Liner

by James Barlow

  Torrente found this door now and beyond it was a tight spiral of cheap wooden steps, like the servants’ backstairs of some mansion. There were no handrails, and the rolling of the Areopagus threw him down after he’d ascended three steps. He was hot with rage as well as panic.

  The steps went up and up, exhausting him. Maybe they cork-screwed all the way up to the funnels . . .

  He came out by the ventilator intakes on the aft part of the Parade Deck, and at once saw the Seattle Doll split in two and burning, and, here, Greek sailors lowering lifeboats. His mind associated the two things incorrectly: a ship was burning, therefore this other ship was fatally wounded, too . . . And fire and sparks were certainly pouring out of a funnel and there was the hot lash of smoke and bits of burning oil.

  The sea and wind were terrifying, total, a life force, the God of the Old Testament in a range. Tornetta fell over, knocked out of breath by the onslaught of air. He was immediately cold and wet through. His one hand held grimly onto the case of money. The other caught hold of metal, anything. Blood ran through his fingers where jagged brass cut him. Terror waited everywhere – even in a lifeboat there would be utter terror and cold and illness for hours. But the fear of death was grater and Tornetta ran into the crowd who were fighting to board a lifeboat.

  Women were shouting, old men thrashing about with their fists. In the darkness Tornetta went through them easily, crippling three or four with his feet.

  The lifeboat swayed outboard and people scattered with cries of terror unheard in the wind. The boat swung back and smashed old heads.

  Tornetta had a grip on it now and a foot in the air. The Australian officer was shouting into his face, but frenzy possessed Tornetta. A sailor smashed something onto his hand and Tornetta doubled up and fell, all fingers of the hand broken. He fell over because there was no strength or balance in him. Other people trod on him without hesitation. He kicked at old women and men, rolled clear, was thrown by the motion and wind, but did not die as others did, because he had a rage to survive. He clung to a rail, screaming with fury as much as fear, and as the Areopagus dipped, scrambled half to his feet, his surviving hand clutching the rail by the deckhouse.

  The pain was trivial in the need for survival. The big battalion had exercised its rights. The flashlight had gone and after a while he realized that he had let go of the satchel of money.

  He wept in bitter frustration.

  They had launched the lifeboat. He could see that it was empty. See? He could see! Lights had come on! What did it mean? It must mean that the Australian officer had been truthful, and that the purpose of launching the lifeboat was to save others, not the Greeks themselves . . .

  Tornetta felt no shame about himself, although he was glad that identification was unlikely.

  Light shone through from the lounge onto life jackets, coats, a few shoes, a hat, and there, surely to God, was the cloth satchel full of money?

  It teased him as e groped toward it, sliding away from him. In a moment it would be exposed to the greater fury of crosswinds and go overboard.

  He fell on it and rolled to the rails. Rolling over his hand caused agony. But he had recovered it, all that money. Squibb could do nothing. There’d be a reshuffle of cabins. And a lot of shamed faces after all this. Officers weren’t going to take much notice of anyone over trivialities like having girls sleeping in your cabin or a bit of a punch-up. They would have so much trouble getting the ship in order and dealing with larger complaints, injuries and compensation, they’d be overworked for a fortnight.

  He felt sure that the Areopagus was going to survive.

  Beside him women had collapsed into hysteria. Men were waiting to attempt to crowd into the next boat swung on its davits. But Tornetta now wanted the ‘safety’ of shelter. He put the strap of the case around his neck and with his one free undamaged hand groped along the rail like a blind man until he came to the door and a confused mob struggling to get out and die.

  He collapsed, saturated, on the carpet of the Aegean Lounge, among anxious mothers, weeping children, old men rigid in fright and anxious not to reveal the terrible fear which numbed them. A lot of the passengers were singing and the queer entertainments officer was, as usual, with his mate, Edgar, around the piano.

  Tornetta watched them all without pity while he recovered from shock and exhaustion. Pious fool, singing hymns now, as though that would save them.

