by Paul Gallico
With a great blobbing sound a bubble burst upwards from it and inside the bubble he caught momentary sight of the head and shoulders of a human figure, but could not tell whether it was man, woman or child, for it was covered in oil. A hand reached forth and grasped at nothing, then the apparition vanished. Martin crouched down at the edge of the pool and was sick and then threw himself backwards and away from it, so that it could not claim him.
Mike Rogo had got his wife up off the floor; she was still on the verge of hysteria with her teeth chattering. The bunch of false curls attached to the back of her head had been knocked askew and the tight sheath dress stained with gravy. Her state of terror had rendered her grotesque.
Rogo wished that Father Haggerty were there. He was uncertain of prayers conducted by any but a priest of his own faith. He compromised by crossing himself.
They became aware of Mr Kyrenos, the Third Engineer, who too, had managed to rise. He was a short, undistinguished man, except for a scrubby moustache and dark, plaintive Greek eyes. He had been eating lobster. It was now all down his stiff, white shirt-front, the shell caught up absurdly on one of his studs.
He said, 'Excuse me, please, I must go down to my engine room. Stay here. You will be perfectly safe. Someone will came. I must go down, they will be needing me there.' He got up, ran over to the black pooi where the grand staircase had been and fell in, where he thrashed and splashed and shouted for help.
Mike Rogo tried to go to his assistance saying, 'Where the hell did he think he was going?' But his wife clung to him screaming, 'No, no! Don't leave me!' He tried to free himself but she slid down his body and clutched his leg with both arms.
By the time he had extricated himself, Mr Kyrenos had stopped calling. The handrails rising out of the water were too slippery to give him a grip. The oil he swallowed probably had as much to do with killing him as drowning. He sank and did not came up again.
Martin crawled away from the edge of the pit on his hands and knees until he had reached the others. He then lay prone amidst the debris of the ceiling-floor and buried his head in his arms.
Muller, standing slightly apart, still holding the handkerchief on which were the red spots from Miss Kinsale's lip, made the effort to bend his mind to accept what he was seeing and hearing. It was not made easier by the incongruity of dinner-jackets and evening frocks. He was able to accept the enormity of the disaster: We have turned over. And then, But what the hell am I going to do? The fact that he thought in terms of 'I' rather than 'we' was characteristic; the turning of his smooth, comfortable, easy-going world upside-down was deeply resented by Hubert Muller.
His thoughts were broken into by the powerful voice of Scott concluding his strange orisons: 'Don't worry, Lord, we've got the guts. We'll do our best.' He arose and taking Miss Kinsale's elbow helped her to do the same.
A voice from above their heads said, 'Mr Scott, sir! Mrs Shelby! Mrs Rosen, are you all right?'
They all looked up and for one ridiculous moment The Beamer, in his unaccustomed sobriety, wondered whether the American Minister was being answered from on high. But it was only Acre the steward talking to them from the service entry which led out from the various pantries and wine rooms en route to the kitchens, but which was now a full storey above their heads. He seemed to be lying on the floor, his partner Peters kneeling at his side.
'Acre!' Rosen called out, 'What are you doing up there? What's it all about?'
Acre replied, 'She's capsized, sir. Turned right over.'
'I thought you said it couldn't.'
The implications were still not clear. Shelby said, 'What do you mean, turned over?'
Acre replied, 'I don't know, sir. Something rolled her right over.'
Some note in the steward's voice must have reached Jane Shelby's ear, for she called up, 'Are you all right, Acre?'
He replied, 'I've broken a leg, madam.'
'Oh, Acre!' cried Jane, 'Can't anyone do anything?'
'I imagine someone will come along in a minute or so, ma'am.'
'And you, Peters?' Scott queried.
'I'm all right, sir,' the second steward replied. Then he asked, 'What's become of Mr Kyrenos?'
Mike Rogo said, 'He flipped! He said he had to go down to the engine room. He fell in there,' and nodded his head in the direction of the grand staircase.
As if to punctuate, with a gurgling rumble another foul-smelling bubble burst like a geyser from the centre of the pool, heaving a mass of oil and water upwards in which they caught a momentary glimpse of arms and legs before it fell back and the surface glazed again. But it was now some two feet higher and closer to the surface of the dining-room level than it had been before.
None of them were exactly certain what they had seen. What Acre then said came as even more of a shock to them, 'Mr Kyrenos ought to have known. The engine room isn't down any more. It's up.'
Scott put his hand on Shelby's arm and looked about for a moment. The fixed, half-fanatic, half-supremely concentrated glaze the older man had so often noticed in his eyes had faded and he looked utterly composed. He said, 'Hold them all together here, Dick. Try to keep them quiet for a minute, while I see if there's anything I can do for some of those people over there.' He gave Shelby's arm a squeeze of encouragement and strode off, his feet propelled by his powerful legs pushed aside the glass shards littering the floor with the clinking sound as of Christmas sleigh bells.
