'No idea, sir. Haven't seen him.' Nicolson walked to face Siran. 'Where's Van Effen?' Siran shrugged his shoulders, twisted his lips into a smile and said nothing. Nicolson jammed a pistol into Siran's solar plexus, and the smile faded from the brown face. 'I'd just as soon you died,' Nicolson said pleasantly.
'He went above.' Siran nodded at the ladder. 'A minute ago.'
Nicolson swung round. 'Got a gun, Sparks?'
'In the office, sir.'
'Get it. Van Effen had no right to leave this lot.' He waited till Walters returned. 'No reasons required for shooting this bunch. Any flimsy excuse will do.'
He went up the stairs three at a time, passed through the chartroom and into the wheelhouse. Vannier was conscious now, still shaking his head to free it from muzziness, but recovered enough to help Evans bind his arm. McKinnon and the captain were still together.
'Seen Van Effen, Bo'sun?'
'Here a minute ago, sir. He's gone up top.'
'Up top? What in heaven's name??-' Nicolson checked
himself. Time was too short as it was. 'How do you feel, Evans?'
'Bloody well mad, sir,' Evans said, and looked it. 'If I could get my hands on those murderin'???'
'All right, all right.' Nicolson smiled briefly. 'I can see you'll live. Stay here with the captain. How are you, Fourth?'
'O.K. now, sir.' Vannier was very pale. 'Just a crack on the head.'
'Good. Take the bo'sun with you and check the boats. Just numbers one and two ? three and four are finished.' He broke off and looked at the captain. 'You said something, sir?'
'Yes.' Findhorn's voice was still weak, but clearer than it had been. 'Three and four gone?'
'Bombed to bits and then burnt to a cinder,' Nicolson said without bitterness. 'A very thorough job. Number one tank's on fire, sir.'
Findhorn shook his head. 'What hope, boy?'
'None, just none at all.' Nicolson turned back to Vannier. 'If they're both serviceable we'll take them both.' He glanced at Findhorn, raised eyebrows seeking confirmation. 'We don't want Siran and his cut-throat pals in the same open boat as us when night falls.'
Findhorn nodded silently, and Nicolson went on: 'As many spare blankets, food, water, arms and ammunition as you can find. And first-aid.kits. All these in the better boat ? ours. That clear, Fourth?' 'All clear, sir.'
'One other thing. When you're finished, a strap stretcher for the captain. Don't get yourselves shot full of cannon holes ? they nearly got me a couple of minutes ago. And for God's sake hurry! Five minutes for the lot.'
Nicolson moved just outside the wheelhouse starboard door and stood there for two or three seconds, taking stock. The blast of fiery heat struck at him, fore and aft, like the scorching incalescence of an opened furnace door, but he ignored it. The heat wouldn't kill him, not yet, but the Zeros would if they were given any chance at all: but the Zeros were half a mile away, line ahead and port wings dipped as they circled the Virotna, watching and waiting.
Five steps, running, took him to the foot of the wheel-house top ladder. He took the first three steps in a stride, then checked so abruptly that only a swiftly bent arm cushioned the shock as he fell forward against the rungs. Van Effen, face and shirt streaked with blood, was just beginning to descend, half supporting, half carrying Corporal Fraser. The soldier was in a very bad way, a man obviously willing himself to hang on to the last shreds of consciousness. Beneath the dark tan the pain-twisted face was drained of blood, and with his right arm he supported what was left of his left forearm, torn and shredded and horribly maimed ? only an exploding cannon shell could have worked that savage injury. He seemed to be losing only a little blood: Van Effen had knotted a tourniquet just above the elbow.
Nicolson met them half-way up the ladder, caught the soldier and took some of the almost dead weight off Van Effen. And then, before he realised what was happening, he had all the weight and Van Effen was on his way back up to the wheelhouse top.
'Where are you going, man?' Nicolson had to shout to make himself heard over the roar of the flames. 'Damn all anybody can do up there now. We're abandoning ship. Come on!'
