Liner

by James Barlow

  ‘No. We’re not.’

  Mike was still unable to move the bulk above him. It was jammed in its hinges or something. Her weight had made little difference. He became desperate and kicked and pushed.

  The light came on in the bathroom. The door which separated it from this cabin was closed, but there was now a rectangle of illumination around the door and it gave enough light in here to take away a little of the terror. Somewhere somebody was aware that the lights had failed, and had done something about it. Sooner or later, it followed, they’d come to find the Burstons.

  ‘Patricia, listen. Go into the bathroom and tell me what it’s like.’

  ‘Dad, Stella, there’s blood –’

  ‘Never mind that. Go into the bathroom . . . Is it all right?’ He shouted.

  Patricia said into his ear, ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Is it flooded or broken or anything?’

  ‘It’s got water in.’

  ‘A lot?’

  ‘Just like here.’

  He didn’t know what that meant and didn’t dare to ask.

  ‘Take Bumble and go in there. Stay there.’

  ‘I don’t want to. I’m scared. How will you get out of there?’

  ‘You just take Bumble. Be careful.’

  ‘We can’t get out of the cabin,’ she told him. ‘The door’s gone funny –’

  ‘All right. Go into the bathroom.’

  He could see Patricia’s legs stumbling about. ‘Don’t look at Stella,’ he cautioned. ‘Just go . . . I’ll see to Stella.’

  ‘I’m frightened. If we can’t get out . . . ’

  ‘I know, I’m scared too. Just go.’

  When she was in the bathroom with the baby he began to hack at the wood above him with a restricted arc for his feet, at the same time pushing upward with his hands. It seemed beyond his strength, and all the time Stella groaned and cried . . .

  Something gave way after a while and the one end of the thing was free to lift higher. He kicked harder, hurting his feet brutally, and then struggled to get out. Splinters and torn metal ripped his clothes and flesh as he did so, but he came out feet first and collapsed onto the deck where Bumble’s cot was crushed and suitcases had slid about and there was perhaps half an inch of water.

  He was instantly soaked by the howling moisture as it roared into the cabin through the fracture. He crawled toward Stella through a high-pressure spray.

  It wasn’t possible to see exactly what happened, but certainly the steel of the hull had crumbled like tinfoil and crushed the two bunks like matchwood, and in this mess his daughter was trapped. Oh, God, he thought, cold in fear, and sure that she must die.

  She was groaning and shivering and mumbling. His hands, seeking her tenderly, encountered warm blood. She was lying in it.

  ‘Oh, my little girl,’ he cried.

  ‘I’m hurt,’ Stella said simply in a tiny voice and stiffened and groaned.

  ‘We’ll get you out,’ Mike said, ‘You’ve broken a bone, kid, so keep as still as you can.’

  He explored very delicately to see if she was smashed elsewhere, but her arms and legs seemed intact, as far as he could touch them, for blankets, wood and steel were all crunched together, enfolding her.

  Very carefully, but with the urgency of love and numbing apprehension, he wrenched off broken wood. The saturated air roared into his face from the sea and stunned and deafened him. The motion of the ship threw him about, but he tore at wood and metal, breathing heavily, nothing in the world but this . . .

  He talked comfort and love to her, incoherently, and it seemed to reach her. She comprehended that his desperation was love. She thought he was sobbing.

  Whole minutes later, consciousness coming and going. She felt his hands touch her hair and face, exploring tenderly for pain. She understood him perfectly now and was black with shame of the other thing.

  It was important to tell him this. She might forget if she went to sleep now, and things might be different when she woke.

  ‘Dad!’ she whispered.

  ‘Don’t move, kid,’ he requested. ‘You’re nearly free.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she sighed.

  In the roar of air he heard it, understood it, and was overwhelmed with sorrow and love, and began to weep.

  ‘So’m I,’ he confessed.

  ‘Why, Dad, You’re crying,’ Stella said in pleasurable shock amidst the agony.

