The Watch Below (7 page)
Authors: James White
"That is why we'll use the aft coffer dam first," Wallis continued. "The
gas will be injected as low as possible, will bubble to the top, and there
will always be a water seal to keep the acetylene from getting back to us.
"But in case the dam isn't airtight up top or it doesn't give a sufficient
increase of buoyancy," he added, "maybe you could point out a few likely
compartments here in Seven. The doctor will mark the places with chalk
while I start looking for the hardware we'll need."
He stopped abruptly. The tank around them was reverberating to the sounds
of frantic banging, the sounds a heavy spanner might make against a metal
deck. And above the noise, growing louder and more piercing with each
second that passed, there was the sound of screaming. The doctor snatched
the flashlamp from Dickson's hand and hurried aft.
"It isn't Jenny," Dickson said out of the darkness, the
anxiety in his voice making it sound like a question rather
than a statement. "It must be the other girl. . . ."
VII
Wallis moved carefully towards the starboard wall of the tank until the
workbench there stopped him, then groped around the top of it until he
found the spare lamp. He spent a longer time finding a place to prop it so
that its beam would illuminate a useful area of bench, but after that he
did not waste any time at all because he had spent most of the previous
night thinking about what he had to do and the material available for
doing it.
From the sick bay in Eleven the sounds made by the Murray girl continued
to reach them, quieter now and interspersed with the gruffer, reassuring
noises made by the doctor and the low voice of Miss Wellman backing him
up. Jenny might just as easily have joined the other girl in screaming
her head off instead of helping the doctor calm her down, but she
hadn't. Wallis thought that he approved of Miss Wellman.
"When you were moving the light around," Dickson said suddenly, "I couldn't
help noticing that. . . that . . ." He stopped, then finished helplessly,
"What on earth have you been doing to the generator?"
Wallis was silent for the few minutes it took him to check the outer
diameter of the acetylene tank nozzle against the business end of the
handsome, chrome-plated water faucet which had originally served, with
about a dozen just like it, in the temporary washroom in Number Three.
Being designed for temporary or emergency use, the other end of the tap
tapered gradually so as to accommodate several different diameters of
pipe, which was exactly what Wallis needed. But to fit the tap to the
acetylene tank he would first have to remove the aesthetically beautiful
curve which directed the water downwards.
"Sorry, I was thinking," said Wallis. He put the faucet into the vice,
found a hacksaw, and went on, "The doctor and I have been working on
an idea for producing light and heat. As you know, this generator is a
temporary affair used to light the tanks during the early modifications
and until they could be linked to the ship supply. The engine which
runs it is working but can't be used because it wastes air and produces
carbon monoxide. But we've been experimenting with gearing arrangements
which would allow us to operate the generator manually -- or to be more
accurate, by pedaling it with the feet. That framework built around it
is to take the two people operating the generator.
"We think it will need two people to bring it up to the required number
of revs," Wallis added, "but once there it will need only one to keep
it going."
"And there will be enough power," said Dickson, sounding impressed,
"to heat the place as well?"
"Well, no," Wallis said. "The effort required to work the pedals will
render its operators comfortably warm, maybe even uncomfortably hot.
A stint on the generator would get us nicely warmed up before hitting the
hammock, or after taking a bath.
"The doctor is becoming concerned about our standards of hygiene,"
he added. "We're beginning to smell, you know."
Dickson did not reply at once, but when he did his voice was firm with
the firmness of sheer desperation. He said, "A bath, a cold, sea-water
bath! You can't be serious! The-the drinking water will be gone long
before our body odors become, uh, mutually offensive, and by that time
the air will be stale anyway! If you ask me, our lives are going to be
far too short and uncomfortable as it is without risking premature death
from pneumonia!"
