by Paul Gallico
'Christ, a break!' Rogo said.
'Piece of cake!' Muller cried, and then wished he hadn't. This had been Scott's rallying phrase. He didn't want to think of Scott. 'Come on, Nonnie!'
Martin said, 'Better let me test it first. Light me across, Muller. If it's okay, the rest of you can come over.'
The steps were resting solidly, the handrail was firm, the passage called only for care that one's feet should not slip down between the rows of steps. But Martin wanted to see what lay at the other end.
When he reached the second propeller shaft and saw what had happened, he laughed first and then for a moment was blindly angry at this last joke played on them by whichever God it was Scott had cursed. For the first time be had an understanding of what it could have been that had led the Minister to throw himself away. The propeller shaft leading from the shattered turbine housing entered the tunnel some twelve feet or so to his left but there was no bridge, except for the cylinder itself. The original connecting catwalk had been ripped loose from its moorings when the reduction gearing had torn away and carried with it into the pit below.
He remained there so long without summoning them that Rogo and Shelby came across to look. The detective said, 'Jesus!' between his teeth.
Martin turned on him, 'If you say "What do we do now, coach," I'll kill you!'
'I ain't saying nothin',' Rogo said. 'It's your baby. You asked for it.'
Shelby had himself a look and breathed, 'My God, what are we going to do?'
Something seemed to swell inside Martin and raise him up ten feet tall, whether it was wrath or the combat of cocky aggressiveness of little men, and he said, 'Straddle it.'
They looked at him aghast and Shelby said, 'Belle!'
'We don't tell her,' snapped Martin. 'We hustle her between you and Kemal and she'll be across before she knows it.' He raised his voice, 'Okay, everybody, come on over.'
He stood at the bridgehead, a grotesque little figure in his begrimed striped shorts and suddenly before their eyes he turned into a carnival barker reeling off his spiel. 'Hurry, hurry, hurry!' he shouted. 'Come one, come all! Martin's Rodeo Thrill Ride! They all love it! Step right up and bring the little lady. Chance to hug your sweetheart. Get your tickets for the Rodeo Ride! Everybody on! Everybody gets a chance! Here we go!!! '
It was the surprise that did it, the not having time to think, the utter absurdity and incongruity of being snatched in spirit and body from the charnel house to something remembered by all from childhood, the fun fair, the amusement park, the carnival rides. Martin had clouted Kemal on the shoulder and pushed him astraddle on to the shaft and then with Shelby seized and hustled Belle forward, eased her down so that her legs fell into position with Shelby behind her.
Belle had only time to gasp, 'What are you doing with me?' before she was being edged onwards.
'That's the girl!' crowed Martin. 'Now you're away for the big thrill ride. You're headin' for the last roundup. Grab the brass ring and get a free trip. Come on, who's next? Step up! One at a time! Miss Kinsale, that's the girl! Right here. Jane -- Susan. You too, sir?' This to Manny, 'Slide down right here.' Then to Muller, 'Come on, mister, and bring your girl with you. Off you go! Keep moving, up front!'
Then, lowering his voice, he said, 'Rogo, you light us across and for Christ's sweet sake don't let them see what's below.'
'Hind tit for Rogo, again,' said the detective.
Martin laughed and said, 'You've got to be good for something,' and himself dropped on to the shaft. Then he whooped it up again, slapping the steel with the palm of his hand. 'Ride 'em, cowboys! yippee-yi-yay! Give 'em the spurs, my buckaroos!'
Whether or not they thought that like Scott he had gone out of his mind, he had them and it was all over before they realized what was happening to them. The ballyhoo, the rhythm and movement he had initiated with someone always pressing from behind had whipped them up to make the crossing.
Martin continued to pepper them along. 'Atta-girl, Jane! How's old Belle doing up ahead? Only a dime for the next Rodeo Thrill if anybody wants to stay on. Move right along! Last one off's a sissy.'
Kemal had already reached the other side, leaped off where the shaft entered the mouth of the tunnel and swung Belle Rosen to her feet and inside. Then one after another he caught the others as they came inching along and snatched them to safety.
Rogo had remained standing on the bridge-end, keeping the light steady. Now he turned its beam downwards.
'Rogo!' Martin called, 'Come on!'
The detective seemed transfixed momentarily at the height showed by the beam and the deathbed of shattered machinery awaiting him below. He mocked Martin, saying, 'Last man across is a sissy!' and then, 'She's down there with him,' and he approached the unguarded edge of the bridgehead.
Martin called across again, but softly this time and in imitation of the voice of a queer, 'Why Miss Rogo, what the hell do you think you're going to do, dearie?' And after that he cried sharply, 'Everybody's heard of Mike Rogo, the tough cop. Do you want them saying he was nothing but a yellow bastard?'
The stocky little man wavered on the brink for another instant, then pulled himself back and gripped the railing. A moment later he said in his usual flat monotone, 'Yeah, maybe I guess you're right.' He straddled the shaft and worked his way across. Martin reached out his hand and pulled him into the tunnel. Rogo said, 'I ought to bust you one. It could have been all over.'