  He cared. It was like Mum said. It had warmth, in the end it was what mattered, who loved, who cared, not who wanted the cheaper stuff, necking and kisses, those hot shameful moments. She understood this and it warmed her and it was beautiful.

  The stewards were battering at the cabin door. Mike heard Marion’s voice and was relieved. She was all right and so was he. He hadn’t failed.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The Turkish radio officer, Baruteu, used the transceiver to send out the Mayday signal of distress. He then adjusted an emergency transmitter so that it could, if necessary, be left behind should the liner be abandoned; it would continue to send signals after he had gone. Finally he prepared a battery transmitter which could float, and this he kept ready to carry to the lifeboats if necessary.

  He did not believe that they would abandon ship, although he recognized that there might be wishful thinking here. But he had been through war, famine, revolution, earthquake and poverty and had no doubt that he would survive shipwreck too.

  They were dragging the captain off the bridge. This was interesting for it left Tomazos in command. This was a good man, Baruteu considered, but embittered, and recently inclined to the bottle. It was worthy of perusal, for the experience of command, if survived, might eliminate the bitterness.

  Baruteu understood the unhappiness. His own wife had been lost but by death, not betrayal, and he had suffered . . . He stretched himself and was aware that his back was stiff. He poured out three quarters of a glass of cider and drank it and waited . . .

  Tomazos had many problems thrust instantly upon him in total darkness as he stood on an unstable bridge. His telegraph order to the engine room was not answered. The ship’s siren did not function now and Yannopoulos told him that the telemotor steering gear was dead in his hands. The public address system did not work. He was, however, able to close the twenty-three watertight doors by hydraulic hand operation.

  The brochure lied when it talked of ‘at the press of a button.’

  The responsibility was entirely his and it was a heavy burden at the end of a long chain: owners who ran this liner as part of an industry (oil and hotels), and whose responsibility was limited entirely on shore, governments, Greek and Panamanian in particular, but also every country, state and port had its particular rules about health, safety and facilities: the Areopagus, in reverse, had to be treated like a visiting embassy; and, finally, at sea, the master . . .

  These were the things he had to do – and there would be others as they occurred. Assess the damage (and adjust the trim accordingly), control any flooding; restore electricity, via emergency generators if that was necessary and possible. He must communicate to shore adequate reports of damage so that the authorities understood the gravity of the situation. He must assess the harm inflicted upon or likely to be upon passengers. They must be reassured, informed truthfully when he himself had information. Demetropoulos and his staff must check about children, life jackets, the injured, people trapped in cabins or by the watertight doors. He recalled the passenger’s half-hearted cynical interest in life-jacket drill. Well, at any rate, they all had or had been issued life jackets. The ship was not crowded; there were plenty more if needed . . . Crew and passengers not only wanted reassurance: they needed orders and instructions.

  He said to Mollon. ‘Get down there and take charge on the Parade Deck,
Tom. You speak Australian! Tell me the situation.’

  As he uttered these words the Seattle Doll exploded.

  ‘Christ!’ Mollon cried. ‘Poor bastards.’

  ‘If we can launch boats, do so,’ Tomazos instructed. ‘You’ll have to do it as find it, Tom.’

  To Makris he said, ‘The electricity’s failed. I want a team of runners for orders. I want the whole ship assessed for flood, damage and fire. If those automobiles have shifted. If ballast tanks have been punctured, or areas flooded, inform me so that I can employ pupils when we can use the damn things; and I can adjust trim.’

  Tomazos was aware that in this storm and collision passengers would be hurt. They’d e pounded by tables, chairs, lockers, heavy fittings wrenched from their fastenings. They were now, as he was, plunged into darkness, and some would be scalded by coffee, bruised by the instruments of the orchestra; crockery, glass and bottles would shatter; a flood of beer and spirit would ruin carpets. Spirits were inflammable; he recalled a serious fire due to burning spirits. Ashtrays would clang. Liquids would spill. In some cabins a colossal bang of metal would be followed by darkness and a sudden inrush of water, cold and shocking. They might be injured. Kids would be terrified . . . Tomazos sent his first runner to the surgery to place the doctors on alert. ‘Tell them to organize an overflow. Tell them that I’ll get extra blankets when I can.’