The hacksaw blade skidded off the polished curve of the faucet. Wallis
sucked briefly on a skinned knuckle, then said, "We've been working on
a method for reclaiming water and another -- the only one possible,
we think -- for renewing the air. As soon as you're able to walk we'll
introduce you to the head we've rigged in Number Two. The idea there is
to keep the, uh, solid and fluid wastes separate. When the generator
is working we should be able to boil and distill small quantities of
water electrically, using a heater element sealed in a glass tube and
immersed in impure water. As I've already said, however, the heating
of the living quarters will have to depend largely on our own body
temperature and more efficient insulation. . . . What did you say?"
"I was talking about your feet," said Dickson, "and grass. There isn't
much growing under them."
"I only wish that there was some green grass in here," said Wallis seriously.
"It would save us the trouble of trying to grow beans."
"Beans," said Dickson in a baffled voice. "How, and
why
? I thought we
had plenty of food."
"According to the doctor," Wallis replied, "we start by soaking some
of our dried beans in water, then sow them m a compost of dust, dirt,
packing straw, perhaps wood shavings, and, uh, fertilizer. We'll have to
take care that the material we collect for this soil does not contain
oil or rust as this would inhibit the growth or maybe kill the plants
altogether. And we would not be growing them for food. The area of
leafage in bean plants is considerable, according to the doctor, who
used to grow roses, and green growing leaves absorb carbon dioxide and
produce oxygen. As the process requires light, this is another reason
for having the generator, possibly the strongest reason of all.
"And that," Wallis ended, smiling, "is how we are going to grow beans,
and why."
For a long time the only sound was the steady rasp of the hacksaw biting
through metal. The voices coming from the sick bay had stopped or had
become too low to be heard, and Dickson seemed to have been rendered
speechless. But the condition was only temporary.
"I'm impressed," he said finally. "I had no idea that you were looking
so far ahead, or working on so many projects. . . ." He hesitated, and
when he went on his tone had reverted to that of the Dickson which they
knew of old. ". . . What bothers me is that if they are successful,
I'll have to take a bath."
Trying to match the other's tone, Wallis said, "We could be rescued before
then, or the ship might sink. Try not to worry too much about it."
The doctor returned shortly afterwards. With the bare minimum of conversation
he gave his torch to Dickson and asked for directions for marking the
positions of the saddle compartments they hoped to use. Wallis, meanwhile,
worked at modifying an initial batch of three faucets, breaking off
only when it was necessary to help the doctor carry Dickson to another
tank. But when the mate's directions were finally complete and it was
time to return him to the sick bay, Radford brought up a subject which
he had obviously been avoiding since his return from the other patients.
He said, "I can't keep that girl under sedation indefinitely, not just
for the sake of peace and quiet. Her burns are still uncomfortable,
but not painful enough to warrant keeping her doped all the time. In any
case I don't have unlimited quantities of medication and what little there
is left I would like to save for emergencies."
The recent movements of his litter and the unavoidable bumps he had
received while the doctor and Wallis were pushing and hauling it over
scattered heaps of cargo could not have been pleasant for Dickson,
considering his injuries -- so unpleasant, perhaps, that he might have
felt entitled to some of the dope the doctor wanted so suddenly to
ration. But even though Wallis could sympathize with these feelings,
Dickson's reaction came as a shock.
"What the blazes d'you call this!" he yelled suddenly, in a voice too much
like the one which had come earlier from the sick bay. "We're trapped
in a sinking ship. We're
deep
! The whole damn hull could cave in on us
at any minute! What bigger emergency can you have than that?"
"If we were here long enough," Radford broke in harshly, "I can think
of several. . . ."
In the following silence the sound of banging came clearly from the sick bay.
There was no screaming, just the banging. Presumably Miss Murray was still
asleep and Miss Wellman was awake and worried, and wanted someone to come
and tell her what all the shouting was about. Judging by the urgency of
the banging she could not have been very far from screaming herself.
Wallis motioned for the doctor to take the other end of the litter.
He said, "I think Mr. Dickson has need of some female companionship,
doctor. To keep him from becoming morbid."
