San Andreas

by Alistair MacLean

  ‘Fine, fine.’ The Bo’sun tested both the electric drill and electric saw. Both worked. ‘No problem. We’ll cut the plywood three inches wider and higher than your measurements to get the overlap we need. Then we’ll drill holes top, bottom and sides, three-quarters of an inch in, face the plywood up to the screen bearers, mark the metal and drill the holes through the steel.’

  ‘That steel is three-eighths of an inch. Take to next week to drill all those holes.’

  The Bo’sun looked through the tool box and came up with three packets of drills. The first he discarded. The drills in the second, all with blue tips, he showed to Ferguson.

  ‘Tungsten. Goes through steel like butter. Mr Jamieson doesn’t miss much.’ He paused and cocked his head as if listening, though it was a purely automatic reaction, any sound from the after end of the ship was carried away by the wind: but there was no mistaking the throbbing that pulsed through the superstructure. He looked at Ferguson, whose face cracked into what might almost have been a smile.

  The Bo’sun moved to the starboard wing door—the sheltered side of the ship—and peered through the gap where the screen had been in the upper half of the door. The snow was so heavy that the seas moving away from the San Andreas were as much imagined as seen. The ship was still rolling in the troughs. A vessel of any size that has been lying dead in the water can take an unconscionable time—depending, of course, on the circumstances—to gather enough momentum to have steerage way on, but after about another minute the Bo’sun became aware that the ship was sluggishly answering to the helm. He couldn’t see this but he could feel it: a definite quartering motion had entered into the rolling to which they had been accustomed for some hours.

  McKinnon moved away from the wing door. ‘We’re turning to starboard. Mr Patterson has decided to go with the wind. We’ll soon have both sea and snow behind us. Fine, fine.’

  ‘Fine, fine,’ Ferguson said. This was about twenty seconds later and the tone of his voice indicated that everything was all but fine. He was, indeed, acutely uneasy and with reason. The San Andreas was heading almost due south, the heavy seas bearing down on her port quarter were making her corkscrew violently and the markedly increased creaking and groaning of the superstructure was doing little enough for his morale. ‘God’s sake, why couldn’t we have stayed where we were?’

  ‘A minute’s time and you’ll see why.’ And in a minute’s time he did see why. The corkscrewing and rolling gradually eased and ceased altogether, so did the creaking in the superstructure and the San Andreas, on an approximately south-west course, was almost rock-steady in the water. There was a slight pitching, but, compared to what they had just experienced, it was so negligible as not to be worth the mentioning. Ferguson, with a stable deck beneath his feet, the fear of imminent drowning removed and the snowstorm so squarely behind them that not a flake reached the bridge, had about him an air of profound relief.

  Shortly after the Bo’sun and Ferguson had started sawing out the rectangles of plywood, four men arrived on the bridge—Jamieson, Curran, McCrimmon and another stoker called Stephen. Stephen was a Pole and was called always by his first name: nobody had ever been heard to attempt the surname of Przynyszewski. Jamieson carried a telephone, Curran two black heaters, McCrimmon two radiant heaters and Stephen two spools of rubber-insulated cable, one thick, one thin, both of which he unreeled as he went.

  ‘Well, this is more like it, Bo’sun,’ Jamieson said. ‘A millpond, one might almost call it. Done a power of good for the morale down below. Some people have even rediscovered their appetites. Speaking of appetites, how’s yours? You must be the only person aboard who hasn’t had lunch today.’

  ‘It’ll keep.’ The Bo’sun looked to where McCrimmon and Stephen were already attaching wires from the heaters to the heavy cable. ‘Thanks for those. They’ll come in handy in an hour or two when we’ve managed to keep all this fresh air out.’

  ‘More than handy, I should have thought.’ Jamieson shivered. ‘My word, it is fresh up here. What’s the temperature?’

  The Bo’sun looked at the thermometer. ‘Zero. That’s two degrees it’s dropped in a few minutes. I’m afraid, Mr Jamieson, that we’re going to be very cold tonight.’

  ‘Not in the engine-room,’ Jamieson said. He unscrewed the back of the telephone and started connecting it to the slender cable. ‘Mr Patterson thinks this is an unnecessary luxury and that you just want it so that you can talk to someone when you feel lonely. Says that keeping the stern on to wind and seas is child’s play and that he could do it for hours without deviating more than two or three degrees off course.’