'Must see if there's anyone else alive,' Van Effen yelled. He shouted something else and Nicolson thought he heard him mention guns, but couldn't be sure. His voice didn't carry too well above the roar of the two great fires and Nicolson's attention was already elsewhere. The Zeros ? there were only three of them ? were no longer circling the ship but banking steeply, altering formation to line abreast and heading straight for the midships superstructure. It needed no imagination at all to realise what tempting and completely exposed targets they must be, perched high on top of the ship. Nicolson tightened his hold on Corporal Fraser and pointed urgently out to sea with his free hand.
'You haven't a chance, you cra2y fool!' he shouted. Van Effen was now at the top of the ladder. 'Are you blind or mad?'
'Look to yourself, my friend,' Van Effen called, and was gone. Nicolson waited no longer, he would have to look to himself, and with a vengeance. Only a few steps, only a few seconds to the door of the wheelhouse, but Fraser was now only a limp, powerless weight in his arms, and it would take a Zero perhaps six seconds, no more, to cover the intervening distance. Already he could hear the thin, high snarl of the engines, muted but menacing over the steady roar of the flames, but he didn't dare look, he knew where they were anyway, two hundred yards away and with the gunsights lined up on his unprotected back. The wheelhouse sliding door was jammed, he could get only a minimal purchase on it with his left hand, then it was suddenly jerked open, the bo'sun was dragging Corporal Fraser inside and Nicolson was catapulting himself forward on to the deck, wincing involuntarily as he waited for the numbing shock of cannon shells smashing into his back. And then he had rolled and twisted his way into shelter and safety, there was a brief, crescendoing thunder of, sound and the planes had swept by only feet above the wheel-house. Not a gun had been fired.
Nicolson shook his head in dazed incredulity and rose slowly to his feet. Maybe the smoke and the flame had blinded the pilots, perhaps even they had exhausted their ammunition ? the number of cannon shells a fighter could carry was limited. Not that it mattered anyway, not any more. Farnholme was on the bridge now, Nicolson saw, helping McKinnon to carry the soldier below. Vannier was gone, but Evans was still there with the captain. Then the chartroom door swung open on its shattered hinges, and once again Nicolson's face tightened in disbelief.
The man who stood before him was almost naked, clad only in the charred tatters of what had been a pair of blue trousers: they were still smoking, smouldering at the edges. Eyebrows and hair were singed and frizzled and the chest and arms red and scorched: the chest rose and fell very quickly in small shallow breaths, like a man whose lungs have been so long starved of air that he cannot find time to breathe deeply. His face was very pale.
'Jenkins!' Nicolson had advanced, seized the man by the shoulders then dropped his hands quickly as the other winced with pain. 'How on earth ? I saw the 'planes??-'
'Somebody trapped, sir!' Jenkins interrupted. 'For'ard pump-room.' He spoke hurriedly, urgently but jerkily, only a word or two for every breath. 'Dived off the catwalk ? landed on the hatch. Heard knocking, sir.'
'So you got the hell out of it? Is that it?' Nicolson asked softly.
'No, sir. Clips jammed.' Jenkins shook his head tiredly. 'Couldn't open them, sir.'
'There's a pipe clipped to the hatch,' Nicolson said savagely. 'You know that as well as I do.'
Jenkins said nothing, turned his palms up for inspection. Nicolson winced. There was no skin left, none at all, just red, raw flesh and the gleam of white bone.
'Good God!' Nicolson stared at the hands for a moment, then looked up at the pain-filled eyes. 'My apologies, Jenkins. Go below. Wait outside the wireless office.' He turned round quickly as someone touched him on the shoulder. 'Van Effen. I suppose you know that apart from being a bloody fool you're the luckiest man alive?'
The tall Dutchman dropped two rifles, an automatic carbine and ammunition on the deck and straightened up. 'You were right,' he said quietly. 'I was wasting my time. All dead.' He nodded at Jenkins's retreating back. 'I heard him. That's the small deckhouse just for'ard of the bridge, isn't it? I'll go.'
Nicolson looked at the calm grey eyes for a moment, then nodded. 'Come with me if you like. Might need help to get him out, whoever he is.'