  After a while he felt cold because of the soaking and the pain of his broken fingers, and very sad. A woman stared at him in horror and he saw that his one hand was covered with blood. It was nothing: social justice, as they would have called it in Sicily. Announcements came over the public address system, sometimes without breakdown . . . After a while Tornetta made his way to the surgery before anyone there would know that to have broken fingers on this night was an injury which proved panic and cowardice and indifference to others . . .

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Heavy chairs had been scattered around the edges of the lounge for people like Miss Wearne to sit in and watch what they had not the physical strength to do and enjoy. But she was only able to obtain and occupy and sit very upright in a wooden chair, burping mulligatawny and chicken chow mein and taking a glass of beer now because she felt ill at ease. After an hour the diffused lights, the patterns and beams of varied bright colours, were too harsh for her. They flickered and diverged. It was like sitting in some strange diorama full of smoke and people shouting. Peopled dressed in costumes which carried from the bizarre to the crudely vulgar.

  Miss Wearne was still a little shocked even after weeks of cruising. Some of the girls pranced about with abandoned energy, itself coarse, in costumes to which they had clearly given much thought on how near-naked they could be. They were, as usual, treated with gross equality and contempt by youths sweating heavily in garish shirts. Some of the older Australians and New Zealanders danced with old-fashioned carriage like people in a hotel ballroom, but others were crude with heat and drinking. That awful Mr. Ballantyne, she noticed, had collected himself a brassy young woman of about thirty, and was battering at her senses with noisy vulgar flattery as well as alcohol. Miss Wearne liked the days better than the nights aboard the Areopagus . . .

  There were three hundred people crushed into the lounge ballroom. Coffee tables as well as the heavy chairs had been shoved out of the way. Stewards sweated through the mob with trays held high; they, too, were in fancy dress – red jackets with brass buttons, inside which they boiled.

  ‘They’re having a good time,’ opined the old lady in a comfortable armchair next to Miss Wearne. She coughed into Miss Wearne’s face. ‘A great time.’ Acoustics proved it – the band, shrieks, laughter, cries for the stewards. The woman’s cracked parchment skin folded in puzzlement at Miss Wearne’s feeble response of ‘Yes.’

  The vertigo was uncomfortable, but not yet unpleasant. It made Miss Wearne sweat in the face in anticipatory anxiety. Too many people for her tired body and mind to take along the retina. The kaleidoscope of fierce lights would made anybody dizzy, was perhaps intended to . . . Was she going to be ill here? She had a fear now of being a spectacle, people staring in resentment, their fun interrupted! She had observed that the bulk of passengers weren’t interested in those who became sick: they despised them . . .

  Or was this vertiginous uneasiness due to the sea? There was an alteration in the motion quite hard to detect, but there, she was sure of it.

  She stood up, in a posture of things recalled, important matters to attend to elsewhere. It didn’t fool the other woman. ‘Tired!’ she inquired, sipping sherry through yellow teeth. ‘Going already? I reckon they’ll be at until three this time.’

  Miss Wearne ignored her.

  One the way out she saw Debbie, chaste in some kind of Oriental flowing gown. The girl’s face, heavily made up for once, black and fierce around the doe
eyes, was anguished. She took her pleasures bitterly, Miss Wearne decided. She’s been hurt again. Miss Wearne was aware that someone was causing the nice girl to be dejected. Debbie could not hid weariness of spirit.

  She was dancing with the deputy purser, but broke off with apology as she saw Miss Wearne stumbling toward the exit close by. The faces of the orchestra stared coldly in failure.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Tired,’ admitted Miss Wearne.

  She was scared of death. It was here somewhere. But this was something she couldn’t burden the girl with. She had to identify it and face it alone. It would be very upsetting to witness, she presumed.

  ‘Are you going to rest?’

  ‘Might as well,’ acknowledged Miss Wearne. ‘It’s about time for an old bird like me.’

  ‘I’ll see you to the cabin. Excuse me,’ Debbie said to Eleftheriadis, who nodded.