  ‘I’ve no doubt he could. That way we’ll never see Aberdeen. You can tell Mr Patterson that the wind is backing and that if it backs far enough and he still keeps stern on to the wind and sea we’ll end up by making a small hole in the north of Norway and a large hole in ourselves.’

  Jamieson smiled. ‘I’ll explain that to the Chief. I don’t think the possibility has occurred to him—it certainly didn’t to me.’

  ‘And when you go below, sir, would you send up Naseby? He’s an experienced helmsman.’

  ‘I’ll do that. Need any more help up here?’

  ‘No, sir. The three of us are enough.’

  ‘As you say.’ Jamieson screwed the back of the telephone in place, pressed the call-up button, spoke briefly and hung up. ‘Satisfaction guaranteed. Are you through, McCrimmon? Stephen?’ Both men nodded, and Jamieson called the engine-room again, asked for power to be switched on and told McCrimmon and Stephen to switch on one heater apiece, one black, one radiant. ‘Still require McCrimmon as a runner, Bo’sun?’

  The Bo’sun nodded towards the telephone. ‘Thanks to you, I’ve got my runner.’

  One of McCrimmon’s radiant heaters had started to glow a dim red. Stephen removed a hand from the black heater and nodded.

  ‘Fine. Switch off. It would seem, Bo’sun, that Flannelfoot has knocked off for the day. We’ll go below now, see what cabins we can make habitable. I’m afraid there won’t be many. The only way we can make a cabin habitable—the clearing up won’t take long, I’ve already got a couple of our boys working on that—is to replace defective heating systems. That’s all that matters. Unfortunately, most of the doors have been blasted off their hinges or cut away by the oxyacetylene torches and there’s no point in replacing heating if we can’t replace the doors. We’ll do what we can.’ He spun the useless wheel. ‘When we’ve finished below and you’ve finished here—and when the temperature is appropriate for myself and other hothouse plants from the engine-room—we’ll come and have a go at this steering.’

  ‘Big job, sir?’

  ‘Depends upon what damage in the decks, below. Don’t hold me to it, Bo’sun, but there’s a fair chance that we’ll have it operational, in what you’ll no doubt regard as our customary crude fashion, some time this evening. To give me some leeway, I won’t specify what time.’

  The temperature on the bridge continued to drop steadily and because numbing cold slows up a man both physically and mentally it took McKinnon and his two men well over two hours to complete their task: had the temperature been anything like normal they could probably have done it in less than half the time. About three-quarters of the way through the repairs they had switched on all four heaters and the temperature had begun to rise, albeit very slowly.

  McKinnon was well enough satisfied with their end product. Five sheets of hardboard had been bolted into position, each panel fitted with an inlet oblong of plate glass, one large, the other four, identical in shape, about half the size. The large one was fitted in the centre, directly ahead of where the helmsman normally stood: two of the others were fitted on either side of this and the remaining two on the upper sections of the wing doors. The inevitable gaps between the glass and the plywood and between the plywood and the metal to which they had been bonded had been sealed off with Hartley’s compound, a yellow plastic material normally used for waterproofing external ele
ctrical fittings. The bridge was as draughtproof as it was possible to make it.

  Ferguson put away the last of the tools and coughed. ‘There was some mention of a couple of tots of Captain Bowen’s special malt.’

  McKinnon looked at him and at Curran. Their faces were mottled blue and white with cold and both men were shivering violently: chronic complainers, neither had complained once.

  ‘You’ve earned it.’ He turned to Naseby. ‘How’s she bearing?’

  Naseby looked at his hand-held compass in distaste. ‘If you can trust this thing, two-twenty. Give or take. So the wind’s backed five degrees in the past couple of hours. We don’t bother the engine-room for five degrees?’

  George Naseby, a solid, taciturn, dark-haired and swarthy Yorkshireman—he hailed from Whitby, Captain Cook’s home town—was McKinnon’s alter ego and closest friend. A bo’sun himself on his two previous ships, he had elected to sail on the San Andreas simply because of the mutual regard that he and McKinnon shared. Although he held no official ranking, he was regarded by everyone, from the Captain down, as the number two on the deck-side.

