HMS Ulysses

by Alistair MacLean

  "The T.S., sir!" The breathing was so quick, so agonised, that the words blurred into a gasping exhalation. "It's full of water!"

  "The T.S.!" Turner was incredulous. "Flooded! When did this happen?"

  "I'm not sure, sir." He was still gasping for breath. "But there was a bloody awful explosion, sir, just about amid------"

  "I know! I know!" Turner interrupted impatiently. "Bomber carried away the for'ard funnel, exploded in the water, port side. But that was fifteen minutes ago, man! Fifteen minutes! Good God, they would have-----"

  "T.S. switchboard's gone, sir." The stoker was beginning to recover, to huddle against the wind, but frantic at the Commander's deliberation and delay, he straightened up and grasped Turner's duffel without realising what he was doing. The note of urgency deepened still further. "All the power's gone, sir. And the hatch is jammed! The men can't get out!"'

  "The hatch cover jammed!" Turner's eyes narrowed in concern. "What happened?" he rapped out. "Buckled?"

  "The counter-weight's broken off, sir. It's on top of the hatch. We can only get it open an inch. You see, sir------"

  "Number One!" Turner shouted.

  "Here, sir." Carrington was standing just behind him. "I heard... Why can't you open it?"

  "It's the T.S. hatch!" the stoker cried desperately. "A quarter of a bloody ton if it's an ounce, sir. You know, the one below the ladder outside the wheelhouse. Only two men can get at it at the same time. We've tried... Hurry, sir. Please."

  "Just a minute." Carrrington was calm, unruffled, infuriatingly so.

  "Hartley? No, still fire-fighting. Evans, Macintosh, dead." He was obviously thinking aloud. "Bellamy, perhaps?"

  "What is it, Number One?" Turner burst out. He himself had caught up the anxiety, the impatience of the stoker. "What are you trying------?"

  "hatch cover plus pulley, 1,000 Ibs.," Carrington murmured. "A special man for a special job."

  "Petersen, sir!" The stoker had understood immediately. "Petersen!"

  "Of course!" Carrington clapped gloved hands together. "We're on our way, sir. Acetylene? No time! Stoker, crow bars, sledges... Perhaps if you would ring the engine-room, sir?"

  But Turner already had the phone in his hand.

  Aft on the poop deck, the fire was under control, all but in a few odd corners where the flames were fed by a fierce through draught. In the mess decks, bulkheads, ladders, mess partitions, lockers had been twisted and buckled into strange shapes by the intense heat: on deck, the gasoline fed flames, incinerating the two and three quarter inch deck plating and melting the caulking as by some gigantic blow-torch, had cleanly stripped all covering and exposed the steel deck plates, plates dull red and glowing evilly, plates that hissed and spat as heavy snowflakes drifted down to sibilant extinction.

  On and below decks, Hartley and his crews, freezing one moment, reeling in the blast of heat the next, toiled like men insane. Where their wasted, exhausted bodies found the strength God only knew. From the turrets, from the Master-At-Arms's office, from mess decks and emergency steering position, they pulled out man after man who had been there when the Condor had crashed: pulled them out, looked at them, swore, wept and plunged back into the aftermath of that holocaust, oblivious of pain and danger, tearing aside wreckage, wreckage still burning, still red hot, with charred and broken gloves: and when the gloves fell off, they used their naked hands.

  As the dead were ranged in the starboard alleyway, Leading Seaman Doyle was waiting for them. Less than half an hour previously, Doyle had been in the for'ard galley passage, rolling in silent agony as frozen body and clothes thawed out after the drenching of his pom-pom. Five minutes later, he had been back on his gun, rock like, unflinching, as he pumped shell after shell over open sights into the torpedo bombers. And now, steady and enduring as ever, he was on the poop. A man of iron, and a face of iron, too, that night, the bearded leonine head still and impassive as he picked up one dead man after the other, walked to the guard rail and dropped his burden gently over the side. How many times he repeated that brief journey that night, Doyle never knew: he had lost count after the first twenty or so. He had no right to do this, of course: the navy was very strong on decent burial, and this was not decent burial. But the sailmakers were dead and no man would or could have sewn up these ghastly charred heaps in the weighted and sheeted canvas. The dead don't care, Doyle thought dispassionately, let them look after themselves. So, too, thought Carrington and Hartley, and they made no move to stop him.

