San Andreas

by Alistair MacLean

  ‘No, not at all. He’s an eager lad, willing and helpful.’

  ‘He’s all yours. Besides, we haven’t a pantry left. He’s making eyes at one of the nurses?’

  ‘You underestimate the boy. Sister Morrison, no less. At a worshipful distance, of course.’

  ‘Good God!’ the Bo’sun said.

  Mario entered, bearing, one-handed and a few inches above his head, a rather splendid silver salver laden with bottles and glasses, which, in the circumstances, was no mean feat, as the San Andreas was rolling quite noticeably. With a deft, twirling movement, Mario had the tray on the table without so much as the clink of glass against glass. Where the salver had come from was unexplained and Mario’s business. As became the popular conception of an Italian, Mario was darkly and magnificently mustachioed, but whether he possessed the traditional flashing eyes was impossible to say as he invariably wore dark glasses. There were those who purported to see in those glasses a connection with the Sicilian Mafia, an assertion that was always good-humouredly made, as he was well-liked. Mario was overweight, of indeterminate age and claimed to have served in the Savoy Grill, which may have been true. What was beyond dispute was that there lay behind Mario, a man whose rightful home Captain Bowen considered to be either a prisoner-of-war or internment camp, a more than usually chequered career.

  After no more than two fingers of Scotch, but evidently considering that his red corpuscles were back on the job, Dr Singh said: ‘And now, Mr Patterson?’

  ‘Lunch, Doctor. A very belated lunch but starving ourselves isn’t going to help anyone. I’m afraid it will have to be cooked in your galley and served here.’

  ‘Already under way. And then?’

  ‘And then we get under way.’ He looked at the Bo’sun. ‘We could, temporarily, have the lifeboat’s compass in the engine-room. We already have rudder control there.’

  ‘It wouldn’t work, sir. There’s so much metal in your engine-room that any magnetic compass would have fits.’ He pushed back his chair and rose. ‘I think I’ll pass up lunch. I think you will agree, Mr Patterson, that a telephone line from the bridge to the engine-room and electric power on the bridge—so that we can see what we are doing—are the two first priorities.’

  Jamieson said: ‘That’s already being attended to, Bo’sun.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. But the lunch can still wait.’ He was speaking now to Patterson. ‘Board up the bridge and let some light in. After that, sir, we might try to clear up some of the cabins in the superstructure, find out which of them is habitable and try to get power and heating back on. A little heating on the bridge wouldn’t come amiss, either.’

  ‘Leave all that other stuff to the engine-room staff—after we’ve had a bite, that is. You’ll be requiring some assistance?’

  ‘Ferguson and Curran will be enough.’

  ‘Well, that leaves only one thing.’ Patterson regarded the deckhead. ‘The plate glass for your bridge windows.’

  ‘Indeed, sir. I thought you—’

  ‘A trifle.’ Patterson waved a hand to indicate how much of a trifle it was. ‘You have only to ask, Bo’sun.’

  ‘But I thought you—perhaps I was mistaken.’

  ‘We have a problem?’ Dr Singh said.

  ‘I wanted some plate glass from the trolleys or trays in the wards. Perhaps, Dr Singh, you would care—’

  ‘Oh no.’ Dr Singh’s reply was as quick as it was decisive. ‘Dr Sinclair and I run the operating theatre and look after our surgical patients, but the running of the wards has nothing to do with us. Isn’t that so, Doctor?’

  ‘Indeed it is, sir.’ Dr Sinclair also knew how to sound decisive.

  The Bo’sun surveyed the two doctors and Patterson with an impassive face that was much more expressive than any expression could have been and passed through the doorway into Ward B. There were ten patients in this ward and two nurses, one very much a brunette, the other very much a blonde. The brunette, Nurse Irene, was barely in her twenties, hailed from Northern Ireland, was pretty, dark-eyed and of such a warm and happy disposition that no one would have dreamed of calling her by her surname, which no one seemed to know anyway. She looked up as the Bo’sun entered and for the first time since she’d joined she failed to give him a welcoming smile. He patted her shoulder gently and walked to the other end of the ward where Nurse Magnusson was rebandaging a seaman’s arm.

