Keeton reached the deck-house and turned the catches of the door. He pulled the door open and hooked it back and stepped into the deck-house. Here, amongst a jumble of equipment, he found what he wanted, a small tackle consisting of a rope and two blocks with hooks attached. With this and another length of rope slung over his shoulder he made his way back along the sloping deck to the poop.
Bristow heard him coming and began to shout at once. ‘Where you been? I thought you was never coming back. You don’t hurry yourself on my account, do you?’
‘If you don’t hold your yap‚’ Keeton said, ‘I’ll let you stay in there and you can eat the ammunition.’
Bristow subsided at once. ‘I didn’t mean no offence, Charlie. I know you’re doing your best.’
With the help of the rope he had brought Keeton fastened one of the blocks to the muzzle of the gun, then ran the other block out until he could fix it to a stanchion. When he tightened the pulley rope he was able to put pressure on the barrel and he knew that if he could pull hard enough the barrel must slide away from the door. The question was, had he the strength to do it?
He set his feet firmly on the deck and hauled. The rope slid through the sheaves and became taut. He pulled harder and the barrel made a small grinding noise. It moved perhaps an inch and then stopped. Keeton rested for a few seconds and tried again. The barrel did not move.
Bristow’s anxious voice came from the magazine. ‘How’s it going?’
‘It isn’t‚’ Keeton said. He dropped the rope and examined the gun. At once it became apparent that the barrel would not move because the traversing wheel was jammed in a tangle of twisted metal. To pull the barrel away from the door it would have been necessary to rotate the entire gun mounting, and this, although tilted to one side, was still firmly joined to the pedestal. It was a task that no one man, even with the aid of tackle, could hope to perform.
He shouted to Bristow: ‘I’m going to fetch a hammer.’
He went again to the deck-house on the after-deck and found a 14-pound sledge and brought it back to the poop. Half a dozen accurate blows were enough to smash the traversing wheel of the gun and release the gear. With that accomplished he dropped the sledge-hammer and returned to the tackle.
‘Now‚’ he muttered. ‘Now, you swine.’
The barrel moved so easily that he almost lost his balance.
‘Come out, Johnnie‚’ he shouted. ‘Come out while you’ve got the chance.’
Bristow came out. Keeton let the rope go and the barrel swung back to its former position, slamming the door shut with a hollow clang.
Keeton said: ‘Well, you’re out, and you had an easier job than I did. Now you won’t have to feed on cordite. But that’s only the first of our worries settled.’ He looked at the sea around them. It stretched away to the distant circle of the horizon, an undulating desert of water with no sign of a ship or a boat or a raft anywhere upon its shifting surface. ‘We’ve got other problems now.’
Bristow was staring at the corpses and his face looked yellow. ‘Oh, God! Oh, my God!’
‘We’ll have to get them overboard‚’ Keeton said. ‘They’re beginning to stink.’
Bristow drew away fearfully, his eyes wide with horror and his lips trembling. ‘I’m not touching them. I couldn’t do it.’
Keeton took three paces and gripped Bristow’s shirt. ‘The job’s got to be done and you’ll help me do it.’ He released Bristow and turned away. ‘But we’ll get something into our bellies first. Maybe we’ll feel better then.’
‘I couldn’t eat nothing‚’ Bristow said. He kept glancing at the dead men and then away again. ‘I feel sick.’
‘Be sick then and get rid of it. I’ve been sick.’
‘You have?’ Bristow looked surprised at this admission. ‘I thought you—’
‘Thought I had a cast-iron stomach? Well, I haven’t. Who has? All right then, get on with it. Spew your guts up and let’s be moving.’
Bristow moved to the rail and leaned over. Keeton did not wait for him; he walked to the starboard ladder and descended to the after-deck.
Now he had leisure to take a really good look at the mid-castle and he saw the wreckage there. The funnel had disintegrated; there were a few pieces of twisted metal that might once have been part of it, but the tall stack that had so often belched black smoke was there no more; it had been brushed aside as though by a contemptuous sweep of a Titan’s hand. Without it the boat-deck looked strangely flat, its most distinctive feature having disappeared, and there was an unobstructed view of the bridge.
Two boats had gone — both from the port side. One of the starboard boats had been sliced in halves, and these two halves were hanging from the davits, useless lumps of timber. The one other boat was still in its launching position, and from a distance it appeared to be in good order; but Keeton realized that there might be damage which would only be seen on closer examination. He did not place much hope in that craft.
It was obvious that the Valparaiso had truly been abandoned; the blocks dangling from the port davits told only too eloquently of a hurried departure, of the panic of men who feared that their ship was sinking. It was not the first time that a vessel had been abandoned in the mistaken belief that it was doomed. And yet the ship was still afloat; it had a stouter heart than the men who had sailed in it.
‘It was Rains‚’ Keeton muttered. ‘It must have been. That scared bastard.’
There could be no other explanation than that Rains had taken fright and had left the ship too hastily, concerned only with saving his own skin. Things would have been different if Captain Peterson had still been giving the orders; he surely would never have run from his ship while there remained the slightest hope of saving her. But Rains was of another calibre; Jones and Wall too. No doubt they had bundled the paralysed master into a boat and carried him away without consulting his wishes. Perhaps he had been in no condition to express any wish.
Bristow, rid of his vomit, caught up with Keeton and together they crossed the after-deck.
‘So they’re all gone‚’ Bristow said. ‘May they rot in hell.’
‘More likely to rot in the Pacific. It was a bad sea for open boats.’
‘Serve them right if they have gone down. I knew something like this would happen with that useless swine Rains in charge. I said so. You heard me say so, didn’t you?’
‘What if I did?’ Keeton said wearily. He had no patience with Bristow. ‘Whether you said so or whether you didn’t makes no difference to us now. We’re on our own, Johnnie, and we’ve got to work out our own salvation.’
A door on the port side of the mid-castle opened into an alleyway which gave access to the galley, and it was this that drew the two men, thirsty and hungry as they were.
After the brilliance of the light outside it seemed gloomy in the alleyway, and there was a constant sound of water swilling back and forth as the ship rolled. It was not a cheering sound, and the water itself, some two or three inches deep, was thick and scummy, as though it had been washing into dark corners and finding all the dirt that was hidden there.
Bristow shivered and his voice was hushed; he seemed to be overawed by this silent ship which so recently had been alive with men.
‘Listen‚’ he said, clutching at Keeton’s arm. ‘Listen.’
‘What is it?’
‘I thought I heard somebody laughing. A kind of low chuckle. It’s gone now.’
Keeton pulled his arm away. ‘You’re imagining things. Look, Johnnie, you won’t find anybody else alive on board this ship and you’d better make up your mind to that straight off.’