The Arcadia was now rearing and dropping in a thunderous seesaw motion, and when she plunged her bows into the next trough, her screws actually rose clear of the water for a moment. Her front superstructure was badly damaged, and she had lost nearly eighty of railing on the port side. But still she forged straight ahead on course, taking the waves directly on her bows. Down in third-class, where the ventilation was less effective, and the cabins were more crowded, vomit was running down the gangways in a brown and acrid tide, so that even those who hadn't felt nauseous before began to throw up. All through the nine-storey ship there were shouts of despair and sickness, and the clatter of falling crockery and spoons.
In the Grand Lounge, the pianist turned wearily to selections from Ivor Novello's new revue Puppets! But by now, only one elderly industrialist was listening to him, an old man of eighty-seven with a face like a dry chamois leather. He had crossed the Atlantic so many times before that he had lost count, and was never ill.
Out by the after rail of the boat deck, Douglas Fairbanks was preparing to climb out on to the jib of the electric crane to rescue Lucille Foster. A line had been fastened around his waist, and Ralph Peel had screamed at him above the wind and the spray that he should come back down at once if he got into difficulties. "Your fan-club will crucify us if we lose you over the side! So will your studio! And your insurance company!"
Mark had tried to persuade Catriona to go back inside, but she had refused, so he made her stand in the shelter of the second-class entrance and hold on tight to the handrail. "Now stay there!" he shouted at her. "Because if you go overboard, I'm going to have to go after you, and I'm wet enough already!"
She looked under his yellow waterproof hat at his spray-splashed face. His expression was very straight, very college-boy, and very sincere, and she believed him. If she was swept off the ship, he would dive after her, even though it would probably mean a quick and violent drowning for both of them. Greater love hath no man, she thought. But she didn't particularly want to put it to the test.
Mark turned away and half-skidded, half-staggered across to the rail of the promenade. Douglas Fairbanks was now standing on the rail itself, ready to swing over to the crane on a line which had been fixed for him by the crewmen on the deck below. "Who's got a camera?" he shouted, balancing himself by twisting one foot between the railings. "Quick—a camera! You don't think I'm going to let this go unrecorded!"
Someone, considerately, had brought a Kodak camera and a flash attachment. Douglas Fairbanks struck an heroic pose on the rail, one hand on the line and the other hand raised like Robin Hood, or the Thief of Baghdad, or Zorro; and the flash gun popped loudly in the howling wind. Then he launched himself from the rail, slid right down the rope to the promenade deck below, rolled over in a heap of yellow oilskins, and screamed out, "Shit! I've wrenched my goddamned ankle!"
The flash camera popped again, and he yelled out, "Not now, you
stupid bastard! You print that picture and I'll kill you!"
Catriona, defying Mark's instructions, came over to the rail. Mark turned to her and raised one eyebrow. "Pretty hopeless, huh? And the sea's getting worse. How do we get her down now?"
"She climbed up there by herself, perhaps she can climb down by herself," suggested Catriona.
"That's ridiculous," said Mark. "If she was able to climb down, she would have."
"Perhaps she wouldn't. Perhaps she wants to stay up there."
"You are talking through the back of your head, if you'll pardon the expression. Why should she want to stay up there? Why should she want to go up there in the first place?"
"I don't know. But her father and mother were only just killed in a car accident, weren't they? When you're shocked and you're grieving, your mind can work in some funny ways."
Mark gave her a look which meant, well, you should know; although he wasn't so insensitive that he said it out loud.
"Maybe you're right," he told her. "In which case, what can we do?"
"I don't know. Perhaps her guardian could help. Mrs. Hall, wasn't it?"
Just then, however, Monty Willowby appeared on deck in a soaking wet pea jacket and a waterproof hat that looked as if it had been designed to prevent the wearer from being deluged by incontinent elephants. "Mr. Peel, sir!" he shouted. "I've just heard what's happening up here!"
"Well, there's nothing you can do!" yelled Ralph Peel. "You might just as well go belowdecks!"
Monty leaned close to the Second Officer's ear and shouted, "There's a fellow down in the steerage, sir! It seems that he's made a friend of the girl! I wonder if it might be a good idea to bring him up here, see if he can talk her into coming down!"
Ralph Peel squinted up through the spray at the small pink-dressed figure clinging to the jib of the crane. A wet rose petal stuck to a naked branch. "We can't get up there after her," he agreed. "Perhaps it's worth a try."
The Arcadia slammed headlong into the next towering wave, and spray from the bows hurtled as far back as the first-class staircase, amidships. Ralph Peel slipped, and then gripped the rail. "You go and find this fellow from downstairs," he ordered Monty. "I think I need to talk to Sir Peregrine!"
Then, as Monty waddled down the second-class staircase, Ralph bellowed at Mark, "You keep an eye on things, Mr Beeney! I'll be back directly! We'll never get that girl down if we keep on hitting these troughs head-on."
Mark gave him a mock-salute, and held Catriona tighter around the waist. Even through their wet and squeaking oilskins, she could feel the firmness of his muscular hip, and the strength of his arm. It didn't seem to matter to her now if he wanted to buy up Keys Shipping or not. She wasn't a child, after all, was she, who was going to be taken in by a smile and a kiss and an extravagant necklace? She wasn't some romantic shopgirl who was going to be impressed by orchids, and champagne. Although... and she thought this with a sudden shudder of wistfulness, wouldn't it sometimes be quite nice if she were?
THIRTY-ONE
Sir Peregrine was in the wheelhouse, standing stiff and relentlessly upright in spite of the Arcadia's chaotic pitching and rolling, his eyes fixed on a horizon which it was impossible to see through the salt-caked glass of the windows. The helmsman was gripping the ship's wheel close to his chest, as if he were Moses offering up his only precious son to the Lord. It was here, in this dim and greenly-illuminated grotto, that battle was done with whatever seas that God thought it pertinent to whip up.
Ralph Peel struggled in through the doorway, as slick as a seal, and then shut out the wind and the rain and the shrieking of the wires behind him. He stamped his feet on the sisal matting to shake the worst of the wet off him. Then he pulled off his sou'wester and crossed the wheelhouse to where Sir Peregrine was standing with such dignity and resolution.
"Mr Peel?" asked Sir Peregrine, without even turning to look at him. He scratched at the tip of his aquiline nose with his fingertip, as if he couldn't decide whether to pick it or not. When Ralph said nothing, he looked around at last and said, "Mr Peel?"
"With all due respect, Sir Peregrine, is there some way you can steer aslant to the waves, forty-five degrees, so that we don't pitch so violently? We're having a lot of trouble getting that young girl down from the crane, and the pitching isn't helping one bit."
Sir Peregrine cleared his throat. "We are making way as expeditiously as possible, Mr. Peel. We have nearly two hours to make up, after that wild goose chase, looking for that so-called drifting lifeboat. We have... well, nearly two hours to make up. So we're making full ahead. As fast as possible, and without wavering from our charted course."