By the time the gear was ready, it had been decided that without power
for the drills the only way of piercing the coffer dam bulkhead was
to burn a hole in it and risk the wastage of oxygen. They decided on
procedure and tried to imagine the things most likely to go wrong and to
guard against them. There was no way of measuring the passage of time,
but Wallis felt that too much of it had passed while the preparations
were going on. The deck was so steady under his feet that they might have
been hard aground. But the ship was not aground and the waves above them
were moving farther away with each hour that passed -- and there was no
way of telling how fast they were sinking or how many hours had passed
or if there was any hope for them at all.
But finally all possible preparations had been made and precautions taken.
The cutting torch and tanks and tapered wooden plugs were in place,
also the clamps and tongs and strips of thin lead sheeting needed in
case the hole was too big and the faucet inlet pipe had to be packed
out to size. There was the short length of steel pipe which, when
held in position by the tongs, would focus the flame so that it would
go through more quickly as well as hold it to the required diameter,
and there were the padded hammers and the gauntlets and the face masks
which were necessary because when water meets fire there is inevitably
a lot of steam. All at once there was nothing left to do but begin.
The hole itself went through very quickly. There was a sudden explosion
of steam and spray, then a solid jet of water struck the cutting torch,
knocking it away and bursting against Wallis's chest like a high-pressure
hose. He staggered back, blinded, and remembered to switch off the torch
before he burned a hole in the doctor.
Wallis blinked the water out of his eyes. The doctor was trying to get
the pointed end of the plug into the hole and each time he tried the jet
knocked it away again. On about the sixth attempt he managed to hold
it steady enough so that he could throw all his weight into pushing
it into position. Wallis added his weight to that of the doctor's and
the jet became a trickle and soon died away altogether. To make sure,
Wallis knocked it in tight with the hammer, then sawed off the surplus
wood so that the plug was flush with the metal wall.
Checking the diameter of the plug against that of the faucet pipe they
found that they had had beginner's luck, because the tapering pipe would
fit the hole snugly without being packed. Carefully, they tapped the
plug farther into the hole until it was almost through, then placed the
faucet in position. With the doctor holding it steady Wallis gave it a
good solid smack with the padded hammer. The plug went through to the
other side and the faucet inlet pipe took its place, and it happened so
neatly that they didn't even get wet.
A few minutes later acetylene gas was forcing its way through the faucet
and bubbling furiously up the inside of the coffer dam, while Radford
and Wallis had already begun to repeat the process on the wall of the
ballast tank adjoining Seven. With each new installation they became
more expert and took much less water aboard, but they did not feel more
confident. Finally, when acetylene gas was bubbling into supposedly
airtight compartments at five different points throughoUt the ship,
Wallis called a halt.
Their efforts were having no effect.
When the doctor, Dickson, and himself were together in Seven again,
Wallis said, "The aft coffer dam has had the contents of four acetylene
tanks pumped into it and is now taking number five. The ballast tanks on
each side of Seven here have had three each, and the storage spaces beside
Four have had one each. Some of these compartments already contained air,
and we ascertained, as accurately as possible, the water level in these
spaces, by tapping and listening for the hollow sounds which should
indicate air rather than water being on the other side of the bulkhead.
"The water level in each case was marked with chalk," Wallis went on,
"but the water has not gone down to anything like the expected level,
despite the volume of gas which we have been pushing into these spaces.
I don't understand it."
He looked hopefully at Dickson.
Defensively, the mate said, "Even if the gas escaped from the compartments
I picked for you it would still be trapped in the storage space above them
-- most of it, anyway. I picked them with that in mind. Are you sure
your method of finding the water level is accurate enough?"
Wallis did not reply. At that moment he didn't feel sure of anything.
The doctor said, "Maybe the gas in these pockets is so concentrated that
it gives back a sound indistinguishable from that of water. If such is
the case this gas under pressure will be much heavier, volume for volume,
than air, so that we will not gain very much in buoyancy. Perhaps we
have sunk so deeply that water pressure has increased to the extent that
it will not allow the gas to expand. Or perhaps the gas is forcing the
water out, but at the same rate as the water forced its way in, which
was very gradually over the space of many days. If that is the case we
may not be able to regain our buoyancy in time -- "
gas will be injected as low as possible, will bubble to the top, and there
will always be a water seal to keep the acetylene from getting back to us.
