“I’m with you then,” replied Neville.
“I say,” it was Taylor, “Would you take me and my cameraman along? We could get some fabulous shots.” Noall shook his head firmly.
“Sorry, mister. If there be survivors we shall need every inch of space.”
He leapt into the dinghy and bent over the engine.
Neville turned and squeezed Claire’s hand.
“We’ll be back before you know it,” he smiled and followed Noall into the boat.
“Cast off, Mr Neville. I’ll have the engine going in a moment.”
His voice was almost immediately drowned by the put-put-put of the outboard engine. Neville threw off the restraining rope and sat in the bows while Noall crouched in the stem, swinging the dinghy in a semi-circle out of the cove and towards the Trevian Rocks. As they neared the awesome sight, they could hear the pounding of the waves against the rocks and against the twisted steel hulk held helplessly in their grip.
“I can see the stern from here,” yelled Neville, peering forward across the bows. “Bristol something…ah yes, Bristol Enterprise.”
“She’s a coaster out of Bristol,” observed Noall. “Though what in hell caused her to go aground like this I couldn’t guess.”
He edged the dinghy nearer.
“I’ll put us on her portside,” he called, “we won’t have a chance to come up against her on starboard.”
He circled the dinghy around.
“Her deck must be at a forty-five degree-angle,” Neville said, shaking his head. “It’s going to be tough getting aboard.”
“Not so tough,” replied Noall. “Look! There’s some ropes hanging down her side. I’ll edge in close to them but it means only one of us going aboard. One of us will have to hold the dinghy against her side.”
“I’ll do it,” returned Neville immediately.
“Know how to shin up those ropes?”
Neville grinned at the anxious face of the landlord.
“Rock climbing is my hobby. This will be child’s play.”
“Just take care, Mr Neville. One mistake…”
He nodded to the white frothy sea and raised his shoulders in an unmistakable gesture.
The bobbing dinghy eased forward against the gigantic metal side of the ship. Three or four ropes lay down the side. As they came up Neville seized one of them while Noall cut the outboard. The landlord also grabbed for a rope and they held the dinghy close alongside.
They were so close they could hear the ship groaning and squeaking as rock and metal rubbed together.
Noall’s face was worried.
“It’s dangerous, Mr Neville. By the sound of her, she could slip off the rocks and go straight under any moment.”
“If there’s people still aboard then I’m willing to chance it.”
“Good luck, then!”
Neville grinned, seized the rope in both hands and, placing his feet flat against the iron plates of the ship’s side, started to walk up. It was dangerous and muscle-wrenching for, unlike the similar process of climbing a rock face, he had no means of anchoring the rope around his body. All he could rely upon was the strength of his hands and arms to haul him upwards and stop him slipping. It seemed an age before he reached the ship’s rail.
The deck was not actually at a forty-five-degree angle, though it seemed so to Neville. It was nearer to twenty-five degrees. Neville lay gasping for breath after his strenuous climb, clutching the rail for support. Then he hauled himself up, holding on to keep his balance, and peered down at Noall’s anxious face.
He gave a thumbs up gesture, for it was useless to shout above the tremendous noise of the breakers. He turned and climbed towards the bridge. It was a fairly easy climb. As he made his way there he frowned at the curious dents in the metal deck plates which had warped and twisted them. The sea could not have exerted such pressure and the rocks would surely have ruptured and twisted the plates in a more jagged way. It was curious.
He climbed into the superstructure and started to move awkwardly up the twisted stairway.
The ship gave a sudden lurch, moved a fraction or so with a screaming protest of metal. Neville found himself go ice cold; his heart thudding deafeningly.
After a short while he went on into the cabins. There he found his first body. One look at the mangled mess was enough to tell him that the man was beyond hope. Steeling himself, he pressed on. There were two more bodies in what had apparently been the chart room. The room looked as if a cyclone had hit it, as if the entire ship had been lifted out of the water, turned upside down and shaken before being thrown against the rocks. Four bodies lay in the wheelhouse. It was an awful mess. Neville had never seen anything like it.
