Nicolson's attention was suddenly caught by something moving among the maze of pipes on the deck, just aft of the foremast. It was a man, dressed only in a pair of tattered blue denims, stumbling and falling as he made his way towards a ladder that led up to the catwalk. He seemed dazed and kept rubbing his forearm across his eyes, as if he couldn't see too well, but he managed to reach the foot of the ladder, drag himself to the top and began, at a lurching run, to make his way along the catwalk to the bridge superstructure. Nicolson could see him clearly now ? Able Seaman Jenkins, trainer of the fo'c'sle pom-pom. And someone else had seen him too and Nicolson had time only for a desperate shout of warning before he flung himself to the deck and listened, with clenched fists, to the hammerblows of exploding cannon shells as the Zero pulled out of its short, sudden dive and raked the fore-deck from fo'c'sle to bridge.
This time Nicolson didn't get to his feet. Getting to his feet inside that wheelhouse, he realised, was a good way of committing suicide. There could be only one good reason for getting to his feet, and that was to see how Jenkins was. But he didn't have to look to know how Jenkins was. Jenkins should have bided his time and chosen his chance for making his dash, but perhaps he had been too dazed: or perhaps the only alternative he'd had was between running and being killed, and staying and being incinerated.
Nicolson shook his head to clear away the fumes and smell of cordite, pushed himself to a sitting position and looked round the scarred and shattered wheelhouse. There were four people in it apart from himself ? and there had only been three a moment ago. McKinnon, the bo'sun, had just arrived, just as the last shells had exploded inside the bridge. He was half-crouched, half-lying across the threshold of the chartroom door, propped on one elbow and looking cautiously around him. He was unhurt, but taking no chances before moving any further.
'Keep your head down!' Nicolson advised him urgently. 'Don't stand up or you'll get it blown off.' Even to himself his voice sounded hoarse and whispery and unreal.
Evans, the duty quartermaster, was sitting on his duckboard grill, his back to the wheel and swearing softly, fluently, continuously in his high-pitched Welsh voice. Blood dripped from a long gash on his forehead on to his knees, but he ignored it and concentrated on wrapping a makeshift bandage round his left forearm. How badly the arm was gashed Nicolson couldn't tell: but every fresh strip of ragged white linen torn from his shirt became bright red and saturated the moment it touched his arm.
Vannier was lying against the deck in the far corner. Nicolson crawled across the deck and lifted his head, gently. The fourth officer had a cut and bruised temple, but seemed otherwise unharmed: he was quite unconscious, but breathing quietly and evenly. Carefully, Nicolson lowered his head to the deck and turned to look at Findhorn. The captain was sitting watching him on the other side of the bridge, back against the bulkhead, palms and splayed fingers resting on the deck beside him. The old man looks a bit pale, Nicolson, thought: he's not a kid any longer, not fit for it, especially this kind of fun and games. He gestured at Vannier.
'Just knocked out, sir. He's as lucky as the rest of us ? all alive, if not exactly kicking.' Nicolson made his voice sound more cheerful than he felt. Even as he stopped speaking he saw Findhorn bending forward to get up, his fingernails whitening as he put pressure on his hands. 'Easy does it, sir!' Nicolson called out sharply. 'Stay where you are. There are some characters snooping around outside just begging for a sight of you.'
Findhorn nodded and relaxed, leaning back against the bulkhead. He said nothing. Nicholson looked at him sharply. 'You all right, sir?'
Findhorn nodded again and made to speak. But no words came, only a strange gravelly cough and suddenly his lips were flecked with bright bubbles of blood, blood that trickled down his chin and dripped slowly on to the fresh, white crispness of his tunic shirt. Nicolson was on his feet in a moment, crossed the wheelhouse in a stumbling run and fell on his knees in front of the captain.
Findhorn smiled at him and tried to speak, but again there was only the bubbling cough and more blood at his mouth, bright arterial blood that contrasted pitifully with the whiteness of the lips. His eyes were sick and glazed.
