by Paul Gallico
The tiger stopped suddenly. It was frightened and hungry. When the ship had turned turtle its cage had been smashed, and since then the tiger had been flung about in the darkness of the hold with the packing cases at every new lurch and shift of position. Its great head turned to take in its new surroundings. It was halfway between Jason and Bela, some feet to the left of where Anton held Rogo. It rose on its hind legs, dropped its front paws gracefully onto an oil drum, flung back its head, and roared.
The effect was immediate. The one-eyed gunman standing in the debris towards the stern fell over backwards as though he had been struck. He lost his gun and without a thought for it began scrambling on his hands and knees up the mound of broken machinery behind him. Bela spun like a dancer and launched himself in a long, agile leap for the rope ladder. Of the two men near the companionway, the one with the thin moustache rocked back against the ship’s side, his gun loose in his hands, and made a low moaning noise; he was quite helpless. The other man dropped to one knee, lifting the metal-framed stock to his shoulder, and ripped off a burst at the tiger’s side. He emptied the full clip of twenty bullets with one squeeze of the trigger. The tiger snarled and twisted under the impact. Then it leapt. It passed Anton and Rogo in two gigantic bounds, and seized the kneeling man by the shoulder. His weapon clattered to the floor. His right arm flapped in futile protest at the tiger’s head. For a second, the beast paused and stared again around the room, the man held loosely in its mouth like a half-chewed bone. Then, like a stoned cat, it bounded down the companionway and out of sight.
Now was the chance for the movements Rogo had been rehearsing in his mind. He saw Bela swinging out of control on the rope ladder; one gunman still scrambling up the heap of metal, blinded by fear; the other slumped against the side, groaning and sobbing.
Rogo went into a well-practiced routine. He stamped down hard with his heel on Anton’s toe. He pumped his elbow viciously backwards into Anton’s stomach. As he felt the giant double forward, he snapped back his own head.
And he experienced a deep sense of satisfaction. He did not like paid musclemen. He had felt his shoe hit the toe, his elbow dig deep into the hard stomach, and his skull smash against the softer features of Anton’s face. He had scored on all three. Not even this big monkey could take all that and still come out fighting.
In those long seconds, Martin too saw his chance. The men with the guns were all temporarily distracted. Mr. Rogo was escaping. Jason, he saw out of the corner of his eye, had gone for Hely and was dragging her by the arm across the floor.
“Quick!” he screamed to his little group. “This way!” He grabbed Coby and swung her around to the companionway and pushed her.
Her feet missed the rungs of the ladder at the side and she crashed down. Klaas lowered himself quickly through and jumped. “Come on, Manny!” Martin shouted. The older man was kneeling. Incredibly, he seemed to be trying to pick something up. Martin shouted to him again and then jumped through the hole.
It was the instinct to flee. It hit them all and there was no resistance: Bela, the gunmen, the tiger, Martin, all of them propelled by the one overwhelming thought—escape.
Martin was the first on his feet, helping up the Dutch girl. She was crying, and her young woman’s face looked childish again. Klaas too grunted and heaved himself up with the lantern he still held in his hand. They were in a dark, narrow corridor. One body in their tangled pile did not move. They looked down. It was the Komarevo man. His shoulder was a pulp of blood and cloth. Half his face had been torn off. His teeth grinned madly where the flap of his cheek was ripped open. Coby wailed when she saw it, and Klaas put his arm around her again.
She peered in terror up the corridor. “Where’s that horrible animal?” she asked.
Martin, more familiar with the surroundings, squinted into the darkness. Beyond the corridor he could see through an open doorway into the boiler room, and beneath his feet the conduits and pipes that lined what had once been the ceiling. “Listen,” he said, tilting his head to concentrate. “I can hear it. It’s running away. Come on, it’s clear for us to get out of here. It’ll be miles ahead now.” He took Coby’s hand and the three of them set off, back down into the deep belly of the sinking ship.
In the seconds they had used for their escape, Rogo had freed himself and Jason had grabbed the girl. As soon as Rogo heard the dull grunt of pain behind him and felt the iron fingers relax, he too made for the companionway. He could hear Jason behind him and saw Manny Rosen on his hands and knees. At least, he thought, the odds will be better for us in that labyrinth of corridors and rooms.
