Tapestry of Spies

8 THE WATER

We’re sinking,” he announced, trying to sort out what the bloody hell to do. “We’re sinking,” he repeated, as if to convince himself, but at that moment a sailor leaped off the bridge down to them, bounded by, and launched himself into the darkness.

“Robert, oh God,” Sylvia screamed. He held her tightly. Steam had added itself to the spectacle and curled up everywhere from the decks and out of hatchways. One of the Turks hollered at them from the bridge but it was all gibberish. Above, the stars reeled and whirled through the rising steam.

Florry found himself yelling, “Lifeboat! Lifeboat aft.” Yes, he’d seen it with old Gruenwald that afternoon. “It’s this way, come on.”

He pointed in the darkness, aware suddenly that the destination his finger described also seemed to be the destination of the ship as it slid into the sea.

He grabbed Sylvia and they began to wobble down the slanting deck, the old count close behind. The Akim’s relationship to the surface had grown exceedingly tentative. She lurched under their feet as she fought for some leverage against the sucking waves and the hole in her own guts that dragged her down. She’d begun not merely to slant but to tilt, corkscrewing into the sea.

As they moved they found themselves not walking on the deck proper, but on the juncture between deck and bulkhead, one foot on each, with the awkwardness of working their way down a gutter. A garish fire blazed up ahead. It was almost purple in the dark. Florry felt the heat pressing up from the boards beneath his feet. Smoke and steam mingled in the atmosphere. He breathed, getting smoke, and coughed. He pulled her hand along.

“Just a little farther.”

“We’re going to die.”

“Not if we keep our heads.”

A sudden BOOM blew a gout of flame out of the hatchway just ahead of them.

The count screamed.

Chairs and crates plunged about the deck like missiles. Steam continued to gush from the blown-out hatchway and suddenly a man crab-walked out in scalded agony, pulled his way to the rail uttering the name of God ? or blaspheming with it ? and hurled himself over. The boiler had ruptured and the live steam was cooking the engine-room crew. Another man groped in the steam’s murk and Florry grabbed for him, but he fell back and was gone. Florry could hear the screams from inside.

“Come on, damn it,” Florry yelled, for Sylvia had seemed to settle back, and behind her poor old Witte looked numb with shock. The ship, meanwhile, was steadily rising behind them, seeming to encourage their progress. Florry yanked her past the hatch, which, as they fled by, made them wince for the heat it poured out.

“Come on, count,” Florry called. “Come on.” The old man managed to get by the opening and the energy seemed to liberate him; now he led them on their plunge through the smoke and steam.

“No. No. Nooooooo.”

He stopped and felt to his knees.

“It’s ruined. God, it’s ruined,” and he lapsed into Polish.

And so it was: just ahead, the empty lifeboat hung limply off one davit, enmeshed in a tangle of ropes. At least a dozen Arabs squawked and fought and scampered about it, some beating ineffectually on the jammed pulley, others simply howling insanely against their fates.

“Oh God, we’re finished,” said Sylvia.

“No,” shouted Florry, but even as he insisted, a new burst of steam ripped up from the decks, and the ship seemed to groan once again in pain and slipped farther into the water.

“It’s no use,” sobbed Witte.

Suddenly, with a freakish crack, the second davit broke and the lifeboat plunged toward the sea. It struck the water with great force in a roar of foam and flailing lines. Yet even as the foam subsided, it seemed to emerge intact and afloat and squirt across the surface.

“Can you swim? Sylvia, listen, can you swim?”

“Yes,” she muttered through trembling lips.

“Swim for the boat. You’ll be safe in the boat.”

“Come on, Robert.”

“You go. I’ll get this old man out.”

“Good-bye then.”

She lunged to the railing, and with a dive that was almost a jump, she disappeared over the side.

Florry tugged the old man to the railing.

“Can you swim?”

The old man clung to him tenaciously.

“No,” he gulped. “No, I can’t.”

“Look, you’ll die here for certain. Don’t you see? The water is your only hope.”

“Ah, God. To end like this. I ? ah, God, it’s so?”

“Look, when you hit the water, look about for wreckage. Perhaps you can thrash your way to it. Now take off your coat, Count Witte, and get going. I’ll be over next and I’ll help you.”

“God bless you, Florry.”

“Hurry. We’ll both be gone if you don’t move.”

The water was littered with planks and bobbing heads in the purple flicker of the flames.

“Good luck, old man,” Florry said, and rolled him off. He fell screaming and hit the water with a crash.

The ship yielded further still, and Florry felt it begin to gather momentum as it descended. He took a last look around and could see that the stern had broken off and was low in the sea about fifty yards off, amid hissing bubbles and steam. The stench of petroleum lingered everywhere and fire moved across the water itself.

Florry shucked his own jacket, kicked off his shoes, and leaped. He seemed to hang in the air for an eternity, until finally the sea’s green calm claimed him. Utter quiet assailed him after the chaos above. In the cold thick murk, bubbles surrounded him. He fought against the water, but was not entirely sure which way was up. His legs cramped and knit. His clothes became leaden, pulling him down. His lungs filled with panic, which spread to his brain, arriving with an urge to surrender. But instead, in a spasm of clawing, he broke the surface. He could see a dozen other bobbing heads and the lifeboat, as yet tantalizingly empty, just ahead.

He looked about for the girl but saw nothing.

“Sylvia!”

“I’m all right! Where’s the old man?”

“Make for the boat! Hurry!”

“Yes. Yes.”

Florry looked back toward the ship, which had become nothing but a low silhouette lit by spurting flames and rising vapor; it had settled almost entirely into the water. A few small oil fires burned on the surface, amid crates and chairs and other wreckage. The ship gave a final shudder and slid under the water. It went in backward, its prow last, as if with infinite regret. From all about, there rose shouts and screams.

“Count Witte!” he shouted. “Count!”

There was no answer.

Florry paddled about a bit. It seemed to have gotten calm suddenly.

“Count Witte!”

There was still no answer. He looked about. The old man was gone. Damn the luck, he thought bitterly. Gone, gone, gone. Something brushed against Florry’s face in the water. He reached out to touch it with his finger: it was a rotting cigarette. He looked about in the flickering light: the surface of the water was jammed with millions of the things, forming a kind of tobacco scum.

“Ahhh.”

It was the old man, clinging to a floating portion of the railing. Florry thrashed over to him. His face, covered with oil, kept flopping forward in the water.

“I have you. I have you. It’s just a little ways. You’re going to be all right.”