The Sword and the Net полностью

Otto did not fall this time—but from the last cabin—immediately ahead of him—came a high-pitched, vibrating crackle of tortured wood and metal, loud enough and near enough to be vivid through the other, greater noises. It was followed at once by a sort of slithering crash—and the door of the cabin, torn from hinges and fastenings, fell outwards across his path. He jumped back—and then was hurled from his feet as a bathtub slid through the open, splintered doorway and caught his legs and thrust them from underneath him.

He shook his head to clear it, and pulled himself upright, his hands upon the edge of the tub. The Vulcania, now momentarily beam-on to the swelling seas, rolled heavily—and Otto, his head reeling, slipped and almost tell again.

He thrust his hands down to save himself—and they lighted on something within the tub; something which half-floated in tepid water and was clammily warm to the touch. He caught at the edge of the tub and reared upright and found himself staring down at the body of a woman. It was a young body, and by no means without beauty. It lay upon its back in an attitude astonishingly lifelike; indeed, Otto thought that she was alive, until he saw the jagged piece of incongruously shining metal—some part, no doubt, of a toilet fitting—which stuck rigidly out from the dark hole where one of her eyes had been.

Above there was indescribable chaos—and incredible discipline. Upon the already tilting decks, as near to their allotted boat stations as they were allowed to go, were miraculously orderly groups of women and children. Two boats, full-laden, were down and afloat already, and pulling away to the starboard for safety. Another, full, was being lowered from its davits when a shell fragment tore the right arm from a member of the lowering crew and the sheet screamed over its blocks and the boat tilted nose down in mid-air, and little, sprawling, armed and legged specks fell from it and hurtled down to the grey water.

The gunner fired again—and a flickering dart of flame sprang up from the Vulcania and licked a purple tongue at the cold dark sky. . . .

Otto had reached his quarters. The oilskin packet was safe in an inner pocket, and he was trying to make his way above decks again.

It had been a difficult journey down: to get up again was even harder. The Vulcania was listing badly to port, and the shells continued to drop. Worse by far, there was fire somewhere. The heat was growing oppressive and in Otto’s nostrils was the acrid smell of melting metal.

The companion down which he had come was irretrievably blocked. So was the next, which was the sternmost—so that he was forced to retrace his steps and desperately try his luck amidships. Clambering over debris, fighting against the shuddering and rolling of the ship, choking with the acrid, almost invisible smoke which was now tearing at his lungs, he fought his way along. He found a companion which was clear as far up as B deck, but thereafter was impassable. He worked forward again, clambered over the worst pile of debris he had yet happened upon—and saw the first fellow-human he had met on this nightmare journey.

It was a dark-haired, squarely built boy of ten. He was clad in life-belt, pyjamas and a brown woolly bath-robe—and he was working with all his strength to clear from the doorway of a cabin the jammed wreckage of the opposite bulkhead. He was silent and self-possessed and extremely busy. He was doubled over, with his arms around the main timber which was jamming the rest. He turned a contorted face up to Otto, but did not relax his effort. He said:

“I say, could you help me get this stuff away?” His accent was precise but his voice was thickened by the strain. He jerked his head towards the cabin door. “My mother’s in there,” he said.

Immediately he had spoken he turned back to his task again, heaving and straining until it seemed that the muscles must tear in his sturdy small back. For him it was certain that, having been asked, this man would help him.

And, curiously, that was the way too in which it struck Otto. It is perhaps to his discredit that there was no struggle in his mind between duty and humanity; but the question of whether Nils Jorgensen should or should not delay his search for safety did not so much as pose itself in his mind. He stood beside the boy and ran his eye over the tangled web of splintered lath and timber and bent down to see what must be done to clear it quickly.

There was a strange silence now; the lull since the striking of the last shell was much longer than its predecessors. The Vulcania wallowed unevenly, and the heat and the sharp smell of burning were fiercer.

Otto saw that the boy was right in what he was trying so stoutly to do—and stooped beside the little figure and wrapped his arms about the same baulk with which it was struggling and lent all his strength.