The Chief said, “You’ll do no good with hands like those—”
“Yes, I will. Have you got something — a pair of thick gloves, anything like that? And hurry, for God’s sake!”
The Chief Engineer gave him a shrewd look, saw the determination in his eyes. He turned to one of the hands and snapped an order. The man went away, was back in a moment with a chisel and hammer, and a length of codline with a snap-hook, and a pair of thick, oily gloves which Shaw pulled on, wincing with agony as he did so, trying to stop the shake in his hands.
The Chief said, “I’m coming down with you, this time. I know there’s not much room for two to work, but there may be something I can do to help.”
Shaw nodded; there was no time to argue now. He eased himself down the manhole again, began the ghastly crawl back towards the box with the Chief behind him now. That short crawl was just about the worst, the most hair-raising nightmare journey he’d ever made. When he got there, he turned on to his back and placed the chisel against the rim of the box where it met the deckhead above him, where it lay so hard and flat against the steel. The shake of his fingers increased, the chisel seemed to dance a little tattoo on the rim. Shaw set his teeth hard, forced his screaming nerves to be still. Vital seconds, minutes, were being lost… he got the chisel firmly into position at last, and then, very gently to begin with, he started tapping with the hammer. Then he stopped, listened. The humming note hadn’t changed — that was a relief. But the box hadn’t shifted either. A little flake of the stuff came away, drifted down on to his face, and that was all.
In the silence of the double bottom, a silence broken only by the sound of the sea washing past the plating, he started again.
Tap… tap… tap… tap… metal on metal, inches from the sea. On and on and on, patiently, with his nerves tearing at him… tap… tap… tap… echoing along the girders.
It was months, years later it seemed and Shaw was still tapping at the chisel, when a voice called urgently down the manhole and he heard the Chief answering. There was a throb in his ears now, in his brain, drowning the tap-tap on the steel, but through it he knew the Chief was speaking to him.
He said dully, “What is it?”
“Message for you from the bridge. The lighter’s away with some of the cargo, the — military stores. And all boats are well clear now.”
“Thank God for that.”
Shaw went on tapping. He felt in his bones that he hadn’t much longer; but at least REDCAP was in the clear and he’d done his job that far. The liner was under way now and coming up quickly to her full speed, her emergency maximum. Shaw could feel that in the thunder from the screws, in the tremendous engine beat, in the vibration and the rasp of the sea just beneath his body. She went forward faster and faster, away from Sydney Heads and out into the Pacific, a near-empty shell, a flying metal coffin for those still aboard, with the wind streaming over her, life and laughter gone from her decks, her bars and lounges deserted and suddenly forlorn, chilling. Down below that tapping went on and on… and then, very suddenly, the chisel slipped in and the box shifted just a little.
“Done it!”
Shaw’s shout was triumphant; he heard the intake of breath from the Chief Engineer — and then something quite unexpected, something horrifying, happened.
A tiny tongue of white-hot flame licked out, curled along the deckhead, died away, and then came back, edging out like a snake. Shaw squirmed away on his back as something dropped past his ear and hissed on to the steel deck. He bumped into the Chief. The chisel was still inserted where he had let go of it, in the minute gap between the box and the ship’s structure on the side away from the two men. Shaw reached out for it, called as he did so:
“Look out, Chief. Go aft a bit… she’s coming, but God knows what we’re going to find when she comes right away. Ready?”
“Ready!” The Chief’s voice was high, cracking.
His heart hammering away and his nerves tingling, Shaw gripped the chisel hard and pulled sharply downwards, holding his gloved left hand ready to catch the box. It came away very suddenly, and he missed it; it hit his hand, jerked away above his head, clattered down on the steel rib, and fell over through the hole into the next for’ard section of the double bottom. Shaw pushed himself away quickly. A small jet of blinding, white-hot flame shot out and seared the bulkhead, and molten droplets of metal dripped and sizzled down from the steel where the box had been fixed, only just missing Shaw.
Light flickered eerily off the bulkheads of the double bottom.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“The line, Chief — quick!”
The Chief Engineer passed the end of the codline to Shaw. Shaw, who had edged forward again, reached through the hole, keeping one hand across his eyes. He jabbed the box over on to the side from which the flame was coming, smelt the burning material of the thick glove even from so brief a contact with the superheated metal. That flame, though small still, seemed to be getting bigger. He took up the line, using both hands now, leaned through the hole as the flame, projected downward, spread flatly instead of flaring up, and got the snap-hook over the base rim of the box.
Then he called to the Chief Engineer. “I can manage this — you’d better go back and organize a bucket of water.”
“Right.”
He heard the Chief pulling himself backwards to the hatch as his blistered fingers fumbled with the line. He gave it a jerk, and the hook held. He edged backwards, heaved. The box, with the flame spitting out just a little farther now, rose to the top of the rib. Shaw went backwards to the next cross-section and got through before he pulled at the line again. The box came over, clanged to the deck. At once Shaw jerked, freeing the bight of the line from the flame. He dragged it aft again with the jet shooting out away from him. The short journey back seemed interminable; but at last he found himself beneath the manhole. Urgent hands lifted him through quickly, and he came up with the end of the codline.
He snapped, “Stand clear. Just leave me with the bucket.”
He heaved in on the line as men with scared white faces pressed back. The box came up, the flame stabbing down into the double bottom as it came clear. Quickly Shaw dropped it into the bucket and it sank into the water.
But — the flame didn’t go out.
If anything it seemed to increase, boiled up through the water and sent hissing bullets of piping-hot liquid zipping through the compartment. Steam swept into Shaw’s face scaldingly. The Chief ran up with a shovelful of sand, dropped it into the bucket in the hope of stifling the flaming horror. That helped a little. Shaw ran with the bucket for a nearby ladder leading upwards to the decks, flame and steam licking at him. As he climbed he felt that raw heat, felt the
bucket itself heating up. When he reached the top, the handle was biting into his palm and the bucket itself was going a kind of dullish, whitey-red colour.
He ran along an alley way, asked a startled seaman the quickest way to the open deck. Grey-faced, the man swung the handwheel of a watertight door, let him through. Shaw raced on, reached the liner’s tourist end. Dirty, blackened and sweat-streaked, he went to the rail and pitched the bucket in. The liner was well clear of the Heads now and going fast for the open sea.
The bucket sank immediately, taking its extraordinary contents with it. But still the box flared away, grotesquely, sending a violently increased jet of flame apparently from out of the very sea itself. That originally tiny flame grew larger and larger and then, as Shaw, clinging to the rail, watched almost in fascination, the jet suddenly, horribly, burst roaring and steaming through the water until something like a square foot of sea was thrust aside to allow the jet to escape to the air; from the surface of that water, that great spearhead of flame jabbed up and rose level with the liner’s open decks, towered and stayed there and spread wide and wider, steam mushrooming at its top like smoke, rearing now above the receding land like some monstrous finger of doom which even from a distance sent its tremendous, roaring heat over the ship. Paintwork blistered; a boiling, hissing rain began to fall on the decks. It seemed as though the ship was herself on fire, was moving through a sea of flame and steam.