felt during those dredful fifteen seconds while dr. Caroline and I had
waited for the twister to blow up. I felt that way because there had
abruptly, paralysingly flashed on me the realisation that would have
come to me half an hour ago if I hadn’t been so busy commiserating with
myself on the misery I was suffering. Whatever else carreras had not
established himself as a consistent, prudent, and methodical man, and
he’d never yet worked out any chart problems on figures supplied him
without coming to have a check made by his trusty navigator, chief
officer john carter.
my mind churned into low gear again, but it didn’t make any
difference. True, he’d sometimes waited some hours before having his
check made, but he wouldn’t be waiting some hours tonight because by
then it would be far too late. We couldn’t be more than three hours now
from our rendezvous with the ticonderoga, and he’d want a check made
immediately. Waking up a sick man in the middle of the night would
hardly be a consideration to worry carreras. Nothing was surer than
that within ten or fifteen minutes of that message coming through he’d
be calling at the sick bay. To find his navigator gone. To find the
door locked from the inside. To find macdonald waiting with a gun in
his hand. Macdonald had only one automatic; carreras could call on
forty men with submachine guns. There could only be one ending to any
battle in the sick bay, and the end would be swift and certain and
final. In my mind’s eye I could just see stammering machine guns
spraying the sick bay, could see macdonald and susan, bullen and
marston-i crushed down the thought, forced it from my mind. That way
lay defeat.
when the radio operator left the office, if I got inside unseen, if
I was left undisturbed to send off the message, how long would that
leave me to get back to the sick bay? ten minutes, not any more than
ten minutes, say seven or eight minutes to make my way undetected right
aft to the port side where I had left the three ropes tied to the
guardrail stanchion, secure one to myself, grab the life line, give the
signal to the bo’sun, lower myself into the water, and then make the
long half-drowning trip back to the sick bay. Ten minutes? eight? I
knew I could never do it in double that time; if my trip from the sick
bay to the afterdeck through that water had been any criterion, the trip
back, against instead of with the current, would be at least twice as
bad, and the first trip had been near enough the end of me. Eight
minutes? the chances were high i’d never get back there at all.
or the radio operator? I could kill the radio operator as he left
the office. I was desperate enough to try anything and frantic enough
to have a fair chance of success. Even with patrolling guards round.
That way carreras would never get the message. But he would be waiting
for it; oh yes, he would be waiting for it. He would be very anxious
indeed to have that last check, and if it didn’t come within minutes he
was going to send someone to investigate, and when that someone found
the operator was dead or missing, the balloon would be up with a
vengeance. Guards running here, guards running there, lights on all
over the ship, every possible source of trouble investigated and that
still included the sick bay. And macdonald would still be there. With
his gun.
there was a way. It was a way that gave little enough hope
of success, with the added drawback that I would be forced to leave
those three incriminating ropes attached to the guardrail aft; but at
least it didn’t carry with it an outright guarantee of failure. I
stooped, felt for the coiled fall rope, cut it with my clasp knife. One
end of the rope I secured to my waist with a bowline; the rest of it,
about sixty feet, I wrapped round my waist, tucking the end in. I
fumbled for and found the radio office key that i’d taken off the dead
carlos. I stood in the rain and the darkness and waited.
a minute elapsed, no more, then the radio operator appeared, locked
the door behind him, and made for the companionway leading up to the
bridge. Thirty seconds later I was sitting in the seat he’d just
vacated, looking up the call sign of the fort ticonderoga.
I made no attempt to hide my presence there by leaving the light
off. That would only have aroused the suspicions, and quickly, too, of
any passing guards hearing the stutter of transmitted morse coming from
a darkened wireless office.
twice I tapped out the call sign of the ticonderoga and on the
second occasion I got an acknowledgement. One of carreras’ radio
operator stooges aboard the ticonderoga was certainly keeping a pretty
sharp watch. I should have expected nothing else.
it was a brief message, speeded on its way by the introductory
words: highest priority urgent immediate repeat immediate attention
master fort ticonderoga. I sent the message and took the liberty of
signing it: from the office of the minister of transport by the hand of
vice-admiral richard hodson director naval operations. I switched off
the light, opened the door, and peered out cautiously. No curious
listeners, no one at all in sight. I came all the way out, locked the
padlock, and threw the key over the side.
thirty seconds later I was on the port side of the boat deck,
carefully gauging, as best I could in that darkness and driving rain,
the distance from where I stood to the break in the focsle. About
thirty feet, I finally estimated, and the distance from the focsle break
aft to the window above my bed was, I guessed, about the same. If I was
right, I should be almost directly above that window now; the sick bay
was three decks below. If I wasn’t right-well, i’d better be right.
I checked the knot round my waist, passed the other end of the rope
round a convenient arm of a davit, and let it hang down loosely over the
side. I was just about to start lowering myself when the rope below me
smacked wetly against the ship’s side and went taut. Someone had caught
that rope and hauled it tight.
panic touched me, but the instinct for self-preservation still
operated independently of my mind. I flung an arm round the davit and
locked on to the wrist of the other hand. Anyone wanting to pull me
over the side would have to pull that davit and lifeboat along with me.
But as long as that pressure remained on the rope I couldn’t escape,
couldn’t free a hand to untie the bowline or get at my clasp knife. The
pressure eased. I fumbled for the knot, then stopped
as the pressure came on again. But the pressure was only
momentary, no pull but a tug. Four tugs, in rapid succession. If I
wasn’t feeling weak enough already, i’d have felt that way with relief.
Four tubs. The prearranged signal with macdonald to show I was on my
way back. I might have known archie macdonald would have been keeping
watch every second of the time I was away. He must have seen or heard
or even felt the rope snaking down past the window and guessed that it
could only be myself. I went down that rope like a man reborn, checked
suddenly as a strong hand caught me by the ankle, and five seconds later
was on terra firma inside the sick bay.
“The ropes!” I said to macdonald. I was already untying the one
round my own waist. “The two ropes on the bedstead. Off with them.
Throw them out the window.” moments later the last of the three ropes
had vanished, I was closing the window, pulling the curtains, and
calling softly for lights.
the lights came on. Macdonald and bullen were as I had left them,
both eyeing me with expressionless faces: macdonald, because he knew my
safe return meant at least possible success and did not want to betray
his knowledge; bullen, because I had told him that I intended to take
over the bridge by force, and he was convinced that my method of return
meant failure and didn’t want to embarrass me. Susan and marston were
by the dispensary door, both fully dressed, neither making any attempt
to conceal disappointment. No time for greetings.
“Susan, on with the heaters! full on. This place feels like
a frig after this window being open so long. Carreras will be here
any minute and it’s the first thing he will notice. After that, towels
for me. Doc, a hand to get macdonald back to his own bed. Move, man,