He was about to turn away when he heard a low moan.
He peered round.
Behind the ship’s wheel, an old-fashioned affair, there was what appeared to be a bundle of clothes. Inside a man was stirring. Neville bent over him and saw he was elderly, and his jacket bore the four rings of a captain’s rank.
“Can you hear me?” Neville cried. For even in the enclosed space of the wheelhouse, the noise of the breaking sea was loud and the broken windows offered no protection.
The captain’s face was white and bloodless. His eyes fluttered open his pale lips moved.
Neville lowered his ear to try to pick up what the man was saying.
“Think…legs…broken…”
“What happened?”
“Giant…eels…God help us! No hope!”
“Lay still,” ordered Neville as the man tried to struggle upwards. “Lay still, Captain. I’ll get you out of this.”
Mercifully, the man lapsed into unconsciousness. Mercifully because Neville realised that he must be in considerable pain and the only way Neville could get him to Noall’s dinghy would be to manhandle him. In spite of the angle of the deck, Neville managed to hoist the captain across his shoulder in some semblance of a fireman’s lift and it took him nearly twenty minutes to reach the side of the ship. The captain, luckily, did not recover consciousness in that time. Neville managed to find a coil of rope, tie it under the man’s shoulders and lower him to Noall.
Having done so, Neville signalled Noall that he was going for another look. Noall pointed to the rocks and the sea and drew a finger across his throat. The mime was obvious but Neville held up five fingers to signal he would not be long.
It was twenty-five minutes rather than five minutes when he returned again carrying the conscious, moaning form of a sailor. Everyone else on the ship was beyond help but this man, a stoker, had been lucky in that he had been wedged in his bunk.
In the same manner as before, Neville lowered the man down to Noall.
As he was doing so he saw a ship approaching.
As soon as the stoker was in Noall’s dinghy, Neville scrambled down the rope. Noall grinned.
“Two away!” he cried.
“Everyone else is dead!” returned Neville.
Noall bit his lip and turned to start the outboard motor, turning the dinghy away from the wreck. As they drew away, Noall caught sight of the oncoming ship.
“Jack Treneglos’ ketch!” he cried.
The ketch drew alongside and the brothers Treneglos peered down anxiously.
“What’s happened?”
The landlord jerked his thumb.
“Two survivors only…it’s the Bristol Enterprise. A coaster.”
“How in hell did it get wedged like that?” cried Jack Treneglos. “We’ve hardly had a blow fierce enough to wreck a surf-board.”
Noall shrugged.
“Coastguard is on the way to pick up the remains but I reckon she’ll slip under pretty soon.”
As if to emphasise his statement, there was a groaning noise which could be clearly heard above the sound of the waves and the coaster moved perceptibly forward nose first into the foamy sea.
“Better get your survivors back to Bosbradoe,” cried Charlie Treneglos. “We’ll follow you in.”
He grinned weakly.
“How do you feel?” asked Neville.
The stoker winced.
“Reckon as how I’ve broken an arm and a leg.”
“Do you know what happened?”
“One minute we were weathering a small blow; the next it was as if the entire ship were picked out of the water and turned upside down before being flung back. If I hadn’t been off duty, lying on my bunk I would have been dashed to pieces.”
The man suddenly glanced to the captain lying at his side.
“Reckon the old man’s coming round, mister.”
Neville turned and felt for the captain’s pulse.
The man’s eyes flickered open and stared at Neville. There was terror in his eyes. The lips moved, trying to form words.
Suddenly the words came as a shout.
“Giant eels! Giant eels! All around the ship! No hope!”
The man let out a scream and lapsed back into unconsciousness.
“Poor sod!” muttered the stoker, drawing heavily on his cigarette. “He’s gone round the twist!”
There was a rending noise from the Trevian Rocks.