"But in case the dam isn't airtight up top or it doesn't give a sufficient
increase of buoyancy," he added, "maybe you could point out a few likely
compartments here in Seven. The doctor will mark the places with chalk
while I start looking for the hardware we'll need."
He stopped abruptly. The tank around them was reverberating to the sounds
of frantic banging, the sounds a heavy spanner might make against a metal
deck. And above the noise, growing louder and more piercing with each
second that passed, there was the sound of screaming. The doctor snatched
the flashlamp from Dickson's hand and hurried aft.
"It isn't Jenny," Dickson said out of the darkness, the
anxiety in his voice making it sound like a question rather
than a statement. "It must be the other girl. . . ."
VII
Wallis moved carefully towards the starboard wall of the tank until the
workbench there stopped him, then groped around the top of it until he
found the spare lamp. He spent a longer time finding a place to prop it so
that its beam would illuminate a useful area of bench, but after that he
did not waste any time at all because he had spent most of the previous
night thinking about what he had to do and the material available for
doing it.
From the sick bay in Eleven the sounds made by the Murray girl continued
to reach them, quieter now and interspersed with the gruffer, reassuring
noises made by the doctor and the low voice of Miss Wellman backing him
up. Jenny might just as easily have joined the other girl in screaming
her head off instead of helping the doctor calm her down, but she
hadn't. Wallis thought that he approved of Miss Wellman.
"When you were moving the light around," Dickson said suddenly, "I couldn't
help noticing that. . . that . . ." He stopped, then finished helplessly,
"What on earth have you been doing to the generator?"
Wallis was silent for the few minutes it took him to check the outer
diameter of the acetylene tank nozzle against the business end of the
handsome, chrome-plated water faucet which had originally served, with
about a dozen just like it, in the temporary washroom in Number Three.
Being designed for temporary or emergency use, the other end of the tap
tapered gradually so as to accommodate several different diameters of
pipe, which was exactly what Wallis needed. But to fit the tap to the
acetylene tank he would first have to remove the aesthetically beautiful
curve which directed the water downwards.
"Sorry, I was thinking," said Wallis. He put the faucet into the vice,
found a hacksaw, and went on, "The doctor and I have been working on
an idea for producing light and heat. As you know, this generator is a
temporary affair used to light the tanks during the early modifications
and until they could be linked to the ship supply. The engine which
runs it is working but can't be used because it wastes air and produces
carbon monoxide. But we've been experimenting with gearing arrangements
which would allow us to operate the generator manually -- or to be more
accurate, by pedaling it with the feet. That framework built around it
is to take the two people operating the generator.
"We think it will need two people to bring it up to the required number
of revs," Wallis added, "but once there it will need only one to keep
it going."
"And there will be enough power," said Dickson, sounding impressed,
"to heat the place as well?"
"Well, no," Wallis said. "The effort required to work the pedals will
render its operators comfortably warm, maybe even uncomfortably hot.
A stint on the generator would get us nicely warmed up before hitting the
hammock, or after taking a bath.
"The doctor is becoming concerned about our standards of hygiene,"
he added. "We're beginning to smell, you know."
Dickson did not reply at once, but when he did his voice was firm with
the firmness of sheer desperation. He said, "A bath, a cold, sea-water
bath! You can't be serious! The-the drinking water will be gone long
before our body odors become, uh, mutually offensive, and by that time
the air will be stale anyway! If you ask me, our lives are going to be
far too short and uncomfortable as it is without risking premature death
from pneumonia!"
The hacksaw blade skidded off the polished curve of the faucet. Wallis
sucked briefly on a skinned knuckle, then said, "We've been working on
a method for reclaiming water and another -- the only one possible,
we think -- for renewing the air. As soon as you're able to walk we'll
introduce you to the head we've rigged in Number Two. The idea there is
to keep the, uh, solid and fluid wastes separate. When the generator
is working we should be able to boil and distill small quantities of
water electrically, using a heater element sealed in a glass tube and
immersed in impure water. As I've already said, however, the heating
of the living quarters will have to depend largely on our own body
temperature and more efficient insulation. . . . What did you say?"
