‘We might as well have saved our energy‚’ Bristow said. He leaped up in a sudden frenzy, grabbed the rifle and swung it against the door. The door clanged sullenly and did not move.
‘That won’t do any good‚’ Keeton said.
Bristow dropped the rifle and began to weep.
Chapter Four
Derelict
Keeton looked at the gap. Through it a wedge of sunlight made its way, laying a golden finger on the boxes of ammunition. Keeton looked at the gap and then down at his own lean body. It might be possible. It would be a tight squeeze, but it might just be possible.
He began to strip off his shirt and trousers.
Bristow stared at him. ‘What are you up to now? Have you gone crazy?’
‘I’m going to try to get out.’
Bristow gripped Keeton’s arm. ‘You aren’t going to slip out and leave me here. You know I couldn’t get through that hole. I don’t want to be left alone in here. You got to stay with me.’
Keeton shook off Bristow’s hand. ‘Don’t be a fool, man. If I get out I can do something about getting you out, too.’
‘That’s a promise, Charlie? You won’t go off and leave me?’
‘Where in hell d’you think I’d go? The buses don’t run on this route.’
Bristow still seemed reluctant to let Keeton out of his sight, but he saw the force of the argument.
‘You’ll help me out then? You’ll do that before anything else?’
‘Don’t fret yourself‚’ Keeton said. ‘I’ll do it. But first I’ve got to get myself out.’
He eased himself into the gap sideways and the harsh metal tore at his naked skin. He managed to get nearly halfway through and there he became stuck fast with the iron pressing hard against his ribs so that he could hardly breathe.
‘Push me, Johnnie‚’ he gasped. ‘Push me.’
He felt Bristow’s soft hands on his left shoulder, pressing him into the gap. The metal ground into his flesh and blood began to flow. He was in agony.
‘Push, damn you, Johnnie! Push!’
The pressure of Bristow’s hands increased. They were like big rubber pads thrusting him into the jaws of a vice, and the constriction of his chest was almost unbearable. His right arm and his right leg were free and he could feel the hot sun on them; but struggle as he might, the rest of his body would not follow.
‘Harder, Johnnie, harder. Put your weight into it.’
‘I don’t want to hurt you‚’ Bristow said.
‘Hurt me and be damned to it.’ Nothing that Bristow did now could increase the agony; already it seemed as though he were being flayed. ‘Damn your eyes, Johnnie, why don’t you push?’
‘All right then‚’ Bristow said. ‘If that’s the way you want it.’
He leaned his full weight on Keeton. Keeton gave a yell of pain, and then the pressure was off and he was free; he could breathe again and above him was the wide arch of the sky. It looked good.
He had fallen on the deck and for a while he lay there, letting the pain subside, breathing deeply. Then he became aware of Bristow’s voice, a little anxious.
‘Are you all right, Charlie?’
Keeton sat up. And then he saw the man lying face downward on the deck. He saw the man and knew that it was Hagan, not only because there were crossed anchors on his sleeve but also because the man had no right ear, and that was how he had last seen Hagan, so many ages ago, with the right ear severed from his head and a wild look in his eyes.
He got to his feet and walked along the tilting deck until he could look down at Hagan. He could see now why the petty officer did not move, why he would never move again. There was a hole in the back of Hagan’s head, a hole with matted hair and congealed blood at the edges. Yet, apart from this, the body appeared to be undamaged. And this, in itself, was a small miracle, for when Keeton gazed about him he could see the havoc that the shell had wrought.
The other bodies littered the deck like so much garbage. They lay in grotesque, unnatural attitudes, some without arms or legs, some headless, some with their stomachs torn open, reeking in the sun. They were all there, all the gunners. Keeton counted them slowly and felt himself growing older as he counted, as though the ages of all these dead men were being piled one upon another and added to his own age. He would never be a boy again. He knew now that there was no dignity in death. Death was the last, bad, tasteless joke. The bodies reeked of death.
He dragged his attention away from them at last and for the first time saw what it was that was holding the door of the magazine. The shell had destroyed the gun-deck; it had ripped up the metal, torn the gun from its mounting and thrown it on its side. The blast of the explosion must have swung the barrel in a semicircle until it came to rest with the muzzle jammed against the magazine. Keeton was not surprised that he and Bristow had been unable to force the door open wider; the wonder was that they had been able to move it as far as they had.
He heard Bristow’s voice again. He had in fact been vaguely aware of the sound for some time, but it had been a meaningless intrusion upon his thoughts and he had paid it no attention. Now, suddenly, it seemed to break through the barrier of his preoccupation and impinge upon his consciousness.
‘What are you doing, Charlie? Where you got to? When are you going to get me out of here?’
At the same time Keeton became aware of his own nakedness, of the blood running down his chest and stomach. An uncontrollable trembling seized him and his legs were drained of strength. He wanted to be sick.
‘Charlie, where are you?’
‘Here, Johnnie, here.’
He walked on his rubber legs to the door of the magazine and pressed his forehead against the iron. He saw Bristow’s sweating face and the fear in Bristow’s eyes.
‘What you been doing?’
‘Numbering the gun crew‚’ Keeton said, and he could taste the bitterness in his mouth. ‘All present and correct. Cancel that. All present but not correct. Oh, God, never correct again. Never.’
‘Have you gone mad?’
Maybe he had. It was enough to send any man round the bend.
‘Hagan’s there, but they made a hole in his head and his brains leaked out.’
‘Dead?’
‘They’re all dead. Gimme my clothes.’
He was sick then, and his vomit splashed on the deck. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and the bitter taste was still on his tongue.
Bristow pushed his clothes through the gap and he put them on.
‘What’s holding the door?’ Bristow asked.
‘It’s the gun. The barrel’s been thrown round this way. That must have been one hell of an explosion.’
‘Can you shift it?’
‘My name’s Charles Keeton, not Hercules.’
Bristow began to whine. ‘You can’t just leave me in here. You’ve got to do something.’
‘All right‚’ Keeton said. ‘Just hold your yap.’
He examined the gun barrel resting against the door. There was certainly some weight there, but perhaps he could find a way of shifting it.
‘I’ll have to find some tackle‚’ he told Bristow. ‘You sit tight for a while.’
‘What else can I do?’
‘You have a point there‚’ Keeton admitted.
He walked to the head of the ladder leading down to the afterdeck on the starboard side. Except for the list the deck looked normal; but the port bulwarks were dipping low, and now and then a wave would slop over and gurgle away down the scuppers. There was not a man to be seen.
Between the two hatches was a small deck-house which had been used to store gear, and Keeton hoped that in this he would find what he needed. He went down the ladder with one hand on the rail to steady himself, and the unnatural silence of the ship was awe-inspiring. Only the occasional slap and gurgle of water broke the silence; that and the subdued whining of wind in the rigging that was like a faint echo of the storm that had passed.