  ‘We don’t bother them. Another five, perhaps, ten degrees off, then we bother them. Let’s go below—ship can look after itself for a few minutes. Then I’ll have Trent relieve you.’

  The level of Scotch in the Captain’s bottle of malt had fallen quite rapidly—Ferguson and Curran had their own ideas as to what constituted a reasonably sized tot. McKinnon, in between rather more frugal sips, examined the Captain’s sextant, thermometer and barometer. The sextant, as far as the Bo’sun could tell, was undamaged—the felt lining of its wooden box would have cushioned it from the effects of the blast. The thermometer, too, appeared to be working: the mercury registered I7°F., which was about what McKinnon reckoned the cabin temperature to be. The Captain’s cabin was one of the few with its door still intact and Jamieson had already had a black heater installed.

  He gave the thermometer to Naseby, asking that it be placed on one of the bridge wings, then turned his attention to the barometer. This was functioning normally, for when he tapped the glass the black needle fell sharply to the left.

  ‘Twenty-nine point five,’ the Bo’sun said. ‘Nine nine nine millibars—and falling.’

  ‘Not good, eh?’ Ferguson said.

  ‘No. Not that we need a barometer to tell us that.’

  McKinnon left and went down from deck to the officers’ quarters. He found Jamieson at the end of the passageway.

  ‘How’s it coming, sir?’

  ‘We’re about through. Should be five cabins fit for human habitation—depending, of course, upon what your definition of human is.’

  The Bo’sun tapped the bulkhead beside him. ‘How stable do you reckon this structure is, sir?’

  ‘Highly unstable. Safe enough in those conditions, but I gather you think those conditions are about to change.’

  ‘If the wind keeps backing and we keep holding to this course then we’re going to have the seas on the starboard quarter and a lot of nasty corkscrewing. I was thinking perhaps—’

  ‘I know what you were thinking. I’m a ship’s engineer, Bo’sun, not a constructive engineer. I’ll have a look. Maybe we can bolt or weld a few strengthening steel plates at the weakest points. I don’t know. There’s no guarantee. First of all, we’ll go have a look at the steering on the bridge. How are things up top?’

  ‘Draught-free. Four heaters. Ideal working conditions.’

  ‘Temperature?’

  ‘Fifteen.’

  ‘Above freezing, or below?’

  ‘Below.’

  ‘Ideal. Thank you very much.’

  McKinnon found four people in the staff dining area—Chief Engineer Patterson, Dr Singh, and Nurses Janet Magnusson and Irene. The nurses were off-duty—the San Andreas, as did all hospital ships, carried an alternate nursing staff. The Bo’sun went to the galley, asked for coffee and sandwiches, sat at the table and made his report to the Chief Engineer. When he was finished he said: ‘And how did you get on, sir? Finding a translator, I mean?’

  Patterson scowled. ‘With our luck?’

  ‘Well, I didn’t really have any hope, sir. Not, as you say, with our luck.’ He looked at Janet Magnusson. ‘Where’s Sister Morrison?’

  ‘In the lounge.’ Neither her voice nor her eyes held much in the way of warmth. ‘She’s upset. You upset her.’

  ‘She upset me.’ He made an impatient, dismissive gesture with his hand. ‘Tantrums. This is neither the time nor the place. If ever there is a time and a place.’

  ‘Oh, come now.’ Dr Singh was smiling. ‘I don’t think either of you is being quite fair. Sister Morrison is not, as you suggest, Mr McKinnon, sulking in her tent and, Nurse, if she’s feeling rather unhappy, it’s not primarily the Bo’sun’s fault. She and Mr Ulbricht are not quite seeing eye to eye.’

  ‘Ulbricht?’ the Bo’sun said.

  ‘Flight-Lieutenant Karl Ulbricht, I understand. The captain of the Condor.’

  ‘He’s conscious?’

  ‘Very much so. Not only conscious but wanting out of bed. Quite remarkable powers of recuperation. Three bullet wounds, all flesh, all superficial. Bled a great deal, mind you, but he’s had a transfusion: one hopes that the best British blood goes well with his own native Aryan stock. Anyway, Sister Morrison was with me when he came to. She called him a filthy Nazi murderer. Hardly makes for the ideal nurse-patient relationship.’