"I was talking about your feet," said Dickson, "and grass. There isn't
much growing under them."
"I only wish that there was some green grass in here," said Wallis seriously.
"It would save us the trouble of trying to grow beans."
"Beans," said Dickson in a baffled voice. "How, and
why
? I thought we
had plenty of food."
"According to the doctor," Wallis replied, "we start by soaking some
of our dried beans in water, then sow them m a compost of dust, dirt,
packing straw, perhaps wood shavings, and, uh, fertilizer. We'll have to
take care that the material we collect for this soil does not contain
oil or rust as this would inhibit the growth or maybe kill the plants
altogether. And we would not be growing them for food. The area of
leafage in bean plants is considerable, according to the doctor, who
used to grow roses, and green growing leaves absorb carbon dioxide and
produce oxygen. As the process requires light, this is another reason
for having the generator, possibly the strongest reason of all.
"And that," Wallis ended, smiling, "is how we are going to grow beans,
and why."
For a long time the only sound was the steady rasp of the hacksaw biting
through metal. The voices coming from the sick bay had stopped or had
become too low to be heard, and Dickson seemed to have been rendered
speechless. But the condition was only temporary.
"I'm impressed," he said finally. "I had no idea that you were looking
so far ahead, or working on so many projects. . . ." He hesitated, and
when he went on his tone had reverted to that of the Dickson which they
knew of old. ". . . What bothers me is that if they are successful,
I'll have to take a bath."
Trying to match the other's tone, Wallis said, "We could be rescued before
then, or the ship might sink. Try not to worry too much about it."
The doctor returned shortly afterwards. With the bare minimum of conversation
he gave his torch to Dickson and asked for directions for marking the
positions of the saddle compartments they hoped to use. Wallis, meanwhile,
worked at modifying an initial batch of three faucets, breaking off
only when it was necessary to help the doctor carry Dickson to another
tank. But when the mate's directions were finally complete and it was
time to return him to the sick bay, Radford brought up a subject which
he had obviously been avoiding since his return from the other patients.
He said, "I can't keep that girl under sedation indefinitely, not just
for the sake of peace and quiet. Her burns are still uncomfortable,
but not painful enough to warrant keeping her doped all the time. In any
case I don't have unlimited quantities of medication and what little there
is left I would like to save for emergencies."
The recent movements of his litter and the unavoidable bumps he had
received while the doctor and Wallis were pushing and hauling it over
scattered heaps of cargo could not have been pleasant for Dickson,
considering his injuries -- so unpleasant, perhaps, that he might have
felt entitled to some of the dope the doctor wanted so suddenly to
ration. But even though Wallis could sympathize with these feelings,
Dickson's reaction came as a shock.
"What the blazes d'you call this!" he yelled suddenly, in a voice too much
like the one which had come earlier from the sick bay. "We're trapped
in a sinking ship. We're
deep
! The whole damn hull could cave in on us
at any minute! What bigger emergency can you have than that?"
"If we were here long enough," Radford broke in harshly, "I can think
of several. . . ."
In the following silence the sound of banging came clearly from the sick bay.
There was no screaming, just the banging. Presumably Miss Murray was still
asleep and Miss Wellman was awake and worried, and wanted someone to come
and tell her what all the shouting was about. Judging by the urgency of
the banging she could not have been very far from screaming herself.
Wallis motioned for the doctor to take the other end of the litter.
He said, "I think Mr. Dickson has need of some female companionship,
doctor. To keep him from becoming morbid."