  ‘You needn’t have done that,’ pointed out Miss Wearne, but greatly relieved. ‘You must go straight back.’

  ‘What for?’ asked Debbie sourly. ‘I might as well read a book.’

  In the cabin Miss Wearne asked outright, ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Oh, nothing, Miss Wearne.’

  ‘I can’t help, but I’d listen. Or perhaps I can help. Advice in cold blood, if you follow me.’

  The girl needed advice or consolation, Miss Wearne could see, but was too shy to unburden herself.

  ‘You can say anything,’ she prompted.

  ‘I don’t know what’s the matter with me,’ said Debbie. ‘It’s foolish. A kind of seasickness. He’s a middle-aged man. But he did say – It’s too tentative, Miss Wearne, for you to advise upon.’

  ‘I understand. You suspect something?’

  ‘Exactly. I’m suspicious. But it’s absurd and I have no right –’

  ‘You have every right. This man’s a bachelor, isn’t he?’

  Debbie giggled in brief hysteria. ‘Yes, but –’

  ‘Then what do you suspect?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ said Debbie, very embarrassed, scarlet in the cheeks.

  ‘Then what did he say?’

  ‘That’s simple. That he’d take me to this ridiculous ball . . . ’

  ‘But he’s forgotten?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘He didn’t turn up?’

  ‘Worse.’

  Miss Wearne probed carefully: ‘You can’t find him?’

  ‘He’s in his cabin.’

  ‘You don’t like to fetch him?’

  ‘There’s a woman with him.’

  ‘A patient. She’ll have gone now.’

  ‘No. That woman, Mrs. Triffett. She’s very neurotic, impertinent, but beautiful, I’m afraid.

  ‘You know she’s there?’

  ‘I saw her go –’

  ‘Ring him,’ suggested Miss Wearne. ‘Joke about it. Say you’re suffering from acute melancholia . . . Shall I do it?’

  ‘Oh, no, you mustn’t,’ Debbie disputed in shock. ‘Still, that’s a good idea.’

  She lifted the telephone and asked for Dempsey’s cabin. There was a long pause and then the telephone operator inquired, ‘Is it urgent? I can use the public address system if you wish.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Debbie in haste and she put down the phone.

  Miss Wearne said gently, ‘Not in his cabin?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Nor the surgery?’

  ‘I didn’t bother –’

  ‘Go on back to the ballroom, Debbie. He’ll be there. If he comes here –’

  ‘He won’t be there.’

  ‘Go and have a look.’

  ‘All right,’ said Debbie resignedly.

  Miss Wearne cleaned her teeth, undressed and took a pill. They had said that if she was overexcited or dizzy through weariness, to take one and it would calm her, send her to sleep. She hadn’t done so before because she’d been afraid. Now she wasn’t. She was fatigued. The sea was beginning to toss about. If there was bad weather it would keep her awake in discomfort, and tomorrow would be a day of miserable exhaustion. She did not know the power of the pill, but had confidence in it: she would sleep for hours.

  She fell asleep at once . . . Debbie’s face stared at her in pleading. There was nothing she could do for the girl who had been so helpful. There was no one, you see. There never had been. Just my father and my older brother. They knelt at prayer in the sitting room with Mother. Albert read from the Book. Gaslight hissed. And a certain man. Jesus said. Her small hands touched the antimacassar. It was dark green. They’d sold it when Father died, but there it was. Time moved backwards. A dream of monuments and a ship entering a harbour – Salonika? – full of corpses, with its hull streaked with the excrement of the men from Gallipoli, dying of dysentery. A dream moving backwards. She saw Father reading about war, angry with someone, and then the columns of men, caustic, tough, sweating, and the guns lined up. She’d never seen artillery except beside monuments now despised. Five or six pieces of artillery and mules kicking and lines of tents on a hill –

  The guns fired –

  Miss Wearne gave a cry of shock, and awoke, refreshed by hours of sleep, but the dream was still there, a roaring of wind, and a sound of metal tearing.