CHAPTER IV
The Adventurers
The ceiling of the dining-saloon of the S.S. Poseidon had consisted of squares of frosted glass inset into alternating steel and copper bands, the lights located behind the squares. Now reversed to become the floor, it resembled a battlefield with the bodies of the dead or unconscious scattered about in pathetic heaps of clothing that looked as though there was no one in them. They were dead of broken necks and broken backs; unconscious from concussion or skull fracture. Some of the heaps moved feebly, protesting against the pain of shattered limbs and internal injuries. Only those few who, like the group towards the stern had been close to the port side of the vessel, were on their feet.
The ship's surgeon, old Dr Caravello, had lost his thick-lensed spectacles, without which he could not see two feet in front of his face. Half in shock himself, he had begun to function by instinct but for the moment was unable to do little more than grope about and peer muzzily at the nearest injured. He still had his napkin in his hand and reached over to a man with a head injury from contact with the arm of a chair as he fell, trying to staunch the bleeding, the while crying out for his assistant, 'Marco! Marco! Where the devil are you? Can't you see I need help?'
A figured loomed up at his side. Dr Caravello asked, 'Is that you, Marco? Get me some more dressings.'
Scott said, 'No, Marco isn't here. But I'll do what I can,' and he began picking up napkins and tearing them into strips for bandages. 'Is there much we can do?' he asked.
Dr Caravello said, 'I can't see without my glasses. God knows. If the ship has turned over, in a minute we may all be dead.'
Scott said, 'If God knows and we don't behave like cowards, He'll see us through.'
'I can't see without my glasses!' Dr Caravello repeated, and began to grope amongst the debris.
'There they are,' Scott said and picked them up for him. A young Fourth Officer, who was a Yugoslav just out of training school, had managed to regain his feet, bracing himself and shaking his head to try to clear it. He said and then kept repeating, 'Kip carm, everyboody, plis. Everysing going to be ollright.' Nobody paid any attention to him.
Of the five waiters who had been serving in the dining-room at the time, one was dead, two were unconscious and two others in shock like the rest, responded to the automatism of their jobs by picking up napkins and pieces of broken crockery and trying to clear a path through the debris by pushing it with their feet.
Scattered in helpless groups were some twenty uninjured passengers, which included Greeks, French, Belgians, the German Augenblick family
and an American couple in their seventies.
A woman suddenly began to scream hysterically, her voice piercing to an unbelievable pitch, and simultaneously the children of the Germans began to cry. Then the woman's screams stopped abruptly as though someone had struck her, but the crying of the children continued.
One of the two British junior pursers was unconscious. When the Doctor and Scott came over to examine him, the other attempted to soothe the passengers. He said, 'You must keep calm and be quiet. There is no danger at the moment. Officers will come and lead you to safety. I ask you to stay where you are.'
The sight of his uniform and the actual belief in his voice that these things would happen, had their effect. The two waiters who were unhurt had joined the Doctor in helping with the injured.
Dr Caravello said to Scott, 'The boy doesn't know what he's talking about. Nobody will come. She'll sink in a minute. There's nothing any of us can do.'
Scott said sharply to the old man, 'Don't talk like that. Get on with your work and I'll get on with mine.' He went about checking the sodden heaps, looking into dead or unconscious faces, signalling the stewards the location of one or two of the lesser injured for treatment, then went over to the groups of unhurt survivors and said to them, 'All of you who are fit and able ought to try to get out of here at once. If you'll come with me, I'll try to help you.' He transfixed them with his staring eyes and for a moment they appeared to waver.
Then the German Augenblick shook his head and said, 'No, it is besser we should stay here like the officer said. We don't know anything of where to go. Officers will come.' He looked around and found agreement with the others.
Scott's whole body expressed a sudden truculence. 'They will, will they? What if they don't?'
The German reiterated, 'If there's been an accident, it is besser we wait.' Scott turned away.
Robin Shelby said, 'Daddy, what are we going to do?'
The Beamer added, 'Yes, I say, what's going to happen?'
Shelby watching Scott from a distance suddenly felt deserted and wished be would come back. He replied, 'I don't know. We'll have to wait and see when Scott comes back. He's checking.'
Jane Shelby made as though to speak and then thought better of it. She had hoped somehow that her husband would take an initiative without waiting for the return of the Minister.
Peters called down from above, 'You'd better come up here, Mr Rosen.'
Rosen said, 'Do you know any more jokes?' The doorway through which the two stewards were peering, with a third man looking over their shoulders, was now ten feet above their heads. The last flight of the grand staircase leading from 'C' deck down to the dining-saloon, now curled upwards to the ceiling, with the railing too far from the doorway to be of any use. The steps were upside-down. 'Anyway,' Rosen concluded, 'what good would that do?'
'It's higher from the waterline,' Peters said.
Rogo grunted, 'You're telling us!'
Jane Shelby made her way closer to the high-up opening and said, 'Acre, are you in pain?'
'No, Ma'am, thank you. It's not too bad.'
Peters said, 'We've got him fairly comfortable.'