“Stop!” It was Bela. He had stabilized himself by grabbing a bracket on the side of the hull with his left hand. The ladder was knotted around his legs and his off-balance body stood out from the ship at a sharp angle. But he was no longer rocking, and his right arm, thrust through the rungs, held the heavy Stechkin perfectly steady. He aimed at Rogo.
“A tiger!” He laughed. His face was white and taut and there was hysterical relief in the laugh. “You must have known, all of you. Brilliant, quite brilliant! But not successful, I fear. It doesn’t matter now. I shall kill you as I should have killed you from the start.”
Jason slid in front of the girl. Rogo’s eyes checked the distance to the companionway and the distance to Bela. Should he try to jump down the hole, or should he chance rushing Bela? Either way he would get shot.
The respectful, courteous tones of the retired hardware dealer sounded ludicrous. “No you won’t, Mr. Bela, because I’ll shoot you if you try.”
They all turned. Manny was still on his knees holding Rogo’s pistol in both hands, the barrel pointing without a quiver at Bela’s chest. He appeared to be praying with a small Colt in his hands.
“Go ahead, Mr. Rogo,” he said, as deferential as ever. “You get out with the rest and I’ll keep an eye on him.”
The thoughts clicked through Rogo’s mind like people through a busy turnstile. It was his gun. It was not working. Manny knew it was not working. But Bela didn’t. Rogo’s grin was triumphant. But the minute any action started they would be lost. They had only seconds. Bela had merely to turn his pistol a few inches to take a shot at Manny. The gunman in the corner stopped sobbing; he was coming back to reality.
“You’re a killer, Manny, a real killer.” He dropped down the hole, swinging through on his hands.
“Quick!” Jason pulled Hely over the rubble. She slipped swiftly down the steps and Jason called out “Come on, Manny, now,” as he followed her.
Bela and Manny, the international thug and the old shopkeeper were motionless and wordless. Bela’s three henchmen watched and waited.
Manny made no attempt to follow them. He clasped the gun in front of him, careful to make sure it was trained on the man on the ladder. It would give them more time. Soon, he thought, that man is going to turn and shoot me. As soon as he finds his nerve he will do it. Or perhaps that man in the corner, the one who was making the noise, will try. They were waiting and watching and he could hear their suppressed breathing. They were frightened. Frightened! Crooks like them frightened of old Manny Rosen? He nearly laughed. He had done it. He knew he could. He had saved them all. Mr. Rogo would get them away somehow now.
Funny how easy it is, he thought. He had simply picked up the pistol and everything had changed. A little thing like that. Belle had never liked guns at all, but she would have approved of this. He was sure about that. Odd how everyone treats you differently when you hold a gun. These men never gave me a thought before, and now they can think of nothing else. Even if it didn’t work properly. Manny was glad it would not fire. This was like pretending, like little boys with their toys. It gave everyone time to escape, but he knew he would not have to shoot. He was glad. He did not want to shoot people, even these people. What would Belle have said? He smiled. The man on the ladder was staring at him. What would she have said if she’d seen her Manny behaving like one of those television detectives? Well, soon that
man Bela would take his chance and it would all be over.
He had known that from the start. He had seen it all with wonderful clarity when he had first spotted the gun. He knew he would die, and it was the right, the proper thing to do. Manny Rosen wanted to die. He wondered about Belle’s medallion that she had asked him to deliver to their grandson in Israel. He would have done that, he thought, if he had wished to go on living. But he felt no desire to be on land again, to be among people, to be with his friends and family. Not without Belle. His life had ended with hers. What’s a little thing like a medallion next to that? No, it’s all over now, Belle, he said to himself, and I’m going to join you soon. And wouldn’t she smile when she knew how he’d fooled some of the gangsters with a broken gun? He laughed himself at the thought. It was a cracked, burbling laugh, and it came more strongly when he saw the look of amazement on Bela’s face. If he only knew, thought Manny Rosen. If he only knew.
The firing came almost simultaneously. Two rapid shots from Bela, swinging around quickly like a monkey on a rope. A solid, thick burst from the moustached man in the corner. Manny felt himself folding gently forward and wondered why his laugh had turned to an odd coughing sound. He did not even attempt to pull the trigger. Manny Rosen firing guns at people? Never. Never in this world.
