The Staff Commander said warningly, “It’s not going to be easy to get the boats away safely in this sea, sir. It’ll be tricky to off-load REDCAP, too.”
“I know that, Stanford.” The Captain passed a hand across his eyes, trying to still the shake in his fingers as he did so. He looked very old and tired, Stanford thought. “We’ll just have to do our best — and pray. Pray for all we’re worth. There’s nothing else we can do, Stanford — unless Shaw gets that charge away in time.”
“I understand, sir. Are there any further orders?”
Sir Donald nodded. “Get the boats swung out right away and see them lowered to the embarkation deck. I’ll speak to the passengers and ship’s company myself over the tannoy. When they’re all at stations, close all watertight and firescreen doors. I don’t suppose it’ll do much good, but I’ll try to contain any explosion as much as humanly possible within the ship. Pass the word to all heads of departments that I’m going to abandon in ten minutes. They’ve got that much time to detail the absolute minimum of men who’ll be essential to off-load that crate and then steam the ship out. Those men will stand fast when the order’s passed to abandon.”
The Staff Commander saluted, turned silently away. Sir Donald Mackinnon, his face quite expressionless, walked over to the broadcaster and pressed the switch down.
Shaw had been taken below, right to the bottom of the ship. He had found the Chief Engineer going down the manhole leading into the double bottoms beneath the engine-room. He said, “Chief, I’m going.”
The Chief glanced up at Shaw. “One of my own engineers put the thing there, so they tell me,” he said quietly. “It’s my job to get it out.”
“No!” Shaw’s voice was urgent. “I know about these things. Chief, I’ve got the better chance. You’ve got to believe that, for everyone’s sake. You’ve got to.”
Their eyes met again; the Chief said, “Well — all right, if you really think so.”
“I do.”
The Chief hauled himself up and Shaw went forward, squeezed his body through the small opening into a coffinlike steel space, a space so low that he could barely even move on hands and knees for the lack of headroom. The best way, he found, was to go along on his stomach, squirming snake-like. The compartment stank to high heaven, close and fetid even though fresh air was seeping in from the open manhole, was now in fact being blown in by a fan. Here — thirty-odd feet below the waterline — he had but one thin steel shell of bottom plating between him and the sea; above him was the whole fifty thousand tons, all the many decks of the New South Wales. As he squirmed along he knew that if anything should happen now he would be utterly unaware of it, that there could be no excape for him whoever else might survive. The narrow place closed him in as he wriggled painfully forward, trailing an electric-light bulb on a wandering lead, forcing his aching body through a tight aperture in the ship’s steel ribs, one of a series which crossed the double bottoms at close intervals. It was a nightmarish place to be in; Shaw’s hands were sticky and slippery with sweat and grease as he edged along, his heart pumping away. The atmosphere down there was beginning to affect him badly, making his head ache worse than ever, a pain so abominable now that lights seemed to flicker across his eyes. His whole body trembled.
And then, just as he came up to the second rib aperture and raised his body to go through the hole into the next section, his head struck some projection in the steel decking above, and he felt a burning pain. Edging backwards, he shone the electric bulb on to the deckhead. He saw a metal fitting, and he heard a curious humming noise, quite faint but very steady.
Karstad’s box… it must be Karstad’s box!
It fitted the description. It was a smallish square of metal adhering to the deckhead, a box which somehow looked as though it wasn’t meant to be here in Number Five tank.
It was the one all right.
Shaw reached out, touched it, gave a gasp of pain. The thing was hot, had blistered his skin. Now he could hear the noise a little more loudly. He set his teeth, reached out again, grasped the thing firmly and tugged. He bit down on his lips and gave a low groan as the heat sank into his flesh, and he had to let go.
He simply couldn’t move the thing.
Twisting over on to his back with difficulty, he ripped at his shirt, tore off strips which he wrapped round his hands. Then he laid hold of the box again and wrenched.
He went on and on but it just wouldn’t move. It was just as though it was part of the very structure, an integral part of the ship’s fittings, built in by the shipyard. Sweat had broken out all over his body now, was rolling into his eyes, blinding him. He sucked greedily at the air reaching him from the hatch. He tugged and twisted and wrenched at the box, felt the intense heat through the shirting.
The great liner was emptying now. After the port side boats had got away, Sir Donald turned his ship to give the starboard boats a lee. The remaining passengers, wet and cold and frightened, had manned the lifeboats, patiently shepherded by the crew, and were being lowered from the first-class and tourist embarkation decks, the falls letting them down carefully on to the crests of the waves while the sailors bore off from the ship’s side. The moment each boat was in the water, its crew pulled away, heading in for the entrance to meet the naval launches hurrying out to take the tow. Everything went smoothly; this was the very kind of thing that the ship’s company had drilled in at set intervals throughout all their seagoing lives, and they knew what they were about. There were no serious casualties at all, though a few people had bumps and bruises and were quite badly shaken up as the boats took the water. Up on his bridge Sir Donald, watching anxiously, heaved a sigh of relief, his lips moving a little as though in prayer. Already now he could see a big dumb-lighter towed by high-speed tugs coming along the East Channel towards Middle Head, where she would turn for the entrance and come out to take REDCAP from the liner’s waiting derricks. Things were being done fast now. Back in the harbour, loudspeaker vans were patrolling the vantage points, calling warning messages to disperse the crowds. At Pyrmont, where the people had waited in the greatest numbers, lining the Darling Harbour bridge and all around, the place grew strangely silent. The military band had moved away from the jetty and the galleries were deserted now. Only the trucks and the trailer, the troops and the armed M.P.s still waited, phlegmatically, to take delivery of the crate and hurry REDCAP to Bandagong if and when the lighter returned with its load.
The authorities did not know how far the blast from the liner’s reactor would carry if the worst should happen, but they were taking no chances even as far up harbour as Pyrmont itself, and the areas around the Heads were being totally evacuated as fast as possible.
Shaw edged back along the short distance to the manhole. Thrusting his head through, he gasped: “Chief, it’s no damn good, I’ve found it but I can’t shift it.” He wiped at his streaming face and neck. “We’ll have to chisel it free.”
The Chief’s face seemed to go whiter. “That may send it up, man! Any sudden jolt like that—”
“Yes, I know, but we’ll have to chance that now,” Shaw broke in tautly. “Somehow I don’t think there’s very long left anyway. Let’s have that chisel, Chief. And I’d better have a good length of some kind of line, something with a metal clip at the end, to drag the thing back with — it’s too hot to handle.” He held up his blistered hands, and the men at the hatch drew in their breath sharply.