  She was dizzy, crazily dizzy, and cried out: ‘Debbie, I’m not well . . . I’ll have to have the doctor . . . Your friend . . . ’

  But she knew she was calling to no one, and the words were fumbled on her lips.

  Amidst the noise which had no meaning was a silence which worried her. Debbie’s.

  ‘There’s a terrible wind,’ complained Miss Wearne, but uselessly. Or was it the roaring of the illness in her ears?

  Her fingers sought the lamp switch. Illumination would be a comfort. Everything would e seen to be ‘normal,’ Debbie would be still at the ball.

  The switch clicked but no light came on.

  Miss Wearne heard shouting somewhere, and it had a note of urgency and demand. Something, she knew now, was terribly wrong. And she wasn’t dizzy. It was the sea. They were in a storm of frightening proportions.

  A brief pink incandescence illuminated the cabin and she heard an explosion. The same two or three seconds revealed that there was something wrong with the cabin . . .

  Above her head feet ran along the deck, which was Metaxas . . . The whole ship exuded alarm; it was possible to breathe panic, absorb it in the agitated belly.

  Miss Wearne had a flashlight. She kept it so that she could go to the lavatory in the middle of the night without disturbing Debbie.

  It was there, despite the motion of the ship, on the small shelf which folded right by her side, and which was for library books or ashtrays or cups of tea. She had no recollection of putting the flashlight there. Perhaps it had lain therefore thirty hours or so.

  Its narrow beam revealed that things had been thrown about. The cabin was a litter of cases and paper blew about.

  Miss Wearne stepped out of her bunk. She was at once half soaked in spray, which was fold, and knocked out of breath of air pressure. Her bare feet trod into an inch of water, which was alarming, although Miss Wearne didn’t think in terms of the Areopagus sinking, as A Deck was very high above the water.

  Lying in the water was Debbie, strangely twisted, and blood floated on the water along with bits of tickets, the sheet which told of the day’s events, and the company’s maps of Hong Kong, Singapore and Bali, given to each passenger.

  Miss Wearne stooped in concern and horror, and her wig fell off and dropped into the water. It did not seem to matter.

  Debbie was so tall she filled the cabin, even broken up – this was at once how Miss Wearne considered her. She turned the flashlight and saw that Debbie�
�s bunk was tilted and the girl had been ejected violently. The bunk was liable to collapse on both of them. Miss Wearne found in surprise – she even had time to feel a pleasure in it – that she was not alarmed. She rang the bell for a steward, but she knew as she rang it that no steward was going to come. Stewards belonged to the normal times. Normality had ended. It mattered less to Miss Wearne, for she had the advantage that she was going to die anyway soon. Her mind was not interested in how that took place. It was the girl. She was one of a handful of persons in Miss Wearne’s whole lifetime who had shown kindness and love. She had wondered how to ever replay this girl or reciprocate. Now she knew.

  But her body’s strength did not equal that of her mind. She tried to lift the girl, taking her under the arms, but Debbie groaned and thrashed about in misery.

  The surgeon was a mere hundred feet away on the opposite side of the ship.

  Miss Wearne lifted the telephone, but was not surprised to find that had failed, too . . .

  There was a chair, a cheap thing of cane with a pattern of holes in its seat.

  Debbie weighed only 120 pounds. Miss Wearne sweated away at it. Her own pulse thundered, blood boomed in her head. But finally she accomplished what she intended. She sat the girl on the chair. She didn’t know how dangerous this was in view of the bleeding, but was certain that if Debbie wasn’t taken to the surgery she’d die. And Miss Wearne knew in grim realism that the surgeon wasn’t likely to come here . . . He would be busy right now.

  She tied the girl in the chair with stockings and a strap, tilted the chair and began to drag it. Debbie hissed with pain.

  There was no light in the corridor, but Miss Wearne was undaunted. She could smell smoke and oil and hear shouting and the screams of children. She could do nothing about them. This was what she had to do with her frail sick body – drag a chair along a deck which tilted and jolted and heaved and dropped like a high-speed elevator.