Rogo added, 'The Doc is down here. Want me to tell him?'
Acre said, 'No, sir. I shouldn't bother yet. He's got the passengers to look after.'
Susan, Jane, Miss Kinsale and the Rosens all felt Acre's plight more than whatever theirs might be. Over the long cruise of almost a month's duration they had, as passengers will, formed a warm and friendly relationship with the dining-room stewards who fed them three times a day, looked after them, learned their favourite dishes, joked with them and cared about them. During the voyage the members of those particular tables had made other friendships: bridge, drinking and smoke-room partners, deck-chair neighbours, shore excursion companions, but at meal- times they were a group under the aegis of Peters and Acre. Shelby once said it was rather like a club run by the two stewards.
They heard the jingle and crunch of glass and saw Scott striding across to them. As he came he pulled down the knot of his necktie, loosened his collar and shed his coat. They all watched him curiously.
Martin the haberdasher had conquered his nerves and was on his feet. Muller thought to himself: The All-American boy has made up his mind about something. Jane Shelby: That look is back in his eyes again.
It was there, the cast that changed his features from friendly composure to aggressiveness. He said abruptly 'There's nothing more I can do for any of them,' and he jerked his head backwards. But there was no way of telling whether he was indicating the living or the dead. 'The Doc is coping. There isn't much he can do either. We've capsized; right over. We're floating bottom up. From now on it's up to us to get ourselves out of this trap.'
Shelby asked, 'What about the officer?'
Scott replied, 'He's confused. He's just a kid. He keeps telling them that everything's going to be all right.'
The Beamer said, 'That's a comfort.'
Rosen asked, 'What about the others -- those purser fellows? Don't they know anything?'
Scott said, 'One of them is unconscious; the other is just a clerk.'
Rogo said, 'What about an S.O.S.? They'd be sending out an S.O.S., wouldn't they?'
Scott said, 'No, they wouldn't,' and then left Rogo to figure it out.
The detective began argumentatively, 'What do ya mean, they wouldn't? They always do when there's a . . .' His mouth closed suddenly and his little eyes went shifty. He looked discomfited and angry.
Muller picked up the thought: Christ! If we're floating bottom up, they're dead. The Captain must be dead too, and officers on the bridge. But how many others as well? If the ship is upside-down, how can she remain afloat?
The boy Robin spoke up for the first time since it had happened. He said, 'Maybe they didn't get the position report away, either.' The light from beneath his feet showed him up as the image of his father; the same grey eyes and square chin but the features more tenderly arranged and not yet fully developed, the mouth still soft and more like that of his mother. 'It's for the shipping computer centre. They send it out every four hours. But if it didn't go . . .'
His father said, 'Why shouldn't it have gone, Robin?'
The boy replied, 'They didn't always send it out on time. They let me watch. I'm learning morse code. Every astronaut has to know morse. One afternoon he was sending a long message from a passenger about . . .' he giggled, 'Someone sending a telegram to his girl, because the operator was laughing. He didn't send out the position report until ten minutes past five. Maybe that happened again tonight.'
'What difference would that make?' Rosen queried.
'Hell' said The Beamer, 'a lot.' The brain behind the round, red face, when not fogged by alcohol was a sharp one and mathematical. 'Don't you see? If it went out at nine sharp, it will be four hours or more before anyone takes any interest in us. But if he was clicking off another love letter, or maybe an overnight buy or sell radiogram and it was broken off before it was finished and after that the position report never went out, pretty soon somebody would be wondering why and asking questions. When they get no answers, they might begin to do something about it.'
Muller said, 'The trouble is, if they're dead we'll never know. And that four hours can mean the difference between . . .' His calling upon the word 'dead' startled the others so that they did not follow him. They looked at one another in sudden confusion.
But Scott pinioned them by the power building up behind his gaze. He said, 'Exactly! That's why we've got to get going at once.'
'Going?' Rosen asked, 'Where?'
Scott raised his head, 'Up,' he said simply.
Almost as though controlled by one string, they all looked automatically to the ceiling whence hung the festoons of tablecloths, now no longer moving, and the eerie shapes of the tables and chairs.
Muller asked, 'Are you talking metaphysically, Frank? What are you driving at?'
Rogo's thin lips curled with contempt. That softie
and his long words!
Scott rapped out, 'Physical! Us; our bodies; our persons. All of us here. We've got to get up to the bottom where the keel is. The skin of the ship.'
Rosen shook his head. 'I don't get it -- up to the bottom? The skin?'
The boy was quicker. 'I know,' he said, 'like in submarines, to hammer on it if anyone comes, to let them know we're here.'
The Beamer smiled his round, red-faced smile and said, 'Got it in one, sonny. But have we got time? We don't know how long she can remain floating this way.'
Scott said evenly. 'What difference does that make?'
Linda Rogo screamed at her husband, 'You bastard! You mean we can sink suddenly? You took me on a boat that could sink?' She then startled them all by calling her husband an obscenity that fell most incongruously from the pouting, Cupid's bow lips in the doll face.