By the time the gear was ready, it had been decided that without power
for the drills the only way of piercing the coffer dam bulkhead was
to burn a hole in it and risk the wastage of oxygen. They decided on
procedure and tried to imagine the things most likely to go wrong and to
guard against them. There was no way of measuring the passage of time,
but Wallis felt that too much of it had passed while the preparations
were going on. The deck was so steady under his feet that they might have
been hard aground. But the ship was not aground and the waves above them
were moving farther away with each hour that passed -- and there was no
way of telling how fast they were sinking or how many hours had passed
or if there was any hope for them at all.
But finally all possible preparations had been made and precautions taken.
The cutting torch and tanks and tapered wooden plugs were in place,
also the clamps and tongs and strips of thin lead sheeting needed in
case the hole was too big and the faucet inlet pipe had to be packed
out to size. There was the short length of steel pipe which, when
held in position by the tongs, would focus the flame so that it would
go through more quickly as well as hold it to the required diameter,
and there were the padded hammers and the gauntlets and the face masks
which were necessary because when water meets fire there is inevitably
a lot of steam. All at once there was nothing left to do but begin.
The hole itself went through very quickly. There was a sudden explosion
of steam and spray, then a solid jet of water struck the cutting torch,
knocking it away and bursting against Wallis's chest like a high-pressure
hose. He staggered back, blinded, and remembered to switch off the torch
before he burned a hole in the doctor.
Wallis blinked the water out of his eyes. The doctor was trying to get
the pointed end of the plug into the hole and each time he tried the jet
knocked it away again. On about the sixth attempt he managed to hold
it steady enough so that he could throw all his weight into pushing
it into position. Wallis added his weight to that of the doctor's and
the jet became a trickle and soon died away altogether. To make sure,
Wallis knocked it in tight with the hammer, then sawed off the surplus
wood so that the plug was flush with the metal wall.
Checking the diameter of the plug against that of the faucet pipe they
found that they had had beginner's luck, because the tapering pipe would
fit the hole snugly without being packed. Carefully, they tapped the
plug farther into the hole until it was almost through, then placed the
faucet in position. With the doctor holding it steady Wallis gave it a
good solid smack with the padded hammer. The plug went through to the
other side and the faucet inlet pipe took its place, and it happened so
neatly that they didn't even get wet.
A few minutes later acetylene gas was forcing its way through the faucet
and bubbling furiously up the inside of the coffer dam, while Radford
and Wallis had already begun to repeat the process on the wall of the
ballast tank adjoining Seven. With each new installation they became
more expert and took much less water aboard, but they did not feel more
confident. Finally, when acetylene gas was bubbling into supposedly
airtight compartments at five different points throughoUt the ship,
Wallis called a halt.
Their efforts were having no effect.
When the doctor, Dickson, and himself were together in Seven again,
Wallis said, "The aft coffer dam has had the contents of four acetylene
tanks pumped into it and is now taking number five. The ballast tanks on
each side of Seven here have had three each, and the storage spaces beside
Four have had one each. Some of these compartments already contained air,
and we ascertained, as accurately as possible, the water level in these
spaces, by tapping and listening for the hollow sounds which should
indicate air rather than water being on the other side of the bulkhead.
"The water level in each case was marked with chalk," Wallis went on,
"but the water has not gone down to anything like the expected level,
despite the volume of gas which we have been pushing into these spaces.
I don't understand it."
He looked hopefully at Dickson.
Defensively, the mate said, "Even if the gas escaped from the compartments
I picked for you it would still be trapped in the storage space above them
-- most of it, anyway. I picked them with that in mind. Are you sure
your method of finding the water level is accurate enough?"
Wallis did not reply. At that moment he didn't feel sure of anything.
The doctor said, "Maybe the gas in these pockets is so concentrated that
it gives back a sound indistinguishable from that of water. If such is
the case this gas under pressure will be much heavier, volume for volume,
than air, so that we will not gain very much in buoyancy. Perhaps we
have sunk so deeply that water pressure has increased to the extent that
it will not allow the gas to expand. Or perhaps the gas is forcing the
water out, but at the same rate as the water forced its way in, which
was very gradually over the space of many days. If that is the case we
may not be able to regain our buoyancy in time -- "
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