He turned without waiting for a reply and hurried through the door on the heels of the last of the nurses. On the well-deck he stood blinking for a few seconds, unaccustomed eyes adjusting themselves to the fierce glare of light from the Viroma that threw everything into harsh relief, a merciless whiteness broken by black, impenetrable blocks of shadow. The Viroma couldn’t be more than a hundred and fifty yards away: with seas like these, Captain Findhorn was gambling, and gambling high.
Less than ten minutes had elapsed since they had come on board, but the Kerry Dancer was already appreciably lower in the water; the seas were beginning to break over the starboard side of the after well-deck. The lifeboat was on the port side, one moment plunging a dozen feet down into the depths of a trough, the next riding up almost to the level of the well-deck rail, the men in the boat screwing shut their eyes and averting their heads as they were caught in the glare of the searchlights. Even as Nicolson watched, the corporal released his grip on the rail, stepped into the lifeboat, was grabbed by Docherty and Ames and dropped from sight like a stone. Already McKinnon had swung one of the nurses over the rail and was holding her in readiness for the next upward surge of the boat.
Nicolson stepped to the rail, switched on his torch and peered down over the side. The lifeboat was down in the trough, smashed jarringly into the side of the Kerry Dancer, despite all the crew could do to fend her off, as opposing seas flung the lifeboat and ship together: the two upper planks of the lifeboat were stove in and broken, but the gunwale of tough American elm still held. Fore and aft Farnholme and the Muslim priest clung desperately to the ropes that held them alongside, doing their best to keep the boat in position and to ease it against the shocks of the sea and the hull of the Kerry Dancer: as far as Nicolson could judge in the confusion and near darkness, their best was surprisingly good.
“Sir!” Vannier was by his side, his voice agitated, his arm pointing out into the darkness. “We’re almost on the rocks!”
Nicolson straightened up and stared along the line of the pointing arm. The sheet-lightning was still playing around the horizon, but even in the intervals of darkness there was no difficulty in seeing it — a long, irregular line of seething white, blooming and fading, creaming and dying as the heavy seas broke over the outlying rocks of the coastline. Two hundred yards away now, Nicolson estimated, two fifty at the most, the Kerry Dancer had been drifting south at almost twice the speed he’d estimated. For a moment he stood there immobile, racing mind calculating his chances, then he staggered and almost fell as the Kerry Dancer struck heavily, with a grinding, tearing screech of metal, on an underground reef, the decks canting far over on the port side. Nicolson caught a glimpse of McKinnon, feet wide braced on the deck, an arm crooked tightly round the nurse outside the rail, bared teeth white and deepset eyes screwed almost shut as he twisted round and stared into the searchlight, and he knew that McKinnon was thinking the same thing as himself.
“Vannier!” Nicolson’s voice was quick, urgent. “Get the Aldis out of the boat. Signal the captain to stand well off, tell him it’s shoal ground, with rocks, and we’re fast. Ferris — take the bo’sun’s place. Heave ’em in any old how. We’re pinned f or’ard and if she slews round head into the sea we’ll never get anybody off. Right, McKinnon, come with me.”
He was back inside the aftercastle in five seconds, McKinnon close behind him. He swept his torch once, quickly, round the metal bunks. Eight left hi all — the five walking wounded, Miss Drachmann and the two seriously injured men lying stretched out at full length on the lowest bunks. One was breathing stertorously through his open mouth, moaning and twisting from side to side in deep-drugged sleep. The other lay very still, his breathing so shallow as to be almost imperceptible, his face a waxen ivory: only the slow, aimless wandering of pain-filled eyes showed that he was still alive.
“Right, you five.” Nicolson gestured at the soldiers. “Outside as fast as you can. What the hell do you think you’re doing?” He reached out, tore a knapsack from the hands of a soldier who was struggling to slip his arms through the straps, flung it into a corner. “You’ll be lucky to get out of this with your life, far less your damn’ luggage. Hurry up and get outside.”
Four of the soldiers, urged on by McKinnon, stumbled quickly through the door. The fifth — a pale-faced boy of about twenty — had made no move to rise from his seat. His eyes were wide, his mouth working continuously and his hands were clasped tightly in front of him. Nicolson bent over him.
“Did you hear what I said?” he asked softly.