  He waited, frustrated and helpless, to gather knowledge – what had been damaged, what had been flooded and which of the thousands of usable instruments, engines and devices had been destroyed or simply waited for the restoration of electrical power. It was probable, he felt, that the main damage had been inflicted behind the collision bulkhead and as far as he could tell (for he had been frightened and had flinched, too) behind the bridge, on the port side. The frames like ribs were heavy angle-bars spaced about three feet apart which extended vertically from the keel to the upper deck. Numbered from one near the bows to over two hundred at the stern, they were divided every dozen or so by transverse bulkheads. This subdivision separated the Areopagus into watertight compartments. But with a sea like this and steering gone, and perhaps steam power also lost, and possibly fuel pipes severed and high-tension electric cables ready to spark off a fire as soon as electricity had been restored, and a fire ranging still in the hairdressing salon . . . Anyway, there probably wasn’t any whip damage – despite its bulk the liner was a flexible structure.

  The radar told him nothing, for it, too, was out of action. But he knew that the Areopagus was beam onto a typhoon wind and that there was a lee shore a mere twenty miles away. Unless power could be restored they’d be smashed to pieces on rocks within two hours . . . He understood which was the rotational direction of the revolving storm and was unable, until he had power, to bring the ship around. In the meantime, assuming his ship’s survival, he had ordered boats to be lowered – if possible – to pick up possible survivors of the other ship, now burning and split in half . . . Looking aft from the wing of the bridge – with the air howling around him and the spray saturating his clothes – he saw in horror that flames and sparks were coming out of the aft funnel of the Areopagus. An oxygen cylinder exploded as it rolled overboard. For a moment Tomazos had doubts about survival . . .

  Mollon ordered that the boats on the port side should be swung out. It would be impossible, because of the liner’s heel, to get the starboard boats into a lowering position. The davits were designed for working with a list of up to fifteen degrees. The starboard boats could not be pushed uphill. This meant that the port boats with a total capacity of around fifty percent of the passengers and crew were all that could be used. The excessive list now caused the lifeboats to swing far outboard from the hull at muster stations on the Parade Deck, and they could not be easily braced on the ship’s side.

  Mollon and some sailors and stewards had to fight off panicking passengers to get away. One lifeboat wouldn’t shift at all. Nor would the motor start on another. But Mollon’s boat at last went around the stern of the Areopagus where its engine was swamped and cut out. Mollon stayed in the less of the Areopagus and cursed and swore until the motor ran again. He then made toward the area where he believed the other ship had burned . . .

  Two boats got away from the Seattle Doll. About twenty men were in one and when it capsized another dozen also clung to it. As each huge wave broke over the boat one or two men were washed off.

  A dozen men dropped or clambered into the second boat, which had been launched empty in haste and fear of an explosion. They let go the stern line. This in the darkness wrapped itself around the propeller of the Seattle Doll and became hopelessly jammed, together with the boat’s rudder. The tern line was to two rafts, but the coat could not get away from the Seattle Doll. The stern swung into the metal ship and was holed just above the waterline.

  It was then that the Seattle Doll sank, taking the boat with her. The men were sucked into the sea.

  A few survived and were in the water, treading oil, stunned and injured and, most of them, naked, when Mollon’s boat came up. It was difficult in a towering sea to grasp and pull them aboard because they were covered with fuel oil and were slippery.

  Other men from the Seattle Doll were on the life raft, or clinging to it, or to rope trailing from it – six men clung to the thick greasy rope – and these men were expecting to be towed by the boat which had now been holed and swamped. There was almost no visibility, breathing was difficult, and the sea was a cauldron. Huge waves flooded over the craft, whole feet over, and soon came water so powerful that it folded the raft like a sandwich, suffocating and drowning those men who had not fallen or been thrown clear. Some men swam away until they were seized with cramp, their muscles became constructed and they drowned. A few stayed where they had been thrown in the water, treading oil, until the liner’s boats picked them up.