  Beneath their feet, the smouldering mess decks rang with hollow reverberating clangs as Nicholls and Leading Telegraphist Brown, still weirdly garbed in their white asbestos suits, swung heavy sledges against the securing clips of 'Y' magazine hatch. In the smoke and gloom and their desperate haste, they could hardly see each other, much less the clips: as often as not they missed their strokes and the hammers went spinning out of numbed hands into the waiting darkness.

  Time yet, Nicholls thought desperately, perhaps there is time. The main flooding valve had been turned off five minutes ago: it was possible, barely possible, that the two trapped men inside were clinging to the ladder, above water level.

  One clip, one clip only was holding the hatch cover now. With alternate strokes of their sledges, they struck it with vicious strength.

  Suddenly, unexpectedly, it sheared off at fts base and the hatch cover crashed open under the explosive upsurge of the compressed air beneath.

  Brown screamed in agony, a single coughing shout of pain, as the bone crashing momentum of the swinging hatch crashed into his right hip, then fell to the deck where he lay moaning quietly.

  Nicholls did not even spare 'him a glance He leant far through the hatch, the powerful beam of his torch stabbing downwards into the gloom.

  And he could see nothing, nothing at all, not what he wanted to see. All he saw was the water, dark and viscous and evil, water rising and falling, water flooding and ebbing in the eerie oilbound silence as the Ulysses plunged and lifted in the heavy seas.

  "Below!" Nicholls called loudly. The voice, a voice, he noted impersonally, cracked and shaken with strain, boomed and echoed terrifyingly down the iron tunnel. "Below!" he shouted again. "Is there anybody there?" He strained his ears for the least sound, for the faintest whisper of an answer, but none came.

  "McQuater!" He shouted a third time. "Williamson! Can you hear me?"

  Again he looked, again he listened, but there was only the darkness and the muffled whisper of "the oil-slicked water swishing smoothly from side to side. He stared again down the light from the torch, marvelled that any surface could so quickly dissipate and engulf the brilliance of that beam. And beneath that surface... He shivered. The water, even the water seemed to be dead, old and evil and infinitely horrible. In sudden anger, he shook his head to clear it of these stupid, primitive fears: his imagination, he'd have to watch it. He stepped back, straightened up. Gently, carefully, he closed the swinging hatch. The mess deck echoed as his sledge swung down on the clips, again and again and again.

  Engineer-Commander Dodson stirred and moaned. He struggled to open his eyes but his eyelids refused to function. At least, he thought that they did for the blackness around remained as it was, absolute, impenetrable, almost palpable.

  He wondered dully what had happened, how long he had been there, what had happened. And the side of his head just below the ear that hurt abominably. Slowly, with clumsy deliberation, he peeled oflf his glove, reached up an exploratory hand. It came away wet and sticky: his hair, he realised with mild surprise, was thickly matted with blood. It must be blood he could feel it trickling slowly, heavily down the side of his cheek.

  And that deep, powerful vibration, a vibration overlain with an indefinable note of strain that set his engineer's teeth on edge, he could hear it, almost feel it, immediately in front of him. His bare hand reached out, recoiled in instant reflex as it touched something smooth and revolving, and burning hot.

  The shaft tunnel! Of course. That
's where he was, the shaft tunnel.

  They'd discovered fractured lubricating pipes on the port shafts too, and he'd decided to keep this engine turning. He knew they'd been attacked. Down here in the hidden bowels of the ship, sound did not penetrate: he had heard nothing of the aircraft engines: he hadn't even heard their own guns firing, but there had been no mistaking the jarring shock of the 5.25s surging back on their hydraulic recoils. And then, a torpedo perhaps, or a near miss by a bomb. Thank God he'd been sitting facing inboard when the Ulysses had lurched. The other way round and it would have been curtains for sure when he'd been flung across the shaft coupling and wrapped round...

  The shaft! Dear God, the shaft! It was running almost red hot on dry bearings! Frantically, he pawed around, picked up his emergency lamp and twisted its base. There was no light. He twisted it again with all his strength, reached up, felt the jagged edges of broken screen and bulb, and flung the useless lamp to the deck. He dragged out his pocket torch: that, too, was smashed. Desperate now, he searched blindly around for his oil can: it was lying on its side, the patent spring top beside it.

  The can was empty.