Martin grinned his dry grin, 'Pick on someone your size.'
Jane had already advanced a slight distance down the tunnel and was calling, 'Robin! Robin! Are you there, Robin?' Her voice echoing was the only reply.
Muller said to Nonnie, 'Did you notice anything?'
'What?'
'The echo was different than from the other tunnel.'
CHAPTER XXI
Under the Skin
None of them would have been able to tell what each had expected the goal would be like when attained. They only knew that collectively and individually, they were bitterly disappointed when the roof which formerly had been the floor of the tunnel suddenly opened and they found themselves looking upwards above the propeller shaft at a cavern crisscrossed by flat steel bracing and square baulks.
The top of this space showed steel plates, but the rivets that held them together were of another kind than those in the double bottom; twice the size and the spacing was not the same.
With a grunt of satisfaction, Kemal had pointed at this ugly conglomeration and then had sat down crosslegged. They were there.
They sat or kneeled, or collapsed upon the inevitable rows of piping, drained of everything but frustration at what had been almost childish dreams of reward that would await them at the end of the journey.
Seduced by their sufferings during the long climb, even the most realistic amongst them had succumbed to the illusion that courage, pain, endurance and refusal to give up, no matter what the obstacles encountered must invariably and immediately be rewarded. In Scott they had followed each a kind of image of the hero who crashes through to victory to deafening cheers and is carried off on the shoulders of his comrades. Even Rogo had cynically accepted Scott's leadership because he was a winner.
They had deserved, they felt, to find the hull of the vessel already pierced and some kind of reception committee awaiting to congratulate them upon their feat and carry them to safety. Their ultimate destination, as phrased by Scott and then oft repeated, 'the skin of the ship', had made them think of something smooth and regular, enamelled and white, or even a special room or enclosure dedicated to the separation of their floating hotel from the encroachment of the sea.
But this awkward confused and confusing space numbed and defeated them, sapping their hopes and spirits. The steel girders were rusty, the pipes were painted terracotta, the baulks seemed to have been flung helter-skelter and to no particular purpose. The cavity was no more than five or six yards in length. Thereafter, the tunnel narrowed again, as had the other, until the propelle
r shaft met the internal collar of the thrust block. Beyond that would be the thirty-two ton screw and the gigantic blade of the rudder.
Now that at last they were there, the disappointment was deep and they felt filled with grief and tears.
Martin, with the sinking sensation at the pit of his stomach that he had failed again, that this ugly arrangement of space could not possibly be their final destination, shone his torch upon Kemal and asked, 'Are you sure?'
The Turk nodded affirmatively with vigour, pointed into the cavity, then gave the thumbs-up sign and said, 'Hokay! Hokay! Hokay!' and further pantomimed by first holding hands apart, as he had to signal the double bottom to them, and then bringing the palms pressed close together and holding up a single finger again.
Muller nodded, 'He's saying that's it, all right. We've made it.'
Nobody said anything until Manny Rosen broke the silence with, 'Maybe they been and gone away already.'
Martin groaned, 'Oh Lord, don't say that!'
Susan asked, 'What time is it?' She was remembering that Robin had told her of aircraft flying overhead and what would happen if they sighted an unidentified object in the sea below. But if it were still dark outside . . .
Their watches had all stopped at differing times. The latest, Rogo's, said five minutes to four.
'Hell!' said Muller, looking at his own dead disc. 'How will we ever know what time it was and where we were the last time we looked, when they were working?'
Shelby said, 'It was half-way up Mount Poseidon. Martin said it was a quarter to three.'
Rosen asked, 'How long could we have been?'
Muller said, 'I don't know, I've lost track. One hour -- two? Maybe less, maybe more.'
Rosen said, 'Then somebody could have already come and gone away.'
Shelby said, 'I don't believe it. I think it's probably still dark. The sun was just coming up the time we stayed 'til morning, after the costume ball.'
Muller said, 'We'd have heard something, even in the other tunnel.'
'That's right,' Martin agreed. 'Don't scare me like that, Rosen. We may have a long wait ahead of us. Lights out, everybody.'
Rogo asked, 'Why, what difference does it make now? We won't be needing them any more.' He had once without hesitation gone into a pitch black cellar after a gunman, hunted him down and shot him by his breathing. But he did not want to be in the dark now.
'We might,' Martin replied. 'You never know. Besides which, maybe some of us could get a little sleep.'
Sleep! The word startled them into forgotten thoughts and ideas as had Shelby's mention of the costume ball, that long-ago rout of makeshift get-ups, second-rate dance jazz, champagne at excise-free prices, paper hats, false moustaches and noses, noise-makers, confetti and cotton balls to throw at one another. Not once had the thought of sleep crossed their minds since they had been sent flying into the world of upside-down. Sleep was something one did tucked up in a bed with a pillow under one's head and a book in hand to make one drowsy. For sleep one retired to one's cabin when there was no more fun, excitement or ecstasy to be squeezed out of the night or the early morning.