Noall glanced backwards.
“She’s going!” he cried.
It was like a thousand banshees wailing and screaming as the coaster began to move forward at an ever increasing angle, forward nose first into the sea, scraping and tearing over the rocks, but moving inexorably into the murky depths. Then all that was left of the Bristol Enterprise was a bubbling pool of water. It was as if the ship had never existed.
CHAPTER XX
“We’d better stop here, Crowley,” called Dr Lambert, halting the file of men in a wide tunnel.
“What’s up?” demanded the Chief Superintendent, coming forward to the head of the column.
“Time to take another geiger reading.”
Crowley bit his lip.
“Are you sure that the levels are safe?” he asked for the tenth time. “The last reading you took was fifteen per cent above normal. Isn’t that dangerous? Not that I know anything about this business,” he added.
Lambert smiled sourly.
“It is only dangerous if you were exposed to that level for several weeks at a stretch.”
“Doctor…!”
Lambert’s assistant tugged at his sleeve.
“What is it?”
The man pointed towards a smoothly bored tunnel.
“What’s that?” asked Crowley, moving forward. It reminded him of the inside of some gigantic pipe, so smooth was it bored. “That’s not a miners’ tunnel.”
“No, it’s not,” muttered Lambert, frowning. “And it’s not one of our excavations either. Sergeant Jones!”
“Yes sir?”
“Have you the chart of the mine workings?”
The RAF man handed over the chart and Lambert examined it in the circle of light from his torch.
“Odd,” he muttered. “According to this there is no tunnel here.”
“But this is a precision-tool-made tunnel, Doctor,” observed Lambert’s assistant. “By the look of it, not all that old either.”
“Impossible,” muttered Lambert.
Lambert’s assistant surveyed the tunnel with his geiger-counter. The clicking was loud and rapid.
“Good God, Doctor! I’m getting a reading of thirty per cent above normal.”
“Impossible!” snapped Lambert for a second time.
The assistant said nothing but simply thrust the geiger-counter towards the scientist.
Lambert let his eyes travel to the indicator dial.
“Impossible!” he said for a third time, but this time his voice was filled with unwilling disbelief.
“Just what is going on here, Lambert?” demanded Crowley. “Maybe you’d better explain…”
“Shut up!”
It was a growl from Sergeant Jones. Crowley and Lambert turned to him with startled looks.
“Listen a moment!” hissed the sergeant.
There came to their ears a squelching, sucking sound. It was coming from somewhere down the tunnelway and it was growing louder.
Sergeant Jones peered forward with his flashlight.
“Strewth!”
Even in the torchlight it was obvious that the sergeant’s face had grown pale.
“Barnes, Miller, three rounds rapid fire down the tunnel and watch out for ricochets.”
The two men sprang forward. There was something about the tone of the sergeant’s voice that made them obey without question.
The crash of their carbines came as a terrifying din in the confined space.
They had an impression of something down the tunnel; some huge shape — grotesque and awesome. It was still moving in their direction.
“Jesus!” gasped the sergeant. He seized a carbine and pumped three more bullets down the tunnel. He shook his head disbelievingly. “The bullets don’t have any effect on it. It’s still coming!”
Crowley peered down the tunnel, his face a mask of horror.
“What in hell is it?” gasped Lambert, his voice frightened.
“Time to discuss that later!” cried the Chief Superintendent. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Smartly lads,” cried Sergeant Jones. “No panic now or you’ll lose your bloody way out of here. Off you go, Doctor.”
Lambert’s assistant was already struggling with his equipment.
The sergeant gripped him by the shoulder.
“I’d leave that if I were you, sir.”
The man began to mumble about expensive government property, whereupon Sergeant Jones gave him a shove which held more than a little force.
“You, too, sir,” added the sergeant to the Chief Superintendent.
Crowley made to hesitate and then, seeing the quiet determination in the sergeant’s eye, nodded and made off.
