South By Java Head (15 page)

And then, quite suddenly, the almost continuous roar and teeth-chattering vibration of bursting bombs and torpedoes were at an end, the off-beat drone of heavy bomber engines faded quickly in the distance and the abrupt, comparative silence was almost as hurting to the ear as the clamour that had just ended. Wearily Nicolson shook his head to clear it of the shock and sound and smoke and choking dust, levered himself groggily to his hands and knees, caught the handle of the screen door and pulled himself to his feet, then dropped to the deck like a stone as cannon shells whistled evilly through the smashed windows just above his head and exploded against the chartroom bulkhead, filling the wheelhouse with the shocking blast of sound and a lethal storm of splintered steel.
For a few seconds Nicolson remained prone on the deck, face down with his hands over his ears and his cradling forearms protecting his head, half-dazed and cursing himself silently for his precipitate, unthinking folly in rising so quickly to his feet. He should have known better than to imagine for a moment that the entire Japanese assault force would withdraw. It had been inevitable that they would leave some planes behind to take care of any survivor who might move out on deck and try to rob them of their prize -- and these planes, Zero fighters, would remain to the limit of their long range tanks.
Slowly, this time, moving with infinite caution, Nicolson rose to his feet again and peered out over the jagged glass in the bottom of the shattered window frame. Puzzled for a moment, he tried to orientate himself and the ship, then realised from the black bar of shadow from the foremast what had happened. A torpedo must have blown off or jammed the rudder, for the Viroma, losing way rapidly in the water until she was now almost stopped, had swung right round through a hundred and eighty degrees and was facing in the direction she had come. And then, almost at the same time, Nicolson saw something else again, something that made the position of the Viroma of no importance at all, something that made a mockery of the vigil of the planes watching and waiting in the sky.
It hadn't been miscalculation on the part of the bomber pilots, just ignorance. When they had attacked the fo'c'sle, destroying guns and gunners and using armour piercing cannon shells to penetrate the fo'c'sle deck and kill any of the crew members sheltering beneath, it must have been a reasonable supposition to them that that was all they were doing. But what they did not know, what they could have had no means of knowing, was that the storage space beneath the fo'c'sle deck, the 'tween-deck cargo hold beneath that and the even larger hold beneath that were not empty. They were full, completely, rilled to capacity with hundreds of closely stacked barrels, with tens of thousands of gallons of high-octane aircraft fuel -- petrol intended for the shattered, burnt-out wrecks that now littered the Selengar airfield.
The flames rose a hundred, two hundred feet into the still, breathless air, a great, solid column so white, so intensely hot and free from smoke that it was all but invisible in the bright glare of the afternoon sun, not flames really but a broad shimmering band of super-heated air that narrowed as it climbed and ended in a twisting, wavering point that reached far up beyond the tip of the foremast and died in a feathery wisp of pale blue smoke. Every now and then another barrel would explode deep in the hold and, just for a moment, a gout of thick smoke would lace the almost invisible flame and then, as quickly, it would be gone. And the fire, Nicolson knew, was only starting. When the flames really got hold, when the barrels started bursting by the dozen, the aviation spirit in the for'ard fuel tank, number nine, would go up like an exploding ammunition dump. The heat of the flames already fierce on his forehead, he stared at the fo'c'sle a few moments longer, trying to estimate how much time they had left. But it was impossible to know, impossible even to guess. Perhaps only two minutes, perhaps as long as twenty -- after two years of war the toughness of tankers, their reluctance to die, had become almost legendary... But certainly not more than twenty minutes.
Nicolson's attention was suddenly caught by something moving among the maze of pipes on the deck, just aft of the foremast. It was a man, dressed only in a pair of tattered blue denims, stumbling and falling as he made his way towards a ladder that led up to the catwalk. He seemed dazed and kept rubbing his forearm across his eyes, as if he couldn't see too well, but he managed to reach the foot of the ladder, drag himself to the top and began, at a lurching run, to make his way along the catwalk to the bridge superstructure. Nicolson could see him clearly now -- Able Seaman Jenkins, trainer of the fo'c'sle pom-pom. And someone else had seen him too and Nicolson had time only for a desperate shout of warning before he flung himself to the deck and listened, with clenched fists, to the hammerblows of exploding cannon shells as the Zero pulled out of its short, sudden dive and raked the fore-deck from fo'c'sle to bridge.
