Twenty Trillion Leagues Under the Sea (22 page)

‘I don’t know,’ said Jhutti. ‘These look larger, I think. Although I would not be surprised if there are not cuttlefolk as well. But that – is
that
– some sort of whale?’

One of the swimming creatures was clearly very much larger than the others.

‘Maybe a whale, doubtless of some new genus. Cetology would love to classify it. At any rate, they are a long way away from us at the moment.’

‘I can count,’ Jhutti began to say, leaning further to peer round. ‘One, two, three whales … and if we look over there …’

There was a clunk – the pistol he had tucked into his tunic had fallen from it. Le Petomain pounced, rather ponderously, and laid
his right hand upon it. Jhutti looked up and met his gaze. They said nothing. The pilot tucked the weapon into the top of his trousers, and turned his attention back to the view.

‘How many of these sub oceanic suns do you think there are, Monsieur Jhutti?’ Le Petomain asked, shortly. ‘An infinite number?’

‘I can only hope not, Monsieur Le Petomain,’ replied the scientist, in a weary voice.

‘Why so?’

‘Because if the recently deceased Monsieur Lebret
is
correct and we have entered a parallel dimension of infinite water – well then, what does our fate hold, except to fall forever until we all starve? Or all go mad, and murder each other?’

‘But if we are in an infinite ocean, why would we be
falling
at all?’

‘A very good question, M’sieur.’

‘Monsieur Jhutti,’ said Le Petomain. ‘I must ask you this question. It seems clear the late Lebret and your compatriot, Monsieur Ghatwala, were – as the phrase goes – in cahoots.’

‘I do not understand what this phrase means,’ said Jhutti, stiffly.

Le Petomain sat back. ‘You can guess its meaning from the context, I think. Conspiring together. By his own admission, before he died, Lebret said—’

‘Before he was
murdered
, you mean,’ Jhutti said.

‘By his own admission,’ Le Petomain went on doggedly, ‘Lebret was some sort of spy. He was plotting something. Entering this strange place was his intention. He was, I think, looking for something down here. Certainly, he lied to us, and kept things
from
us.’

‘It certainly appears that way,’ conceded Jhutti.

‘But Monsieur Ghatwala was also involved this business! And so I have to ask you – what do you know of it?’

‘Nothing, Monsieur,’ said Jhutti, with dignity.

‘Truly?’

‘Indeed. I was recruited because of my expertise with the atomic pile. Before I joined this mission, I had never before exchanged two words with Dilraj – with Monsieur Ghatwala, I mean. Just
because we happen to come from the same part of the world does not mean that we are co-conspirators. If that were a general principle, I might as well suspect you of plotting something with Lebret! For are you not both Frenchmen?’

Le Petomain considered this. ‘Very well, Monsieur,’ he said, eventually. ‘I believe you. But if Lebret
did
have something particular in mind – if he was looking for
something
, then I would like to know what it was.’

‘As would I.’

‘Well,’ said Capot, who had been listening to this exchange, ‘Lebret was certainly very excited by the light. He thought the light was the end of our journey. The lengths he went to, trying to convince us to continue descending when the captain gave the order to ascend! There must be something special about the light.’

Le Petomain nodded again. ‘Perhaps these lights do hold the answer to our predicament. If only Billiard-Fanon hadn’t shot him, Lebret could have answered our questions! Well – we must make the best of it, not the worst. We must see what can be done with this crippled craft.’

The three men crawled back along and up to the bridge. There they found Billiard-Fanon laughing and chatting with Pannier. The cook was already more than half-drunk; and a bottle of rum was being passed between the two men. The ensign was holding it, with his thumb over the top. Castor was there too – watching, but not intervening. ‘Where did that bottle come from?’

‘I was keeping it in my trunk,’ said Billiard-Fanon. ‘For emergencies.’

‘I thought I
said
,’ Le Petomain announced, severely, ‘that Ensign Billiard-Fanon was to be confined to his cabin!’

Billiard-Fanon chuckled. ‘Come along, Annick,’ he replied. ‘Don’t act as if you’re the ranking officer! Why should I follow
your
orders?’

‘Because,’ said Le Petomain, bringing out the weapon, ‘I have the pistol!’

Billiard-Fanon made a play-face of concern and respect, elaborately bunching up his brows and making an ‘o’ of his mouth.
Then he laughed, and waved the sloshy bottle in his direction. ‘Relax, Annick! You aren’t going to shoot me! Look what happened the last time that gun was discharged inside this vessel!’

‘Castor, what are you playing at? Just standing there? Jean has lost it – he’s had a nervous collapse. He’s a danger to us all!’