  No oil, none. Heaven only knew how near that over-stressed metal was to the critical limit. He didn't. He admitted that: even to the best engineers, metal fatigue was an incalculable unknown. But, like all men who had spent a lifetime with machines, he had developed a sixth sense for these things, and, right now, that sixth sense was jabbing at him, mercilessly, insistently. Oil, he would have to get oil. But he knew he was in bad shape, dizzy, weak from shock and loss of blood, and the tunnel was long and slippery and dangerous, and unlighted. One slip, one stumble against or over that merciless shaft... Gingerly, the Engineer-Commander stretched out his hand again, rested his hand for an instant on the shaft, drew back sharply in sudden pain. He lifted his hand to his cheek, knew that it was not friction that had flayed and burnt the skin off the tips of his fingers. There was no choice.

  Resolutely, he gathered his legs under him, swayed dizzily to his feet, his back bent against the arching convexity of the tunnel.

  It was then that he noticed it for the first tune, a light, a swinging tiny pinpoint of light, imponderably distant in the converging sides of that dark tunnel, although he knew it could be only yards away. He blinked, closed his eyes and looked again. The light was still there, advancing steadily, and he could hear the shuffling of feet now. All at once he felt weak, light-headed: gratefully he sank down again, his feet safely braced once more against the bearing block.

  The man with the light stopped a couple of feet away, hooked the lamp on to an inspection bracket, lowered himself carefully and sat beside Dodson. The rays of the lamp fell full on the dark heavy face, the jagged brows and prognathous jaw: Dodson stiffened in sudden surprise.

  "Riley! Stoker Riley!" His eyes narrowed in suspicion and conjecture.

  "What the devil are you doing here?"

  "I've brought a two gallon drum of lubricating oil," Riley growled. He thrust a Thermos flask into the Engineer-Commander's hands. "And here's some coffee. I'll 'tend to this, you drink that... Suffering Christ! This bloody bearing's red hot!"

  Dodson set down the Thermos with a thump.

  "Are you deaf?" he asked harshly. "Why are you here? Who sent you?

  Your station's in 'B' boiler room!"

  "Grierson sent me," Riley said roughly. His dark face was impassive.

  "Said he couldn't spare his engine room men, too bloody valuable... Too much?" The oil, thick, viscous, was pouring slowly on to the overheated bearing.

  "Lieutenant Grierson!" Dodson was almost vicious, his voice a whiplash of icy correction. "And that's a damned lie, Riley! Lieutenant Grierson never sent you: I suppose you told him that somebody else had sent you?"

  "Drink your coffee," Riley advised sourly. "You're wanted in the engine-room."

  The Engineer-Commander clenched his fist, restrained himself with difficulty.

  "You damned insolent bastard!" he burst out. Abruptly, control came back and he said evenly: "Commander's Defaulters in the morning. You'll pay for this, Riley!"

  "No, I won't." Confound him, Dodson thought furiously, he's actually grinning, the insolent...

  He checked his thought.

  "Why not?" he demanded dangerously.

  "Because you won't report me." Riley seemed to be enjoying himself hugely.

  "Oh, so that's it!" Dodson glanced swiftly round the darkened tunnel, and his lips tightened as he realised for the first time how completely alone they were: in sudden certainty he looked back at Riley, big and hunched and menacing. Smiling yet, but no smile, Dodson thought, could ever transform that ugly brutal face. The smile on the face of the tiger... Fear, exhaustion, never, ending strain, they did terrible things to a man and you couldn't blame him for what he had become, or for what he was born... But his, Dodson's, first responsibility was to himself. Grimly, he remembered how Turner had berated him, called him all sorts of a fool for refusing to have Riley sent to prison.

  "So that's it, eh?" he repeated softly. He turned himself, feet thrusting solidly against the block. "Don't be so sure, Riley. I can give you twenty five years, but------"

  "Oh, for Christ's sake!" Riley burst out impatiently. "What are you talking about, sir? Drink your coffee, please, You're wanted in the engine-room, I tell you!" he repeated impatiently.

  Uncertainly, Dodson relaxed, unscrewed the cap of the Thermos. He had a sudden, peculiar feeling of unreality, as if he were a spectator, some bystander in no way involved in this scene, this fantastic scene. His head, he realised, still hurt like hell.

  "Tell me, Riley," he asked softly, "what makes you so sure I won't report you?"

  "Oh, you can report me all right." Riley was suddenly cheerful again.

  "But I won't be at the Commander's table tomorrow morning."

  "No?" It was half-challenge, half-question.