This time Nicolson didn't get to his feet. Getting to his feet inside that wheelhouse, he realised, was a good way of committing suicide. There could be only one good reason for getting to his feet, and that was to see how Jenkins was. But he didn't have to look to know how Jenkins was. Jenkins should have bided his time and chosen his chance for making his dash, but perhaps he had been too dazed: or perhaps the only alternative he'd had was between running and being killed, and staying and being incinerated.
Nicolson shook his head to clear away the fumes and smell of cordite, pushed himself to a sitting position and looked round the scarred and shattered wheelhouse. There were four people in it apart from himself -- and there had only been three a moment ago. McKinnon, the bo'sun, had just arrived, just as the last shells had exploded inside the bridge. He was half-crouched, half-lying across the threshold of the chartroom door, propped on one elbow and looking cautiously around him. He was unhurt, but taking no chances before moving any further.
"Keep your head down!" Nicolson advised him urgently. "Don't stand up or you'll get it blown off." Even to himself his voice sounded hoarse and whispery and unreal.
Evans, the duty quartermaster, was sitting on his duckboard grill, his back to the wheel and swearing softly, fluently, continuously in his high-pitched Welsh voice. Blood dripped from a long gash on his forehead on to his knees, but he ignored it and concentrated on wrapping a makeshift bandage round his left forearm. How badly the arm was gashed Nicolson couldn't tell: but every fresh strip of ragged white linen torn from his shirt became bright red and saturated the moment it touched his arm.
Vannier was lying against the deck in the far corner. Nicolson crawled across the deck and lifted his head, gently. The fourth officer had a cut and bruised temple, but seemed otherwise unharmed: he was quite unconscious, but breathing quietly and evenly. Carefully, Nicolson lowered his head to the deck and turned to look at Findhorn. The captain was sitting watching him on the other side of the bridge, back against the bulkhead, palms and splayed fingers resting on the deck beside him. The old man looks a bit pale, Nicolson, thought: he's not a kid any longer, not fit for it, especially this kind of fun and games. He gestured at Vannier.
"Just knocked out, sir. He's as lucky as the rest of us -- all alive, if not exactly kicking." Nicolson made his voice sound more cheerful than he felt. Even as he stopped speaking he saw Findhorn bending forward to get up, his fingernails whitening as he put pressure on his hands. "Easy does it, sir!" Nicolson called out sharply. "Stay where you are. There are some characters snooping around outside just begging for a sight of you."
Findhorn nodded and relaxed, leaning back against the bulkhead. He said nothing. Nicholson looked at him sharply. "You all right, sir?"
Findhorn nodded again and made to speak. But no words came, only a strange gravelly cough and suddenly his lips were flecked with bright bubbles of blood, blood that trickled down his chin and dripped slowly on to the fresh, white crispness of his tunic shirt. Nicolson was on his feet in a moment, crossed the wheelhouse in a stumbling run and fell on his knees in front of the captain.
Findhorn smiled at him and tried to speak, but again there was only the bubbling cough and more blood at his mouth, bright arterial blood that contrasted pitifully with the whiteness of the lips. His eyes were sick and glazed.
Quickly, urgently, Nicolson searched body and head for evidence of a wound. At first he could see nothing, then all at once he had it -- he'd mistaken it for one of the drops of blood soaking into Findhorn's shirt. But this was no blood-drip, but a hole -- a small, insignificant looking hole, quite circular and reddening at the edges. That was Nicolson's first shocked reaction -- how small a hole it was, and how harmless. Almost in the centre of the captain's chest, but not quite. It was perhaps an inch or so to the left of the breastbone and two inches above the heart.
CHAPTER SEVEN
GENTLY, CAREFULLY, Nicolson caught the captain by tne shoulders, eased his back off the bulkhead and turned to look for the bo'sun. But McKinnon was already kneeling by his side, and one glance at McKinnon's studiously expressionless face told Nicolson that the stain on the captain's shirt-front must be spreading. Quickly, without any word from Nicolson, McKinnon had his knife out and the back of the captain's shirt slit open in one neat movement, then he closed the knife, caught the edges of the cut cloth in his hands and ripped the shirt apart. For a moment he scanned the captain's back, then, he closed the tear together, looked up at Nicolson and shook his head. As carefully as before Nicolson eased the captain back against the bulkhead.