  Janet Magnusson was a few years older than Irene and taller, but not much. She had a more than faintly windswept, Viking look about her and was unquestionably good-looking: she shared the Bo’sun’s flaxen hair and blue-grey eyes but not, fortunately, his burnt-brick complexion. Like the younger nurse, she was much given to smiling: like her, the smile was in temporary abeyance. She straightened as the Bo’sun approached, reached out and touched his arm.

  ‘It was terrible, wasn’t it, Archie?’

  ‘Not a thing I would care to do again. I’m glad you weren’t there, Janet.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that—the burial, I mean. It was you who sewed up the worst of them—they say that the Radio Officer was, well, all bits and pieces.’

  ‘An exaggeration. Who told you that?’

  ‘Johnny Holbrook. You know, the young orderly. The one that’s scared of you.’

  ‘There’s nobody scared of me,’ the Bo’sun said absently. He looked around the ward. ‘Been quite some changes here.’

  ‘We had to turf some of the so-called recuperating patients out. You’d have thought they were being sent to their deaths. Siberia, at least. Nothing the matter with them. Not malingerers, really, they just liked soft beds and being spoiled.’

  ‘And who was spoiling them, if not you and Irene? They just couldn’t bear to be parted from you. Where’s the lioness?’

  Janet gave him a disapproving look. ‘Are you referring to Sister Morrison?’

  ‘That’s the lioness I mean. I have to beard her in her den.’

  ‘You don’t know her, Archie. She’s very nice really. Maggie’s my friend. Truly.’

  ‘Maggie?’

  ‘When we’re off duty, always. She’s in the next ward.’

  ‘Maggie! Good lord! I thought she disapproved of you because she disapproves of me because she disapproves of me talking to you.’

  ‘Fiddlesticks. And Archie?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘A lioness doesn’t have a beard.’

  The Bo’sun didn’t deign to answer. He moved into the adjacent ward. Sister Morrison wasn’t there. Of the eight patients, only two, McGuigan and Jones, were visibly conscious. The Bo’sun approached their adjacent beds and said: ‘How’s it going, boys?’

  ‘Ach, we’re fine, Bo’sun,’ McGuigan said. ‘We shouldn’t be here at all.’

  ‘You’ll stay here until you’re told to leave.’ Eighteen years old. He was wondering how long it would take them to recover from the sight of the almost decapitated Rawlings lying by the wheel when Sister Morrison entered by the far door.

  ‘Good afternoon, Sister Morrison.’

  ‘Good afternoon, Mr McKinnon. Making your medical rounds, I see.’

  The Bo’sun felt the stirrings of anger but contented himself with looking thoughtful: he was probably unaware that his thoughtful expression, in certain circumstances, could have a disquieting effect on people.

  ‘I just came to have a word with you, Sister.’ He looked around the ward. ‘Not a very lively bunch, are they?’

  ‘I hardly think this is the time or place for levity, Mr McKinnon.’ The lips were not as compressed as they might have been but there was an appreciable lack of warmth behind the steel-rimmed spectacles.

  The Bo’sun looked at her for long seconds, during which time she began to show distinct signs of uneasiness. Like most people—with the exception of the timorous Johnny Holbrook—she regarded the Bo’sun as being cheerful and easy-going, with the rider, in her case, that he was probably a bit simple: it required only one glance at that cold, hard, bleak face to realize how totally wrong she h
ad been. It was an unsettling experience.

  The Bo’sun spoke in a slow voice. ‘I am not in the mood for levity, Sister. I’ve just buried fifteen men. Before I buried them I had to sew them up in their sheets of canvas. Before I did that I had to gather up their bits and pieces and stick their guts back inside. Then I sewed them up. Then I buried them. I didn’t see you among the mourners, Sister.’

  The Bo’sun was more than aware that he shouldn’t have spoken to her like that and he was also aware that what he had gone through had affected him more than he had thought. Under normal circumstances it was impossible that he should have been so easily provoked: but the circumstances were abnormal and the provocation too great.

  ‘I’ve come for some plate glass, such as you have on the tops of your trolleys and trays. I need them urgently and I don’t need them for any light-hearted purposes. Or do you require an explanation?’

  She didn’t say whether she required an explanation or not. She didn’t do anything dramatic like sinking into a chair, reaching out for the nearest support or even putting a hand to her mouth. Only her colour changed. Sister Morrison had the kind of complexion that, like her eyes and lips, was in marked contrast to her habitually severe expression and steel-rimmed glasses, the kind of complexion that would have had the cosmetic tycoons sending their scientists back to the bench: at that moment, however, the peaches had faded from the traditional if rarely seen peaches and cream of the traditional if equally rarely seen English rose.