It was Martin’s first question when the two parties of three rejoined, and he knew the answer before Rogo spoke. Martin had led the Dutchman and his daughter from the passage into the boiler room. He had become so accustomed to the staggering anarchy of the upside-down liner that he was almost surprised to hear their astonishment.
Indeed, the room was a scene of spectacular chaos, fitfully illuminated by a fire which still blazed up one of the walls. The boilers had ripped free from the moorings and come crashing down. Some lay whole, like giant pods on what was now the floor. Others had broken and looked like enormous shattered eggs, on a bed of wrecked machines, dials, gauges, pipes, and pumps. Oil filmed every surface, and many times they slipped as they clambered to the far end of the room. Sometimes, too, Martin heard Coby gasp as she saw yet another still, crumpled body. Martin scarcely noticed them anymore. He was used to living in a mortuary. They got to the far end of the room, only beginning to recover from their terror, to find a doorway that led through to a corridor. Of course, Martin reminded himself, this was known to the crew as Broadway. It served all the storerooms, refrigeration departments, bakeries, stockrooms, and the hundred and one other operations that kept passengers contented. Several staircases and corridors led off it. It would be easy to hide there. So Martin, Klaas, and Coby squatted down among the rubble, prepared to start running again if those cold-faced killers came through the door.
There had been no sign of the tiger, other than the mutilated body of the gunman it had discarded. Martin had looked down Broadway. The light was poor, but he could clearly see there was no tiger there. It must have fled much farther into the ship. Perhaps it had drowned. Martin could not see where the corridor dropped into the water but he knew from the angle of the ship there could not be much more that was above the waterline. It was then that he remembered again with a brutal jolt that the ship would sink very soon. That knowledge had been swept away by the menace of the guns and the shock of the wild animal. How were they going to get out? They were trapped.
He saw Rogo’s head come tentatively through the doorway across the room.
He saw the young American and the girl in the wet suit. Her flashlight lit the way ahead. There was no Manny. He asked, and Rogo explained in short bursts as he struggled towards them.
“They got him. We heard the shots.” Rogo paused for a moment and wiped his brow with an oily hand. He held his palm out. “What’d he do a crazy thing like that for? He knew the stinking gun was bust.”
He was upset. He had liked Manny. He had liked both the Rosens. If Rogo had ever needed to justify his work as a policeman, he would have seen himself as defending people like the Rosens. The little people, the poor people, the honest people, they all needed someone like Rogo to see they did not get pushed around. It seemed wrong that a quiet old guy like that should die for him. He began climbing again, edging around a boiler, then stepping carefully over the jumbled mess.
“Why’d he do it, Martin? For Chrissakes, it was suicide.”
“That’s exactly what it was, Mr. Rogo,” Martin said, reaching out a hand to pull the policeman up a step to the platform where they waited. “He didn’t want to live without his Belle. You know how those two were.”
He turned to Coby, “They really loved each other, miss. Manny and Belle.” Then he explained to Klaas. “I knew it, I could see it in his eyes. He wanted to die, and he saved us all in doing so.”
Rogo scratched his head. “You never know, d’ya? Guy like that, helluva nice guy, but who’d take him for a hero? You shoulda seen it, Martin, the way he stood all those punks off.”
The moment of reflection was broken by the distant sound of voices. Hastily the group covered the last few scrambling steps out of the boiler room and into the the wide long corridor called Broadway. It certainly came as no surprise to Rogo and company, but the others, who had not experienced the hostile strangeness of this upside-down world before were shocked and astounded at the unreality of it all. The mass of tubes and pipes and conduits that almost covered the ceiling were now underfoot and made any kind of progress slow and tricky. What little light there was had to penetrate to the central corridor through the maze of rooms and cubicles and stores. The smell was appalling. To the dank stench left by the sea were added the smells from the contents of stockrooms, food and drink and supplies of all kinds that had been pitched into that unholy brew when the ship capsized. Hely’s light flicked quickly away from the bundled bodies which lay sometimes singly, sometimes in tragic, lifeless mounds of two or three.
They had gone about twenty yards when Rogo stopped the procession. Now was the time for thinking, and they must be quick. It was to Jason primarily that he put his plan and he was plainly looking for his approval.
“How about this, cowboy?” he said. “Martin knows this crazy tub a bit—he takes Klaas and the girls further down into the ship and finds somewhere to hide while we fix a welcome for those bastards.”