  "No," Riley grinned. "'Cos there'll be no Commander and no table tomorrow morning." He clasped his hands luxuriously behind his head.

  "In fact, there'll be no nothin'."

  Something in the voice, rather than in the words, caught and held Dodson's attention. He knew, with instant conviction, that though Riley might be smiling, he wasn't joking. Dodson looked at him curiously, but said nothing.

  "Commander's just finished broadcastin'," Riley continued. "The Tirpitz is out, we have four hours left."

  The bald, flat statement, the complete lack of histrionics, of playing for effect, left no possible room for doubt. The Tirpitz out. The Tirpitz out. Dodson repeated the phrase to himself, over and over again. Four hours, just four hours to go.... He was surprised at his own reaction, his apparent lack of concern.

  "Well?" Riley was anxious now, restive. "Are you goin' or aren't you? I'm not kiddin', sir, you're wanted urgent!"

  "You're a liar," Dodson said pleasantly. "Why did you bring the coffee?"

  "For myself." The smile was gone, the face set and sullen. "But I thought you needed it, you don't look so good to me... They'll fix you up back in the engine-room."

  "And that's just where you're going, right nowl" Dodson said evenly.

  Riley gave no sign that he had heard.

  "On your way, Riley," Dodson said curtly. "That's an order!"

  "-----, off!" Riley growled. "I'm stayin'. You don't require to have three -----, great gold stripes on your sleeve to handle a bloody oil can," he finished derisively.

  "Possibly not." Dodson braced against a sudden, violent pitch, but too late to prevent himself lurching into Riley. "Sorry, Riley. Weather's worsening, I'm afraid. Well, we, ah-appear to have reached an impasse."

  "What's that?" Riley asked suspiciously.

  "A dead end. A no-decision fight... Tell me, Riley," he asked quietly. "What brought you here?"

  "I told you!" Riley was aggrieved. "Grierson, Lieutenant Grierson sent me."

  "What brought you here?" Dodson persisted. It was as if Riley had not spoken.

  "That's my
-----, business!" Riley answered savagely.

  "'What brought you here?"

  "Oh, for Christ's sake leave me alone!" Riley shouted. His voice echoed loudly along the dark tunnel. Suddenly he turned round full face, his mouth twisted bitterly. "You know bloody well why I came."

  "To do me in, perhaps?"

  Riley looked at him a long second, then turned away. His shoulders were hunched, his head held low.

  "You're the only bastard in this ship that ever gave me a break," he muttered. "The only bastard I've ever known who ever gave me a chance," he amended slowly. "Bastard," Dodson supposed, was Riley's accolade of friendship, and he felt suddenly ashamed of his last remark.

  "If it wasn't for you," Riley went on softly, "I'd 'a' been in cells the first time, in a civvy jail the second. Remember, sir?"

  Dodson nodded. "You were rather foolish, Riley," he admitted.

  "Why did you do it?" The big stoker was intense, worried. "God, everyone knows What I'm like------"

  "Do they? I wonder... I thought you had the makings of a better man than you ------"

  "Don't give me that bull!" Riley scoffed. " know what I'm like. I know what I am. I'm no -----, good! Everybody says I'm no -----, good! And they're right..." He leaned forward. "Do you know somethin'? I'm a Catholic. Four hours from now..." He broke off. "I should be on my knees, shouldn't I?" he sneered.

  "Repentance, lookin' for, what do they call it?"

  "Absolution?"

  "Aye. That's it. Absolution. And do you know what?" He spoke slowly, emphatically. "I don't give a single, solitary damn!"

  "Maybe you don't have to," Dodson murmured. "For the last time, get back to that engine-room!"

  "No!"

  The Engineer-Commander sighed, picked up the Thermos.

  "In that case, perhaps you would care to join me in a cup of coffee?"

  Riley looked up, grinned, and when he spoke it was in a very creditable imitation of Colonel Chinstrap of the famous ITMA radio programme.

  "Ectually, I don't mind if I do!"

  Vallery rolled over on his side, his legs doubled up, his hand automatically reaching for the towel. His emaciated body shook violently, and the sound of the harsh, retching cough beat back at him from the iron walls of his shelter. God, he thought, oh, God, it's never been as bad as this before. Funny, he thought, it doesn't hurt any more, not even a little bit. The attack eased. He looked at the crimson, sodden towel, flung it in sudden disgust and with what little feeble strength was left him into the darkest corner of the shelter.