"No success, gentlemen, eh?" Findhorn's voice was only a husky, strained murmur, a fight against the blood welling up in his throat.
"It's bad enough, not all that bad though." Nicolson picked his words with care. "Does it hurt much, sir?"
"No." Findhorn closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again. "Please answer my question. Did it go right through?"
Nicolson's voice was detached, almost clinical. "No, sir. Must have nicked the lung, I think, and lodged in the ribs at the back. We'll have to dig for it, sir."
"Thank you." 'Nicked' was a flagrant meiosis and only a fully equipped hospital theatre could hope to cope with surgery within the chest wall, but if Findhorn appreciated these things he gave no sign by either tone or expression. He coughed painfully, then tried to smile. "The excavations will have to wait. How is the ship, Mr. Nicolson?"
"Going," Nicolson said bluntly. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "You can see the flames, sir. Fifteen minutes if we're lucky. Permission to go below, sir?"
"Of course, of course! What am I thinking of?" Findhorn struggled to rise to his feet, but McKinnon held him down, talking to him in his soft Highland voice, looking at Nicolson for guidance. But the guidance came not from Nicolson but in the shape of a crescendoing roar of an aircraft engine, the triphammer thudding of aircraft cannon and a shell that screamed through the smashed window above their heads and blasted the top of the chartroom door off its hinges. Findhorn ceased to struggle and leaned back tiredly against the bulkhead, looking up at McKinnon and half smiling. Then he turned to speak to Nicolson, but Nicolson was already gone, the chartroom door half closing behind him, swinging crazily on its shattered hinges.
Nicolson dropped down the-centre ladder, turned for'ard and went in the starboard door of the dining-saloon. Van Effen was sitting on the deck by the door as he went in, his gun in his hand, unhurt. He looked up as the door opened.
"A great deal of noise indeed, Mr. Nicolson. Finished?"
"More or less. I'm afraid the ship is. Still two or three Zeros outside, looking for the last drop of blood. Any trouble?"
"With them?" Van Effen waved a contemptuous pistol barrel at the crew of the Kerry Dancer: five of them lay huddled fearfully on the deck at the foot of the for'ard settees, two more were prostrate under the tables. "Too worried about their own precious skins."
"Anyone hurt?"
Van Effen shook his head regretfully. "The devil is good to his own kind, Mr. Nicolson."
"Pity." Nicolson was already on his way across to the port door of the dining-saloon. "The ship's going. We haven't long. Herd our little friends up to the deck above -- keep 'em in the passageway for the time being. Don't open the screen doors-----" Nicolson broke off suddenly, halted in mid-stride. The wooden serving hatch into the pantry was riddled and smashed in a dozen places. From the other side he could hear the thin, quavering sobbing of a little child..
Within three seconds Nicolson was out in the passage, wrestling with the handle of the pantry door. The handle turned, but the door refused to open -- locked, perhaps, more probably jammed and buckled. A providential fire axe hung on the bulkhead outside the fifth engineer's cabin and Nicolson swung it viciously against the lock of the pantry door. On the third blow the lock sprang open and the door crashed back on its hinges.
Nicolson's first confused impressions were of smoke, burning, a sea of smashed crockery and an almost overpowering reek of whisky. Then the rush of fresh air quickly cleared the air and he could see the two nurses sitting on the deck, almost at his feet, Lena, the young Malayan girl, with her dark, sooty eyes wide and shadowed with terror, and Miss Drachmann beside her, her face pale and strained but calm. Nicolson dropped on his knees beside her.
"The little boy?" he asked harshly.
"Do not worry. Little Peter is safe." She smiled at him gravely, eased back the heavy metal door of the hot press, already ajar. The child was inside, snugly wrapped in a heavy blanket, staring out at him with wide, fearful eyes. Nicolson reached in a hand, gently ruffled the blond hair, then rose abruptly to his feet and let his breath go in a long sigh.
"Thank God for that, anyway." He smiled down at the girl. "And thank you, too, Miss Drachmann. Damned clever idea. Take him outside in the passage, will you? It's stifling in here." He swung round, then halted and stared down in disbelief at the tableau at his feet. The young soldier, Alex, and the priest were stretched out on the deck, side by side, both obviously unconscious -- at least. Farnholme was just straightening up from examining the priest's head. The smell of whisky from him was so powerful that his clothes might have been saturated in it.