‘Maybe,’ said Castor. ‘But maybe I’m not taking orders from
you
.’

‘Remove him to his cabin!’

Castor shook his head.

‘Go on, give
me
the gun, Annick,’ said Billiard-Fanon, in a slurred, coaxing voice. ‘I’m the person who is really in charge here.’

‘You? Indeed not. For one thing, the lieutenant is now awake!’ said Le Petomain. ‘For another – nobody is going to follow
you
, Jean! We’re in a dire spot. Nobody will follow a madman!’

‘Madman,’ echoed Billiard-Fanon, looking hurt. ‘I’m the only sane person here! I’m the only one who truly understands what has happened to us.’

‘He’s right,’ was Pannier’s opinion.

‘You’re drunk, again,’ Le Petomain told Pannier in a scornful voice. ‘Again! Come along, Herluin! We all need to work together, if we’re to survive! What use will you be to us drunk?’

‘It’s a sacred rite of the Roman Catholic church!’ Pannier returned, crossly. ‘It’s holy – wine is. But rum too, I’m thinking. It’s all the same family. Holy family. We’re surrounded by demons, man! You should listen to Jean. He knows his what-what.’

‘Castor,’ said Le Petomain. ‘Will you assist me in locking Monsieur Billiard-Fanon up?’

Castor took a step forward, although without great conviction. But Billiard-Fanon put his left hand out, like a policeman stopping traffic, and spoke, ‘Wait a moment. I am in command, not Annick. I am in command and I can prove it.’

Le Petomain aimed the pistol at the ensign’s head. ‘I’m willing to bet your skull is thicker than Lebret’s was. I’m willing to bet – if I shoot, you’ll stop the bullet very nicely.’

Billiard-Fanon ignored him. ‘Listen, Capot – listen to what I have to say … wait, what’s your first name?’

Capot looked around. ‘It’s Jean, too,’ he said.

‘Jean, a fine name! Listen, from one Jean to another. You’re a young man. You haven’t been through some of the experiences us older sailors have. You haven’t come face-to-face with the prince of evil before. But I say to you – I can
prove
that I’m the only one who truly understands what’s going on!’

Capot looked at Le Petomain. ‘Go on, then,’ this latter said, lowering the gun. ‘Prove it.’

Billiard-Fanon was grinning broadly. With his free hand, he reached inside his shirt. ‘I served on the
Terreur
,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you’ve heard of it? All but seven of its crew were killed. I survived, with a chunk of the hull stuck into my thigh. The doctors took it out, and I had this –’ he lifted out a pendant cross, fashioned from dull grey metal ‘– made from it. A reminder! God saved my life, that day. He saved me for a purpose.’

‘A cross,’ said Le Petomain. ‘Very pious. I don’t see what it proves, though.’

‘You’re not looking! The truth has been staring us in the face, for days now – but we simply refuse to see it! This cross is Christ’s symbol. See how it dangles from the chain?’

‘Exactly as you’d expect.’

‘Quite! It obeys the laws of physics – God’s laws. Now, this rum …’ He looked at the bottle in his right hand. ‘Whatever Pannier says, rum is not a holy drink. Drunkenness is devilish. Does this rum obey the laws of physics?’

He took his thumb from the top of the bottle and gave it a shake. A great gloopy shape of transparent liquid spilled out and sailed upwards, deforming a little as it went. It struck what had been the wall, and was now the ceiling, and broke into a number of smaller pearls and ball-bearings. ‘We’ve all been seeing this, for days now – and ignoring it!’ cried Billiard-Fanon, suddenly inspired with a preacher’s force and rhetoric. ‘We’ve been ignoring it because it doesn’t fit the materialist mind-set we’ve been used to cultivate! But the truth is – the place we are in now is not governed by any materialist or scientific logic!’

‘Some crazy something,’ said Le Petomain. ‘Magnetism, or a freak gust of air, or … something.’

‘The Devil!’ boomed Billiard-Fanon. ‘Man alive, give
up
this irritable groping after fact and science, it won’t save us here! You need to understand … we are in a
spiritual
realm now. Outside, we are beset by actual demons. Prayer is what we need. What we need is not to fix the nuts-and-bolts of this submarine. What we need is to exorcise the waters around us!’

With impeccable timing, a series of bangs and knocks chimed from the
Plongeur’
s hull. Everybody jumped, except Billiard-Fanon – who laughed again. ‘You cling to materialism and science,’ he said, making a general address to everyone in the room. ‘But in your hearts you know that I am telling the truth. That gun, Annick? That gun won’t help you. God is your shield, and the Holy Ghost your weapon.’