Sergeant Jones waited until they were clear of the immediate tunnel area and then turned. Against orders he had issued himself with six hand grenades. CS gas grenades were alright in certain circumstances but when dealing with an uncertain and savage animal Jones preferred to trust to high explosive to get him out of trouble. He unhooked a grenade from his belt, pulled the pin, waited for five seconds and then lobbed the grenade into the tunnel. He had barely time to fling himself flat on the ground and cover his ears to avoid concussion, when the explosion occurred. It seemed the whole tunnel had caved in at one point. The noise set up a ringing in his ears. Unsteadily he clambered to his feet and grinned at his handiwork.
“Ain’t nothing will get out of there,” he muttered before setting off after his men.
“I’ve telephoned to Bodmin hospital and they say an ambulance will be here as soon as possible,” said Claire as she helped Neville lay the unconscious skipper of the Bristol Enterprise on the floor of The Morvren Arms.
Reverend Pencarrow was already at work bandaging the arm of the stoker who was still puffing on a cigarette.
“How is he, Mr Pencarrow?” asked Neville.
“He’ll mend,” grunted the vicar. “So far as I can make out, his arm is fractured and his leg muscles are wrenched but he’ll pull through. He’s a tough man.”
The stoker nodded morosely.
“You’ve got it, Padre. Takes more than a few bangs to crack up Sam Smales. Got another fag on you?”
Neville reached forward and thrust a packet of cigarettes and a box of matches into the man’s hands.
Noall came forward with a tot of brandy.
The stoker sipped it with noisy appreciation.
Pencarrow turned to the unconscious skipper. He shook his head.
“I only know the rudiments of first aid,” he admitted. “This man is pretty badly smashed up. Looks as though his legs are broken and God knows what internal injuries he has sustained. I’ll have to leave him until the ambulance people get here.”
Noall
had started to give an account to Taylor and the other press reporters.
Pencarrow turned to Charlie Treneglos.
“Where did your brother Jack go?” he asked.
“He’s gone to find Roscarrock. We found a body,” the man replied quietly.
“One of the Scawens?”
“No. Matter of fact it was that young red-haired girl who was staying here last evening.”
Linda Truran had overheard.
“You mean Sheila Fahy, Tom Fergus’s secretary?”
Charlie Treneglos shrugged.
“Don’t know her name. She was with the bloke who was discussing pollution.”
Adam Taylor moved forward, frowning.
“Anyone seen Tom Fergus?” he asked.
There were several shaking heads.
“What happened to her, Charlie?” asked Reverend Pencarrow quietly.
“Tore in half, she be, Vicar. Tore in half as if some animal had crunched her in two.”
“There you are, Sergeant,” cried Crowley, his face showing relief, as the dust-covered figure of Sergeant Jones emerged in the tunnel where they had halted. “What happened?”
“Tossed a grenade down the tunnel,” answered the RAF sergeant cheerfully. “Seemed like the only way to stop it, whatever it was.”
Lambert swore angrily.
“Are you telling me your men are equipped with high explosive grenades, Sergeant?”
“No, sir,” replied the sergeant. “Only me. I had six for emergencies. It was damn lucky I had…sir.”
Crowley laid a hand on Lambert’s arm, observing the scientist’s angry face.
“You’re right, Sergeant. But we have to be careful. High explosive could bring the mine workings down on top of us.”
Sergeant Jones drew himself up.
“I thought the chance better than a close encounter with our friend back there,” he replied.
“What was it, Sarge?” asked one of the airmen, a youngster with a pale face and sandy hair.
“Looked like me ma-in-law, Sarge,” cried the wag of the section.
“Alright, alright,” growled Jones. “Settle down. What are your orders, sir?”
Crowley frowned.
“Orders? Well…”
“Listen!” Lambert’s face went white.
It was the sound again; the squelching, sucking sound. It was growing louder.
The Morgow Rises! Page 15