profound relief.

Shortly after the Bo'sun and Ferguson had started sawing out the rectangles of plywood, four men arrived on the bridge - Jamieson, Curran, McCrimmon and another stoker called Stephen. Stephen was a Pole and was called always by his first name: n.o.body had ever been heard to attempt the surname of Przynyszewski. Jamieson carried a telephone, Curran two black heaters, McCrimmon two radiant heaters and Stephen two spools of rubber-insulated cable, one thick, one thin, both of which he unreeled as he went.

'Well, this is more like it, Bo'sun,' Jamieson said. 'A millpond, one might almost call it. Done a power of good for the morale down below. Some people have even rediscovered their appet.i.tes. Speaking of appet.i.tes, how's yours? You must be the only person aboard who hasn't had lunch today.'

'It'll keep.' The Bo'sun looked to where McCrimmon and Stephen were already attaching wires from the heaters to the heavy cable. 'Thanks for those. They'll come in handy in an hour or two when we've managed to keep all this fresh air out.'

'More than handy, I should have thought.' Jamieson shivered. 'My word, it is fresh up here. What's the temperature?'

The Bo'sun looked at the thermometer. 'Zero. That's two degrees it's dropped in a few minutes. I'm afraid, Mr Jamieson, that we're going to be very cold tonight.'

'Not in the engine-room,' Jamieson said. He unscrewed the back of the telephone and started connecting it to the slender cable. 'Mr Patterson thinks this is an unnecessary luxury and that you just want it so that you can talk to someone when you feel lonely. Says that keeping the stern on to wind and seas is child's play and that he could do it for hours without deviating more than two or three degrees off course.'

'I've no doubt he could. That way we'll never see Aberdeen. You can tell Mr Patterson that the wind is backing and that if it backs far enough and he still keeps stern on to the wind and sea we'll end up by making a small hole in the north of Norway and a large hole in ourselves.'

Jamieson smiled. 'I'll explain that to the Chief. I don't think the possibility has occurred to him - it certainly didn't to me.'

'And when you go below, sir, would you send up Naseby? He's an experienced helmsman.'

'I'll do that. Need any more help up here?'

'No, sir. The three of us are enough.'

'As you say.' Jamieson screwed the back of the telephone in place, pressed the call-up b.u.t.ton, spoke briefly and hung up. 'Satisfaction guaranteed. Are you through, McCrimmon? Stephen?' Both men nodded, and Jamieson called the engine-room again, asked for power to be switched on and told McCrimmon and Stephen to switch on one heater apiece, one black, one radiant. 'Still require McCrimmon as a runner, Bo'sun?'

The Bo'sun nodded towards the telephone. 'Thanks to you, I've got my runner.'

One of McCrimmon's radiant heaters had started to glow a dim red. Stephen removed a hand from the black heater and nodded.

'Fine. Switch off. It would seem, Bo'sun, that Flannelfoot has knocked off for the day. We'll go below now, see what cabins we can make habitable. I'm afraid there won't be many. The only way we can make a cabin habitable - the clearing up won't take long, I've already got a couple of our boys working on that - is to replace defective heating systems. That's all that matters. Unfortunately, most of the doors have been blasted off their hinges or cut away by the oxy-acetylene torches and there's no point in replacing heating if we can't replace the doors. We'll do what we can.' He spun the useless wheel. 'When we've finished below and you've finished here - and when the temperature is appropriate for myself and other hothouse plants from the engine-room - we'll come and have a go at this steering.'

'Big job, sir?'

'Depends upon what damage in the decks, below. Don't hold me to it, Bo'sun, but there's a fair chance that we'll have it operational, in what you'll no doubt regard as our customary crude fashion, some time this evening. To give me some leeway, I won't specify what time.'

The temperature on the bridge continued to drop steadily and because numbing cold slows up a man both physically and mentally it took McKinnon and his two men well over two hours to complete their task: had the temperature been anything like normal they could probably have done it in less than half the time. About three-quarters of the way through the repairs they had switched on all four heaters and the temperature had begun to rise, albeit very slowly.

McKinnon was well enough satisfied with their end product. Five sheets of hardboard had been bolted into position, each panel fitted with an inlet oblong of plate gla.s.s, one: large, the other four, identical in shape, about half the size. The large one was fitted in the centre, directly ahead of where the helmsman normally stood: two of the others were fitted on either side of this and the remaining two on the upper sections of the wing doors. The inevitable gaps between the gla.s.s and the plywood and between the plywood and the metal to which they had been bonded had been sealed off with Hartley's compound, a yellow plastic material normally used for waterproofing external electrical fittings. The bridge-was as draughtproof as it was possible to make it.