limpid and ringing clear as fine-leaded crystal.
The sound was utterly incongruous in this place and in these
circumstances.
Power is on! Nick let out a whoop and ran through to B deck. Beauty
Baker was standing beside his roaring alternator and hugging himself
with glee.
Howzat, sport? he demanded. Nick punched his shoulder.
Right on, Beauty. He wasted a few moments and a cheroot by placing one
of the precious black tubes between Baker's lips and flashing his
lighter. The two of them smoked for twenty seconds in close and
companionable silence.
Okay! Nick ended it. Pumps and winches. The two emergency portables
are ready to start, and I'm on my way to check the ship's main pumps.
The only thing left is to get the collision mat into place. That is
your trick/ Baker told him flatly. You're not getting me into the water
again, ever. I've even given up bathing. Yeah, did you notice I'm
standing upwind? Nick told him. But somebody has got to go down again
to pass the line.
Why don't you send Angel? Baker grinned evilly.
Excuse me, cobber - I've got work to do. He inspected the cheroot.
After we've pulled this dog off the ground, I hope you will be able to
afford decent gaspers. And he was gone into the depths of the liner,
leaving Nick with the one task he had been avoiding even thinking about.
Somebody had to go down into that engine room. He could call for
volunteers, of course, but then it was another of his own rules to never
ask another man to do what you are afraid to do yourself.
I can leave David to lay out the ground-tackle, but I can't let anybody
else put the collision mat in. He faced it now. He would have to go
down again, into the cold and darkness and mortal danger of the flooded
engine room.
The ground-tackle that David Allen had laid was holding Golden
Adventurer handsomely, even in the aggravated swell which was by now
pouring into the open mouth of the bay, driven on by the rising wind
that was inciting it to wilder abandon.
David had justified Nick's confidence in the seamanlike manner in which
he had taken the Golden Adventurer's twin anchors out and dropped them a
cable's length offshore, at a finely judged angle to give the best
purchase and hold.
Beauty Baker had installed and test-run the two big centrifugals and he
had even resuscitated two of the liner's own forward pump assemblies
which had been protected by the watertight bulkhead from the sea
break-in. He was ready now to throw the switch on this considerable
arsenal of pumps, and he had calculated that if Nick could close that
gaping rent in the hull, he would be able to pump the liner's hull dry
and clean in just under four hours.
Nick was in full immersion kit again, but this time he had opted for a
single bottle Drager diving-set; he was off oxygen sets for life, he
decided wryly.
Before going down, he paused on the open deck with the diving helmet
under his -arm. The wind must be rising seven now, he decided, for it
