‘It’s thirty men. This is not what I agreed to do.’
Lind caught the front of his shirt and pulled him close. ‘When the
* * *
Goddard and Karen Brooke held onto the life ring in the rain and blown spindrift and continued to stare anxiously up at the wing of the bridge. It had been two or three minutes since they’d seen Antonio Gutierrez, and then the third mate, look down at them and disappear. They expected any moment to see Lind or one of his men. Then Goddard sighed softly. Svedberg had appeared at the bulwark in the forward well-deck just at the break of the midships house. He dropped over a roll of line which uncoiled as it fell. They swam over to it. Goddard threw a bowline in the end of it.
‘When I get up,’ he told Karen, ‘put your legs through here and sit in it. We’ll haul you up.’
She nodded. He caught the line, planted his feet against the steel plates, and began to walk up the side, hauling himself hand over hand. He grabbed the bulwark, got a knee on it, and dropped down on deck. No one was in sight except Svedberg and Gutierrez, but they had to hurry. Somebody could spot them any minute. Just beyond them, the steel door into the enclosed shelter deck was open.
‘Take off your jacket,’ he said to Gutierrez. The other looked at him blankly. ‘She’s got no clothes on,’ he explained. He leaned over the bulwark with Svedberg, and they began to hand her up. They lifted her over the rail, nude except for the nylon pants. He grabbed the jacket from the messman and passed it back to her as they slipped along the bulkhead toward the open door. There were no shouts of discovery. They were inside then, and she had the jacket on and was buttoning it. It covered her mid-thigh. Svedberg pulled the steel door shut and dogged it. They were safe for the moment, here below the crew’s deck where there were only storerooms and lockers and the cubicle where they’d sewn Mayr into the burial sack, but the air was thick with smoke and the odor of blistering paint, and the deck was hot to their bare feet. They were all dripping water, and Goddard was conscious then that he had on nothing but a pair of boxer shorts.
Karen finished buttoning the jacket and smiled at Gutierrez. ‘Thank you, Antonio.’ The youth nodded and blushed, and looked away from her, self-conscious about her legs.
‘He saved you,’ Svedberg said. He told them quickly what had happened on the bridge. There was still a little blood mixed with the water running out of his hair. ‘After they slugged me, he put the wheel hard over himself, and watched for you.’
Goddard grinned as he caught the messman by the shoulder and shook it. ‘What some people will do to collect for a haircut. Thanks, Antonio.’
‘They threw you over?’ Svedberg asked.
‘Yes,’ Goddard said. He told them briefly about Madeleine Lennox and Rafferty and the fight on the promenade deck.
‘Do you know how many there are besides Lind?’ Svedberg asked.
‘No,’ Goddard said. ‘The bos’n, Otto, Karl—the dining room steward—and one of the black gang. But there might be more. And they’ll all have guns.’
‘And there’s not another one on the ship as far as I know,’ Svedberg said. He told them about searching the captain’s quarters, and that Steen was still alive. ‘I don’t know what they’re going to do about the ship and the rest of the crew, but if any of them see you, you’ll just go right over the side again. You’ll have to stay out of sight until I can find out what’s happening.’
‘Have you got a radio license?’ Goddard asked.
‘No. Hardly any mates do any more, but I’ll ask the second. And see if any of the engineers might have a gun. You won’t be able to take this smoke very long, so I’ll try to get you out of here. I’ll come back or send word.’
Svedberg and Gutierrez hurried down the passageway toward the ladder to the crew’s deck at the after end of it, almost invisible in the smoke by the time they reached it. Goddard shifted uncomfortably, and saw Karen do the same. The deck was burning their feet.
‘How is the smoke getting in here?’ Karen asked. At the far end, the door to the after well-deck was closed.
‘Most of it’s coming from here,’ Goddard said. ‘It’s the paint scorching on the deck and bulkheads back there. The tween-decks of number three probably runs in under the after end of this deck.’ And when the paint got hot enough, he thought, it would burst into flame. Then the fire would be loose in the whole midships house above.