Le Petomain listened. ‘That came from the airlock,’ he said. ‘Capot – go and see what was banging.’

‘What?’ said Capot, startled.

‘It’s inside, I’m sure of it. Somebody’s banging about down there. It’s not devils, man! Get a grip – the ensign’s mumbo-jumbo is just a fairy-story to scare children! Maybe it’s the lieutenant.’

‘The lieutenant?’

‘You spoke to him – you know his concussion has left him a little confused. I don’t want him doing something he’d regret, like thinking he needs to go out in a diving suit.’

‘The lieutenant,’ said Castor, speaking up. ‘How could he have got down to the airlock? We’d have noticed him, going past.’

‘I don’t know. But somebody’s there! Go and see, Capot.’ Another bang sounded, and then another. ‘That’s definitely
inside
. Go on!’

With some reluctance, Capot scrambled along the now-horizontal passage that formerly led down to the airlock chamber and the submarine’s one remaining diving suit.

‘Jean,’ Le Petomain asked. ‘Where’s Ghatwala?’

‘You weren’t impressed by my miracle, Annick?’ chuckled the
ensign. ‘You deny the proof? Too much a banker, I fear – too much a numbers and figures man.’

‘Where is Ghatwala?’ Le Petomain repeated.

‘In his cabin,’ said Castor, in strange voice.

‘At supper,’ said Billiard-Fanon. ‘How does that go? “Not where he eats, but where he is eaten”?’ He laughed again. ‘Racine has his moments, sure, but you can’t beat Shakespeare for the really grisly stuff.’

The realisation dawned on Le Petomain. He shook his head.

‘Oh no!’ murmured Jhutti.

Billiard-Fanon’s mobile face hardened. ‘
You
need to get a grip, Annick!
You
don’t seem to grasp the seriousness of the situation we are in! He was a heathen, a pagan, a devil worshipper – and a traitor, conspiring with Lebret! We must purge ourselves of unbelief and devil-worship if we are to exorcise the waters around us!’

‘You’re mad!’ Le Petomain breathed. He could feel tears filling his eyes. ‘Quite mad! It’s brute murder, nothing else.’ He looked at Castor. ‘How could you let him
do
such a thing?’

Castor only shrugged. Pannier snatched the bottle out of Billiard-Fanon’s hand, and put its neck into his mouth. The ensign snarled at him like a dog, looked around the bridge, and settled a smile back upon his face. ‘We must be pure,’ he said. ‘Ah! Monsieur Jean Capot!’

Capot was back – white as blancmange and with a strange look in his eye.

‘Well?’ Le Petomain demanded?

Capot looked at him, but said nothing.

‘Never mind,’ Le Petomain said. ‘Monsieur Capot – Ensign Billiard-Fanon has become murderously insane. He will kill all of us, unless we restrain him. You and I – we must overpower him, and lock him in his cabin.’

The young sailor looked at him, or rather seemed to look
through
him. Then he nodded, very slowly. ‘I understand,’ he said.

Le Petomain aimed the pistol at Billiard-Fanon once again. ‘I
think you and I, Capot, are the only two left aboard this vessel still sane,’ he said.

‘I’m sorry for it,’ said Capot. Then he punched Le Petomain hard, on the jaw. The pilot stumbled and started to fall; Capot leapt immediately upon him, grabbing his arm and wrenching the pistol from his grip.

Le Petomain fell hard against the wall, and cried out. ‘What are you doing?’ He wriggled ignominiously for a moment, and then hauled himself back to his feet, clutching his chin in both hands. ‘What are you
doing
?’

Capot had hurt his right hand with the blow; that was obvious. He held it limp at his side. But with his
left
hand he passed the pistol over to Billiard-Fanon. ‘The ensign is right,’ he said, in a colourless voice. ‘Ours is a spiritual problem. Our souls are in danger of damnation.’

‘What’s got into you! You
wrenched
my jaw! I can feel it in at the hinge, under my ear!’

‘I’m sorry,’ was all Capot would say. ‘But the ensign is right.’

‘What did you see, lad?’ Billiard-Fanon asked, genially, passing the pistol from hand to hand. ‘Tell us
exactly
what you saw in the airlock.’

‘I didn’t get there,’ said Capot. ‘Because I saw—’

‘Saw what?’

‘A ghost,’ said Capot.

‘Don’t be absurd!’ fumed Le Petomain, rubbing the side of his face. ‘What ghost?’

‘The ghost of Monsieur Lebret,’ said Capot.