Then he struck the bulkhead.
Four
HALF AN HOUR LATER, WHEN THE KLAXON WENT OFF again in the wardroom, Aubrey slumped at the thought of another emergency. He rubbed the back of his neck and hoped that his headache would pass before his brain turned into blancmange.
It wasn't just his head, either. The magical exertion of the dimensionality spell had drained him more than he'd hoped. With resignation, he realised he had the painful internal sensation of disjuncture that meant his soul and body were not entirely united.
'What's the best way to turn that off?' he asked Rokeby-Taylor, who was stretched out on the floor of the wardroom next to where George was fascinated by The Boiler Pressure Tolerances and Valve Assembly Maintenance Manual.
Rokeby-Taylor, looking a little worse for wear, opened one eye. 'It's up to the captain, I'm afraid. Some of them do it just to keep the crew on their toes, I'm told.'
Aubrey looked at George, ready to hear what his friend thought, then looked again. It wasn't obvious, but he saw that while George was doing his best to appear calm and relaxed, his feet were tapping nervously – and he had a tell-tale sheen of sweat on his forehead.
George glanced up from his book and caught Aubrey's gaze. He shrugged. 'I'm a country boy,' he said, making a commendable stab at levity. 'Wobbling along at the bottom of the sea isn't my bag, old man.'
'You preferred it when we were mired on the seabed?'
'Dry land is what I'd prefer, with a nice tree to sit under.'
Sir Darius turned from the doorway, where he was once again trying to read the surging chaos of hurrying sailors. 'You look unwell, Aubrey. Surely you're not seasick.'
Sir Darius had been a champion open ocean yachtsman. He had the failing of most of those who loved the sea – he couldn't understand how someone could be upset by it.
'No, just feeling the after-effects of my head and a metal wall coming together.'
Sir Darius snorted. 'I think your heroics with the batteries deserve a little more than being ignored down here. Do you feel up to visiting the control room?'
Aubrey waved at the klaxon. 'Instead of being trapped with that? Lead away.'
It was rather like freestyle wrestling in close confines as they struggled through the narrow passageways. Shoulders, hips and elbows were essential tools as the sailors hurried from one station to another. Aubrey made sure he moved in George's wake – it made the going much easier. Rokeby-Taylor, grumbling, brought up the rear.
The control room was full of dials, levers and brass. As with the rest of the submersible, it was a model of compactness. Everything was smaller than usual – chairs, doorways, working space. Hooded lights made the place dim, and while the smell of hot oil was not as pronounced here, further away from the engine rooms, it still touched everything. Aubrey knew his clothes would stink of it.
Captain Stephens was bent nearly double. His face was pressed to an eyepiece attached to a cylinder that extended up through the conning tower. He straightened, scowling, then he saw his visitors. 'Prime Minister. I'm sorry, but we have another emergency on our hands.'
Sir Darius nodded. 'Can we help?'
Aubrey's stomach tightened at the thought of doing more magic. He had a painful lump in his throat. From dismal experience, he knew it was one of the early symptoms of his body and soul separating. Rest should stop the deterioration, but it seemed as if rest might be hard to achieve in the immediate future.
'No,' Captain Stephens said. 'Purely naval, this matter, even if it's dashed puzzling.'
Aubrey wandered over to the eyepiece and recognised it as a periscope. He remembered the toy George and he had constructed from mirrors, long ago. It had been George's father who'd showed them how to put it together, and Aubrey recalled his patience as the two young boys fumbled with glue and cardboard.
'One of our merchant ships is being attacked,' Captain Stephens continued.
Sir Darius stiffened. 'Attacked? By whom?'
Stephens pushed back his cap and rubbed his brow. 'That's the problem. It's some sort of light cruiser, but it's not flying a flag.'
Not flying an identifying flag? Aubrey couldn't believe it. Such a thing went against every international law. 'What can we do?'
'What we must,' Sir Darius said. 'Captain, can you disable the attacking ship?'
'We're armed, sir. We can do it.'
Rokeby-Taylor regained some of his earlier enthusiasm at this prospect. 'Excellent! We can use the new torpedo guidance system.'
Captain Stephens touched his jaw. 'Very well. Let's give it a go.'
He returned to the periscope then snapped out the orders to surface. The klaxon stopped and Aubrey wanted to cheer. He felt the angle of the deck beneath his feet change once more as the bow pointed upward and he wondered if mountain goats mightn't make good submersiblers, accustomed as they were to angled footing.
'Surfacing, sir!' came the cry.
'Steady as she goes,' Captain Stephens said, peering through the periscope. 'We have them stern-on. They'll have to surrender.'
'Are they still firing on the freighter?' Aubrey asked.
Stephens didn't answer immediately. 'Looks like it. The old tub is on fire,' he said eventually. 'Bad show.'
'Do they see us?' Sir Darius said.
Suddenly, the submersible lurched and the whole vessel rang like a giant gong. Aubrey managed to cling to a brass conduit, which vibrated painfully under his fingers. Rokeby-Taylor staggered backward and collided hard with a large vertical pipe. He let out a grunt of pain but George managed to grab an overhead stanchion and he held himself up as easily as a passenger on an omnibus.
From the rest of the Electra, shouts and breaking glass competed with the whine of the engines. The klaxon started again and it drove sharp spikes of pain into Aubrey's skull. He thought it sounded positively delighted at the opportunity to torment him again.
'Apparently they do see us,' Captain Stephens said dryly. 'Luckily, they haven't found our range yet.'
A gigantic thump sounded, then a deafening hammering on the deck over their heads. Aubrey guessed that a near miss had thrown water into the air, deluging the submersible. For a ship that was supposed to be surrendering, he decided that the cruiser was doing quite well.
'For'rd torpedo room ready,' Captain Stephens barked.
His order was repeated by a nervous midshipman into a speaking tube; he listened, then turned to his captain.
'Ready, sir.'
'Fire.'
A clang, a thump, then an instant's silence before a noise like the world's largest sigh rolled through the length of the vessel. The Electra shook and rolled a little.
'Torpedo away!' the midshipman reported.
Captain Stephens applied his eye to the periscope. 'We've aimed at their rudder,' he said, his voice muffled by the nearness of his face to the eyepiece. 'Let's see how this magical targeting device performs.'