“He’s my pal.” He didn’t look at Nicolson, gestured to one of the bunks behind him. “He’s my best friend. I’m staying with him.”
“My God!” Nicolson murmured. “What a time for heroics.” He raised his voice, nodded to the door. “Get going.”
The boy swore at him, softly, continuously but broke off as a dull booming sound echoed and vibrated throughout the ship, the noise accompanied by a sharp, sickening lurch even farther to port.
“Water-tight bulkhead abaft the engine-room gone, I’m thinking, sir.” McKinnon’s soft-spoken Highland voice was calm, almost conversational.
“And she’s filling up aft,” Nicolson nodded. He wasted no further time. He stooped over the soldier, twisted his left hand in his shirt, jerked him savagely to his feet, then stiffened in sudden surprise as the nurse threw herself forward and caught his free right arm in both her hands. She was tall, taller than he had thought, her hair brushed his eyes and he could smell the faint fragrance of sandalwood. What caught and held his almost shocked attention, however, was her eyes — or, rather, her eye, for the beam from McKinnon’s torch lit up only the right hand side of her face. It was an eye of a colour and an intensity that he had seen only once before — in his own mirror. A clear Arctic blue, it was very Arctic right then, and hostile.
“Wait! Don’t hit him — there are other ways, you know.”
The voice was still the same, soft, well modulated, but the earlier respect had given way to something edged with near-contempt. “You do not understand. He is not well.” She turned away from Nicolson and touched the boy lightly on the shoulder. “Come on, Alex. You must go, you know. I’ll look after your friend — you know I will. Please, Alex.”
The boy stirred uncertainly and looked over his shoulder at the man lying in the bunk behind him. The girl caught his hand, smiled at him and urged him gently to his feet. He muttered something, hesitated, then stumbled past Nicolson out on to the well-deck.
“Congratulations.” Nicolson nodded towards the open door. “You next, Miss Drachmann.”
“No.” She shook her head. “You heard me promise him — and you asked me to stay behind a little time ago.”
“That was then, not now,” Nicolson said impatiently. “We’ve no time to fool around with stretchers now — not with a slippery deck canted over at twenty degrees. Surely you can see that.”
She stood irresolute a moment, then nodded without speaking and turned round to grope in the shadowed darkness of a bunk behind her.
Nicolson said roughly, “Hurry up. Never mind your precious belongings. You heard what I said to that soldier.”
“Not my belongings,” she said quietly. She turned round and pulled a wrap more tightly round the sleeping child in her arms. “But very precious to someone, I’m sure.”
Nicolson stared at the child for a moment, then shook his head slightly. “Call me what you like, Miss Drachmann. I just plain forgot. And you can call that what you like — ‘criminal negligence’ will do for a start.”
“Our lives are all with you.” The tone was no longer hostile. “You cannot think of everything.” She walked past him along the sharply sloping deck, propping herself against the line of bunks with her free hand. Again the faint smell of the sandalwood drifted past him, a scent so faint that it was just a fleeting memory lost in the dank airlessness of the aftercastle. Near the door she slipped and almost fell, and McKinnon put out his hand to help her. She took it without any hesitation, and they went out on deck together.
Within a minute both the seriously injured men had been brought out on deck, Nicolson carrying the one and McKinnon the other. The Kerry Dancer, already settling deep by the stern, was still pinned fast for’ard, working jerkily round with every pounding wave that smashed along its starboard length, the bows coming slowly, inexorably, head on to the seas. A minute at the most, Nicolson estimated, and the lifeboat would have lost the last of its shelter and would be exposed, head on, to the heavy combers shorter and steeper than ever as they raced in over the shoaling seabed. Already the lifeboat, now plunging, now rolling in short, vicious arcs, was corkscrewing almost uncontrollably in the quartering seas, shipping gallons of water at a time over the port gunwale. Not even a minute left, Nicolson felt sure. He jumped over the rail, waited for the bo’sun to hand him the first of the two injured men. Seconds only, just seconds, and any more embarkation would be quite impossible — the lif eboat would have to cast off to save itself. Seconds, and the devil of it was that they had to work with sick men, maybe even dying men, in almost total darkness: the Kerry Dancer was so far round now that her superstructure completely blocked off the searchlights of the Viroma.