  ‘Not very tactful, I agree,’ Patterson said. ‘A wounded man recovering consciousness might expect to be entitled to a little more sympathy. How did he react?’

  ‘Very calmly. Mild, you might say. Said he wasn’t a Nazi and had never murdered anyone in his life. She just stood and glared at him—if you can imagine Sister Morrison glaring at anybody—and—’

  ‘I can imagine it very easily,’ the Bo’sun said with some feeling. ‘She glares at me. Frequently.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Nurse Magnusson said, ‘you and Lieutenant Ulbricht have a lot in common.’

  ‘Please.’ Dr Singh held up a hand. ‘Lieutenant Ulbricht expressed deep regrets, said something about the fortunes of war, but didn’t exactly call for sackcloth and ashes. I stopped it there—it didn’t look like being a very profitable discussion. Don’t be too hard on the Sister, Bo’sun. She’s no battleaxe, far less a termagant. She feels deeply and has her own way of expressing her feelings.’

  McKinnon made to reply, caught Janet’s still far from friendly eye and changed his mind. ‘How are your other patients, Doctor?’

  ‘The other aircrew member—a gunner, it seems, by the name of Helmut Winterman—is okay, just a scared kid who expects to be shot at dawn. Commander Warrington, as you guessed, Mr McKinnon, is badly hurt. How badly, I don’t know. His occiput is fractured but only surgery can tell us how serious it is. I’m a surgeon but not a brain surgeon. We’ll have to wait until we get to a mainland hospital to ease the pressure on the sight centre and find out when, if ever, he’ll see again.’

  ‘The Andover’s navigator?’

  ‘Lieutenant Cunningham?’ Dr Singh shook his head. ‘I’m sorry—in more ways than one, I’m afraid this may be your last hope gone—that the young man won’t be doing any more navigating for some time to come. He’s in a coma. X-ray shows a fracture of the skull and not a hairline fracture either. Pulse, respiration, temperature show no sign of organic damage. He’ll live.’

  ‘Any idea when he might come to, Doctor?’

  Dr Singh sighed. ‘If I were a first-year intern, I’d hazard a fairly confident guess. Alas, it’s twenty-five years since I was a first-year intern. Two days, two weeks, two months—I simply don’t know. As for the others, the Captain and Chief Officer are still under sedation and when they wake up I’m going to put them to sleep again. Hudson, the one with the punctured lung, seems to have stabilized—at least, the internal bleeding has stopped. Rafferty’s fractured tibia is no problem. The two injured crewmen from the Argos, one with a broken pelvis, the
other with multiple burns, are still in the recovery room, not because they’re in any danger but because Ward A was full and it was the best place to keep them. And I’ve discharged two young seamen, I don’t know their names.’

  ‘Jones and McGuigan.’

  ‘That’s the two. Shock, nothing more. I understand they’re lucky to be alive.’

  ‘We’re all lucky to be alive.’ McKinnon nodded his thanks as Mario put coffee and sandwiches before him, then looked at Patterson. ‘Do you think it might help, sir, if we had a word with Lieutenant Ulbricht?’

  ‘If you’re halfway right on your way of thinking, Bo’sun, it might be of some help. At least, it can be of no harm.’

  ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a bit,’ Dr Singh said. ‘The Lieutenant was getting a little bit too active—or beginning to feel too active—for his own good. It’ll be an hour, perhaps two. A matter of urgency, Mr McKinnon?’

  ‘It could be. Or a matter of some importance, at least. He might be able to tell us why we’re all so lucky as to be still alive. And if we knew, then we might have some idea, or a guess at least, as to what lies in store for us.’

  ‘You think the enemy is not yet finished with us?’

  ‘I should be surprised if they are, Doctor.’

  McKinnon, alone now in the dining area, had just finished his third cup of coffee when Jamieson and three of his men entered, to the accompaniment of much arm-flapping and teeth-chattering. Jamieson went to the galley, ordered coffee for himself and his men and sat beside McKinnon.

  ‘Ideal working conditions, you said, Bo’sun. Snug as a bug in a rug, one might say. Temperature’s soaring—it’s almost ten degrees up there. Minus.’

  ‘Sorry about that, sir. How’s the steering?’

  ‘Fixed. For the moment, at least. Not too big a job. Quite a bit of play on the wheel, but Trent says it’s manageable.’