calculating his chances, then he staggered and almost fell as the Kerry Dancer struck heavily, with a grinding, tearing screech of metal, on an underground reef, the decks canting far over on the port side. Nicolson caught a glimpse of McKinnon, feet wide braced on the deck, an arm crooked tightly round the nurse outside the rail, bared teeth white and deepset eyes screwed almost shut as he twisted round and stared into the searchlight, and he knew that McKinnon was thinking the same thing as himself.
'Vannier!' Nicolson's voice was quick, urgent. 'Get the Aldis out of the boat. Signal the captain to stand well off, tell him it's shoal ground, with rocks, and we're fast. Ferris ? take the bo'sun's place. Heave 'em in any old how. We're pinned f or'ard and if she slews round head into the sea we'll never get anybody off. Right, McKinnon, come with me.'
He was back inside the aftercastle in five seconds, McKinnon close behind him. He swept his torch once, quickly, round the metal bunks. Eight left hi all ? the five walking wounded, Miss Drachmann and the two seriously injured men lying stretched out at full length on the lowest bunks. One was breathing stertorously through his open mouth, moaning and twisting from side to side in deep-drugged sleep. The other lay very still, his breathing so shallow as to be almost imperceptible, his face a waxen ivory: only the slow, aimless wandering of pain-filled eyes showed that he was still alive.
'Right, you five.' Nicolson gestured at the soldiers. 'Outside as fast as you can. What the hell do you think you're doing?' He reached out, tore a knapsack from the hands of a soldier who was struggling to slip his arms through the straps, flung it into a corner. 'You'll be lucky to get out of this with your life, far less your damn' luggage. Hurry up and get outside.'
Four of the soldiers, urged on by McKinnon, stumbled quickly through the door. The fifth ? a pale-faced boy of about twenty ? had made no move to rise from his seat. His eyes were wide, his mouth working continuously and his hands were clasped tightly in front of him. Nicolson bent over him.
'Did you hear what I said?' he asked softly.
'He's my pal.' He didn't look at Nicolson, gestured to one of the bunks behind him. 'He's my best friend. I'm staying with him.'
'My God!' Nicolson murmured. 'What a time for heroics.' He raised his voice, nodded to the door. 'Get going.'
The boy swore at him, softly, continuously but broke off as a dull booming sound echoed and vibrated throughout the ship, the noise accompanied by a sharp, sickening lurch even farther to port.
'Water-tight bulkhead abaft the engine-room gone, I'm thinking, sir.' McKinnon's soft-spoken Highland voice was calm, almost conversational.
'And she's filling up aft,' Nicolson nodded. He wasted no further time. He stooped over the soldier, twisted his left hand in his shirt, jerked him savagely to his feet, then stiffened in sudden surprise as the nurse threw herself forward and caught his free right arm in both her hands. She was tall, taller than he had thought, her hair brushed his eyes and he could smell the faint fragrance of sandalwood. What caught and held his almost shocked attention, however, was her eyes ? or, rather, her eye, for the beam from McKinnon's torch lit up only the right hand side of her face. It was an eye of a colour and an intensity that he had seen only once before ? in his own mirror. A clear Arctic blue, it was very Arctic right then, and hostile.
'Wait! Don't hit him ? there are other ways, you know.'
The voice was still the same, soft, well modulated, but the earlier respect had given way to something edged with near-contempt. 'You do not understand. He is not well.' She turned away from Nicolson and touched the boy lightly on the shoulder. 'Come on, Alex. You must go, you know. I'll look after your friend ? you know I will. Please, Alex.'
The boy stirred uncertainly and looked over his shoulder at the man lying in the bunk behind him. The girl caught his hand, smiled at him and urged him gently to his feet. He muttered something, hesitated, then stumbled past Nicolson out on to the well-deck.
'Congratulations.' Nicolson nodded towards the open door. 'You next, Miss Drachmann.'
'No.' She shook her head. 'You heard me promise him ? and you asked me to stay behind a little time ago.'
'That was then, not now,' Nicolson said impatiently. 'We've no time to fool around with stretchers now ? not with a slippery deck canted over at twenty degrees. Surely you can see that.'