  The Bo’sun removed the glass top from a table by Jones’s bedside, looked around for trays, saw none, nodded to Sister Morrison and went back to Ward B. Janet Magnusson looked at him in surprise.

  ‘Is that what you went for?’ The Bo’sun nodded. ‘Maggie—Sister Morrison—had no objection?’

  ‘Nary an objection. Have you any glass-topped trays?’

  Chief Patterson and the others had already begun lunch when the Bo’sun returned, five sheets of plate glass under his arm. Patterson looked faintly surprised.

  ‘No trouble then, Bo’sun?’

  ‘One only has to ask. I’ll need some tools for the bridge.’

  ‘Fixed,’ Jamieson said. ‘I’ve just been to the engine-room. There’s a box gone up to the bridge—all the tools you’ll require, nuts, bolts, screws, insulating tape, a power drill and a power saw.’

  ‘Ah. Thank you. But I’ll need power.’

  ‘Power you have. Only a temporary cable, mind you, but the power is there. And lights, of course. The phone will take some time.’

  ‘That’s fine. Thank you, Mr Jamieson.’ He looked at Patterson. ‘One other thing, sir. We have a fair number of nationalities in our crew. The captain of the Greek tanker—Andropolous, isn’t it?—might have a mixed crew too. I should think there’s a fair chance, sir, that one of our men and one of the Greek crew might have a common language. Perhaps you could make enquiries, sir.’

  ‘And how would that help, Bo’sun?’

  ‘Captain Andropolous can navigate.’

  ‘Of course, of course. Always the navigation, isn’t it, Bo’sun?’

  ‘There’s nothing without it, sir. Do you think you could get hold of Naseby and Trent—they’re the two men who were with me here when we were attacked? Weather’s worsening, sir, and we have ice forming on the deck. Would you have them rig up lifelines between here and the superstructure?’

  ‘Worsening?’ Dr Singh said. ‘How much worse, Mr McKinnon?’

  ‘Quite a bit, I’m afraid. Bridge barometer is smashed but I think the one in the Captain’s cabin is intact. I’ll check.’ He brought out the hand compass which he’d removed from the lifeboat. ‘This thing’s virtually useless but at least it does show changes in direction. We’re wallowing in the troughs port side to, so that means the wind and the sea are coming at us on the port beam. Wind direction is changing rapidly, we’ve backed at least five degrees since we came down here. Wind’s roughly north-east. If experience is any guide that means heavy snow, heavy seas and a steadily dropping temperature.’

  ‘No slightest light in the gloom, is that it, Mr McKinnon?’ Dr Singh said. ‘Where every prospect pleases and only man is vile. Except this is the other way round.’

  ‘A tiny speck of light, Doctor. If the temperature keeps falling like this, the cold room is going to stay cold and the frozen meat and fish should stay that way. And we do have a vile man—or men—aboard or we shouldn’t be in the state we are. You’re worried about your patients, aren’t you, Doctor—especially the ones in Ward A?’

  ‘Telepathy, Mr McKinnon. If conditions deteriorate much more they’re going to start falling out of their beds—and the last thing I want to do is to start strapping wounded men to their beds.’

  ‘And the last thing I want is for the superstructure to topple over the side.’

  Jamieson had pushed back his chair and was on his feet. ‘I have my priorities right, no, Bo’sun?’

  ‘Indeed, Mr Jamieson. Thank you very much.’

  Dr Singh half-smiled. ‘Not more telepathy?’

  The Bo’sun smiled back. Dr Singh appeared to be very much the right man in the right place. ‘I think he’s gone to have a word with the men rigging up the telephone line from the bridge to the engine-room.’

  ‘And then I press the button,’ Patterson said.

  ‘Yes, sir. And then south-west. I don’t have to tell you why.’

  ‘You might tell a landlubber why,’ Dr Singh said.

  ‘Of course. Two things. Heading south-west will mean that the wind and the seas from the northeast are dead astern. That should eliminate all rolling so that you don’t have to put your patients in straitjackets or whatever. There’ll be some pitching, of course, but not much and even then Mr Patterson can smooth that out by adjusting the ship’s speed to the wave speed. The other big advantage is that by heading south-west there’s no land we can bump into for hundreds of miles to come. If you will excuse me, gentlemen.’ The Bo’sun left, together with his sheets of plate glass and hand compass.