The smoke was stinging their throats and making breathing difficult. Their eyes were watering. And they had to find something to stand on before their feet were blistered. He looked around. On their left, the engine room casing ran all the way down the passageway to the thwartships passage at the after end. Barset’s big refrigerator and chill room were on their right, but they were both locked, as were the next two doors that he could see. But the one beyond that was open. He caught Karen’s arm and they ran toward it, the deck growing hotter with every step they went aft. If they didn’t find anything, they’d have to come back.
It was the small storeroom, he thought, where they’d stitched Mayr into the burial sack, and he remembered the wooden door on the two horses where the ‘body’ had lain. That would be perfect. He didn’t remember Krasicki until they’d shot inside the doorway and there on the same platform was the canvas mummy in its familiar, grisly shape. He saw Karen shudder, and they were turning to run back out when he caught sight of the bolt of canvas on the deck. They leaped over, and stood on it, conscious only of the relief of getting off the burning steel.
There was the sound of a shot somewhere above them. They exchanged an uneasy glance, but said nothing. Then just above their heads there were footsteps, a great many of them. Goddard oriented himself with relation to the rest of the midships structure. The men would be going forward along the port side of the crew’s deck. They were still passing. Were they fleeing the fire? The smoke was growing worse. His throat and nostrils burned with it, and he was seized with a fit of coughing. The temperature must be more than a hundred and twenty degrees. Sweat ran into his eyes. The footsteps ceased, and there was silence except for the rushing sound of the fire.
‘They were going forward,’ Karen said. ‘Do you suppose it has started to spread?’
'I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘But let’s get out of this trap while we can make it to the ladder. If we can.’
He motioned for her to wait while he leaped to the door and hopped from one foot to another as he looked down the passageway to his right. The ladder was half obscured by smoke now, and for half the distance this way the paint on the steel deck plates was bubbling. It would stick to their feet and take the skin off. He turned back to Karen.
‘Let me have the canvas,’ he said. ‘Sit there for a minute.’ He gestured to the door supporting Krasicki’s body in its burial sack. She perched on the edge of it and lifted her feet. He grabbed up the bolt of cloth and leaped back into the passageway. Holding one end, he threw it toward the ladder. It unrolled to within a few feet of it.
He ran down the strip and kicked the remainder of the bolt. He could feel his feet blistering as he bounded the remaining distance and leaped to the ladder treads. He could see no one above him. ‘All right,’ he called softly. Karen emerged and ran toward the ladder. He watched to see she made it all right, and went on up.
There was no one in the passageway, and no sound except that of the rain and the roaring and crackling noises of the fire. That was odd. She came up behind him. They looked at each other, puzzled. They could duck into the hospital, which was just forward of them, but the silence worried him. The doorway opening onto the after end of the deck was less than six feet from them, but nobody had passed it, and there were no footsteps or voices from the men fighting the fire. He gestured for her to stay where she was, tiptoed over to it, and peered out. There was nobody fighting the fire. There was nobody in sight at all.
He beckoned, and she slipped up beside him in the doorway. The fire roared on unchecked from number three hatch, flames and boiling black smoke blowing off to starboard now in the wind, and they could feel the searing waves of heat on their faces. The steel hatch coaming glowed a dull red, and the deck all around gave off waves of steam as the rain lashed across it and vaporized on contact. At each corner of the deck up here, next to the ladders, was an abandoned fire hose, no water at all coming from the nozzles.
‘If they’d abandoned ship,’ Karen said, ‘they’d have gone up. They were going forward.’
They wheeled and ran along the deserted passageway. The rooms and fo’c’s’les were all empty. At the forward end, beyond the thwartships passage, were two messrooms. They were empty too, but there were portholes along the forward bulkhead. They hurried into the second one and around the long single table. Slipping up to separate portholes, they peered out cautiously, and saw at once why nobody was fighting the fire.
