And I was screaming, too…
There must be some kind of horror limit — some level at which one’s facility for absorption of the unwatchable is neutralised. I remember only two imprints of the massacre of that second boatload. The first was an angry chief engineer standing up contemptuously, still in red dragon slippers, bellowing obscene Barrowland oaths at the men who were killing him without a bluidy receipt, and the second — most indelible of all — the sternsheets of the still immaculate boat, with the words Cyclops — Liverpool carefully picked out in black paint and, above them at the tiller, the stocky figure of Captain Evans with his arms round frightened little Conway, shielding and at the same time consoling him with a pathetically vulnerable love.
Then the Spandau scythed into the two embracing bodies and they merged into one another for ever and ever.
…and I slipped into blessed unconsciousness.
I suspect I was only out for a few seconds but, when I did come round, I remember I felt absolutely nothing. No horror, or fear, or compassion or even hatred… yet maybe all I felt was hatred: a hatred so deep and intense that it was too great for ordinary recognition. I frowned up at our towering black masts above me, noting disinterestedly that the firing had stopped except for a few sporadic, scattered small-arms shots.
A movement beside me caught my attention and, turning my head, I looked at Curtis, kneeling by now, with the wet smear of tears still glinting on his cheeks. He blinked back through eyes filled with a terrible sadness and I could sense the nearness of hysteria. I tried to forget my own troubles for a moment.
‘You remember what Henry McKenzie’d say just now, Three Oh?’ I smiled softly, ‘He’d say—"Keep the heid, laddie…" Remember?’
Curtis sniffed and tried to muster a weak grin but it vanished as, from the lagoon, a bubbling scream was punctuated by the full stop of a shot. ‘Bastards,’ he muttered sickly. ‘Can’t we try to do something, for God’s sake, Sir?’
I shrugged, still trying to overcome my own fears. We were good as dead anyway so it didn’t make any difference. ‘Sure, Three Oh,’ I agreed. ‘You fire the Very pistol at them, I’ll throw a few spare shackles.’
He shook his head. ‘No, Sir, not really. I’ve already been aft to the 4.7.… She’s good as new, there’s even one up the spout all ready for us.’
Of course — Phyllis! The fat bombardier’s jinxed mistress. I still felt paralysed inside but, by God, how much easier I’d die to see even one shell from Cyclops burst among the butchers on that U-boat casing… but could we? Against a highly trained crew of smoothly oiled automatons? I remembered how Charlie Shell’s corpse had jerked and rolled under the hail of shells from the Spandau and started to feel nasty things in my stomach again.
I tried not to look too dubious. ‘OK, Mate. But first…’
Curtis shuffled anxiously as I crawled back to inspect the still suspended Larabee, trying not to look too closely at the face, now waxy white where it wasn’t bleeding sullenly through the split, jellified flesh. No threat from that particular enemy any longer. Maybe the bastard was already dead. It didn’t really matter, though it would have been nice to have seen him hanged by his neck instead of his shoulder blade. I’d begun to search for his pistol when Curtis coughed as deferentially as though we were still on the bridge at sea.
‘They’ll be sending their boarding party over any moment, Mister Kent. Shouldn’t we be getting aft?’
I nodded and gave up looking for the automatic — a .38 handgun was hardly going to tip the scales in our favour anyway. A quick, hopeless glance at the shattered remains of the W.T. set before, keeping low, I headed for the after centrecastle ladder. The Third Mate threw one last, bitter stare at the U-boat as it cruised slowly among the sluggishly drifting, humped shapes in the water, then came after me. I saw one sodden lump move slightly as the long black cigar slid past it with a whirr of propellers, then the sea around it whipped into a brief slash of gouting foam as a Schmeisser rattled, and Quintanilha de Almeida grew quiet again.
There was still one mystery to be cleared up, though. I hesitated briefly at the top of the well deck ladder and turned back to Curtis. ‘Incidentally, Three Oh, just why did you stay aboard when you should have been away with the rest of the crowd in the boats?’
He smiled a bit and looked embarrassed. ‘Silly really, Sir, but when the Captain gave the order to abandon ship I had my best whites on. I figured they’d be ruined in the boats so I nipped below to change into my number twos. I hung my new ones carefully in the wardrobe, then I… I…’
He mumbled to a stop and looked like a recalcitrant schoolboy but I knew the rest.
‘…then you remembered that the bloody ship was due to be sunk any moment — and with your best gear aboard?’
He nodded as I finished for him, ‘…and when you finally came topside, the last boat had gone.’
I nodded understandingly, turned without another word, and slid down the ladder towards the gun on the poop.
I nearly didn’t make it as my head rose above the level of the gun deck and I registered the charnel house of severed limbs and blood that smeared the scorched wooden planking. For a moment I just hung there, resting my sweat-saturated face against the cool steel of the ladder rail and feeling the dead Cyclops heave and reel under me. The half orb of the setting sun, now almost masked by the jet-black landscape, swam crazily and grew larger and larger until it swamped over me in a glaring, blood-red haze.
Then the Third Mate’s head bumped into the tight seat of my white shorts and I realised he must have been climbing the vertical ladder with his eyes closed. I didn’t blame him either, as I heaved myself over the low coaming and lay full length in the sticky grue.
Curtis flopped cautiously beside me with a grunt of exertion and together we gazed over to where the U-boat still picked its way idly among the flotsam of the silent, floating graveyard. He sniffed with satisfaction. ‘Careless at the last moment, aren’t they, Sir? Taking too much for granted.’
I saw what he meant. The sporadic shooting had finally ceased as we'd crawled on hands and knees past the steel coamings of numbers five and six hatches, keeping out of sight on the port side of the ship. Now the crew of the U-boat were standing smoking and talking idly along her casing while cradling their automatic weapons under armpits like some distinguished Highland shooting party after a hard day at the butts. Occasionally a laugh drifted across the darkening water.
I was staring over to where I had a special interest — to where White Cap was leaning placidly on his bridge rail beside the now abandoned Spandau mounting — when Curtis whispered again, ‘They must know Larabee’s still aboard, Sir. Soon they’ll be wondering why he hasn’t shown up. Shouldn’t we…?’
I nodded, thinking with savage satisfaction about our erstwhile Second Sparks: still hanging on the W.T. office door. Then I remembered we had one more problem to face. I twisted my head back to Curtis.
‘How the hell do we fire this bloody thing?’ I muttered.
He blinked back in that infuriatingly bland way of his.