  ‘Doesn’t miss much, does he?’ Dr Singh said. ‘Competent, you would say, Mr Patterson?’

  ‘Competent? He’s more than that. Certainly the best bo’sun I’ve ever sailed with—and I’ve never known a bad bo’sun yet. If we ever get to Aberdeen—and with McKinnon around I rate our chances better than even—I won’t be the man you’ll have to thank.’

  The Bo’sun arrived on the bridge, a bridge now over-illuminated with two garish arc lamps, to find Ferguson and Curran already there, with enough plywood of various shapes and sizes to build a modest hut. Neither of the two men could be said to be able to walk, not in the proper sense of the term. Muffled to the ears and with balaclavas and hoods pulled low over their foreheads, they were so swaddled in layers of jerseys, trousers and coats that they were barely able to waddle: given a couple of white fur coats they would have resembled nothing so much as a pair of polar bears that had given up on their diet years ago. As it was, they were practically white already: the snow, driving almost horizontally, swept, without let or hindrance, through the yawning gaps where the port for’ard screens and the upper wing door screen had once been. Conditions weren’t improved by the fact that, at a height of some forty feet above the hospital, the effects of the rolling were markedly worse than they had been down below, so bad, in fact, that it was very difficult to keep one’s footing, and that only by hanging on to something. The Bo’sun carefully laid the plate glass in a corner and wedged it so that it wouldn’t slide all over the deck. The rolling didn’t bother him, but the creaking and groaning of the superstructure supports and the occasional juddering vibration that shook the bridge bothered him a very great deal.

  ‘Curran! Quickly! Chief Engineer Patterson. You’ll find him in the hospital. Tell him to start up and turn the ship either into the wind or away from the wind. Away is better—that means hard a-starboard. Tell him the superstructure is going to fall over the side any minute.’

  For a man usually slow to obey any o
rder and handicapped though he was by his constricted lower limbs, Curran made off with remarkable alacrity. It could have been that he was a good man in an emergency, but more likely he didn’t fancy being on the bridge when it vanished into the Barents Sea.

  Ferguson eased two layers of scarf from his mouth. ‘Difficult working conditions, Bo’sun. Impossible, a man might say. And have you seen the temperature?’

  The Bo’sun glanced at the bulkhead thermometer which was about the only thing still working on the bridge. ‘Two above,’ he said.

  ‘Ah! Two above. But two above what? Fahrenheit, that’s what it’s above. That means thirty degrees of frost.’ He looked at the Bo’sun in what he probably regarded as a meaningful fashion. ‘Have you ever heard of the chill factor, eh?’

  The Bo’sun spoke with commendable restraint. ‘Yes, Ferguson, I have heard of the chill factor.’

  ‘For every knot of wind the temperature, as far as the skin is concerned, falls by one degree.’ Ferguson had something on his mind and as far as he was concerned the Bo’sun had never heard of the chill factor. ‘Wind’s at least thirty knots. That means it’s sixty below on this bridge. Sixty!’ At that moment, at the end of an especially alarming roll, the superstructure gave a very loud creak indeed, more of a screech than a creak, and it didn’t require any kind of imagination to visualize metal tearing under lateral stress.

  ‘If you want to leave the bridge,’ the Bo’sun said, ‘I’m not ordering you to stay.’

  ‘Trying to shame me into staying, eh? Trying to appeal to my better nature? Well, I got news for you. I ain’t got no better feelings, mate.’

  The Bo’sun said, mildly: ‘Nobody aboard this ship calls me “mate”.’

  ‘Bo’sun.’ Ferguson made no move to carry out his implied threat and he wasn’t even showing any signs of irresolution. ‘Do I get danger money for this? Overtime, perhaps?’

  ‘A couple of tots of Captain Bowen’s special malt Scotch. Let’s spend our last moments usefully, Ferguson. We’ll start with some measuring.’

  ‘Already done.’ Ferguson showed the spring-loaded steel measuring tape in his hand and tried hard not to smile in smug self-satisfaction. ‘Me and Curran have already measured the front and side screens. Written down on that bit of plywood there.’