  Not only were these unfortunate men slippery with oil, but some had broken limbs. Others had swallowed oil. Two were virtually rigid with shock and it was immensely difficult to get them aboard the boat and, later, the Areopagus.

  Not having either electricity or the power of steam at least gave Tomazos the doubtful advantage of being able to consider what he would do when he did have one or both. And gradually information was brought to him by officers and sailors, so that he had a good idea which parts of the ship were flooded and which cargo had shifted. Some of the twenty-two automobiles had snapped their steel cables and fallen over, but so long as they did not catch fire their weight was relatively trivial . . . He was aware of which areas needed pumping. What he did not know was if any pumps were workable. An estimate of stability was made, using the cargo list corrected at Hong Kong, and in consultation with those blue and red markers which had amused Mrs. Triffett, and which told of the positions and quantities of oil and water. Most of the cargo was still secured in a seamanlike manner to meet normal conditions . . . The fore and aft trim was not too bad. She was down several feet but the bows, but this was not getting worse.

  He did not drop the anchors, for he did not feel the Areopagus would come around readily to the sea even though her engines might be functioning; one, he knew for sure, was out of action. He needed more power to make even this manoeuvre, although he would certainly have to do something presently, power or not . . . Soon he would have no sea room and any manoeuvres would be in the dangerous area of rocks . . . The ship was already heeled ten degrees to port. No more water must be allowed to flood the port side or the Areopagus would roll and capsize. Pumping must begin on the port side . . .

  Electric power came on and the first thing Tomazos saw was that the surviving radar had failed – the picture had spun around. He smiled grimly. Captain Vafiadis would have approved of this failure!

  His first telephone dialogue was with the chief engineer. He could scarcely her Mr. Bitsios, but at least this line hadn’t failed as the voice whistle had.

 
‘What’s the situation?’

  ‘Who is that?’

  ‘Tomazos, First Officer.’

  ‘Not the captain?’

  ‘He has been hurt.’

  ‘Ah!’ said Bitsios, in interest, possibly in satisfaction. ‘So what are your demands?’

  ‘Whatever you can give me, I can use,’ Tomazos told him.

  ‘I cannot give you much,’ the chief engineer informed him. ‘The port boiler and fire room are finished. The port propeller shaft has broken. Even the turbine has steam leaks. No power, no power at all. Cavitation in the port screw undoubtedly even if we had power and a shaft . . . ’

  ‘Is the port boiler dangerous?’

  ‘Everything is dangerous. It is a madhouse down here. But some of my lads turned off the oil and main steam.’

  ‘Any casualties, Mr. Bitsios?’

  ‘Ah, yes.’

  ‘I am sorry.’

  ‘We’ve got some of the boys out.’

  ‘What about the starboard side?’

  ‘We can give you power in a while. We’ll see. Yes, now with light, we’ll see. I will inform you, but as far as I know we have steam left and the starboard burners are functioning –’

  ‘What about pumps?’

  ‘Almost nothing. You could use the cruising and auxiliaries.’

  These were duplicates for the small turbine pumps. They were motor-driven and used in port. They had comparatively high efficiency, but their capacity was not great enough to meet the demands of the plant at high speeds.

  ‘Any leakage of fuel?’

  Bitsios told him the situation as far as he himself knew it – and it was as Tomazos thought: all flooding and damage was on the port side. Because of the list of ten degrees on that side he must not pump away the limited quantity of fuel available (on the starboard side) and usable for the surviving starboard burners to raise the steam for the long journey to Guam. (They were nearer to Hong Kong, but the storm lay between it and the Areopagus.) He would use fuel from the starboard side 150 tons a day perhaps for three days – and the list should not be much aggravated, particularly if the flooded parts of the port side could be pumped . . . There were hours more of typhoon winds yet to inflict alarm. He must not assume the probability of a calm sea . . .