Jason agreed, “Yep, that’s about all we can do. One thing, though. Hely stays with me. We’ve got quite a double act going here and we don’t want to break it up now. Anyway, I might need someone to let a tiger loose again.” His arm slid around her hips.
“Okay,” Rogo was saying, and squinting nervously ahead. “I’d like to know where that goddamn tiger went to. It ain’t my idea of fun.”
His anxiety was reflected in Klaas’s comment. “Mr. Rogo, I fear we have made a terrible mistake in running down here. The ship is sinking. That animal is loose. We are trapped.”
The suggestion of incompetence pricked Rogo’s temper. “You got any better idea? If we’d stayed back there, we’d been shot for sure. At least we got a chance here.”
“What chance?” This time it was Martin.
“Okay, I’ll tell you,” said Rogo. “Those guys are going to come looking for us. Me and Jason can maybe jump them. With a couple of their guns we can shoot our way past those little sailor boys. See?”
“He’s right.” Rogo was relieved to hear Jason’s backing. “It’s not so hot, I know, but it’s the only hope we’ve got. Rogo and I can pick our spot here, the rest of you find the best cover you can until it’s over.”
His words seemed to give everyone some small hope. Coby offered, “I’d like to stay with you, Jason. I’m not afraid.” She saw his grin and resented it. It was the smile of encouragement you give to a child.
“Thanks, Coby, but you’d better go with Martin there,” he said. She was about to protest when they heard shouting in the distance. It sounded like Bela. Rogo turned Jason to him and hoarsely whispered, “Okay, Jason, you can keep the broad with you, that’s your business. But it’s you and me in this setup. We’re the only ones who c
an take these guys. I got to trust you, but I’m not sure I like it.”
“Who got you out of the last tight corner, Batman?”
“Yeah, well thanks for that, but I still got a lotta questions for you, Jason. Right now they’ll wait.”
The easy teasing was back in Jason’s voice. “All it takes is a little faith, Batman.”
“And stop calling me Batman, for Chrissakes.”
It was not the old fierce anger this time. The fire of their initial antagonism had died, although the distrust remained. There was no common ground between them in philosophy or temperament, but they had each seen in the other one quality to respect: courage. Their exchanges were acquiring the rhythm of an uncertain courtship.
There was something almost like friendship in Jason’s reply: “Don’t worry, Rogo. We’ll swing a couple of surprises on those monkeys.”
He was looking into the rooms which went off the corridor, peering into the darkness and examining them. “Let’s have some light in here, Hely. Ah, this is mine.”
It was the hairdressing salon. As they both looked in, Jason whispered to her, “Can I interest madame in a coiffure?”
Rogo too was stumbling from door to door. “Goddamn kook!” he said, thinking aloud. “Batman, for God’s sake!” He raised his voice and called back to Jason, “I guess you realize that makes you Robin!”
The tiny cinema was exactly what Rogo had been looking for. It was nearly pitch black. There were only about a dozen rows of seats and they were still anchored firmly to what was now the ceiling, their hinged backs hanging down like flags on a windless day. It had been a low room and Rogo could almost touch the seats when he reached up. It was ideal for the plan he had half-formulated in his mind. Rogo knew all about traps. He had walked into too many in his life not to know the simple mechanics and devices that made them work. A trap was a conjuring trick: you made the audience look at your left hand while your right hand was doing the work. Simple. He edged cautiously into the black room. His foot jammed against a soft, heavy object. He felt around with his foot. There were several bodies. There was also a chair. That should be enough. He felt almost happy. Danger did not worry him as long as he could fight back. The tiger had terrified him because of the unexpected nature of its power. Under Bela’s gun he had suffered the frustration of not being able to retaliate. Now it was a straight battle, whatever the odds, and Mike Rogo had never backed off a scrap in his life. He had Jason, too. Martin was a plucky little guy, but he did not have the experience—the ringcraft, they called it when Rogo was a boxer—for this sort of setup. Klaas was not a fighting man, it was as simple as that. But everything about Jason, the set and style of the man, suggested someone who could handle himself. The way he had stood in the tiger’s path. That took nerve, real nerve. Rogo decided he had been right. Jason was a fighting man okay. For the moment that freaky guy seemed to be on his side and Rogo was grateful. The questions would have to wait. Batman! Who the hell did he think he was?