Rosen asked, 'Supposing somebody comes while we're all sleeping?'
Martin replied, 'We'll divide up into watches. I'll take the first, 'til I get tired. If we can get some rest, we'll be in better shape for whatever happens.'
The darkness enveloped them again and the stifling heat and airlessness, the feeling of having already entered the tomb, of being buried alive with no one to hear their cries for help.
Shelby whispered to Muller, 'What do you think of our chances?'
Muller replied, 'Rotten!'
'Why?'
'It's two to one against. Sink, or smother to death? She's already given one lurch that nearly finished her off. Scott was convinced that she was going. The next time she will. There's no fresh air circulating. We're using up oxygen. That's why Martin doesn't want us moving about. He's right. We're above water, but to all intents and purposes it's like being trapped in a sunken submarine. The chances of being spotted from the air depend upon whether we are floating in an air-lane and at what hour a plane might fly over us. A sea search is more likely to find us if they have an approximate idea of our position and the nature of the catastrophe that turned us over. But it takes hours for ships to divert from course and reach the scene of a disaster.' He added, 'You know, actually, I was never wholly comfortable with the name they gave this tub when they converted her from the R.M.S. Atlantis. I've crossed seven times in her in the old days, on the Atlantic run. Do you know who Poseidon was?'
'Some kind of God.'
'He was the Greek God of earthquakes and water, and only secondarily of the sea. One of his most significant titles in Greek was "Earthshaker". He was one of the Gods Scott forgot to curse before he did himself in.'
'Then you think that all we've gone through to get here was for nothing?'
'I've always thought so. Haven't you?'
Shelby reflected. He said, 'I don't know. Perhaps. Then what did we do it for? Why put ourselves through all that struggle and anguish? My . . . Robin might still be with us if we hadn't.'
Muller said, 'Because even an animal will fight to get out of a trap. Whether we live or die, we haven't taken it lying down.'
Shelby asked, 'What about those that remained behind in the dining-saloon, waiting for officers to come and tell them what to do? Or just waiting, doing nothing?'
Shelby could not see, but he felt Muller's shrug. 'They didn't believe Scott. We did. We're human, but there's a lot of sheep left in all of us.'
'What was your opinion of Scott?'
'A looney,' Muller replied, 'crazy as a bedbug.'
'Are you serious?'
'What else? A young fellow from a rich family, whose name is a household word in the world of sport, throws it all over, signs on as a parson and goes to his death calling God dirty names because this was one he thought he wasn't going to win? What was he doing on this cruise all by himself, anyway?'
Shelby said, 'I think you've got it all wrong, Muller. As an ex-football player myself, I have always been a great admirer of Scott. I got to know him rather well on this voyage. He was deeply earnest about his profession. He had felt the call.'
'In this day and age?' Muller scoffed, 'Oh, come on, Dick! By the way, did you know that he had been in some kind of trouble in New York?'
Shelby was glad that the darkness hid the fact that the question had disconcerted him. 'No, I didn't. What kind of trouble?'
Muller said, 'I don't know, it's not my home town either. But there was some kind of gossip going around the ship that he was fired or forced to resign or something.'
Nonnie said, 'What are you two whispering about? I thought we were supposed to sleep.'
'About life and death and the Reverend Scott. I'll whisper to you now.' He crept closer to her so that the others would not hear. 'Do you know what I would ask him to do if he were here with us now?'
'No, what?'
'Marry us.'
He heard her quick catch of breath. Marry us? Marry me ?'
'If you had no serious objections.'
'Hubie!' Although she was whispering too, he heard agony. 'Don't pull me leg. I don't want to be hurt.'
'I wouldn't want to hurt you, Nonnie.'
'Do you know what you're saying? Do you know what marry means -- always staying together -- putting up? You're a man of the world.' She was struggling, 'And it's not my world. I'm not anybody; I haven't had . . .' She was so desperately trying to show him the gap between them that her shrewdness and experience warned her would never be bridged, 'I don't know anything. You'd be ashamed.'
Muller thought to himself: You are right, my dear love, I would and I will. But aloud he said, 'I'll let you in on a secret, Nonnie. I'm nobody either, only less so than you who work hard for your living and fight for everything you have or get. I'm just an educated bum. You would be lowering yourself, as Mrs Rogo always kept reminding her husband
she had done. But you wouldn't remind me, would you?'
He had to tell it to her with banter that he loved her and never again wanted to be without her, else the new found emotions struggling against his intellect and his old habits would have overwhelmed him. But his lightness frayed her nerves, because neither had she ever truly loved before, or understood its sweetness, its longing, its anguish and its terrors.
She said with sudden bitterness, 'You can talk. Scott isn't with us. And besides, you think we're going to die. I heard something of what you and Shelby were saying. You don't have to be kind to me. I never ast you.'