She stood irresolute a moment, then nodded without speaking and turned round to grope in the shadowed darkness of a bunk behind her.
Nicolson said roughly, 'Hurry up. Never mind your precious belongings. You heard what I said to that soldier.'
'Not my belongings,' she said quietly. She turned round and pulled a wrap more tightly round the sleeping child in her arms. 'But very precious to someone, I'm sure.'
Nicolson stared at the child for a moment, then shook his head slightly. 'Call me what you like, Miss Drachmann. I just plain forgot. And you can call that what you like ? 'criminal negligence' will do for a start.'
'Our lives are all with you.' The tone was no longer hostile. 'You cannot think of everything.' She walked past him along the sharply sloping deck, propping herself against the line of bunks with her free hand. Again the faint smell of the sandalwood drifted past him, a scent so faint that it was just a fleeting memory lost in the dank airlessness of the aftercastle. Near the door she slipped and almost fell, and McKinnon put out his hand to help her. She took it without any hesitation, and they went out on deck together.
Within a minute both the seriously injured men had been brought out on deck, Nicolson carrying the one and McKinnon the other. The Kerry Dancer, already settling deep by the stern, was still pinned fast for'ard, working jerkily round with every pounding wave that smashed along its starboard length, the bows coming slowly, inexorably, head on to the seas. A minute at the most, Nicolson estimated, and the lifeboat would have lost the last of its shelter and would be exposed, head on, to the heavy combers shorter and steeper than ever as they raced in over the shoaling seabed. Already the lifeboat, now plunging, now rolling in short, vicious arcs, was corkscrewing almost uncontrollably in the quartering seas, shipping gallons of water at a time over the port gunwale. Not even a minute left, Nicolson felt sure. He jumped over the rail, waited for the bo'sun to hand him the first of the two injured men. Seconds only, just seconds, and any more embarkation would be quite impossible ? the lif eboat would have to cast off to save itself. Seconds, and the devil of it was that they had to work with sick men, maybe even dying men, in almost total darkness: the Kerry Dancer was so far round now that her superstructure completely blocked off the searchlights of the Viroma.
Nicolson, leaning inboard against the slope of the deck, took the first man from McKinnon, waited until the bo'sun had hooked his fingers in his belt, twisted round and leaned far out as the lifeboat came surging up out of the darkness into the thin beam of Vannier's torch. Docherty and Ames, each securely anchored by a couple of soldiers sitting on the side benches, rode up almost level with Nicolson ? with the stern of the Kerry Dancer settling in the water the lifeboat was now riding comparatively higher ? caught the wounded man neatly at the first attempt, had him lowered to the thwarts just as the lifeboat dropped from sight and fell heavily into the next trough in a welter of spray and phosphorescent foam. Only six or seven seconds later the other wounded man had joined his companion in the bottom of the boat. Inevitably their handling had been hurried, rough, and must have been agonising, but neither man had uttered even a whimper.
Nicolson called to Miss Drachmann, but she pushed forward two of the walking wounded: they jumped together, landed safely in the boat. One more soldier to come: even with all speed it was going to be touch and go, Nicolson thought grimly ? the Kerry Dancer was far round into the sea already. But the last soldier didn't come. In the darkness Nicolson couldn't see him, but he could hear his voice, high-pitched and fearful, at least fifteen feet away. He could hear the nurse talking too, urgency in the soft, persuasive voice, but her arguments didn't seem to be getting her anywhere.
'What the hell's the matter there?' Nicolson shouted savagely.
There was a confused murmur of voices, and then the girl called, 'Just a minute, please.'
Nicolson twisted round, looked for'ard along the port side of the Kerry Dancer, then flung up a forearm in instinctive defence as the searchlights of the Viroma cleared the slowly swinging superstructure of the Kerry Dancer and struck at his dark-accustomed eyes. The Kerry Dancer was right round now, heading straight into the seas, and the lifeboat with all protection gone. He could see the first of the steep-walled, spume-veined waves racing smoothly, silently, down the listing side of the ship, the next not far behind. How big they were Nicolson couldn't tell: the searchlights, paralleling the surface of the sea, high-lit the broken white of the wave-tops but left the