Quickly, urgently, Nicolson searched body and head for evidence of a wound. At first he could see nothing, then all at once he had it ? he'd mistaken it for one of the drops of blood soaking into Findhorn's shirt. But this was no blood-drip, but a hole ? a small, insignificant looking hole, quite circular and reddening at the edges. That was Nicolson's first shocked reaction ? how small a hole it was, and how harmless. Almost in the centre of the captain's chest, but not quite. It was perhaps an inch or so to the left of the breastbone and two inches above the heart.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Gently, carefully, Nicolson caught the captain by tne shoulders, eased his back off the bulkhead and turned to look for the bo'sun. But McKinnon was already kneeling by his side, and one glance at McKinnon's studiously expressionless face told Nicolson that the stain on the captain's shirt-front must be spreading. Quickly, without any word from Nicolson, McKinnon had his knife out and the back of the captain's shirt slit open in one neat movement, then he closed the knife, caught the edges of the cut cloth in his hands and ripped the shirt apart. For a moment he scanned the captain's back, then, he closed the tear together, looked up at Nicolson and shook his head. As carefully as before Nicolson eased the captain back against the bulkhead.
'No success, gentlemen, eh?' Findhorn's voice was only a husky, strained murmur, a fight against the blood welling up in his throat.
'It's bad enough, not all that bad though.' Nicolson picked his words with care. 'Does it hurt much, sir?'
'No.' Findhorn closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again. 'Please answer my question. Did it go right through?'
Nicolson's voice was detached, almost clinical. 'No, sir. Must have nicked the lung, I think, and lodged in the ribs at the back. We'll have to dig for it, sir.'
'Thank you.' 'Nicked' was a flagrant meiosis and only a fully equipped hospital theatre could hope to cope with surgery within the chest wall, but if Findhorn appreciated these things he gave no sign by either tone or expression. He coughed painfully, then tried to smile. 'The excavations will have to wait. How is the ship, Mr. Nicolson?'
'Going,' Nicolson said bluntly. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. 'You can see the flames, sir. Fifteen minutes if we're lucky. Permission to go below, sir?'
'Of course, of course! What am I thinking of?' Findhorn struggled to rise to his feet, but McKinnon held him down, talking to him in his soft Highland voice, looking at Nicolson for guidance. But the guidance came not from Nicolson but in the shape of a crescendoing roar of an aircraft engine, the triphammer thudding of aircraft cannon and a shell that screamed through the smashed window above their heads and blasted the top of the chartroom door off its hinges. Findhorn ceased to struggle and leaned back tiredly against the bulkhead, looking up at McKinnon and half smiling. Then he turned to speak to Nicolson, but Nicolson was already gone, the chartroom door half closing behind him, swinging crazily on its shattered hinges.
Nicolson dropped down the-centre ladder, turned for'ard and went in the starboard door of the dining-saloon. Van Effen was sitting on the deck by the door as he went in, his gun in his hand, unhurt. He looked up as the door opened.
'A great deal of noise indeed, Mr. Nicolson. Finished?'
'More or less. I'm afraid the ship is. Still two or three Zeros outside, looking for the last drop of blood. Any trouble?'
'With them?' Van Effen waved a contemptuous pistol barrel at the crew of the Kerry Dancer: five of them lay huddled fearfully on the deck at the foot of the for'ard settees, two more were prostrate under the tables. 'Too worried about their own precious skins.'
'Anyone hurt?'
Van Effen shook his head regretfully. 'The devil is good to his own kind, Mr. Nicolson.'
'Pity.' Nicolson was already on his way across to the port door of the dining-saloon. 'The ship's going. We haven't long. Herd our little friends up to the deck above ? keep 'em in the passageway for the time being. Don't open the screen doors??-' Nicolson broke off suddenly, halted in mid-stride. The wooden serving hatch into the pantry was riddled and smashed in a dozen places. From the other side he could hear the thin, quavering sobbing of
